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Submission + - Court sides with software developer in open source dispute enforcing GPL

neoflexycurrent writes: From internetcases: Plaintiff wrote an XML parser and made it available as open source software under the GPLv2. Defendant acquired from another vendor software that included the code, and allegedly distributed that software to parties outside the organization. According to plaintiff, defendant did not comply with the conditions of the GPL, so plaintiff sued for copyright infringement.Defendants moved to dismiss for failure to state a claim. The court denied the motion, finding the GPL to be enforceable.

Submission + - Facebook mocks 'infection' study, predicts Princeton's demise (facebook.com) 1

Okian Warrior writes: In a followup to our earlier story about Princeton researchers predicting the end of Facebook by 2017, Facebook has struck back with a post using similar statistical techniques to predict that Princeton itself may be facing irreversible decline.

By using similar methods ("likes," mentions in scholarly papers, Google searches) Facebook creates convincing-looking graphs that indicate Princeton is losing ground compared with its rivals and may have no students at all by 2021.

Submission + - More bad news for the F-35 (aviationweek.com)

schwit1 writes: A new U.S. Defense Department report warns that ongoing software, maintenance and reliability problems with Lockheed Martin Corp’s F-35 stealth fighter could delay the Marine Corps’ plans to start using its F-35 jets by mid-2015.

It said Lockheed had delivered F-35 jets with 50 percent or less of the software capabilities required by its production contracts with the Pentagon.

The computer-based logistics system known as ALIS was fielded with “serious deficiencies” and remained behind schedule, which affected servicing of existing jets needed for flight testing, the report said. It said the ALIS diagnostic system failed to meet even basic requirements.

The F35 program, which began in 2001, is 70 percent over initial cost estimates, and years behind schedule, but top U.S. officials say it is now making progress. They have vowed to safeguard funding for the program to keep it on track.

Earlier this week, the nonprofit Center for International Policy said Lockheed had greatly exaggerated its estimate that the F-35 program sustained 125,000 U.S. jobs to shore up support for the program.

Submission + - German court invalidates Microsoft FAT patent (techworld.com) 1

walterbyrd writes: Microsoft storage patent that was used to get a sales ban on products from Google-owned Motorola Mobility in Germany has been invalidated by the German Federal Patent Court.

Microsoft's FAT (File Allocation Table) patent, which concerns a "common name space for long and short filenames" was invalidated on Thursday, a spokeswoman for the Federal Patent Court said in an email Friday. She could not give the exact reasons for the court's decision before the written judicial decision is released, which will take a few weeks.

Submission + - Linus Torvalds No Longer Ranked in the Top 100 Linux Kernel developers (eweek.com)

darthcamaro writes: The Linux Foundation's Who Writes Linux report is now out and after 22 yrs leading Linux, Linux creator Linus Torvalds this year has fallen out of the list of top 100 developers in terms of code contributions.

Torvalds currently ranks 101st on the latest "Who Writes Linux" report for number of patches generated from the Linux 3.3 to the Linux 3.10 kernel releases. Topping the list is Linux kernel developer H Hartley Sweeten with 2.3 percent of changes. Sweeten is followed by kernel developer Mark Brown, who contributed 1.5 percent of changes.


Submission + - Our Solar System: Rare Species in Cosmic Zoo (discovery.com)

astroengine writes: Pulling from 20 years of research since the first discoveries of planets beyond our solar system, scientists have concluded that Earth and its sibling worlds comprise what appears to be a relatively rare breed in a diverse cosmic zoo that includes a huge variety of planet sizes, orbits and parent stars. The most common systems contain one or more planets one to three times bigger than Earth, all orbiting much closer to their parent stars than Earth circles the sun, says astronomer Andrew Howard, with the University of Hawaii.

Submission + - Passthoughts, not Passwords: Authentication via Brainwaves (darkreading.com)

CowboyRobot writes: A new study by researchers from the U.C. Berkeley School of Information examined the brainwave signals of individuals performing specific actions to see if they can be consistently matched to the right individual. To measure the subjects' brainwaves, the team utilized the NeuroSky Mindset, a Bluetooth headset that records Electroencephalographic (EEG) activity. In the end, the team was able to match the brainwave signals with 99% accuracy. "We are not trying to trace back from a brainwave signal to a specific person," explains Prof. John Chuang, who led the team. "That would be a much more difficult problem. Rather, our task is to determine if a presented brainwave signal matches the brainwave signals previously submitted by the user when they were setting up their pass-thought."
GNU is Not Unix

Submission + - The Pirate Bay's Oldest Torrent is "Revolution OS" (torrentfreak.com)

jrepin writes: "After nearly 9 years of seeding The Pirate Bay’s oldest working torrent is still very much alive. Interestingly, the torrent is not a Hollywood classic nor is it an evergreen music album. The honor goes to a pirated copy of “Revolution OS”, a documentary covering the history of Linux, GNU and the free software movement."

Submission + - Does the Higgs Boson Reveal Our Universe's Doomsday? (discovery.com)

astroengine writes: "If calculations of the newly discovered Higgs boson particle are correct, one day, tens of billions of years from now, the universe will disappear at the speed of light, replaced by a strange, alternative dimension, one theoretical physicist calls boring. "It may be that the universe we live in is inherently unstable and at some point billions of years from now it’s all going to get wiped out. This has to do with the Higgs energy field itself,” Joseph Lykken, with the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill., told Discovery News. "This calculation tells you that many tens of billions of years from now there’ll be a catastrophe.""
Linux

Submission + - Valve Releases Steam For Linux Client, Celebrates With Week-Long Sale

An anonymous reader writes: Valve on Thursday announced the release of its Steam for Linux client. You can download the client now for free from the Ubuntu Software Center. In typical Steam fashion, the company is celebrating the big day with a sale: over 50 Linux titles are now 50 percent to 75 percent off until 10:00AM PST on Wednesday, February 21. This means you have just under a week to take advantage, and should be plenty of time for Valve to set a new record in Steam for Linux downloads.

Submission + - NZBMatrix has closed. (nzbmatrix.com)

timm5 writes: A sad day. Website quotes the below:

The End...

It is with our regret to announce that NZBMATRIX has closed.

We have had to make this decision due to a very large takedown request from a company called Wiggin LLC. These represent the following: Federation Against Copyright Theft Limited ("FACT"), Paramount Home Entertainment International Limited; Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Limited; The Walt Disney Company Limited; Twentieth Century Fox Film Company Limited; Universal Pictures (UK) Limited; Warner Bros. Entertainment UK Limited.

As everyone is aware we are DMCA/Takedown notice compliant, and always have been.
Once this notice is completed we are left with an impossible task of policing our indexing bots. Even then it won't stop there, there will be follow-up notices etc.

Coupled with this is problems with payment providers, we have been through pretty much everyone out there, in the end they all pull out.
There are massive server/bandwidth costs to pay, with the payments in-stability this is a very hard task.

NZBMATRIX has never been the subject of any legal issues or threats.

Also the Usenet Indexing scene is going through some changes, with content being removed from pretty much every provider its making the existence of an indexer irrelevant if the content does not even exists anymore.

So it's time for us to bow out...

Science

Submission + - Higgs Boson: Cern Scientists May Have Discovered 'God Particle' (ibtimes.co.uk)

An anonymous reader writes: Scientists at the European Council for Nuclear Research (Cern) have discovered a subatomic particle which could be the Higgs Boson, the elusive "God particle" that gives mass to all other particles in the universe.

The search for the Higgs Boson has been going on for decades at a cost of billions of pounds. Scientists have now announced they have seen the best evidence yet that it exists.

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