Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Android

Submission + - Oracle subpoenas Apache Foundation in Google suit (techworld.com.au)

Submitted by
angry tapir
angry tapir writes: "Oracle has subpoenaed the Apache Software Foundation in connection with its ongoing intellectual property suit against Google. Oracle filed suit against Google in August, alleging that its Android mobile operating system infringes on seven of Oracle's Java patents. Google has denied any wrongdoing. The subpoena, which was received by ASF on Monday, seeks "the production of documents related to the use of Apache Harmony code in the Android software platform, and the unsuccessful attempt by Apache to secure an acceptable license to the Java SE Technology Compatibility Kit.""
Science

Submission + - Temporal Power - New Flywheel Tech (thestar.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Temporal Power a new start up founded by engineer Jeff Veltri claims to have developed a super efficient flywheel. Best existing flywheels spin down to no power within 7 hours, his design maintains 95% of power at 10 hours. See Graph: http://www.cleanbreak.ca/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/temporalchart.jpg. This is sufficient performance to enable the shifting of cheap nighttime and intermittent renewable power to expensive daytime power usage. Is this the true breakthrough we have been waiting for or is it physically improbable?
Chrome

Submission + - Google Chrome blocks the Oracle Java Plugin (google.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The new version of Google's Browser Chrome 11 now blocks the Oracles Java applet plugin by default. This will prevent them from running at all unless a user specifically clicks the infobar to give it permission. Other plugins like Flash continue to run normally.

Submission + - GPF Comics Seized by Copyright Gestapo (gpf-comics.com) 2

Submitted by linuxrocks123
linuxrocks123 writes: In a move that would make GPF Comics villain Trudy Truehart proud, US Immigation and Customs Enforcement has apparently seized my favorite webcomic's domain name. A visit to http://gpf-comics.com/ currently shows that stupid "Domain Seized" template with the eagle in the middle looking like it's about to bite your face off. It's all speculation at this point as to why this was done: maybe it's a mistake, or maybe newspaper comic book artists just don't like competition. I assume we'll have more details — and a rehosted domain for GPF Comics — as this story develops.
Government

Submission + - TSA Pat Downs, Searches After Passengers Get Off T (shtfplan.com) 4

Submitted by intellitech
intellitech writes: According to a first-hand video account from a train station in Savannah, Georgia, the Transportation Security Administration is now performing security pat downs and bag searches AFTER passengers disembark from their trips. This could be expected from a country like China or the former Soviet Union, but there is simply no legitimate justification for such actions in the United States of America, unless our government is now attempting to mimic authoritarian regimes, which seems very much to be the case.
GNU is Not Unix

Submission + - Beards of FOSS (wordpress.com)

Submitted by kriegs
kriegs writes: Too good to pass up — The beards of FOSS reviewed. Who's got the best facial hair in the open source community?

Submission + - What happens when you steal a hackers computer... (defcon.org) 1

Submitted by Agent__Smith
Agent__Smith writes: This is a presentation from DEFCON 18 in Las Vegas. Apparently some looser kicked in the door to Zoz Brooks appartment and stole his computer. Unfortunately for said looser, it was a MAC and as the thief had no MAC OS disks to wipe the system, he used it without modification. Zoz is a professor at MIT and as he travels and lectures all over the world, he had software installed so that he could log into the machine remotely. 4 months or so after the theft, the system showed up on the interweb, and Zoz began several months of detective work to get his system back. In so doing, he realized that the looser was using his system to fill out documents for government programs (now had his name address soc sec number etc...) and that he apparently has an affinity for Brazilian women with large rear ends. And as such was using the system to put pictures of himself (sans clothing) trying to hook up. (now we know what he looks like) It gets even better when this idiot uses the intact keychain to store all of his passwords (banking, facebook, ebay etc...) It is a hilarious story and well worth a listen. From the defcon.org website, you can hear the entire presentation, complete with slides of the things that Zoz found on this guy. I have to say that this was easily the funniest presentation of Defcon 18.
NASA

Submission + - New NASA Model Refutes Global Warming Alarmists (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by Dialecticus
Dialecticus writes: According to an article by Lewis Page at The Register, NASA says that most theoretical models of global warming fail to take into account the cooling effects of how plant life would react to higher CO2 levels in the atmosphere. NASA's new model reportedly indicates that even something as extreme as a doubling of current CO2 levels would only result in a 1.64 degree Celsius increase in overall global temperatures, with temperature increases over land being even less than that. The article does not specifically mention whether increased photosynthesis would have a natural regulating effect on CO2 levels due to the commensurate increase in the rate of naturally occurring carbon sequestration.
Power

Submission + - Scientists Discover Solar Powered Hornets (goodcleantech.com) 2

Submitted by adeelarshad82
adeelarshad82 writes: The oriental hornet is more active during the day, and tends to become even more active as the temperature rises. And now scientists have discovered the reason: the hornets are solar powered. It turns out that the distinctive yellow stripe on the hornet's abdomen is actually full of tiny protrusions that gather sunlight and harness it for energy. The insect also features a special pigment, called xanthopterin, that helps with the process.
NASA

Submission + - Climategate fallout - climate data integrity bill

Submitted by radioweather
radioweather writes: Senator David Vitter's office has just released the draft of Senate Bill 4015, the Public Access to Historical Records Act. This comes due to some years long Freedom of Information reticence on the part of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies The bill if passed, will ensure that climate data from NOAA and NASA get rigorous quality control and would force NASA and NOAA's National Climatic Data Center to release the raw temperature data, sans adjustments to the US historical temperature record, and then compile a new historic official U.S. temperature record that would be compiled under NASA supervision but under a council of appointed meteorologists and statisticians. The goal is for the U.S. to have the best, most transparent historic temperature record in the world.
Privacy

A Nude Awakening — the TSA and Privacy 728

Posted by Soulskill from the keep-it-above-the-waist dept.
DIplomatic writes "The Oklahoma Daily has a well-written editorial about the current state of airport security. Though the subject has overly-commented on, this article is well worth the read. Quoting: 'The risk of a terrorist attack is so infinitesimal and its impact so relatively insignificant that it doesn't make rational sense to accept the suspension of liberty for the sake of avoiding a statistical anomaly. There's no purpose in security if it debases the very life it intends to protect, yet the forced choice one has to make between privacy and travel does just that. If you want to travel, you have a choice between low-tech fondling or high-tech pornography; the choice, therefore, to relegate your fundamental rights in exchange for a plane ticket. Not only does this paradigm presume that one's right to privacy is variable contingent on the government's discretion and only respected in places that the government doesn't care to look — but it also ignores that the fundamental right to travel has consistently been upheld by the Supreme Court. If we have both the right to privacy and the right to travel, then TSA's newest procedures cannot conceivably be considered legal. The TSA's regulations blatantly compromise the former at the expense of the latter, and as time goes on we will soon forget what it meant to have those rights.'"
Cellphones

Submission + - Is 'Quadroid' The New 'Wintel'? (computerworld.com)

Submitted by CWmike
CWmike writes: 'Wintel' is the term that for years defined Windows-based computers running Intel chips. Now a similar expression is emerging for smartphones: 'Quadroid,' a term that refers to the Qualcomm chips used inside smartphones running the Android mobile operating system. The term, recently coined in a report by the PRTM consultancy, could catch on, largely because Qualcomm provides 77% of the chips in phones running Google's Android, which is expected to take the No. 2 slot in 2010. And the Quadroid alliance is expected to grow. Like Wintel has been for PCs, Quadroid could push down profit margins for smartphone manufacturers, some analysts say. That might seem like a good thing to consumers, but may not be so good for many phone makers.

Submission + - Moscow's bid to blow up Wikileaks (thedailybeast.com) 1

Submitted by mark72005
mark72005 writes: National-security officials say that the National Security Agency, the U.S. government's eavesdropping agency, has already picked up tell-tale electronic evidence that WikiLeaks is under close surveillance by the Russian FSB, that country's domestic spy network, out of fear in Moscow that WikiLeaks is prepared to release damaging personal information about Kremlin leaders. "We may not have been able to stop WikiLeaks so far, and it's been frustrating," a U.S. law-enforcement official tells The Daily Beast. "The Russians play by different rules."

Slashdot Top Deals

Remember, UNIX spelled backwards is XINU. -- Mt.

Close