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Cellphones

Federal Smartphone Kill-Switch Legislation Proposed 173

Posted by samzenpus from the shut-it-down dept.
alphadogg writes "Pressure on the cellphone industry to introduce technology that could disable stolen smartphones has intensified with the introduction of proposed federal legislation that would mandate such a system. Senate bill 2032, 'The Smartphone Prevention Act,' was introduced to the U.S. Senate this week by Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat. The bill promises technology that allows consumers to remotely wipe personal data from their smartphones and render them inoperable. But how that will be accomplished is currently unclear. The full text of the bill was not immediately available and the offices of Klobuchar and the bill's co-sponsors were all shut down Thursday due to snow in Washington, D.C."

Submission + - Google boosts Chrome performance with background Javascript compilation

Submitted by kc123
kc123 writes: The latest version of Chrome includes improvements in JavaScript compilation according to the Chromium blog. Historically, Chrome compiled JavaScript on the main thread, where it could interfere with the performance of the JavaScript application. For large pieces of code this could become a nuisance, and in complex applications like games it could even lead to stuttering and dropped frames. In the latest Chrome Beta they've enabled concurrent compilation, which offloads a large part of the optimizing compilation phase to a background thread. The result is that JavaScript applications remain responsive and performance gets a boost.

Submission + - Google Speeds Up Chrome By Compiling JavaScript Concurrently

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Google today revealed a tweak it has made in the latest Chrome beta to further boost performance: concurrent compilation, which offloads a large part of the optimizing compilation phase to a background thread. Previously, Chrome compiled JavaScript on the main thread, where it could interfere with the performance of the JavaScript application.

Submission + - Colorado Department of Transportation in secret deals with private corporations.

Submitted by telkis
telkis writes: It appears that not just the federal government can make secret deals. The
Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) is attempting to push through a 50
year privatization deal of a federal highway with Goldman Sachs and an
Australian toll road company called the Plenary Group.
http://drivesunshine.org/cdot-...

Additional details at
http://www.thedenverchannel.co...

Just my opinion but will our taxes provide no services for the average citizen?

Submission + - Scientists find the first gene which appears to be linked to intelligence (telegraph.co.uk)

Submitted by Third Position
Third Position writes: A gene which may make people more intelligent has been discovered by scientists.
Researchers have found that teenagers who had a highly functioning NPTN gene performed better in intelligence tests.
It is thought the NPTN gene indirectly affects how the brain cells communicate and may control the formation of the cerebral cortex, the outermost layer of the human brain, also known as ‘grey matter.’

Submission + - 5th banker in less than a month dies mysteriously (intellihub.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Another high profile banker is dead under suspicious circumstances

By John Vibes

NEW YORK (INTELLIHUB) — Last week we reported on the suspicious string of apparent suicides that has hit the financial industry. Multiple bankers have been found dead in recent weeks. Those who had high profile deaths, like the man who jumped from the top of the JP Morgan HQ building are highly publicized, but overall, very few details about any of these deaths have been made public.

Submission + - Europe Considers Wholesale Savings Confiscation, Enforced Redistribution (reuters.com) 1

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Everything that the depositors and citizens of Cyprus had to live through, may be on the verge of going continental. In a nutshell, and in Reuters' own words, "the savings of the European Union's 500 million citizens could be used to fund long-term investments to boost the economy and help plug the gap left by banks since the financial crisis, an EU document says." What is left unsaid is that the "usage" will be on a purely involuntary basis, at the discretion of the "union", and can thus best be described as confiscation.

Submission + - Let's Finance College With a Tax on All Graduates

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: As the number of students attending colleges and universities has steadily increased and the cost for most students has climbed even faster, student debt figures (both total and per person) have continued to get bigger. Now Josh Freedman at Forbes Magazine proposes a graduate tax-funded system of higher education, under which students would pay nothing to attend college upfront. Instead, once they graduate and move out of their parents’ basements, they would begin to pay an additional income tax (say, for example, three percent) on their earnings that would fund higher education. "In other words, the current crop of college graduates funds the current crop of college students, and so on down the line. There is no debt taken on by students, which minimizes risk (good); repayment is tied to income, because only people who make income pay the tax (also good); and it is simpler and more easily administrable than plans to make loans easier to pay off (still good)." The main argument for a graduate tax comes from its progressivity. Supporters of a graduate tax point out that most college graduates, particularly those from elite universities that use a greater share of resources, are richer than people who have not graduated from college. The state of Oregon made headlines last year for an innovative proposal called “Pay It Forward” to fund higher education without having students take on any debt. Pay It Forward amounts to a graduate tax: All of the graduates of public colleges in Oregon would pay nothing up front in tuition but would pay back a percentage of their income for a set number of years. These payments would build a fund that would cover the cost for future students to receive the same opportunity to attend college with no upfront costs. "As pressure mounts for more students from all backgrounds to attend college, it will become increasingly difficult to try to stem the rapid tuition inflation under a loan system," concludes Freedman. "Our current student loan system has made college more expensive, turned higher education into an individual, rather than a communal, good, and generated serious negative economic and social risks."

Submission + - Vikings' Secret Code Cracked (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: What may look like mere scratches is much more. A 900-year-old Viking code known as jötunvillur has been cracked. The code-cracker, runologist Jonas Nordby from the University of Oslo, deciphered the system after realizing he needed to replace the original runic character with the last sound used to pronounce it. For instance, the runic character ‘k’ is pronounced ‘kaun,’ so k becomes n. Nordby believes secret messages were created by the Vikings for entertainment. One piece of wood reads: "Kiss me".

Submission + - Dell Spyware? 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: I recently purchased a laptop from Dell for a friend. Yesterday I received a call from Dell, that the laptop was downloading material which may make it susceptible to malware. They were very insistent that they had not installed spyware by default, but could not explain rationally how they had come by this information. While I'm not concerned about what my friend is doing with his new laptop, I am very concerned that Dell is monitoring the internet activity of this machine. I want to ensure that my friend has a clean experience, so what's the consensus on limiting the spying? I don't have access to the machine, so any directions on which services to disable or programs to uninstall would need to be followed by a very non-tech person. Any hope on getting Dell to stop the monitoring?

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If the aborigine drafted an IQ test, all of Western civilization would presumably flunk it. -- Stanley Garn

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