Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Submission + - Red Hat CEO Publishes Open Source Management Memoir (redhat.com)

Submitted by ectoman
ectoman writes: Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst has just published The Open Organization , a book that chronicles his tenure as leader of the world's largest open source company. The book aims to show other business leaders how open source principles like transparency, authenticity, access, and openness can enhance their organizations. It's also chock full of interesting anecdotes about daily life inside Red Hat. Whitehurst joined Red Hat in 2008 after leaving Delta Airlines, and he says his time working in open source has changed him. "I thought I knew what it took to manage people and get work done" he writes in The Open Organization. "But the techniques I had learned, the traditional beliefs I held for management and how people are taught to run companies and lead organizations, were to be challenged when I entered the world of Red Hat and open source." All proceeds from the book benefit the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Opensource.com is hosting free book club materials.

Submission + - Obama asks Congress to renew "Patriot Act" (myway.com)

Submitted by mi
mi writes: President Barack Obama called on the Senate Tuesday to extend key Patriot Act provisions before they expire four days from now, including the government's ability to search Americans' phone records: "This needs to get done," he told reporters in the Oval Office. "It's necessary to keep the American people safe and secure."

The call came despite it being revealed recently, that the FBI are unable to name a single terror-case, where the eavesdropping provisions were of much help.

Submission + - SpaceX cleared for US military launches (bbc.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The U.S. Air Force has given private rocket company SpaceX clearance to launch military satellites into orbit. This disrupts the lock that Boeing and Lockheed Martin have had on military launches for almost a decade. SpaceX will get its first opportunity to bid for such launches in June, when the Air Force posts a contract to launch GPS satellites.

Submission + - Heat wave kills more than 1,100 in India (cnn.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Stifling heat has killed more than 1,100 people in India in less than one week.

The worst-hit area is the southeastern state of Andhra Pradesh, where authorities say 852 people have died in the heat wave. Another 266 have died in the neighboring state of Telangana.

India recorded its highest maximum temperature of 47 degrees Celsius — 117 degrees Fahrenheit — at Angul in the state of Odisha on Monday, according to B.P. Yadav, director of the India Meteorological Department.

Submission + - A Ph.D thesis defense 77 years late (sciencemag.org) 1

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: A story about a 102-year old lady doing her PhD thesis defense is not that common, but when the thesis defense was delayed by a whopping 77 years, that gotta raise some eyebrows

Ingeborg Syllm-Rapoport studied diphtheria at the University of Hamburg in Germany and at 1938, the 25-year old Protestant-raised, German-born Ingeborg Syllm submitted for her doctorate thesis defense

Ms. Ingeborg Syllm was denied her chance for her thesis defense because her mother was of the Jewish ancestry, making her an official 'cross-breed'

As a 'cross-breed' the Nazi regime forbidden the university from proceeding with her defense, for 'racial reasons'

She became one of the thousands of scholars and researchers banished from German academe, which at the time included many of the world’s most prestigious research institutions, on account of Jewish ancestry or opposition to Nazi policies. Many of them ended up suffering or dying in concentration camps

Rudolf Degkwitz, Syllm’s professor, was imprisoned for objecting to euthanizing children

Syllm, however, was able to reach the United States and earned her medical degree from the old Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia

Eventually she married a fellow physician named Samuel Mitja Rapoport, had a family, and moved back to Germany in the 1950s, where she achieved prominence in neonatology

Syllm-Rapoport, who is now 102 years old, might have remained just a doctor (if a very accomplished one) had not the present dean of the Hamburg medical school, Uwe Koch-Gromus, heard her story from a colleague of her son, Tom Rapoport, a Harvard cell biologist

Determined to do what he could to mitigate this wrong, Koch-Gromus arranged Syllm-Rapoport’s long-delayed defense

Despite failing eyesight, she brushed up on decades of developments in diphtheria research with the help of friends and the Internet. Koch-Gromus called the 45-minute oral exam given by him and two colleagues on 13 May in her Berlin living room “a very good test. Frau Rapoport has gathered notable knowledge about what’s happened since then. Particularly given her age, she was brilliant.”


Submission + - High Court Orders UK ISPs to Block eBook Sites (torrentfreak.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The High Court has granted an application by The Publishers Association to have several major 'pirate' eBook sites blocked at the ISP level. The action, a first for book publishers, requires BT, Virgin Media, Sky, TalkTalk and EE to block sites including Ebookee, LibGen and Freshwap within 10 days.

Rather than tackling unauthorized sites with direct legal action, major entertainment industry companies are increasingly attempting to disrupt ‘pirate’ operations with broader strokes.

One of the favored tools is site blocking, a technique that has gathered considerable momentum in Europe and the UK in particular. More than 120 domains are currently blocked by the country’s major ISPs, largely thanks to action taken by the movie and music industries plus soccer body The Premier League.

Submission + - Microsoft Edge To Support Dolby Audio

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: Microsoft has revealed that its new Edge web browser will come with support for Dolby Audio in order to offer high-class audio when visiting websites. "It allows websites to match the compelling visuals of H.264 video with equally compelling multi-channel audio. It works well with AVC/H.264 video and also with our previously announced HLS and MPEG DASH Type 1 streaming features, which both support integrated playback of an HLS or DASH manifest," Microsoft explains in a blog post. Windows 10 will also ship with a Dolby Digital Plus codec.

Submission + - Clinton Foundation: Kids' Lack of CS Savvy Threatens the US Economy

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: As the press digs for details on Clinton Foundation donations, including a reported $26+ million from Microsoft and Bill Gates, it's probably worth noting the interest the Clintons have developed in computer science and the role they have played — and continue to play — in the national K-12 CS and tech immigration crisis that materialized after Microsoft proposed creating such a crisis to advance its 'two-pronged' National Talent Strategy, which aims to increase K-12 CS education and the number of H-1B visas. Next thing you know, Bill is the face of CS at the launch of tech-bankrolled Code.org. Then Hillary uses the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) conference to launch a Facebook, Microsoft, and Google initiative to boost the ranks of female and students of color in CS, and starts decrying woeful CS enrollment (as well as ISIS). Not to be left out, Chelsea keynotes the NCWIT Summit and launches Google's $50M girls-only Made With Code initiative with now-U.S. CTO Megan Smith. And last December — on the same day that President Obama was 'taught to code' by Code.org — the Clinton Foundation touts its initiatives to engage middle school girls in CS, revamp the nation's AP CS program, and retrain out-of-work Americans as coders. At next month's CGI America 2015, the conference will kick off with a Beer Bust that CGI says "will also provide an opportunity to learn about Tech Girls Rock, a CGI Commitment to Action launched by CA Technologies in partnership with the Boys & Girls Clubs of America that helps girls discover an interest in tech-related educational opportunities and careers." On the following days, CGI sessions will discuss tech's need for a strong and diverse talent pipeline for computer and information technology jobs, which it says is threatened by "the persistent poor performance of American students in science, technology, engineering, and math," presenting "serious implications for the long-term competitiveness of the U.S. economy." So what's the long-term solution? Expanding CS education, of course!

Submission + - Supreme Court Rules In Favor Of Patent Troll (arstechnica.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Supreme Court ruled today (PDF) that Cicso Systems can't skip out of a patent suit against them from patent troll Commil USA. The case reached the Supreme Court because Cisco argued it had a "good faith belief" that the patent they were infringing was invalid. The justices voted 6-2 that such a belief didn't matter when a lower court found them to be infringing a patent. The Supreme Court's opinion is that a company must know of the patent it's infringing, and that their product infringes upon the patent — which, at least, is more than what Commil was pushing.

The case isn't completely over, right now — a $63.7 million verdict in Commil's favor was overturned by an Appeals Court, and now the Supreme Court has sent it back down for re-evaluation after it clarified the rules of infringement. The Appeals court could still overturn the judgment for some other reason. The other good news is that the Supreme Court dedicated a page in their opinion to telling lower courts how to sanction patent trolls and keep them from clogging the courts with ridiculous claims. "[I]t is still necessary and proper to stress that district courts have the authority and responsibility to ensure frivolous cases are dissuaded."

Submission + - How To Die On Mars (popsci.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Many space-related projects are currently focusing on Mars. SpaceX wants to build a colony there, NASA is looking into base design, and Mars one is supposedly picking astronauts for a mission. Because of this, we've been reading a lot about how we could live on Mars. An article at Popular Science reminds us of all the easy ways to die there. "Barring any complications with the spacecraft’s hardware or any unintended run-ins with space debris, there’s still a big killer lurking out in space that can’t be easily avoided: radiation. ... [And] with so little atmosphere surrounding Mars, gently landing a large amount of weight on the planet will be tough. Heavy objects will pick up too much speed during the descent, making for one deep impact. ... Mars One’s plan is to grow crops indoors under artificial lighting. According to the project’s website, 80 square meters of space will be dedicated to plant growth within the habitat; the vegetation will be sustained using suspected water in Mars’ soil, as well as carbon dioxide produced by the initial four-member crew. However, analysis conducted by MIT researchers last year (PDF) shows that those numbers just don’t add up."

Submission + - Russian Space Agency Missing $1.8 Billion, May Be Replaced (ibtimes.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: After a pair of high profile launch failures in the past few months, Russian space agency Roscosmos is making headlines again: this time for corruption. A public spending watchdog reported that the organization had misused 92 billion rubles ($1.8 billion) in 2014 alone. Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said their space efforts have been undermined by rampant corruption. "We have uncovered acts of fraud, abuse of authority (and) document forgery. With such a level of moral decay, one should not be surprised at the high accident rate." He also said Roscosmos is to be "abolished," and replaced by a state corporation of the same name by the end of the year. "In its new, corporate identity, Roscosmos will be responsible not only for setting mission goals but managing wages for space industry workers and modernizing production facilities."

Submission + - Mandriva goes out of business (businessinsider.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: After struggling for the past several years, Mandriva has finally gone out of business, and is in the process of being liquidated. The company was responsible for Mandriva Linux, itself a combination of Mandrake Linux and Conectiva Linux. When Mandriva fell upon hard times, many of the distro's developers migrated to Mageia Linux, which is still going strong and just putting the final touches on its next major version (5).

Submission + - Why PowerPoint should be banned (washingtonpost.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: An editorial at the Washington Post argues that Microsoft PowerPoint is being relied upon by too many to do too much, and we should start working to get rid of it. "Its slides are oversimplified, and bullet points omit the complexities of nearly any issue. The slides are designed to skip the learning process, which — when it works — involves dialogue, eye-to-eye contact and discussions. Of course PowerPoint has merits — it can help businesses with their sales pitches or let teachers introduce technology into the classroom. But instead of being used as a means for a dynamic engagement, it has become a poor substitute for longer, well-thought-out briefings and technical reports. It has become a crutch."

Submission + - IRS: Personal Info of 100,000 Taxpayers Accessed Illegally (ap.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Associated Press reports that an online service provided by the IRS was used to gather personal information of more than 100,000 taxpayers. Criminals were able to scrape the "Get Transcript" system to acquire tax return information. They already had a significant amount of information about these taxpayers, though — the system required a security check that included knowledge of a person's social security number, date of birth, and filing status. The system has been shut down while the IRS investigates and implements better security, and they're notifying the taxpayers whose information was accessed.

Slashdot Top Deals

Waste not, get your budget cut next year.

Close