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Submission + - Fork of open-source Remastersys closes source, wants payment for source code. 2

Submitted by dotancohen
dotancohen writes: After the open source LiveCD creator Remastersys closed shop, Black Lab forked the code and released it as System Imager. Now, the company is restricting access to the source code ($50 will get you the code and a binary). Interestingly, the only two competing products were also shuttered in March and last week.

Submission + - HP gives OpenVMS new life and path to x86 port (computerworld.com)

Submitted by dcblogs
dcblogs writes: Hewlett-Packard has changed its direction on OpenVMS. Instead of pushing its users off the system, it has licensed OpenVMS to a new firm that plans to develop ports to the latest Itanium chips and is promising eventual support for x86 processors. Last year, HP put OpenVMS on the path to extinction. It said it would not validate the operating system to its latest hardware or produce new versions of it. The move to license the OpenVMS source code to a new entity, VMS Software Inc. (VSI), amounts to a reversal of that earlier decision. VSI plans to validate the operating system on Intel's Itanium eight-core Poulson chips by early 2015, as well as support for HP hardware running the upcoming "Kittson" chip. It will also develop an x86 port, although it isn't specifying a timeframe. And it plans to develop new versions of OpenVMS

Submission + - Passport database outage leaves thousands stranded. 1

Submitted by linuxwrangler
linuxwrangler writes: Job interviews missed, work and wedding plans disrupted, children unable to fly home with their adoptive parents. All this disruption is due to a outage involving the passport and visa processing database at the U.S. State Department. The problems have been ongoing since July 19 and the best estimate for repair is "soon."

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: When is It Better to Modify the ERP vs. Interfacing It?

Submitted by yeshuawatso
yeshuawatso writes: I work for one of the largest HVAC manufacturers in the world. We've currently spent millions of dollars investing in an ERP system from Oracle (via a third-party implementor and distributor) that handles most of our global operations, but it's been a great ordeal getting the thing to work for us across SBUs and even departments without having to constantly go back to the third-party, whom have their hands out asking for more money. What we've also discovered is that the ERP system is being used for inputting and retrieving data but not for managing the data. Managing the data is being handled by systems of spreadsheets and access databases wrought with macros to turn them into functional applications. I'm asking you wise and experienced readers on your take if it's a better idea to continue to hire our third-party to convert these applications into the ERP system or hire internal developers to convert these applications to more scalable and practical applications that interface with the ERP (via API of choice)? We have a ton of spare capacity in data centers that formerly housed mainframes and local servers that now mostly run local Exchange and domain servers. We've consolidated these data centers into our co-location in Atlanta but the old data centers are still running, just empty. We definitely have the space to run commodity servers for an OpenStack, Eucalyptus, or some other private/hybrid cloud solution, but would this be counter productive to the goal of standardizing processes. Our CIO wants to dump everything into the ERP (creating a single point of failure to me) but our accountants are having a tough time chewing the additional costs of re-doing every departmental application. What are your experiences with such implementations?

Comment Re:Blade Runner's script had little to do with Rid (Score 1) 144

...I can also say that, having read "Man in High Castle", that's not an easy book to put to film...

Funny, I've always thought exactly the opposite. When I read it I can visualize the movie scenes in my head, and I almost feel I could write a screenplay from it, even though I've never written one before. I can't think of any other novel that I've had that response to - especially ones written by Dick.

Submission + - French fight the death of OpenVMS (computerworld.com) 1

Submitted by dcblogs
dcblogs writes: An OpenVMS user group in France has posted an "open letter" to Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman urging her to reconsider HP's decision to begin pulling support for the operating system. The letter, written by OpenVMS consultant Gerard Calliet on behalf of user group HP-Interex France, explains the important role OpenVMS plays in running transportation systems, health services and even nuclear power plants in France. "These software products are the result of decades of precise programming, inscribed in precise coding imperative for such functional necessities," Calliet wrote. "A majority of them use functions specific to OpenVMS and still run on OpenVMS, as these custom features are hard to find elsewhere." The user group accuses HP of being unclear about its direction and creating confusion. In 2013, HP said it would not be validating OpenVMS on its latest Itanium-based systems.

Submission + - sel4- World's most secure OS kernel now open source (sel4.systems)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: sel4 — the world's first operating-system kernel with an end-to-end proof of implementation correctness and security enforcement has just been released as open source.
sel4 is a general purpose mircokernel with an object capability security architecture. It was designed with security and reliability foremost in mind for use across the board from military control systems to medical devices.

Submission + - Did the politicians do all the math on solar energy? (telegraph.co.uk)

Submitted by gadget junkie
gadget junkie writes: Funnily enough, Northern European countries have put the most solar panels in place. in this story on the Daily Telegraph, some of the foreseable problems seem to emerge: grid bottleneck, wide differences between peak output and average output. The suggested solution is mindboggling to an economic analyst like me: install them at an angle which would cause them to generate the most energy in the afternoon (namely: face west, and all will be fine). This adds to the cost obviously, since it is less efficient. Why is it practically impossible to get an unbiased economic study on alternative energy?

Submission + - Privacy Groups Fight Facebook's Plan To Track You Off Facebook (itworld.com)

Submitted by jfruh
jfruh writes: When Facebook launched social plugins that could be installed on third party websites, it promised the information those plugins gathered would not be used to target ads. But now the company has reversed course, announcing plans to track users across multiple websites and use their browsing history to target ads, just as Google does. Privacy groups are gearing up to try to stop them.

Submission + - US Department of Homeland Security Providing Online Open Source Code Testing (zdnet.com) 1

Submitted by cold fjord
cold fjord writes: ZDNet reports, "At OSCon, The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ... quietly announced that they're now offering a service for checking out your open-source code for security holes and bugs: the Software Assurance Marketplace (SWAMP). ... Patrick Beyer, SWAMP's Project Manager at Morgridge Institute for Research, the project's prime contractor, explained, "With open source's popularity, more and more government branches are using open-source code. Some are grabbing code from here, there, and everywhere." Understandably, "there's more and more concern about the safety and quality of this code. We're the one place you can go to check into the code" ... funded by a $23.4 million grant from the Department of Homeland Security Science & Technology Directorate (DHS S&T), SWAMP is designed by researchers from the Morgridge Institute, the University of Illinois-Champaign/Urbana, Indiana University, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Each brings broad experience in software assurance, security, open source software development, national distributed facilities and identity management to the project. ... SWAMP opened its services to the community in February of 2014 offering five open-source static analysis tools that analyze source code for possible security defects without having to execute the program. ... In addition, SWAMP hosts almost 400 open source software packages to enable tool developers to add enhancements in both the precision and scope of their tools. On top of that the SWAMP provides developers with software packages from the National Institute for Standards and Technology's (NIST) Juliet Test Suite."

Submission + - NVIDIA found a way to quadruple display performance in low-res LCDs

Submitted by mrspoonsi
mrspoonsi writes: Problem: how do they manufacture low-cost products with high-resolution screens? NVIDIA researchers have one solution — stack two low-resolution panels on top of each other to increase pixel density on the cheap. The solution is so simple it sounds ridiculous, but apparently, it works. Researchers disassembled two 1,280 x 800 LCD panels and rebuilt them into a single display with slightly offset pixels, a filter to weed out polarization conflicts and a bit of customized software to force the display components to work in tandem. NVIDIA calls the resulting prototype a "cascaded display," and in tests it has quadrupled the spatial resolution of the original panels (thanks, in part, to how the pixel offset crams an additional four pixels behind every one of the first panel's visible pixel).

Submission + - Silicon Valley has created an imaginary staffing shortage (usatoday.com)

Submitted by walterbyrd
walterbyrd writes: As longtime researchers of the STEM workforce and immigration who have separately done in-depth analyses on these issues, and having no self-interest in the outcomes of the legislative debate, we feel compelled to report that none of us has been able to find any credible evidence to support the IT industry's assertions of labor shortages.

Submission + - New protein structure could help treat Alzheimer's, related diseases (washington.edu)

Submitted by vinces99
vinces99 writes: There is no cure for Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia, but the research community is one step closer to finding treatment. University of Washington bioengineers have a designed a peptide structure that can stop the harmful changes of the body’s normal proteins into a state that’s linked to widespread diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and Lou Gehrig’s disease. The synthetic molecule blocks these proteins as they shift from their normal state into an abnormally folded form by targeting a toxic intermediate phase. The discovery of a protein blocker could lead to ways to diagnose and even treat a large swath of diseases that are hard to pin down and rarely have a cure.

“If you can truly catch and neutralize the toxic version of these proteins, then you hopefully never get any further damage in the body,” said senior author Valerie Daggett, a UW professor of bioengineering. “What’s critical with this and what has never been done before is that a single peptide sequence will work against the toxic versions of a number of different amyloid proteins and peptides, regardless of their amino acid sequence or the normal 3-D structures.”

Submission + - A Personal Electronic Aura Could be the Answer to Password Hell (ibtimes.co.uk)

Submitted by DavidGilbert99
DavidGilbert99 writes: Imagine using chips implanted in accessories like glasses, shoes and belts — or even under your skin — to generate a personal electronic aura. This would be your own personal safe zone, and only inside this would your electronics work, including a device which logs and stores thousands of passwords. This is the vision of a Cambridge University professor who wants to create an Electronic Aura for everyone.

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