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BSD

Submission + - Dragonfly BSD 3.2 released (dragonflybsd.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Dragonfly BSD recently announced the release of version 3.2 of their operating system. Improvements include: USB4BSD, a second-generation USB stack; merging of a GSoC project to provide CPU topology awareness to the scheduler, giving a nice boost for hyperthreading Intel CPUs; and last but not least, a new largely rewritten scheduler.

Some background is in order for the last one. PostgreSQL 9.3 will move from SysV shared memory to mmap for its shared memory needs. It turned out that the switch much hurts its performance on the BSDs. Matthew Dillon was fast to respond with a search for bottlenecks and got the performance up to par with Linux.

Submission + - Was saving this data center worth the risk? (computerworld.com) 1

Submitted by dcblogs
dcblogs writes: The effort to keep a data center running in a flood damaged building at 75 Broad St. in lower Manhattan is certainly inspiring. The basement was flooded, disabling a fuel pumping system that supplied a generator on the roof. Customers and data center staff carried fuel up 17 flights of steps, via a bucket brigade, to keep a rooftop generator running. They clearly saved the day. But was it worth the risk? This building was either directly in the evacuation zone or on the cusp.The flood waters reached a height of four feet in the lobby, so it is fair to say that the building was clearly in a high risk area and flooding was anticipated. What was the condition of the building fire suppression systems? Was the fire alarm system operational? What if a fuel bucket had been dropped and fuel spilled down the steps?
Apple

Submission + - Apple: Brits too thick for Javascript; hides statement off the edge of homepage. (apple.com)

Submitted by rtfa-troll
rtfa-troll writes: If you had already been ticked off for failing to follow a court order properly, you would be careful not to mess up this time, wouldn't you? Well, maybe not if you are not a big corporation. After being caught misleading people about it's designs Apple was ordered to clearly state that "the Galaxy Tab 10.1, Tab 8.9 and Tab 7.7 do not infringe Apple’s Community registered design". First time around they actually included further misleading statements on the same page as their correction leading to headlines such as APPLE: SCREW YOU, BRITS, everyone else says Samsung copied us actually being shown by Samsung in court. This time round, Apple was ordered to put up some text on their homepage. Technically the correction is part of the homepage HTML, however, if you go and look at Apple's UK homepage you will find that a clever piece of Javascript which resizes the headline product image means that for any normal consumer screen, you will never actually see the notice without manually scrolling past the end of the normal legal messages. How far can Apple push and get away with it?
China

Submission + - Winged Dragon Trains (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by kgeiger
kgeiger writes: Reviving a 1980s Japanese idea, engineers at Beijing's Beihang University speculate about building an aero-levitation wheel-rail train (ALWR), Small wings mounted on carbon-fiber carriages loft the vehicle. Wheels serve as guides during cruising-speed "flight" and support the vehicle at low-speeds during station stops. The engineers also envision a low-drag sharkskin exterior to reduce drag. The design saves the expense of building and powering magnetic levitation tracks and has several built-in fail-soft features. Bonus: it looks cool, like a many-winged Chinese dragon snaking along the tracks. Better stay behind the yellow line on the boarding platform.
Transportation

Submission + - A $20 Cardboard Bicycle Could Revolutionize World's Transportation 1

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Reuters reports that a bicycle made almost entirely of cardboard designed to be manufactured at about $9 to $12 per unit that would be sold for about $20 has the potential to change transportation habits from the world's most congested cities to the poorest reaches of Africa. "In six months we will have completed planning the first production lines for an urban bike which will be assisted by an electric motor, a youth bike which will be a 2/3 size model for children in Africa, a balance bike for youngsters learning to ride, and a wheelchair that a non-profit organization wants to build with our technology for Africa," says Nimrod Elmish. The bicycles are not only very cheap to make, but at 20 pounds they are very light and do not need to be adjusted or repaired, the solid tires that are made of reconstituted rubber from old car tires will never get a puncture. "These bikes need no maintenance and no adjustment, a car timing belt is used instead of a chain, and the tires do not need inflating and can last for 10 years," says Elmish adding that the bicycles will be so cheap, it hardly matters how long they last. "So you buy one, use it for a year and then you can buy another one, and if it breaks, you can take it back to the factory and recycle it." Cardboard, made of wood pulp, was invented in the 19th century as sturdy packaging for carrying other more valuable objects, it has rarely been considered as raw material for things usually made of much stronger materials, such as metal. Inventor Izhar Gafni spent years figuring out how to make cardboard strong enough to support a human. The trick was bending and gluing the cardboard in such a way that it becomes strong like a piece of wood. In a video, Gafni describes the process as a type of origami, and demonstrates how his cardboard is strong enough to support a car. As in crafting origami and tearing telephone books, Gafni explains, “[if] you fold it once, and it’s not just twice the strength, it’s three times the strength.”"
Firefox

Submission + - Seamonkey vs. Firefox - any takers? (seamonkey-project.org) 4

Submitted by Rexdude
Rexdude writes: Firefox continues to be criticized for their new versioning system and being a memory hog. People talk about Chrome, IE9, Opera as alternatives — but do Slashdotters ever use Seamonkey? I've never seen anyone mention it in any discussion on browsers.
The successor to the original Mozilla Suite, it has a fullblown email/news/RSS client, Chatzilla, and an HTML editor. Also several other default features that would require separate extensions for Firefox. And they don't update their versions like crazy either, the current version is 2.13.1. I've been quite happy with it so far, it's snappier to use than Firefox. How many people on Slashdot use Seamonkey, and what has been your experience? (Note — I'm not affiliated with the project)

Submission + - CEO of Salesforce.com predicts the end of Windows (venturebeat.com) 1

Submitted by whoever57
whoever57 writes: Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce.com predicts that Windows 8 will mark “the end of Windows” and that “Windows is irrelevant.” These claims were made at the Cloudforce show in Manhattan. He states that an exec-level employee at one of his customers does not plan to migrate to Windows 8. He mentions IOS and Android tables as the devices that people want to buy, not traditional computers.
Power

Submission + - Ground under Fukushima Unit 4 sinking, structure on verge of complete collapse (naturalnews.com) 1

Submitted by overmoderated
overmoderated writes: Though the mainstream media has long since abandoned the issue, the precarious situation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility in Japan is only continuing to worsen, according to a prominent Japanese official. During a recent interview, Mitsuhei Murata, the former Japanese Ambassador to both Switzerland and Senegal, explained that the ground beneath the plant's Unit 4 is gradually sinking, and that the entire structure is very likely on the verge of complete collapse.
Linux

Submission + - Ubuntu 12.10 review: Quantal Quetzal is quite adequate (networkworld.com) 1

Submitted by colinneagle
colinneagle writes: Let's cut right to the chase: Ubuntu 12.10 is a totally, 100%, utterly, completely acceptable release. In almost every way, it is very, very similar to Ubuntu 12.04 — which makes a great deal of sense, considering that the two releases are only six months apart.

Are you a current Ubuntu user on 12.04? Upgrade to 12.10...but don't fret about being in a rush to do so. It's a good upgrade, but it isn't going to change your life forever.

Still using an older (read: "Pre-Unity") version of Ubuntu? It’s time to upgrade. The Unity desktop environment and user experience is polished enough now that I can safely recommend it to anyone (even Gnome 2 die-hards).

Using a non-Ubuntu Linux distro? Honestly, if Ubuntu 12.04 didn't pull you away from Fedora, openSUSE, etc...then 12.10 isn't going to either. Then again, if you never gave the last release a try, the new version is a completely acceptable place to jump in.

What if, let's say, you work at Apple? You should probably install Ubuntu 12.10 and live in it for a few weeks. You know, just to see what a well-designed desktop environment — that looks nice while not getting in your way — is like.
Government

Submission + - FTC throws down robocall gauntlet: $50,000 for best way to stop annoying calls (networkworld.com) 4

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "It's not clear if the Federal Trade Commission is throwing up its hands at the problem or just wants some new ideas about how to combat it, but the agency is now offering $50,000 to anyone who can create what it calls an innovative way to block that will block illegal commercial robocalls on landlines and mobile phones."
Australia

Submission + - Privacy advocates oppose Aussie data breach laws (itnews.com.au)

Submitted by schliz
schliz writes: This week, Australia's Attorney-General released a discussion paper about introducing laws that would force companies to notify members of the public any time personal information about that customer falls into the wrong hands. California introduced similar mandatory data breach notification laws in 2003, but Australian privacy advocates are now opposing the move, saying it's a decade too late.
Science

Submission + - Carbon clock gets reset (nature.com)

Submitted by
ananyo
ananyo writes: "Climate records from a Japanese lake are set to improve the accuracy of carbon dating, which could help to shed light on archaeological mysteries such as why Neanderthals became extinct.
Carbon dating is used to work out the age of organic material. But the technique assumes that the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere was constant — any variation would speed up or slow down the clock. Since the 1960s, scientists have started accounting for the variations by calibrating the clock against the known ages of tree rings. The problem is that tree rings provide a direct record that only goes as far back as about 14,000 years.
Now, using sediment from bed of Lake Suigetsu, west of Tokyo, researchers have pushed the calibration limit back much further. Two distinct sediment layers have formed in the lake every summer and winter over tens of thousands of years. The researchers collected roughly 70-metre core samples from the lake and painstakingly counted the layers to come up with a direct record stretching back 52,000 years.
The recalibrated clock could help to narrow the window of key events in human history. Take the extinction of Neanderthals, which occurred in western Europe less than 30,000 years ago. Archaeologists disagree over the effects changing climate and competition from recently arriving humans had on the Neanderthals' demise. The more accurate carbon clock should yield better dates for any overlap of humans and Neanderthals, as well as for determining how climate changes influenced the extinction of Neanderthals."
Government

Submission + - Dutch Ministry Proposes Powers for Police to Hack Computers, Install Spyware (paritynews.com) 1

Submitted by hypnosec
hypnosec writes: The Dutch Ministry of Justice and Security has proposed some rather over the line measures and wants to extend such powers to the police that would allow them to break into computers and mobile phones in any part of the world. According to the proposal, dated October 15, the ministry has asked for powers that would allow police to not only break into computers but, would also allow them to install spyware, search for data in those computers and destroy data. As explained by the digital rights group ‘Bits of Freedom’, which obtained the copy of the proposal, if the Dutch police gets such powers the security of computer users would be lessened and that there will be a “perverse incentive to keep information security weak.”

Submission + - Google trading suspended, earnings 20% below expectations posted accidentally (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Trading in Google shares has been suspended after the internet giant released its third-quarter results early by mistake. Google blames financial printing firm RR Donnelley for filing an early draft of the results, which had been expected after the closing bell.

Shares in Google were down 9% when trading in the stock was suspended. Shares had fallen as much as 10.5% at one stage.

In a statement, Google said: "Earlier this morning RR Donnelley, the financial printer, informed us that they had filed our draft 8K earnings statement without authorisation... We have ceased trading on Nasdaq while we work to finalise the document. Once it's finalised we will release our earnings, resume trading on Nasdaq and hold our earnings call as normal at 1:30 PST."
Technology

Submission + - SD card survives real-life disaster test (stuff.co.nz)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A newly-wed couple lost their digital camera and SD card in the Christchurch earthquake in February 2011. The SD card survived flooding with silt and exposure to the weather for 20 months embedded in a gravel driveway. Amazingly, all 2.5 Gb of photos have recently been recovered. Sadly the digital camera did not fare so well. Even more interesting is that the SD card was from by a budget supplier, kudos to Adata!

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