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Submission + - What's the most distinctive cause of death in your state? (cdc.gov)

Submitted by Maria_Celeste
Maria_Celeste writes: A study in CDC's "Preventing Chronic Disease" reports the most distinctive cause of death in each of the 50 states (with an entertaining map). Some of the more amusing causes: water, air and space, and other and unspecified transport accidents and their sequelae; discharge of firearms — undetermined intent; and the ominous legal intervention.

Submission + - European telecom firms may block all mobile ads, spelling trouble for Google (betanews.com)

Submitted by Mark Wilson
Mark Wilson writes: Google is facing something of a European revolution as mobile companies consider blocking ads on a massive scale. Israeli company Shine has developed software that blocks mobile ads, and it has gained the attention and support of a number of telecom companies in Europe.

Talking to the Financial Times, one wireless carrier said that the software had been installed at its data centers and could be enabled by the end of the year. With the potential to automatically block most ads on web pages and within apps, the repercussion of the ad boycott could be huge as mobile providers try to wrestle control from the likes of Google.

Submission + - State-Sized Ice Shelf In Antarctica To Disappear In 5 Years

Submitted by BarbaraHudson
BarbaraHudson writes: CBC is reporting on a study that predicts a chunk the size of Rhode Island will disintegrate around 2020.

The study's lead scientist, Ala Khazendar, said analysis of the data reveals that a widening rift in Larsen B will eventually break it apart completely, probably around the year 2020. Once that happens, glaciers held in place by the ice shelf will slip into the ocean at a faster rate and contribute to rising sea levels. The study also found Leppard and Flask, two main tributary glaciers of the ice shelf, have thinned by 20 to 22 metres (between 65 and 72 feet) in recent years, and the pace of their shrinking has accelerated since the immediate aftermath of the 2002 partial collapse of the ice shelf.

Submission + - Chinese army bans smartwatches and wearables over security concerns (thestack.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Smart devices and wearables, including connected watches and glasses have been banned in the Chinese armed forces by the national government amid growing concern over cybersecurity threats. The new regulation followed an incident in which a soldier had attempted to take a photo of his colleagues using his smartwatch in the city of Nanjing. The chief commander stopped the soldier and reported the case to Chinese high authorities, who responded by banning such gadgets on the grounds that the technology poses a threat to military operations and security.Teaching materials and warning signs have been provided to military staff to ensure that the law is effectively implemented. Security experts believe that forbidding the use of connected devices is a logical extension of current military bans on smartphones.

Submission + - 3 big lessons learned from running an open source company (opensource.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: It all sounds so straightforward: Put your code up on GitHub or start/join a project at the Apache Software Foundation (ASF), build a community of like-minded individuals, start a company, take in some funding, and then IPO. Or maybe not. One thing is certain: Running an open source company has unique challenges and opportunities. Although much has been written on the subject of open source and community building, I'd like to share three critical lessons learned in my travels as a co-founder and CTO of a venture-backed open source company.

Submission + - Third Bangladeshi Blogger Murdered In As Many Months (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Ananta Bijoy Das blogged about science in Bangladesh, also tackled difficult issues about religion. He won an award in 2006 for "deep and courageous interest in spreading secular and humanist ideals and messages." He's now been murdered for his writings, the third Bangladeshi blogger to die in the past few months. Four masked assailants chased him down in broad daylight and attacked him with cleavers and machetes. The Committee to Protect Journalists says Das is the 20th writer to be murdered globally so far this year. Arrests have been made in Bangladesh for the murders of the previous two bloggers this year, but no convictions have yet been made. Das's murderers remain at large.

Submission + - Automate the boring stuff with Python (opensource.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: "Learn to code" is the new mantra for the 21st century. What’s often lost in that statement is exactly what makes programming so useful if you’re not planning to switch careers and become a software engineer. Just because we’re surrounded by computers doesn’t mean the average person needs to be able to reprogram their smart fridge.

But programming skills can help solve uncommon, user-specific problems. Office workers, students, administrators, and anyone who uses a computer has encountered tedious tasks. Maybe they need to rename a few hundred files. Perhaps they need to send out notifications each time a particular website updates. Or maybe they need to copy several hundred rows from an Excel spreadsheet into a webform.

Software developer Al Sweigart walks through some easy Python solutions to these common problems.

Submission + - Killing Freemium Services will Increase Music Piracy, Not Sales or Signups (medium.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Killing freemium won’t make people magically pay $9.99 a month; it’ll make them seek out free music elsewhere. By blocking channels like YouTube and Soundcloud, the labels are sending a message that only music they approve of and want to monetize can be heard, and the door slams shut for many outsider artists. The last thing listeners want is a protectionist culture around the music they consume—every artist deserves a fair shot at being heard.

Submission + - Tuning up Rydberg atoms for Quantun Information applications (nanotechnologyworld.org)

Submitted by MateoC
MateoC writes: Tuning up Rydberg atoms for Quantun Information applications

Rydberg atoms, atoms whose outermost electrons are highly excited but not ionized, might be just the thing for processing quantum information. These outsized atoms can be sustained for a long time in a quantum superposition condition---a good thing for creating qubits---and they can interact strongly with other such atoms, making them useful for devising the kind of logic gates needed to process information. Scientists at JQI and at other labs are pursuing this promising research area.

One problem with Rydberg atoms is that in they are often difficult to handle. One approach is to search for special wavelengths---“magic wavelengths”—at which atoms can be trapped and excited into Rydberg states without disturbing them. A new JQI experiment bears out high-precision calculations predicting the existence of specific magic wavelengths.

Submission + - Gartner Predicts Open Source will Overtake Oracle and Others

Submitted by RaDag
RaDag writes: Read about the new Gartner study,The State of Open Source RDBMSs, 2015, that says as many as 80% of in-house application portfolios could be migrated onto open source and that by 2018, 70% of new apps will be deployed on open source and 50% of existing apps will be migrated. Gartner further urges companies to look for subscription models instead of costly up-front licenses.

Comment Re:How are they going to charge for this? (Score 1) 199

Since they're mostly going to be pushing updates/versions/whatever to phones, I expect that they'll do a deal with carriers to only download immense files, and to do so when you're roaming on 3G somewhere out of network. The carriers will make a mint on data overages and in exchange, they'll kick something back to MSFT. You won't like it, but what choice will you have?

Comment Re:Better absolute performance with WAAS? (Score 1) 63

by LeadSongDog (#49643007) Attached to: Centimeter-Resolution GPS For Smartphones, VR, Drones
It *IS* a cell phone, so there are normally at least 3 nearby fixed reference stations in local communication with the handset, no? All of those provide GPS-disciplined time signals. The only question is whether they actually provide reference offsets. They certainly could, if the software were present.

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