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Science

Submission + - Berkely scientists plan to "Jurassic Park" some extinct pigeons back to life (wired.com) 1

Submitted by
phenopticon
phenopticon writes: "Researchers at Berkeley have decided to attempt to revive the extinct passenger pigeon in order to set up a remote island theme park full of resurrected semi-modern extinct animals. Well, they're doing the first part anyway. Maybe not so much the part about the remote island.

About 1,500 passenger pigeons inhabit museum collections. They are all that’s left of a species once perceived as a limitless resource. The birds were shipped in boxcars by the tons, sold as meat for 31 cents per dozen, and plucked for mattress feathers. But in a mere 25 years, the population shrank from billions to thousands as commercial hunters decimated nesting flocks. Martha, the last living bird, took her place under museum glass in 1914."

Submission + - New Process for Nanoscale Filtration Holds Promise of Cheap, Clean Water (reuters.com)

Submitted by Spinnakker
Spinnakker writes: Lockheed Martin, traditionally known for its development military systems and aircraft, has developed a process for perforating graphene (carbon sheets only one atom thick) that could potentially reduce the energy required for desalination by two orders of magnitude. The process tailors the hole size to the molecules being separated. In the case of desalination, one would create holes in the graphene large enough to allow water to pass but small enough to block the salt molecules. The advantage to using graphene comes from how extremely thin the material is compared to traditional filters. The thinner the filter the less energy is required to facilitate reverse osmosis.
Security

Submission + - Raspberry Pi used as hardware backdoor (nccgroup.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: NCC Group has released a new whitepaper at the Blackhat Europe conference on using a Raspberry PI as a hardware based backdoor in Laptop docking stations. From the paper:

"The IT department is typically more concerned about someone stealing your laptop, so they'll ask you to secure your laptop with a Kensington-style lock, but not necessarily to secure the dock. This
paper details how attackers can exploit the privileged position that laptop docking stations have within an environment. It will also describe the construction of a remotely controllable, covert hardware implant, but most importantly it will discuss some of the techniques that can be employed to detect such devices and mitigate the risks that they pose."
Java

Submission + - Apple Fixes OS X Flaw That Allowed Java Apps to Run With Plugin Disabled (threatpost.com)

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: Apple on Thursday released a large batch of security fixes for its OS X operating system, one of which patches a flaw that allowed Java Web Start applications to run even when users had Java disabled in the browser. There have been a slew of serious vulnerabilities in Java disclosed in the last few months, and security experts have been recommending that users disable Java in their various browsers as a protection mechanism. However, it appears that measure wasn't quite enough to protect users of some versions of OS X.
Apple

Submission + - Apple Releases Security Update 2013-001 and ML 10.8.3 (apple.com)

Submitted by williamyf
williamyf writes: Apple has released Mountain Lion 10.8.3, as well as a bunch of security Updates for Lion and Even Snow Leopard.

Some of the most Important Changes include handling of TIFF Images, issues with QuickTime and Software Update (a man in the middle attack), affecting all supported versions of the OS.

More Info at apple.
Programming

Submission + - Comparing the C++ Standard and Boost (slashdot.org)

Submitted by
Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster writes: "The one and only Jeff Cogswell is back with an article exploring an issue important to anyone who works with C++. It's been two years since the ISO C++ committee approved the final draft of the newest C++ standard; now that time has passed, he writes, "we can go back and look at some issues that have affected the language (indeed, ever since the first international standard in 1998) and compare its final result and product to a popular C++ library called Boost." A lot of development groups have adopted the use of Boost, and still others are considering whether to embrace it: that makes a discussion (and comparison) of its features worthwhile. "The Standards Committee took some eight years to fight over what should be in the standard, and the compiler vendors had to wait for all that to get ironed out before they could publish an implementation of the Standard Library," he writes. "But meanwhile the actual C++ community was moving forward on its own, building better things such as Boost.""
Biotech

Submission + - Most popular human cell in science gets sequenced (nature.com)

Submitted by
ananyo
ananyo writes: "The research world’s most famous human cell has had its genome decoded, and it’s a mess. German researchers this week report the genome sequence of the HeLa cell line, which originates from a deadly cervical tumor taken from a patient named Henrietta Lacks (Slashdot has previously noted a film made about the cells and there's a recent mutli-award winning book on Lacks). Established the same year that Lacks died in 1951, HeLa cells were the first human cells to grow well in the laboratory. The cells have contributed to more than 60,000 research papers, the development of a polio vaccine in the 1950s and, most recently, an international effort to characterize the genome, known as ENCODE. The team's work shows that HeLa cells contain one extra version of most chromosomes, with up to five copies of some, and raises further questions over the widespread use of HeLa cells as models for human cell biology."
Australia

Submission + - Aussie Research Shows Windfarm Sickness Spreads by Word of Mouth (guardian.co.uk)

Submitted by eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: Just like the many stories surrounding alleged "wifi sickness" research is now showing that windfarm sickness spreads by word of mouth instead of applying universally to windfarms. Areas that had never had any noise or health complaints were suddenly experiencing them after 2009 when anti-wind groups targeted populations surrounding windfarms. From the article, 'Eighteen reviews of the research literature on wind turbines and health published since 2003 had all reached the broad conclusion that there was very little evidence they were directly harmful to health.' While there's unfortunately no way to prove that someone is lying about how they feel, it's likely a mixture of confirmation bias, psychosomatic response, hypochondria, greed and hatred of seeing windmills on the horizon that drives this phenomenon.

Submission + - Is it worth trying to go back to work for an ex-employer

Submitted by tw3ak
tw3ak writes: I used to a work for a global company for about 4 years as a Senior Support Analyst right after graduating from college. Amazing job, amazing people, great environment. Unfortunantely my boss and I did not see eye to eye on somethings and we decided it was best to part ways and move along. Well its been 10 years and lots of experience later and personal changes have occured to make me a different person than I was at that point ( learned to see the big picture).... I would love to apply back to this company however I am concerned that my past might create an issue. Now the company I worked for at the time was purchased by another company so I am not sure if that would play into things at all.. Looking for some advice from the slashdot community.
Hardware

Submission + - Nvidia walked away from PS4 hardware negotiations (geek.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Tony Tamsai, Nvidia’s senior vice president of content and technology, has said that providing hardware for use in the PlayStation 4 was on the table, but they walked away. Having provided chips for use in both the PS3 and the original Xbox, that decision doesn’t come without experience.

Nvidia didn’t want to commit to producing hardware at the cost Sony was willing to pay. They also considered that by accepting a PS4 contract, they’d have to not do something else in another sector. In other words, the PS4 is not a lucrative enough platform to consider when high-end graphics cards and the Tegra line of chips hold so much more revenue potential.
Government

Submission + - Prosecutor in Aaron Swartz Case Lied About Search Warrant (huffingtonpost.com)

Submitted by runeghost
runeghost writes: "Federal prosecutor Stephen Heymann engaged in prosecutorial misconduct by withholding key evidence from the defense team of Aaron Swartz, the late Internet activist's legal team alleged in a letter to an internal Justice Department ethics unit."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Heymann appears to have lied to the court and ignored his duty to disclose exculpatory evidence, so as to avoid invalidating the government's case against Aaron Swartz.

Submission + - Sekurak found backdoor in TP-Link routers (sekurak.pl)

Submitted by
NuclearCat
NuclearCat writes: "Polish security researchers found backdoor in TP-Link routers, allowing not only to gain root access from local network, but also to knock down router via CSRF attack remotely, machine translation from russian: http://habrahabr.ru/post/172799/ . According to researchers statement TP-Link seems doesn't care to give an answer about issue.
Good news: Users who reflashed their TP-Link with Open/DD-WRT firmware can sleep well."
Microsoft

Submission + - Russian FSB can tap your Skype calls (barentsobserver.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Previous reports of a Microsoft provided backdoor to Skype has been unconfirmed. However, there are now reports that the Russian federal security service FSB is able to tap call and locate users

"FSB and the Internal Affairs Ministry (MVD) have been capable to wiretap and locate Skype users for some years already, reports Vedomosti on Thursday. The newspaper is citing experts on information security.

"Special services have been capable for several years not only to wiretap but also to locate a Skype user. That's why, for instance, employees of our company are forbidden to discuss business-related topics on Skype," General Director of Group-IB, Ilya Sachkov,” says to Vedomosti.

“After Microsoft acquired Skype in May 2011, it updated the software with technology allowing legitimate wiretapping,” says Maksim Emm, Director of Peak Systems."
Intel

Submission + - Shortage of NAND Flash Memory to Affect Intel SSD Availability (eetimes.com)

Submitted by fl!ptop
fl!ptop writes: Peter K. Hazen, Intel's director of SSD Marketing has sent letters to wholesalers indicating they expect to ship twice the number of SSD drives in 2013 as they did in 2012, but it won't be enough to meet customer demand:

Even in the first half of this year, we expect to ship more than 2x the units in Q1 and Q2 than the same quarters last year, but it is not enough to meet our aggregate customer demand...This will also mean we will not necessarily be doubling output on every product line, but will focus output on the datacenter and professional client product lines to help satisfy demand on products that our customers have designed in, and will reduce the volume on products for segments that are more transactional in nature.

The NAND shortage came to light last year after companies like OCZ reported lower expected revenues due do insufficient supply. Price increases are imminent.
Cellphones

Submission + - Scientists Study Why Overheard Cell Phone Conversations Are So Annoying 1

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "With people spending an estimated 2.30 trillion minutes on their collective cell phones in the past year, it’s no wonder that you’ve probably been party to an unwanted conversation or two. You know one ones — the loud exchange in the checkout line over the previous night’s festivities, or the keep-in-the-bedroom sweet nothings that, inexplicably, just have to be expressed in a restaurant within earshot of nearby diners. Now Alexandra Sifferlin reports that researchers are studying why overhearing one-sided exchanges is more distracting than eavesdropping on a conversation between two people. Researchers recruited 164 undergraduate students to complete an assignment involving anagrams. While they were concentrating on the task, the scientists held a scripted conversation that the participants were meant to overhear. Half of the students overheard the only half of the conversation, as a researcher conducted it over the phone, while the other half heard both sides as it happened between two of the team members in an adjacent room. The results: Even though the conversation was irrelevant to the anagram task and contained less words and noise, one-sided conversations impacted participants’ self-reported distractibility and memory, thus showing people are more attentive to cell phone conversations than two-sided conversations. The researchers theorize that one-sided conversations are more annoying because hearing only one side of the conversation makes it more uncertain and unpredictable, so our brains are naturally drawn to filling out the missing parts, even if we aren’t consciously trying to eavesdrop. Study author Veronica Galván suggests that her findings could shed light on multi-tasking behaviors in general.. "“And that may have implications for open work settings, where people can’t help but overhear colleagues’ conversations, whether they are personal or work-related.""
Australia

Submission + - Australian PM Targets Imported IT Workers (arnnet.com.au)

Submitted by beaverdownunder
beaverdownunder writes: Debate 'down under' has started to rage surrounding the importation of 'temporary' IT workers on so-called '457' visas, with the Prime Minister promising to bring in tough new restrictions on foreign workers in a pre-election pledge despite evidence that there are insufficient numbers of Australians to fill the skills 'gap'. Some quarters argue the foreign workers are necessary to drive growth in Australia's IT industry, while others have cited examples where large Australian companies have imported workers needlessly, displacing qualified Aussie personnel.

What do you think? Is Big Technology only trying to improve its bottom line? Or are qualified Australian / American / Canadian etc. IT workers an endangered species?
Cellphones

Submission + - Samsung unveils the Galaxy S4

Submitted by adeelarshad82
adeelarshad82 writes: It’s been leaked, teased, accused of being a copy of its predecessor, and celebrated as the likely champion of the mobile ecosystem for 2013. Samsung has finally unveiled the next in their line of globally available smartphones, the Galaxy S4. The phone carries a 5-inch Super AMOLED display with 1080p resolution at 441ppi, weighs only 130 grams and is no more than 7.9mm think. On the inside, Exynos based Octo-Core processor clocked at 1.6 GHz and the Snapdragon based Quad Core 1.9GHz processor power this beautiful machine. Galaxy S4 is also packing a 2GB of RAM, 2600mAh battery and microSD slot are accessible though the removable rear panel. S4 will include several new features such as Air Gesture, Smart Pause, and Smart Scroll. Samsung's vice president of portfolio planning said that many of the software improvements in the Samsung Galaxy S4 could make their way into existing Samsung Galaxy S3 phones.
Google

Submission + - Google BigQuery is now even bigger (gigaom.com)

Submitted by
vu1986
vu1986 writes: "With the latest updates — announced in a blog post by BigQuery Product Manager Ku-kay Kwek on Thursday — users can now join large tables, import and query timestamped data, and aggregate large collections of distinct values. It’s hardly the equivalent of Google launching Compute Engine last summer, but as (arguably) the inspiration for the SQL-on-Hadoop trend that’s sweeping the big data world right now, every improvement to BigQuery is notable."
Security

Submission + - US Cyber Command Discloses Offensive Cyberwarfare Capabilities (hothardware.com)

Submitted by
MojoKid
MojoKid writes: "Earlier this week, the newly minted head of the United States' Cyber Command team and NSA head General Keith Alexander told assembled lawmakers that the US has created an offensive cyberwarfare division designed to do far more than protect US assets from foreign attacks. This is a major change in policy from previous public statements — in the past, the US has publicly focused on defensive actions and homegrown security improvements. General Alexander told the House Armed Services Committee that "This is an offensive team that the Defense Department would use to defend the nation if it were attacked in cyberspace. Thirteen of the teams that we’re creating are for that mission alone.” This is an interesting shift in US doctrine and begs questions like: What's proportional response to China probing at utility companies? Who ought to be blamed for Red October? What's the equivalent of a warning shot in cyberspace? When we detect foreign governments probing at virtual borders, who handles the diplomatic fallout as opposed to the silent retribution?"

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