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Microsoft

Microsoft Shutting Down MSN Messenger After 15 Years of Service 127

Posted by samzenpus from the so-long-farewell dept.
New submitter airfuz writes Microsoft took a bold move announcing that users have to move away from the old version of Internet Explorer to the new version 11. And now not long after that, Microsoft announced that they are shutting down the 15-year-old MSN Messenger. Most people have moved away from the service to Facebook and other mobile based messengers such as Whatsapp, and so MSN is left with few users. But still, ending a 15-year messaging service like the MSN Messenger means something to the ones who grew up using it.
Mozilla

Mozilla Launches Student Coding Program "Winter of Security" 40

Posted by samzenpus from the student-labor dept.
First time accepted submitter NotInHere (3654617) writes "Mozilla has introduced a new program called MWoS, or 'Mozilla Winter of Security,' to involve university students in security projects. The attending students will write code for a Mozilla security tool during (northern hemisphere) winter. Unlike GSoC, attending it involves no monetary payment, but the student's universities are expected to actively cooperate and to give the students a credit for their work. From the article: 'MWoS is a win for all. Students get a chance to work on real-world security projects, under the guidance of an experienced security engineer. Professors get to implement cutting-edge security projects into their programs. Mozilla and the community get better security tools, which that we would not have the resources to build or improve ourselves.'"
Programming

GitHub Open Sources Atom, Their Text Editor Based On Chromium 121

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the emacs-does-it-better dept.
First time accepted submitter aojensen (1503269) writes "GitHub has made good on promises to open source Atom, a programmer's text editor based on Chromium. Atom is released under the MIT license (source repository). GitHub announced the following on their blog: 'Because we spend most of our day in a text editor, the single most important feature we wanted in an editor was extensibility. Atom is built with the same open source technologies used by modern web browsers. ... But more importantly, extending Atom is as simple as writing JavaScript and CSS, two languages used by millions of developers each day.'

Apart from being extensible via HTML, JavaScript, and CSS, Atom also offers out-of-the-box Node.js integration, a modular design with a built-in package manager (apm), and extensive features such as file system browser, themes, project-wide search and replace, panes, snippets, code folding, and more. Launched only 10 weeks ago, Atom seems to have a well-established ecosystem of packages and extensions already." The editor is based on atom-shell, a more general framework for building desktop apps using JavaScript/HTML. Beware: according to the FAQ, by default it sends "usage data" to Google Analytics (which can be disabled at least).
Space

Saturn May Have Given Birth To a Baby Moon 71

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the probably-an-alien-spacecraft dept.
astroengine (1577233) writes "NASA's Saturn-orbiting Cassini spacecraft has imaged something peculiar on the outermost edge of the gas giant's A-ring. A bright knot, or arc, has been spotted 20 percent brighter than the surrounding ring material and astronomers are interpreting it as a gravitational disturbance caused by a tiny moon. "We have not seen anything like this before," said Carl Murray of Queen Mary University of London. 'We may be looking at the act of birth, where this object is just leaving the rings and heading off to be a moon in its own right.'"
BSD

Interview: Ask Theo de Raadt What You Will 290

Posted by samzenpus from the go-ahead-and-ask dept.
Theo de Raadt was a founding member of NetBSD, and is the founder and leader of the OpenSSH and OpenBSD projects. He is currently working on OpenBSD 5.5 which would be the projects 35th release on CDROM. Even though he'd rather be hiking in the mountains or climbing rocks in his free time, Theo has agreed to answer any question you may have. As usual, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one question per post.
Businesses

SnapChat Turns Down $3 Billion Offer From Facebook 188

Posted by samzenpus from the no-deal dept.
Dr Herbert West writes about a reported $3 billion offer from Facebook that Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel turned down. "Snapchat, a rapidly growing messaging service, recently spurned an all-cash acquisition offer from Facebook for close to $3 billion or more, according to people briefed on the matter. The offer, and rebuff, came as Snapchat is being wooed by other investors and potential acquirers. Chinese e-commerce giant Tencent Holdings had offered to lead an investment that would value two-year-old Snapchat at $4 billion. Evan Spiegel, Snapchat’s 23-year-old co-founder and CEO, will not likely consider an acquisition or an investment at least until early next year, the people briefed on the matter said. They said Spiegel is hoping Snapchat’s numbers – of users and messages – will grow enough by then to justify an even larger valuation, the people said."

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