40988365
submission
Press2ToContinue writes:
Scientists have found a relatively straightforward way to persuade the cells discarded in human urine to turn into valuable neurons.
The technique, described online in a study in Nature Methods this week1, does not involve embryonic stem cells. These come with serious drawbacks when transplanted, such as the risk of developing tumours. Instead, the method uses ordinary cells present in urine, and transforms them into neural progenitor cells — the precursors of brain cells.
Researchers routinely reprogram cultured skin and blood cells2 into induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, which can go on to form any cell in the body. But urine is a much more accessible source.
40986085
submission
mask.of.sanity writes:
Researchers have developed attacks capable of crippling Global Positioning System infrastructure critical to the navigation of a host of military and civilian technologies including planes, ships and unnamed drones.
The novel remote attacks can be made using against consumer and professional- grade receivers using $2500 worth of custom-built equipment.
Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and Coherent Navigation detailed the attacks in a paper (pdf)
40982143
submission
theodp writes:
Vivek Kundra, who joined Salesforce.com after serving as the nation's first CIO, said Obama’s re-election campaign used Salesforce.com to gauge the feelings of core voters. '[The platform allowed] the campaign to aggregate sentiment in real time and [gave it] the ability to and mobilize people in the field,' Kundra said. On its blog, Salesfoce.com is also touting 'The Obama Campaign’s Salesforce Success', saying it took a cloud to get the President re-elected: 'Never before could campaigners do so much to connect, listen, measure, and respond; never before did their success depend so much on doing it.' Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff was 1 of 35 co-chairmen of the presidential campaign, and played host to Obama at pricey fundraisers at both his home and Salesforce.com headquarters (motorcade video) for high-rolling donors. So, with lawmakers blurring the line between data mining and cyberstalking, is resistance against companies tying people's real-life identities to their online browsing habits futile?
40980395
submission
spacenet writes:
As a response to RMS speaking out against Ubuntu about its privacy-violating integrated Amazon search results, which he considers to be spyware, Ubuntu Community Manager Jono Bacon has responded to RMS's post. In his reply, Jono claims that Stallman's views on privacy do not align with Canonical's, that some of his statements are worded in order to "generate fear, uncertainty, and doubt about Ubuntu" and that "it just seems a bit childish to me".
The comments on the post itself are well worth a read.
40975535
submission
TrueSatan writes:
Perhaps a sign of our troubled times or a sign that BSD is becoming less relevant to modern computing needs: the FreeBSD project has sought $500,00 by year end to allow it to continue to offer to fund and manage projects, sponsor FreeBSD events, Developer Summits and provide travel grants to FreeBSD developers but with the end of this year fast approaching it has raised just over $280,000...far short of its target.
40974723
submission
Tastecicles writes:
Patrick Moore was the monocled surveyor of the sky who awakened in millions of people an interest in galactic goings on.
His love of astronomy began at the age of six and that childhood curiosity developed into a lifelong passion.
It was a passion he shared through his programme, The Sky at Night, which he presented for more than 50 years, only ever missing one episode due to illness.
Patrick Alfred Caldwell-Moore was born at Pinner, Middlesex on 4 Mar 1923.
Heart problems meant he spent much of his childhood being educated at home and he became an avid reader.
His mother gave him a copy of GF Chambers' book, The Story of the Solar System, and this sparked his lifelong passion for astronomy.
He was soon publishing papers about the moon's surface, based on observations made with his first three-inch telescope. His 1908 vintage typewriter enabled him to publish more than a thousand books on subjects ranging from astronomy, his first love, to cricket, golf, and music.
40973417
submission
TrueSatan writes:
Pirate bay founder Gottfrid Svartholm is set to be released from solitary confinement but is still to serve the remainder of a 1 year sentence relating to Pirate Bay activities. 5 months remain of that sentence and they are to be served in a normal prison with far less restrictions on his confinement...assuming no new charges are brought against him.
He had been accused of involvement in the hacking of Swedish IT firm Logica but no charges have been substantiated in this case. He was later implicated in a second case but, once more, no charges have been substantiated against him http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-founder-arrested-again-on-suspicion-of-new-hacking-fraud-offenses-121110/ . Given that his solitary confinement has not resulted, thus far, in additional charges and that it is far and above the intended sentence in the original case one might have thought that some reduction in sentence or other leniency was more than his due but this doesn't appear to be forthcoming.
40972713
submission
Coisiche writes:
Breaking news on the BBC news site reports the death of Sir Patrick Moore, renowned broadcaster and astronomer who will probably be most familiar to UK readers. He might be known outside of the UK for being the presenter of the long running TV show, "The Sky at Night".
When I was growing up just about every space related news I saw was presented by him. As well some of his books on astronomy I also read a series of fictional books he wrote for a juvenile audience that featured some travels around the solar system.
40958821
submission
symbolset writes:
TheVerge is reporting that the Steam Console Slashdot discussed in November is a real thing. Gabe Newell is said to remark it will be a locked down platform for the living room. Sourced is a red carpet interview with Kotaku at the VGAs.
40957241
submission
kodiaktau writes:
A proposal put forth by Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates seeks to give more control and government of internet addressing. The move would basically undermine ICANN and decentralize control of internet addressing.
40948503
submission
ogre7299 writes:
Astronomers have found direct evidence of a forming proto-solar system and 'weighed' the forming star for the first time as repored in a recent Nature paper paywalled arXiv version and highlighted on space.com
Beneath a dusty disk of creation, a baby star's mass has been measured for the first time.
The star, called L1527 IRS, is only one-fifth the mass of the sun, and is expected to keep growing as the swirling disk of matter surrounding it falls into its surface.
Astronomers estimated the star formed around the same time that Neanderthals evolved on Earth: just 300,000 years ago.
40945081
submission
An anonymous reader writes:
After having Wine to run Windows binaries on Linux, there is now the Darling Project that allows users to run unmodified Apple OS X binaries on Linux. The project builds upon GNUstep and has built the various frameworks/libraries to be binary compatible with OSX/Darwin. The project is still being worked on as part of an academic thesis but is already running basic OS X programs.
40943883
submission
sfcrazy writes:
Ubuntu is becoming a shopping center. Instead of addressing the queries rasied by Stallman and EFF, Canonical is now pushing for making Ubuntu a shopping cart. " With Ubuntu 13.04 Canonical is going one step forward, and soon you will be able to purchase software and music right from the Dash without opening the software center or web browser. This is intended to make the whole experience even more interactive and useful for the end user."
40942717
submission
Press2ToContinue writes:
Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is the use of a pacemaker-like device implanted in the brain to treat the symptoms of diseases like Parkinson’s, or other maladies such as depression. For the first time in the US, surgeons at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, Maryland have used this technique to attempt to slow memory loss in a patient suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.
The fornix, a vital part of the brain that brings data to the hippocampus, is being targeted with this device. Essentially, the fornix is the area of the brain that converts electrical activity into chemical activity. Holes are drilled into the skull, and wires are placed on both sides of the brain. Then, the stimulator device pumps in small and unnoticeable electrical impulses upwards of 130 times per second. Half of the patients will begin the electrical treatment two weeks post-surgery, but the other half won’t have their pacemakers turned on until a full year after the surgery to provide comparison data for the study.
40939757
submission
Shifuimam writes:
I downloaded a DOSBox port for Android recently to get back into all the games of my childhood. Turns out that the only free distribution available hasn't been updated in nearly two years, so I looked for alternatives.
There are two on Google Play — DOSBox Turbo and "DOSBot". Both charge a fee — DOSBox Turbo is $3.99; DOSBot is $0.99. The developer of DOSBot says on his Google Play entry that he will not release the source code of his application because it's not GPL, even though it's derived from source released under GPL v2 — this is definitely a violation of the license. The developer of DOSBox Turbo is refusing to release the source for his application unless you pay the $3.99 to "buy" a license of it.
The same developer explicitly states that the "small" fee (although one might argue that $3.99 is pretty expensive for an OSS Android app) is to cover the cost of development. Unless I'm misreading the text of GPL v2, a fee can only be charged to cover the cost of the distribution of a program or derived work, not the cost of development. And, of course, it doesn't cost the developer anything for someone to log in to Google Play and download their app. In fact, from what I can tell, there's a one-time $25 fee to register for Google Checkout, after which releasing apps is free.
Where do you draw the line on this? What do you do in this kind of situation?
