quippe - Slashdot User

Comment Re:Does this surprise anyone? (Score 3, Insightful) 535

by quippe on Friday January 04, 2013 @10:20AM (#42474749) Attached to: The Android SDK Is No Longer Free Software

I cannot see how restricting the license terms of the SDK could impose barriers to competing manufacturers; it could probably create a barrier for derived works.
However, it is an evil thing.

Submission + - Quantum gas goes below absolute zero (nature.com)

Submitted by mromanuk on Thursday January 03, 2013 @04:42PM

mromanuk writes: It may sound less likely than hell freezing over, but physicists have created an atomic gas with a sub-absolute-zero temperature for the first time. Their technique opens the door to generating negative-Kelvin materials and new quantum devices, and it could even help to solve a cosmological mystery.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: What software is available to help learn about data transmission?

Submitted by bellwould on Friday November 30, 2012 @12:18AM

bellwould writes: In teaching information tech to a 13-yr old with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), I've found she's wildly interested in the details of data transmission but not programming. We've had limited success with command-line tools like traceroute and tcpdump, but now I'm seeking tips/advice on software that may help her explore and visualize things like transmission protocols.

Submission + - Google.ro and other RO domains, victims of a possible DNS hijacking attack - Sec (securelist.com)

Submitted by jansaell on Thursday November 29, 2012 @08:01AM

jansaell writes: There seems to be an ongoing trend to hijack well-known domains. A few weeks earlier it was google.ie (Ireland) and last week it was google in Pakistan, and now its googel in Romania. Earlier today, Softpedia reported that an Algerian hacker using the nickname MCA-CRB has managed to deface the Romanian sites of Google (google.ro) and Yahoo! (yahoo.ro).

Submission + - LWN interview with new Fedora Cloud Architect, Matthew Miller (lwn.net)

Submitted by

larsks

on Friday October 19, 2012 @11:47AM

larsks writes: "Matthew Miller, who for many years has been an active member of the Fedora community, recently accepted a position at RedHat as Fedora Cloud Architect. This LWN interview with Matthew explores how Fedora relates to the world of cloud computing and where he sees it going in the future."

Submission + - The Space Sim might make a comeback (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Asmodae on Tuesday October 16, 2012 @08:35PM

Asmodae writes: Chris Roberts, of Wing Commander fame, has a new project out to reinvent the space simulation genre. The videos on the project's home page sport some seriously impressive flight control and physics modeling for a space sim. They are eschewing publishers and using crowd funding to raise development money, but have decided to roll their own instead of using kickstarter. While this has apparently lead to a few technical issues, the project's site is fine now. Here's hoping for a great new space sim!

Submission + - Alpha Centauri has an Earth-sized planet

Submitted by

The Bad Astronomer

on Tuesday October 16, 2012 @06:54PM

The Bad Astronomer writes: "Astronomers have announced that the nearest star system in the sky — Alpha Centauri — has an Earth-sized planet orbiting one of its stars. Alpha Cen is technically a three-star system: a binary composed of two stars very much like the Sun, orbited by a third, a red dwarf, much farther out. Using the Doppler technique (looking for very small changes in the velocities of the stars) astronomers detected a planet orbiting the smaller of the two stars in the binary, Alpha Centauri B. The planet has a mass only 1.13 times that of the Earth, making it one of the smallest yet detected.However, it orbits the star only 6 million kilometers out, so it's far too hot to be habitable.

The signal from the planet is extremely weak but solidly detected, giving astronomers even greater hope of being able to find an Earth-like planet orbiting a star in its habitable zone."

Submission + - Female scientists celebrate Ada Lovelace Day (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Dupple on Tuesday October 16, 2012 @05:07AM

Dupple writes: Ada Lovelace Day is on 16 October and in London a cabaret-style evening of talks, demonstrations and singing, all performed by women, will mark the event, with additional celebrations planned in Brazil, Slovenia, Sweden, Italy and the US.

The day is named after Ada Lovelace, who worked with inventor Charles Babbage on plans for an "analytical engine" in the 1800s.

Suw Charman-Anderson started Ada Lovelace Day in 2009
The device is now widely regarded as the world's first computer model, and Ms Lovelace as the first computer programmer, although the pair never actually built it.

Submission + - Oracle website display "Hello World". (oracle.com) 1

Submitted by HnT on Saturday October 13, 2012 @06:57AM

HnT writes: The Oracle website shows nothing but "Hello World" since almost an hour now.

Submission + - Stallman on Unity: Canonical will have to hand over users' data to governments (benjaminkerensa.com)

Submitted by

Giorgio Maone

on Saturday October 13, 2012 @05:30AM

Giorgio Maone writes: "Ubuntu developer and fellow mozillian Benjamin Kerensa chatted with various people about the new Amazon Product Results in the Ubuntu 12.10 Unity Dash. Among them, Richard Stallman told him that this feature is bad because: 1. "If Canonical gets this data, it will be forced to hand it over to various governments."; 2. Amazon is bad. Concerned people can disable remote data retrieval for any lens and scopes or, more surgically, use sudo apt-get remove unity-lens-shopping."

Submission + - Now You Can Run Linux, BSD On Any UEFI Secure Boot PC (muktware.com)

Submitted by sfcrazy on Saturday October 13, 2012 @02:55AM

sfcrazy writes: The Linux Foundation has released a pre-booter which enabled any Linux or BSD distribution to run on any UEFI Secure boot windows PC. The Linux Foundation will obtain a Microsoft Key and sign a small pre-bootloader which will, in turn, chain load (without any form of signature check) a predesignated boot loader which will, in turn, boot Linux (or any other operating system).

Submission + - Automated DMCA Takedown Notices Request Censorship of Legitimate Sites (torrentfreak.com)

Submitted by

Techmeology

on Sunday October 07, 2012 @05:08PM

Techmeology writes: "Microsoft has sent automated DMCA notices to Google demanding the removal of several legitimate URLs from its search results that it claims were facilitating the distribution if illegal copies of Windows 8, including links to BBC news articles, Wikipedia pages, US government websites, and even Bing! The erroneous DMCA notices are being sent automatically by rights holders, who are increasingly using such techniques."

Submission + - Suspicion that Kim Dotcom was being spied on for longer than admitted (nzherald.co.nz)

Submitted by another random user on Saturday October 06, 2012 @07:12AM

another random user writes: Kim Dotcom's internet connection was being diverted inside New Zealand weeks before the Government Communications Security Bureau says it started spying on him.

The New Zealand Herald has obtained details showing Telecom engineers and staff at its technology services company Gen-I were investigating irregularities with his internet connection in November.

The revelation has raised suspicion that Mr Dotcom was victim to earlier spying than the GCSB has admitted. It has brought fresh calls for an inquiry amid claims of the spy agency's role in the international "Five Eyes" Echelon Network.

Submission + - Google Puts Souped-up Neural Networks to Work (technologyreview.com)

Submitted by holy_calamity on Friday October 05, 2012 @07:20PM

holy_calamity writes: A machine learning breakthrough from Google researchers that grabbed headlines this summer is now being put to work improving the company's products. The company revealed in June that it had built neural networks that run on 16,000 processors simultaneously, enough power that they could learn to recognize cats just by watching YouTube. Those neural nets have now made Google's speech recognition for US English 25 percent better, and are set to be used in other products, such as image search.

Submission + - Weather on Mars surprisingly pleasant, Curiosity rover finds Read more: http:// (foxnews.com)

Submitted by

hessian

on Tuesday October 02, 2012 @06:46PM

hessian writes: "Curiosity's onboard weather station, which is called the Remote Environment Monitoring Station (REMS), has measured air temperatures as high as 43 degrees Fahrenheit (6 degrees Celsius) in the afternoon. And temperatures have climbed above freezing during more than half of the Martian days, or sols, since REMS was turned on, scientists said.

These measurements are a bit unexpected, since it's still late winter at Gale Crater, the spot 4.5 degrees south of the Martian equator where Curiosity touched down on Aug. 5.

"That we are seeing temperatures this warm already during the day is a surprise and very interesting," Felipe Gómez, of the Centro de Astrobiología in Madrid, said in a statement."

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