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Submission + - Three-Year Deal Nets Hulu Exclusive Rights to South Park (pcmag.com) 1

Submitted by gunner_von_diamond
gunner_von_diamond writes: From the PC Mag Article:
If you're a fan of South Park, you better be a fan of Hulu as well. Specifically, Hulu Plus.
The creators of the funny, foul-mouthed animated TV show have signed a deal with the online streaming service. Valued at more than $80 million, the three-year deal grants Hulu exclusive rights to stream the 240+ episode back catalog of South Park in addition to all new episodes (as soon as they've aired on Comedy Central). "This is a natural partnership for us. We are excited that the entire library will be available on Hulu and that the best technology around will power South Park Digital Studios," said creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, in a statement.

Submission + - Operating System U Aims For The Year of Linux Desktop 1

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: A new Linux distribution under development is among the latest dreaming of commercial success in hopes of finally conquering the Linux desktop and having their OS pre-installed on systems being sold in brick and mortar stores. Operating System U is to be based off Arch Linux, run a modified version of the MATE Desktop Environment, and will use Wayland from the get-go. In the features page some criticism is given how buggy both MATE and X.org currently are and how better choices are needed. MATE shall also get a component they call "Startlight", which pairs the Windows Start Button with Apple's Spotlight. To make all of this a reality, the team is going to try a Kickstarter campaign later this month to raise $150,000 USD for the development of Operating System U, plus they're trying to rely on external funding as well. It is questionable whether that funding level will go very far for a team of ten with very lofty goals. Canonical has invested millions and employing hundreds of developers and still hasn't completely cracked the Linux desktop.

Submission + - Does Google Have Too Much Influence Over K-12 CS Education?

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Google's recently announced Global Impact Awards for Computer Science, part of the company's $50 million investment to get girls to code (on top of an earlier $40 million), are unsurprisingly very girl-friendly. Google's award for Promoting Introductory Computer Science for All, for instance, sets aside $1,000,000 for DonorsChoose credits that girls who complete Codecademy and Khan Academy online programming tutorials can use to fund up to $4,000 or so of their teachers' projects. In addition to learning a new skill, Google notes that girls in the program will be able to make-like-Don-Draper and remind teachers and boys who bought them all their nice things: "They can also point around their classroom at exciting new materials and say, 'I earned that for our class by learning to code.'" But Google's influence over K-12 CS education doesn't stop there. The Sun-Times reports that Chicago Public School (CPS) teachers are participating in a summer professional development program hosted by Google as part of the district's efforts to "saturate" schools with CS within 3 years: "The launch of CS4All [Computer Science for All], in partnership with Code.org and supported by Google, starts this fall in 60 CPS schools to try to bridge the digital divide and prepare students." And in two weeks, CSTA [Computer Science Teachers Association] and Google will be presenting the National Computer Science Principles Education Summit. "Attendees at this event have been selected through a rigorous application process that will result in more than 70 educators and administrators working together to strategize about getting this new Advanced Placement course implemented in schools across the country," explains CSTA, whose long-term Executive Director joined Google in June. The ACM, NSF, Google, CSTA, Microsoft, and NCWIT worked together in the past "to provide a wide range of information and guidance that would inform and shape CS education efforts," according to the University of Chicago, which notes it's now conducting a follow-up NSF-funded study — Barriers and Supports to Implementing Computer Science — that's advised by CPS, CSTA, and Code.org. The U of C recently received another NSF grant to facilitate the rapid expansion of CS K-12 education, seeking to capitalize on "an unprecedented time for the computer science education field as funding, public awareness, and employment needs are all merging for potentially coordinated support."

Submission + - Google Reinstating Some 'Forgotten' Links (bbc.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Only days after receiving harsh criticism from all corners of the internet for taking down links to news articles, Google has started to reinstate those links. Google's Peter Barron denied that they were simply granting all "right to be forgotten" requests. "The European Court of Justice [ECJ] ruling was not something that we welcomed, that we wanted — but it is now the law in Europe and we are obliged to comply with that law," he said. Still, Google's actions are being called "tactical" for how quickly they were able to stir public dissent over the EU ruling. "It's convenient, then, that it's found a way to get the media to kick up the fuss for it: there are very few news organisations in the world who are happy to hear their output is being stifled. A few automated messages later, the story is back in the headlines – and Google is likely to be happy about that."

Submission + - Qualcomm Forces 100+ GitHub Accounts Down Over DMCA Notice (phoronix.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Qualcomm has forced GitHub to remove over 100 GitHub repositories over "unauthorized publication, disclosure, and copying of highly sensitive, confidential, trade secret, and copyright-protected documents." Among the repositories taken down were for CyanogenMod and Sony Xperia. The issue though is that these "highly sensitive" and "confidential" files are Linux kernel code and reference/sample code files that can be easily found elsewhere, including the Android kernel, but GitHub has complied with Qualcomm's DMCA request.

Submission + - European Commission spokesman: Google Removing link was "not a good judgement"

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Google's decision to remove a BBC article from some of its search results was "not a good judgement", a European Commission spokesman has said. A link to an article by Robert Peston was taken down under the European court's "right to be forgotten" ruling. But Ryan Heath, spokesman for the European Commission's vice-president, said he could not see a "reasonable public interest" for the action. He said the ruling should not allow people to "Photoshop their lives". The BBC understands that Google is sifting through more than 250,000 web links people wanted removed.

Submission + - IEEE Spectrum Ranks The Top Programming Languages (ieee.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Working with computational journalist Nick Diakopoulos, we at IEEE Spectrum have published an app that ranks the popularity of dozens of programming languages. Because different fields have different interests (what's popular with programmers writing embedded code versus what's hot with web developers isn't going to be identical) we tried to make the ranking system as transparent as possible—you can use our presets or you can go in and create your own customized ranking by adjusting the individual weightings of the various data sources we mined.--Stephen "FTC obDisclosure" Cass.

Submission + - Switching from SAS to Python or R for Data Analysis and Modeling

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: I work for a huge company. We use SAS all the time for everything, which is great if you have a bunch of non-programmer employees and you want them to do data analysis and build models... but it ends up stifling any real innovation, and I worry we will get left behind. Python and R both seem to be emerging stars in the data science game, so I would like to steer us towards one of them. What compelling arguments can you give that would help an old company change its standard if that company is pretty set in its ways?

Submission + - FreeDOS is 20 years old

Submitted by Jim Hall
Jim Hall writes: In a June 29, 1994 post in comp.os.msdos.apps on USENET, a physics student announced an effort to create a completely free version of DOS that everyone could use. That project turned into FreeDOS, 20 years ago! Originally intended as a free replacement for MS-DOS, FreeDOS has since advanced what DOS could do, adding new functionality and making DOS easier to use. And today in 2014, people continue to use FreeDOS to support embedded systems, to run business software, and to play classic DOS games!

Submission + - Cambridge team breaks superconductor world record

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: University of Cambridge scientists have broken a decade-old superconducting record by packing a 17.6 Tesla magnetic field into a golf ball-sized hunk of crystal — equivalent to about three tons of force. From the Cambridge announcement: "A world record that has stood for more than a decade has been broken by a team led by University of Cambridge engineers, harnessing the equivalent of three tonnes of force inside a golf ball-sized sample of material that is normally as brittle as fine china. The Cambridge researchers managed to ‘trap’ a magnetic field with a strength of 17.6 Tesla — roughly 100 times stronger than the field generated by a typical fridge magnet — in a high temperature gadolinium barium copper oxide (GdBCO) superconductor, beating the previous record by 0.4 Tesla."

Submission + - Korean government switches to open source by 2020 (etnews.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: As the support for the Microsoft (MS) Windows XP service is terminated this year, the government will try and invigorate open source software in order to solve the problem of dependency on certain software. By 2020 when the support of the Windows 7 service is terminated, it is planning to switch to open OS and minimize damages. Industry insiders pointed out that the standard e-document format must be established and shared as an open source before open source software is invigorated.

Submission + - Researchers Find "Achilles Heel" of Drug Resistant Bacteria

Submitted by Rambo Tribble
Rambo Tribble writes: Researchers in Britain are reporting that they have found a way to prevent bacteria from forming the "wall" that prevents antibiotics from attacking them. "At the heart of the breakthrough is the way 'gram negative' bacterial cells transport the carrier's molecular 'bricks' to the surface of the cell and form a wall." "The number of superbugs are increasing at an unexpected rate. This research provides the platform for urgently-needed new generation drugs."

Submission + - Mt. Gox CEO Returns to Twitter, Enrages Burned Investors

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Mark Karpeles doesn't seem to understand how much anger and trouble the $400 million Mt. Gox fiasco caused his customers. According to Wired: "After a long absence, the Mt Gox CEO has returned to Twitter with a bizarre string of tone-deaf tweets that were either written by a Turing test chat bot, or by a man completely oblivious to the economic chaos he has wrought. His first message after losing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of bitcoins? 'What would we do without busybox?'—a reference to a slimmed-down Linux operating system used on devices such as routers. He’s also Tweeted about a noodle dish called yakisoba and Japanese transportation systems." Andreas Antonopoulos, the CSO with Blockchain says, "He continues to be oblivious about his own failure and the pain he has caused others. He is confirming that he is a self-absorbed narcissist with an inflated sense of self-confidence who has no remorse.”

Submission + - Quantum or not, controversial computer runs no faster than a normal one (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: The D-Wave computer, marketed as a groundbreaking quantum machine that runs circles around conventional computers, solves problems no faster than an ordinary rival, a new test shows. Some researchers call the test of the controversial device, described online today in Science, the fairest comparison yet. But D-Wave argues that the computations used in the study were too easy to show what its novel chips can do.

Submission + - Svitla Ruby Conference 2014 summary (rubyc.eu)

Submitted by Svitla Systems
Svitla Systems writes: On May 31 — June 1, 2014 the second conference about Ruby and Ruby on Rails – Rubyc took place in Kiev. More than 250 rubyists gathered to hear talks from the best developers on Ruby from Ukraine, USA, Brazil, Spain, UK, Germany and Russia. Organizers, Svitla Systems company, expresses gratitude to all participants of the conference, General Sponsor — SoftServe, Ruby-sponsors: DataArt and Global Logic, as well as all media-partners. Together we managed to hold one of the brightest Ruby events in Ukraine.

Traditionally, video presentations RubyC all speakers are available on the conference website http://rubyc.eu/posts/14

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