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Comment Image Source (Score 4, Informative) 61

by josh washington (#37089758) Attached to: Astronaut Photographs Perseid Meteor — From Space

At the risk of being modded off-topic, here's the higher-resolution image mentioned by rts008 and JavaBasedOS for anyone interested.

It's actually sunset, as NASA mentions here. If you haven't seen it, it's worth a look.

I agree that, for all the advancements in knowledge that NASA and ESA develop, images such as these are what best capture children's imaginations and inspire them. This is what fuels dreams and fosters a desire to contribute to our* space program. Hopefully the image of this meteor inspires someone to pursue studies in a space-related career!

* - our = humanity's collective space program as a whole, because it doesn't matter if a child is from the US, the UK, the EU, China, India - we're all in this together, alone here on this rock.

Related: Pale Blue Dot
Earth and the moon from Mars

AI

Submission + - Phone can detect what you are doing by vibration (i-programmer.info)

Submitted by mikejuk
mikejuk writes: In another of those "we have ways to monitor you" type stories a group of researchers have been looking it to using the accelerometer inside most phones to work out what the user is doing. At the moment is is limited to the categories — resting, walking and running — but the accuracy is high and other categories could be added. Is this another step too far? If it is you can be sure that the accelerometer will detect it...
Medicine

Submission + - Researchers Design Memory-Strengthening Implant (nytimes.com)

Submitted by
Antipater
Antipater writes: "Researchers at Wake Forest University have created a brain implant that can imitate signals through the hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for memory retention. Rats implanted with the device were able to remember information even after their hippocampus was shut down, reports the New York Times. Though still in its infancy, this technology could hopefully be used to help treat dementia or stroke victims."
The Internet

Submission + - ICANN to allow .brandname top-level domains (reuters.com)

Submitted by
AndyAndyAndyAndy
AndyAndyAndyAndy writes: "Brand owners will soon be able to operate their own parts of the Web — such as .apple, .coke or .marlboro — if the biggest shake-up yet in how Internet domains are awarded is approved.
After years of preparation and wrangling, ICANN, the body that coordinates Internet names, is expected to approve the move at a special board meeting in Singapore on Monday.
Today, just 22 generic top-level domains (gTLDs) exist -- .com, .org and .info are a few examples — plus about 250 country-level domains like .uk or .cn. After the change, several hundred new gTLDs are expected to come into existence.
The move is seen as a big opportunity for brands to gain more control over their online presence and send visitors more directly to parts of their sites — and a danger for those who fail to take advantage."
Electronic Frontier Foundation

Submission + - A Piece of Internet History Lost: IO.com Sold (prismnet.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The former Illuminati Online domain, IO.com, has been sold, and all existing customers will lose all services associated with the domain. A 1990 Secret Service raid on Steve Jackson Games, then owner of the Illuminati Online BBS and later the IO.com domain led to the creation of the EFF and was an important milestone in the fight for online rights. While the domain has been sold in the past, the services offered to customers always remained unchanged. However, this most recent sale, to an unnamed party, will result in all services being dropped on July 1, and people will lose email addresses, web pages, and shell accounts that many have had for 15+ years.
Wikipedia

Submission + - Wikipedia admin hacked by White Supremacist (wikipedia.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: WP is considering removing privalges from inactive Sysops after an account (dormant since 2005) was hijacked by a white supremacist. The current ecosystem makes it very difficult to remove these privileges once granted, even if the editor has been inactive for half a decade. This is not the first time one of these unwatched accounts has been hijacked.

Submission + - FCC pressured to reject AT&T / T-Mobile deal (pcworld.com)

Submitted by dave562
dave562 writes: Sprint Nextel, joined by an army of thousands of consumers, have filed requests for the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to block AT&T's proposed acquisition of rival mobile carrier T-Mobile USA.

AT&T has argued that it needs T-Mobile's spectrum to keep up with growing demand for mobile broadband service. Sprint disputed that argument, saying AT&T already controls the most spectrum of any U.S. mobile carrier. AT&T is the "industry laggard" in deploying next-generation mobile broadband, a source close to Sprint said Tuesday.
Science

Submission + - The Universe's 'missing mass' - found by undergrad (monash.edu.au)

Submitted by
brindafella
brindafella writes: "Filaments attached to superclusters seems an obvious place to look for the 'missing' matter in the universe — now! An undergrad at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, working on a six-week paid astrophysics research internship over the holidays, has found what has eluded astrophysicists. A search through X-ray and 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey data showed Amelia Fraser-McKelvie that there was a significant mass of baryons (fundamental components of atoms) in the galactic filaments. The peer-reviewed paper has been published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society."
Idle

Submission + - Disney Auditions Gone Wrong (blogspot.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: My business phone number was mistaken for an audition line for the Disney Channel. Attached are recordings of hilarious auditions.
Twitter

Submission + - Twitter prepared to name users (telegraph.co.uk)

Submitted by whoever57
whoever57 writes: Ryan Gibbs, a UK footballer (soccer player) had obtained a "superinjunction" that prevented him being named as the person involved in an affair with a minor celebrity. However, he was named by various users on Twitter. Now, in response to legal action initiated by Mr. Giggs in the UK courts against the users, Twitter has stated that it is prepared to identify the users who broke the injunction if it was "legally required" to do so. Twitter will attempt to notify the users first in order to give them an opportunity to exercise their rights.
Crime

Submission + - Insider data theft costs Bank of America $10M (networkworld.com)

Submitted by alphadogg
alphadogg writes: A Bank of America insider who sold customer data to criminals cost the bank at least $10 million in losses. Bank of America began notifying customers of the incident recently, but is not providing many details of the case which is still under investigation. The theft, "involved a now former associate who provided customer information to people outside the bank, who then used the information to commit fraud against our customers," said a bank spokeswoman.
Privacy

Submission + - TSA Threatens To Cancel All Flights Out Of Texas (forbes.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Upset about invasive screening techniques at the airport, the Lone Star State was considering a bill that would make a TSA patdown that involves touching "the anus, sexual organ, buttocks, or breast of another person including through the clothing" a misdemeanor, allowing Texas law enforcement to arrest TSA officials and charge them with sexual harassment. It would have meant that TSA officials could be fined $4,000 and spend up to a year in jail for doing their jobs of feeling up prospective fliers.

The Transportation Security Administration was not happy when the bill was passed in the Texas House of Representatives, blogging in response that Texas is barred by the U.S. Constitution from regulating the federal government.

On Tuesday, the bill was set to be voted on in the Senate. This called for more of a response than a simple blog post. Federal government officials descended on the Capitol to hand out a letter from the Texas U.S. Attorney letting senators know that if they passed the bill, the TSA would probably have to cancel all flights out of Texas. As much as they love their state, the idea of shutting down airports and trapping people in Texas was scary enough to get legislators to reconsider their support for the groping bill...

Republican Dan Patrick, who was the sponsor of the bill in the Senate, withdrew it when he realized he would not have the votes he needed to pass it. "There was a time in this state, there was a time in our history, where we stood up to the federal government and we did not cower to rules and policies that invaded the privacy of Texans," he said with regret, reports the Texas Tribune. No last stand for Texas this week.

The letter from U.S. attorney John Murphy said Texas could not pass a statute that conflicts with federal law. If it had, the TSA would have sought an emergency stay and until that had been granted, would have had to shut down Texas airports as it "could not ensure the safety of passengers and crew."

"Naturally, Texans didn’t take too well to being threatened in that manner," said Rep. David Simpson, the author of the bill, in a written statement.

They may not like it, but it worked.
Space

Submission + - The most distant object in the Universe. Maybe. (discovermagazine.com)

Submitted by
The Bad Astronomer
The Bad Astronomer writes: "A gamma-ray burst seen in 2009 may be the single most distant object ever seen. If the estimates pan out, it's at a whopping 13.4 billion light years away. The estimates look good, though the exact distance isn't known. If it holds up, this explosion occurred when the Universe was only 2% of its current age."
Android

Submission + - Cyanogenmod's answer to Android's permissions (androidpolice.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Android Police reports that Cyanogenmod, a popular custom ROM for the Android platform, is soon to have a better permissions systems, allowing its users to deny certain permissions to the applications they install. Users are warned that enabling this feature on the nightly build may cause applications to crash or "force close", but a new dialog allows them to easily return the permissions to stock if they wish. Hopefully Google implements a system similar to this very soon.

http://review.cyanogenmod.com/#change,4055

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