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Submission + - Obama Administration Asks Supreme Court To Not Hear Jammie Thomas Case (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Jane Q. Public
Jane Q. Public writes: The Jammie Thomas-Rasset case has been in the news for years now. As of the last court ruling, she has been ordered to pay $222,000 for sharing 24 songs. Her attorney argues that you can buy the same songs on iTunes for $24, and imposing a penalty of almost 10,000 times as much is "excessive and oppressive". The case has been appealed to the Supreme Court.

The Obama Administration has asked the Supreme Court to not review the case. Is this another example of this administration pandering to the copyright tro... I mean corporations, rather than The People they are supposed to represent?
Chrome

Submission + - Opera switching to WebKit rendering engine (opera.com)

Submitted by Z80xxc!
Z80xxc! writes: The creators of Opera announced today that the browser now has over 300 million users — and will therefore be switching to webkit.

To provide a leading browser on Android and iOS, this year Opera will make a gradual transition to the WebKit engine, as well as Chromium, for most of its upcoming versions of browsers for smartphones and computers.

With Opera moving to webkit, there will now be only three major web rendering engines: IE's Trident, Mozilla's Gecko, and WebKit — used by Google Chrome and Apple Safari already. What will this mean for the future of compatibility and web standards?
Opera

Submission + - Opera picks up Webkit Engine (opera.com) 1

Submitted by nthitz
nthitz writes: Opera has announced that they will be dropping their rendering ending Presto, in favor of Webkit. This knocks the number of major rendering engines down to three. Opera will also be adopting the Chromium V8 Javascript engine. The news coincides with their announcement of 300 million users. "300 million marks the first lap, but the race goes on," says Lars Boilesen, CEO of Opera Software. "On the final stretch up to 300 million users, we have experienced the fastest acceleration in user growth we have ever seen. Now, we are shifting into the next gear to claim a bigger piece of the pie in the smartphone market."

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: What is your favorite monitor for programming?

Submitted by BadassFractal
BadassFractal writes: I'm in the market for a new large desktop monitor (or two) which I intend to use almost exclusively for programming and all sorts of software development-related work. I'm trying to keep the cost down reasonable, and I do enjoy as large of a resolution as possible. What do people "in the know" out there use these days for that purpose? I'm thinking a 1920x1200 24" would be good, unless there's an affordable 2560xFoo option out there. I keep hearing about nameless Korean 27" screens, any thoughts on that one?

Thanks!
Security

Submission + - How Lockheed Martin's 'Kill Chain' Stopped SecurID Attack (darkreading.com)

Submitted by
CowboyRobot
CowboyRobot writes: "A few months after RSA's SecurID database was hacked, defense contractor Lockheed Martin discovered an intruder using valid credentials of one of their business partners, including the user's SecurID token. But the user soon began tripping alarms, including pulling data in stages and trying to access unrelated data. So Lockheed launched its homegrown Cyber Kill Chain framework, which tracks an intruder's movements and blocks each attempt to siphon data. But the Cyber Kill Chain framework isn't for everyone, according to Steve Adegbite, director of cybersecurity for Lockheed Martin, "We have a multimillion-dollar investment in this technology." And that only makes sense for organizations at risk for advanced persistent threat attacks."
China

Submission + - China Claimed Millions of Computers Hacked by U.S.-based Servers (xinhuanet.com)

Submitted by hackingbear
hackingbear writes: While we have heard reports of computers being hacked from China almost every other day, China's National Computer Network Emergency Response Centre identified 7.8 million computers in China had been hacked in the first six months of last year, with the most common location of the attackers being in the US (pay wall). According to CNCERT, 73,286 overseas IPs were involved in hacking China’s 14.19 million IPs, among which 10.5 million received attacks from US-based servers, 780,000 from South Korea and 778,000 from Germany. Apparently, as neither side can prove their claims or disprove the other's claims with absolutely indisputable evidences, the war of words will keep going.
NASA

Submission + - NASA's Garver Insists that American Commitment to Space Exploration Undiminished (yahoo.com)

Submitted by
MarkWhittington
MarkWhittington writes: "Space.com reports that NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver, at a space-entrepreneurship forum organized by Stanford University's Institute for Economic Policy Research, insisted that the space agency's commitment to space exploration is undiminished. To support her contention, Garver cited overall spending for NASA as compared to that of space agencies of other countries. But other data, from the money spent on the space agency's space exploration and planetary science accounts to a scathing report from the National Research Council tells a different story."
Earth

Submission + - Obama Proposes 'Meaningful Action' on Climate Change (discovery.com)

Submitted by
astroengine
astroengine writes: "President Barack Obama called for "meaningful progress" on tackling climate change in his State of the Union speech in Washington, DC on Tuesday night. While acknowledging that "no single event makes a trend," the President noted that the United States had been buffeted by extreme weather events that in many cases encapsulated the predictions of climate scientists. "But the fact is, the 12 hottest years on record have all come in the last 15. Heat waves, droughts, wildfires, and floods — all are now more frequent and intense. We can choose to believe that Superstorm Sandy, and the most severe drought in decades, and the worst wildfires some states have ever seen were all just a freak coincidence. Or we can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment of science — and act before it’s too late," Obama added."
Microsoft

Submission + - Xbox Originator: Stupid, Stupid xBox!! 1

Submitted by Freshly Exhumed
Freshly Exhumed writes: You can't begrudge Nat Brown for claiming some pride in the birth of Microsoft's game console: ' I was a founder of the original xBox project at Microsoft and gave it its name. Almost 14 years after the painful, pointless, and idiotic internal cage-match to get it started and funded, the hard selling of a compelling and lucrative living-room product to Bill (and then Steve as he began to take over), a product that consumers would want and love and demand, I am actually still thrilled to see how far it has come...' but in his recent ILIKE.CODE blog post he is driven to lament that '...as usual, Microsoft has jumped its own shark and is out stomping through the weeds planning and talking about far-flung future strategies in interactive television and original programming partnerships with big dying media companies when their core product, their home town is on fire, their soldiers, their developers, are tired and deserting, and their supply-lines are broken.' Nat goes on to detail a list of Microsoft's past and present strategic Xbox blunders, while tossing some barbs towards Nintendo's and Sony's game console strategies.
Security

Submission + - How Lockheed Martin's 'Kill Chain' Stopped An Attacker Already Inside (darkreading.com)

Submitted by ancientribe
ancientribe writes: Lockheed Martin's director of cybersecurity provided a rare inside look at how the Defense contractor was able to stop sophisticated attackers who had gotten inside its network from actually stealing anything. Lockheed's multi-million dollar Cyber Kill Chain framework, a combination of security intelligence tools and manpower was built to prevent determined attackers who inevitably gain a foothold in the network from taking anything with them. This Dark Reading article highlights an incident where an attacker posed as one of Lockheed's business partners, using legitimate credentials and a stolen RSA SecurID token.
Education

Submission + - Missouri Legislation Redefines Science, Pushes Intelligent Design (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Ars reports on new legislation in the Missouri House of Representatives which is seeking equal time in the classroom for Intelligent Design as well as to redefine science itself. You can read the text of the bill online. It uses over 600 words to describe Intelligent Design. Scientific theory, the bill says, is 'an inferred explanation of incompletely understood phenomena about the physical universe based on limited knowledge, whose components are data, logic, and faith-based philosophy.' It would require that 'If scientific theory concerning biological origin is taught in a course of study, biological evolution and biological intelligent design shall be taught.' The legislation's references to 'scientific theory' and 'scientific law' make it clear the writers don't have the slightest idea how science actually works. It also has this odd line near the end: 'If biological intelligent design is taught, any proposed identity of the intelligence responsible for earth's biology shall be verifiable by present-day observation or experimentation and teachers shall not question, survey, or otherwise influence student belief in a nonverifiable identity within a science course.'
Government

Submission + - Earth-buzzing asteroid could be worth big bucks: $195B if we could catch it (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "The asteroid NASA say is about the half the size of a football field that will blow past Earth on Feb 15 could be worth up to $195 billion in metals and propellant. That's what the scientists at Deep Space Industries, a company that wants to mine these flashing hunks of space materials, thinks the asteroid known as 2012 DA14 is worth — if they could catch it."

Submission + - Computer Repair Company Takes Revenge on Devious Customer (callnerds.com) 3

Submitted by herrshuster
herrshuster writes: Nerds on call, a small computer repair company, was sued for $500,000 dollars by a customer claiming that they had lost critical information in his litigation. But when they looked into his history, they found this was not the first time he had tried to get money from a company through either his own error or ignorance: http://blog.oregonlive.com/complaintdesk/2011/07/when_store_clerks_give_advice.html In retaliation, they posted an explanation of the circumstances on their site that totalled more than 17,000 words in an attempt to google-bomb his name. Their closing statement: "In the end we won’t label him a scam artist, or assume he had nefarious intent, however, we will let the entire history of our interactions with him stand on their own."

Submission + - Progress Bars 6

Submitted by hyperorbiter
hyperorbiter writes: How come after 25 years in the tech industry someone hasn't worked out how to make accurate progress bars? This migration I'm doing has sat on "less than a minute" for over 30 minutes . . . I'm not an engineer, but is it that hard?
Science

Submission + - Appendix Evolved More Than 30 Times (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: The appendix may not be useless after all. The worm-shaped structure found near the junction of the small and large intestines evolved 32 times among mammals, according to a new study. The finding adds weight to the idea that the appendix helps protect our beneficial gut bacteria when a serious infection strikes.

Submission + - PeerJ is changing everything in academic publishing (techdirt.com)

Submitted by
Mirk
Mirk writes: "Academic researchers want to make their papers open access for the world to read. If they use traditional publishers like Elsevier, Springer or Taylor & Francis, they'll be charged $3000 to bring their work out from behind the paywall. But PeerJ, a new megajournal launched today and funded by Tim O'Reilly, publishes open access articles for $99. That's not done by cutting corners: the editorial process is thorough, and they use rigorous peer-review. The cost savings come from running lean and mean on a born-digital system. The initial batch of 30 papers includes one on a Penn and Teller trick and one on the long necks of dinosaurs."
The Internet

Submission + - Is the concept of "Cyberspace" stupid? (salon.com)

Submitted by
frank_adrian314159
frank_adrian314159 writes: "In an article titled "Stop Pretending Cyberspace Exists", Salon writer Michael Lind notes that "Some ideas make you dumber the moment you learn of them. One of those ideas is the concept of 'cyberspace.'” He says that analogizing cyberspace as a real place leads to an inability to think logically about laws, rules, and how and when the governments could or should intervene to regulate the Internet. He states that such a debate is essential, but that that an "[invasion of] a mythical Oz-like kingdom called cyberspace is just as dopey" when talking about governments and corporations taking a larger role in online communications. Is Lind right? Does the notion of cyberspace make the debate over its governance less fruitful?"
Blackberry

Submission + - BlackBerry creative director caught using iPhone (blogspot.ca)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: So it looks like Alicia Keys the new "creative director" for BlackBerry doesn`t have too much love for the new BlackBerry Z10 she SHOULD be using. Why? Well she`s been sending tweets from her iPhone thats why.

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