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Submission + - What Might Have Happened to Windows Media Center

Submitted by Phopojijo
Phopojijo writes: Microsoft has officially dropped Windows Media Center but, for a time, it looked like Microsoft was designing both Windows and the Xbox around it. That changed when Vista imploded and the new leadership took Windows in a different direction. Meanwhile, Valve Software and others appear to be tiptoeing into the space that Microsoft sprinted away from.

Submission + - Is IT work getting more stressful, or is it the Millennials? (computerworld.com)

Submitted by dcblogs
dcblogs writes: A survey of IT professionals that has been conducted in each of the last four years is showing an increase in IT work stress levels. It's a small survey, just over 200 IT workers, and it doesn't account for the age of the respondents. But some are asking whether Millennials, those ages 18 to 34, are pushing up stress levels either as IT workers or end users. The reason Millennials may be less able to handle stress is that they interact with others in person far less than other generations do, since most of their social interactions have been through Internet-based, arms-length contact, said Billie Blair, who holds a doctorate in organizational psychology. This generation has also been protected from many real-life situations by their parents, "so the workplace tends to be more stressful for them than for others," she said. Others are wondering if Millennials are more demanding of IT workers. Millennials are also expert users, and "are no longer in awe of technology specialists and therefore demand higher service levels," said Mitch Ellis, managing director of executive search firm Sanford Rose Associates in St. Louis.

Submission + - Senators Demand CIA Director Admit He Lied About Computer-Hacking Scandal 1

Submitted by blottsie
blottsie writes: CIA Director John Brennan lied when he denied ordering agency employees to search Senate computers to trace a leak. Frustrated with his unwillingness to admit the obvious, three Senate Democrats on Friday called on Brennan to admit that his agency crossed the line.

The Senate Intelligence Committee was preparing a report on the CIA's Bush-era torture programs when the spy agency discovered that the committee had somehow acquired an internal CIA report on the program. To determine how the report had leaked, Brennan ordered CIA officers to pry into the computers used by committee staffers.

Comment Problems? Most people buy new computers. (Score 1) 323

Yes, I do.

One story: Corrupted PC's Find New Home in the Dumpster (July 17, 2005)

Most people don't have the technical ability or time to deal with computer problems. They buy new computers. That makes more money for Microsoft, because Microsoft get the full wholesale price again, even if the new computer has the same Microsoft operating system version.

Also, I wrote this article that discusses the conflict of interest: Microsoft Windows XP "end of life": Conflict of interest.

Submission + - Enterprise SSDs potentially lose data in a week (ibtimes.co.uk)

Submitted by Mal-2
Mal-2 writes: From IB Times:

The standards body for the microelectronics industry has found that Solid State Drives (SSD) can start to lose their data and become corrupted if they are left without power for as little as a week. According to a recent presentation (PDF) by Seagate's Alvin Cox, who is also chairman of the Joint Electron Device Engineering Council (JEDEC), the period of time that data will be retained on an SSD is halved for every 5 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit) rise in temperature in the area where the SSD is stored.

Submission + - Brainwave-reading patents spike on increase in commercial mind-reading apps

Submitted by smaxp
smaxp writes: Consumer market researcher Nielsen leads the pack, with patents describing ways to detect brain activity with EEG and translate it into what someone truly thinks about, say, a new product, advertising, or packaging. Microsoft Corp. holds patents that assess mental states, with the goal of determining the most effective way to present information.

Submission + - MIT Report Says Current Tech Enables Future Terawatt-Scale Solar Power Systems (computerworld.com)

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: Even with today's inefficient wafer-based crystalline silicon photovoltaics, terawatt-scale solar power systems are coming down the pike, according to a 356-page report from MIT on the future of solar energy. Solar electricity generation is one of "very few low-carbon energy technologies" with the potential to grow to very large scale, the study states. In fact, solar resources dwarf current and projected future electricity demand. The report, however, also called out a lack of funds for R&D on newer solar technology, such as thin-film wafers that may be able to achieve lower costs in the long run. Even more pressing than the technology are state and federal policies that squelch solar deployment. For example, government subsidies to solar are dwarfed by subsidies to other energy sources, and trade policies have restricted PV module and other commodity product imports in order to aid domestic industry. Additionally, even though PV module and inverter costs are essentially identical in the United States and Germany, total U.S.residential system costs are substantially above those in Germany.

Submission + - 28-Year-Old Businessman Accused of Stealing $1 Billion From Moldova (cnn.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: You could be excused for not knowing much about Moldova — the small, Eastern European country has a population of around 3 million and about 13,000 square miles of territory. Its GDP is just over $6 billion — which makes accusations that 28-year-old Ilan Shor stole close to a billion dollars from the country's banks quite interesting. A recent report (PDF) says Shor led a group that bought controlling stakes in three Moldovan banks and then passed transactions between them to increase their liquidity. The banks then issued massive loans to companies owned or related to Shor. $767 million disappeared from the banks, and the country's central bank thinks that total will rise to $1 billion. It was forced to bail out the banks to keep the economy from crashing. Widespread corruption led to many records of Shor's actions being "lost" or outright deleted. He's now charged and placed under house arrest while the investigation continues.

Submission + - This $9 computer might be more useful than Raspberry Pi (networkworld.com)

Submitted by colinneagle
colinneagle writes: A small team of engineers and artists that make up Next Thing Co. launched a Kickstarter campaign today for Chip, their $9 single-board computer that boasts Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and a larger processor than Raspberry Pi's most powerful models.

The tiny device runs a 1 GHz R8 ARM processor, and comes with 512MB of RAM and 4GB of storage. In comparison, the Raspberry Pi B and B+ models feature a 900 MHz quad-core ARM Cortex 7 processor. The Chip comes with a built-in composite output to connect to monitors and supports adapters for VGA or HDMI. It runs Debian Linux and comes preloaded with the Scratch programming language for those who might be new to coding.

Most noteworthy, though, is the Pocket Chip – a small device with a crude-looking screen and hard-key keyboard that plugs into the Chip and makes for portable computing. It may not be an iPhone killer, but it's an impressively inexpensive mobile form factor.

Submission + - 25 Percent of Cars Cause 90 Percent of Air Pollution 2

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: Sara Novak reports that according to a recent study, “badly tuned” cars and trucks make up one quarter of the vehicles on the road, but cause 95 percent of black carbon, also known as soot, 93 percent of carbon monoxide, and 76 percent of volatile organic chemicals like benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes. “The most surprising thing we found was how broad the range of emissions was,” says Greg Evans. “As we looked at the exhaust coming out of individual vehicles, we saw so many variations. How you drive, hard acceleration, age of the vehicle, how the car is maintained – these are things we can influence that can all have an effect on pollution.” Researchers at the University of Toronto looked at 100,000 cars as they drove past air sampling probes on one of Toronto’s major roads. An automated identification and integration method was applied to high time resolution air pollutant measurements of in-use vehicle emissions performed under real-world conditions at a near-road monitoring station in Toronto, Canada during four seasons, through month-long campaigns in 2013–2014. Based on carbon dioxide measurements, over 100 000 vehicle-related plumes were automatically identified and fuel-based emission factors for nitrogen oxides; carbon monoxide; particle number, black carbon; benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes (BTEX); and methanol were determined for each plume. Evans and his team found that policy changes need to better target cars that are causing the majority of the air pollution. “The ultrafine particles are particularly troubling,” says Evans. “Because they are over 1,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair, they have a greater ability to penetrate deeper within the lung and travel in the body.”

Submission + - NFL Releases Deflategate Report

Submitted by _xeno_
_xeno_ writes: You may remember back in February that Slashdot covered the NFL asking Columbia University for help investigating Deflategate, a scandal where the New England Patriots were caught deflating their footballs in order to make them easier to catch. The Patriots claimed this was simply a result of the weather, while their opponents disagreed. Well, it's been months, but we finally have our answer: the balls were, in fact, knowingly deflated by the Patriots (to no one's surprise). And while science can explain a little deflation, it cannot explain the amount of deflation seen during the game. Which isn't stopping Boston fans from attacking the science.

Comment There is NO "mystery". (Score 1) 532

by Futurepower(R) (#49633701) Attached to: The Medical Bill Mystery
There is NO "mystery". Health care companies are stealing from customers. There is nothing that limits how much they charge, especially if a customer has no insurance.

The new health care law in the U.S. forces healthy people to pay huge amounts for health care. Everyone must pay an extremely high yearly cost.

Submission + - Surveymonkey CEO Dave Goldberg's death highlights treadmill dangers (washingtonpost.com)

Submitted by McGruber
McGruber writes: The tragic death of Dave Goldberg, Surveymonkey CEO and husband of Facebook’s chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, (http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/05/03/1943245/surveymonkeys-ceo-dies-while-vacationing-with-wife-sheryl-sandberg) is bringing attention to the dangers of high-powered treadmills and digital distractions that make the machines even more dangerous.

According to CNN, Goldberg fell and hit his head while using a treadmill. He was found shortly thereafter, still alive. He was then transported to a hospital, where he was declared dead. Goldberg suffered from traumatic brain injury and hypovolemic shock, a condition tied to severe blood and fluid loss. [http://money.cnn.com/2015/05/04/technology/dave-goldberg-cause-of-death/index.html?iid=Lead]

The freakish accident actually isn’t that rare. Treadmills account for the majority of such exercise equipment injuries, according to Janessa M. Graves, a professor at the College of Nursing at Washington State University. In a study of 1,782 injury reports from 2007 to 2011, she found that “treadmill machines comprise 66% of injuries but constitute approximately only one-fourth the market share of such equipment.”

Graves says she was shocked not only by the proportion of injuries caused by treadmills but also by the victims. “We were surprised by the number of pediatric injuries that we saw,” she says. “There was a pretty high incidence among kids, especially 0 to 4 years old, also 5 to 9 years old.” In many cases, kids turned on their parents’ treadmills, only to burn their hands on the fast-moving tracks or, worse, get their fingers caught in the powerful machines.

According to data from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) [http://www.cpsc.gov/en/Safety-Education/Safety-Guides/General-Information/National-Electronic-Injury-Surveillance-System-NEISS/], roughly 19,000 people went to emergency rooms in 2009 because of treadmill injuries, including nearly 6,000 children.

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