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Announcements

Knuth Plans 'Earthshaking Announcement' Wednesday 701

Posted by kdawson from the perhaps-metafont-ported-to dept.
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Donald Knuth is planning to make an 'earthshaking announcement' on Wednesday, at TeX's 32nd Anniversary Celebration, on the final day of the TUG 2010 Conference. Unfortunately, nobody seems to know what it is. So far speculation ranges from proving P!=NP, to a new volume of The Art of Computer Programming, to his retirement. Maybe Duke Nukem Forever has been ported to MMIX?" Let the speculation begin.
HP

HP Gives Printers Email Addresses 325

Posted by Soulskill from the enjoy-the-spam dept.
Barence writes "HP is set to unveil a line of printers with their own email addresses, allowing people to print from devices such as smartphones and tablets. The addresses will allow users to email their documents or photos directly to their own — or someone else's — printer. It will also let people more easily share physical documents; rather than merely emailing links around, users can email a photo to a friend's printer. 'HP plans to offer a few of these new printers to consumers this month, and then a few more of the products to small businesses in September.'"
Earth

Study Claims Cellphones Implicated In Bee Loss 542

Posted by kdawson from the can-you-hear-me-now-wait-where-am-i dept.
krou passes along word from Telegraph.co.uk that researchers from Chandigarh's Punjab University claim that they have proven mobile phones could explain Colony Collapse Disorder. "They set up a controlled experiment in Punjab earlier this year comparing the behavior and productivity of bees in two hives — one fitted with two mobile telephones which were powered on for two 15-minute sessions per day for three months. The other had dummy models installed. After three months the researchers recorded a dramatic decline in the size of the hive fitted with the mobile phone, a significant reduction in the number of eggs laid by the queen bee. The bees also stopped producing honey. The queen bee in the 'mobile' hive produced fewer than half of those created by her counterpart in the normal hive. They also found a dramatic decline in the number of worker bees returning to the hive after collecting pollen." We've talked about the honeybee problem before. Today's article quotes a British bee specialist who dismisses talk of cellphone radiation having anything to do with the problem.
NASA

Atlantis Blasts Off On Final Mission 143

Posted by Soulskill from the to-boldly-go dept.
shuz writes "Space shuttle Atlantis lifted off today on its STS-132 mission to the International Space Station — the final flight for the venerable vehicle. The mission involves three spacewalks over 12 days (PDF), during which the team will replace six batteries on the port truss which store energy from solar panels on that truss, bolt on a spare space-to-ground Ku-band antenna, and attach a new tool platform to Canada's Dextre robotic arm." NASA has video of the historic launch and reader janek78 adds this quote from the mission summary: "Atlantis lifted off on its maiden voyage on Oct. 3, 1985, on mission 51-J. Later missions included the launch of the Magellan probe to Venus on STS-30 in May 1989, Galileo interplanetary probe to Jupiter on STS-34 in October 1989, the first shuttle docking to the Mir Space Station on STS-71 in June1995, and the final Hubble servicing mission on STS-125 in May 2009."

Comment Re:But will IE accept the new font files? (Score 1) 209

by el_gordo101 (#32103510) Attached to: Font Foundries Opening Up To the Web

We got into the current mess of text in images because Microsoft wouldn't support Mozilla's font files. Is IE going with the standard this time around, or do we have another browser incompatibility issue?

Actually, we got into the mess of text in images because "web designers" (read: graphic artists) weren't satisfied with the limited number of font faces that could be counted on to be displayed across different platforms. They needed to express their "artistic vision", but Times New Roman, Arial, and generic "sans-serif" font declarations couldn't scratch that itch. They used Photoshop to embed their favorite font faces into graphic elements on the page (buttons, logos, headers, etc). in order to satisfy their artistic vision. It had nothing to do with Microsoft not supporting Mozilla's font files (whatever that even means). This was happening long before the advent of Mozilla. The modern equivalent would be designers using Flash to develop their interfaces. It gives the designer complete control over the design but it breaks the way the web was intended to work. With this new @font-face method, you can still get the very specific look and feel you want, but can still have your content indexed, select, copy, paste still works, etc.
Communications

Tweeting From the Front Line 84

Posted by CmdrTaco from the deja-what-now dept.
blackbearnh writes "There's an interesting article up on O'Reilly Radar talking about how the US military is reacting to the increasing use of social media by soldiers in hostile territory. In an interview, Price Floyd, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, talks about the trade-offs between operational security and allowing soldiers and the public to interact, and how social media has changed the way the DoD communicates with the public. 'I think that we need to become much more comfortable with taking risk, much more comfortable with having multiple spokesmen out there, thousands of spokesmen in essence. But, for me, there's nothing more credible than the men and women who are out there on the front lines, fighting the wars that we're in, sending messages back to their family and friends.'"
Crime

Submission + - REACT Crime Task Force 'Steered' by Apple

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Yahoo! News reports that California's Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team (REACT), the police task force that raided Gizmodo editor Jason Chen's home over the leaked iPhone prototype, counts Apple as a member of its steering committee. Questioned about Apple's presence on the committee, Stephen Wagstaffe, the chief deputy DA in the San Mateo District Attorney's office, told Yahoo! News that 'I don't know if Apple is on the steering committee.' Neither Apple nor REACT responded to requests seeking comment. But according to the 2008 High Technology Crime In California: Annual Report to the Governor & Legislature (pdf), 'REACT receives direction and oversight from a local Steering Committee' that did indeed include Apple Computer as a member. Some visitors to REACT's Guest Book are voicing their displeasure with the raid: 'Being Apple's personal bully against reporters,' opines jo, 'is such a great use of taxpayer money.' BTW, Chen might be advised to decline any offers of a 'Nexus Two' — Google was also listed as a member of the REACT steering committee.
Businesses

Blippy Exposes Credit Card Numbers Through Simple Google Search 95

Posted by Soulskill from the making-it-easy-on-the-scammers dept.
An anonymous reader writes "In an unfortunate data breach, social media site Blippy has left credit card numbers in clear text, searchable via a simple Google query. The results show the amount spent on a transaction, the location, and the full card number. As of this submission, the issue still hasn't been resolved." The company's co-founder, Philip Kaplan, told the NY Times, "... when people link their credit cards to Blippy, merchants pass along their raw transaction data – including some credit card numbers – and the site scrubs that information to present just the merchant and the dollar amount spent. But several months ago, when Blippy was being publicly tested, that raw transaction data was present in the site's HTML code, where it was retrieved by Google. Mr. Kaplan said that early on, Blippy started disguising the raw transaction data behind the scenes, but it did not know about the breach until today."
Transportation

The iPad As In-Car Entertainment System Killer 415

Posted by kdawson from the spreading-disruption-wherever-it-goes dept.
theodp writes "Cars.com's David Thomas speculates that the iPad could prove to be a serious problem for automakers that charge a ransom for rear entertainment systems. The base iPad, Thomas notes, costs far less than most DVD options offered by automakers. Ford charges $1,995 for a dual-headrest-mounted DVD system in its Flex crossover. In the Acura MDX, its single-screen system, with three wireless headsets and a 9-inch screen, costs $1,900. At $500 a pop, giving two kids their own iPads would cost far less than what the automakers charge for an ICE system. The Cars.com article mentions some of the advantages of ICE, including being weather-tested to work from -5 to 160 degrees F (-20 to 71 C), and being far less prone to breakage."
Security

Microsoft To Distribute Third-Party Patches 135

Posted by timothy from the after-the-after-party dept.
dhiren writes "Secunia on Wednesday announced that their authenticated internal vulnerability scanner, the Corporate Software Inspector (CSI) 4.0, has been integrated with Microsoft Windows Server Update Service (WSUS) and System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM). This will hopefully pave the way for other vendors to also make use of Windows' existing patching infrastructure and eliminate the need for the multitude of custom updater applications and services that clutter most systems today."

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