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Submission + - Google Ends Internet Explorer 9 Support In Google Apps 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Google today announced it has discontinued support for Internet Explorer 9 in Google Apps, including its Business, Education, and Government editions. Google says it has stopped all testing and engineering work related to IE9, given that IE11 was released on October 17 along with Windows 8.1. This means that IE9 users who access Gmail and other Google Apps services will be notified "within the next few weeks" that they need to upgrade to a more modern browser. Google says this will either happen through an in-product notification message or an interstitial page.

Submission + - Debian switches to Xfce, ditches GNOME (muktware.com)

Submitted by sfcrazy
sfcrazy writes: Debian will now benefit from the Xfce desktop environment as it is to switch from GNOME for Debian 8.0, codenamed “Jessie”. But GNOME may go back as the default if developers find it to be a better choice at the time of the evaluation, which will start around the point of DebConf (August 2014). “This will be re-evaluated before jessie is frozen (the switch to Xfce),” Hess said in the mailing list.

Submission + - CAPTCHA crushed, new era of threats emerges (networkworld.com)

Submitted by Mark Gibbs
Mark Gibbs writes: It was just a matter of time before the relentless march of computer science knocked down the challenge of CAPTCHA. Vicarious, a San Francisco startup specializing in artificial intelligence recently announced that its software can handle up to 90% of CAPTCHA challenges from Google, Yahoo, PayPal, Captcha.com, and other sources.

Submission + - Surface Pro 2 Gets Significant Battery Boost

Submitted by SmartAboutThings
SmartAboutThings writes: The original Surface Pro didn’t have quite a good battery life and that’s why Microsoft tried to fix this with the Surface Pro. After the Surface Pro 2 has hit general availability, Microsoft has silently pushed out a firmware update which, according to some new battery benchmarks run by Anandtech, made significant improvements to the battery life of the Surface Pro 2. After the new web browsing battery life test it was discovered that the Surface Pro 2 now manages better battery life than the ARM Surface 2, which is pretty impressive. With the firmware update, Microsoft was targeting over 8 hours, and AnadTech’s benchmarks show Microsoft has succeeded, registering a 25% increase in battery life over the no-firmware version. The unpatched Surface Pro 2 lasted for 6.68 hours while with the firmware update installed, its battery life increased to 8.33 hours. The video playback test involved playing a movie until the battery died, and here, albeit smaller, improvements with the battery life have also been noticed: 7.73 hours compared to 6.65 hours.

Submission + - World's First 1MW Wave Energy Power Plant (inhabitat.com)

Submitted by Stolzy
Stolzy writes: According to this article by Inhabitat, the world's first ever 1MW wave energy power plant has been launched off the coast of South Australia. According to the article, "The wave energy converter was developed with support from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), and it will undergo tests over the next 12 months to determine how well it feeds into the national power grid." The project's full cost came to around $8 million AUD (around US$7.6 million, or €5.55 million).

If all goes well they are planning on releasing a full 10MW device in the future.

Their design incorporates using high pressure air to flow through turbines which then generates the electricity. I personally wonder what the cost of energy to produce the device is compared to the cost of energy to be produced by this design.

Submission + - Sony issues detailed PS4 FAQ ahead of launch

Submitted by Sockatume
Sockatume writes: Sony has released a detailed FAQ for the PS4 system, which launches in coming weeks. Of particular note: although Bluetooth headsets will not be compatible, generic 3.5mm and USB audio devices will work; the console will require activation via the internet or a special disk before it will play Blu-ray or DVDs; media servers, MP3s, and audio CDs are not supported. The console's "suspend/resume" and remote assistance features are listed as unavailable for the North American launch, implying that they will be patched in before the console launches in Europe later in November.

Submission + - Single neuronal dendrites perform computations (futurity.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Spikes aren't just for axons anymore. Dendrites themselves spike, and this means that dendrites can do the computations that we used to think took an entire neuron. This had been hypothesized before, and there was indirect evidence. But now we have clear, direct evidence that the brain actually does this, and uses the computational power.

Submission + - U.S. Losing 'Cyberwar,' Ex-Intel Chief Tells BGov Conference (blogspot.com) 2

Submitted by quantr
quantr writes: The former U.S. director of intelligence says the country is fighting a cyber-war and losing, and wonders if it will take a “cyber Pearl Harbor” to take the steps needed to protect crucial computer systems.
Mike McConnell, now vice chairman of contractor Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corp., told a Bloomberg Government cybersecurity conference today that he has been giving the same speech for 20 years and still not enough has been done.
“We’ll get it right, but it will be messy,” McConnell said. “We have the capability. We do not have the legal framework and we do not have the will.”
Efforts to get businesses to agree to voluntary steps have failed because companies are concerned they could be subject to lawsuits demanding that those rules become permanent, McConnell said.
In addition, privacy advocates want to limit the amount of information the government can collect, he said.
“We can do amazing things,” McConnell said, “The problem is we have to solve the privacy issue. The debate will be privacy versus security.”
Booz Allen employed Edward Snowden as a contractor to the National Security Agency. Snowden leaked top-secret NSA documents about electronic surveillance. Snowden was fired after reports based on the documents appeared in newspapers, and he has been indicted on federal charges of espionage and theft.

Submission + - RHEL 7 will be a KDE Desktop

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: At the 2013 linux Kernel summit Redhat spokesperson Lisa Truman revealed that the upcoming RHEL 7 will be based on the KDE Software Compilation desktop environment. "As you know we have been working on implementing Gnome 3 classic mode for RHEL 7. But after early feedback from our customers we have decided to switch to a KDE/QT based desktop for our flagship product". On what feedback Redhat received from their customers, Ms. Truman responded: "We at Redhat appreciate that many of our customers use non accelerated or legacy hardware for their workstations, and software rendering with llvmpipe may not fit the bill for them". "Also gnome-classic-mode is an emulation of a classic desktop and is lacking many important areas". When Ms. Truman was asked if the switch to KDE is the reason for the delay in the release of RHEL 7 she stated: "We are still on track to release RHEL 7 by the end of 2013".

Submission + - Playstation 4: No external storage, PC streaming or MP3 playback (playerattack.com)

Submitted by UgLyPuNk
UgLyPuNk writes: The new console is stepping away from its predecessor's "media centre" label. You will not be able to play MP3s or audio CDs on your new games machine. It will play DVD and Blu-ray movies, but it no longer features DLNA support, so you won't be able to stream videos or other media from your home PC.

Submission + - Mike Rogers: "You Can't Have Your Privacy Violated If You Don't Know About It" (techdirt.com) 1

Submitted by fish waffle
fish waffle writes: Techdirt and Popehat are reporting that during the House Intelligence Committee hearing on NSA surveillance, and in defense of accusations that he had installed a digital camera in the women's bathroom in his office, Intel Committee Chair Rep. Mike Rogers makes the astounding declaration that "You Can't Have Your Privacy Violated If You Don't Know About It."

Submission + - Torvalds: Free OS X Is No Threat To Linux (itworld.com)

Submitted by jfruh
jfruh writes: Apple is now offering upgrades to the latest version of OS X for free. When Linux inventor Linus Torvalds was asked whether this threatened Linux (presumably by someone who had only a passing knowledge of all the things "free" can mean when applied to software) it gave him an opportunity for a passionate defense of open source. Torvalds also says that he'll keep programming until it gets "not interesting," which hasn't happened yet.

Submission + - Finally, a Bill to End Patent Trolling (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by jellie
jellie writes: According to Ars Technica, a new bill introduced by Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has received bipartisan support and has a real chance of passing. In a press call, lawyers from the CCIA, EFF, and Public Knowledge had universal praise for the bill, which is called the Innovation Act of 2013. The EFF has a short summary of the good and bad parts of an earlier draft of the bill. The bill will require patent holders who are filing a suit to identify the specific products and claims to are being infringed, require the loser in a suit to pay attorney's fees and costs, and force trolls to reveal anyone who has a "financial interest" in the case, making them possibly liable for damages.

Submission + - ICANN starts rolling out new generic top-level domains (networkworld.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: ICANN has introduced the first new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) to the Internet's root zone, the central database for the Internet's Domain Name System, paving the way for possibly 1,400 new domain names from the current 22. It will take 30 days and some more procedures for people to start accessing the new domains, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers said Wednesday. The "delegation" or introduction into the Internet's root zone of four new gTLDs starts a so-called "Sunrise" period to give trademark holders an opportunity to register second-level domains corresponding to their marks, wrote Akram Atallah, president of ICANN's Generic Domains Division in a blog post.http://blog.icann.org/2013/10/dawn-of-a-new-internet-era/ The four newly delegated gTLDs are in Arabic, Chinese and Cyrillic scripts.

Submission + - HP Seeks Buyer For WebOS Patents - Report (techweekeurope.co.uk)

Submitted by judgecorp
judgecorp writes: Hewlett-Packard wants to cash in a lot of mobile patents, as part of Meg Whitman's restructing, according to reports. HP acquired the WebOS operating system, as seen on phones and tablets, when it bought Palm, but failed to build a business on it. It's since sold its WebOS business to LG for use in TVs and cars but hung onto the patents which are licensed to LG. Now, Bloomberg reports the patents themselves may be for sale — possibly to whoever fails to buy BlackBerry's tempting bundle of mobile technology

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