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Submission + - GPU Malware Can Also Affect Windows PCs, Possibly Macs (itworld.com)

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: A team of anonymous developers who recently created a Linux rootkit that runs on graphics cards has released a new proof-of-concept malware program that does the same on Windows. A Mac OS X implementation is also in the works. The problem the developers are trying to highlight lies not with the operating systems, such as Windows or Linux, nor with the GPU (graphics processor unit) vendors, but rather with existing security tools, which aren’t designed to scan the random access memory (RAM) used by GPUs for malware code.

Submission + - Worker fired for disabling GPS app that tracked her 24 hours a day

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Myrna Arias claims she was fired for refusing to run an app that would track her location even when she was off the clock. She is now suing Intermex Wire Transfer LLC in a Kern County Superior Court. Her claim reads in part: "After researching the app and speaking with a trainer from Xora, Plaintiff and her co-workers asked whether Intermex would be monitoring their movements while off duty. Stubits admitted that employees would be monitored while off duty and bragged that he knew how fast she was driving at specific moments ever since she installed the app on her phone. Plaintiff expressed that she had no problem with the app's GPS function during work hours, but she objected to the monitoring of her location during non-work hours and complained to Stubits that this was an invasion of her privacy. She likened the app to a prisoner's ankle bracelet and informed Stubits that his actions were illegal. Stubits replied that she should tolerate the illegal intrusion...."

Submission + - Swift vs. Objective-C: 10 Reasons the Future Favors Swift

Submitted by snydeq
snydeq writes: InfoWorld's Paul Solt argues that It’s high time to make the switch to the more approachable, full-featured Swift for iOS and OS X app dev. 'Programming languages don’t die easily, but development shops that cling to fading paradigms do. If you're developing apps for mobile devices and you haven't investigated Swift, take note: Swift will not only supplant Objective-C when it comes to developing apps for the Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and devices to come, but it will also replace C for embedded programming on Apple platforms. Thanks to several key features, Swift has the potential to become the de-facto programming language for creating immersive, responsive, consumer-facing applications for years to come.'

Submission + - The Milky Way's most recent supernova that nobody saw

Submitted by StartsWithABang
StartsWithABang writes: A little over 300 years ago, a supernova — a dying, ultramassive star — exploded, giving rise to such a luminous explosion that it might have shone as bright as our entire galaxy. And nobody on Earth saw it. Located in the plane of our Milky Way galaxy, the light was obscured, but thanks to a suite of great, space-based observatories (Hubble, Spitzer, and Chandra), we’ve been able to piece together exactly what occurred. Not only that, but observations of a light-echo, or reflected light off of the nearby gas, has allowed us to see the light from this explosion centuries later, and learn exactly how it happened.

Comment I hope they do this properly & publish the res (Score 2) 347

by Zocalo (#49663135) Attached to: Linux Mint Will Continue To Provide Both Systemd and Upstart
Mint is a fairly popular and stable distro, so they've got a great opportunity to get some hard data on the whole systemd thing. Hopefully the choice of default and how the choice is presented to users is done in an even handed manner (maybe randomized like MS did with the EU browser selection ballot in Windows) and they are gathering some stats. Even though there's no chance of it ending the dispute, I'd be really curious to see the the answers to these:

How many users choose Upstart?
How many users choose systemd?
How many users choose Upstart when it's not the default option?
How many users choose systemd when it's not the default option?
How many more downloads does this release get than a typical release (potentially indicating people switching from other systemd-only distros), if any?

Submission + - Linux Mint Will Continue to Provide Both Systemd and Upstart (softpedia.com)

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: After Debian had adopted systemd, many of the Linux distributions based on that operating system made the switch as well. Ubuntu has already rolled out systemd in 15.04, but Linux Mint is providing dual options for users. The Ubuntu transition was surprisingly painless, and no one really put up a fight, but the Linux Mint team chose the middle ground. The Mint developers consider that the project needs to still wait for systemd to become more stable and mature, before it will be the default and only option.

Submission + - Australia: Your digital games (and movies!) will get more expensive (playerattack.com)

Submitted by dotarray
dotarray writes: Australians really are about to start paying more for digital services — including Steam games — as Federal Treasurer Joe Hockey has confirmed plans to introduce a "Netflix tax" in this week's Federal Budget.

As mentioned last week, this is not a new tax, but an extension of Australia's current Goods and Services Tax to include digital services, adding 10% to virtual items and services purchased online. Details have not yet been revealed, but potential services include not only Steam games but also Netflix subscriptions and even Uber trips.

Comment Re:Hazardous (Score 1) 203

by Zocalo (#49657279) Attached to: Critics Say It's Time To Close La Guardia Airport
You landed at Chek Lap Kok, the new airport on the artificial island, which is in a pretty open space with a nice conventional approach. The previous HK airport, Kowloon City or Kai Tak Airport, was the one with the sharp turns, low level flights over the city and had it rated at one of the most difficult in the world with pilots requiring specific training before being able to operate there. Read the descriptions for R13 approach and R31 departure at the link above, and you'll see why this is nothing like La Guardia in terms of justifiation.

It's no contest on immigration being dicks though as the US is definitely the uncontested number one there; even though plenty of other countries are more stringent they're generally at least courteous about it.

Comment Re:Hazardous (Score 4, Interesting) 203

by Zocalo (#49653293) Attached to: Critics Say It's Time To Close La Guardia Airport
Hong Kong is slightly different though. They can justify the expense of building an aritificial island to solve the hazardous approach issues with the former airport on the grounds that there simply was no other viable alternative as there was simply no way to suitably adapt the existing airport to make it safer or any preexisting alternative location. La Guardia has similar problems, but has far more alternative options than the "artificial island" approach, although its convenience to central NYC does make it a good location that makes simply closing it unattractive.

Still, the "all or nothing" solutions being proposed (close it or spending $4b renovating it) do seem a little restrictive though. Perhaps a better option would be to turn it into more of a City Airport for those actually travelling to NYC, while moving as much of the through "hub" and international traffic out to J.F.K and Newark where rapid access to NYC is much less important. You'd still need to overhaul the La Guardia terminal, but potentially on a much smaller scale, even allowing for potential future growth.

Comment Re:Please explain (Score 1) 158

by Zocalo (#49645203) Attached to: Devices I have with a GPS reciever built in:
I have nine: two phones (personal and work), laptop, tablet, car, two cameras, a discreet GPS logger (just spits out GPX logs), and a hand held GPS nav/beacon device for hiking, etc. You just need to be into tech and into outdoor activities/travel and it can ramp up really fast pretty much by default.

Submission + - 25 Percent of Cars Cause 90 Percent of Air Pollution 2

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: Sara Novak reports that according to a recent study, “badly tuned” cars and trucks make up one quarter of the vehicles on the road, but cause 95 percent of black carbon, also known as soot, 93 percent of carbon monoxide, and 76 percent of volatile organic chemicals like benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes. “The most surprising thing we found was how broad the range of emissions was,” says Greg Evans. “As we looked at the exhaust coming out of individual vehicles, we saw so many variations. How you drive, hard acceleration, age of the vehicle, how the car is maintained – these are things we can influence that can all have an effect on pollution.” Researchers at the University of Toronto looked at 100,000 cars as they drove past air sampling probes on one of Toronto’s major roads. An automated identification and integration method was applied to high time resolution air pollutant measurements of in-use vehicle emissions performed under real-world conditions at a near-road monitoring station in Toronto, Canada during four seasons, through month-long campaigns in 2013–2014. Based on carbon dioxide measurements, over 100 000 vehicle-related plumes were automatically identified and fuel-based emission factors for nitrogen oxides; carbon monoxide; particle number, black carbon; benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes (BTEX); and methanol were determined for each plume. Evans and his team found that policy changes need to better target cars that are causing the majority of the air pollution. “The ultrafine particles are particularly troubling,” says Evans. “Because they are over 1,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair, they have a greater ability to penetrate deeper within the lung and travel in the body.”

Submission + - Cuba Turns To Analytics, Big Data To Help Tourism

Submitted by dkatana
dkatana writes: Currently Cuba receives around 2.8 million visitors every year, half of them from Canada. Mintur, the Cuban Tourist Ministry, estimates that if Americans were free to travel to Cuba today, the number of visitors would increase by two million the first year. Last year the Cuban government was interested in getting its hands on analytics software to process the data generated by visitors on social networks.

Because of the existing ban on American companies supplying technology to Cuba, Havana had to look somewhere else and found SocialVane, a small Spanish company on the island of Menorca, which has been working with the local tourist sector to analyze issues, trends, and potentials of the tourism industry.

Submission + - Are You An Expert Internet Marketer? (arismarketing.net)

Submitted by Vahagn Aris
Vahagn Aris writes: Taking the steps needed from being an amateur to an expert Internet marketer are not that hard, but very few reach that status.

Why?

To become an expert Internet marketer, you must excel at promoting some thing online. Whether you sell a product or a service you will find millions of possible customers waiting for you on the internet every day.

Submission + - PowerShell DSC for Linux is Available

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: Microsoft is announcing that PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC) for Linux is available for download in form of RPM and DEB packages. DSC is a new management platform that provides a set of PowerShell extensions that you can use to declaratively specify how you want your software environment to be configured. You can now use the DSC platform to manage the configuration of both Windows and Linux workloads with the PowerShell interface. Microsoft says that bringing DSC to Linux is another step in the company's "broader commitment to common management of heterogeneous assets in your datacenter or the public cloud".

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