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Science

Submission + - Gene study offers clues on memory puzzle (medicalxpress.com)

Submitted by
fysdt
fysdt writes: "Scientists have shed light on why it is easier to learn about things related to what we already know than it is to learn about unfamiliar things, according to a new study.

The team says this is a paradox, as very different things are arguably more novel, yet adding to what we already know is so much easier.

Researchers at the Universities of Edinburgh and Tokyo have found that building on existing knowledge activates a key set of genes in the brain.

These 'plasticity' genes do not respond so well to subjects about which we know very little, making it harder for us to form new memories about unfamiliar topics.

The team says this could help us understand how professionals acquire their knowledge gradually over time and may inform new educational strategies to boost learning."

Submission + - NJ Judge Rules GPS Tracking of Spouse Legal (nj.com)

Submitted by Endoflow2010
Endoflow2010 writes: The use of a GPS device to track your whereabouts is not an invasion of privacy in New Jersey, a state appellate court panel ruled today.

Based on the battle of a divorcing Gloucester County couple, the decision helps clarify the rules governing a technology increasingly employed by suspicious spouses — many of whom hire private investigators.

No state law governs the use of GPS tracking devices, and the ruling, which does not affect police officers, is the first to address the issue, said Jimmie Mesis, past president of the New Jersey Licensed Private Investigators Association.

“We only use it when we are sure we have the appropriate conditions,’’ Reed said, noting that investigators make sure GPS devises are installed in cars on public streets and not private areas, and that the spouse must have some legal or financial connection to the car.

Appellate Judge Joseph Lisa, Jack Sabatino and Carmen Alvarez said Villanova had no right to expect privacy because the GPS tracked his movements on public streets.

“There is no direct evidence in this record to establish that during the approximately 40 days the GPS was in the ... glove compartment the device captured a movement of plaintiff into a secluded location that was not in public view, and, if so, that such information was passed along by Mrs. Villanova to (Leonard),” Lisa wrote.

Comment Re:cheaters (Score 1) 163

by Linnen (#36178640) Attached to: The Future of Shopping
The implemented solution is random audits. Your order is flagged at random and the cashier in charge of the area comes over and rescans some or all of your items. I do not know what happens if there is a discrepancy.
Cloud

Submission + - Amazon outage shows limits of failover "zones" (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
jbrodkin
jbrodkin writes: "For cloud customers willing to pony up a little extra cash, Amazon has an enticing proposition: Spread your application across multiple availability zones for a near-guarantee that it won't suffer from downtime. "By launching instances in separate Availability Zones, you can protect your applications from failure of a single location," Amazon says in pitching its Elastic Compute Cloud service. But the availability zones are close together and can fail at the same time, as we saw today. The outage and ongoing attempts to restore service call into question the effectiveness of the availability zones, and put a spotlight on Amazon's failure to provide load balancing between the east and west coasts."
Power

Submission + - Fukushima Core Melts Through Containment Vessel (inhabitat.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Radiation levels are skyrocketing around Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant as reports indicate that a radioactive core has overheated and melted through its containment vessel and onto a concrete floor. Radiation levels inside reactor two were recently gauged at 1,000 millisieverts per hour — a level so high that workers could only remain in the area for 15 minutes under current exposure guideline.
Firefox

Submission + - Mozilla Posts First Firefox 5 Versions (conceivablytech.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Mozilla is following through with its accelerated release plan, The company just confirmed that the posted 4.2a1pre versions are, in fact, already Firefox 5 builds and time constraints did not allow Mozilla to use the version number 5.0a1pre. The new schedule foresees Firefox 5 to move into a public stable channel on April 13. The expected changes in this version are UI revisions that will desktop web apps, besides the already annoucned revisions to the JavaScript engine for ECMAScript 5.
Apple

Submission + - Mac App Store - Good or Bad? Developers React (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by KindMind
KindMind writes: The Register writes about developer reactions to the Mac App Store. One says: "The hardest thing ... is not creating software. It's selling it," he said. "In order to sell things, you need exposure.", and that "the Mac App Store provides that exposure". But another says, "There are other costs to doing business in the App Store ...you lose control over the relationship with the customer. We don't know who our App Store customers are."
Japan

Submission + - Piracy boost sales, says Japanese Government study (torrentfreak.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A new official study seems to confirm what a lot of the Slashdot crowd thinks, and the opposite of what the **AAs say:
"A prestigious economics think-tank of the Japanese Government has published a study which concludes that online piracy of anime shows actually increases sales of DVDs. The conclusion stands in sharp contrast with the entertainment industry’s claims that ‘illicit’ downloading is leading to billions of dollars in losses worldwide. It also puts the increased anti-piracy efforts of the anime industry in doubt."
More specifically, "(1) YouTube viewing does not negatively affect DVD rentals, and it appears to help raise DVD sales; and (2) although Winny [a popular P2P program in Japan] file sharing negatively affects DVD rentals, it does not affect DVD sales."
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft Releases Attack Surface Analyzer Tool (net-security.org)

Submitted by Orome1
Orome1 writes: Attack Surface Analyzer is the same tool used by Microsoft's internal product teams to catalogue changes made to the operating system by the installation of new software. The tool takes a snapshot of your system state before and after the installation of product(s) and displays the changes to a number of key elements of the Windows attack surface.

Submission + - Attack Toolkits Dominating the Threat Landscape (securityweek.com)

Submitted by wiredmikey
wiredmikey writes: The ease-of-use and ability to amass great profits through the use of easily accessible “attack toolkits” are driving faster proliferation of cyber attacks and expanding the pool of attackers, opening the doors to more criminals who would likely otherwise lack the required technical expertise to success in the cybercrime underground. The relative simplicity and effectiveness of attack kits has contributed to their increased use in cybercrime — these kits are now being used in the majority of malicious Internet attacks.

Participants now include a mix of individuals with computer skills and those with expertise in traditional criminal activities such as money laundering. Symantec, which issued a report studying attacks today, expects that this much larger pool of criminals entering the space will lead to an increase in the number of attacks. These kits enable the attacker to easily launch numerous pre-written threats against computer systems. They also provide the ability to customize threats in order to evade detection, as well as automating the attack process.

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