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Submission + - Microsoft's Latest Botched Windows Update (softpedia.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: This will affect devs with Visual Studio installed on their computer. As I write this, update fails to go pass KB3002339. Restarting won't help since Windows is in install (botched) update mode. Bug reports published on Microsoft's Community forums indicate that KB3002339 fails to install properly no matter the Windows version, as there seems to be a compatibility issue with Visual Studio. Given how close we're to Christmas, users are wondering if there will be more Microsoft gifts of coal?
User Journal

Journal Journal: WTF, Firefox??? 7

Journal by mcgrew

As usual when I boot on Patch Tuesday, I open a bunch of tabs, the notebook slows to a crawl, and this time it was locked up so tight that Windows gave a message saying it couldn't display the message and to use the power button. I had to pull the battery to reboot the damned thing.

So I start Firefox back up and it says it's updating. It finally opens, with an extra tab, one telling me that it changed my default search to Yahoo.

Submission + - Utilities Face Billions In Losses From Distributed Renewables (computerworld.com)

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: Over the next 10 years, adoption of distributed power in the form of renewables such as solar power has the potential to reduce revenues to grid utilities by as much as $48 billion in the U.S. and by $75 billion in Europe, according to a new study. The study, by Accenture, revealed that utility executives are more nervous about the impact of distributed — or locally generated renewable power — than ever before. with 61% of those surveyed this year indicating they expect significant or moderate revenue reductions compared to only 43% last year. The cost of rooftop solar-powered electricity will be on par with prices for common coal or oil-powered generation in two years, and the technology to produce it will only get cheaper, according to a recent report from Deutsche Bank. New technologies, such as more efficient solar cells, are also threatening to increase efficiencies and drive adoption.

Submission + - Warmer Pacific Ocean could release millions of tons of methane (washington.edu)

Submitted by vinces99
vinces99 writes: Off the U.S. West Coast, methane gas is trapped in frozen layers below the seafloor. New research from the University of Washington shows that water at intermediate depths is warming enough to cause these carbon deposits to melt, releasing methane into the sediments and surrounding water. Researchers found that water off the coast of Washington is gradually warming at a depth of 500 meters (about a third of a mile down), the same depth where methane transforms from a solid to a gas. The research suggests that ocean warming could be triggering the release of a powerful greenhouse gas.

Scientists believe global warming will release methane from gas hydrates worldwide, but most of the focus has been on the Arctic. The new paper estimates that, from 1970 to 2013, some 4 million metric tons of methane has been released from hydrate decomposition off Washington's coast. That’s an amount each year equal to the methane from natural gas released in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon blowout off the coast of Louisiana, and 500 times the rate at which methane is naturally released from the seafloor.

Submission + - Microsoft tells US: The worldâ(TM)s servers are not yours for the taking (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft's fight against the US position that it may search its overseas servers with a valid US warrant is getting nasty.

Microsoft, which is fighting a US warrant that it hand over e-mail to the US from its Ireland servers, wants the Obama administration to ponder a scenario where the "shoe is on the other foot."

"Imagine this scenario. Officers of the local Stadtpolizei investigating a suspected leak to the press descend on Deutsche Bank headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany," Microsoft said. "They serve a warrant to seize a bundle of private letters that a New York Times reporter is storing in a safe deposit box at a Deutsche Bank USA branch in Manhattan. The bank complies by ordering the New York branch manager to open the reporter's box with a master key, rummage through it, and fax the private letters to the Stadtpolizei."

Submission + - AMD Offers A Performance Boost, Over 20 New Features With Catalyst Omega Drivers (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: AMD this week just dropped its new Catalyst Omega driver package that is the culmination of six months of development work. AMD Catalyst Omega reportedly brings over 20 new features and a wealth of bug fixes to the table along with performance increases both on AMD Radeon GPUs and integrated AMD APUs. Some of the new functionality brought with the Catalyst Omega driver includes Virtual Super Resolution, or VSR. VSR is "game- and engine-agnostic" and renders content at up to 4K resolution, then displays it at a resolution that your monitor actually supports. The very nature of VSR allows it to be used across a wide spectrum of applications including games and even the Windows desktop. AMD says that VSR allows for increased image quality, similar in concept to Super Sampling Anti-Aliasing (SSAA). Another added perk of VSR is the ability to see more content on the screen at once. To take advantage of VSR, you'll need a Radeon R9 295X2, R9 290X, R9 290, or R9 285 discrete graphics card. Both single- and multi-GPU configurations are currently supported. VSR is essentially AMD's answer to NVIDIA's DSR, or Dynamic Super Resolution. In addition, AMD is claiming performance enhancements in a number of top titles with these these new drivers. Reportedly, as little as 6 percent improvement in performance in FIFA Online to as much as a 29 percent increase in Batman: Arkham Origins can be gained when using an AMD 7000-Series APU, for example. On discrete GPUs, an AMD Radeon R9 290X's performance increases ranged from 8 percent in Grid 2, to roughly 16 percent in Bioshock Infinity.

Submission + - DOJ Wants Companies To Trust the Government on Cybersecurity (itworld.com)

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: During a forum on cybersecurity in Washington, D.C. Tuesday, Leslie Caldwell, assistant attorney general with the DOJ's Criminal Division, called for private companies to put more trust in the country's law enforcement agencies. Caldwell pointed to smartphone encryption as one area that is likely to become a problem for law enforcement. ‘We really need to think long and hard about whether we want to create a zone of lawlessness that law enforcement can't access,’ she said. ‘I think that's a very dangerous precedent that's been set.’

Submission + - New Destover Malware Signed by Stolen Sony Certificate

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: Researchers have discovered a new version of the Destover malware that was used in the recent Sony Pictures Entertainment breaches, and in an ironic twist, the sample is signed by a legitimate certificate stolen from Sony.

The new sample is essentially identical to an earlier version of Destover that was not signed. Destover has been used in a variety of attacks in recent years and it’s representative of the genre of malware that doesn’t just compromise machines and steal data, but can destroy information as well. The attackers who have claimed credit for the attack on Sony have spent the last couple of weeks gradually releasing large amounts of information stolen in the breach, including unreleased movies, personal data of Sony employees and sensitive security information such as digital certificates and passwords.

The new, signed version of Destover appears to have been compiled in July and was signed on Dec. 5, the day after Kaspersky Lab published an analysis of the known samples of the malware.

Submission + - Monochromatic light as a species-selective insecticide (nature.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The harmful effects of ultraviolet light have been long known. But now researchers at Tohoku University in Japan claim that visible blue light is also lethal to many insects, possibly even more so than UV, even at reasonable daylight intensities. Moreover, they report that certain species are more sensitive to specific wavelengths: Given the same intensity (3x10^18 photons/sec/m2), light in the 440-467nm range was far more lethal to fruit flies than light of longer or shorter wavelengths. The wavelength 417nm was three times as effective at killing mosquito larvae than the shorter 404nm light, contradicting the notion that higher-energy photons always cause more damage. The research has wide implications for modeling the effect of natural and manmade environmental changes on insect populations and for selectively controlling populations of certain species.

Submission + - Iranian Hackers Compromised Airlines, Critical Infrastructure Companies (itworld.com)

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: For the past two years, a team of Iranian hackers has compromised computers and networks belonging to over 50 organizations in 16 countries, including airlines, defense contractors, universities, military installations, hospitals, airports, telecommunications firms, government agencies, and energy and gas companies, researchers from IT security firm Cylance said in an extensive report released Tuesday. According to the report, 'ten of these victims are headquartered in the US and include a major airline, a medical university, an energy company specializing in natural gas production, an automobile manufacturer, a large defense contractor, and a major military installation.'

Submission + - You're Doing it All Wrong - Solar Panels Should Face West Not South

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: In the US, a new solar project is installed every 3.2 minutes and the number of cumulative installations now stands at more than 500,000. For years, homeowners who bought solar panels were advised to mount them on the roof facing south to capture the most solar energy over the course of the day. Now Matthew L. Wald writes in the NYT that panels should be pointed south so that peak power comes in the afternoon when the electricity is more valuable. In late afternoon, homeowners are more likely to watch TV, turn on the lights or run the dishwasher. Electricity prices are also higher at that period of peak demand. “The predominance of south-facing panels may reflect a severe misalignment in energy supply and demand,” say the authors of the study, Barry Fischer and Ben Harack. Pointing panels to the west means that in the hour beginning at 5 p.m., they produce 55 percent of their peak output. But point them to the south to maximize total output, and when the electric grid needs it most, they are producing only 15 percent of peak.

While some solar panel owners are paid time-of-use rates and are compensated by the utility in proportion to prices on the wholesale electric grid, many panel owners cannot take advantage of the higher value of electricity at peak hours because they are paid a flat rate, so the payment system creates an incentive for the homeowner to do the wrong thing. The California Energy Commission recently announced a bonus of up to $500 for new installations that point west. "We are hoping to squeeze more energy out of the afternoon daylight hours when electricity demand is highest," says David Hochschild, lead commissioner for the agency’s renewable energy division, which will be administering the program. "By encouraging west-facing solar systems, we can better match our renewable supply with energy demand."

Submission + - News of Google breakup by EU is false, created by lobbyists (linuxveda.com)

Submitted by sfcrazy
sfcrazy writes: Past few weeks were abuzz with stories that the EU parliament is planning to break-up Google to severe its search from products. The story sent a wave of chill across the pond and worried us of Europe’s decision, which appear to make no sense at all. It turns out that the story was a spin created by the anti-Google lobby to spread FUD against the company and the EU. We are not certain who are the lead actors but there are some companies who invest quite a lot in creating FUD against competitors.

Submission + - Aviation Week Opinion Piece Skeptical of Skunk Work's Fusion Project (aviationweek.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The venerable aerospace magazine Aviation Week & Space Technology (AW&ST Dec. 1) published an opinion piece expressing serious skepticism about the Skunk Works Fusion Project and fusion power in general. Tagline to article was "Unfortunately, fusion as and energy source in the next 50 years is about as likely Star Trek transporters in the same time frame". Early comments to the piece from the AW&ST community are particularly interesting given that the AW&ST readership skews very technical. Will be interesting to see if a serious dialog about fusion results or merely collapse into flamewar.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Non-coders, why aren't you contributing to open source? 4

Submitted by Jason Baker
Jason Baker writes: Most everyone is using an open source tool somewhere in their workflow, but relatively few are contributing back their time to sustaining the projects they use. But these days, there are plenty of ways to contribute to an open source project without submitting code. Projects like OpenHatch will even help you match your skill set to a project in need. So what's holding you back? Time? Lack of interest? Difficulty getting started?

Submission + - South Korea Bans Selfie-stick Sales

Submitted by Rambo Tribble
Rambo Tribble writes: South Korea has instituted large fines for selling unregistered "selfie-sticks". The problem arises because many of the devices are using Bluetooth radio spectrum, and must be certified to do so legally. Expressing doubts that the regulations and stiff fines will influence sales, one official said of them, "It's not going to affect anything in any meaningful way, but it is nonetheless a telecommunication device subject to regulation, and that means we are obligated to crack down on uncertified ones,"

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