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Hardware

Submission + - Nokia CEO Admits it is "Years Behind" Rivals (wsj.com)

Submitted by pbahra
pbahra writes: Just days before Nokia Corp. Chief Executive Stephen Elop is to reveal his plan for turning around the ailing handset maker, an internal memo penned by the executive describes a company besieged on all sides by competitors and in desperate need of a huge transformation. Comparing Nokia to a man standing on a burning oil platform who jumps into icy waters to escape the flames, Mr. Elop says dramatic action is needed to reverse a decline that has left the Finnish company "years behind" the competition.
The Internet

Submission + - How a small tweak can cripple your web sales (pcpro.co.uk) 1

Submitted by Barence
Barence writes: PC Pro has a blog revealing how a minor tweak to a website's design can have a crippling affect on sales conversion rates. BigCommerce, a hosted ecommerce service, recently pushed out a minor update to all its shops. Gone was the simple, tree-type list of categories and subcategories to be replaced by a swanky new “fly-out” menu. That small tweak led to a 75% drop in conversation rates on one site, as the many sub-categories of products on offer were hidden and the small tweak made the website navigation much more complicated for the average user.
Censorship

Submission + - Journalist fired, Mexicans protest with a DDoS (wordpress.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: This Monday, the popular journalist Carmen Aristegui was fired from the media conglomerate MVS Comunicaciones after she demanded the Mexican President, Felipe Calderon, to explain if he is an alcoholic or not. This question was motivated after some opposition congressmen depicted this popular rumor in a banner.

Thousands of mexicans considered this as an act of censorship, organizing demonstrations against MVS. Also, a group of mexican Twitter and Facebook users will launch a DDoS attack against the servers of the media conglomerate, mimicking the attacks organized by Anonymous in support of WikiLeaks.
Apple

Submission + - iPad 2 now in production (tekgoblin.com)

Submitted by tekgoblin
tekgoblin writes: WSJ must be on great terms with Apple due to almost all leaks from Apple are reported by them. Today they have reported that Apple has started manufacturing the new version of the iPad.

Apple Inc. has started manufacturing a new version of its iPad tablet computer with a built-in camera and faster processor..... be thinner and lighter than the first model..... It will have at least one camera on the front of the device for features like video-conferencing..... the resolution of the display will be similar to the first iPad..... It will also have more memory and a more powerful graphics processor.

They also mention that the iPad 2 will be initially available through Verizon Wireless and AT&T but no other carrier. I can see AT&T as the first carrier of the iPad 2 because that is what Apple has done previously. WSJ also believes that the iPad may not have an improved screen, however we have heard otherwise in other rumors that the iPad 2 has a thinner more lightweight screen than the first version. Will a Retina display be found on the iPad 2, I think it will be very similar if not it.
The Military

Submission + - US Army Sets Sights on New Rifle 1

Submitted by Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: The M16 and M4 have long enjoyed the loyalty of Army leaders who say the weapons are "combat proven" but Army commanders have also long faced questions about the rifles' design: Both are built around a gas-operated system that cuts down on moving parts, but requires consistent cleaning. Experts have also noted that the M16/M4 fares poorly in terms of ruggedness and reliability compared with Soviet-designed Kalashnikov assault rifles, which are a favorite weapon of insurgents around the world. Now the WSJ reports that for the first time in almost 50 years, the US Army wants to replace the standard rifle shouldered by hundreds of thousands of frontline troops around the world with a new weapon that would incorporate futuristic sights and other advances in rifle design and be able to handle improved ammunition. According to retired Major General Bob Scales, after action reports from the 2008 battle of Wanat — where nine Americans were killed when their remote Afghan combat outpost was nearly overrun by enemy — US soldiers were found dead, slumped over jammed rifles. "We would never accept the second best jet fighter or aircraft carrier," says Scales.

Submission + - Statistician Cracks Code for Lottery Tickets (lotterypost.com)

Submitted by Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: Lottery Post has an interesting story about Mohan Srivastava, an MIT educated statistician who became intrigued by a particular type of scratch-off lottery ticket called an extended-play game — sometimes referred to as a baited hook — that has a tic-tac-toe grid of visible numbers that looks like a miniature spreadsheet. Srivastava discovered a defect in the game: The visible numbers turned out to reveal essential information about the digits hidden under the latex coating. Nothing needed to be scratched off — the ticket could be cracked if you figured out the secret code. Srivastava's fundamental insight was that the apparent randomness of the scratch ticket was just a facade, a mathematical lie because the software that generates the tickets has to precisely control the number of winners while still appearing random. "It wasn't that hard," says Srivastava. "I do the same kind of math all day long."
NASA

Submission + - NASA Mercury Probe Will Answer Big Questions (ibtimes.com) 1

Submitted by RedEaredSlider
RedEaredSlider writes: Next month, the first space probe in nearly 40 years will approach the planet Mercury, with an array of instruments that could help answer fundamental questions about how planets form.

The mission is called MESSENGER, for Mercury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging. On March 17 it will pull into orbit around mercury, after more than six years of maneuvering between the Earth, Venus and Mercury itself.

Mercury is the closest planet to the sun, completing one of its revolutions in only 88 days. Surface temperatures on during the day top out at 426 degrees Celsius (798 degrees Fahrenheit) — hot enough that lead and zinc would melt like ice on a hot day. Nighttime temperatures plunge to -173 degrees C (-279 F), cold enough to liquefy neon gas. Mercury also spins very slowly, and does so in such a way that a single day on Mercury lasts 176 days — two of the planet's years.
Earth

Submission + - NASA finds family of habitable planets (networkworld.com) 1

Submitted by coondoggie
coondoggie writes: NASA's star-gazing space telescope continues to find amazing proof that there are tons of habitable planets in space and we have only scratched the surface of what's out there. The space agency said today its Kepler space telescope spotted what it called its first Earth-size planet candidates and its first candidates in what it considers to be the habitable zone, a region where liquid water could exist on a planet's surface. Kepler also found six confirmed planets orbiting a sun-like star, Kepler-11. This is the largest group of transiting planets orbiting a single star yet discovered outside our solar system.
Biotech

Doubled Yield For Bio-Fuel From Waste 97

Posted by timothy from the what-about-the-oil-from-anything-guy? dept.
hankwang writes "Dutch chemical company DSM announced a new process for production of ethanol from agricultural waste. Most bio-fuel ethanol now is produced from food crops such as corn and sugar cane. Ethanol produced from cellulose would use waste products such as wood chips, citrus peel, and straw. The new process is claimed to increase the yield by a factor of two compared to existing processes, thanks to new enzymes and special yeast strains."
Democrats

Liberal Watchdog Questions White House Gmail Use 283

Posted by timothy from the it-cannot-be-it-must-not-be dept.
MexiCali59 writes "Liberal watchdog CREW has joined Republican Congressman Darrell Issa in calling for an investigation into whether White House staffers regularly use private email accounts to communicate with lobbyists. The allegations, first reported last week by the New York Times, would likely constitute a violation of federal law as well as an ethics pledge created by Obama upon taking office last year."
Security

Submission + - Microsoft: Don't press F1 key in Windows XP (computerworld.com) 2

Submitted by Ian Lamont
Ian Lamont writes: Microsoft has issued a security advisory that warns users not to press the F1 key in Windows XP owing to an unpatched bug in VBScript discovered by Polish researcher Maurycy Prodeus. The security advisory says that the vulnerability relates to the way VBScript interacts with Windows Help files when using Internet Explorer, and could be triggered by a user pressing the F1 key after visiting a malicious Web site using a specially crafted dialog box.

Submission + - Is Dark Matter real? (newscientist.com)

Submitted by
robinstar1574
robinstar1574 writes: "Stars move at speeds faster then the visible matter on them suggests that they would according to Newtons Law of Gravity. Previously, this has been attributed to "Dark Matter", which includes Nutrinos, WIMPs, and Dark Energy. However, what if he was slightly off?

If the second law is correct at all accelerations, a measuring device mounted on the rim should register no anomalous force at these points. However, if MOND is correct, the device should feel an aberrant kick. "We are able to control the conditions to produce the MOND regime in any place at any time," says De Lorenci.

Amazing, don't you agree?"
The Internet

Submission + - DoS attack over Olympic figure skating (examiner.com)

Submitted by JoshuaInNippon
JoshuaInNippon writes: Popular Japanese message board 2ch was kicked off line by a denial of service attack that started at around noon on March 1st (JST). According Japanese and Korean media reports, the attack was carried out by Korean internet users angry over anti-Korean comments written on several of the 2ch boards where Japanese ultra-nationalists are known to lurk. The recent remarks that have reportedly got Koreans up in arms are those defaming 2010 Olympic gold medalist Yu-Na Kim. The company that manages the 2ch message board servers originally claimed that they believed around 50,000 people had caused the denial of service by repeatedly hitting F5 to refresh 2ch pages, overwhelming the 2ch host system. However, it turns out that the Japanese company actually rents their servers from an American company, Pacific Internet Exchange. That company is reported as believing the attack was actually performed by a bot network, although still of Korean origin. Since the affected 2ch servers are physically located in the States, Pacific Internet Exchange is reported as stated that they intend to present the incident to US cyber crime authorities.

Submission + - Shock waves from rocket launch destroy sundog (nasa.gov)

Submitted by jcgam69
jcgam69 writes: NASA's Solar Dynamic Observatory amazed onlookers last week when it flew past a sundog and destroyed it. Videos of the event captured shock waves from the rocket billowing through the sundog, eliciting cries of delight and amazement from the crowd below.

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