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Earth

Attack of the Killer Electrons 98

Posted by Soulskill from the blame-the-esa-for-the-title dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "At the peak of a magnetic storm, the number of highly energetic 'killer electrons' strong enough to damage electronics and human tissue can increase by a factor of more than ten times, posing a danger to spacecraft, satellites, and astronauts. Killer electrons can penetrate satellite shielding, so if electrical discharges take place in vital components, a satellite can be damaged or even rendered inoperable. For many years, the mechanism by which killer electrons are produced has remained poorly understood, in spite of physicists' attempts at solving this puzzle. Now the ESA reports that data shows the increase in the creation of a substantial number of killer electrons is due to a two-step process. First, the initial acceleration is due to the strong shock-related magnetic field compression. Immediately after the impact of the interplanetary shock wave, Earth's magnetic field lines began wobbling at ultra low frequencies. In turn, these ULF waves effectively accelerate the seed electrons (provided by the first step) to become killer electrons. 'These new findings help us to improve the models predicting the radiation environment in which satellites and astronauts operate. With solar activity now ramping up, we expect more of these shocks to impact our magnetosphere over the months and years to come,' says Philippe Escoubet, ESA's Cluster mission manager."
Crime

Sumo Wrestler Steals Cash Machine From Moscow Shop 43

Posted by kdawson from the you-want-fries-with-that? dept.
timothy writes "Anyone skeevy and devious enough can buy online an ATM skimmer from some underhanded maker of same, but why not cut out the middleman, and just take the cash directly? (Also, if you're going to attempt to stop him, can I have your watch when you are dead?)"

Comment Re:Video Games (Score 1) 447

by unixan (#31386584) Attached to: Some Newegg Customers Received Fake Intel Core i7s

--but from then on, I always opened my cartridges at the register after paying.

Unnecessary if you are in the US, or a country with similar consumer-protection laws. You are allowed to open the product at the store to inspect it prior to purchase.

If they object to having to repackage (e.g. shrink wrap it again), tough cookies, especially if you fully intended on purchasing the product and found it to be faulty.

Comment Embargo (Score 3, Interesting) 220

by unixan (#30729362) Attached to: Firm To Release Database, Web Server 0-Days

Legerov said. For example, he said, “there will be published two years old Realplayer vulnerability soon, which we handled in a responsible way [and] contacted with a vendor.”

I think that apparently the vendors aren't doing a damn thing to patch a good amount of these reported vulnerabilities if they are being reported in a proactive manner. Seems as if once the exploits are running rampant in the wild then the vendors scramble to develop patches

It's most likely a case of resource management and insufficient resources available.

One word can solve the difference between responsible reporting and 0-day motivation:

embargo

The reporting security group still goes through responsible reporting methodology, but add proposed date the details will be reported more fully to the public.

I work for an enterprise-level network device manufacturer, and anyone in that line of work knows damn well that remote vulnerabilities are the harbinger of death if they're not addressed in a timely fashion. Yet, motivation to assign resources to fix it still relies (in part) on whether there is a public exploit or not. So it's with that background that I can say that embargoes work.

We don't know the details, but apparently Intevydis didn't give embargo dates along with their reported vulnerabilities. Now they see what kind of motivation that produces, and so they've set a pseudo-embargo: any time between Jan. 11th and Feb. 1st.
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft Borrows GPL Code for Windows 7 Utility (withinwindows.com)

Submitted by
Goatbert
Goatbert writes: "Rafael Rivera over at WithinWindows.com has found evidence that Microsoft has potentially stolen code from an open source/GPL'd project (ImageMaster for a utility made available on the Microsoft Store to allow download customers to copy the Windows 7 setup files to a DVD or USB Flash Drive. If Rivera's evidence holds up, this could be some serious egg in the face for Microsoft at a time when they're getting mostly good press from the tech media."
Idle

Submission + - Exam brute-forced by world's worst test taker (koreaherald.co.kr)

Submitted by unixan
unixan writes: What can you do with $4,200, and a lot of time on your hands? Why not brute force a written exam, the old fashion way?

The exam consisted of 50 multi-choice questions, and required a 60 percent score to pass. The would-be student, now a likely nominee for an Iggy, required 950 attempts to raise a score that started in the 30 percent range.

How about it, Slashdotters: assuming 50 questions with 5 choices each, could you program a brute force script (with learning capability based on final score) and beat the worlds worst test taker?
Education

Submission + - Comic Books Improve Early Childhood Literacy

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "The Telegraph reports that Professor Carol Tilley, a professor of library and information science at the University of Illinois, says that comics are just as sophisticated as other forms of reading, children benefit from reading them at least as much as they do from reading other kinds of books, and that there is evidence that comics increase children's vocabulary and instill a love of reading. "A lot of the criticism of comics and comic books come from people who think that kids are just looking at the pictures and not putting them together with the words," says Tilley. "But you could easily make some of the same criticisms of picture books – that kids are just looking at pictures, and not at the words." Tilley says that some of the condescension toward comics as a medium may come from the connotations that the name itself evokes but that the distinct comic book aesthetic — frames, thought and speech bubbles, motion lines, to name a few — has been co-opted by children's books, creating a hybrid format. "There has been an increase in the number of comic book-type elements in books for younger children," Tilley says. "If you really consider how the pictures and words work together in consonance to tell a story, you can make the case that comics are just as complex as any other kind of literature.""
Biotech

Submission + - Babies Begin Learning Language in the Womb

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "Science Daily reports findings from a new study that suggest that infants begin picking up elements of what will be their first language in the womb, long before their first babble or coo, and are able to memorize sounds from the external world by the last trimester of pregnancy, with a particular sensitivity to melody contour in both music and language. Newborns prefer their mother's voice over other voices and perceive the emotional content of messages conveyed via intonation contours in maternal speech (a.k.a. "motherese"). "The dramatic finding of this study is that not only are human neonates capable of producing different cry melodies, but they prefer to produce those melody patterns that are typical for the ambient language they have heard during their fetal life, within the last trimester of gestation," said Kathleen Wermke of the University of Würzburg in Germany. Wermke's team recorded and analyzed the cries of 60 healthy newborns, 30 born into French-speaking families and 30 born into German-speaking families, when they were three to five days old. The recordings of 2,500 cries as mothers changed babies’ diapers, readied babies for feeding or otherwise interacted with the youngsters show an extremely early impact of native language with analysis revealing clear differences in the shape of the newborns' cry melodies, based on their mother tongue. "Newborns are probably highly motivated to imitate their mother's behavior in order to attract her and hence to foster bonding," says Wermke. "Because melody contour may be the only aspect of their mother's speech that newborns are able to imitate, this might explain why we found melody contour imitation at that early age.""
Government

Sequoia To Publish Source Code For Voting Machines 102

Posted by timothy from the this-time-on-purpose dept.
cecille writes "Voting machine maker Sequoia announced on Tuesday that they plan to release the source code for their new optical-scan voting machine. The source code will be released in November for public review. The company claims the announcement is unrelated to the recent release of the source code for a prototype voting machine by the Open Source Digital Voting Foundation. According to a VP quoted in the press release, 'Security through obfuscation and secrecy is not security.'"
Cellphones

Universal Phone Charger Approved By UN Body 220

Posted by Soulskill from the but-i-like-the-seventeen-i-have dept.
andylim writes "Plans for a universal mobile phone charger have been approved by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a United Nations body. The charger has a micro-USB port at the connecting end, using technology similar to what is commonly used with digital cameras. It is not compulsory for manufacturers to adopt the new chargers, but the ITU says that some have already signed up to it. 'We are planning to launch the universal charger internationally during the first half of 2010,' Aldo Liguori, spokesperson for Sony Ericsson told the BBC."

Comment Re:Yes, but... (Score 1) 43

by unixan (#29756479) Attached to: Electro-Scalpel "Sniffs Out" Tumors

The way I read it, it tells you what tissue you're cutting *when you're cutting it*,

It may take society a decade or more to figure out whether this tool is a net positive benefit to society.

Meanwhile, I anticipate the following problems:

  • Does this device fade over time, misleading a surgeon into finishing too soon?
  • In the reverse, is there a way to ensure the ensure this tool isn't too sensitive, misleading a surgeon into removing whole "diseased" organs?
  • ... Could this device even turn surgery into an addictive video game of hunt-the-cancer?

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