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Submission + - If Java Is Dying, It Sure Looks Awfully Healthy

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: Andrew Binstock writes at Dr. Dobb's that a recurring prejudice in the forums where the cool kids hang out is against Java, often described as verbose and fading in popularity but Binstock sees little supporting evidence of Java being in some kind of long-term decline. While it is true that Java certainly can be verbose, several scripting languages have sprung up which are purpose-designed to spare developers from long syntactical passages to communicate a simple action including NetRexx, Groovy, and Scala. As far as Java's popularity goes, normally, when technologies start their ultimate decline, tradeshows are the first to reflect the disintegrating community. But the recent JavaOne show was clearly larger and better attended than it has been in either of the last two years and vendors on the exhibiting floor were unanimous in saying that traffic, leads, and inquiries were up significantly over last year. Technically, the language continues to advance says Binstock. Java 8, expected in March, will add closures (that is, lambda expressions) that will reduce code, diminish the need for anonymous inner classes, and facilitate functional-like coding. Greater modularity which will be complete in Java 9 (due in 2016) will help efficient management of artifacts, as will several enhancements that simplify syntax in that release. "When you add in the Android ecosystem, whose native development language is Java, it becomes very difficult to see how a language so widely used in so many areas — server, Web, desktop, mobile devices — is in some kind of decline," concludes Binstock. "What I'm seeing is a language that is under constant refinement and development, with a large and very active community, which enjoys a platform that is widely used for new languages. None of this looks to me like a language in decline."

Submission + - SF Commuters Stared at Phones, Oblivious to Murderer 3

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: A security camera shows a man raised a .45-caliber pistol several times and pointed it across the aisle on a crowded San Francisco Muni train, but not one of the dozens of passengers looked up from their phones and tablets until the man fired a bullet into the back of a SF State student getting off the train. "These weren't concealed movements," said District Attorney George Gascón, "the gun is very clear. These people are in very close proximity with him, and nobody sees this. They're just so engrossed, texting and reading and whatnot. They're completely oblivious of their surroundings."

Submission + - Samsung Galaxy Round (financialpost.com)

Submitted by iONiUM
iONiUM writes: Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Round phone with a curved 5.7" display today. It comes with a hefty $1,000 USD price tag. This is a follow-up to the 55" curved TVs it began selling in June, and is most likely the first step before fold-able phones hit the market. Considering the recent LG announcement of mass OLED flexible screen production, it seems that we are indeed getting very close to flexible phones. One question I wonder is, will Apple follow suit? So far there has been no indication they are even attempting flexible/bendable screens.

Submission + - The Linux Backdoor Attempt of 2003

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: Ed Felton writes about an incident, in 2003, in which someone tried to backdoor the Linux kernel. Back in 2003 Linux used a system called BitKeeper to store the master copy of the Linux source code. If a developer wanted to propose a modification to the Linux code, they would submit their proposed change, and it would go through an organized approval process to decide whether the change would be accepted into the master code. But some people didn’t like BitKeeper, so a second copy of the source code was kept so that developers could get the code via another code system called CVS. On November 5, 2003, Larry McAvoy noticed that there was a code change in the CVS copy that did not have a pointer to a record of approval. Investigation showed that the change had never been approved and, stranger yet, that this change did not appear in the primary BitKeeper repository at all. Further investigation determined that someone had apparently broken in electronically to the CVS server and inserted this change.

if ((options == (__WCLONE|__WALL)) && (current->uid = 0))
retval = -EINVAL;

A casual reading by an expert would interpret this as innocuous error-checking code to make wait4 return an error code when wait4 was called in a certain way that was forbidden by the documentation. But a really careful expert reader would notice that, near the end of the first line, it said “= 0” rather than “== 0” so the effect of this code is to give root privileges to any piece of software that called wait4 in a particular way that is supposed to be invalid. In other words it’s a classic backdoor. We don’t know who it was that made the attempt—and we probably never will. But the attempt didn’t work, because the Linux team was careful enough to notice that that this code was in the CVS repository without having gone through the normal approval process. "Could this have been an NSA attack? Maybe. But there were many others who had the skill and motivation to carry out this attack," writes Felton. "Unless somebody confesses, or a smoking-gun document turns up, we’ll never know."

Submission + - Solr: The Most Important Open Source Project You've Never Heard Of

Submitted by Esther Schindler
Esther Schindler writes: When Steven-Vaughan Nichols researched a recent article on the open-source jobs most in demand, he was startled to learn that one hot keyword was Solr. Solr? What the heck is that? (We're so cute when the dollar-signs light up in our eyes.) So he investigated Solr: The Most Important Open Source Project You’ve Never Heard Of (which is part of Apache Lucene) to answer the question for all of us. And he ends up with a good overview of what it is and why you might care... even if you aren't looking for a job.

Submission + - BitTorrent "Bundles" Create Cash Registers Inside Artwork

Submitted by cagraham
cagraham writes: BitTorrent has released a new file format called Bundle into closed alpha-testing today, according to VentureBeat. The format allows artists to embed a paywall inside of their work, and then distribute the art for free over BitTorrent. When users open the work they can listen or view part it for free, and are then prompted to either pay a fee, turn over their email address, or perhaps share the work over social media, in order to see the rest. The new format may ease artists concerns about releasing work for free and having to hope for compensation in the future. Artists who have already signed on include Madonna, The Pixies, and author Tim Feriss.

Submission + - Hands On With Kindle Fire HDX

Submitted by adeelarshad82
adeelarshad82 writes: Amazon today announced three new Kindle Fire tablets, the Kindle Fire HD, 7-inch Kindle Fire HDX and 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HDX. All three new tablets run Amazon's new "Fire OS 3.0," a version of Android 4.2.2 that's compatible with third-party Android apps. However Fire OS 3.0 has a totally different set of built-in apps and a completely rebuilt UI layer for faster touch performance and smoother graphics. Amazon redesigned Android's graphics pipeline and touch event handler to improve responsiveness. The 7.9inch Kindle Fire HDX packs a 2.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor, 2GB of RAM, and a 1,920-by-1,200 IPS LCD display for quick response and sharp images. And while the 8.9-inch model has the same processor and RAM, it comes with a 2,560-by-1,600 screen. Both new models have a 1-megapixel front camera, but the 8.9-inch device also has an 8-megapixel rear camera. Easily one of the biggest new features in the Kindle Fire HDX tablets is the Mayday button. Press it, and within 15 seconds, a live Amazon operator appears in a video chat window on your screen to answer all of your Kindle Fire questions. Your tablet now contains not merely an artificial helper like Siri, but an actual human assistant. The three tablets go on pre-sale tonight on Amazon.com. Kindle Fire HD will cost $139 where as the 7-inch and 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HDX will set you back by $229 and $379, respectively.

Submission + - FBI warns "Beta Bot" can kill your anti-virus programs, steal data (networkworld.com)

Submitted by coondoggie
coondoggie writes: The FBI sent out a warning today about an uptick in the use of malware known as Beta Bot that can steal sensitive data such as log-in credentials and financial information. The FBI says Beta Bot blocks computer users’ access to security websites and disables anti-virus programs, leaving computers vulnerable to compromise. Cyber criminals aiming Beta Bot at financial institutions, e-commerce sites, online payment platforms, and social networking.

Submission + - Programmers' Most Hated Languages - And How To Avoid Them (itworld.com) 1

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: If you work in programming for any length of time, you will sooner or later be forced to work with a language that, whether due to odd syntax, too much (or too little) flexibility, poor debugging capabilities or any number of other reasons, makes you pull your hair out. Of course, some languages are easier to avoid than others. If Visual Basic is your I-can't-stand-it language you can simply not work at any company with Windows applications created before 2008. But if Perl's myriad ways of doing things (and hence near=unreadability) turn you off, maybe you should just give up on programming altogether.

Submission + - Hackers Offered Reward to Crack iPhone 5s Fingerprint Security (ibtimes.co.uk) 1

Submitted by DavidGilbert99
DavidGilbert99 writes: A couple of security researchers have set up a crowd-funded website to offer a reward to the first person who can "reliably and repeatedly break into an iPhone 5s by lifting prints.” The IsTouchIDHackedYet website shows 40 people offering everything from cash to Bitcoins, whiskey, wine and even a "dirty sex book" to the successful hacker. With the iPhone 5s launching tomorrow, there will be a lot of interest in whether or not the hackers can successfully crack Apple's Touch ID system.

Submission + - Wi-Fi sniffing lets researchers take social snapshots of crowds (techworld.com.au)

Submitted by angry tapir
angry tapir writes: The probe requests emitted by a smartphone as it seeks a Wi-Fi network to connect reveal the device's manufacturer thanks to its MAC address. This can offer some information about a crowd of people by looking at the breakdown by device brand. However, because some OSes include a preferred network list (PNL) in their probes, it may be possible to use Wi-Fi sniffing to infer even more information about a group of people by looking for common SSIDs, and potentially mapping them to known network locations. A group of Italian researchers has been looking at ways to use the information in probe requests to analyse the social connections of crowds.

Submission + - OpenZFS Project Launches Uniting ZFS Developers

Submitted by Damek
Damek writes: The OpenZFS project launched today, the truly open source successor to the ZFS project. ZFS is an advanced filesystem in active development for over a decade. Recent development has continued in the open, and OpenZFS is the new formal name for this community of developers, users, and companies improving, using, and building on ZFS. Founded by members of the Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X, and illumos communities, including Matt Ahrens, one of the two original authors of ZFS, the OpenZFS community brings together over a hundred software developers from these platforms. Read their announcement here.

Submission + - Most IT Staff Don't Communicate Security Risks (darkreading.com)

Submitted by CowboyRobot
CowboyRobot writes: A Tripwire survey of 1,320 IT personnel from the U.S. and U.K. showed that most staff "don't communicate security risk with senior executives or only communicate when a serious security risk is revealed." The reason is that staff have resigned themselves to staying mum due to an environment in which "collaboration between security risk management and business is poor, nonexistent or adversarial", or at best, just isn't effective at getting risk concerns up to senior management.

Submission + - Man Killed By Own Radio-Controlled Helicoptor in Brooklyn (wsj.com) 4

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: From the Wall Street Journal:

A 19-year-old model helicopter enthusiast was killed Thursday when a toy helicopter he was flying struck him in the head, a law-enforcement official said.
Victim Roman Pirozek “was known to be aggressive in his flying and often executed tricks. He was executing a trick when he was struck,” the official said.
Mr. Pirozek – depicted in (this) YouTube video he posted in July — was flying a remote-controlled helicopter worth about $2,000 when it struck him, cutting off the top of his head, the official said. The Woodhaven, Queens, resident was pronounced dead at the scene. His father was with him at the time of the accident, the official said

Submission + - New Musopen Campaign Wants To "Set Chopin Free"

Submitted by Eloquence
Eloquence writes: Three years ago, Musopen raised nearly $70,000 to create public domain recordings of works by Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, Schubert, and others. Now they're running a new campaign with a simple but ambitious objective: 'To preserve indefinitely and without question everything Chopin created. To release his music for free, both in 1080p video and 24 bit 192kHz audio. This is roughly 245 pieces.' Will this funding approach work to incrementally free up humanity's cultural heritage?

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