Comment Definitely NOT Earth 2 (Score 1) 420
Pretty impossible to say if the planet is habitable, but at 4 times the Earth's mass it definitely isn't Earth-like. The search continues...
Submission + - Cassini Discovers First River On Another World (thespacereporter.com)
AbsoluteXyro writes: NASA's Cassini orbiter, which has been dutifully exploring the Saturn system since 2004, has captured images of the first river ever observed on another world — and it's a biggun. 200 miles of flowing hydrocarbons meandering down a valley in the north polar region of Saturn's moon Titan, emptying into the awesomely named Kraken Mare — itself a body of liquid roughly the size of the Mediterranean Sea back on Earth. But don't think of going for an extraterrestrial skinny dip quite yet, temperatures on Titan average a brutally cold 290 degrees below zero (Fahrenheit).
Submission + - Cops Pirate 100's of DVDs, Get Slap on Wrist (kttc.com)
AbsoluteXyro writes: Apparently, the big FBI warning we all see whenever you pop in a DVD does not apply to the fuzz. From KTTC.com — "In mid-2009, former Houston County digital network administrator Lindsay Pierce saw what he calls "suspicious activity" at the Sheriff's Office. "The county owns a duplicator that will make five discs at a time that we use for court cases and things like that, and I had replaced four or five drives and that seemed unusual. I actually saw one of the people involved actually making movies," Pierce said. Kevin Kelleher was a Houston County Commissioner for 16 years. He says he brought the issue before the county board a number of times. "I've given them evidence that I had that showed that members of the Houston County Sheriff's Department were in fact copying DVDs. Not just ones or twos, but hundreds," Kelleher said. FBI agents from Rochester confirmed that they looked into the allegations. They said they spent an hour in Caledonia before deciding the case didn't fall within their federal prosecuting guidelines. No one in the case has yet been charged with any criminal wrongdoing. But the county gave written reprimands to the county's finance director. The Houston County Attorney's Office says the case is closed."
Submission + - Federal Judge Rules P2P users aren't in a Conspiracy (arstechnica.com)
Fluffeh writes: "Judge Holderman ruled against copyright holders who were trying to paint a rather distorted picture. They sue just one Internet user, but use that lawsuit as a pretext to subpoena other defendants who had participated in the same BitTorrent swarm. The plaintiffs in these lawsuits claim that the other users had participated in a "conspiracy" to assist one another in distributing particular copyrighted works. Because the copyright holder's threat is based on the cost of litigation (and risk of public embarrassment — as this is a tactic used increasingly by the pron industry) more so than the damages a defendant would face in the event of a loss, innocent defendants have virtually as much incentive to settle as guilty ones do. That's not how things are supposed to work, and more and more judges are refusing to play along. Coupled with recent rulings in Florida, the copyright holders seem to be finding less and less favour with judges."
Submission + - Music sales falling, despite French anti-P2P Laws (arstechnica.com)
Fluffeh writes: "France has one of the strictest "Three Strikes" laws in the world enforced by a French authority called Hadopi, but it is interesting to see that although the studios pushed so hard for these, they don't seem to be having the effect of raising sales, they are declining — even if they are slowing down piracy. Hadopi released a report this March saying French ISP users had significantly decreased their illegal file sharing. Despite that announcement, the French music industry still saw a decline in revenue. "For all the fanfare in Hadopi's 14-page report celebrating the crackdown on music and video piracy, the music and video industries in France did not see increased profit in 2011 compared to the year before. The overall recorded music industry saw a 3.9 percent loss, and France's video market dropped 2.7 percent overall.""
Submission + - ACLU Obtains Cell Phone Tracking Training Materials
guttentag writes: The New York Times has published a large collection of law enforcement training documents obtained by the ACLU. The documents describe in detail what kind of information can be obtained from cell phones and cell phone carriers, and how to obtain it. The 189-page PDF also contains dozens of invoices from the major carriers for their services to law enforcement that describe the fees for those services.
Submission + - Fired Employees Sue Apple over Dress Code (go.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Two former employees have sued Apple after being fired for flouting the company's famous dress code. Lawyers for John Doe A (the plaintiffs' identities have been sealed in court documents) allege their client was fired for wearing a blue oxford shirt from Brooks Brothers and brown courduroy pants instead of the black Nehru shirt and matching slacks required on One Infinite Loop. The suit alleges that a human resources rep reportedly told Doe A he looked "like some average dude, not creative enough for Apple", even though he claims to have fixed several P1 bugs during the stretch run for the new iPad. When first contacted, a spokesperson for Apple said that in addition to dress code violations, the terminated employees were also seen eating meals at McDonald's; afterwards, she declined comment, stating that the matter was under litigation.
Submission + - Netflix to acquire OnLive, offer streaming video games (tech-stew.com) 4
techfun89 writes: "Netflix revealed today, that they are acquiring the cloud based OnLive gaming company for $1.1 billion. Netflix said that the Netflix branded online streaming of games will keep the OnLive interface intact, but will offer different pricing plans yet to be announced.
Netflix has indicated that the existing mini-console offered by OnLive for playback of video games on TV's will also support the playback of all Netflix content, making it an all in one multimedia device. There are some rumors that Netflix may try to offer playback of video games on existing game consoles (where movie streaming supported), but some manufacturers may try to block this feature."
Netflix has indicated that the existing mini-console offered by OnLive for playback of video games on TV's will also support the playback of all Netflix content, making it an all in one multimedia device. There are some rumors that Netflix may try to offer playback of video games on existing game consoles (where movie streaming supported), but some manufacturers may try to block this feature."
Submission + - FDA: Tobacco Companies Must Now Report Levels of 93 Ingredients in Products
An anonymous reader writes: Federal health regulators said on Friday that tobacco companies must report how much ammonia, formaldehyde, nicotine, nitrosamines, carbon monoxide, and other chemicals that have been associated with health conditions or addiction starting in June 2012.
Submission + - Google NativeClient CPU Whitelist Maintained By Ex-Intel Director (google.com)
HuvahCraftah writes: Apparently, anti-competitive habits die hard. After leaving his Director position at Intel, Brad Chen became the gatekeeper at Google for which processors you are allowed to run NativeClient apps on. When confronted, he initially cites "incorrect x86 implementations" as the main concern and then bizarrely turns that upside-down and says that only processors with documented incorrect x86 implementations are allowed to run NativeClient applications.
Submission + - Typography and Triangles (behance.net)
Epeeist writes: "Good typography is always a joy to behold. The work of Martzi Hegedus adds some interesting sparkle to what can be a fairly dull subject though. I can't wait for his Frustro font to become publicly available."
Submission + - Cold Warriors to nuclear abolitionists: Kissenger, Sam Nunn & George Schulz (thebulletin.org)
__aaqpaq9254 writes: Wonderful discussion of the changes in Kissenger, Nunn, and Schulz, as well as William Perry (former SecDef), and Sidney Drell, all of whom are former Cold Warriors who supported nuclear weapons and the potential to use them, and who now work to abolish those weapons. This is a fascinating article about a real change of heart and what led to it.
Submission + - Google Maps Introduces 8-Bit Quest Maps (google.com)
AbsoluteXyro writes: Today users of Google Maps will notice a new mapping option — "Quest" — alongside the usual "Map" and "Satellite" views. Quest view renders the planet in a retro 8-bit fantasy video game style, including renders of famous landmarks such as the White House and the Eiffel Tower. Even Pegman gets in on the game, now taking on the appearance of a sword wielding 8-bit adventurer, allowing you to witness Street View through 8-bit eyes. Basically, imagine a fully functioning Google Maps on an NES.
Submission + - Ask Slashdot: How do you back up? (Today is World Backup Day) (extremetech.com) 2
MrSeb writes: "Today is World Backup Day! The premise is that you back up your computers on March 31, so that you're not an April Fool if your hard drive crashes tomorrow. How do Slashdot users back up? RAID? Multiple RAIDs? If you're in LA, on a fault line, do you keep a redundant copy of your data in another geographic region?"
Submission + - California Slammed With Fukushima Radiation (globalresearch.ca)
mdsolar writes: ""The Journal Environmental Science and Technology reports in a new study that the Fukushima radiation plume contacted North America at California “with greatest exposure in central and southern California”, and that Southern California had 2,500 Bq/kg of iodine-131 in seaweed over 500% higher than other tests in the U.S. and Canada:
Projected paths of the radioactive atmospheric plume emanating from the Fukushima reactors, best described as airborne particles or aerosols for 131I, 137Cs, and 35S, and subsequent atmospheric monitoring showed it coming in contact with the North American continent at California, with greatest exposure in central and southern California. Government monitoring sites in Anaheim (southern California) recorded peak airborne concentrations of 131I at 1.9 pCi m3
Anaheim is where Disneyland is located.""
Projected paths of the radioactive atmospheric plume emanating from the Fukushima reactors, best described as airborne particles or aerosols for 131I, 137Cs, and 35S, and subsequent atmospheric monitoring showed it coming in contact with the North American continent at California, with greatest exposure in central and southern California. Government monitoring sites in Anaheim (southern California) recorded peak airborne concentrations of 131I at 1.9 pCi m3
Anaheim is where Disneyland is located.""
