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Oracle

Submission + - Brian Cantrill leaves Oracle (dtrace.org) 1

Submitted by dzr0001
dzr0001 writes: Distinguished Developer Brian Cantrill leaves Sun Microsystems after 14 years. He was responsible for contributing to technology such as DTrace, Sun Unified Storage, and for epic lulz http://cryptnet.net/mirrors/texts/kissedagirl.html. After losing such talent as Brian and James Gosling this year, who will be left for Oracle to use to contribute to their product lines?

Submission + - AT&T Gives Away Wireless to help Data Plan Iss (mashable.com)

Submitted by helix2301
helix2301 writes: AT&T is setting up free Wireless hot spots to help with data congestion that there network has been experiencing. The hot spots are being setup in major city's like New York, Charlotte and Chicago.
Games

Submission + - Penny-Arcade annouces PAX 10 Finalists (paxsite.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Penny-Arcade has announced the 10 independent video games to be showcased at PAX Prime in Seattle, Washington this September.
Government

Submission + - Congressman Deliver Seeds To Arctic Doomsday Vault (blogger.com)

Submitted by The Real News 1
The Real News 1 writes: Seven congressmen, led by Senator Benjamin L. Cardin (D-MD), spent their 4th of July weekend hand delivering seeds to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway. The self proclaimed "Doomsday Vault" contains seeds from more than 525,000 crop varieties. It was constructed as a back-up storage facility to protect the existing world food supplies from destruction in the event of a devastating global catastrophe. Interesting story, definitely something to check out.
Power

Submission + - Engineers try to propel a wind-driven vehicle fast (menversus.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Engineers out in California are trying to investigate the possibilities of how fast a wind-powered vehicle can go with respect to the wind powering it. Apparently, the team has already gone at least twice the speed of the wind. It is pretty amazing to fathom; one would think it is impossible. However, it is far from it, as the team aims to get to over three times the speed of the wind.

Submission + - App Inventor and the culture wars (oreilly.com)

Submitted by macslocum
macslocum writes: The differences between Apple and Google get a whole lot clearer when you look at each company's approach to mobile development. Over at O'Reilly Radar, Mike Loukides examines the two companies through the lens of App Inventor. Apple, he says, is like Club Med. Your trip is carefully curated and nothing is left to chance. Google is the self-guided tour where you might get lost and you might get messy.

Submission + - Pirate Party Pillages Private Papers (pirateparty.org.au)

Submitted by
David Crafti
David Crafti writes: "Pirate Party Australia has made the move to host the recently leaked ACTA document in order to highlight the lack of government transparency in the negotiation process. We believe that the document is not under copyright, and we are not party to any NDAs, so there should be no restriction on us posting it. We would like to see what the government (any government) tries to do about it. If it turns out that there is some reason that we have to take it down, then we will, but if this happens, it will only validate the document's authenticity."

Submission + - Viacom gets videos watched data of YouTube users (readwriteweb.com)

Submitted by
Pichu0102
Pichu0102 writes: "It seems that YouTube has been required to turn over data on all users, videos watched, and their IP addresses by the court. The EFF has come out against this claiming it violates the Video Protection Act, as some people use full names on YouTube. According to ReadWriteWeb, they're restricted to using the data to only prove their claims against Google."
Google

Submission + - Tools to analyse Google History? (google.com) 1

Submitted by Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath writes: I need to tap the Slashdot hivemind. I'm faced with a distrusting spouse and want to show her my Google history. However my history goes back to 2006 — there are literally tens of thousands of entries. I've tried searching for analysis tools using the following query: +"google history" +analysis -"history of google" +statistics — to no avail. Do any slashdotters know of a tool/script that can parse the Google History output and provide some simple stats e.g. distinct sites x no. of visits — that sort of thing. I know that this is futile on one level — no amount of "evidence" (especially the kind with a "delete" function) can cure distrust. She's a non-IT, non-geek and really just doesn't understand why I spend "so much" time (an hour a day at home if I'm lucky) on the computer. Help me Slashdot, you're my only hope.

Submission + - Popular backup software Crashplan loses data (blogspot.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: According to this blogger, the popular backup software Crashplan loses data. Multiple conversations with their tech support show that they are aware of the problem since more than a year but did nothing about it. Apparently they think that losing 0.004% of your files is not so bad. Since only older backups are affected, it is time to wipe your backups and do them again if you are a Crashplan users.

Have you had similar experiences with Crashplan or other backup vendors? Or is there something you'd recommend over Crashplan?
Security

Submission + - Women refuse to go through Airport body scanners (bbc.co.uk) 3

Submitted by Geoffrey.landis
Geoffrey.landis writes: Two women were stopped from boarding a plane at Manchester Airport after refusing to undergo a full body scan.
They are believed to be the first to refuse to submit to the scan since they became compulsory in February.
According to earlier reports by the BBC, the "naked" scanners are intended to detect weapons or explosives, but "the full body scans will also show up breast enlargements, body piercings and a clear black-and-white outline of passengers' genitals." The scanners, made by RapiScan, are referred to by the British press as the "strip-search" scanner.
Until February, passengers had been allowed to refuse the scan and receive a "pat-down" search instead.
Games

Submission + - The Grown-Up Video Game

Submitted by Phaethon360
Phaethon360 writes: More now than ever we're seeing more Mature (M+, 17+, 18) ratings being distributed by various national media regulators, but that isn't the only indicator for a game's intended audience. It doesn't take a thousand swear words, scantily clad women or gratuitous violence to differentiate a ten year old's game from a twenty year old's. The spectrum of human emotions encompass a wider palette than revenge, fear, and loss, but the ones that tend to shy away from this are often mistook for a younger audience.

Nick: "The idea of “The Grown-Up Video Game” can mean many different things to many different people. It could mean excessive violence, nudity, or difficulty. I like to believe that while examples such as those in the previous sentence make a game adult oriented it takes something a bit more to make a game “grown-up”. The human experience is one that is made up of great hardship, pain, loss, death, and a multitude of experiences seemingly designed to destroy a person. However, that same experience is also filled with joy, love, laughter, family and friends. It is from these experiences that we begin to question, “Why?”. What is the motivation behind a person’s actions? How did their life culminate in the experience that we bear witness to now? Is there a good reason to be waging war on this particular nation? Why did he just blow that guy’s head off with a shotgun? It is this sort of thinking that is beginning to make its way into our beloved interactive games, and I believe that it is a very good thing."
IT

Submission + - NGO networks in Haiti cause problems for ISPs (goodgearguide.com.au)

Submitted by
angry tapir
angry tapir writes: "While the communications networks that aid groups set up quickly following the earthquake in Haiti were surely critical to rescue efforts, the new networks have had some negative effects on the local ISP community. More than a month after the earthquake devastated the island nation, local ISPs are starting to grumble about being left out of business opportunities and about how some of the temporary equipment — using spectrum without proper authorization — is interfering with their own expensive networks, causing a degradation of their services."

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