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Government

Submission + - UK Takes Huge Step Forward on Open Standards (fsfe.org)

Submitted by
jrepin
jrepin writes: "The UK government is certainly taking a long and winding road towards Free Software and Open Standards. The UK’s public sector doesn’t use a lot of Free Software, and many smaller Free Software companies have found it comparatively hard to get public sector buyers for their products and services. The main reason is that government agencies at all levels are locked into proprietary, vendor-specific file formats.

The UK government has released a new Open Standards policy. With this policy, and in particular with its strong definition of Open Standards, the UK government sets an example that governments elsewhere should aspire to",says Karsten Gerloff, President of the Free Software Foundation Europe. Under the new policy, effective immediately, patents that are essential to implementing a standard must be licensed without royalties or restrictions that would prevent their implementation in Free Software."
Science

Submission + - Crushed Silicon Triples Life of Li-Ion Batteries in the Lab (vice.com)

Submitted by derekmead
derekmead writes: Batteries rule everything around us, which makes breakthroughs a big deal. A research team at Rice says they have produced a nice jump: By using a crushed silicon anode in a lithium-ion battery, they claim to have nearly tripled the energy density of current li-ion designs.

Engineer Sibani Lisa Biswal and research scientist Madhuri Thakur reported in Nature’s Scientific Reports (it has yet to be published online) that by taking porous silicon and crushing it, they were able to dramatically decrease the volume required for anode material. Silicon has long been looked at as an anode material because it holds up to ten times more lithium ions than graphite, which is most commonly used commercially.

But it’s previously been difficult to create a silicon anode with enough surface area to cycle reliably. Silicon also expands when it’s lithiated, making it harder to produce a dense anode material. After previously testing a porous silicon “sponge,” the duo decided to try crushing the sponges to make them more compact. The result is a new battery design that holds a charge of 1,000 milliamp hours per gram through 600 tested charge cycles of two hours charging, two hours discharging. According to the team, current graphite anodes can only handle 350 mAh/g.
Iphone

Submission + - Tinkerer Invents iPhone Interface for Ham Radios (theepochtimes.com)

Submitted by jjp9999
jjp9999 writes: By using the same technology found in older modems, Thomas Tumino, vice president of the Hall of Science Amateur Radio Club, has invented an iPhone interface for ham radios. He told The Epoch Times, 'Today there are iPhone apps where you can use the systems in the phone—and its sound card, which is being used as a modem ... And then you connect that into your radio with an interface like this, that just isolates the telephone from the radio, and then you can do all sorts of things.'
Cloud

Submission + - US Government Says You Don't Own Your Cloud Data so We Can Access It At Any Time (eff.org) 2

Submitted by jest3r
jest3r writes: Yesterday the EFF filed a brief proposing a process for the Court in the Megaupload case to hold the government accountable for the actions it took (and failed to take) when it shut down Megaupload's service and denied third parties access to their property. Many businesses used Megaupload's cloud service to store and share files not related to piracy. The government is calling for a long, drawn-out process that would require individuals or small companies to travel to courts far away and engage in multiple hearings just to get their own property back. The government's argument that you lose all your property rights by storing your data on the cloud could apply to Amazon's S3 or Google Apps or or Apple iCloud services as well.
Censorship

Submission + - Nonpartisan Tax Report Removed After Republican Protest (nytimes.com) 1

Submitted by eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: On September 14th a PDF report titled "Taxes and the Economy: An Economic Analysis of the Top Tax Rates Since 1945" penned by the Library of Congress' nonpartisan Congressional Research Service was released to little fanfare. However the following conclusion of the report has since roiled the GOP enough to have the report removed from the Library of Congress: 'The results of the analysis suggest that changes over the past 65 years in the top marginal tax rate and the top capital gains tax rate do not appear correlated with economic growth. The reduction in the top tax rates appears to be uncorrelated with saving, investment, and productivity growth. The top tax rates appear to have little or no relation to the size of the economic pie. However, the top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution. As measured by IRS data, the share of income accruing to the top 0.1% of U.S. families increased from 4.2% in 1945 to 12.3% by 2007 before falling to 9.2% due to the 2007-2009 recession. At the same time, the average tax rate paid by the top 0.1% fell from over 50% in 1945 to about 25% in 2009. Tax policy could have a relation to how the economic pie is sliced—lower top tax rates may be associated with greater income disparities.' From the New York Times article: 'The pressure applied to the research service comes amid a broader Republican effort to raise questions about research and statistics that were once trusted as nonpartisan and apolitical.' It appears to no longer be found on the Library of Congress' website.

Submission + - WW2 carrier pigeon and undecoded message found in chimney (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by
BigBadBus
BigBadBus writes: "The BBC is reporting that the remains of a World War 2 carrier pigeon were found during renovation of a chimney in England. What is interesting is that the pigeon's remains still had its message attached to the leg ring; even more interesting, this is the first recorded instance of a code being used rather than plain text. The successor to WW2 code-breaking HQ Bletchley Park, the GCHQ, is trying to decipher this unique code. Maybe a slashdot reader can beat them to it?"
Hardware

Submission + - Past and Future: The Evolution of the Computer Keyboard (computerworld.com)

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: As anyone who's typed on a virtual keyboard — or yelled at a voice-control app like Siri — can attest, no current text input holds a candle to a traditional computer keyboard. From the reed switch keyboards of the early '70s to the buckling spring key mechanism that drove IBM's popular PC keyboards for years to ThinTouch technology that will have about half the travel of a MacBook Air's keys, the technology that drove data entry for decades isn't likely to go anyone anytime soon. Computerworld takes a look back on five decades of keyboard development and where it's likely to go in the future.
Power

Submission + - Solar Panel Breaks "Third of a Sun" Efficiency Barrier (gizmag.com)

Submitted by Zothecula
Zothecula writes: Embattled photovoltaic solar power manufacturer Amonix announced on Tuesday that it has broken the solar module efficiency record, becoming the first manufacturer to convert more than a third of incoming light energy into electricity – a goal once branded "one third of a sun" in a Department of Energy initiative. The Amonix module clocked an efficiency rating of 33.5 percent.
Patents

Submission + - Richard Stallman: Limit the Effect of Software Patents (wired.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: We can't get rid of software patents, says Richard Stallman, but we could change how they apply to creating and using software and hardware. In an editorial at Wired, he advocates for a legislative solution to the patent wars that would protect both developers and users. Quoting: "We should legislate that developing, distributing, or running a program on generally used computing hardware does not constitute patent infringement. This approach has several advantages: —It doesn’t require classifying patents or patent applications as "software" or "not software." —It provides developers and users with protection from both existing and potential future computational idea patents. —Patent lawyers can’t defeat the intended effect by writing applications differently.'
Piracy

Submission + - $1.5m fine for sharing 10 movies on BitTorrent (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by another random user
another random user writes: A federal court in Illinois awarded the damages of $150,000 per movie to Flava Works — the creator of the pornographic films.

The figure is believed to the biggest awarded in a file-sharing case.

The award is thought to be so large because the accused, Kywan Fisher, did not defend himself against claims that he pirated the movies.

In court, Flava Works presented evidence which it said demonstrated that Mr Fisher was the person who put copies of its films on a BitTorrent site.

In its evidence, Flava revealed that it had embedded unique codes in the copies of its films that customers pay to view. Digital detective work connected the code in the pirated films back to Mr Fisher, who had earlier signed up as a customer of Flava and paid to view the movies.
Android

Submission + - More Than 25% Of Android Apps Know Too Much About You (darkreading.com) 1

Submitted by
CowboyRobot
CowboyRobot writes: "A pair of reports by Juniper and Bit9 confirm the suspicion that many apps are spying on users. "26 percent of Android apps in Google Play can access personal data, such as contacts and email, and 42 percent, GPS location data... 31 percent of the apps access phone calls or phone numbers, and 9 percent employ permissions that could cost the user money, such as incurring premium SMS text message charges... nearly 7 percent of free apps can access address books, 2.6 percent, can send text messages without the user knowing, 6.4 percent can make calls, and 5.5 percent have access to the device's camera." The main issue seems to be with poor development practices. Only in a minority of cases is there malicious intent. The Juniper report
and the Bit9 report"
SuSE

Submission + - openSUSE ARM final less than a week away; RC2 available now (opensuse.org)

Submitted by
Andy Prough
Andy Prough writes: "Jos Poortvliet of the openSUSE team has announced that openSUSE ARM RC2 is available for download and needs testing. The final version is due out on November 6th, and support has been expanded to include the following SoCs: Calxeda Highbank, CuBox, IMX 53, and Samsung Origen. Although Raspberry Pi is not yet supported, the openSUSE team plans to roll out support in the future. User Etam has posted a picture of it working without trouble in chroot on an N900, although Firefox is working "terribly slow" but not crashing."
Communications

Submission + - "Beaming" technology allows for remote human/rat communications (gizmag.com)

Submitted by cylonlover
cylonlover writes: The EU Commission’s Community Research and Development Information Service (CORDIS) is working on a “beaming” telepresence system that is designed to allow users to virtually experience being in a remote location by seeing, hearing and even feeling that location through the sensory inputs of a robot located there. That robot, in turn, would relay the user’s speech and movements to the people at that location. Now, two of the CORDIS partners have put an interesting slant on the technology – they’ve used it to let people interact with rats.
Censorship

Submission + - Man faces 3 years prison for tweeting a new headline. (thehindu.com)

Submitted by Vijaysj
Vijaysj writes: Mr Srinivasan an activist fighting graft and crony capitalism was arrested from his home in a pre-dawn swoop (5:00 am) for tweeting from his Twitter account @ravi_the_indian : “got reports that karthick chidambaram has amassed more wealth than vadra.”. Kartick and Vadara are relatives of two powerful politicians in India.
Mr Chidambaram justified his complaint and action against Mr Srinivas in a post to his twitter account @KartiPC. “Free speech is subject to reasonable restrictions. I have a right to seek constitutional/legal remedies over defamatory/scurrilous tweets,”

Srinivasan now faces a Jail term of 3 years under India's anti-hacking laws.
Streisand effect has resulted in Srinivasan's followers increasing overnight from his orignal 16 friends and relatives to over a thousand.

Right to information campaigners has setup a page for all those who want to tweet their mind to my Chidambaram at http://getup4change.org/rti/support-free-speech/
Microsoft

Submission + - ARM, Microsoft collaborating on 64-bit Windows version (techworld.com.au)

Submitted by
angry tapir
angry tapir writes: "ARM is working with Microsoft to tune the Windows OS to work on processors based on ARM's 64-bit architecture. Ian Forsyth, program manager at ARM, could not comment on a specific release date for the 64-bit version of Windows for ARM processors, but said ARM is continuously working with software partners to add 64-bit support."
Security

Submission + - PayPal security holes expose customer card data, personal details (scmagazine.com.au)

Submitted by mask.of.sanity
mask.of.sanity writes: Dangerous website flaws have been discovered in PayPal that grant attackers access to customer credit card data, account balances and purchase histories.

The holes still exist. One was publicly disclosed after a failed effort in July to responsibly disclose them under PayPal's bug bounty program.

PayPal is working to close the holes.

Submission + - FTC staff recommends suing Google via antitrust law over FRAND patent abuse (appleinsider.com)

Submitted by DJRumpy
DJRumpy writes: "The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has made a formal recommendation to its commissioners to sue Google for violation of antitrust laws after the search giant attempted to block the sale of competitors' products using standards essential patents.

According to a report by Bloomberg, the recommendation to sue Google must still be approved by a majority of the agency's five commissioners. The report noted, however, that the majority are already "inclined to sue," but aren't likely to act until after the U.S. presidential election next week.

In July, the FTC began a civil investigation into Google's efforts to block competitors over standards patents already committed to so called "Fair, Reasonable and Nondiscriminatory" licensing. "
Mars

Submission + - Curiosity Snaps 'Arm's Length' Self Portrait (discovery.com)

Submitted by
astroengine
astroengine writes: "Using its robotic arm-mounted MAHLI camera, NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has snapped, quite possibly, the most iconic image to come from the mission so far. By stitching together 55 high-resolution photos, the rover has snapped an "arm's length" self portrait, capturing its location in the geologically interesting area known as "Rocknest", including its recent scoop marks in the Martian soil and the base of Mt. Sharp."

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