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Oracle

Oracle: Google Has "Destroyed" the Market For Java 457

Posted by samzenpus from the bad-name dept.
itwbennett writes: Oracle made a request late last month to broaden its case against Android. Now, claiming that 'Android has now irreversibly destroyed Java's fundamental value proposition as a potential mobile device operating system,' Oracle on Wednesday filed a supplemental complaint in San Francisco district court that encompasses the six Android versions that have come out since Oracle originally filed its case back in 2010: Gingerbread, Honeycomb, Ice Cream Sandwich, Jelly Bean, Kit Kat and Lollipop.

Submission + - Hacking Group Linked to Chinese Army Caught Attacking Dummy Water Plant (technologyreview.com) 4

Submitted by holy_calamity
holy_calamity writes: MIT Technology Review reports that APT1, the China-based hacking group said to steal data from U.S. companies, has been caught taking over a decoy water plant control system. The honeypot mimicked the remote access control panels and physical control system of a U.S. municipal water plant. The decoy was one of 12 set up in 8 countries around the world, which together attracted more than 70 attacks, 10 of which completely compromised the control system. China and Russia were the leading sources of the attacks. The researcher behind the study says his results provide the first clear evidence that people actively seek to exploit the many security problems of industrial systems.

Submission + - A Shot of Coffee That Gets You Drunk (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Researchers have found a way to turn used coffee grounds into an alcoholic beverage. They heated the remnants in water at 163C for 45 minutes, separated out the liquid, and added sugar. Next, the team mixed in yeast cells, let the concoction ferment, and concentrated the sample to get a higher alcohol content. And voilà! Used coffee grounds produced a new alcoholic beverage with 40% ethanol, comparable to other hard liquor such as vodka and tequila. Taste testers described the drink as smelling like coffee and tasting bitter and pungent. Researchers noted that the taste could be improved with age and concluded that the quality was good enough for consumption. Don’t count on the caffeine to keep you awake, however; most of it disappears in the brewing process.

Submission + - Android Tablets Outsell iPad For First Time (ibtimes.com)

Submitted by coolnumbr12
coolnumbr12 writes: In the second quarter, more Android tablets shipped worldwide than Apple iPads for the first time. While Apple still sold the most tablets, its domination of the tablet market slipped from 71.2 percent a year ago to 42.7 percent. Apple sold a total of 14.6 million iPad units in Q2 2013. Coming in second was Samsung with 7.3 million tablets, and increase of 294.8 percent from the year-ago quarter. The rest — Amazon, Lenovo and Acer — also each saw drastic increases in sales.
Censorship

Submission + - Thailand jails dissident for what people thought he would have said (nytimes.com) 3

Submitted by
patiwat
patiwat writes: "A Thai court has convicted a man for censoring himself. In a 2010 anti-government rally, Yossawarit Chuklom said that several people were against the dissolution of Abhisit Vejjajiva's government. He mentioned a few names, and then put his hand over his mouth and said he wasn't brave enough to continue. A court ruled that he would have mentioned King Bhumibol Adulyadej — thus earning him a conviction for insulting the King, who is constitutionally banned from any political role."

Comment SLAC (Score 1) 363

by JonChance (#38158772) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Science Sights To See?
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center

"SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory is home to a two-mile linear accelerator—the longest in the world. Originally a particle physics research center, SLAC is now a multipurpose laboratory for astrophysics, photon science, accelerator and particle physics research. Six scientists have been awarded the Nobel Prize for work carried out at SLAC and the future of the laboratory promises to be just as extraordinary."

http://www6.slac.stanford.edu/maps_directions.aspx
Patents

Submission + - MPEG LA says 12 parties have essential WebM patent (h-online.com) 2

Submitted by suraj.sun
suraj.sun writes: MPEG LA says 12 parties have essential WebM patents:

The hopes that the VP8 codec at the heart of Google's open source WebM video standard would remain unchallenged in the patent arena are diminishing after the MPEG LA says 12 parties hold patents that its evaluators consider essential to the codec. The disclosure came in a recent interview with StreamingMedia.com. MPEG LA says that, in response to their call for essential patents in February, a number of parties submitted patents for evaluation and twelve of those parties' patents have been examined and found to be essential to VP8.

The parties involved are as yet unnamed and MPEG LA told patent analyst Florian Mueller that "confidentiality precludes [MPEG LA] from disclosing the identity of the owners". Mueller thinks it is likely that there is an overlap between the twelve companies and the members of the MPEG LA AVC/H.264 patent pool.

H-online: http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/MPEG-LA-says-12-parties-have-essential-WebM-patents-1288232.html

Submission + - House Panel Approves Bill Forcing ISPs Log Users (cnet.com) 2

Submitted by skids
skids writes: Under the guise of fighting child pornography, the House Judiciary Committee approved legislation on Thursday that would require Internet service providers (ISPs) to collect and retain records about Internet users’ activity. The 19 to 10 vote represents a victory for conservative Republicans, who made data retention their first major technology initiative after last fall's elections. A last-minute rewrite of the bill expands the information that commercial Internet providers are required to store to include customers' names, addresses, phone numbers, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and temporarily-assigned IP addresses. Per dissenting Rep. John Conyers (D-MI): 'The bill is mislabeled ... This is not protecting children from Internet pornography. It's creating a database for everybody in this country for a lot of other purposes.'
Apple

Submission + - Google Books on iPad Gone, Others May Follow (appleinsider.com)

Submitted by crackspackle
crackspackle writes: Apple changed the iOS terms of services back in February requiring all in-app puchases to go through the Apple App Store and thus be subject to Apple's 30% cut, but did not immediately begin enforcing the rule. It appeared they had softened their stance until this morning when the new rule seems to have taken affect. Google Books is now gone. Other eReaders like the Nook, Kindle, WSJ and Kobo have been updated to remove direct sales links but questions remain about how long they will continue to support their apps. Since many, including myself, use the iPad primarily as an ereader, is Apple shooting themselves in the foot with this decision ?
OS X

Why IT Won't Like Mac OS X Lion Server 341

Posted by CmdrTaco from the sounds-oxymoronic-to-me dept.
snydeq writes "InfoWorld's John Rizzo sees Mac OS X Lion Server as a downgrade that may prompt a move to Windows Server. 'Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Server adds innovative features and a new low price tag, but cuts in services and the elimination of advanced GUI administration tools may force some enterprise departments to think twice about the role of Mac servers on their networks,' Rizzo writes. 'Looking more deeply inside Lion Server, it's impossible to avoid the conclusion that Lion Server is not built for those of us in IT. The $50 price tag — down from $500 — is the first clue that Lion Server trying to be a server for the consumer. But the ironic part for IT administrators is that Lion Server actually requires a greater degree of technical knowledge than its predecessors.'"
Security

Submission + - Anonymous and Lulz Security replies to the FBI (pastebin.com)

Submitted by derGoldstein
derGoldstein writes: Beginning their reply with: "Hello thar FBI and international law authorities", it appears that Anonymous and Lulz Security want to tell their side of the story, along with the message: "We become bandits on the Internet because you have forced our hand. The Anonymous bitchslap rings through your ears like hacktivism movements of the 90s. We're back — and we're not going anywhere. Expect us."
Science

Submission + - Open Access Advocate's Arrest Inspires Release Of (talkingpointsmemo.com)

Submitted by Stirfry192
Stirfry192 writes: Saying that he was inspired by recent news of the arrest of an activist for downloading almost five million journal articles online, a man by the name of Greg Maxwell on Thursday uploaded thousands of scientific journal articles that he says should be available to the public for free.
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - The Fed Audit (senate.gov)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The first top-to-bottom audit of the Federal Reserve uncovered eye-popping new details about how the U.S. provided a whopping $16 trillion in secret loans to bail out American and foreign banks and businesses during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
Canada

Submission + - Peter Adekeye Freed, Judge Outraged at Cisco's (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by puppetman
puppetman writes: Ars Technica has an article relating the recent release of Peter Adekeye, a former Cisco employee who was arrested in Canada on trumped-up charges that appear to have been fabricated by Cisco. Slashdot covered the story back in April, 2011, during which time Mr Adekeye was still being detained.
In the ruling, the judge squashed the US extradition request, rebuked both the Canadian and American authorities for "an appalling abuse of process", and goes as far as to say that the criminal proceeding was launched on behalf of Cisco, to mirror the civil proceedings that Mr Adekeye had launched against the powerful Cisco. The full judgement, which is quite readable and damning, can be found here.

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