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News

Submission + - Demand for water outstrips supply (nature.com)

Submitted by ananyo
ananyo writes: Almost one-quarter of the world’s population lives in regions where groundwater is being used up faster than it can be replenished, concludes a comprehensive global analysis of groundwater depletion (abstract).
Across the world, human civilizations depend largely on tapping vast reservoirs of water that have been stored for up to thousands of years in sand, clay and rock deep underground. These massive aquifers — which in some cases stretch across multiple states and country borders — provide water for drinking and crop irrigation, as well as to support ecosystems such as forests and fisheries.

Yet in most of the world’s major agricultural regions, including the Central Valley in California, the Nile delta region of Egypt, and the Upper Ganges in India and Pakistan, demand exceeds these reservoirs' capacity for renewal.
Patents

Submission + - Innovator or troll, Intellectual Ventures remains a mystery (patexia.com)

Submitted by
ericjones12398
ericjones12398 writes: "Intellectual Ventures paints itself a champion of innovation and a liberator of inventors. More and more detractors consider the patent private equity firm steered by polymath Nathan Myhrvold a giant patent troll. Not long ago, Intellectual Ventures was being viewed as something different, something curious and in between, an oasis where inventors get paid and inventions are equity. A magical place where labs, lawyers and licenses form a collective and share in the riches of something called invention capital. But with the patent wars reaching a fever pitch, and patent reform debates raging harder, Myhrvold’s vision of a new asset class for intellectual property is starting to fade behind Texas and Delaware courthouses filled with specious claims of infringement."
Chrome

Submission + - Microsoft Picks Another Web Standards Fight (i-programmer.info)

Submitted by mikejuk
mikejuk writes: WebRTC is a way to allow browsers to get in touch with one another using audio or video data without the help of a server. Google has been something of a pioneer in this area and submitted a suggested technology for the standard and Mozilla has gone along with it, making it all look good. Microsoft, on the other hand, just seemed to be standing on the sidelines watching what was happening.
However, Microsoft has a product that needs something like WebRTC, namely Skype. It has been working on a web-based version of Skype and this has focused the collective mind on the problems of browse-to-browser communication. It now agrees that a standard is needed, just not the one Google and Mozilla are behind.
Microsoft has submitted its own proposals for CU-RTC or Customizable, Ubiquitous Real Time Communication over the Web, to the W3C.
It may well be that Microsoft's alternative has features that make is superior, but a single standard is preferable to a better non-standard. Given Microsoft's need to make Skype work in the browser, it seems likely that, should its proposal not be accepted as the standard, it will press on regardless, so splitting the development environment. Both Google and Mozilla have already put a lot of work into WebRTC and there are partial implementations in Firefox, Chrome and Opera.
This is potentially not a good development.
Mars

Submission + - Lego Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover with Building Instructions (rebrickable.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Following the success of the MSL landing, the Lego world have created their own (much cheaper!) version. Rebrickable has a Lego Mars Curiosity Rover which shows the full parts list and very well done PDF building instructions, created by Stephen Pakbaz who was an engineer that worked on the rover at JPL. You can also key in the Lego sets you already own and see how many of the required parts you are missing, who knows maybe you already have a Curiosity Rover sitting in your old pile of Lego.

Submission + - Digia to acquire Qt from Nokia (digia.com)

Submitted by sandels
sandels writes: Helsinki, Finland and Santa Clara, US — August 9th 2012, Digia, the software powerhouse listed on the NASDAQ OMX Helsinki exchange (DIG1V), today announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire Qt software technologies and Qt business from Nokia. Following the acquisition Digia becomes responsible for all the Qt activities formerly carried out by Nokia. These include product development, as well as the commercial and open source licensing and service business. Following the acquisition, Digia plans to quickly enable Qt on Android, iOS and Windows 8 platforms.
The Military

Submission + - U.S., Gulf Allies try to build missile defense against Iran (nytimes.com)

Submitted by wisebabo
wisebabo writes: Sheesh what an engineering nightmare! To put all this together without a starting "blueprint" (unlike the Europeans) must be a real pain. Fortunately, if there's one thing those guys have it's money (and we have quite the arms bazaar they can spend it on).

Too bad Israel won't be a part of this missile shield. They could really use the information collected by the radars and sensors in these countries as the missiles fly by.

Very gradually, Ronald Reagan's dream of a "Star Wars" missile shield seems to be taking place. Of course it is only good against very primitive attackers who will likely only be able to launch by ones or twos and has required the consistent funding of billions of dollars a year for decades but hey, it's a start. Maybe if the Russians (and Chinese?) promise not to upgrade their systems, we'll be there in another 30 years.
Linux Business

Submission + - Digia to acquire Qt from Nokia 1

Submitted by
MrvFD
MrvFD writes: "Ever since the most recent layoffs were announced by Nokia last month and the end of Qt related programs at Nokia was rumored, the fate of Qt has been in the air despite it nowadays having a working open governance model. Fear no longer, Qt brand, since Digia has now announced acquiring of Qt organization from Nokia. While relatively unknown company to the masses, it has already been selling the non-free (non-LGPL) licenses of Qt for 1.5 years. Hopefully this'll mean a bright future for Qt in co-operation with other Qt wielding companies like Google, RIM, Canonical, Intel, Skyp... Microsoft, Jolla and the thousands of Qt open source and commercial license users. Digia now plans to quickly enable Qt on Android, iOS and Windows 8 platforms, where work has already been underway for some time."

Submission + - Digia to acquire Qt from Nokia (digia.com)

Submitted by
jppiiroinen
jppiiroinen writes: ""Digia, the software powerhouse listed on the NASDAQ OMX Helsinki exchange (DIG1V), today announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire Qt software technologies and Qt business from Nokia. Following the acquisition Digia becomes responsible for all the Qt activities formerly carried out by Nokia. These include product development, as well as the commercial and open source licensing and service business. Following the acquisition, Digia plans to quickly enable Qt on Android, iOS and Windows 8 platforms.""
Businesses

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: How to run a (small) business with Open Source Software? 3

Submitted by ahree
ahree writes: I'm starting up a restaurant with my wife and a few friends and, well, I'd like to support the OS community and hope that this is a way to do it. Simply put, we need to take care of bookkeeping, accounting & payroll and I'd rather not use QuickBooks. I've heard of some options that are open source (GnuCash), some that are cheaper & simpler (WaveAccounting), but I'm wondering what your experience with them (and others) has been like.

Submission + - Baskerville is the greatest font, statistically, says filmmaker Errol Morris (nytimes.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A survey of unsuspecting New York Times readers implicitly answered the question: Does a certain font make you agree or disagree more often than another font? It turns out Baskerville confers a 1.5% advantage towards agreement on a survey question, compared to an average of six fonts. They responded to a passage from asked to agree or disagree to a passage from physicist David Deutsch's book "The Beginning of Infinity," and were found to have an optimistic, if Baskerville-favoring, outlook on life. David Dunning, a psychologist awarded a Nobel prize and, separately, an IgNobel prize (for the eponymous Dunning-Kruger Effect), called Baskerville "the king of fonts." Sadly, Comic Sans--notable for its appearance in the Higgs Boson announcement--seems to be the weakest font. And why did Lisa Randall, the Harvard physicist responsible for that Higgs announcement use Comic Sans? According to the article, 'Because I like it.'
Hardware

Submission + - $50 sound cards impress versus integrated audio (techreport.com)

Submitted by
crookedvulture
crookedvulture writes: "Most PCs have audio integrated right on the motherboard. There's much to be gained from upgrading to a discrete sound card, though. This look at a couple of sub-$50 sound cards from Asus explores what can be found at the budget end of the spectrum. In blind listening tests, both cards produced better sound than an integrated solution. They also offered superior signal quality, but neither had an impact on gaming performance. The days of hardware-accelerated game audio seem to be behind us, with developers handling positional audio processing in software."
NASA

Submission + - 3D Printer Can Make You A House In 20 Hours (gizmodo.com.au) 1

Submitted by lukehopewell1
lukehopewell1 writes: 3D printer tech has evolved rapidly over the last decade. We've seen everything from phone cases to weapons, but now a Professor at the University of South Carolina has built a concept printer that can build you a house that's three times stronger and half the price of your current house.

It's called Contour Crafting and the best part is that it can build you a 2500sq. ft. house in 20 hours.

The technology is so impressive, in fact, that NASA has partnered with the professor to develop the technology into something the space agency can use to build roads, radiation shields and buildings on the Moon.
Microsoft

Submission + - Xbox Kinect Body Scanner Finds Jeans That Fit (itworld.com)

Submitted by
itwbennett
itwbennett writes: "For those of you who can't count on a friend to tell you that a little more air should come between you and your Calvins, a Bloomingdales store in Palo Alto has just the solution: An Xbox Kinect-based body scanner that will help you find your best fit. While body measuring systems aren't new, using the Xbox Kinect is a much more affordable solution. Which means that soon we'll all have the opportunity for a computer to tell us that we should 'avoid wearing low to mid rise jeans.'"
Your Rights Online

Submission + - Legitimate ebook lending community closed after copyright complaints (digitalmediamachine.com) 5

Submitted by
Ian Lamont
Ian Lamont writes: "LendInk, a community for people interesting in using the lending features of the Kindle and Nook, has been shut down after some authors mistakenly thought the site was hosting pirated ebooks. The site brought together people who wanted to loan or borrow specific titles that are eligible for lending, and then sent them to Amazon or BarnesAndNoble.com to make the loans. Authors and publishers who were unaware of this feature of the Kindle and Nook, and/or mistakenly assumed the site was handing out pirated copies, were infuriated. LendInk's hosting company received hundreds of complaints and shut the site down. LendInk's owner says, "The hosting company has offered to reinstate Lendink.com on the condition that I personally respond to all of the complaints individually. I have to say, I really do not know if it is worth the effort at this point. I have read the comments many of these people have posted and I don't think any form of communication will resolve the issues in their eyes. Most are only interested in getting money from me and others are only in in for the kill. They have no intentions of talking to me or working this out. So much for trying to start a business and live the American Dream.""
Advertising

Submission + - Apple Products Shown in 30% of Top Movies, for Free

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Eriq Gardner writes that Apple has long insisted that it doesn't pay for product placement in movies and television, but evidence from the Samsung trial shows that Hollywood has been a huge part of the company's marketing strategy over the years. In fact, Apple has been getting hundreds of millions of dollars of possibly free publicity over the years. "According to a survey by Brandchannel this year, Apple-branded products have appeared in more than a third of all films topping the box office from 2001 through 2011 (and 17 of the 40 top films last year)," writes Gardner. "That's more than McDonald's, Pepsi and the Sony Vaio combined for the past decade." For example, in "Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol," Apple got more than five minutes onscreen worth more than $23 million and most amazingly, according to Brandchannel, is that Apple says it didn't pay a penny for product placement. Apple's continued dominance is even more surprising considering how other computer makers have moved in recent years to push it out. According to Brandchannel, Samsung had an official sponsorship deal with Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, but that didn't stop iPhones and Macs from stealing scenes in what some call the longest Apple commercial you'll ever see. "There are several scenes where 3-4 Apple products including iPhones and iPads are being handled and shown," writes dangerdave. "Apparently you can’t be a super, secret IMF agent without an iPhone.""
The Military

Submission + - America is Finally Cleaning Up Agent Orange in Vietnam 1

Submitted by derekmead
derekmead writes: It only took 40 years. And yes, Washington still disputes Hanoi’s claim that up to 4 million Vietnamese suffered contact with the defoliant, which was dumped en masse in a U.S. air campaign to scorch away the dense jungle cover under which guerilla fighters hid. But the AP reports that the U.S. is finally set to start cleaning up the mess.

Not to give short shrift to the unconscionable, U.S.-led carpet bombing of Cambodia in 1970, of course. But to really size up the horrific, lingering sting of the Vietnam conflict you have to consider the equally long-lasting and nightmarish fallout from America’s wanton fire-hosing of Agent Orange. The numbers are staggering: Between 1962 and 1971, the U.S. military sprayed some 20 million gallons of Agent Orange and a galaxy of other herbicides on nearly a quarter of former South Vietnam. The defoliant ate through about 5 millions acres – a tract comparable in size to Massachusetts – of forest. An additional half-million acres of crops were decimated.
Government

Submission + - FinFisher 'Government Spyware' Found in Ten Countries (securityweek.com)

Submitted by wiredmikey
wiredmikey writes: There are signs that the FinFisher "lawful interception" spyware may be installed on command-and-control computers in at least ten different countries, including the United States, according new research.

FinFisher secretly monitors computers by turning on webcams, recording everything the user types with a keylogger, and intercepting Skype calls. It can also remotely take control of a computer. Gamma International Gmbh, a British company, sells the tool to law enforcement agencies and governments. As Slashdot reported, the first known analysis of FinFisher came from CitizenLabs.org in July.

Rapid7 researchers analyzed samples and then looked for those attributes in a global scan of computers on the Internet, and found matches in Australia, Czech Republic, United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, Estonia, Indonesia, Latvia, Mongolia, Qatar, and the United States.

The matches simply indicate that these computers exhibit the "unique behavior associated with what is believed to be the FinFisher infrastructure," Claudio Guarnieri wrote in a blog post.

It's not known whether the US-based server identified by Guarnieri is associated with law enforcement or the federal government, or whether a private entity has gotten their hands on the tool.
Government

Submission + - FCC Asked To Reassess Cell Phone Radiation Guidelines (cnet.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A government report released on Tuesday says the Federal Communications Commission needs to update its guidelines for limiting cell phone radio-frequency exposure limits. The limit was set in 1996 to an exposure rate of 1.6 watts per kilogram, and has not been updated since. The report does not advocate in favor of any particular research, and actually points out that the limit could possibly be raised, but says the FCC has not kept up with research on the subject one way or the other. An executive for The Wireless Association said, 'The FCC has been vigilant in its oversight in this area and has set safety standards to make sure that radio frequency fields from wireless phones remain at what it has determined are safe levels. The FCC's safety standards include a 50-fold safety factor and, as the FCC has noted, are the most conservative in the world.'
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft Helps NYC Deploy Big-Brother Monitoring System (msn.com)

Submitted by
Mephistophocles
Mephistophocles writes: "Microsoft has teamed up with the City of New York to implement a draconian crime monitoring system. Interestingly, the NYC will be keeping 30% of Microsoft's licensing revenue due to their level of involvement in designing the system's architecture:

Microsoft executed the system, but it was the NYPD that had to design it, choosing what data needed to be surfaced and when, and how it could best be presented to officers. As such, it is a true joint effort, and New York will be taking 30 percent of the revenues Microsoft gets from licensing the technology. Other cities will surely want to utilize this powerful system, so it's possible that, as Mayor Bloomberg put it, both parties will "we think we can recoup all our expenses over a period of time, and maybe even make a few bucks"

Is it just me, or does something about a city gaining direct monetary gain from designing a system to spy on its citizens seem a little unsettling?"
SuSE

Submission + - SUSE Slowly Shows UEFI Secure Boot Plan (itworld.com)

Submitted by
itwbennett
itwbennett writes: "One blog post at a time, SUSE is revealing its plan for getting SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) to boot on machines with UEFI Secure Boot. The short version: 'For now, it seems, SLES will implement an approach similar to that used by Fedora,' writes Brian Proffit. 'For whatever reason, SUSE seems to be taking a Saturday-morning-serial approach to their big reveal, taking their own sweet time to explain why they are choosing the path they are planning to implement,' writes Proffitt. '[Director of the SUSE Linux Enterprise Olaf] Kirch's first blog entry on Tuesday merely introduced the problem of UEFI Secure Boot. Today's blog only specified the use of the shim bootloader.' Just dying to know what's next? Tune in to the SUSE blog."

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