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Submission + - Ask Slashdot: How do you deal with online photo theft? (thomashawk.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: With a number of people publishing photos online, is it really fair game for organizations to use them to publicize events of clients? Should organizations do more to check the source of these images?
What is the best way to get your out there and avoid these pitfalls.
Cloud

Submission + - Is it time for NoSQL 2.0? 1

Submitted by rescrv
rescrv writes: Key-value stores (like Cassandra, Redis and DynamoDB) have been replacing traditional databases in many demanding web applications (e.g. Twitter, Google, Facebook, LinkedIn and others). But for the most part, the differences between existing NoSQL systems come down to the choice of well-studied implementation techniques; in particular, they all provide a similar API that achieves high performance and scalability by limiting applications to simple operations like GET and PUT. HyperDex, a new key-value store developed at Cornell, stands out in the NoSQL spectrum with its unique design. HyperDex employs a unique multi-dimensional hash function to enable efficient search operations — that is, objects may be retrieved without using the key under which they are stored. Other systems employ indexing techniques to enable search, or enumerate all objects in the system. In contrast, HyperDex's design enables applications to retrieve search results directly from servers in the system. The results are impressive. Preliminary benchmark results on the project website show that HyperDex provides significant performance improvements over Cassandra and MongoDB. With its unique design, and impressive performance, it seems fittng to ask: Is HyperDex the start of NoSQL 2.0?
HP

Submission + - Where did blade servers come from? From Sun to Cubix to RLX (fosketts.net)

Submitted by PedXing
PedXing writes: Blade servers aren't a new idea, but the name only appeared in 2001. RLX Technologies and Egenera both appeared with integrated blade servers that year. Before this came two waves of similar systems: Cubix and company with their "high-density servers" and all the VMEbus servers from Sun, HP, and the rest. These differed from modern blades, since they weren't truly hot-swappable and integrated, but they paved the way.

Submission + - Best language for experimental GUI demo projects 1

Submitted by
GrantRobertson
GrantRobertson writes: "I am not a professional software developer and never have any aspirations to become one. I've been through a generic university computer science degree-program and I can tolerate C++ begrudgingly. I do OK with Java and prefer it, though I still have to look up every API before I use it. Most of the code I want to write will be not much more than prototypes or proof of concept stuff for the research I will be doing, rather than full-on applications ready for distribution and use. I can learn any language out there, if need be, but these days it is more about the ecosystem than the core language. IDEs, libraries, cross-platform compatibility, user support, open source licensing.

My research/tinkering will be along two main lines:
1) Devising entirely new graphical user interface elements, mostly in 2-D, though often in a true or simulated 3-D space. I am working on ways to visualize, navigate, and manipulate very, VERY large data-sets of academic research information.
2) Computer based education software, though of a type never seen before. This will combine some of the GUI elements invented in (1) as well as displaying standard HTML or HTML5 content via a browser engine.

My requirements are:
A) A decent IDE ecosystem.
B) A decent set of libraries, but ones that don't lock me in to a particular mind-set like Swing does in Java. (Boxes in boxes in boxes, Oh My!)
C) An ability to easily draw what I want, where I want and make any surface of that 3-D object become a source for capturing events.
D) Ease of cross-platform use. (So others can easily look at my examples and run with them.)
E) No impediments to open-source licensing my code or for others to go commercial with it either (as I have seen when I looked into Qt).

So, should I just stick with Java and start looking outside the box for GUI toolkits? Or is there something else out there I should be looking at?"

Submission + - Adobe employee speaks out on bloatware (blogspot.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: This controversial post by Adobe's Kas Thomas asks if splash screens are just a sign of program bloat and callous disregard for users. It suggests that big programs should launch instantly (or appear to), perhaps by running against an instance in the cloud while the local instance finishes loading. Users of cell phones and tablets are accustomed to apps being instantly available. This is the new standard for performance, the author argues. Nothing short of it will do, any more.
Open Source

Submission + - LibreOffice is the triumph of maturity over adversity (computerworlduk.com)

Submitted by superapecommando
superapecommando writes: Simon Phipps, former head of open source at Sun, points out how the story of LibreOffice is a great example of how open source communities can triumph over adversity.

"While much of what has happened has been the steady momentum you'd expect from a community-run project, the announcement this morning that parent organisation The Document Foundation has finally been officially incorporated in Germany seems a symbolic maturity point for the once-renegade project. Incorporation was made possible by the amazing week in 2011 when hundreds of individual donations provided the €50,000 starting capital for the Foundation, and while it's taken a year to happen, the entity that's been created — a German Stiftung — is as solid as rock. "

Comment S-PVS vs IPS Pro vs PLS Panels (Score 1) 381

by acooks (#39039483) Attached to: Television Next In Line For Industry-Wide Shakeup?

"TVs are ultimately about picture quality. ... and there is no way that anyone, new or old, can come along this year or next year and beat us on picture quality"

First thought: Bullshit. Then I saw it's not S-PVA vs IPS Pro anymore; Samsung's doing PLS now.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/monitors/display/samsung-sa850_2.html

Need more detail on PLS...
http://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/12/02/14/2144217/television-next-in-line-for-industry-wide-shakeup#
Google

Submission + - Sergey: In Soviet Russia, Rocket Detonates You!

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: 'We were all foolish enough to go on this adventure,' Google co-founder Sergey Brin told the assembled Brainiacs at Google's Solve for X event last week, recalling the time he and Google co-founder Larry Page took their Gulfstream on a $100K journey to watch a 2008 Soyuz launch in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. 'If the rocket blows up, we're all dead,' Sergey overheard a Russian guard say. 'It was incredibly close,' Sergey continued. 'We drove in toward this rocket and there were hundreds of people all going the other way. It was really an astonishing sight. If you ever have the opportunity, I highly recommend it. It's really not at all comparable to the American launches that I've seen...because those are like five miles away behind a mountain, and the Russians are not as concerned with safety.' Sergey received film credit for the recently-opened Man on a Mission, a documentary on the Russian Soyuz mission that wound up putting Ultima creator Richard Garriott into orbit (for $30 million) instead of changing the course of Google history. BTW, with that new beard he's sporting, could a remake of 'Lenny' be Sergey's next film role?
Privacy

Submission + - Spokeo.com Makes Your Privacy Public (spokeo.com)

Submitted by RobK
RobK writes: The site http://www.spokeo.com/ has started showing up in searches when looking for people by name. The scary bit is that they aggregating data from everywhere including property records, email addresses, blogs and social media sites and either creating a very accurate picture of you or just maybe and aerial picture of your house with no effort.

It appears they also aggregate info about your online pseudonyms — allowing that creepy ex girlfriend to find you everywhere.

Where's Waldo? Here he is — http://www.spokeo.com/search?q=Where's+Waldo&s3=t9#:18215136171 — at least until he opts out at http://www.spokeo.com/privacy.
NASA

Submission + - You be the judge: 26 seconds of the Global Climate (NASA data) (youtube.com)

Submitted by wisebabo
wisebabo writes: In the spirit of the recent story about the (lack of) decline in mass of ice in the Himalayas over the last 10 years, here is a short animation by NASA of records since 1880.

Since it shows a GLOBAL perspective rather than a regional one and TEMPERATURES not ice mass over more than a CENTURY, it seems to be a more direct answer to the question, is there a statistically significant trend in the Global Climate? (That's in contrast to the Regional study which focused on ice? Mass over just a Decade).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kFHQpZpgdg

Editors, it would be nice if you could embed the animation so slashdotters don't even have to click on a link. (I'm sorry I don't know how).
User Journal

Journal Journal: First look at new open source game "Zero Point War"!

Journal by xhrit
I just posted the first development video of my open source multidirectional tactical space shooter/conquest/rpg 'Zero Point War'.

I created Zero Point War because I wanted to create an open source game that is about the open source movement. Many open source games feature mascots and imagery associated with open source projects, but do not actually attempt to integrate the open source ideals into story or gameplay.
Space

Submission + - NASA to cut Mars mission (cbslocal.com)

Submitted by
DesScorp
DesScorp writes: "Faced with budget cuts, and forced to choose between deep space observation or a mission to Mars, CBS reports that NASA will kill most of its Mars exploration programs. Sources in NASA say that of the $300 million being cut from the space agency's budget, two-thirds were for a joint US-EU program for Martian exploration. NASA spokesman David Weaver said that, just like the rest of the federal government, the space agency has to make “tough choices and live within our means.”"

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