Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Submission + - Google Admits Problem with Android Security but it will Probably Never be Fixed (ibtimes.co.uk)

Submitted by DavidGilbert99
DavidGilbert99 writes: Google has admitted there is a problem with Android security. It has told developers affected to fix their apps. It has produced for them a suggested implementation for the fix. It has even sent out a patch to manufacturers which solves the issue. Problem solved you would have thought. Not according to David Gilbert at the IBTimes UK who says that despite all these steps, the vast majority of Android users (and there's over 100 million of them) will never get the update. The problem? Fragmentation of Android.

Submission + - When is it ok to not give notice? 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Here in the U.S., "being professional" means giving at least two week's notice when leaving a job. Is this an outmoded notion? We've all heard stories about (or perhaps experienced) a quick escort to the parking lot upon giving the normal notice, and I've never heard of a company giving a two week notice to an employee that's being laid off or fired.
A generation ago, providing a lengthy notice was required to get a glowing reference, but these days does a reference hold water any more?
Once you're reached the point where you know it's time to leave, under what circumstances would you just up and walk out or give only a short notice?

Submission + - Ancient Eel-Like Creatures Were First Vertebrates With 'Teeth' (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Conodonts, some of the most primitive vertebrates in the fossil record, are often known only from the tapering, toothlike structures that lend the group its name. But just how these eel-like sea creatures, which died out sometime before 200 million years ago, used these structures has been a mystery, because the “teeth” are often found individually and it’s not clear how they were anchored in the conodont’s soft tissues. (They had no jawbones.) Now, using the same sorts of techniques that structural engineers use to analyze steel I-beams that form the skeletons of high rises, researchers have found that some of the structures had a nearly circular cross section and would have been particularly good at resisting bending and twisting forces—and therefore were probably used to capture and restrain prey, likely soft-bodied animals such as worms. Other elements had a narrow, bladelike shape or sharp cusps and may have been used to pierce or cut prey into smaller pieces.

Submission + - Microsoft Hires Former Steam Boss Holtman to Make Windows Great for Gaming

Submitted by SmartAboutThings
SmartAboutThings writes: Jason Holtman has spent the last eight years transforming Steam into a veritable cornucopia of PC games and a real success. Starting this month he'll be working at Microsoft to improve Windows' gaming strategy. He said: "Yes, I have joined Microsoft where I will be focusing on making Windows a great platform for gaming and interactive entertainment. I think there is a lot of opportunity for Microsoft to deliver the games and entertainment customers want and to work with developers to make that happen, so I'm excited to be here." The main job that Holtman was doing at Valve consisted in convincing developers and major game publishers to choose Steam and entrust it with its digital sales. More than that, he was excited with what he was doing and was a driving force over at Steam. Microsoft has focused solely on the Xbox One launch lately, somehow neglecting the potential that Windows and overall, the PC gaming industry still have. With Holtman’s hiring, maybe Microsoft is going to revamp its Games for Windows initiative.

Submission + - The Humble Origin Bundle: Geek vs Gamer.

Submitted by westlake
westlake writes: In its first day and with four hours and thirteen days to go The Humble Origin Bundle has seen 760,000 sales and raised $3.6 million for charities like the American Red Cross, with all proceeds going to your charities of choice.

The games are mainstream AAA list titles:

Dead Island 1&3, Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box, Crysis 2, Mirror's Edge, Medal of Honor, Battlefield 3 and The Sims 3 Starter Pack. Distribution is through Origin and Steam. Steam keys are available for most, but not all games. The Sims 3 is available for the Mac. It's quite possible that one or two games could be added later.

It's been a tortuous day for the geek — gamer. It's EA and it is Origin. The promotion has totally eclipsed this week's hard-core, multi-platform, DRM free, indie Introversion Humble Bundle (Defcon, Uplink, Darwinia) which sold a respectable 55,000 units, with a return of $320 thousand.

Submission + - New third layer approach to virus detection promises 100% malware detection (sciencespot.co.uk)

Submitted by trendspotter
trendspotter writes: Researchers at the Australian National University, in Acton, ACT, and the Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE jointly with Victorian Institute of Technology, in Melbourne Victoria have devised an approach to virus detection that acts as a third layer on top of scanning for known viruses and heuristic scanning (...) Writing in a forthcoming issue of the International Journal of Electronic Security and Digital Forensics (...) their new approach employs a data mining algorithm to identify malicious code (...) their initial tests show an almost 100% detection rate and a false positive rate of just 2.5% for spotting embedded malicious code that is in "stealth mode" prior to being activated for particular malicious purposes.

More information: Alazab M. & Venkatraman S. (2013). Detecting malicious behaviour using supervised learning algorithms of the function calls, International Journal of Electronic Security and Digital Forensics, 5 (2) 90. DOI: 10.1504/IJESDF.2013.055047

Submission + - Smartphone Batteries Used to Determine Outdoor Temperatures (gizmag.com)

Submitted by Zothecula
Zothecula writes: Smartphone batteries contain tiny temperature sensors, designed to keep the phone from overheating. While those sensors do measure the heat generated within the phone, their readings are also affected by the temperature of the phone’s external environment. With that in mind, British app developer OpenSignal has created a system that allows multiple users’ phones to provide real-time, location-specific weather reports.

Submission + - Xbox One launch delayed in 8 countries (xbox.com)

Submitted by UnknowingFool
UnknowingFool writes: At E3, Microsoft announced plans to launch the Xbox One in 21 countries in November. Now MS has announced that launch in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland will be delayed to 2014. Countries that are still scheduled for November release are Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Spain, United Kingdom, United States and New Zealand. MS has not announced a new launch date only that it would be available "as soon as possible". It seems to me that consumers in Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands, and Switzerland can just cross the border into a neighboring country and get the Xbox One if they wanted.

Submission + - Home Depot's "Bee-Friendly Plants" are Actually Toxic

Submitted by Taffykay
Taffykay writes: Home Depot and other big box stores market "bee-friendly" flowers and vegetable plants that are actually toxic to the pollinators. Friends of the Earth teamed up with the Pesticide Research Institute to survey stores throughout Washington D.C., Minneapolis and the San Francisco Bay area and discovered that not only are these plants laced with neonicotinoids — pesticides known to be harmful to bees — but they contained concentrations up to 200 times higher than agricultural crops.

Submission + - Moser Lamps Illuminate Homes Without Using Electricity

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: Gibby Zobel reports at BBC on Alfredo Moser, a Brazilian mechanic, whose invention illuminates over one million homes during the day without electricity — using nothing more than plastic bottles filled with water and a tiny bit of bleach. So how does it work? Simple refraction of sunlight, explains Moser, as he fills an empty two-liter plastic bottle. "Add two capfuls of bleach to protect the water so it doesn't turn green [with algae]. The cleaner the bottle, the better," Moser adds. "You fix the bottle in with polyester resin. Even when it rains, the roof never leaks — not one drop." While A 50 Watt light bulb running for 14 hours a day for a year has a carbon footprint of nearly 200kg CO2, Moser lamps emit no CO2 and the plastic bottles are up-cycled in the local community, so no energy is needed to gather, shred, manufacture and ship new bottles. Following the Moser method, MyShelter started making the lamps in June 2011. They now train people to create and install the bottles, in order to earn a small income. The idea has really taken off in the Philippines, where a quarter of the population lives below the poverty line, and electricity is unusually expensive, with 140,000 homes now fitted with Moser lamps. The idea has also caught on in about 15 other countries, from India and Bangladesh, to Tanzania, Argentina and Fiji. "Alfredo Moser has changed the lives of a tremendous number of people, I think forever," says Illac Angelo Diaz. "Whether or not he gets the Nobel Prize, we want him to know that there are a great number of people who admire what he is doing."

Submission + - US Horse Registry Forced to Accept Cloned Horses by Judge (reuters.com)

Submitted by kdryer39
kdryer39 writes: U.S. District Court Judge Mary Lou Robinson said she will sign an order requiring the American Quarter Horse Association to begin allowing cloned animals to be placed on its registry, according to the organization. A jury last month ruled that the horse association violated anti-monopoly laws by banning cloned animals. The quarter horse association issues and maintains a pedigree registry of American quarter horses, a popular breed associated with cowboys riding on the range in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Submission + - NASA tests software algorithm that could precisely land future spacecraft (networkworld.com)

Submitted by coondoggie
coondoggie writes: magine if you had developed, built and flown a spacecraft that successfully traversed the cosmos but upon landing, spun out of control or hit something that destroyed the ship. Such nightmare scenarios are exactly what NASA engineers are developing sophisticated software technology to avoid. NASA is currently testing one of the more important components of such software — the algorithms that incorporate the spacecraft's trajectory, speed and landing information to guide a ship to a safe arrival. The latest algorithm, known as Fuel Optimal Large Divert Guidance algorithm (G-FOLD) is being flight-tested in conjunction with Masten Space Systems at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California.

Submission + - Google Multiplies Bug Bounties By Factor of Five

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: Google’s bug bounty program has been one of the more successful reward systems of its kind, and the company has regularly modified and expanded the program over the years to keep pace with what’s going on in the industry. Google also has increased the rewards it offers for certain kinds of vulnerabilities several times, and the company is doing it again, raising the lower reward level from $1,000 to $5,000.

This is the second major increase in rewards for vulnerability researchers from Google in the last couple of months. In June the company jacked up the amount of money that it pays for cross-site scripting vulnerabilities in Google Web properties to $7,500 and also raised the reward for authentication bypasses to that same level. Now, Google is giving researchers more incentive to find significant vulnerabilities in its Chrome browser.

Submission + - Our New News Overlords: RT - Vladimir Putin's Weapon In "The War Of Images" (spiegel.de)

Submitted by dryriver
dryriver writes: A photo of Edward Snowden, the whistleblower the United States wants to bring home to face charges, is projected onto the studio wall. Then there is a report on the detention camp at Guantanamo, which has hurt America's reputation. Russia Today uses the source material America supplies to its rivals untiringly and with relish. Even Washington's relatively minor peccadilloes don't escape notice. For instance, the show also includes a story about Gabonese dictator Ali Bongo Ondimba, whom US President Barack Obama supports. Many in the West are also interested in seeing critical coverage of the self-proclaimed top world power. Russia Today is already more successful than all other foreign broadcast stations available in major US cities, such as San Francisco, Chicago and New York. In Washington, 13 times as many people watch the Russian program as those that tune into Deutsche Welle, Germany's public international broadcaster. Two million Britons watch the Kremlin channel regularly. Its online presence is also more successful than those of all its competitors. What's more, in June, Russia Today broke a YouTube record by being the first TV station to get a billion views of its videos. Since 2005, the Russian government has increased the channel's annual budget more than tenfold, from $30 million (€22.6 million) to over $300 million. Russia Today's budget covers the salaries of 2,500 employees and contractors worldwide, 100 in Washington alone. And the channel has no budget cuts to fear now that Putin has issued a decree forbidding his finance minister from taking any such steps.

Submission + - LG Phone Giveaway Leaves 20 Injured (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by cstacy
cstacy writes: As a publicity stunt, LG attached vouchers for free smartphones (852$US) to 100 helium balloons for people to catch at a promotional event widely advertised on social media. Customers showed up with BB guns, knives on sticks, and other tools. With only about two dozen security guards, the frenzied crowd surged, the guns fired, the blades were wielded, and at the end of the day 20 people were injured; some had to be taken to the hospital.

A spokesman for LG was reportedly overheard to say, "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly..."

Slashdot Top Deals

Real Users are afraid they'll break the machine -- but they're never afraid to break your face.

Close