David7 - Slashdot User

Submission + - U.N. launches drive against piracy (dbune.com)

Submitted by dbune on Friday February 04, 2011 @05:25PM

dbune writes: In an attempt to neutralize Somali pirates' seizure of ships, the United Nation's maritime agency has launched an anti-piracy drive in London. Speaking at the launch of the International Maritime Organization's (IMO) initiative, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that piracy apparently outp...

Submission + - Canada Courts Quashes Govt. Decision on Globalive (theglobeandmail.com)

Submitted by sitkill on Friday February 04, 2011 @05:19PM

sitkill writes: The Canadian Government has rejected the Tory Cabinet's decision to overturn a CRTC mandate not allowing Globalive (which is more commonly known in Canada as the mobile carrier Wind) to operate in Canada. This is a small vindication to the enbattled CRTC which has been recently in the spotlight for it's recent decision on usage based billing, which has also come under criticism by the Tory Cabinet.

The CEO, Mr. Lacavera, stressed that this would not result in Globalive's Wind Mobile being shut down, simply that it would require another round of wrangling with the regulator over how much foreign influence is acceptable in a Canadian telecommunications company.".

Submission + - How Was Egypt's Internet Access Shut Off? (scientificamerican.com)

Submitted by SonicSpike on Friday February 04, 2011 @05:09PM

SonicSpike writes: Scientific American Magazine has a piece on it: "Preliminary investigations indicate that most of the country's ISPs cut Internet access within a 20-minute period, likely at the government's behest."

Submission + - Is the Internet Causing Male Sexual Dysfunction? (nymag.com)

Submitted by Hugh Pickens writes on Friday February 04, 2011 @05:04PM

Hugh Pickens writes writes: Davy Rothbart writes in New York Magazine that easy access to internet porn is not only shaping men’s physical and emotional interest in sex on a very fundamental neurological level, but it’s also having a series of unexpected ripple effects. "The initial symptom for a lot of guys who frequently find themselves bookmarking their favorite illicit clips appears to be a waning desire for their partners," writes Rothbart. "For a lot of guys, switching gears from porn’s fireworks and whiz-bangs to the comparatively mundane calm of ordinary sex is like leaving halfway through an Imax 3-D movie to check out a flipbook." Psychiatrists have coined a name for this particular dysfunction — sexual attention deficit disorder — and it appears to be on the rise with catastrophic effects on relationships. One user insists that he’s still attracted to his wife of twelve years but he says, she can’t quite measure up to the porn stars he views online. "Me and her, we still ‘do it’ and everything, but instead of every day, it’s maybe once a week. It’s like I’ve got this ‘other woman’ and the ‘other woman’ is porn."

Submission + - Wind Mobile forced out of Canada! (www.cbc.ca)

Submitted by nigel_q on Friday February 04, 2011 @04:55PM

nigel_q writes: Federal Court overturns Cabinet decision that overturned a CRTC ruling... Maybe this means the cabinet doesn't have the power to overturn any CRTC UBB decision?

Submission + - When Online Lynch Mobs Get It Wrong (itworld.com)

Submitted by jfruhlinger on Friday February 04, 2011 @03:17PM

jfruhlinger writes: Reddit had been plagued in the past by scammers pretending to raise money for charity, so when someone started posting in multiple Reddit sections that she was planning on shaving her head for cancer research, users quickly turned on her, reporting her for fraud and tracking down her boyfriend and threatening him. The only problem: the charity appeal was genuine.

Submission + - Bank of America site down for over 6 hours (forbes.com)

Submitted by David7 on Friday January 14, 2011 @03:22PM

David7 writes: Forbes reports that the Bank of America site has been down since 4 AM PST. Bank of America has been addressing complaints via Twitter.

Submission + - Verizon iPhone's Antenna May End 'Death Grip' (computerworld.com)

Submitted by CWmike on Friday January 14, 2011 @03:20PM

CWmike writes: Apple's redesigned iPhone 4 antenna for its Verizon version was perhaps done to foil the 'death grip' problem that roiled AT&T customers last summer, an expert told Computerworld's Gregg Keizer on Friday. 'They've moved things around, and my guess is that they went to a dual antenna," said Spencer Webb, an antenna engineer with nearly a dozen patents to his credit, and president of AntennaSys, a mobile device antenna design and consulting firm. Based on photos, Webb speculated that the Verizon iPhone has two identical cellular antennas. Covering a slot on one side of the new iPhone may hamper reception, but the phone should still be able to receive and transmit properly as long as the other isn't similarly bridged by a finger or palm. 'That looks like it's a possibility,' said Webb, who was taking an educated guess — as everyone will be doing until Verizon's iPhone goes public on Feb. 10. 'Apple might have done something clever here by scrambling to come up with a better solution — two cellular antennas.' The technology site AnandTech, which was among the first last year to quantify the signal loss caused by a 'death grip' on the iPhone 4, said that Verizon requires dual-receive antennas for devices that access its network.

Submission + - Why Oracle likely won't win the Hudson fight (infoworld.com)

Submitted by GMGruman on Friday January 14, 2011 @03:08PM

GMGruman writes: The Hudson Project is up in arms over Oracle's decision not to let the open source community make project infrastructure decisions. As Oracle continues to absorb Sun Microsystems and change its previous open approach to open source, here's a battle that Oracle could easily lose, argues InfoWorld;s Savio Rodrigues. In this case, the Hudson Project still has a strong founder willing to fight for the project, and Oracle's contributions to the project haven't been strong enough to give it the de facto intellectual ownership. What Oracle does have is the trademark over the Hudson name — but Rodrigues notes that this may not be strong enough a control mechanism this time.

Submission + - White House Tour: SSNs Sent via Unencrypted Email! (vortex.com)

Submitted by Lauren Weinstein on Friday January 14, 2011 @02:25PM

Lauren Weinstein writes: Very large numbers of persons tour the White House every year. All prospective tour guests 14 years of age and older are required to pre-submit their Social Security Numbers (SSNs) for security checks (apparently it is common for children under the age 14 to have their SSNs submitted as well).

One might assume that information as sensitive as SSNs would be handled by the associated authorities with the same care and diligence as, say, a typical bank Web site — using SSL/TLS encryption for the protection of this data that is so often abused for identity fraud.

But that assumption would apparently be false. An array of Congressional Web sites instruct would-be White House tour guests to submit their personal information (names, dates of birth, social security numbers, etc.) via standard unencrypted email to (for example) various addresses @mail.house.gov!

Submission + - Military aircraft to get all-fiber network gear (networkworld.com) 1

Submitted by coondoggie on Friday January 14, 2011 @02:21PM

coondoggie writes: Looking to significantly reduce weight, improve on-board communications and make it easier to upgrade avionics, the US military is developing prototype phonic gear for use in all aircraft. Behind such a drastic shift is a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency project with an ungainly moniker: Network Enabled by Wavelength division multiplexing Highly Integrated Photonics (NEW-HIP).

Submission + - Maker Of Tiny Phones Goes Under (ibtimes.com)

Submitted by RedEaredSlider on Friday January 14, 2011 @02:08PM

RedEaredSlider writes: Modu, the Israeli maker of the world's smallest mobile phones, has finally succumbed to bankruptcy, owing $123 million. Their PR people have evidently been let go, as one said they weren't working for them anymore.

Submission + - Intel Reports Record Revenue and Profits (securityweek.com)

Submitted by wiredmikey on Thursday January 13, 2011 @06:58PM

wiredmikey writes: Despite lagging PC sales and a slow overall economy, Intel today reported $43.6 billion in revenue for 2010, with operating income of $15.9 billion and net income of $11.7 billion, resulting in an EPS of $2.05 – all records. Intel says that while 2010 was a great year, 2011 is set to be an even stronger one for the company. “2010 was the best year in Intel’s history. We believe that 2011 will be even better,” said Paul Otellini, Intel president and CEO.

Submission + - TeraGrid Provides 1.75 Billion Hours to Science (utexas.edu)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 13, 2011 @06:58PM

An anonymous reader writes: TeraGrid provided researchers across the country 1.75 billion service units (SUs), or computer processing hours in 2010 -the equivalent of nearly 200,000 years on a single processor. These projects spanned nearly every field of science and range from clinical investigations of broken bones to simulations of the core collapse of stars to particle physics beyond the Standard Model.

Submission + - Fruit fly brains for wireless deployments (itnews.com.au)

Submitted by schliz on Thursday January 13, 2011 @06:40PM

schliz writes: Scientists from the US and Israel are using principles behind the biological development of a fruit fly to improve how distributed computer networks are deployed. The algorithm selects an optimal number of 'leader' nodes in a way that is slightly slower, but more robust than current methods. Researchers say it consumes less power and assumes less initial knowledge, and can thus enable a wider range of deployments, such as wireless sensor networks and swarms of nanorobots.

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