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Facebook

Facebook To Eliminate Voting On Privacy Changes 52

Posted by timothy from the three-sheep-and-a-wolf dept.
Orome1 writes "Facebook has announced some proposed updates to their Data Use Policy (how user data is collected and used) and their Statement of Rights and Responsibilities (explains the terms governing use of their services). These updates include new tools for managing Facebook Messages, changes to how they refer to certain products, tips on managing one's timelines, and reminders about what's visible to other people on Facebook. Elliot Schrage, Facebook's vice president of communications, public policy, and marketing, said: 'We found that the voting mechanism, which is triggered by a specific number of comments, actually resulted in a system that incentivized the quantity of comments over their quality,' he explained. 'Therefore, we're proposing to end the voting component of the process in favor of a system that leads to more meaningful feedback and engagement.'"
Science

Fetuses Caught Yawning In 4D 117

Posted by timothy from the amniotic-and-insomniac dept.
Rambo Tribble writes "Reuters reports 4D scans have conclusively shown that fetuses do yawn. Understandable, eh? After all, all they get is cable."
Earth

Sandy Island, the Undiscovered Country 182

Posted by timothy from the proof-of-global-warming dept.
Big Hairy Ian writes "A South Pacific island, shown on marine charts and world maps as well as on Google Earth and Google Maps, does not exist, Australian scientists say. The supposedly sizeable strip of land, named Sandy Island on Google maps, was positioned midway between Australia and French-governed New Caledonia. But when scientists from the University of Sydney went to the area, they found only the blue ocean of the Coral Sea."
Government

World Governments Object To New gTLDs 135

Posted by timothy from the world-governments-acting-as-usual dept.
hypnosec writes "ICANN is receiving more and more requests for new generic top level domains, and governments around the world are busy registering their complaints and objections with the proposed names. To date, more than 200 objections have been raised against proposed gTLDs, with Australia leading the pack with over 120 objections. Some of the other countries which are at the forefront of registering their objections include France, Germany and India. US and UK are near the bottom of the list. ICANN's "early warnings" about national objections to gTLDs serves as formal objections but it doesn't mean that these domains will never be signed off. There is always room for discussions and mediation that would allow prospective registrants to keep on pursuing their claims. Australia has objected to names such as '.baby,' '.app,' and '.beauty' among other. It has also objected to names such as '.sucks' and '.wtf,' stating that these names have 'an overtly negative or critical connotation.'"
GNOME

GNOME 3 To Support a "Classic" Mode, of Sorts 197

Posted by timothy from the classic-coke dept.
An anonymous reader writes "LWN.net is reporting that GNOME developer Matthias Clasen has announced that, with the upcoming demise of 'fallback mode,' the project will support a set of official GNOME Shell extensions to provide a more "classic" experience. 'And while we certainly hope that many users will find the new ways comfortable and refreshing after a short learning phase, we should not fault people who prefer the old way. After all, these features were a selling point of GNOME 2 for ten years!'"
Medicine

The Science of Thanks Giving 55

Posted by samzenpus from the thank-you-science dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "This is Americans' big week to give thanks. Now Russell McLendon writes that giving thanks can do wonders for the human brain according to researchers at UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center where scientists have developed an easy way for people to do just that and, at the same time, contribute to a national research project and maybe also improve their lives. The project is part of a $5.6 million, three-year national effort called 'Expanding the Science and Practice of Gratitude,' funded by the John Templeton Foundation. The center has gone live with Thnx4.org, an interactive, shareable gratitude journal and has invited people in the campus community to take part in the Cal Gratitude Challenge by keeping a two-week online 'gratitude journal' and, if they choose, sharing their posts with others. Early research into the power of gratitude journals ended up proving that students who wrote down everything they were grateful for strengthened their overall resilience and became less vulnerable to everyday stresses and complaints like rashes and headaches, says Emiliana Simon-Thomas. 'Thnx4.org wanted to make this spiral notebook very accessible, and to make the research a little more specific than it has been historically,' says Simon-Thomas. Online, anyone can take part — and potentially reap the benefits. The Cal Gratitude Challenge opened November 1 and will remain open throughout November but the project has a three-year grant and participants will be able to maintain their journals for the duration and first results from the data are expected in January. 'We affirm that there are good things in the world, gifts and benefits we've received,' writes Robert Emmons as part of the project. 'This doesn't mean that life is perfect; it doesn't ignore complaints, burdens, and hassles. But when we look at life as a whole, gratitude encourages us to identify some amount of goodness in our life.'"
Privacy

UK To Use "Risk-Profiling Software" To Screen All Airline Passengers and Cargo 222

Posted by samzenpus from the listen-to-the-computer dept.
dryriver writes "The BBC reports: 'The UK branch of an American company — SAS Software — has developed a hi-tech software program it believes can help detect and prevent potentially dangerous passengers and cargo entering the UK using the technique known as 'risk profiling.' So, what exactly is risk profiling and can it really reduce the risk of international terrorism? Risk profiling is a controversial topic. It means identifying a person or group of people who are more likely to act in a certain way than the rest of the population, based on an analysis of their background and past behavior — which of course requires the collection of certain data on people's background and behavior to begin with. When it comes to airline security, some believe this makes perfect sense. Others, though, say this smacks of prejudice and would inevitably lead to unacceptable racial or religious profiling — singling out someone because, say, they happen to be Muslim, or born in Yemen. The company making the Risk-Profiling Software in question, of course, strongly denies that the software would single people out using factors like race, religion or country of origin. It says that the program works by feeding in data about passengers or cargo, including the Advanced Passenger Information (API) that airlines heading to Britain are obliged to send to the UK Border Agency (UKBA) at 'wheels up' — the exact moment the aircraft lifts off from the airport of departure. Additional information could include a combination of factors, like whether the passenger paid for their ticket in cash, or if they have ever been on a watch list or have recently spent time in a country with a known security problem. The data is then analyzed to produce a schematic read-out for immigration officials that shows the risk profile for every single passenger on an incoming flight, seat by seat, high risk to low risk.'"
Hardware Hacking

Entries Open For First Ever 24-Hour Raspberry Pi Hackathon 74

Posted by samzenpus from the hack-away dept.
concertina226 writes "Called the Raspberry Pi 'hack day', the competition will pit 100 entrants against one another in a number of categories using only the board, Internet access, soldering irons and as much coding as they think appropriate. Participants will have 24-hours to complete projects, at the end of which winners will be awarded from a variety of prizes including camcorders, Android tablets and the geek must-have, the Hubsan H107 Quadcopter."
Chrome

Researcher Claims To Have Chrome Zero-Day, Google Says "Prove It" 106

Posted by samzenpus from the secret-security dept.
chicksdaddy writes "Google's been known to pay $60,000 for information on remotely exploitable vulnerabilities in its Chrome web browser. So, when a researcher says that he has one, but isn't interested in selling it, eyebrows get raised. And that's just what's happening this week, with Google saying it will wait and see what Georgian researcher Ucha Gobejishvili has up his sleeve in a presentation on Saturday at the Malcon conference in New Delhi. Gobejishvili has claimed that he will demonstrate a remotely exploitable hole in the Chrome web browser at Malcon. He described the security hole in Chrome as a 'critical vulnerability' in a Chrome DLL. 'It has silent and automatically (sp) download function and it works on all Windows systems,' he told Security Ledger. However, more than a few questions hang over Gobejishvili's talk. The researcher said he discovered the hole in July, but hasn't bothered to contact Google. He will demonstrate the exploit at MalCon, and have a 'general discussion' about it, but won't release source code for it. 'I know this is a very dangerous issue that's why I am not publishing more details about this vulnerability,' he wrote. Google said that, with no information on the hole, it can only wait to hear the researcher's Malcon presentation before it can assess the threat to Chrome users."
The Military

Why Iron Dome Might Only Work For Israel 377

Posted by samzenpus from the not-for-everyone dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Many this week have declared Israel's American financed Iron Dome rocket defense system a success. Some have even gone so far to declare it a vindication of Ronald Reagan's 1980's Star Wars missile defense system. Pundits have even gone so far to assume the system could be sold to other nations. However, the Iron Dome may not be the game changer many are making it out to be. Taking out unsophisticated rockets is quite different than advanced missiles: '...the technical and strategic challenges of shooting down ballistic missiles differ considerably from those of shooting down unguided rockets. BMD shares with rocket defense some common technological ground; both require fast reaction time and impressive sensor capabilities, and the Iron Dome project has benefited from technical work on missile defense. However, ballistic missiles in flight behave differently from unguided, sub-atmospheric rockets.'"
Science

Ask Slashdot: Geekiest Way To Cook a Turkey? 447

Posted by samzenpus from the robot-chef dept.
First time accepted submitter almostadnsguy writes "There seem to be a lot of ways to cook a turkey the geekiest ones are probably out of the realm of possibility for normal geeks. However, Within the limits of normal society (or outside if you wish) what is the geekiest way to do it? Do you use a special brine, cook it in an inventive way, or raise genetically modified turkeys with extra legs?"
Supercomputing

Supercomputers' Growing Resilience Problems 112

Posted by samzenpus from the a-thousand-potential-cuts dept.
angry tapir writes "As supercomputers grow more powerful, they'll also grow more vulnerable to failure, thanks to the increased amount of built-in componentry. Today's high-performance computing (HPC) systems can have 100,000 nodes or more — with each node built from multiple components of memory, processors, buses and other circuitry. Statistically speaking, all these components will fail at some point, and they halt operations when they do so, said David Fiala, a Ph.D student at the North Carolina State University, during a talk at SC12. Today's techniques for dealing with system failure may not scale very well, Fiala said."
Math

Statistics Key To Success In Run-and-Gun Basketball 97

Posted by Soulskill from the math-always-wins dept.
theodp writes "Two decades before Moneyball hit the Big Screen, Coach David Arseneault of tiny Grinnell College came up with a unique style of run-and-gun basketball that he called The System, the principles of which were subjected to statistical analysis in Keys to Success in a Run-and-Gun Basketball System, a paper for the 2011 Joint Statistical Meetings. Well, as they say, sometimes The System works. On Tuesday, biochem major Jack Taylor, just three games into his career as a Grinnell College basketball player, made national news when he poured in 138 points — yes, 138 points — in a 179-104 victory over Faith Baptist Bible College. Even LeBron and Kobe were impressed. The old NCAA Division III record of 89 was set last year by Taylor's Grinnell teammate, Griffin Lentsch. Taylor's feat also bested what was deemed to be the unbeatable overall NCAA scoring record of 113 points, set by NCAA Division II performer Clarence 'Bevo' Francis of Rio Grande in 1954."
KDE

KDE 4.10 Beta1 Released 73

Posted by Soulskill from the onward-and-upward dept.
sfcrazy writes "The KDE team has released the first beta for its renewed Workspaces, Applications, and Development Platform. 'With API, dependency and feature freezes in place, the KDE team's focus is now on fixing bugs and further polishing new and old functionality.' QtQuick in Plasma Workspaces has received a lot of work: 'Plasma Quick, KDE's extensions on top of QtQuick allow deeper integration with the system and more powerful apps and Plasma components. Plasma Containments can now be written in QtQuick. Various Plasma widgets have been rewritten in QtQuick, notably the system tray, pager, notifications, lock & logout, weather and weather station, comic strip and calculator plasmoids. Many performance, quality and usability improvements make Plasma Desktop and Netbook workspaces easier to use.' Here's the Feature Plan for 4.10."
Security

Ask Slashdot: Should Hosting Companies Have Change Freezes? 138

Posted by Soulskill from the what-about-change-burns dept.
AngryDad writes "Today I received a baffling email from my hosting provider that said, 'We have a company-wide patching freeze and we will not be releasing patches to our customers who utilize the patching portal for the months of November and December.' This means that myself and all other customers of theirs who run Windows servers will have to live with several critical holes for at least two months. Is this common practice with mid-tier hosting providers? If so, may I ask Eastern-EU folks to please refrain from hacking my servers during the holiday season?"

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