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Scientists Say a Dirty Child Is a Healthy Child 331

Posted by samzenpus from the snack-is-going-to-be-on-the-floor-today dept.
Researchers from the School of Medicine at the University of California have shown that the more germs a child is exposed to, the better their immune system in later life. Their study found that keeping a child's skin too clean impaired the skin's ability to heal itself. From the article: "'These germs are actually good for us,' said Professor Richard Gallo, who led the research. Common bacterial species, known as staphylococci, which can cause inflammation when under the skin, are 'good bacteria' when on the surface, where they can reduce inflammation."
Censorship

Submission + - 'Creative Industries' call for file-sharers ban (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by
siloko
siloko writes: "An alliance of so-called 'Creative Industries', including the UK Film Council, have signed a joint statement asking the UK government to force ISPs into banning users caught sharing illegally. In an "unprecedented joint statement", the alliance predicted a "lawless free-for-all" unless the government ensured the "safe and secure delivery of legal content". The previous tactic of pursuing individual file-sharers in the courts appear to have been abandoned. "Instead, [the government] should provide enabling legislation, for the specific measures to be identified and implemented in an Industry Code of Practice," it recommends. One wonders how they remain 'creative' in their vocation when they keep on trotting out the same old story backed up by imaginary statistics (they claim 50% of net traffic in the UK is illegal content but provide no evidence for this figure). The BBC also has a blog entry dissecting their statement."
Emulation (Games)

DOSBox Sees Continued Success 271

Posted by Soulskill from the but-does-it-have-xp-mode dept.
KingofGnG writes "DOSBox, the emulator designed to run DOS games on modern operating systems (and not necessarily on a PC), has been chosen as project of the month for May on SourceForge. It's the latest award granted to a piece of software that 'simply does what it is supposed to do,' as the authors say. After having amassed more than 10 million downloads, it will soon be getting an update that's been awaited for almost two years."
Space

Huge Supernova Baffles Scientists 358

Posted by timothy from the like-laser-pointers-to-cats dept.
Iddo Genuth writes "Scientists from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and San Diego State University have observed an explosion of a star 50 times larger than the sun. In what they call a 'first observation of its kind' the scientists were able to notice that most of the star's mass collapsed in on itself, resulting in a creation of a large black hole. While exploding stars, or 'supernovae,' aren't unprecedented, this star, which lay about 200 million light years away from earth and was million times brighter than the Sun, has exploded as a supernova at a much earlier date than the one predicted by astronomers."
Google

Submission + - Millions of French kids told to use Google tools (google.com)

Submitted by
alain94040
alain94040 writes: "By sponsoring an online game for the French department of education, Google just made sure that millions of French kids are told to search using Google, but also to use Google Maps and Google Docs for all their needs. Where else to read the original article (in French) than by using Google Translate to get an English translation... Google denies any malicious intent but the pamphlet distributed to students sounds closer to a marketing brochure than an educational handout."
Government

Submission + - Dodd and AIG Scratch Each Other's Back (eriksherman.com)

Submitted by
bizwriter
bizwriter writes: "The Hartford Currant has documented Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd's flip-flop on the AIG bonuses, but it seems that there is more going on than he's addressed. The company has been Dodd's fourth largest campaign contributor from 2003 to 2008. AIG was directly responsible for 2.5 percent of all the money Dodd raised during that period. The insurance industry was one of his top five industry donors with a total of $1,440,422, making AIG responsible for 15.5 percent of all insurance company donations to the senior senator from Connecticut."
Businesses

Submission + - paper and music publishers, what's the difference?

Submitted by KGBear
KGBear writes: We're seeing paper after paper either converting to websites or just dying. Witness Rocky Mountain News and Seattle Post-Intelligencer. We all know why they are dying: we no longer need what they have to sell. What good is something that brings me yesterday's news once daily when I can get this minute's news every minute — and for free? This is how it should be. It should be like this also with music publishers and distributors. My question is this: why aren't newspapers lobbying congress to outlaw free news dissemination online? Or conversely, why is the music industry able to get away with it?
Transportation

Submission + - Motherboard Interviews The Backyard Rocketeer on V (www.vbs.tv)

Submitted by
Rory Ahearn
Rory Ahearn writes: "Of all the things the 50s promised us and then welched on, jet packs are probably the most disheartening (after orgasm pills). Fortunately, however, where the scientific establishment has let us all down, one Mexican home-inventor is picking up the slack. From his backyard in Morelos, Juan Manuel Lozano has engineered and test-flown a stable of rocket-powered conveyances, from rocket belts to bikes to carts to the most ludicrous personal helicopter we've seen this side of Inspector Gadget--each of them powered by his home-brewed ultra-pure hydrogen peroxide jet fuel. He's like a one-man turn-of-the-century flying machine montage. WATCH MOTHERBOARD — BACKYARD ROCKETEER — http://www.vbs.tv/video.php?id=17182800001 In this three part rocket geek interview we discuss his business model (advertising), using his daughter as any good rocketeering parent would (his daughter was the first woman to be rocketed), a rocket propelled 10-speed and a 3,000 horse power go-cart. Thanks Slashdot, Rory"

Comment Gov't contracts wouldn't have helped (Score 1) 170

by theof (#20952745) Attached to: Qwest Punished by NSA for Non-Cooperation
Having worked as a contractor for Qwest both before and after the Nacchio era, I believe that this assertion in Nacchio's defense is irrelevant. The supposed government contracts were worth "hundreds of millions of dollars", but at the time of Joe's ouster from Qwest, and it's near bankruptcy, Qwest was 26 BILLION dollars in debt. Even if the government contracts were worth a few billion, it wouldn't have helped Qwest's situation. Joe Nacchio was slimey sales weasel type CEO who put Marketing first, and engineering last, and engaged in fraudulent deals to artificially pump up the bottom line, not unlike MCI/Worldcom. Undoubtedly he's using this "secret contracts" issue as a last ditch effort to stay out of the hoosegow. He and almost all of the senior execs were swept out when the current CEO, Dick Notebaert took charge and realized the scope of the disaster which Nacchio had created through his criminal mismanagement. I know that the current management team also refused to cooperate with the NSA, unlike say Verizon or AT&T. Assuming the story of secret contracts with the NSA to be correct, it's plausible that they didn't get them because the NSA knew of Qwest's perilous financial condition. A lot of people (Investors, Qwest employees, retirees) were seriously hurt or financially destroyed by Mr. Nacchio's misdeeds, and I hope he doesn't weasel out of a well deserved stay at Club Fed.
Music

Submission + - Amie Street signs major artists to sell DRM-free m

Submitted by seriouslywtf
seriouslywtf writes: While everyone's busy catfighting over whether DRM-free music can survive online or not, Amie Street sells DRM-free MP3s online and recently signed on a major music label. Nettwerk Music Group, home to the Barenaked Ladies, Avril Lavigne, and Sarah McLachlan, is now selling DRM-free music through Amie Street. The site also varies the prices of tracks based on how popular they are, with songs starting at "free" and scaling up to a cap of 98 cents apiece. From the Ars Technica article:

Amie Street's site seems to be suffering from some slowness and hanging issues as of the last couple of days, most likely due to the recent Nettwerk announcement. Will other studios join the party? Probably not for a while. EMI was widely rumored to have been in talks to drop DRM from its music at various online music stores, but more recent reports have said that the studio has backed out of those talks because none of the music stores would pony up for the privilege of selling DRM-free music. All eyes will be watching how well Nettwerk's artists sell through Amie Street, however, and its performance may determine whether other studios will be willing to dip their toes into the DRM-free waters in the future.
Sun Microsystems

Submission + - Can Sun Spark A Comeback?

Submitted by
Anonymous
Anonymous writes: "Despite Sun's precarious slide in recent years, its fortunes appear to be on the rise, according to a ChannelWeb.com analysis. The vendor's revenue is steadily creeping north, it's gaining share at the expense of larger rivals Dell, Hewlett-Packard and IBM, and it has realigned the organization into four business units. The question is, is it enough to spark a comeback?"
Security

RFID Passports Cloned Without Opening the Package 168

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the step-one-cut-a-hole-in-a-box dept.
Jeremy writes to tell us that using some simple deduction, a security consultant discovered how to clone a passport as it's being mailed to its recipient, without ever opening the package. "But the key in this first generation of biometric passport is relatively easy to identify/crack. It is not random, but consists of passport number, the passport holder's date of birth and the passport expiry date. The Mail found it relatively easy to identify the holder's date of birth, while the expiry date is 10 years from the issue date, which for a newly-delivered passport would clearly fall within a few days. The passport number consists of a number of predictable elements, including an identifier for the issuing office, so effectively a significant part of the key can be reconstructed from the envelope and its address label."
Hardware Hacking

Submission + - Ten Tips for Choosing the Right CPU

Submitted by
ThinSkin
ThinSkin writes: "Loyd Case over at ExtremeTech has come up with ten tips for choosing the right CPU, citing that "on the surface, the fastest processor you can afford for your needs" is the first misstep someone can take. Some tips include building a well-balanced system, recognizing your usage patterns, and considering power output."
Security

Submission + - cingular voicemail hack

Submitted by
gomez
gomez writes: "i have no idea where to let people know about this. but i'm loyal to slashhdot so why not here?

i'm an admin for a call center and i was messing around with caller id the other day. i remember dialing voicemail by pressing 1 on my cingular cell phone and getting straight in w/ out a verification of password. well i thought, what if i can change my outbound ISDN caller ID on my landline phone to a friends phone, figuring that if the mechanism is only checking caller ID why not fake it? it totally worked. i was in my friends voicemail checking his messages.

i thought, well who has the power to change caller id? only admins right? well i checked the client app for use with our PBX, and lo and behold they of course (with certain user privileges) have the power to change outbound caller ID on the fly. I think most phone systems these days in a business environment allow a user to do so, but again only if they have the privileges.

cingular has already been notified about this, i just thought i'd light the fire under their arses.

check your phone software to see if you can change your outbound caller id.. i bet you see the same result.

    — gomez"

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