Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Operating Systems

New Windows Coming In Late September -- But Which One? 251

Posted by timothy from the double-insulated dept.
snydeq (1272828) writes "Nobody seems to know for sure whether 'Threshold' and 'Windows 9' will be one and the same or separate operating systems, reports Woody Leonhard in his roundup of insights on Microsoft's forthcoming OS plans, expected September 30. 'Many people think the terms are synonymous, but longtime Chinese leaker Faikee continues to maintain that they are two separate products, possibly headed in different directions. Neowin Senior Editor and Columnist Brad Sams appears to have access to the most recent test builds, possibly on a daily basis. He doesn't talk about details, but the items he's let drop on the Neowin forum leave an interesting trail of crumbs.' Either way, the next iteration of Windows will have a lot to say about the kind of Microsoft to expect as Satya Nadella cements his leadership over the flagship OS."

Submission + - Northrop Grumman Gives Early Look at its XS-1 Experimental Spaceplane Design (gizmag.com)

Submitted by Zothecula
Zothecula writes: Northrop Grumman, in partnership with Scaled Composites and Virgin Galactic, has unveiled the preliminary design it is developing as part of DARPA’s XS-1 Spaceplane project. Looking like a windowless update of a 1960s Dyna Soar orbiter, it’s the next step in producing launch systems that will dramatically reduce the costs of getting into orbit.

Submission + - gcc LTO reduces firefox package size by 50% (gnu.org) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Link Time Optimization used to be a lot of promise for little gain, and typically unable to deal with packages in the MSLOC range. Seemingly no longer. Reported in gcc's bugzilla is an impressive result for firefox:
'Firefox since version 30 as well as Thunderbird since version 31 both compile fine with LTO enabled without the need of any additional patches. The package size was reduced by 51% (firefox ~420MB -> ~207MB) and 59% (thunderbird ~480MB -> ~200MB). Both programs work as intended, no crashes or unexpected behaviour so far.'
Has time come to rebuild the world using LTO ?
Cellphones

California Passes Law Mandating Smartphone Kill Switch 233

Posted by timothy from the we-control-the-vertical dept.
alphadogg (971356) writes "Smartphones sold in California will soon be required to have a kill switch that lets users remotely lock them and wipe them of data in the event they are lost or stolen. The demand is the result of a new law, put into effect on Monday, that applies to phones manufactured after July 1, 2015, and sold in the state. While its legal reach does not extend beyond the state's borders, the inefficiency of producing phones solely for California means the kill switch is expected to be adopted by phone makers on handsets sold across the U.S. and around the world."

Submission + - California passes law mandating smartphone kill switch

Submitted by alphadogg
alphadogg writes: Smartphones sold in California will soon be required to have a kill switch that lets users remotely lock them and wipe them of data in the event they are lost or stolen. The demand is the result of a new law, http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/... into effect on Monday, that applies to phones manufactured after July 1, 2015, and sold in the state. While its legal reach does not extend beyond the state’s borders, the inefficiency of producing phones solely for California means the kill switch is expected to be adopted by phone makers on handsets sold across the U.S. and around the world.

Submission + - Website turns tables on the Indian call centre scammers (techcentral.co.za)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: An Indian call centre warning users that their computer is infected is one of the longest running and most annoying Internet scams. TechCentral’s Regardt van der Berg took one of the scammers for a ride.
Bug

$75K Prosthetic Arm Is Bricked When Paired iPod Is Stolen 194

Posted by timothy from the what-about-backups dept.
kdataman writes U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Ben Eberle, who lost an arm and both legs in Afghanistan, had his Ipod Touch stolen on Friday. This particular Ipod Touch has an app on it that controls his $75,000 prosthetic arm. The robbery bricked his prosthesis: "That is because Eberle's prosthetic hand is programmed to only work with the stolen iPod, and vice versa. Now that the iPod is gone, he said he has to get a new hand and get it reprogrammed with his prosthesis." I see three possibilities: 1) The article is wrong, possibly to guilt the thief into returning the Ipod. 2) This is an incredibly bad design by Touch Bionics. Why would you make a $70,000 piece of equipment permanently dependent on a specific Ipod Touch? Ipods do fail or go missing. 3) This is an intentionally bad design to generate revenue. Maybe GM should do this with car keys? "Oops, lost the keys to the corvette. Better buy a new one."

Feed Google News Sci Tech: California to require anti-theft 'kill switches' on smartphones - The Star Onlin (google.com)

From feed by feedfeeder

The Star Online
California to require anti-theft 'kill switches' on smartphones
The Star Online
STOPPING CRIME: Smartphones in California will be required to come with a "kill switch" to render them useless if lost or stolen under a bill signed Monday by Governor Jerry Brown, the latest effort to stem an epidemic of phone theft in the most populous US...

and more

Submission + - Animal Welfare is Actually Worse in Accredited Laboratories (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: The international gold standard of laboratory animal care may have lost a bit of its luster. Labs accredited by the United States’ only independent certifier of research animal welfare violate national animal welfare guidelines more frequently than do unaccredited facilities, a study has found. As both the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Department of Defense (DOD) waive certain inspection requirements for labs vetted by the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care (AAALAC) International, the findings may force a rethink of how lab animal welfare is overseen in the United States and other countries

Submission + - Facebook to fix flaw that can force iPhones to make calls

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Facebook will soon be pushing out an update to its iOS Messenger app meant to patch a vulnerability that could allow attackers to place pricy calls from users' phones by simply making them click on a web link. The flaw has been recently discovered by developer Andrei Neculaesei from Copenhagen, and can be triggered by using the tel URL scheme.

Feed Google News Sci Tech: A kill switch will be installed on every smartphone sold in California from July (google.com)

From feed by feedfeeder

Digital Trends
A kill switch will be installed on every smartphone sold in California from July 2015
Digital Trends
Following the approval of the “kill-switch bill” by the Californian Senate back in May, state Governor Jerry Brown has now signed it into law, forcing manufacturers and retailers alike to only sell phones with the security measure enabled from July next year.
'Kill switch' will help reduce phone theftsWallStreet OTC
The Califonia Kill Switch Bill Has Been Signed into LawBitbag
Smartphone thieves, meet California's kill switchFortune
CNET-Businessweek-The Star Online
all 120 news articles

Submission + - We scam the Indian call centre scammers (techcentral.co.za)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: At TechCentral, we get on average called at least once a week — sometimes far more often — by a friendly sounding Indian national warning us that our Windows computer is infected with a virus. The call, which originates from a call centre, follows exactly the same script every time. Usually we shrug them off and put the phone down, but this week we thought we’d humour them to find out how they operate.
As this week’s call came in, the first thing the “operator” at the other end of the line tried to establish was who was owner of the Windows computer in the household. I’d taken the call. It was time to have some fun. I told the scammer that I was the PC owner. He proceeded to introduce himself as “John Connor”. I laughed quietly as I imagined Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator hunting down this scamster in the streets of Calcutta. Perhaps he should have come up with a more convincing name.

Submission + - How The Ancient Egyptians (Should Have) Built The Pyramids 2

Submitted by KentuckyFC
KentuckyFC writes: The Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt is constructed from 2.4 million limestone blocks, most about 2.5 tonnes but some weighing in at up to 80 tonnes, mostly sourced from local limestone quarries. That raises a famous question. How did the ancient Egyptians move these huge blocks into place? There is no shortage of theories but now a team of physicists has come up with another that is remarkably simple--convert the square cross section of the blocks into dodecadrons making them easy to roll. The team has tested the idea on a 30 kg scaled block the shape of a square prism. They modified the square cross-section by strapping three wooden rods to each long face, creating a dodecahedral profile. Finally, they attached a rope to the top of the block and measured the force necessary to set it rolling. The team say a full-sized block could be modified with poles the size of ships masts and that a work crew of around 50 men could move a block with a mass of 2.5 tonnes at the speed of 0.5 metres per second. The result suggests that this kind of block modification is a serious contender for the method the Egyptians actually used to construct the pyramids, say the researchers.
The Internet

Net Neutrality Is 'Marxist,' According To a Koch-Backed Astroturf Group 531

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the toll-road-ahead dept.
Jason Koebler (3528235) writes American Commitment, a conservative group with strong ties to the Koch brothers has been bombarding inboxes with emails filled with disinformation and fearmongering in an attempt to start a "grassroots" campaign to kill net neutrality — at one point suggesting that "Marxists" think that preserving net neutrality is a good idea. American Commitment president Phil Kerpen suggests that reclassifying the internet as a public utility is the "first step in the fight to destroy American capitalism altogether" and says that the FCC is plotting a "federal Internet takeover," a move that "sounds more like a story coming out of China or Russia."

Slashdot Top Deals

The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the `social sciences' is: some do, some don't. -- Ernest Rutherford

Close