Gareon - Slashdot User

Designer Babies 902

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday February 25, 2009 @10:07PM from the wings-and-a-nice-prehensile-tail dept.

Singularity Hub writes "The Fertility Institutes recently stunned the fertility community by being the first company to boldly offer couples the opportunity to screen their embryos not only for diseases and gender, but also for completely benign characteristics such as eye color, hair color, and complexion. The Fertility Institutes proudly claims this is just the tip of the iceberg, and plans to offer almost any conceivable customization as science makes them available. Even as couples from across the globe are flocking in droves to pay the company their life's savings for a custom baby, opponents are vilifying the company for shattering moral and ethical boundaries. Like it or not, the era of designer babies is officially here and there is no going back."

Has Microsoft's Patent War Against Linux Begun? 644

Posted by timothy on Wednesday February 25, 2009 @07:30PM from the begun-this-clone-war-has dept.

Glyn Moody writes "Microsoft has filed a suit against TomTom, 'alleging that the in-car navigation company's devices violate eight of its patents — including three that relate to TomTom's implementation of the Linux kernel.' What's interesting is that the intellectual property lawyer behind the move, Horacio Gutierrez, has just been promoted to the rank of corporate vice president at Microsoft. Is this his way of announcing that he intends going on the attack against Linux?"

Build Your Own SATA Hard Drive Switch 131

Posted by timothy on Wednesday February 25, 2009 @04:32PM from the there-can-be-only-one dept.

Mikey Win writes "ExtremeTech shows us a cool hardware hack that allows multiple operating system to boot without dealing with any tedious BIOS setup changes. How? By building your own SATA hard drive switch. The result? You can expect a longer hard drive life span, power supply load reduction, and partitions protected from becoming overwritten or corrupted."

Submission + - UCLA team creates functional neurons from adult s (examiner.com)

Submitted by mmmscience on Wednesday February 25, 2009 @11:26AM

mmmscience writes: http://www.examiner.com/x-1242-Science-News-Examiner~y2009m2d25-UCLA-team-creates-functional-neurons-from-adult-somatic-cells Researchers at UCLA have accomplished a task that has long vexed stem cell researchers: They've created the first electronically active neurons from induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. This is a great leap forward for stem cell researchers, who can apply these neurons to the study of neurodegenerative diseases.

Jurassic Web 430

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday February 25, 2009 @11:18AM from the set-the-wayback-machine dept.

theodp writes "It wasn't so long ago, but Slate's Farhad Manjoo notes that The Internet of 1996 is almost unrecognizable compared with what we have today. No YouTube, Digg, Huffington Post, Gawker, Google, Twitter, Facebook, or Wikipedia. In 1996, Americans with Internet access spent fewer than 30 minutes a month surfing the Web and were paying for the Internet by the hour. Today, Nielsen says we spend about 27 hours a month online (present company excepted, of course!)." I thought in 1996 all we did was idle in IRC channels while we wrote code in other terminals.

Submission + - Borg-like cybots may patrol government networks (aboutai.com)

Submitted by

Jah Shaka

on Wednesday February 25, 2009 @09:17AM

Jah Shaka writes: "The Oak Ridge National Laboratory has created software that uses colonies of borg-like cyberrobots it says will help government agencies detect and fend off attacks on the nation's computer network infrastructure. The Ubiquitous Network Transient Autonomous Mission Entities (Untame) differs from traditional security software agents in that its cybot "entities" form collectives that are mutually aware."

The Hard Upgrade Path From XP To Vista To Win 7 496

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday February 24, 2009 @06:26PM from the twisty-little-passages-all-different dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft executives have been telling the tech industry that if hardware supports Windows Vista, it will support Windows 7, but it now looks like that may not entirely be the case. According to CRN: 'But after a series of tests on older and newer hardware, a number of noteworthy issues emerged: Microsoft's statement that if hardware works with Windows Vista it will work with Windows 7 appears to be, at best, misleading; hardware that is older, but not near the end of most business life cycles, could be impossible to upgrade; and the addition of an extra step in the upgrade process does add complexity and more time not needed in previous upgrade cycles.' And here is CRN's overview of the difficulties Microsoft faces in asking enterprise users to walk this upgrade path: 'Across the XP-Vista-Windows 7 landscape, Microsoft has fostered an ecosystem that now holds out the prospect of a mind-numbing number of incompatible drivers, unsupported devices, unsupported applications, unsupported data, patches, updates, upgrades, 'known issues' and unknown issues. Sound familiar? That's what people used to say about Linux.'"

1 of 3 Dell Inspiron Mini Netbooks Sold With Linux 230

Posted by timothy on Tuesday February 24, 2009 @12:49PM from the for-their-patients-who-chew-gum dept.

christian.einfeldt writes "According to an article in Laptop Magazine on-line, one-third of Dell Inspiron Mini 9s netbooks are sold with the Ubuntu Linux operating system. Dell senior product manager John New attributed the sales volume to the lower price point of the Ubuntu Linux machines. And the return rate of the Ubuntu Linux machines is approximately equal to that of comparable netbooks sold with Microsoft Windows XP. Dell spokesperson Jay Pinkert attriutes the low return rate to Dell's good communications with its customers, saying 'We have done a very good job explaining to folks what Linux is.'"

Outage Knocks Gmail Offline For Many Users 209

Posted by timothy on Tuesday February 24, 2009 @10:49AM from the blissfully-sleeping-through-it dept.

Many readers noted an outage affecting Google's gmail service last night. Firmafest points to a statement from Google, according to which only a small subset of users were affected. According to reader CaptHarlock, mail itself remained accessible through IMAP clients, and the chat feature via external applications. jw3 asks "Of course, gmail is just one of the many providers of web-based e-mails. When I look around, almost everyone seems to be using them nowadays. So — what do you do? Do you trust that the site of your web-based e-mail provider will never go down? Do you make backups of all your e-mails?" (Some readers still seem to be unable to reach the site, too.)

Working Around Slow US Gov. On DNS Security 91

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday February 24, 2009 @06:23AM from the kicking-the-dragging-feet dept.

alphadogg writes "Last fall, the US government sought comments from industry about how better to secure the Internet by deploying DNSSEC on the root zone. But it hasn't taken action since then. Internet policy experts anticipate further delays because the Obama Administration hasn't appointed a Secretary of Commerce yet, the position that oversees Internet addressing issues. Meanwhile, the Internet engineering community is forging ahead with a stopgap to allow DNSSEC deployment without the DNS root zone being signed. Known as a Trust Anchor Repository, the alternative was announced by ICANN last week and has been in testing since October."

UK Gov. Wants IWF List To Cover 100% of UK Broadband 281

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday February 24, 2009 @03:30AM from the tackling-blocking dept.

wild_quinine writes "The UK government stated in 2006 that they wished to see 100% of UK consumer broadband ISPs' connections covered by blocking, which includes images of child abuse. 95% of ISPs have complied, but children's charities are calling for firmer action by the government as the last 5% cite costs and concerns over the effectiveness of the system. According to Home Office Minister Alan Campbell, 'The government is currently looking at ways to progress the final 5%.' With a lack of transparency in the IWF list, firm government involvement, and blocking that only 'includes' (but may not be limited to) images of child abuse, it looks like the writing is on the wall for unfiltered, uncensored Internet connections in the UK."

EU Says MS Must Offer Other Browsers; Now What? 911

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday February 24, 2009 @12:37AM from the foot-in-the-door dept.

Glyn Moody writes "So the European Commission is going to require Microsoft to offer competitors' browsers with Windows. '...Microsoft will be obliged to design Windows in a way that allows users "to choose which competing web browser(s) instead of, or in addition to, Internet Explorer they want to install and which one they want to have as default..." [Microsoft] now has until mid-March to respond to the Commission, and might also ask for a hearing. Brussels will not adopt a final decision until it has received Microsoft's official reply.' But having the option to install Firefox, say, is useless unless people know what it is. The implication is that we need some kind of campaign to ensure that people understand the choices they will have. How can open source best exploit this latest EU decision?"

Comment Re:Folks I don't want to hear say oops (Score 1) 672

by Gareon on Friday January 23, 2009 @04:52PM (#26580565) Attached to: Black Holes From the LHC Could Last For Minutes

...the general concept you're talking about has been discussed much in serious probability theory. See Pascal's Wager.

Pascal's Wager doesn't quite fit with what I feel when I read such things. More along the line of unintended consequences. The consequences may be a possibility but will not stop someone from pushing the button no matter how grave they may be. If my bookie is coming tomorrow to collect a bundle or kill me and I only have 1/2 a bundle then Pascal would tell me to make a 2 to 1 bet with what I have tonight.

Comment Re:Folks I don't want to hear say oops (Score 5, Informative) 672

by Gareon on Friday January 23, 2009 @12:31PM (#26575737) Attached to: Black Holes From the LHC Could Last For Minutes

I wonder if they are taking any bets on the probability of an "oops" incident.

Source: July 16, 1945: Trinity Blast Opens Atomic Age @ Wired
"The Trinity test, as it was known, was the culmination of the American effort to win the race against Germany (and, ultimately, the Soviet Union) in building an atomic bomb. A mere three weeks after the test, the United States used atomic bombs to destroy the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
But prior to the 16th, none of those involved in the project knew if they had built a devastating new weapon or a spectacular dud.
With gallows humor, the Los Alamos physicists got up a betting pool on the possible yield of the bomb. Estimates ranged from zero to as high as 45,000 tons of TNT. Enrico Fermi, who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1938 for his work on nuclear fission, offered side odds on the bomb destroying all life on the planet."

US-CERT Says Microsoft's Advice On Downadup Worm Bogus 290

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday January 21, 2009 @10:35PM from the protect-yourself-at-all-times dept.

CWmike writes "Microsoft's advice on disabling Windows' 'Autorun' feature is flawed, the US Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) said today, and it leaves users who rely on its guidelines to protect their PCs against the fast-spreading Downadup worm open to attack. US-CERT said in an alert that Microsoft's instructions on turning off Autorun are 'not fully effective' and 'could be considered a vulnerability.' The flaw in Microsoft's guidelines are important at the moment, because the 'Downadup' worm, which has compromised more computers than any other attack in years, can spread through USB devices, such as flash drives and cameras, by taking advantage of Windows' Autorun and Autoplay features."

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