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Earth

Submission + - If Extinct Species Can be Brought Back... Should We? (theatlantic.com) 2

Submitted by
retroworks
retroworks writes: "Rebecca J. Rosen interviews experts in this edtion of The Atlantic, to ask about the ethics and wisdom of using cloning, backbreeding, or genome editing. Over 90% of species ever to exist on earth are no more. The article ponders the moral and environmental challenges of humans reintroducing species which humans made extinct."

Comment But processors are still reliable (Score 1) 1

by Techmeology (#41179793) Attached to: Your PC Just Crashed? Dont Blame Microsoft
Although the soft error problem is real, and indeed is becoming more of a challenge, the fact remains that today's software is extremely brittle in that a single bit flip will very likely break it. The fact that programs such as memory testers are able to complete with no errors indicates that we have not reached the abyss of unreliability yet.
Hardware

Submission + - Your PC Just Crashed? Dont Blame Microsoft (wired.com) 1

Submitted by
jader3rd
jader3rd writes: "Wired writes Your PC Just Crashed? Don’t Blame Microsoft
"Chipmakers work hard to make sure their products are tested and working properly before they ship, but they don’t like to talk about the fact that it can be a struggle to keep the chips working accurately over time. Since the late 1970s, the industry has known that obscure hardware problems could cause bits to flip inside microprocessor transistors. As transistors have shrunk in size, it’s become even easier for stray particles to bash into them and flip their state. Industry insiders call this the “soft error” problem, and it’s something that’s going to become more pronounced as we move to smaller and smaller transistors where even a single particle can do much more damage.""
Science

Submission + - Millions of Supermassive Blackholes and Hot Galaxies Found (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by
Techmeology
Techmeology writes: "NASA's Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) has discovered millions of supermassive blackholes and extremely hot galaxies. WISE is able to detect the phenomena using wavelengths associated with heat, rather than visible light. To discover more about the black holes, scientists are using the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array to analyse their X-Ray emissions."

Comment A few ideas (Score 1) 1

by Techmeology (#41178817) Attached to: How to tell if your company is monitoring you at work
Same as with any interception. A few ideas might be: * Check ps aux for programs that might monitor your activities (or the Windows task manager/process list/service list) * Try HTTP TRACE and HTTP HEAD to see if there are any unexplained proxy servers * Traceroute to see if there's anything fishy Just make sure your employer won't have an objection to you doing these things first.
Businesses

Submission + - How to tell if your company is monitoring you at work (bgr.com) 1

Submitted by redkemper
redkemper writes: Businesses are typically well within their rights to install software that monitors company-owned computers and reports back to IT with details on exactly what employees are doing on the company’s dime. There’s nothing wrong with spending a few minutes here and there checking out the latest status updates from your Facebook friends or the latest tech news here on BGR, but some employers might not agree. Of course the safest play is to keep personal browsing and chats on your smartphone, but there are also several ways to determine whether or not your computer is being monitored...
Data Storage

Submission + - Hard drive makers recover, but prices remain high (pcpro.co.uk) 1

Submitted by
nk497
nk497 writes: "Hard drive manufacturers have mostly recovered from last year's floods, with production levels back to normal — but prices haven't fallen back to pre-flood levels. Last year, Samsung's Spinpoint F3 1TB drive was £49; when the floods hit it jumped as high as £109. That device is now available for about £65. Analyst Fang Zhang suggested prices might be propped up by consolidation in the market; a pair of big acquisitions last year have left the market with only three major players, Western Digital, Seagate and Toshiba."
Privacy

Submission + - UK Data Breaches Up 1000% In Five Years (net-security.org) 1

Submitted by Orome1
Orome1 writes: Imation today released figures obtained through a request under the Freedom of Information Act which show that data breach numbers in the UK have increased by more than 1000% in the past five years. Figures obtained from the Information Commissioner’s Office show a huge growth in the number of self-reported data breaches occurring each year since 2007. According to the data, local government data breaches have increased by 1609%, with the next largest increases coming from other public sector organisations (1380%) and the private sector (1159%). Data breaches in the NHS have increased by 935%, and central government breaches are up by 132%. The average increase across all eight recorded sectors since 2007 is 1014%.

Comment Encouraging Manufacturers (Score 1) 1

by Techmeology (#41173253) Attached to: Valve Finds Open-Source Drivers To Be Great
"able to look into Intel's open-source Linux graphics driver to understand how an operation is handled by the hardware, tossing some extra debugging statements into the Intel driver to see what's happening" - it is exactly this kind of thing that motivated RMS to start the free software movement - the freedom to tinker and improve! On a more pragmatic note: nice:D - Perhaps the interest of major video games companies will encourage hardware manufacturers (particularly those that do not currently do so) to help provide full functionality to FOSS drivers - something which no doubt the typical slashdotter would love. The optimistic among you would hope that this is the beginning of a world where a FOSS environment is properly supported - rather than ignored as "not the one everyone uses". The pessimist will probably see this as another example of either vaporware, or hypeware.
Intel

Submission + - Valve Finds Open-Source Drivers To Be Great (phoronix.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Intel's Open-Source Technology Center was given source-code access to Valve's Left 4 Dead 2 game in order to help them fix Linux bugs and to better optimize their graphics driver to this forthcoming Linux native game on the Source Engine. Intel has talked about their Valve Linux development experiences and now they managed to get Left 4 Dead 2 running on their open-source graphics driver. Valve also has grown fond of open-source hardware drivers, "Valve Linux developers have also been happy looking at an open-source graphics driver. Valve Linux developers found it equally thrilling that now when hitting a bottleneck in their game or looking for areas for performance optimizations, they are simply able to look into Intel's open-source Linux graphics driver to understand how an operation is handled by the hardware, tossing some extra debugging statements into the Intel driver to see what's happening, and making other driver tweaks."

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