×
Apple

Submission + - Judge Koh: There Are A Couple Inconsistencies in Apple-Samsung Verdict (blogspot.ca) 1

Submitted by
quantr
quantr writes: ""Judge Koh: There Are A Couple Inconsistencies in Apple-Samsung Verdict
Judge Lucy Koh said Friday that there were a couple of inconsistencies in the jury verdict that found Samsung guilty of infringing a number of Apple patents and awarding more than $1 billion in damages.
  Judge Koh: There Are A Couple Inconsistencies in Apple-Samsung Verdict
There are at least two problems with the verdict, Koh said. For the Galaxy Tab 10.1 4G LTE, the jury found no infringement or inducement but awarded damages. In another count, the jury found no infringement of Apple’s utility patents but found inducement of infringement, a combination not possible according tot he jury instructions.
Koh sent the jury back down to clarify those two points, though both issues would not seem to affect the bulk of the jury’s ruling.""
Apple

Submission + - Victory for Apple in "the Patent Trial of the Century" (wired.com) 2

Submitted by pdabbadabba
pdabbadabba writes: The jury is in in the epic patent dispute between Apple and Samsung and Apple appears to be coming out on top. The court is still going through the 700+ items on the verdict form, but things seem to be going Apple's way so far. In the case of Apple's various UI patents, the jury is consistently ruling that Samsung not only violated Apple's patent, but did so willfully.
Botnet

Submission + - The Attacker's Trade-Off: Stealth Versus Resilience (darkreading.com)

Submitted by
CowboyRobot
CowboyRobot writes: "After years of nurturing a botnet from a coding exercise into a powerful tool/weapon, attackers must be careful how they use the botnet so that it's not detected. One fingerpringt that attackers can leave behind comes from usage of domain-generation algorithms (DGA). Detection of this is not difficult and so its usage by attackers shows how serious they are as they balance between strengthening their network and exposing it to detection. Peer-to-peer botnets leave even more distinctive fingerprints and expose themselves even more by frequently connecting to peers. "Attackers focused on cyberespionage and covert operations — known in the defense industry as the "advanced persistent threat," or APT — create stealthy malware that focuses on deniability over dollars.""
Power

Submission + - OSU's Breakthrough Microbial Fuel Cell Turns Waste to Power (oregonstate.edu)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A team of engineers from Oregon State University has developed a breakthrough microbial fuel cell that is capable of generating 10 to 50 times more electricity from waste than other MFCs. The team hopes that their innovation will enable waste treatment plants to not only power themselves, but also sell excess electricity back to the grid. “If this technology works on a commercial-scale the way we believe it will, the treatment of wastewater could be a huge energy producer, not a huge energy cost,” said associate professor Hong Liu. “This could have an impact around the world, save a great deal of money, provide better water treatment and promote energy sustainability.”
Government

Submission + - Seattle Forced to Shut Off City Data Center (slashdot.org)

Submitted by
Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster writes: "On Aug. 23, Mayor Mike McGinn of Seattle informed residents that the city would partially shut down its municipal data center for five days including the Labor Day weekend. As a result, city residents will be unable to pay bills, apply for business licenses, or take advantage of other online services.

In a Webcast press conference, McGinn isolated the issue as a failure in one of the electrical “buses” that supplies power to the data center. Because that piece of equipment began overheating, the city had to begin taking servers and applications offline to prevent overloading the system. The maintenance will cost the city $2.1 million of its maintenance budget.

A second power bus will remain operational, supplying enough electricity to power redundant systems for critical life and fire safety systems, including 911 services and fire dispatch. The city’s Web sites should also be up and running in some capacity."
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft Orders DMCA Takedown for Windows 8 Screenshots (ngohq.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A few days ago NGOHQ.com published a screenshots gallery of Microsoft Windows 8 RTM. Apparently posting screenshots of Microsoft's software is considered a copyright infringement... or at least that's what Microsoft thinks. A few hours ago NGOHQ.com received the following e-mail from Google:

"Google has been notified, according to the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), that some of your materials allegedly infringe upon the copyrights of others. The URLs of the allegedly infringing materials may be found at the end of this message. The notice that we received, with any personally identifying information removed, may be found at http://www.chillingeffects.org/notice.cgi?sID=515551."

Submission + - Github competitor based on open source software (gitlab.io) 1

Submitted by tHe sYtS
tHe sYtS writes: Github hosts a lot of open source software but the site itself runs on closed source software. Gitlab.io will offer an alternative that runs on Gitlab, an open source web front-end for git. Today you can sign up for their beta.
Government

Submission + - Why WikiLeaks Is Worth Defending, Despite All Its Flaws (gigaom.com)

Submitted by
SomePgmr
SomePgmr writes: "By now, anyone with even a passing interest in the WikiLeaks phenomenon is familiar with most of the elements of its fall from grace: the rift between founder Julian Assange and early supporters over his autocratic and/or erratic behavior, the Swedish rape allegations that led to his seeking sanctuary in Ecuador, a recent childish hoax the organization perpetrated, and so on. Critics paint a picture of an organization that exists only in name, with a leadership vacuum and an increasingly fractured group of adherents. Despite its many flaws, however, there is still something worthwhile in what WikiLeaks has done, and theoretically continues to do. The bottom line is that we need something like a âoestateless news organization,â and so far it is the best candidate we have."
Science

Submission + - Bird uses hurricane winds to accelerate flight speed to 100 MPH (mongabay.com) 1

Submitted by terrancem
terrancem writes: Migrating Whimbrels — a type of shorebird — may struggle for hours against winds when trying to cross the Caribbean during hurricane season but get a huge boost as they fly out of storms, report researchers from the Center for Conservation Biology in Williamsburg, Virginia. Ahead of a large tropical storm last year scientists attached satellite transmitters to one female Whimbrel. The American Bird Conservancy explains what they found: "She took 27 hours averaging just 9 mph to fly non-stop through the storm to get to the center; then she flew at an average of almost 100 mph for 1.5 hours out the back end, using the power of the storm to 'slingshot' her towards land."
Programming

Submission + - What Developers Can Learn From Anonymous (infoworld.com)

Submitted by
snydeq
snydeq writes: "'Regardless of where you stand on Anonymous' tactics, politics, or whatever, I think the group has something to teach developers and development organizations,' writes Andrew Oliver. 'As leader of an open source project, I can revoke committer access for anyone who misbehaves, but membership in Anonymous is a free-for-all. Sure, doing something in Anonymous' name that even a minority of "members" dislike would probably be a tactical mistake, but Anonymous has no trademark protection under the law; the organization simply has an overall vision and flavor. Its members carry out acts based on that mission. And it has enjoyed a great deal of success — in part due to the lack of central control. Compare this to the level of control in many corporate development organizations. Some of that control is necessary, but often it's taken to gratuitous lengths. If you hire great developers, set general goals for the various parts of the project, and collect metrics, you probably don't need to exercise a lot of control to meet your requirements.'"
Facebook

Submission + - Facebook's Project Prism, Corona Could Ease Data Crunch (slashdot.org)

Submitted by
Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster writes: "Facebook recently invited a handful of employers into its headquarters for a more in-depth look at how it handles its flood of data. Part of that involves the social network’s upcoming “Project Prism,” which will allow Facebook to maintain data in multiple data centers around the globe while allowing company engineers to maintain a holistic view of it, thanks to tools such as automatic replication. That added flexibility could help Facebook as it attempts to wrangle an ever-increasing amount of data.

“It allows us to physically separate this massive warehouse of data but still maintain a single logical view of all of it,” is how Wired quotes Jay Parikh, Facebook’s vice president of engineering, as explaining the system to reports. “We can move the warehouses around, depending on cost or performance or technology.”

Facebook has another project, known as Corona, which makes its Apache Hadoop clusters less crash-prone while increasing the number of tasks that can be run on the infrastructure."
Google

Submission + - Would you open your home to a hacker – for free? (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "What do you get when you mix access to Google's ultra-fast fiber network and old fashioned grass roots business ideas? Well, in this case you'd get someone living on your couch for free for three months. This week a group calling itself the "Kansas City Hacker Homes," launched a program that calls on the good folks of Kansas City to open up their homes to entrepreneurs and developers who would live and work there for a period of three months, rent and utility free. They have to buy their own food."
Biotech

Submission + - Lance Armstrong and the Science of Drug Testing 1

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "As the media reports that that seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong says he will no longer fight doping charges by the US Anti-Doping Agency which will strip him of his titles and ban him from competitive cycling for life, Tracee Hamilton writes that the Lance Armstrong vs. U.S. Anti-Doping Agency fight is a tough one in which to take a side, because to believe USADA means suspending belief in the science of drug testing. "If you take personalities out of the equation, you’re left with pee in a cup and blood in a syringe," writes Hamilton. "Armstrong never failed a drug test. He was tested in competition, out of competition. He was tested at the Olympics, at the Tour de France, at dozens if not hundreds of other events. And he never failed a test." Instead Travis Tygart, chief executive officer of the USADA, gathered a group of people who swear they saw Armstrong doping. "If the results can be discarded in favor of testimony, then let’s go right to the testimony phase and quit horsing around with blood and urine." There has been no trial, no due process, but in the minds of many, that testimony outweighs the results of hundreds of drug tests. "I don’t know if Armstrong did the things he’s accused of doing, and neither do you," concludes Hamilton adding that it can't work both ways. "Either a drug test is the standard, or it isn’t.""
Security

Submission + - The Rise of Cross-Platform Malware (threatpost.com)

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: For most of the recorded history of malware, viruses, Trojans and other malicious software have been specialists. Each piece of malware typically targeted one platform, be it Windows, OS X or now, one of the mobile platforms. But the last few months have seen the rise of cross-platform malware that have the ability to infect several different kinds of machines with small variations to their code.

Attackers, like people in other walks of life, tend to specialize. They find something that they're good at, say, writing Windows rootkits or creating OS X Trojans, and they often will stick with that. There's not much reason to branch out if they're having success with something already. For a long time, most malware was written for Windows, because that's where most of the users are. Going after OS X or Linux didn't make a lot of sense.

But that's begun to change lately. One recent example is the Crisis Trojan, which has the ability to infect both Windows and Mac OS X machines. The first version of Crisis that researchers discovered targeted various versions of OS X, and it was a typical data-stealing Trojan, listening in on email and instant messenger communications. The interesting thing about Crisis is not only that there are versions for multiple platforms, but also that the installer for the malware, which masquerades as an Adobe Flash installer, checks to see what operating system it's on and then installs the appropriate version.
IT

Submission + - IT Industry Presidential Poll: 'Not Sure' Beats both Obama and Romney (cepro.com)

Submitted by
CIStud
CIStud writes: "A new poll conducted of IT industry executives and integrators shows a divided and unsure industry regarding which presidential candidate is better for the Information Technology to prosper. The poll, conducted by JZ Analytics on behalf of CompTIA, shows "Not Sure" winning in four out of five areas. President Obama holds and edge over Mitt Romney in every category, including which person is best for the IT industry in terms of tax policy (remarkably), access to capital, tech exports, education and privacy."

Submission + - A modest proposal for sequestration of CO2 in the Antarctic (judithcurry.com)

Submitted by
Alienwise
Alienwise writes: "Judith Curry reports a scientific concept of a atmosphere CO2 sequestration plant. It would be base on Antartic in order to profit from the cold weather, which would be facilitate to create CO2 snow, which would then be burried. The plant could be powered by windmills. There is much more in the original paper, whose abstract can be viewed at http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JAMC-D-12-0110.1"
Education

Submission + - Iran to Ban Women from Science and Engineering Classes (telegraph.co.uk)

Submitted by jasper160
jasper160 writes: An August 20th, 2012 announcement from Iran places restrictions on female university students. Iran will be cutting 77 fields of study from the female curriculum, making them male-only fields. Science and engineering are among those affected by the decree. The announcement came soon after the release of statistics showing that women were graduating in far higher numbers than men from Iranian universities and were scoring overall better than men, especially in the sciences.

Senior clerics in Iran's theocratic regime have become concerned about the social side-effects of rising educational standards among women.
Transportation

Submission + - Old cars are getting ahead with new tech (extremetech.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Historic car races might seem like the last place you’d find modern auto technology. The cars are lovingly restored to their full, authentic racing glory, and care is taken not to allow modern tweaks to improve their performance. Surprisingly, though, both the pits and the cars are crammed with modern technology to help drivers improve their performance. Long-term benefits from tech at the race track isn’t confined to racers, though. Researchers are hoping to use what they find by monitoring drivers’ bodies and brains, along with the cars, to build better and safer cars for all of us.
Privacy

Submission + - Windows 8 Tells Microsoft About Everything You Install (nadim.cc)

Submitted by
musicon
musicon writes: "According to Nadim Kobeissi, Windows 8 is configured by default (using a new featured called Windows SmartScreen) to immediately tell Microsoft about every app you download and install. This is a very serious privacy problem, specifically because Microsoft is the central point of authority and data collection/retention here and therefore becomes vulnerable to being served judicial subpoenas or National Security Letters intended to monitor targeted users. This situation is exacerbated when Windows 8 is deployed in countries experiencing political turmoil or repressive political situations.

Additionally, it may be possible for a 3rd party to intercept SmartScreen’s communications to Microsoft and thus learn about every single application downloaded and installed by a target."

Slashdot Top Deals