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Submission + - Can Web-based Protests Force Change, or Will There Be A Backlash? (computerworld.com)

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: Several high profile protests have circulated across the Web in the past few weeks, garnering social and news media attention — and even forcing the resignation of one high-level executive. There are two components driving the trend in Internet protests: They tend to be effective against Web services and online networks allow people to mobilize quickly, according to Daniel Castro, a senior IT policy analyst with the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. According to a study released last month by Georgetown University's Center for Social Impact Communication, active Web useres are likely to do far more for a cause than simply "like" it on a Website. And, because a few clicks can cancel a service, their actions carry weight. But there may be a coming backlash as people can grow tired of online activism; and corporations may also take a more proactive stance in response to them.

Submission + - The New 'One Microsoft' Is Finally Poised For The Future (readwrite.com)

Submitted by redletterdave
redletterdave writes: The stodgy old enterprise company whose former CEO once called open source Linux a "cancer" is gone. So is its notorious tendency to keep developers and consumers within its walled gardens. The "One Microsoft" goal that looked like more gaseous corporate rhetoric upon its debut last summer now is instead much closer to actual reality. No longer are there different kernels for Windows 8, Windows Phone or Windows RT it's now all just One Windows. As goes the Windows kernel, so goes the entire company. Microsoft finally appears to have aimed all its guns outside the company rather than at internal rivals. Now it needs to rebuild its empire upon this new reality.

Submission + - School Junk Food Ban Starts On July 1 (fox59.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The USDA’s Smart Snacks in School rules go into effect July 1, 2014. In short, all 'junk food' in vending machines, a la carte lunch, student stores and fundraisers such as bakes sales is banned July 1st. ... Fruits, vegetables, dairy, protein-rich foods and whole grain-rich foods are allowed. Water, milk and 100% fruit and vegetable juice is permitted. High school students can have caffeine and low-calorie carbonated drinks. There are also rules when it comes to nutritional values like calories, sodium, sugar and fat.

Submission + - Seven Habits Of Highly Effective Unix Admins (itworld.com)

Submitted by jfruh
jfruh writes: Being a Unix or Linux admin tends to be an odd kind of job: you often spend much of your workday on your own, with lots of time when you don't have a specific pressing task, punctuated by moments of panic where you need to do something very important right away. Sandra Henry-Stocker, a veteran sysadmin, offers some tips on how to best structure your professional life if you're in this job. Her advice includes setting priorities, knowing your tools, and providing explanations to the co-workers who you help.

Submission + - Dangerous Panasonic Batteries Found In Sony Vaio Laptops

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: Sony warns about a potential fire risk in some of its Vaio Fit 11A portable notebooks (the final model under the Vaio brand which was sold off in February). The company is asking customers to stop using this laptop model as soon as possible. Sony said it had received three reports of batteries overheating causing partial burns to Vaio computers. The first incident was in Japan on March 19, followed by similar incidents on March 30 in Hong Kong and April 8 in China. The company stopped selling the product at the beginning of this month, with nearly 26,000 units in the wild. The manufacturer and company responsible for the faulty batteries is Panasonic. A Panasonic spokeswoman confirmed the company had provided the batteries to Sony under an outsourcing contract. She declined to say which other computer makers had received Panasonic batteries, as such information is confidential. However, she said the batteries are customized according to clients' requirements and differ depending on client. She said Panasonic hadn't heard of any problems with batteries supplied to other clients. Sony said in a statement that it was identifying the affected computers by serial number and developing a program to repair or replace them. It said the company would provide details on its home page within two weeks.

Submission + - Mathematical Proof That The Cosmos Could Have Formed Spontaneously From Nothing

Submitted by KentuckyFC
KentuckyFC writes: One of the great theories of modern cosmology is that the universe began in a Big Bang. This is not just an idea but a scientific theory backed up by numerous lines of evidence, such as the cosmic microwave background and so on. But what caused the Big Bang itself? For many years, cosmologists have fallen back on the idea that the universe formed spontaneously; that the big bang was result of quantum fluctuations in which the universe came into existence from nothing. But is this compatible with what we know about the Big Bang itself and the theories that describe it? Now cosmologists have come up with the first rigorous proof that the Big Bang could indeed have occurred spontaneously and produced the universe we see today. The proof is developed within a mathematical framework known as the Wheeler-DeWitt equation. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle allows a small region of empty space to come into existence probabilistically due to quantum fluctuations. Most of the time, such a bubble will collapse and disappear. The question these guys address is whether a bubble could also expand exponentially to allow universe to form in an irreversible way. Their proof shows that this is indeed possible. There is an interesting corollary which is that the role of the cosmological constant is played by a property known as the quantum potential. This is a property introduced in the 20th century by the physicist David Bohm which has the effect of making quantum mechanics deterministic while reproducing all of its predictions. It’s an idea that has never caught on. Perhaps that will change now.

Submission + - The Graffiti Drone (vice.com)

Submitted by tedlistens
tedlistens writes: KATSU is known for his adventurous and speculative vandalism, but his new project is not fake or hypothetical, though it does elevate his work to new heights. He has developed a system to attach a spray can to a quadcopter, creating one of the world's first graffiti drones. The drone is capable of spraying canvases or walls hundreds of feet high, granting the artist access to spaces that were previously inaccessible. At the Silicon Valley Contemporary art fair, which opened Thursday, KATSU is showing a series of drone-painted canvasses—and preparing to take the drone out on the town. "There are a lot of disadvantages to drones, you know. It’s not like, ‘oh, I’ll slip off the edge of this bridge and die’," he tells the Center for the Study of the Drone at Motherboard, which also has a video. "Its like, ‘I might have the drone drift off and I might kill someone.’"

Submission + - PG&E Offers $250K Reward in California Power Grid Attack

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Associated Press reports that the 'Pacific Gas & Electric Co. [PG&E] offered a $250,000 reward Thursday for information leading to an arrest and conviction in a startling attack mounted nearly a year ago on telephone lines and the power grid in Silicon Valley.' Besides cutting power lines, the attackers also cut AT&T fiber-optic phone lines, thereby denying some people access to 911, and fired shots into a PB&E substation, knocking out 17 transformers in Silicon Valley and causing $15 million in damage. As of this post, the perpetrators are still unidentified and continue to elude the FBI. Meanwhile, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on Thursday was brought before the Senate Energy Committee to explain why the FERC disseminated via insecure mediums a sensitive document describing where all the nation's power grids are particularly sensitive to a physical attack. FERC responded with assurances that databases are currently being scrubbed and procedures being implemented to safeguard critical data. The California government is also attempting to pass legislation that would require utilities to conduct risk assessments and implement necessary improvements to security.

Submission + - How Riot's social scientists fixed League of Legends trolling (redbull.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Interesting interview up today with Jeffrey Lin, Riot's lead designer of social systems, who has a PhD in cognitive neuroscience. His recognition that most trolls are only trolls because they're having an off day has changed the way that Riot punishes players. As a result, Lin's seen a noticeable spike in the number of people saying "GG" (good game) at the end of a match — 3 percent. It leaves you wondering, what if Activision approached Call of Duty griefers on Xbox Live the same way...

Submission + - Study: People That Think Social Media Helps Their Work Are Probably Wrong (neoacademic.com)

Submitted by RichDiesal
RichDiesal writes: In an upcoming special issue of Social Science Computer Review, researchers set out to understand how people actually use social media while at work and how it affects their job performance. By polling workers across 17 industries, they identified 8 broad ways that people use social media that they believe help their work, and 9 broad ways that people use social media that they believe harm their work. Although the harmful social media behaviors were related to decreased job performance, the beneficial social media behaviors were unrelated to job performance. In short, wasting time on social media hurts you, but trying to use social media to improve your work probably doesn't actually help.

Submission + - Raspberry Pi's Eben Upton: How We're Turning Everyone Into DIY Hackers (readwrite.com)

Submitted by redletterdave
redletterdave writes: Eben Upton, cofounder of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, is generally credited as the magician behind this incredible machine. While working on his doctorate in philosophy at the University of Cambridge's computer laboratory, Upton painstakingly put together Raspberry Pi prototypes by hand. Today, Upton is CEO of the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s trading company, where he oversees production and sales of the Raspberry Pi. In a lengthy interview with ReadWrite, Upton shares how he invented Raspberry Pi, and what's coming next for the $35 microcomputer.

Submission + - Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel revealed (playerattack.com)

Submitted by UgLyPuNk
UgLyPuNk writes: Gearbox is sharing the Borderlands love, with the news that the studio is working with 2K Australia on the brand new, standalone Borderands: The Pre-Sequel. The new game is designed to fit neatly in the timeframe between Borderlands and Borderlands 2, and is set for release in the second half of 2014.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Which NoSQL Database for New Project? 1

Submitted by DorianGre
DorianGre writes: New independent project. Iphones and droids talking to PHP(Symfony) or Ruby/Rails. Each incoming call will be a data element post and I would like to simply write that into the DB for later use. Will need to be able to pull by date or a one of a number of key fields, as well as do trend reporting over time on the totals of a few fields. I would like to start with a NoSQL solution for scaling, but would like something dead simple if possible. Looking at MongoDB, Couchbase, Cassandra/Hadoop and others.

Submission + - Heroes of Hardware Revolution: Bob Widlar (hackaday.com)

Submitted by szczys
szczys writes: Aleksandar Bradic just wrote an epic post about Bob Widlar and his role in the early days of the modern IC industry. It includes a bit about the 1-finger salute which was so common with the early analog wizards, and covers his nearly mythological behavior when on the job.

If you're involved in electronics in any way this should be on the top of the week's reading list.

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