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Hardware

Submission + - X-ray generator fits in the palm of your hand (nature.com)

Submitted by ananyo
ananyo writes: Scientists have reported the first tabletop source of ultra-short, laser-like pulses of low energy, or ‘soft’, X-rays. The light, capable of probing the structure and dynamics of molecules (abstract), was previously available only at large, billion-dollar national facilities such as synchrotrons or free-electron lasers, where competition for use of the equipment is fierce. The new device, by husband-and-wife team Murnane and Henry Kapteyn based at JILA in Boulder, Colorado, might soon lie within the grasp of a university laboratory budget — perhaps allowing them to one day be as common in labs as electron microscopes are.

Submission + - Of the Special Interests, by the Special Interests, for the Special Interests (youtube.com) 1

Submitted by roman_mir
roman_mir writes: It is often that stories appear on /. about the various machinations of various government agencies and special interests that revolve around them to buy them, we are always on the receiving end of these collusions, be it ACTA, CISPA, the Patriot Act, NDAA, anything really.

If you ever wondered what it may look like when a non-special interest person makes it to one of the Congressional hearings in order to present the other side of the story, in order to give perspective of the tax payers, of a general member of public,
then here is an example of what it looks like.

Peter Schiff was invited to this Congressional hearing (this is his second, his first one was a last year). He went to the hearing as a private individual, a person who has predicted the stock market crash of the late nineties, the housing bubble crash of 2008 and now is explaining why the USA is on a path towards the biggest bubble crash — US dollar and bond crash, and the predictions are made simply by observing the fact that the government always ends up catering to the special interests, including political interests, which can never take the real corrective approach to the economy, which would require ditching the policy of controlling the interest rates on money, counterfeiting money (credit) by the Federal reserve, regulating the industries in a way that helps special interests in the first place.

In the room with him in this Congressional hearing were some of the people, to whom he gave speeches in 2005 and 2006 about the coming housing bubble collapse — representatives of the mortgage bankers association.

You will notice that during the Congressional hearing, these special interests are treated as if they are impartial witnesses, while Schiff is mostly disregarded, of-course he does not represent a special interest in that room except that of a tax payer, so it is obvious he has no government solution to offer to the Congress.

Regardless of your point of view on the matter of FHA, it is an interesting review of what it looks like when special interests and the government get together and decide how to spend your tax money.
Microsoft

Submission + - Raunchy Dance Routine a PR Nightmare for Microsoft 1

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: GeekWire reports on the techno-dance routine that preceded Microsoft’s Windows Azure presentation at the Norwegian Developers Conference this week, which featured a group of women jumping around on stage to a song that included several drug references and the line: 'The words MICRO and SOFT don’t apply to my penis.' In a strange effort to be inclusive, a monitor displaying the lyrics added, 'or vagina.' The official Windows Azure YouTube channel has posted an apology for 'a skit that involved inappropriate and offensive elements and vulgar language,' and said it's actively looking into the matter. Hey, could've been worse — at least @ASUS wasn't live-tweeting the event!

Submission + - JEDEC fiddles with DDR4 while LRDIMM burns (wordpress.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: JEDEC hasn't finalized the upcoming DDR4 standard yet, but it seems they left out licensing some crucial IP for (the already finalized and shipping) LRDIMMs (for use on data center servers). As a result they are only produced by one source which is facing some hurdles justifying their copying of IP. Check out the article to understand how DDR4 is based on LRDIMMs and the future of memory.
Microsoft

Submission + - Why Visual Basic 6 Still Thrives

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Microsoft recently extended 'It Just Works' compatibility for Visual Basic 6 applications through the full lifetime of Windows 8, so VB6 apps will have at least 24 years of supported lifetime (VB6 shipped in '98). So why has VB6, "the un-killable cockroach" in the Windows ecosystem, managed to thrive? 'Cockroaches are successful because they're simple,' explains David S. Platt. 'They do what they need to do for their ecological niche and no more. Visual Basic 6 did what its creators intended for its market niche: enable very rapid development of limited programs by programmers of lesser experience.' But when Microsoft proudly trotted out VB.NET, the 'full-fledged language' designed to turn VB6 'bus drivers' into 'fighter pilots', they got a surprise. 'Almost all Visual Basic 6 programmers were content with what Visual Basic 6 did,' explains Platt. 'They were happy to be bus drivers: to leave the office at 5 p.m. (or 4:30 p.m. on a really nice day) instead of working until midnight; to play with their families on weekends instead of trudging back to the office; to sleep with their spouses instead of pulling another coding all-nighter and eating cold pizza for breakfast. They didn’t lament the lack of operator overloading or polymorphism in Visual Basic 6, so they didn’t say much.'

Submission + - Subject to a "stop and frisk"? There's an app for that. (msn.com)

Submitted by lightbox32
lightbox32 writes: The New York Civil Liberties Union released a free smartphone application on Wednesday that allows people to record videos of and report police “stop and frisk” activity, a practice widely denounced by civil rights groups as mostly targeting minorities and almost never resulting in arrests.
The app was thoroughly criticized by the New York Police Department, which said that the tool might prove useful for criminals.
Google

Submission + - Google Earth to go FULLY 3D with Automated Image-Based Modeling Algorithms (youtube.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Google Earth has featured (some) textured 3D buildings and 3D terrain since 2006. New image-based modeling algorithms that process 45-degree Aerial Images automatically, however, will allow Google Earth to display entire 3D Cities with fully texture-mapped, accurately modeled 3 dimensional buildings, roads, trees and landscaping/terrain. This Youtube video released by Google shows how effective the technique is at capturing urban areas in 3D. The resulting 3D cities look almost like a high-altitude view of a fully modeled 3D city in games like Grand Theft Auto. If Google shares its new 3D cities data with outsiders, we could see games like Flight Simulator featuring cities where every single building, road, bridge, tree and hill that exists in the real world is represented in glorious and accurate 3D in the virtual world of the game.
The Internet

Submission + - Why Young Males Are No Longer the Most Important Tech Demographic (theatlantic.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Atlantic has an article discussing how 18- to 35-year-old males are losing their place as the most important demographic for tech adoption. 'Let me break out the categories where women are leading tech adoption: internet usage, mobile phone voice usage, mobile phone location-based services, text messaging, Skype, every social networking site aside from LinkedIn, all Internet-enabled devices, e-readers, health-care devices, and GPS. Also, because women still are the primary caretakers of children in many places, guess who controls which gadgets the young male and female members of the family get to purchase or even use?' The article points out that most of the tech industry hasn't figured this out yet — perhaps in part to a dearth of women running these companies.
Cloud

Submission + - Social Networks, Cloud, Mobility Flooding Businesses with Data: Report (slashdot.org)

Submitted by
Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster writes: "Mobility and the cloud have changed how employees work—and where they work, in the case of those who use smartphones and other devices to log into work systems from home or while on the road. But could mobility and the cloud, along with IT administrators’ increasing acceptance of technologies built for consumers as workplace tools, also complicate businesses’ ability to handle Big Data?"
Android

Submission + - Apple iOS Passing Android in App Starts: Flurry (slashdot.org)

Submitted by
Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster writes: "Apple and Google currently battle for the attention of developers everywhere, and with good reason: the two rivals’ respective platforms command the bulk of the mobility (i.e., smartphones and tablets) market. According to analytics-and-advertising firm Flurry, which monitors when developers begin work on mobile software via its Flurry Analytics platforms, Apple’s iOS is edging out Google Android as the platform of choice among app builders: for the first quarter of 2012, some 69 percent of Flurry new project starts were iOS, versus 31 percent for Android."
Patents

Submission + - Judge Posner to Apple & Motorola, Go Home (scribd.com)

Submitted by reebmmm
reebmmm writes: Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Richard Posner, voluntarily sitting as a district court judge, in the patent infringement dispute between Apple and Motorola has, tentatively, dismissed the case on the eve of trial. In this hilariously short order, Judge Posner states, "I have tentatively decided that the case should be dismissed with prejudice because neither party can establish a right to relief."

Because it is "with prejudice" the parties cannot refile their case. The parties are likely to appeal the order (when it's finalized).
NASA

Submission + - Where Are All The Brown Dwarfs? (discovery.com)

Submitted by
astroengine
astroengine writes: "As NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) discovered more and more cool "failed stars" (a.k.a. brown dwarfs), excitement grew for the possibility that there may be huge numbers of sub-stellar objects cruising interstellar space. Alas, in our volume of the Milky Way at least, this idea may have been a little premature. WISE has now pegged the distances of these brown dwarfs from Earth and found their population to be more sparse than previously believed. Rather than one brown dwarf per star, there seems to be one brown dwarf for every six stars."
Blackberry

Submission + - Which carcass is worth more for Microsoft's vultures, RIM or Nokia? (networkworld.com)

Submitted by colinneagle
colinneagle writes: Nokia and RIM, the two former leaders in the early smartphone market, are now basically at the end stage of their downward spirals. This is an opportunity for Microsoft, which wants to make some inroads in the smartphone market, assuming Microsoft it can play its cards right.

The question is which firm is worth more. Both have their values, especially in the patent areas. In terms of just smartphones, Microsoft would probably gain more from RIM, because it could integrate BlackBerry Enterprise Server into its own server products. Nokia, though, is a much older player and probably has a lot more of a patent portfolio.

The question then becomes which is an easier purchase. Nokia is a 150-year-old storied company. The Finns may not be too keen to let it go to an American firm.

There is the distinct possibility Microsoft acquires both firms and keeps the best of both worlds for hardware. But where does that leave OEM partners like LG, HTC and ZTE?
Communications

Submission + - Apple To Unveil iOS 6 At WWDC 2012 (ibtimes.com)

Submitted by
redletterdave
redletterdave writes: "At next week's WWDC 2012 in San Francisco, Apple is expected to unveil new laptops, desktops, accessories, and software features for its Mac OS X platform. But on Friday afternoon, several pictures surfaced on Twitter showing banners released around Moscone West in San Francisco, showcasing "iOS 6: The world's most advanced mobile operating system.""
Intel

Submission + - Intel to Launch TV Service with Facial Recognition by End of the Year (hothardware.com)

Submitted by
MojoKid
MojoKid writes: "Despite television being a rather tough nut to crack, Intel is apparently hoping that its upcoming set-top box and subscription service will be its golden ticket to delivering more Intel processors to the living room. The service would be a sort of specialized virtual cable subscription that would combine a bundle of channels with on demand content. So what’s Intel’s killer feature that distinguishes it from the vast and powerful competition? Granular ratings that result in targeted ads. Intel is promising technology in a set-top box that can distinguish who is watching, potentially allowing Intel to target advertising. The technology could potentially identify if the viewer is an adult or a child, male or female, and so on, through interactive features and face recognition technology."
Cloud

Submission + - Researcher: Interdependencies could lead to cloud 'meltdowns' (networkworld.com)

Submitted by alphadogg
alphadogg writes: As the use of cloud computing becomes more and more mainstream, serious operational "meltdowns" could arise as end-users and vendors mix, match and bundle services for various means, a researcher argues in a new paper set for discussion next week at the USENIX HotCloud '12 conference in Boston. "As diverse, independently developed cloud services share ever more fluidly and aggressively multiplexed hardware resource pools, unpredictable interactions between load-balancing and other reactive mechanisms could lead to dynamic instabilities or 'meltdowns,'" Yale University researcher and assistant computer science professor Bryan Ford wrote in the paper. Ford compared this scenario to the intertwining, complex relationships and structures that helped contribute to the global financial crisis.
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft Relents On Metro-Only VS Express (infoworld.com)

Submitted by
snydeq
snydeq writes: "After hearing objections from developers, Microsoft will offer a version of its Visual Studio Express 2012 package for desktop application development after all. The company had previously announced that Express 2012 editions, which are free, platform-specific versions of the Visual Studio 2012 IDE, would be limited to Windows 8 Metro-style development as well as development for the Windows Azure cloud platform, Windows Phone, and Web applications. 'We heard from our community that developers want to have for Windows desktop development the same great experience and access to the latest Visual Studio 2012 features at the Express level. ... And it will enable developers working on open source applications to target existing and previous versions of Windows.'"
Firefox

Submission + - Adobe Releases Sandboxed Flash Player for Firefox (threatpost.com)

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: Adobe has released a new version of the Flash player that now gives Firefox users the additional security of a sandbox and also includes a background update mechanism for Mac users. Flash has run in a sandbox on Google Chrome and Internet Explorer for some time already.

The big security news in Flash player 11.3 is the addition of the protected mode sandbox for Firefox on Windows. That's a major change for Adobe, which has been adding sandbox to its main product lines for a couple of years now. Adobe Reader X has run in protected mode--which is what Adobe calls its sandbox--since its release, and the company also added a sandbox to Flash on Google Chrome. The sandbox is designed to prevent attackers from using vulnerabilities in Flash to break out of the application and move to other apps or the OS itself.
Encryption

Submission + - Flame uses a yet unknown MD5 chosen-prefix collision attack (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by SpanglerIsAGod
SpanglerIsAGod writes: We have confirmed that Flame uses a yet unknown MD5 chosen-prefix collision attack," Marc Stevens and B.M.M. de Weger wrote in an e-mail posted to a cryptography discussion group earlier this week. "The collision attack itself is very interesting from a scientific viewpoint, and there are already some practical implications.
Displays

Submission + - Where are all the high-resolution desktop displays? (extremetech.com)

Submitted by
MrSeb
MrSeb writes: "Ever since the release of the iPhone 4 with its 326 pixels-per-inch (PPI) Retina display, people have wondered about the lack of high-PPI desktop displays. The fact is, high-resolution desktop displays do exist, but they're incredibly expensive and usually only used for medical applications. Here, ExtremeTech dives into the world of desktop displays and tries to work out why consumer-oriented desktop displays seem to be stuck at 1920x1080, and whether future technologies like IGZO and OLED might finally spur manufacturers to make reasonably-priced models with a PPI over 100."

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