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Open Source

Submission + - Blood Frontier is Dead (bloodfrontier.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: After an optimistic start, it appears as though a project to create a multi-player, open source FPS has caved in. Details about why the project failed are on the Blood Frontier homepage.
NASA

Submission + - NASA Set to Launch Solar NanoSail into Space (inhabitat.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Earlier this year the Japanese space agency successfully deployed and used a solar sail to propel its spacecraft Ikaros, and now NASA announced plans this week for its own solar sail mission. This fall it will launch the NanoSail-D into orbit 400 miles up with a Minotaur IV rocket. Once deployed, it will orbit for 17 weeks, proving the technology and allowing astronomers to snap lots of photos.
Security

Submission + - Facebook cell scam stings Justin Bieber fans (sophos.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A Facebook scam claiming to offer free tickets to a Justin Bieber concert is in fact signing up teenagers to an expensive premium rate mobile phone service.

Messages intercepted by Sophos researchers are appearing on Facebook reading:

WOW! Justin Bieber Is Giving Away Free Concert Tickets Now!

But teenage fans who click on the link hopeful of receiving free tickets are urged to enter their cellphone number, signing them up for a premium rate service. At the same time, a rogue Facebook application spreads the message virally to other Facebook users — perpetuating the scam.

Facebook users need to start thinking more carefully about messages like this that are shared by their friends, especially when asked to install an application that can access their Facebook profile. Not only are users signing up to a costly charge on their mobile phone bill, but they are also exposing their personal information and endangering their online friends.
IT

Submission + - Cloud Computing is No Threat to IT Jobs (novell.com)

Submitted by rsmiller510
rsmiller510 writes: There is a growing belief that cloud computing will lead to IT job losses, but there is no reason it has to. In fact, like many historical IT changes, it might require new skills, but not necessarily fewer bodies.

Comment We need real systems engineering here (Score 1) 1139

by alexwcovington (#33297416) Attached to: Is a US High-Speed Railway Economically Feasible?

With automotive gasoline being responsible for more than 40% of our oil use (the single largest usage), creating a national transportation system that is energy efficient, timely, and practical to use needs to be at the top of the list.

High Speed Rail is one of the better solutions, but a national system would be an immense project, bigger than the Interstate Highway System -- and it would more than likely require nationalizing the regional railway oligarchies.

Economically feasible? No. Necessary? Absolutely.
Intel

Submission + - Lower Cost Intel Six-Core Core i7-970 Debuts (hothardware.com)

Submitted by
MojoKid
MojoKid writes: "Until now, if you wanted something in a six-core chip from Intel, the Core i7-980X Extreme Edition was the only flavor of the day. However, Intel just released a new 32nm Gulftown-based Core i7 six-core that is slotted for a somewhat more palatable price point. Clocked at 3.2GHz, the new Core i7-970 will afford you a bit more financial breathing room, if you're hankering for that step up to what is arguably the fastest X86 desktop chip architecture around currently. Performance-wise, the Core i7-970 keeps pace within a few percentage points of a 980X six-core chip for heavily threaded workloads. In single or lightly threaded workloads, the new chip falls in just under Core i7-975 quad-core performance."
The Internet

Submission + - MySpace gets a Facebook-style facelift (skunkpost.com)

Submitted by crimeandpunishment
crimeandpunishment writes: MySpace is getting a makeover. The social network site is changing its homepage....and while the site is trying to set itself apart from Facebook. the new look will make it look a little more like its now-dominant rival. The redesign is part of a broader overhaul of MySpace, which is focusing on attracting younger users. The full relaunch will come in the fall.

Submission + - Another Harmful Patent On The Horizon?

Submitted by patentspottingbadge
patentspottingbadge writes: In a moment of sheer horror, I noticed Apple has recently published a patent covering the conversion of JavaScript into a machine-independent representation for subsequent generation of device-specific machine code (http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20100153929 published 06/17/2010). The patent gives the example of converting JavaScript into LLVM Intermediate Representation (IR). Although it doesn't surprise me seeing that Apple has had heavy involvement in the LLVM project (a perfect implementation technology for this purpose), does it at all strike you as yet-another-obvious-case-of-prior-art seeing discussion of using LLVM with a JavaScript frontend has been mentioned elsewhere on the Interweb? Given the ubiquity of JavaScript for general purpose scripting I can see this patent blocking some very powerful distributed computing technologies (think ubiquitous portable code submittable via a web page). Should anyone be opposing this patent before it's opposition period expires?

Submission + - $1M award for solving the world overpopulation (dicksmithpopulation.com)

Submitted by creaktive
creaktive writes: Armed with a suitcase full of cash and more blonde beauties than Richard Branson, businessman Dick Smith announced his Wilberforce award at the FEX Market Site in Sydney on Wednesday 11 August 2010.
The award is designed to give a one million dollar prize to anyone under 30 who can impress Dick by becoming famous through his or her ability to show leadership in communicating an alternative to our population and consumption growth-obsessed economy.
Social Networks

Can Twitter and Facebook Deal With Their Dead? 284

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i'll-get-my-cart dept.
Barence writes "One and a half million Facebook users die each year. Twitter faces a similar mortality rate. Yet the social networks have been relatively slow to deal with the uncomfortable business of death. Only this week has Twitter finally unveiled a policy for handling the accounts of dead members. Yet the process for closing the accounts of deceased relatives is complicated, while reminders to follow the accounts of people who have long since passed away continue to arrive, adding to the pain of grieving friends and relatives."
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - The Great Decoupling of Corporate Profit from Jobs 1

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Corporate profits are way up, reports ex-Secretary of Labor Robert Reich. And big American companies are sitting on a gigantic pile of money. Which can only mean more jobs are on the way for American workers, right? Wrong. U.S. companies — including 60% taxpayer-owned GM — won't hire American workers are instead investing and expanding production overseas. Why? Taking their cue from Willie Sutton, that's where the big money is. Further exacerbating matters, says Reich, is that Wall Street is advising investors to sell the stocks of companies that talk openly of hiring. Finally, corporations are putting their cash to work by paying dividends to shareholders and buying back their own stock to push up share prices. 'Higher corporate profits no longer lead to higher employment,' concludes Reich. 'We're witnessing a great decoupling of company profits from jobs.'
Government

Submission + - FBI May Get Easier Access to Internet Activity (washingtonpost.com)

Submitted by olsmeister
olsmeister writes: It appears the White House would like to make it easier for the FBI to obtain records of a person's internet activities without a court order to do so, via the use of an NSL. While they have been able to this this for a long time, this may expand the type of information able to be gathered without a court order to include things like web browsing histories.
Space

Submission + - LCD "engine" for spacecraft attitude control! (www.jaxa.jp)

Submitted by
Bruce Perens
Bruce Perens writes: "Japan's IKAROS satellite, which earlier performed the first successful demonstration of a solar sail, has broken more new territory. Liquid-crystal displays, yes — like in your video monitor — were fabricated into strips on the edges of the solar sail. By energizing some of the LCDs and changing the reflective characteristics of parts of the sail from specular to diffuse, JAXA scientists successfully generated attitude control torque in the sail, changing the spacecraft's orientation."
Power

Submission + - Unlimited fusion a step closer with ITER funding

Submitted by goG
goG writes: The European Union and six other states agreed on an updated plan to finance and establish a timetable for the ITER project, an experimental fusion reactor which could lead towards the development of unlimited and clean fusion energy. The parties hammered out a deal at the future site of the project in Cadarache, France at Wednesday.Together with the International Space Station and CERN, ITER is probably the most extensive and complex international project ever undertaken.

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