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Submission + - i18n computer terms? (vulpeculox.net)

Submitted by Peter (Professor) Fo
Peter (Professor) Fo writes: I've recently been internationalising a tiny FOSS application. (The languages could eventually number in dozens — submitted by users.) I found it difficult to get technical computing terms eg "Right-click", "System tray" "preferences" "auto start" "Exit". People doing general translation tend to have trouble with the technical vocabulary. (Automatic translators more so.)

Question 1 : Is there any resource to help me in existence? I have looked but drawn a blank.

Question 2 : If not, then how might it be implemented as a global resource?

Submission + - Leaked cables: ACTA designed to pressure nations (techdirt.com) 1

Submitted by actareport
actareport writes: Leaked cables show ACTA was designed by US special interests as an "end run" around existing international intellectual property groups, since those groups had actually started listening to the concerns of many other nations about how overly strict intellectual property laws were stifling innovation, economic growth and were, at times, a threat to human safety.
Science

Submission + - Chernobyl Birds Brains Shrinked by 5%

Submitted by mvar
mvar writes: Birds living around the site of the Chernobyl nuclear accident have 5% smaller brains, an effect directly linked to lingering background radiation, according to a study of 550 birds belonging to 48 different species living in the region, published in the journal PLoS One. Stressed birds are able to change the size of some of their organs in order to tough out difficult environmental conditions. For example, migrating birds that have travelled long distances often shrink certain organs as they use up energy. But the brain is the last organ to be sacrificed in this way, say the researchers.That suggests the background radiation could be having an even more pronounced effect on other organs within the birds.

Submission + - LPP publishes fusion results, debuts plasma movie (springerlink.com) 2

Submitted by DerekShannon
DerekShannon writes: Eric Lerner's Lawrenceville Plasma Physics (previously featured on /. in [1] and [2]) has published in the Journal of Fusion Energy the first peer-reviewed paper detailing their quest for unlimited clean power [3]. Highlights include fusion yields at least four times higher than the historical dense plasma focus trend, with calculations showing how that trend leads to a fusion breakthrough. Illustrating that well done is better than well said, Ben Franklin himself emcees a video of the fusion processes the team has documented thus far, using real images from their ICCD camera [4]. While the fusion start-up's look back at 2010 acknowledges challenges [5], the stage is set for 2011 with a billion degree confinement achievement [6], and January progress that further confirms that the clean energy "Holy Grail" of aneutronic hydrogen-boron fusion — cheap direct conversion to electricity, no radioactive waste — could be in sight for this year [7].

[1] http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/07/10/27/1813225/Focus-Fusion-On-Google-Tech-Talks
[2] http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/10/18/1652201/A-Step-Closer-To-Cheap-Nuclear-Fusion
[3] http://www.springerlink.com/content/q14675418618w910/
[4] http://focusfusion.org/index.php/site/article/focus_fusion_movie_with_real_iccd_images_released/
[5] http://lawrencevilleplasmaphysics.com/index.php?option=com_lyftenbloggie&view=entry&year=2011&month=02&day=06&id=23:lpp-looks-back-on-2010-ahead-to-fusion-breakthrough-in-2011&Itemid=90
[6]
http://lawrencevilleplasmaphysics.com/index.php?option=com_lyftenbloggie&view=entry&year=2011&month=01&day=02&id=20:lpp-announces-breakthrough-billion-degree-confinement&Itemid=90
[7] http://lawrencevilleplasmaphysics.com/index.php?option=com_lyftenbloggie&view=entry&year=2011&month=02&day=05&id=24:january-progress-high-efficiency-high-rez-plasmoid-and-the-path-to-higher-fusion-yield&Itemid=90
Businesses

Submission + - Return a Video Late? Forget about a Mortgage

Submitted by Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: MSNBC reports that hundreds of thousands of people who rented movies from Hollywood Video or Movie Gallery before they went bankrupt have had collection notices put in their credit files without any notice or chance to contest the charges. The bankruptcy court handling the case turned the outstanding consumer debt over to National Credit Solutions and now former customers are finding NCS collection notices in their credit files even though they say they don't owe money to either video rental company. A few weeks ago, Seattle school teacher Martin Piccoli had the credit limit on his Discover card slashed from $8,700 to just $600 because of an NCS collection notice he didn't know about. The bill was $166 for "overdue videos and late fees." "I can firmly state that I owed them nothing and that I never received any communication from them — no phone calls, no mail, absolutely nothing," says Piccoli. Attorneys general in at least six states are getting complaints about National Credit Solutions and on January 26 Montana sued NCS, charging the company with using unfair and deceptive business practices. "Our investigation so far has uncovered about 12,300 Montanans who may have been affected by this,” says Attorney General Steve Bullock. “That’s more than 1 percent of Montana’s population."
Security

Submission + - EU Security Agency Highlights Smartphone Risks (eweekeurope.co.uk)

Submitted by geek4
geek4 writes: The European agency ENISA has warned of the possible security risks posed by the humble smartphone

The European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) has published a new report (PDF) in which it warns of the possible security threats posed by the smartphone.

ENISA is an agency of the European Union and its new report identifies the top security risks of smartphone use, as well as offering some practical security advice for businesses, consumers and governments.

The ENISA report comes after analyst house Gartner revealed in early November that worldwide mobile phone sales had grown by 35 percent in the third quarter. However that was nothing compared to the 96 percent rise in smartphone sales during the same period, with 80 million smartphones sold in that period alone.

Submission + - Antikythera mechanism recreated in Lego (guardian.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Exciting news for archaeologists and Lego-philes alike:
"Two years ago, a paper was published in Nature describing the function of the oldest known scientific computer, a device built in Greece around 100 BCE. Recovered in 1901 from a shipwreck near the island of Antikythera, this mechanism had been lost and unknown for 2000 years. It took one century for scientists to understand its purpose: it is an astronomical clock that determines the positions of celestial bodies with extraordinary precision. In 2010, a fully-functional replica was constructed out of Lego"
Google

Submission + - Google Wants Chrome OS Everywhere (techhammers.com)

Submitted by hasanabbas1987
hasanabbas1987 writes: When Google gets involved in something they make sure that they bring out the GOOGLEness in it and they won’t be satisfied if their product, whether it be a phone, web browser or a space rocket isn’t present in every home.
Facebook

Submission + - Facebook announces Hacker Cup (fortystones.com)

Submitted by fortystones
fortystones writes: Yesterday Facebook announced a new multi-round programming competition called – Hacker Cup. Following their other hacking competition Hackathon, “The Facebook Hacker Cup is an annual worldwide programming competition where hackers compete against each other for fame, fortune, glory and a shot at the coveted Hacker Cup.”.

Submission + - SimpleCDN Hosting Fails Due to ISP Dispute (simplecdn.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: We host some of our content with SimpleCDN. Yesterday we noticed some of the content not loading and we logged into SimpleCDN to find out why. The following letter was posted:

Dear SimpleCDN Customer,

I am writing this letter to update you on a situation that has been developing for the past 72 hours between SimpleCDN and our technology and infrastructure providers, SoftLayer and Hosting Services, Inc.

Two days ago these organizations decided to immediately terminate our contract and suspend service on much of our infrastructure in Dallas, Seattle and Washington, D.C. This infrastructure constitutes the majority of our delivery network for our value services, including on-demand and live streaming services.

Absolutely no valid reason or warning was or has been given for this termination, and our best guess currently is that these organizations could not provide the services that we contracted and paid for, so instead they decided that terminating services would be the best solution for them.

We have already started to take legal action against these organizations, however thus far we have not gotten either party to reconsider their position. As it stands now, certain SimpleCDN services will begin to fail within the next few days as additional services are terminated.

We believe the actions of Hosting Services, Inc. and SoftLayer constitute a deliberate attempt to cripple SimpleCDN’s current service offering.

SoftLayer and Hosting Services / UK2 Group also resell "CDN" services at a much higher price point, and it is clear these actions constitute a conspiracy to remove us, and many other corporations affected by their reckless actions, from the marketplace.

I invite you to contact these organizations directly to voice your frustration and opinions on this matter, while we’ll continue to ensure access is available to key services for backing up your data currently contained on the CDN for as long as possible.

I understand how difficult this is for you, and for the past two days we have been scrambling to make alternative arrangements, but not enough time has been given to secure additional delivery resources.

Our support team will be available 24/7 at support.simplecdn.com to answer any of your questions, and assist you with alternative services in any way possible.

You may contact me directly at: frank.wilson@simplecdn.com or via our corporate number at 800-269-3033 ext 704.

Sincerely,

Frank Wilson
Chief Engineer, SimpleCDN

Submission + - The woman's whose making your privacy her business (theglobeandmail.com)

Submitted by davecb
davecb writes: The woman who faced down Facebook and was dissed by Silicon Valley business boys as "an old-fashioned scold" is really one of the early advocates for using the internet for access to information, and to open up government.

The Globe and Mail has an interview today with Jennifer Stoddart, the privacy commisioner of Canada, who went up against Facebook for all of us, and made them back down.
United States

Submission + - Paypal account frozen for making Wikileak donation (rathergather.com) 3

Submitted by kaptink
kaptink writes: Reddit user 'hellokevin11' blogs:

"I go to log into my business account, and it's locked. The girl on the phone told me it's because my account handles a large amount of money (it's a biz account), I recently sent a lot of money ($4000) overseas, and I also sent money to wikileaks. My account is being investigated for illegal activities and I have to account for what the money was used for. They want invoices and such."

I've been blacklisted as well. "This account has been permanently locked. All information associated with this account has been blocked from the PayPal system and cannot be registered with another account."
Youtube

Submission + - Youtube to support longer videos for clean users (hipatic.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Youtube will now allow users with a good track record to upload videos longer than 15 minutes. While youtube has been largely free from pirated movies and full length TV episodes (recently ofcourse), due to their Content Id system and the restriction of uploaded video length to less than 15 minutes by regular users, this move could really test the effectiveness of their Content ID system
Data Storage

Submission + - Patriot Supersonic USB 3.0 Flash Drive - 100MB/Sec (techhammers.com)

Submitted by hasanabbas1987
hasanabbas1987 writes: USB flash drives have evolved a great deal in the past few years. Different styles of USBs have always fascinated our mind but it adds to our delight when someone does something clever with one. “Patriot” decided to exploit the limits USB 3.0 and what they did was this. They took a USB 3.0 flash drive with an external SSD; put a RAID system on it and put a maximum reading and writing speed of it, 100 MB and 70 MB/sec that is and in the end, name it Supersonic. If the above mentioned stats impress you then you can have the drive in 32GB and 64GB storage spaces in the Q1 of 2011. Price is still a question mark.
Earth

Submission + - Skills to Thrive in a Post-Collapse World 1

Submitted by
Ponca City
Ponca City writes: "Jeffrey Green writes in Counter Currents that some experts see a perfect storm emerging for a dramatic collapse of Western civilization claiming we’ve reached environmental, economic, and geopolitical tipping points and points out that some skills will be far more valuable than others if such a societal breakdown occurs. "Imagine fulfilling human necessity without consistent fuel or electricity, large-scale food production, or fully-stocked pharmacies and hospitals," writes Green. "The only form of wealth in a collapsed civilization is the knowledge and skills to produce something of human value." For example, skills involving food production will be the most valuable in a post-collapse society and learning to grow your own food is a must. Obviously, it is necessary to feed your family, but you will also be able to trade your abundance for other items. Other skills likely to help you sustain yourself in a hand-made local world include food preservation, medicine, animal husbandry, construction, water purification, and alternative energy. "Remember, knowledge of and skills to produce human necessities will be the only form of wealth creation in a hand-made world. Knowledge is something that no one can take from you.""

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