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Submission + - Bananian Linux 14.11 released (bananian.org)

An anonymous reader writes: The Bananian Linux project is pleased to announce the immediate release
of Bananian Linux 14.11 for Banana Pi. This update adds Linux Kernel
version 3.4.104, along with a few bugfixes and improvements.

Existing Bananian installations can easily be upgraded without losing
any data or settings.

Release notes:
--------------
- Updated Linux kernel to 3.4.104
- Fixed a bug in the fex configuration preventing some devices to boot
when OTG is enabled
- Add two shell functions to read out thermal sensors inside the A20 SoC
and the AXP209 PMU
- Fixed a bug causing excessive VLAN logging
- Add CONFIG_FHANDLE=y to kernel configuration (required for Debian
8/Jessie)
- Added hardware watchdog (as module)
- Supporting new hardware: Banana Pro and OLinuXIno-LIME2 (see
https://www.bananian.org/hardw...)

For a list of all changes see the Bananian 14.11 changelog:
https://dev.bananian.org/chang...

To get Bananian 14.11:
----------------------
In order to download Bananian 14.11, visit:
https://www.bananian.org/downl...

Users of Bananian 14.09 can upgrade their existing installation using
'bananian-update'.
Users of Bananian 14.08, see: https://www.bananian.org/upgra...

About Bananian
--------------
Bananian Linux is a pre-installed Debian 7 image optimized for Banana
Pi. It uses the official Debian wheezy armhf repositories with a kernel
and bootmanager (u-boot), customized for Banana Pi.

The main focus is to provide a lightweight headless platform for home
servers, small webservers, ownCloud hosting, Linux based wifi access
points, NAS systems, monitoring devices, etc.

Bananian Linux is an official partner of LeMaker.
http://www.lemaker.org/

For further information, please visit the Bananian website at
https://www.bananian.org/

Submission + - Today on Indiegogo: Scientsit Aims to Backup Brain (indiegogo.com)

An anonymous reader writes: BOSTON / NEW YORK — No, this is not science fiction. A team of scientists from Boston and New York are working on next generation neuroimaging technology. The company, Brain Backups LLC, launched an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign this week which will run until New Year’s Day. Their unprecedented imaging techniques are nondestructive, noninvasive, and ultra high definition. “This technology allows us to get data with a thousand times higher accuracy than any MRI we have today,” says Russell Hanson, founder of Brain Backups LLC. With the ability to see a single neuron in vivo and identify its function, Hanson and his colleagues might be able to catch a glimpse of the circuitry of the brain in action. This would reveal a larger network that scientists are calling the connectome, a map of all neuronal connections in the human mind.

Much like the genome, mapping the connectome would likely spur major advances in personalized medicine, the diagnosis of degenerative diseases, and our understanding of human memory. In theory, a person’s connectome could fit on a hard drive, albeit a large one. Calculations show it could take as little as 500 TB of space with compression. A Brain Backup, therefore, may cost the consumer around $25,000. Not a small spend, but certainly far from the most expensive procedure available in healthcare today.

Professor Hanson and his fellow scientists and synthetic biology engineers are not the first to contemplate connectome mapping. However, traditional methods involve antibody markers and electron microscopes, which require slicing the brain into incredibly thin pieces and imaging them one at a time. What makes Brain Backups different is that they are using aptamers – tiny strands of DNA – that can be injected in the bloodstream and bind to specific sites on the neuron; then safely clear the system after a few hours. “We know we have a long way to go, but if we want science fiction to become reality in our lifetimes, we should start now to build technology meant for use in living beings,” says Jason Fuller, the engineer who designed these markers.

Visit Brain Backups on Indiegogo today to support this amazing research. Who knows, you could be one of the first to have your Brain Backup when the technology first hits the ground!

Comment Re:Wouldn't it suffer eminent heat death? (Score 1) 523

Doesn't nuclear power work by boiling water?

No, it works by turning atoms into other atoms. What you do with the resulting heat and radiation is up to you. Whether you use it to drive a steam turbine, a Stirling engine or a thermocouple is up to you.

Well, an RTG works by containing atoms that are going to change themselves into other atoms. We call atoms with this property "radioactive". Still, you got the general idea.

Submission + - Thousands of Compromised Joomla, WordPress Plugins and Themes Used in Attack

Trailrunner7 writes: Researchers have discovered a group of attackers who have published a variety of compromised WordPress themes and plug-ins on legitimate-looking sites, tricking developers into downloading and installing them on their own sites. The components then give the attackers remote control of the compromised sites and researchers say the attack may have been ongoing since September 2013.

CryptoPHP is the name the researchers have given to the malware that’s delivered with the compromised components, and the backdoor has a number of capabilities. It carries with it several hardcoded domains for command-and-control communications and uses RSA encryption to protect its communications with the C2 servers. Some versions also have a backup ability to communicate over email if the C2 domains are taken down. The PHPCrypto malware can update itself, inject content into the compromised sites it sits on and perform several other functions.

But the main purpose of the malware is to conduct blackhat SEO operations. The goal of these campaigns is to jack up the rank of sites controlled by the attackers, or their customers, which helps them look legitimate. This is done sometimes for gambling sites or similar sites and can also be tied to other scams.

The researchers have traced the attack to an IP address in Moldova, and the C2 servers are located in the Netherlands, Germany, Poland and the United States. Fox-IT said that they have identified thousands of plug-ins that have been backdoored, including both WordPress and Joomla plug-ins and themes and Drupal themes.

Submission + - Senate Republicans are getting ready to declare war on patent trolls (vox.com) 2

XxtraLarGe writes: Regardless of party affiliation, I think this is probably one thing most of us on Slashdot can applaud:

Republicans are about to take control of the US Senate. And when they do, one of the big items on their agenda will be the fight against patent trolls.

In a Wednesday speech on the Senate floor, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) outlined a proposal to stop abusive patent lawsuits. "Patent trolls – which are often shell companies that do not make or sell anything – are crippling innovation and growth across all sectors of our economy," Hatch said.


Submission + - Is Amnesty Crossing The Line? (amnesty.org)

Anita Hunt (lissnup) writes: In offering Detekt — a new tool to help identify government surveillance spyware on computers — for download from its website, is "non-government" organisation Amnesty International crossing a line into "anti-government" behaviour? How might this impact Amnesty's credibility when engaging with government on human rights issues?

Submission + - Coal Plants Get New Lease on Life with Natural Gas

HughPickens.com writes: Christina Nunez reports in National Geographic that in the past four years, at least 29 coal-fired plants in 10 states have switched to natural gas or biomass while another 54 units, mostly in the US Northeast and Midwest, are slated to be converted over the next nine years. By switching to natural gas, plant operators can take advantage of a relatively cheap and plentiful US supply. The change can also help them meet proposed federal rules to limit heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, given that electricity generation from natural gas emits about half as much carbon as electricity from coal does.

But not everyone is happy with the conversions. The Dunkirk plant in western New York, slated for conversion to natural gas, is the focus of a lawsuit by environmental groups that say the $150 million repowering will force the state's energy consumers to pay for an unnecessary facility. "What we're concerned about is that the Dunkirk proceeding is setting a really, really bad precedent where we're going to keep these old, outdated, polluting plants on life support for political reasons," says Christopher Amato. Dunkirk's operator, NRG, wanted to mothball the plant in 2012, saying it was not economical to run. The utility, National Grid, said shutting it down could make local power supplies less reliable, a problem that could be fixed by boosting transmission capacity—at a lower cost than repowering Dunkirk. Meanwhile the citizens of Dunkirk are happy the plant is staying open. “We couldn’t let it happen. We would lose our tax base, we would lose our jobs, we would lose our future,” said State Sen. Catharine M. Young. “This agreement saves us. It gives us a foundation on which to build our economy. It gives us hope. This is our community’s Christmas miracle!”

Submission + - Google Announces Image Recognition Advance

Rambo Tribble writes: Using machine learning techniques, Google claims to have produced software that can better produce natural-language descriptions of images. This has ramifications for uses such as better image search and for better describing the images for the blind. As the Google people put it, "A picture may be worth a thousands words, but sometimes it's the words that are the most useful..."

Comment Steering clear (Score 1) 2

if the human brain is a Turing machine, then humans can never decide this issue either...

There's your problem right there. The optimizer replaces that on the first pass with

if FALSE then humans can never decide this issue either...

Then on the second pass, it deletes the statement entirely, leaving

One curious corollary is that: a point that the authors deliberately steer well clear of

Submission + - Crowdfunded Linux Voice Magazine Releases First Issue CC-BY-SA

M-Saunders writes: Linux Voice, the crowdfunded GNU/Linux magazine that Slashdot has covered previously, had two goals at its launch: to give 50% of its profits back to the community after one year, and release each issue's contents under the Creative Commons after nine months. Well, it's been nine months since issue 1, so the whole thing is now online and free to share. Readers and supporters have also made audio versions of articles, for listening to on the commute to work.

Submission + - Microsoft releases out-of-band security patch for Windows

mrspoonsi writes: Microsoft has announced today that they will be pushing an out-of-band security patch today. The patch, which affects nearly all of the company's major platforms, is rated 'critical' and it is recommended that you install the patch immediately. The patch is rated 'critical' because it allows for elevation of privileges and will require a restart. The platforms that are affected include: Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, Windows 8 and 8.1, Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows RT and Windows RT 8.1 and Windows 10 Technical Preview customers are affected too.

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