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Software

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: What Defines Good Developer Culture?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: We are a team of 6 people developing applications for mobile devices (Android & iOS). In our company, which consists of many teams responsible for "classic" software development, business intelligence, virtualization, hardware, etc., we are kind of a small startup because we were the first to use agile methods like Scrum and we are open to new technologies and methods. Also our team is pretty young with me being the oldest with 30 years.

We would like to further raise productivity and motivation and thus are currently collecting points which make up a good developer/hacker culture and which may be improved in our team/company. This can be points that we can either improve ourselves or have to pass on to management.

I would like to know what in your opinion defines good, modern developer culture? What does developer culture consists of?

For example is it

- clearly defined career opportunities
- geeky office
- benefits like trips to extraordinary conferences like WWDC or Google I/O
- ...

Please let me know.

Submission + - 7000 Irish e-voting machines to be scrapped (independent.ie)

Submitted by lampsie
lampsie writes: You may recall back in January 2012 that the Irish government had deemed their stock of 7000 e-voting machines 'worthless'. Turns out they are not — after spending upwards of €54 million euro purchasing them almost a decade ago, all 7000 will now be scrapped for €70,000 (just over nine euros each). The machines were scrapped because 'they could not be guaranteed to be safe from tampering [...] and they could not produce a printout so that votes/results could be double-checked.'
Java

Submission + - Write BASIC, run Java (wordpress.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: BINSIC allows you to write BASIC code, as though for an old Sinclair machine, and run it anywhere you have Java. Source code is available and it comes with code to run Conway's Game of Life.
BINSIC is actually written in Groovy, which runs atop the JVM but is supplied in JAR form and so can be used just as a Java JAR.
Firefox

Submission + - Firefox "privacy flaw" may be a bug in human behavior

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Firefox 13 recently introduced thumbnail images to the New Tab page — including images snapshotted from your HTTPS traffic. Security news sites made much of this as a "bug" and a "privacy flaw"; Mozilla said they'd fix it.

Here's an article which looks into the New Tab functionality in detail and cuts through the FUD we've had so far. The author argues that the "bug" is in our own behavior — our urge to keep far too much browser history, simply because it's convenient. He points out that the information in the new thumbnails has always been in the Firefox cache where it's easy enough to find, but now that it's even more obvious, people are freaking out. Instead they should just clear browser history on exit and be done with it.

http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2012/06/29/anatomy-of-a-bug-firefox-new-tab-feature-thumbnails-https-pages/
Books

Submission + - UK company demos colour video animation on electronic paper (techworld.com)

Submitted by sweetpea86
sweetpea86 writes: Plastic electronics company Plastic Logic has demonstrated colour video animation on a flexible plastic display, which it claims is the first example of an organic thin-film transistor (OTFT) driving electronic paper at video rate. The demonstration proves that the potential uses of electronic paper extend far beyond monochrome text-based e-readers to more sophisticated tablet-style devices that can run colour video, while still keeping power consumption low.
Google

Submission + - Google Onshores Manufacturing of the Nexus Q (nytimes.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Etched into the base of Google's new wireless home media player that was introduced on Wednesday is its most intriguing feature. On the underside of the Nexus Q is a simple inscription: Designed and Manufactured in the U.S.A. The Google executives and engineers who decided to build the player here are engaged in an experiment in American manufacturing. "We've been absent for so long, we decided, 'Why don't we try it and see what happens?' "
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft Pushes Skype with Windows Update

Submitted by
jaa101
jaa101 writes: "Came in this morning to find many of our corporate boxes sporting shiny new Skype installations. Looks like they've been pushed by Microsoft. We have a WSUS server so the administrators of that may have overlooked something. There's discussion at http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-GB/winserverwsus/thread/74a93b2b-e820-40ef-a45d-2815b57d164e with Microsoft claims that they only pushed if there was a Skype installation there already ... and refutations. Maybe our SoE had something in it that fooled the updater but the affected machines had nothing like a working Skype.
Was Microsoft running short of Skype supernodes? I guess it's likely to slow down Windows machines with unwanted services and use plenty of unwanted traffic for both home and corporate users. And these will be people who haven't agreed to the Skype ToS! We're using XP but probably Vista and 7 are affected too. Please Microsoft, release a new update to remove these unwanted installations."
Space

Submission + - Titan may harbour a hidden ocean of water (nature.com)

Submitted by
ananyo
ananyo writes: "Data gathered by NASA’s Cassini probe as it repeatedly swept past Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, offers the best evidence yet that the smog-swaddled satellite has a substantial ocean of water sloshing beneath a thick icy crust.
Analyses of probe data suggest that the surface of the moon can rise and fall by up to 10 metres during each orbit. The most likely explanation for that kind of movement is that an icy shell dozens of kilometres thick floats atop a global ocean. The new analysis, together with the results of previous studies, hint that Titan’s ocean may lie no more than 100 km below the moon’s surface (abstract)."
Science

Submission + - Exxon CEO: Warming Happening, Society Will Adapt, But Public Too Dumb

Submitted by Freshly Exhumed
Freshly Exhumed writes: In a speech Wednesday, ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson acknowledged that burning of fossil fuels is warming the planet, but said society will be able to adapt. The risks of oil and gas drilling are well understood and can be mitigated, he said. And dependence on other nations for oil is not a concern as long as access to supply is certain, he said. Tillerson blamed a public that is "illiterate" in science and math, a "lazy" press, and advocacy groups that "manufacture fear" for energy misconceptions in a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations.
The Military

Submission + - Drug-Sniffing Drones Are Flying Over Bolivia, the New Cocaine Underdog (vice.com)

Submitted by
pigrabbitbear
pigrabbitbear writes: "Anti-drug squads are now using Brazilian spy drones to sniff out drug labs that dot Bolivia in increasing numbers. Felipe Caceras, Bolivia’s top anti-drug official, claims that some 240 drug labs have been busted in Santa Cruz, an eastern lowlands state bordering Brazil, this month alone, all thanks to Brazil’s drones, which are bought off Israeli robotics firms."
Networking

Submission + - Cisco says, "All your Routers are Belong to Us" (cisco.com) 1

Submitted by Myrv
Myrv writes: Reports have starting popping up that Cisco is pushing out and automatically (without permission) installing their new Cloud Connect firmware on consumer routers. The new firmware removes the users ability to login and administer the router locally. You now must configure the router using Cisco's Cloud connect service. If that wasn't bad enough the fine print for this new service allows Cisco to track your complete internet history. Currently it appears the only way to disable the Cloud Connect service is to unplug your from the internet.
Security

Submission + - Book Review: Permanent Emergency (amazon.com)

Submitted by OverTheGeicoE
OverTheGeicoE writes: Former TSA Administrator Kip Hawley has been in the news in recent months, talking about how the Transportation Security Administration is broken and how it can be fixed. Some of his TSA criticisms in the popular press seem to make sense. This seemed strange to me. Just last March he was defending TSA in a debate with Bruce Schneier in The Economist. Then, the very next month, he's criticizing his former agency as if he was on the other side of that debate to begin with. Why? I felt like I was missing something, so I decided to read his book to find out more about his position. The title of the book is Permanent Emergency: Inside the TSA and the Fight for the Future of American Security, and it is co-written by Nathan Means.

The book is partly a memoir of Hawley's involvement with TSA, which predates his appointment as its administrator. Hawley helped architect the TSA shortly after it was first authorized. He left government service once that was finished, but came back again in 2005, appointed by President George W. Bush to become TSA's third administrator in four years. He stuck with the job until the exact moment Barack Obama was sworn in as President in January of 2009. If you're looking for insight into TSA's most controversial policies, the extensive use of body scanning and pat down searches, you won't find that in this book. Those policies were put in place by Hawley's successor almost two years later. The phrase 'body scan' is used exactly once.

The book breaks from the memoir style at times and changes to that of an action-suspense thriller. It is interwoven with segments of prose similar to a Tom Clancy novel. In these segments we learn about the life, and possibly the ultimate death, of an Al Qaeda operative who goes by multiple names throughout the course of the book. Raised in Austria, we follow the terrorist through training with Al Qaeda in Pakistan and his connection with various airline-related terrorist plots against the United States. Under Administrator Hawley, TSA uses all its intelligence resources to track his moves and act to thwart the terrorist's nefarious schemes.

The Clancyesque sections are a severe weakness of the book, bordering on laughable at times. For example, there's a description of a Casio watch that reminded me of a Dave Barry parody of Tom Clancy. The action-suspense writing style also tends to over-dramatize and exaggerate TSA's actual accomplishments. The intelligence sources TSA uses all belong to conventional intelligence agencies, both US and foreign. The event leading to the most dramatic moments of the book, the disruption of a liquid bomb plot, was the work of British intelligence and law enforcement in the UK. The authors describe in great, suspenseful detail that while the British are rounding up actual Al Qaeda cell members, TSA in the US is waging war against an entire phase of matter, one that covers about 70% of Earth's surface. Thanks to their determined efforts, TSA was able to ban liquids from carry on luggage literally overnight. However, in this and all other terrorist plots covered in this book, the authors never offer any evidence that TSA's use of its borrowed intelligence ever allowed TSA to disrupt any specific, credible, and imminent threat. So, if you like the idea of a Tom Clancy book where the Jack Ryan character agonizes over intel a lot but never actually does anything of provable value with it, this may be the book for you.

Although the writing style was problematic at times, it didn't totally undermine the value of the book. It helped me understand why mainstream media is so accepting of TSA. During Hawley's tenure, TSA made strong, successful efforts to woo the press, including interviews with CBS' 60 Minutes and appearances on Oprah. The good relationship established during Hawley's administration apparently continues to this day, despite the dramatic changes in operations imposed by his successor. The book also gives an amusing mini-bio of TSA's 'Blogger Bob' Burns, who has been called 'the Tokyo Rose of the modern age' for his defenses of TSA under John Pistole.

I've often wondered why TSA seems so unresponsive to the American public, and this book offered me a plausible explanation. Hawley seems to view TSA almost exclusively as a weapon in the US war against Al Qaeda. When TSA implements policies that seem crazy or ineffective to the rest of us, it doesn't use outside opinions to judge the effectiveness of its policies. Instead it uses information gathered from the intelligence community unavailable to outsiders. A policy change is considered effective if Al Qaeda reacts in a desirable way. For example, if a TSA operation deploys VIPR teams at public transportation centers and suspected Al Qaeda operatives leave the US afterwards, the operation is considered successful.

This book also helped me better understand Hawley's recent press comments. It sounds as if Hawley is saying that TSA's most controversial policies can be terminated if intelligence shows Al Qaeda to be on the decline. Now that he is outside TSA, Hawley seems to see what the American public does, and sees a reason to change security. If intelligence shows an increase of Al Qaeda activity, security can be raised again as needed.

This understanding of how TSA works is also confusing. What we're actually seeing from TSA is an expansion of their activities in recent years, with no meaningful or significant easing of its invasive passenger screening being proposed. Could that mean Al Qaeda is actually on the rise in some way not obvious to the general public? If not, Hawley's successor is a real bungler, and I would expect Hawley to call him that when given a chance. Instead, Hawley specifically refuses to second guess his successor at the end of his book, leaving me puzzled about how the US war against Al Qaeda is actually going.

Permanent Emergency is an interesting book. It certainly has flaws. The writing style is inconsistent and often unsatisfying. It is not entirely factually correct in many of its stories; TSA classifies a lot of information, and the authors admit to changing or concealing details for that and other reasons. The book does not attempt to tackle the most controversial aspects of today's TSA policies. Still, the book gives insight into how TSA was formed, what problems it was designed to address, and how it operates. TSA is so new, there are few sources of this type to examine right now, so any firsthand account is useful. I recommend this book to anyone concerned by TSA's operations, as it helps us understand how TSA became what it is now.
United Kingdom

Submission + - Julian Assange served with Extradition Notice by British Police (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: London's Metropolitan Police have delivered an "Extradition Notice" to Julian Assange, the Wikileaks founder, who sought refuge and political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London last week. Scottland Yard have said in a brief statement that "the notice requires Julian Assange to attend a police station of our choosing at a set time." SY also said "This is standard procedure in extradition cases and is the first step in the removal process. He remains in breach of his bail conditions and failure to surrender would be a further breach of those conditions and he is liable to arrest." However, under international diplomatic arrangements, the British Metropolitan Police cannot actually go into the Ecuadorian embassy to arrest Mr Assange. Assange would have to leave the embassy to be lawfully arrested.This raises the following question of course: Is this the "endgame" for Julian Assange as far as extradition is concerned? If the Ecuadorians fail to grant Assange politicial asylum, which is a possibility, will he be arrested by Metropolitan Police, and sent to Sweden to stand trial for two alledged counts of "rape"? Will Sweden then hand Assange over to the United States, where many well known and quite senior politicians have publily stated that they think "Assange should be punished severely" for publishing confidential U.S. diplomatic cables on Wikileaks?
Space

Submission + - Two space missions planned to look for killer asteroids

Submitted by
The Bad Astronomer
The Bad Astronomer writes: "Today, the B612 Foundation announced it's seeking private funds to build Sentinel, a space mission to find Earth-threatening asteroids. Placed in a Venus-like orbit, it should find a large fraction of these potentially hazardous rocks.

At the same time, the NEOCam (Near Earth Object camera) website went live today. This is a separate, publicly-funded space mission also designed to look for these asteroids. While Sentinel will concentrate on finding them and getting accurate positions and orbits, NEOCam will focus more on getting their physical characteristics. While not strictly competing with each other, they are more complementary; with both missions flying (in the 2017 time range) we will learn a huge amount about the asteroid threat from space."
Linux

Submission + - High Performance ARM Wordpress Server (wordpress.com)

Submitted by turb
turb writes: Ever wonder what it would take to setup a cheap ARM board to run a reasonably good performing wordpress server? I've wondered the same and have created a 2 part blog entry on using a Linaro based server image with step by step instructions on how to set it up. The blog posts can be found here : http://fullshovel.wordpress.com/2012/06/26/nginx-wordpress-arm-server-part-1/ and here : http://fullshovel.wordpress.com/2012/06/27/nginx-wordpress-arm-server-part-2/
Science

Submission + - Follow RosettaCon 2012 in real time

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Rosetta, the macromolecular modeling/design engine behind FoldIt (http://fold.it) and Rosetta@Home (http://boinc.bakerlab.org) is having its 10th Anniversary meeting this year, from July 29th to August 1st. At RosettaCon, over twenty research labs come together to talk science, present up-and-coming results, and discuss where to go in the future. This year we have a Twitter account (@rosettacon) and hashtag (#rcon), and attendees will be live-tweeting about talks, discussions, and the hot tub. We also have a Facebook group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/315666115140161/). Only physical attendees can post to the Facebook group, but anyone can read it. Check it out July 29th to August 1st, and feel free to tweet questions/comments as the Con progresses.
Space

Submission + - There's an Ocean Inside Titan (discovery.com)

Submitted by
astroengine
astroengine writes: "Saturn’s large moon Titan, already Earth-like with its thick atmosphere and rich organic stew, also harbors a liquid water ocean beneath its crust, new findings from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft show. Gravity maps painstakingly pieced together from data collected over five years revealed Titan’s shape changes by about 10 meters (about 33 feet) due to Saturn's gravitational tugs, a squishiness that is best explained by a liquid body of water relatively close to the surface."

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