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Submission + - Miniature Pacemaker Designed to be Implanted in Fetuses (gizmag.com)

Submitted by Zothecula on Tuesday March 31, 2015 @09:46AM

Zothecula writes: In the near future, it's entirely possible that babies with heart defects will be born with complete pacemakers already installed. That's because scientists at Children's Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) and the University of Southern California have developed the world's first fully-implantable pacemaker for fetuses.

X-37B To Fly Again 48

Posted by timothy on Tuesday March 31, 2015 @09:32AM from the gets-high-with-a-little-help-from-its-friends dept.

schwit1 writes The May 6 Atlas 5 launch will carry one of the Air Force's two X-37B mini-shuttles on a new mission in space. "The Air Force won't yet confirm which of the Boeing-built spaceplanes will be making the voyage. The first craft returned in October from a 675-day mission in space following a 224 day trek in 2010. OTV No. 2 spent 469 days in space in 2011-2012 on its only mission so far. "The program selects the Orbital Test Vehicle for each activity based upon the experiment objectives," said Capt. Chris Hoyler, an Air Force spokesperson. "Each OTV mission builds upon previous on-orbit demonstrations and expands the test envelope of the vehicle. The test mission furthers the development of the concept of operations for reusable space vehicles." There are indications that the Air Force wants to attempt landing the shuttle at Kennedy this time.

Submission + - Students in Michigan Tech 3D printing course build (and keep) their own printers (opensource.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 31, 2015 @09:22AM

An anonymous reader writes: When engineering students start college, the high cost of proprietary tools can be a barrier to making their dreams become a reality. Recent advances in free and open source 3D printing have lowered rapid prototyping costs, making it accessible to everyone. The software industry already knows the force of open source, so now it's time to start teaching free and open source hardware to all engineers.

Last fall, Michigan Tech offered a new course: Open Source 3D Printing. Students pay an additional $500 course fee for the components and tools necessary to build their own MOST Delta RepRap 3D printer, which they then use for the course. At the end of the semester, each student keeps the printer they built and modified. The 50 seats for the class filled immediately.

Feed Google News Sci Tech: Microsoft Surface 3 promises great battery life, costs just $499 and runs ... - (google.com)

From feed by feedfeeder on Tuesday March 31, 2015 @09:13AM

PCWorld

Microsoft Surface 3 promises great battery life, costs just $499 and runs ...
PCWorld
What if you could buy a Surface tablet with a bit less horsepower and a slightly smaller display but longer battery life than the Surface Pro 3? And what if you could have all this for a lot less money? If your wallet is already open, let me tell you what you're...
Microsoft's new Atom-based Surface 3, starting at $499, to hit in MayZDNet
Hands On: the $499 Microsoft Surface 3PC Magazine
Microsoft unveils the Surface 3: Mostly ARMless, a whole lot x86ierArs Technica
The Verge-VentureBeat-Engadget
all 43 news articles

Submission + - Robin Williams makes sure advertisers can't use his image for 25 years (ibtimes.co.uk) 1

Submitted by EwanPalmer on Tuesday March 31, 2015 @09:07AM

EwanPalmer writes: Prior to his death, Robin Williams made sure his image could not be used in any film or advertisement for at least 25 years.

Before he died in August, the actor signed over his name, signature, photograph and likeness to the Windfall Foundation, a charitable organisation set up by his legal representatives, which meant Williams will not be featuring in any advert or digitally inserted into any film until at least 11 August 2039.

It is believed the ruling is an updated form of a privacy contract and could be seen as a landmark model for how celebrities control use of their image after their death.

Submission + - Why aren't US voting systems open source? (opensource.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 31, 2015 @08:55AM

An anonymous reader writes: Brent Turner of the California Association of Voting Officials, an advocate of open source voting machines, discusses the unfortunate trend of voting system vendors to "openwash" their offerings; that is, to misrepresent proprietary products as if they were open source, with the intent of making them more appealing.

Bitcoin In China Still Chugging Along, a Year After Clampdown 31

Posted by timothy on Tuesday March 31, 2015 @08:51AM from the government-vs-the-people dept.

angry tapir writes A year after China began tightening regulations around Bitcoin, the virtual currency is still thriving in the country, albeit on the fringes, according to its largest exchange. Bitcoin prices may have declined, but Chinese buyers are still trading the currency in high volumes with the help of BTC China, an exchange that witnessed the boom days back in 2013, only to see the bust following the Chinese government's announcement, in December of that year, that banks would be banned from trading in bitcoin.

EFF Questions US Government's Software Flaw Disclosure Policy 18

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday March 31, 2015 @08:12AM from the we'll-do-that-at-least-once-in-the-past-decade dept.

angry tapir writes: It's not clear if the U.S. government is living up to its promise to disclose serious software flaws to technology companies, a policy it put in place five years ago, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. They write, "ODNI has now finished releasing documents in response to our suit, and the results are surprisingly meager. Among the handful of heavily redacted documents is a one-page list of VEP 'Highlights' from 2010. It briefly describes the history of the interagency working group that led to the development of the VEP and notes that the VEP established an office called the 'Executive Secretariat' within the NSA. The only other highlight left unredacted explains that the VEP 'creates a process for notification, decision-making, and appeals.' And that's it. This document, which is almost five years old, is the most recent one released. So where are the documents supporting the 'reinvigorated' VEP 2.0 described by the White House in 2014?"

Submission + - systemd team forks the Linux kernel (distrowatch.com)

Submitted by Celarent Darii on Tuesday March 31, 2015 @05:30AM

Celarent Darii writes: The systemd developers have occasionally bumped heads with developers working on other projects, perhaps most notably Linus Torvalds, lead developer of the Linux kernel. Since systemd's init software works to bring the operating system on-line at boot time, systemd needs to work closely with the kernel and this can cause problems. In fact, some conflict and proposed solutions have resulted in at least one systemd developer getting banned from contributing to the Linux kernel.

Now it appears as though the systemd developers have found a solution to kernel compatibility problems and a way to extend their philosophy of placing all key operating system components in one repository. According to Ivan Gotyaovich, one of the developers working on systemd, the project intends to maintain its own fork of the Linux kernel. "There are problems, problems in collaboration, problems with compatibility across versions. Forking the kernel gives us control over these issues, gives us control over almost all key parts of the stack."

Submission + - MS undecided on suing users of its open source .NET

Submitted by ciaran2014 on Tuesday March 31, 2015 @04:36AM

ciaran2014 writes: With Microsoft proudly declaring its .NET runtime open source, a collegue and I decided to look at the licensing aspects. One part, the MIT licence, is straight forward, but there's also a patent promise. The first two-thirds of the first sentence seems to announce good news about Microsoft not suing people. Then the conditions begin. It seems Microsoft can't yet bring itself to release something as free software without retaining a patent threat to limit how those freedoms can be exercised. Overall, we found 4 Shifty Details About Microsoft's "Open Source" .NET.

Submission + - US Museums Outnumber Starbucks And McDonald's Combined (washingtonpost.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 31, 2015 @02:35AM

An anonymous reader writes: The Washington Post reports, "There are roughly 11,000 Starbucks locations in the United States, and about 14,000 McDonald's restaurants. But combined, the two chains don't come close to the number of museums in the U.S., which stands at a whopping 35,000. So says the latest data release from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, an independent government agency that tallies the number and type of museums in this country. By their count the 35,000 active museums represent a doubling from the number estimated in the 1990s."

Submission + - 1,000 year old eye salve recipe kills golden staph (newscientist.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 31, 2015 @02:08AM

An anonymous reader writes: Scientist at the Univeristy of Nottingham use a recipe from an ancient medical text to successfully kill the golden staph bacteria. Bald's Leechbook calls for leeks, garlic, brass, wine and other ingredients to create an eye salve for curing an infected eyelash. The salve has been found to be effective in killing the superbug staphylococcus aureusat at least as well any modern remedy.

Submission + - User resignation from an IT perspective 1

Submitted by recaptcha on Tuesday March 31, 2015 @01:08AM

recaptcha writes: Today one of my fellow workers has announced he has found another job and will be leaving our company in two weeks' time. This is all above board and there is no disgruntled employee scenario here; he is simply working through his notice period and finishing up some jobs. I have already set some fileserver folders to Read-Only for him and taken a backup of his mailbox in case he empties it on the last day. Which best practices do you follow that will prevent a resigning user from causing any damage (deliberately or not) in these last days of employment before his account is disabled?

Submission + - X-37B to fly again

Submitted by schwit1 on Monday March 30, 2015 @11:43PM

schwit1 writes: The May 6 Atlas 5 launch will carry one of the Air Force’s two X-37B mini-shuttles on a new mission in space.
The Air Force won’t yet confirm which of the Boeing-built spaceplanes will be making the voyage. The first craft returned in October from a 675-day mission in space following a 224 day trek in 2010. OTV No. 2 spent 469 days in space in 2011-2012 on its only mission so far. “The program selects the Orbital Test Vehicle for each activity based upon the experiment objectives,” said Capt. Chris Hoyler, an Air Force spokesperson. “Each OTV mission builds upon previous on-orbit demonstrations and expands the test envelope of the vehicle. The test mission furthers the development of the concept of operations for reusable space vehicles.”

There are indications that the Air Force wants to attempt landing the shuttle at Kennedy this time.

Why You Should Choose Boring Technology 232

Posted by Soulskill on Monday March 30, 2015 @10:12PM from the predictable-headaches dept.

An anonymous reader writes Dan McKinley, a long-time Etsy engineer who now works at online payment processor Stripe, argues that the boring technology option is usually your best choice for a new project. He says, "Let's say every company gets about three innovation tokens. You can spend these however you want, but the supply is fixed for a long while. You might get a few more after you achieve a certain level of stability and maturity, but the general tendency is to overestimate the contents of your wallet. Clearly this model is approximate, but I think it helps. If you choose to write your website in NodeJS, you just spent one of your innovation tokens. If you choose to use MongoDB, you just spent one of your innovation tokens. If you choose to use service discovery tech that's existed for a year or less, you just spent one of your innovation tokens. If you choose to write your own database, oh god, you're in trouble. ... The nice thing about boringness (so constrained) is that the capabilities of these things are well understood. But more importantly, their failure modes are well understood."

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