Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Submission + - Mexican Political Family Has Close PRI Ties, and Homes in the U.S (nytimes.com)

Submitted by Parkerld
Parkerld writes: In the fall of 2013, one of Mexico’s top housing officials posted an item on Twitter about an advertising campaign promoting mortgages for low-income Mexicans. The campaign’s message was simple: “The most important thing in life is in your house.”

Submission + - Google to start highlighting accurate health facts in search results (thestack.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Google has announced that it will be displaying direct answers to health queries in related search results, adding further information to its Knowledge Graph. According to a post on its Official Blog, Google reported that one out of every 20 searches seeks medical and well-being information. The new feature is expected to launch this week through the Knowledge Graph which appears as information boxes and image cards at the top of the search screen. In this case, Google will directly serve up details on symptoms, treatments, and other related health facts such as how common an illness is and if it is contagious or critical. This addition is part of Google’s wider drive to provide its own answers to queries, instead of relying on links to other sites.

Submission + - Installing Update for Visual Studio 2010 Tools for Office is Freezing PCs

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: The latest Patch Tuesday comes with a little lemon. Microsoft has botched a rollup update for Visual Studio 2010 Tools for Office Runtime. There is an issue with KB3001652: many users are reporting that it is locking up their machines while trying to install it. It does not seem that this patch is doing any other damage though, such as bricking the operating system. These days Microsoft appears to be reacting quickly to this kind of news as it looks like the patch has already been pulled from Windows Update.

Submission + - Driving Force Behind Alkali Metal Explosions Discovered (nature.com) 1

Submitted by Kunedog
Kunedog writes: Years ago, Dr. Philip E. Mason (aka Thunderf00t on Youtube) found it puzzling that the supposedly "well-understood" explosive reaction of a lump of sodium (an alkali metal) dropped in water could happen at all, given such a limited contact area on which the reaction could take place. And indeed, sometimes an explosion did fail to reliably occur, the lump of metal instead fizzing around the water's surface on a pocket of hydrogen produced by the (slower than explosive) reaction, thus inhibiting any faster reaction of the alkali metal with the water. Mason's best hypothesis was that the (sometimes) explosive reactions must be triggered by a Coulomb explosion, which could result when sodium cations (positive ions) are produced from the reaction and expel each other further into the water.

This theory is now supported by photographic and mathematical evidence, published in the journal Nature Chemistry. In a laboratory at Braunschweig University of Technology in Germany, Mason and other chemists used a high-speed camera to capture the critical moment that makes an explosion inevitable: a liquid drop of sodium-potassium alloy shooting spikes into the water, dramatically increasing the reactive interface. They also developed a computer simulation to model this event, showing it is best explained by a Coulomb explosion.

The Youtube video chronicles the evolution the experimental apparatuses underwent over time, pursuant to keeping the explosions safe, contained, reliable, and visible.

Submission + - Microsoft Fixes Critical Remotely Exploitable Windows Root-Level Design Bug

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In this month's Patch Tuesday, Microsoft has released nine security bulletins to address 56 unique vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer, and Microsoft Server software. Of the nine security bulletins, three are rated Critical in severity, and among these three is one that addresses a years-old design flaw that can be exploited remotely to grant attackers administrator-level privileges to the targeted machine or device. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of an affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights.

Submission + - Apple Invests $848 Million Into Solar Farm (reuters.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Apple is making a huge investment in solar energy, sending $848 million to First Solar’s California Flats Solar Project. The deal will supply Apple with energy for 25 years. Construction of the new 2,900-acre solar farm will start this summer and finish by the end of 2016. Apple's share of the energy produced will be about 130 megawatts, while another 150 MW will be sold to Pacific Gas & Electric. "The iPhone maker already powers all of its data centers with renewable energy. Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive officer, has advocated taking more steps to combat climate change."

Submission + - Has modern Linux lost its way? (complete.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Debian developer says that Linux is no longer "clean, logical, well put-together, and organized" after systemd.

Submission + - VLC Acquiring Lots of New Features

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: Two weekends ago an update on the VLC media player was shared during a presentation in Brussels at FOSDEM. Lead developer Jean-Baptiste Kempf covered VLC's continued vibrant development and features that are coming for VLC 2.2 along with VLC 3.0. VLC 2.2.0 will feature automatic, GPU-accelerated video rotation support, extension improvements, resume handling, support for new codecs/formats and rewrites to some of the existing formats, VDPAU GPU zero-copy support, x265 encoder support, etc. Further out is VLC 3.0.0, which is planned to have Wayland support, GPU zero-copy support for OpenMAX IL, ARIB subtitle support, HEVC / VP9 hardware decoding on Android, a rework of the MP4 and TS demuxers, and browsing improvements. The VLC FOSDEM 2015 presentation is available in PDF form. The VLC Git shortlog can be used to follow the development of the project.

Submission + - New Multi-Purpose Backdoor Targets Linux Servers

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A new multi-purpose Linux Trojan that opens a backdoor on the target machine and can make it participate in DDoS attacks has been discovered and analyzed by Dr. Web researchers, who believe that the Chinese hacker group ChinaZ might be behind it. "First, Linux.BackDoor.Xnote.1 sends information about the infected system to the server. It then goes into standby mode and awaits further instructions. If the command involves carrying out some task, the backdoor creates a separate process that establishes its own connection to the server through which it gets all the necessary configuration data and sends the results of the executed task," the researchers explained.

Submission + - Alibaba Bets $590 Million on Becoming Smartphone Player

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: China's Alibaba Group Holding Ltd is taking a $590 million stake in an obscure domestic smartphone maker as the e-commerce giant tests ways to expand its mobile operating system in a shrinking, cut-throat handset market. Extending a previously muted push into hardware, Alibaba said on Monday it will buy an unspecified minority stake in smartphone maker Meizu Technology Co. Dwarfed by rivals like Xiaomi Inc, privately owned Meizu's slice of China's smartphone market is estimated by analysts at below 2 percent. The deal, unlike U.S. rival Amazon.com Inc's foray into smartphones with its own-brand Fire Phone, is designed to help Alibaba push its mobile operating system within China through Meizu's handsets. In return, Zhuhai, Guangdong-based Meizu will get access to Alibaba's e-commerce sales channels and other resources, the companies said in a joint statement.

Submission + - Official - Big Brother really is listening (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by gbjbaanb
gbjbaanb writes: When even the manufacturer of your TV tells you not to discuss personal information in listening distance of your TV, you know our technology has gone crazy, but that's exactly what Samsung is telling its customers of its own smart TVs.

[Samsung's] policy explains that the TV set will be listening to people in the same room to try to spot when commands are issued. It goes on to warn: "If your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party."

Submission + - PeopleLink's Worldwide recognition reaches Newer & Immortal Heights. (peoplelink.in)

Submitted by chakradhar_seo
chakradhar_seo writes: It’s a great honour for PeopleLink to become a part of the Academic Curriculum of United States for their Students of Computers & Information Technology. PeopleLink has been Included alongside with GoToMeeting (Citrix) and WebEx (Cisco) portraying its technological capabilities. Being Included in an academic textbook stands above all the comparisons or International reports to prove us as the Global & Technologically advanced solution available. PeopleLink features in the Easier Collaboration section under the chapter on Taking Advantage of the Cloud: Teamwork, Apps, and Storage.

The Book has been published by Paradigm Publishing which has been committed to developing quality educational materials and providing personalized service to educators. Paradigm Publishing specializes in post-secondary publishing, offering textbook programs in Computer Technology, Health Careers, Biotechnology Accounting, Business Technology, Distance Learning, and Career Management with supplementary and multimedia materials.
Book Details –

Computers: Understanding Technology Fifth Edition — Comprehensive
Author(s): Floyd Fuller; Brian Larson; Lisa A. Bucki; and Faithe Wempen

Chapter 7 — Taking Advantage of the Cloud: Teamwork, Apps, and Storage (Page 293)
ISBN: 978-0-76386-182-7 (eBook) / 978-0-76386-181-0 (Digital)

Submission + - ownCloud Server 8 released (owncloud.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The ownCloud community, developing the world’s most popular open source file sync and share software, today released ownCloud Server 8.0 With more than 2 million users worldwide, ownCloud installs easily on a web server, enabling anyone to host their own file sync and share software while using their own storage (and/or cloud storage if they choose), instead of relying on third parties with files stored outside of their control. https://owncloud.com/self-host...

Submission + - Will Elementary School Teachers Take the Rap for Tech's Diversity Problem?

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Citing a new study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research (free to Federal employees), the NY Times reports on how elementary school teachers' pro-boy biases can discourage girls from math and science. "The pipeline for women to enter math and science occupations narrows at many points between kindergarten and a career choice," writes Claire Cain Miller, "but elementary school seems to be a critical juncture. Reversing bias among teachers could increase the number of women who enter fields like computer science and engineering, which are some of the fastest growing and highest paying. 'It goes a long way to showing it's not the students or the home, but the classroom teacher's behavior that explains part of the differences over time between boys and girls,' said Victor Lavy, an economist at University of Warwick in England and a co-author of the paper." Although the study took place in Israel, Lavy said that similar research had been conducted in several European countries and that he expected the results were applicable in the United States.

Submission + - How Many Laws Did Apple Break? 1

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: Jean-Louis Gassée writes at Monday note that Apple’s most recent quarterly numbers broke a number of laws: Law 1: Larger size makes growth increasingly difficult. The Law of Large Numbers predicts the eventual flattening of extraordinary growth. "And yet, last quarter, Apple revenue grew 30%, breaking the Law and any precedent," writes Gassée. "iPhone revenue, which grew 57%, exceeded $51B in one quarter — close to what Google achieved in its entire Fiscal 2014 year." Law 2: Everything becomes a commodity. As products are standardized, margins suffer as competitors frantically cut prices in a race to the bottom with the PC clone market serving as a good example. "At the risk of belaboring the obvious, a rising Average Selling Price (ASP) means customers are freely deciding to give more money to Apple," says Gassée. "We’re told that this is just a form of Stockholm Syndrome, the powerless customer held prisoner inside Apple’s Walled Garden." Yet according to Tim Cook “fewer than 15% of older iPhone owners upgraded to the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. The majority of switchers to iPhone came from smartphones running Google Inc.’s Android operating system.” Law 3: Market share always wins. With a bigger market share comes economies of scale and network effects leaving minority players condemned to irrelevance and starvation. Yet despite its small unit share (around 7% worldwide, higher in the US), Apple takes home about half of all PC industry profits, thanks to its significant ASP ($1,250 vs $417 industry-wide in 2014, trending down to $379 this year). Law 4: Modularity Always Wins. In the end, modularity always defeats integration. Clayton Christensen points out that in the PC clone market, modularity allowed competitors to undercut one another by improving layer after layer, smarter graphic cards, better/faster/cheaper processing, storage, and peripheral modules. Yet, as Apple’s recent numbers show, the iPhone seems immune to modularity threats.

"I have no trouble with the Law of Large Numbers, it only underlines Apple’s truly stupendous growth and, in the end, it always wins. No business can grow by 20%, or even 10% for ever. But, for the other three, Market Share, Commoditization, and Modularity, how can we ignore the sea of contradicting facts?" concludes Gassée. "As Apple continues to “break the law”, perhaps we’ll see a new body of scholarship that provides alternatives to the discredited refrains. As Rob Majteles tweeted: “Apple: where many, all?, management theories go to die?"

Slashdot Top Deals

Byte your tongue.

Close