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Censorship

Submission + - Pirate Party Members Kidnapped by Tunisia Police (facebook.com) 1

Submitted by juicegg
juicegg writes: Currently the government of Tunisia, a small country on the north coast of Africa, is facing intense protests against corruption, lack of freedom and unemployment. The government has responded by tightening it's censorship of the Internet and with repression against the protesters. Yesterday, three member of Tunisian Pirate Party, which is currently fighting to circumvent censorship, were arrested without a warrant and their computers were confiscated. No one, including their families, knows where they are being held and there are reasons to believe they could be tortured.

More information about Tunisian protests can be found here.
Science

Submission + - Hypersonic Radio Black-Out Problem Solved (technologyreview.com)

Submitted by KentuckyFC
KentuckyFC writes: Russian physicists have come up with a new way to communicate with hypersonic vehicles surrounded by a sheath of plasma. Ordinarily, this plasma absorbs and reflects radio waves at communications frequencies leading to a few tense minutes during the re-entry of manned vehicles such as the shuttle. However, the problem is even more acute for military vehicles such as ballistic missiles and hypersonic planes. Radio black out prevents these vehicles from accessing GPS signals for navigation and does not allow them to be re-targeted or disarmed at the last minute. But a group of Russian physicists say they can get around this problem by turning the entire plasma sheath into a radio antenna. They point out that any incoming signal is both reflected and absorbed by the plasma. The reflected signal is lost but the absorbed energy sets up a resonating electric field at a certain depth within the plasma. In effect, this layer within the plasma acts like a radio antenna, receiving the signal. However, the signal cannot travel further through the plasma to the spacecraft. Their new idea is to zap this layer with radio waves generated from within the spacecraft. These waves will be both absorbed by the plasma and reflected back inside the spacecraft. However, the key point is that the reflected waves ought to be modulated by any changes in the electric field within the plasma. In other words, the reflected waves should carry a kind of imprint of the original external radio signal. That would allow the craft to receive external signals from GPs satellites or ground control. And the same process in reverse allows the spacecraft to broadcast signals too.
Open Source

Submission + - Ubuntu 11.04 to include LibreOffice (h-online.com)

Submitted by mvar
mvar writes: Following previous reports that Ubuntu sponsor Canonical was looking to replace Oracle's open source OpenOffice.org office suite, the Ubuntu developers have confirmed that the LibreOffice community fork will be included in Ubuntu 11.04, code named "Natty Narwhal". According to a post on the Ubuntu mailing list by developer Matthias Klose, the developers have already started the transition of removing outdated OpenOffice.org packages based on version 3.2.1.
Microsoft

Submission + - Fake Microsoft Security Update Brings Autorun Worm (net-security.org)

Submitted by Orome1
Orome1 writes: An e-mail supposedly coming from Microsoft and urging the recipients to update their Windows has started making rounds yesterday. It comes with KB453396-ENU.exe, which is an Autorun worm. There are a lot of people out there who will immediately recognize this message for what it is, since Microsoft isn't in the habit of sending critical security patches via e-mail. But, there are also those who don't remember such things, and might be fooled by the timing (Tuesday is the usual weekday when Microsoft issues security patches) or by the signature (the real Steve Lipner is actually a senior member of Microsoft's security team).
Firefox

Submission + - Firefox overtakes IE in Europe (reuters.com)

Submitted by mu22le
mu22le writes: According to figures from Statcounter firefox took 38.1% of European market share, while Internet Explorer's share slipped to 37.5%. "This appears to be happening because Google's Chrome is stealing share from Internet Explorer while Firefox is mainly maintaining its existing share," Aodhan Cullen, StatCounter chief executive, said in a statement. Reuters thinks part of the problem might be the March 2009 agreement between the European Commission and Microsoft to allow European Union users a choice of browsers.

 
Idle

Submission + - Dead Birds Fall from the Sky (guardian.co.uk)

Submitted by SkeeZerD
SkeeZerD writes: Wildlife experts are trying to determine what caused more than 1,000 blackbirds to die and fall from the sky over the town of Beebe in Arkansas.

The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission said it began receiving reports about the dead birds at about 11.30pm on Friday.

The birds fell over a one-mile area, and an aerial survey indicated that no other dead birds were found outside that area. Ornithologist Karen Rowe said the the birds showed physical trauma, and she speculated that "the flock could have been hit by lightning or high-altitude hail". The dead birds have been sent for testing. The commission said that New Year's Eve fireworks celebrations could have startled the birds from their roost and caused them to die from stress. The dead birds have been sent for testing.

Submission + - Thousands of blackbirds fall from sky dead (reuters.com) 1

Submitted by Dan East
Dan East writes: In a fashion worthy of a King or Hitchcock novel, yesterday blackbirds began to fall from the sky dead. Somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 birds rained down on the small town of Beeb, Arkansas, with no visible trauma. Officials are making wild guesses as to what happened — lightning strike, high-altitude hail, or perhaps trauma from the sound of New Year's fireworks killed them.

Submission + - University of Glasgow pioneers 1000 core processor (dailymail.co.uk) 2

Submitted by Crudely_Indecent
Crudely_Indecent writes:

Scientists have created an ultra-fast computer chip which is 20 times faster than current desktop computers. Modern PCs have a processor with two, four or sometimes 16 cores to carry out tasks. But the central processing unit (CPU) developed by the researchers effectively had 1,000 cores on a single chip. The developments could usher in a new age of high-speed computing in the next few years for home users frustrated with slow-running systems.

1000 cores could make short work of the video encoding that I'm doing tonight. Lets hope they finish their research soon and put a price tag on this technology!

Comment Re:You thought the GOP/TP represented regular peop (Score 1) 528

by SkeeZerD (#34597122) Attached to: Republicans Create Rider To Stop Net Neutrality
I tried to set this as my sig, but it was too long. think it says it all.

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that
unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of
my country. . . . corporations have been enthroned and
an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the
money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its
reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until
all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic
is destroyed."

-- U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1864
(letter to Col. William F. Elkins)
Ref: The Lincoln Encyclopedia, Archer H. Shaw
(Macmillan, 1950, NY)
Image

Hi-Tech Nativity Security 110

Posted by samzenpus from the a-higher-satellite-power dept.
To combat vandalism and theft of their holiday displays, many churches and cities are turning to a technological answer. After one of their cows was stolen, St. Marks Episcopal Church in Glen Ellyn, Ill. installed GPS devices in the figurines of its nativity scene. This year the village of Wellington, Fla. added security cameras to protect their display. From the article: "BrickHouse Security in New York City offered churches and synagogues free GPS and cameras to protect their displays this season. Seventy have signed up so far. About 24 of them are also installing security cameras. In Merrick, N.Y., the Chabad Center for Jewish Life is putting GPS in its 8-foot menorah on display in a park."

Comment Re:Is this Wikileaks day? (Score 1) 810

by SkeeZerD (#34466026) Attached to: Digging Into the WikiLeaks Cables

After yesterday's leak, they may as well dump the whole shebang. IMHO: "A list of stuff that people can blow up if they want to screw with us", is something that legitimately deserves to be hidden from everyone but the guy dispatching people to guard that stuff.

2.5 MILLION people had access to these cables, and supposedly, a PRIVATE is responsible for leaking them to Wikileaks.
Who's to say someone else hasn't already leaked this particular cable to AlQaeda? I think the reason people should be outraged is that all this sensitive information was shared with so many needlessly.

That being said, now thanks to Wikileaks, I have a list of locations to stay away from!

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