gentry - Slashdot User

Submission + - Autism-Vax Doc Scandal was Pharma Business Scam (bmj.com)

Submitted by Sockatume on Wednesday January 12, 2011 @09:07AM

Sockatume writes: In his second report, Brian Deer exposes how MMR-autism prophet Andrew Wakefield aimed to profit from the vaccine scare. Two years before the research that "discovered" the MMR-autism link, Wakefield began courting interest in a hundred-million-dollar diagnostics firm. The doctor hoped to seed the company with government legal aid money and profit by charging "premium prices" for new diagnostic tests to be used in vaccine injury lawsuits. By the time Wakefield published, the proposals had expanded into producing new "safe" vaccines, two businesses to gather legal aid funding, and interest from partners including Wakefield's own hospital. The scheme ultimately disintegrated with the arrival of new leadership at Wakefield's hospital and ongoing scrutiny into his research.

Submission + - Sloan data creates biggest night sky image ever (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by krou on Wednesday January 12, 2011 @05:11AM

krou writes: The Sloan Digital Sky Survey has released a new full colour image of the whole sky pieced together from seven million images consisting of 125 million pixels each. An animation on YouTube demonstrates how the image is represented on the celestial sphere. The release was announced at the 217th annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society. Michael Blanton, a New York University physicist, presented the image on behalf of the Sloan team, and noted that Sloan has provided an incredible amount of data of critical importance: 'There's something like 3,500 papers that have been written on the basis of this data set. A few dozen of them are being presented right now, this week at this meeting. They cover topics from the very smallest stars to the most massive black holes in the universe. You can compare it to the National Geographic Palomar Survey of the late 1950s. This is something that 50 years later is still a really important reference to astronomers; we use it ourselves to better understand our own images. SDSS is the digital version of that.'

Submission + - "Wonder" Patch Merged Into Linux Kernel

Submitted by mvar on Wednesday January 12, 2011 @04:55AM

mvar writes: The patch that has been tagged as "The ~200 Line Linux Kernel Patch That Does Wonders" has been finally integrated to the 2.6.38 Kernel.

Google To Drop Support For H.264 In Chrome 765

Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday January 11, 2011 @07:58PM from the shot-in-the-air dept.

Steve writes "Google just made a bold move in the HTML5 video tag battle: even though H.264 is widely used and WebM is not, the search giant has announced it will drop support for the former in Chrome. The company has not done so yet, but it has promised it will in the next couple of months. Google wants to give content publishers and developers using the HTML5 video tag an opportunity to make any necessary changes to their websites."

Comment Re:Reality setting in (Score 1) 364

by gentry on Tuesday January 11, 2011 @12:54PM (#34836876) Attached to: T-Mobile Slashes Fair Use Policy, Says Download At Home

Ok I'm replying to myself I should have read the parent. Regarding the maximum bandwidth rules, I see what you're saying. Strategies for that are either more expensive MB units or increasing costs per MB depending on usage. Back to the original story and what is being shown is that some (all?) providers cannot provide the service at a price point palatable to the general user. A different approach may prove more sustainable.

Comment Re:Reality setting in (Score 1) 364

by gentry on Tuesday January 11, 2011 @12:49PM (#34836782) Attached to: T-Mobile Slashes Fair Use Policy, Says Download At Home

That cost can be divided over a time period to produce a 'true' cost and add that to the cost per MB. So to provide the infrastructure costs X. The company decides it wishes to recoup that cost over time period and predicts Z MB of data over than time period. So cost per MB becomes X/Z. Add the maintenance, profit margin, support overheads etc. in the same for the cost.

Submission + - Dan Geer: Digital Affluence is Making Us Insecure (threatpost.com)

Submitted by Trailrunner7 on Tuesday January 11, 2011 @12:18PM

Trailrunner7 writes: The effect of our digital "affluence" contributes directly to digital insecurity. The general purpose computer offers far too many choices in the sense of far too many interfaces, far too many configuration parameters, far too many libraries, far too many conveniences, far too much extensibility. When, in the name of security, we "lock down" an operating system, we do so precisely so as to counter that surfeit of choice, by removing functions not in use, by reducing the choice set of what might be running. The reason that the Web browser is the principal entry point for malware is the number of choices that a browser offers up to whomever is at the other end. Evolving technologies like HTML5 promise to make this significantly worse.

The peculiar physics of digital assets — if I steal your data you still have it, to take an example — mean that data owners (and auditors) can only seek infallible protection for digital assets. But when you expect perfection, it is impossible to have a pleasant surprise.

Google Goggles Solves Sudoku 206

Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday January 11, 2011 @12:02PM from the better-it-than-me dept.

mikejuk writes "Ever been frustrated when you can't solve a Sudoku? Well, now there's an app for that. It is just one more capability in the latest version of Google Goggles. All you have to do is point your phone's camera at a Sudoku puzzle, take a snapshot, and pattern recognition and a bit of game logic sorts out the answer. Have you ever had the feeling that AI is getting to be just a little too commonplace?"

Submission + - Researchers Hack Car Keyless Entry Systems (hothardware.com)

Submitted by

MojoKid

on Tuesday January 11, 2011 @11:20AM

MojoKid writes: "University researchers at ETH Zurich in Switzerland have demonstrated how they could use antennas to hack into 10 models of cars that use keyless entry and start systems. A keyless entry requires the key to be within a few meters of the car. When the car detects the key, that's the authorization it needs to open the door and start the engine. Researchers tricked cars into thinking the key was nearby. They used a dual antenna system built from easily obtained materials that could cost as little as $150 (or as much as $1000). One antenna was placed close to the car, and the other was placed within eight meters of the key. They tried the trick with antennas that were connected via a cable and a fully wireless system. They tricked 10 out 10 cars and both the wired and wireless methods proved effective."

Aussie City Braces For Worst Flood In 118 Years 214

Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday January 11, 2011 @10:03AM from the good-luck-down-there dept.

aesoteric writes "As parts of the Australian state of Queensland either experience or prepare for the worst floods to ravage the state in over 100 years, Australia's techies have taken it upon themselves to keep communications services on as the crisis unfolds. One man is mirroring flood information from a faltering Brisbane City Council website, and others have opened WiFi channels in their neighbourhood whilst mobile signal gets choked. But there is major damage to telco networks — at least one major fibre link has been severed by flood waters, telephone exchanges have been knocked offline and cell towers put on battery or generator back-up (or offline altogether). On a sombre note, the floods have claimed 10 lives, including children, and 78 people are still missing after facing a torrent of water up to 8 metres (26 feet) high."

Comment Re:Reality setting in (Score 1) 364

by gentry on Tuesday January 11, 2011 @08:01AM (#34834396) Attached to: T-Mobile Slashes Fair Use Policy, Says Download At Home

Charge per use. Stop the 'unlimited' bundles and charge per MB downloaded. Low usage users aren't subsiding high usage users and the price paid reflects the benefit from the service. 'Free' and 'unlimited' are anything but on these contracts.

Submission + - Broadcom Signs on with the Linux Foundation (ostatic.com)

Submitted by Thinkcloud on Tuesday January 11, 2011 @05:51AM

Thinkcloud writes: Light for Linux? Not yet, companies like Intel continue to cold-shoulder Linux.

T-Mobile Slashes Fair Use Policy, Says Download At Home 364

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday January 11, 2011 @03:12AM from the data-not-allowed-on-our-network dept.

nk497 writes "T-Mobile in the UK has revealed a new fair use policy, cutting caps from 1GB and 3GB to 500MB, saying mobile browsing doesn't include videos or large downloads. 'If you want to download, stream and watch video clips, save that stuff for your home broadband,' the company said. All those people who have bought smartphones with the aim of doing such things on the go may not agree with the mobile operator, however. Any user that goes over the new limit won't be charged, but will be blocked from downloading or streaming for the rest of the month."

Submission + - Mysteries of Google Earth (networkworld.com)

Submitted by digitaldc on Tuesday January 04, 2011 @11:22AM

digitaldc writes: Since Google began mapping the world with Google Earth and Street View, an entire pastime--Google mystery hunting and debunking--has cropped up. From unidentified flying objects to people with horse heads, there's no shortage of weird things that have appeared on Google Earth and Street View.

BT Content Connect May Impact Net Neutrality 138

Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday January 04, 2011 @10:02AM from the only-a-matter-of-time dept.

a Flatbed Darkly writes "BT's Content Connect, a service which many have accused of threatening net neutrality, has apparently launched, although it is unknown whether or not any ISPs have bought or are planning to buy it yet; BT has denied the allegations, from Open Rights Group among others, that this, despite certainly being an anti-competitive service, does not create a two-tier internet. From the article: '"Contrary to recent reports in the media, BT's Content Connect service will not create a two-tier internet, but will simply offer service providers the option of differentiating their broadband offering through enhanced content delivery," a BT spokeswoman said.'"

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