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Robotics

MIT Researchers Develop Autonomous Indoor Robocopter 69

Posted by Soulskill from the if-it-drops-water-balloons-i'll-take-it dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at MIT's Robust Robotics Group have developed a robotic helicopter capable of autonomously flying inside buildings or other GPS-denied environments. It has an on-board camera and a laser scanner that maps the local environment. The video talks about search-and-rescue and civil engineering applications, but it also brings somewhat scary reminders of Minority Report to my head. How long till I see one of these chasing me down a dark alley? The team's website has more videos showing earlier stages of the project."

Submission + - How to list FOSS experience on your resume (itworld.com)

Submitted by
Esther Schindler
Esther Schindler writes: "You may be hesitant to apply for a new job based on your "volunteer" open source skills. Don't be, writes Esther Schindler at ITWorld.com. As techie hiring managers explain in Building Your Open Source Career, listing open source experience on your resume makes you more appealing, not less so. Groovy. But few FOSS activities fit into the CV/resume structure. What to Include in Your Open Source Resume shares advice from the folks looking at your job application on how they expect to see your skills and experience listed. Useful information for your next job hunt."

Submission + - The Economics of Federal Cloud Computing Analyzed (ulitzer.com)

Submitted by jg21
jg21 writes: With $20BN about to be spent by the Federal Government on IT infrastructure investments, this highly analytical article by two Booz Allen Hamilton associates makes it clear that Cloud computing has now received full executive backing and offers clear opportunities for agencies to significantly reduce their growing data center and IT hardware expenditures. President Obama's America is going distinctly cloudy! [From the article: "A few agencies are already moving quickly to explore cloud computing solutions and are even redirecting existing funds to begin implementations ... Agencies should identify the aspects of their current IT workload that can be transitioned to the cloud in the near term to yield "early wins" to help build momentum and support for the migration to cloud computing."]

Submission + - Kaspersky CEO Wants End to Online Anonymity (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by Andorin
Andorin writes: Eugene Kaspersky, CEO of well-known computer security company Kaspersky Labs, is calling for an end to the anonymity of the Internet, and for the creation of mandatory "Internet passports" for anyone who wishes to browse the Web. Says Kaspersky, "Everyone should and must have an identification, or internet passport... the internet was designed not for public use, but for American scientists and the US military. Then it was introduced to the public and it was wrong...to introduce it in the same way." He calls anonymity "the Internet's biggest security vulnerability" and thinks any country that doesn't follow this regime should be "cut off." The EFF objects, and it's likely that they won't be the only ones.
Censorship

Submission + - Texas Requires Investigator License to Repair PC's (ij.org) 2

Submitted by JeremyGa
JeremyGa writes: The state of Texas now wants computer techs to obtain a private investigator license before they access data on the computers they work on, or else risk a year in jail, a fine, and civil penalties of up to $10,000 every time they fix a computer. Since 2007, anyone who accesses non-public files to gather information about the "causes of events" and the "actions of persons" is deemed by the government to have conducted an "investigation" and must therefore have a private investigator- license. Repairing a computer almost always involves looking at the data to determine the "causes of events" what went wrong with the computer. The cause of those events will frequently be tied back to the"actions of persons". Whether a careless child downloaded a virus or an unscrupulous employee visited prohibited websites that installed malware, the essence of computer repair is figuring out what happened to a computer and reporting the cause of the problem to the computer owner. The new law makes potential criminals out of thousands of PC technicians in Texas.
  Each licensed investigations company- including sole proprietorship's -must be managed by an individual who has completed either a criminal justice degree or a three-year apprenticeship under a licensed investigator. Each licensed investigator must submit his or her fingerprints to the FBI, pay a $441 licensing fee, complete a 200-question written examination, and obtain $200,000 in liability insurance.
Science

Submission + - Scientists write memories directly into fly brains (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by TheClockworkSoul
TheClockworkSoul writes: The BBC reports that researchers at the University of Oxford have devised a way to write memories onto the brains of flies, revealing which brain cells are involved in making bad memories.

The researchers said that in flies just 12 brain cells were responsible for what is known as "associative learning". They modified these neurons by adding receptors for ATP, so that the cells activate in the presence of the chemical, but since ATP isn't usually found floating around a fly's brain, the flies generally behave just like any other fly. Most interestingly, however, is that the scientists then, injected ATP into the flies' brains, in a form that was locked inside a light-sensitive chemical cage. When they shined a laser on the fly brains, the ATP was released, and the "associative learning" cells were activated. The laser flash was paired with an odor, effectively giving the fly a memory of a bad experience with that odor that it never actually had, such that it then avoided that odor in later experiments.

This research, says Professor Gero Miesenböck, the lead investigator of the study, has begun to unravel how animals and humans learn from mistakes and how "error signals" drive animals to adapt their behavior.

They describe their findings in the journal Cell.
Software

Submission + - Apple's Grand Central Dispatch Ported To FreeBSD

Submitted by bonch
bonch writes: Apple's Grand Central Dispatch, which was recently open sourced, has been ported to FreeBSD and is planned to be included by default in FreeBSD 8.1. Also known as libdispatch, the API allows the use of function-based callbacks but will also support blocks if built using FreeBSD's clang compiler package. There's already discussion of modifying BSD's system tools to use the new technology.

Submission + - SPAM: iPhone in "coma mode"

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: BBC Watchdog has a report on iphone's latest problem: coma mode! iPhone fans have been calling the problem 'coma mode' and when it happens the phone won't receive calls or emails. It becomes useless until the user puts it through a 'hard reboot', similar to shutting down and restarting a desk top computer when it crashes. But even worse, because this happens when the screen is locked, leaving it blank, the unlucky ones experiencing the problem don't know it's in 'coma mode' until they pick up the phone to check. They could go for hours without realising the phone's stopped working.
Link to Original Source

Submission + - Author breaks down how he gets paid for Ruby book (beginningruby.org)

Submitted by mariushm
mariushm writes: Peter Cooper, the author of Beginning Ruby, breaks down how he gets paid for the book, including the advance and royalties, giving a nice clean explanation of how authors get paid for their books.

He also describes the negotiations over the second edition of the book, in which he begged his publisher, Apress, to offer the ebook version for free, believing (strongly) that it would promote sales of the paper book. He even notes that the original version's ebook barely had noteworthy sales, so it seemed reasonable to offer up the ebook for free to drive more attention. No dice. Even though Apress has done that with other similar titles, it wouldn't agree.

As he retains the copyright for the actual text, he encourages people to buy the book and create an online version of it without covers, contents table and indexes, promising not to enforce his copyright over the new work.
Security

Submission + - 2008 Web Application Security Statistics Published (webappsec.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The WASC Web Application Security Statistics Project has published it's 2008 vulnerability statistics recording more than 97554 on 12186 sites. This initiative is a collaborative industry wide effort to pool together sanitized website vulnerability data and to gain a better understanding about the web application vulnerability landscape.

Submission + - America's Operating System, Open Source

Submitted by Rubinstien
Rubinstien writes: O'Reilly Radar is reporting ( http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/10/lawgov-americas-operating-syst.html ) on an effort to produce Law.Gov, "America's Operating System, Open Source". The group Public.Resource.Org seeks "to create a solid business plan, technical specs, and enabling legislation for the federal government to create Law.Gov. We envision Law.Gov as a distributed, open source, authenticated registry and repository of all primary legal materials in the United States."
Media

Submission + - SPAM: Vanessa Hudgens iphone wallpaper

Submitted by
aviva3123
aviva3123 writes: "In early 2006, Hudgens's breakout role has been playing the fictional character Gabriella Montez in the Disney Channel movie series High School Musical. With this performance, Hudgens and co-star Zac Efron won the 2006 "Best Chemistry" award at the Teen Choice Awards..."
Link to Original Source
Space

Submission + - Solar eclipse shrouds Asia in darkness (cosmosmagazine.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The longest solar eclipse of the 21st century cast a shadow over much of Asia on Wednesday, plunging hundreds of millions into darkness across the giant landmasses of India and China.

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