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Submission + - Windows 10: A Potential Privacy Mess, and Worse (vortex.com)

Submitted by Lauren Weinstein
Lauren Weinstein writes: I had originally been considering accepting Microsoft's offer of a free upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10. After all, reports have suggested that it's a much more usable system than Windows 8/8.1 — but of course in keeping with the "every other MS release of Windows is a dog" history, that's a pretty low bar.

However, it appears that MS has significantly botched their deployment of Windows 10. I suppose we shouldn't be surprised, even though hope springs eternal.

Since there are so many issues involved, and MS is very aggressively pushing this upgrade, I'm going to run through key points here quickly, and reference other sites' pages that can give you more information right now.

But here's my executive summary: You may want to think twice, or three times, or many more times, about whether or not you wish to accept the Windows 10 free upgrade on your existing Windows 7 or 8/8.1 system.

Submission + - Industrial networks are vulnerable to devastating cyberattack, new research says (dailydot.com)

Submitted by Patrick O'Neill
Patrick O'Neill writes: New research into Industrial Ethernet Switches reveals a wide host of vulnerabilities that leave critical infrastructure facilities open to attackers. Many of the vulnerabilities reveal fundamental weaknesses: Widespread use of default passwords, hardcoded encryption keys, a lack of proper authentication for firmware updates, a lack of encrypted connections, and more. Combined with a lack of network monitoring, researchers say the situation showcases "a massive lack of security awareness in the industrial control systems community.”

Submission + - Zion Harvey Makes History as First Pediatric Dual Hand Transplant Recipient (3dprint.com)

Submitted by ErnieKey
ErnieKey writes: While there have been several hand transplants that have successfully taken place over the past decade or so, a little boy in Maryland, named Zion Harvey has become the first successful pediatric dual hand transplant recipient. After losing both hands and feet due to infection when he was 2 years old, doctors were able to successfully transplant new hands onto the little boy, thanks in part to modern-day 3d printing technology

Submission + - Check whether Hacking Team demoed cyberweapons for your local cops (muckrock.com)

Submitted by v3rgEz
v3rgEz writes: Turns out death squads aren't the only agencies buying Hacking Squad's controversial spyware. Town from Miami Shores, FL to Eugene, OR appeared on a list of US agencies that received demonstrations from the hacked surveillance vendor. MuckRock has mapped out who was on the lists, and is working to FOIA what these towns actually bought, if anything. Check and see if your city is on the map.

Submission + - Replacing Silicon With Gallium Nitrade In Chips Could Reduce Energy Use By 20%

Submitted by Mickeycaskill
Mickeycaskill writes: Cambridge Electronics Inc (CEI), formed of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), claim semiconductors made of gallium nitride (GaN) could reduce the power consumption of data centres and consumer electronics by 20 percent by 2025.

CEI has revealed a range of GaN transistors and power electronic circuits that have just one tenth of the resistance of silicon, resulting in much higher energy efficiency.

The company claims to have overcome previous barriers to adoption such as safety concerns and expense through new manufacturing techniques.

“Basically, we are fabricating our advanced GaN transistors and circuits in conventional silicon foundries, at the cost of silicon. The cost is the same, but the performance of the new devices is 100 times better,” Cambridge Electronics researcher Bin Lu said.

Submission + - Is Sprked the Solution to Valve's Paid Mods Scandal?

Submitted by SlappingOysters
SlappingOysters writes: Grab It has taken a closer look at the emerging new crowdfunding platform Sprked, which looks to follow the Patreon support model, but exclusively for modders. The service is currently in its early stages, but by crafting a system of appreciation and support that acknowledges the loyalty of the modding community, Sprked has the potential to promote and foster the creativity that is so integral to modding, instead of hampering it with the murky baggage of a mandatory economy. In addition, the site also explores the four demons Valve's paid mods plan must slay.

Submission + - Kentucky Man shoots drone that was hovering over sunbathing 16-year old girl (wdrb.com)

Submitted by McGruber
McGruber writes: Hillview, Kentucky resident William H. Merideth describes his Sunday afternoon: "Sunday afternoon, the kids – my girls – were out on the back deck, and the neighbors were out in their yard," Merideth said. "And they come in and said, 'Dad, there’s a drone out here, flying over everybody’s yard.'"

Merideth's neighbors saw it too. "It was just hovering above our house and it stayed for a few moments and then she finally waved and it took off," said neighbor Kim VanMeter. VanMeter has a 16-year-old daughter who lays out at their pool. She says a drone hovering with a camera is creepy and weird. "I just think you should have privacy in your own backyard," she said.

Merideth agrees and said he had to go see for himself. “Well, I came out and it was down by the neighbor’s house, about 10 feet off the ground, looking under their canopy that they’ve got under their back yard," Merideth said. "I went and got my shotgun and I said, ‘I’m not going to do anything unless it’s directly over my property.’"

That moment soon arrived, he said. "Within a minute or so, here it came," he said. "It was hovering over top of my property, and I shot it out of the sky. I didn't shoot across the road, I didn't shoot across my neighbor's fences, I shot directly into the air."

It wasn't long before the drone's owners appeared. "Four guys came over to confront me about it, and I happened to be armed, so that changed their minds," Merideth said. "They asked me, 'Are you the S-O-B that shot my drone?' and I said, 'Yes I am,'" he said. "I had my 40mm Glock on me and they started toward me and I told them, 'If you cross my sidewalk, there's gonna be another shooting.'"

A short time later, Merideth said the police arrived. "There were some words exchanged there about my weapon, and I was open carry – it was completely legal," he said. "Long story short, after that, they took me to jail for wanton endangerment first degree and criminal mischief...because I fired the shotgun into the air."

Submission + - Genetically modified rice makes more food, less greenhouse gas (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Applehu Akbar
Applehu Akbar writes: A team of researchers at the Swedish University of AgriculturalSciences has engineered a barley gene into rice, producing a variety that yields 50% more grain while producing 90% less of the powerful greenhouse gas methane. The new rice pulls off this trick by putting more of its energy into top growth. In countries which depend on rice as a staple, this would add up to a really large amount of increased rice and foregone methane.

Submission + - UEDashboard: New Research Prototype to Detect Unusual Events in SVN Repositories (github.io)

Submitted by babaloes
babaloes writes: We introduce UEDashboard, a tool which automatically detects unusual events in a commit history based on metrics and smells, and surfaces them in an event feed. Our preliminary evaluation with a team of professional software developers showed that our conceptualization of unusual correlates with developers’ perceptions of task difficulty, and that UEDashboard could be useful in supporting development meetings and for pre-commit warnings.

Submission + - MPEG LA Announces Call for DASH Patents (streamingmedia.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The MPEG LA has announced a call for patents essential to the Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (or DASH) standard. According to the MPEG LA's press release, “Market adoption of DASH technology standards has increased to the point where the market would benefit from the availability of a convenient nondiscriminatory, nonexclusive worldwide one-stop patent pool license." The newly formed MPEG-DASH patent pool's licensing program will apparently offer "the market efficient access to this important technology."

Submission + - The White House is getting a Silicon Valley makeover (medium.com)

Submitted by Cuillere
Cuillere writes: President Obama's latest CTO and her deputy have made it their mission to increase the people's tech quotient by taking a seat among the government's top officials— and making sure their suggestions (more diversity in tech, innovator meetups) don't get glossed over.

Submission + - Rematch--Newegg beats patent troll over SSL and RC4 encryption (newegg.com)

Submitted by codguy
codguy writes: After a previous failed attempt (http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/11/26/1927254/jury-finds-newegg-infringed-patent-owes-23-million) to fight patent troll TQP Development in late 2013, Newegg has now beaten this troll in a rematch (http://blog.newegg.com/newegg-vs-patent-trolls-when-we-win-you-win/). From the article:

"Newegg went against a company that claimed its patent covered SSL and RC4 encryption, a common encryption system used by many retailers and websites. This particular patent troll has gone against over 100 other companies, and brought in $45 million in settlements before going after Newegg."

This follows on Intuit's recent success in defending itself against this claim (http://yro.slashdot.org/story/14/06/26/1353216/intuit-beats-ssl-patent-troll-that-defeated-newegg).

Submission + - The First Airplane on Mars

Submitted by braindrainbahrain
braindrainbahrain writes: Undergoing research by NASA, the Preliminary Research Aerodynamic Design to Land on Mars, or Prandtl-M (not-so-coincidentally named after German aeronautical engineer Ludwig Prandtl) program is developing an airfoil with the ultimate goal of flying in the Martian atmosphere. The program has flown 12-ft. span models, the Prandtl-D1 and -D2, in Earth's atmosphere to prove that the flying wing design could overcome adverse yaw effects without including a tail. A larger 25 ft. model will be tested shortly and further tests call for prototypes to be balloon dropped at 85,000 feet and later at 115,000 feet to simulate Martian atmospheric density. If all goes well, it could be deployed from a cubesat container after hitching a ride to Mars with a rover in 2022.

Alternate, non-pay walled source: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ar...

Submission + - Microsoft's Windows 10 now live

Submitted by mrspoonsi
mrspoonsi writes: Right on schedule, Microsoft has begun prompting users of Windows 7 and 8.1 to upgrade their machines to Windows 10. The process has begun in the parts of the world where it is already July 29th; this includes China. The company began taking reservations for Windows 10 back in June, and as we reported earlier this morning, it is already starting to pre-load the OS on to those machines. While not everyone will get the OS tomorrow through the upgrade program, it does appear that there will be quite a few users who will be able to install the OS as a free upgrade on the 29th. Windows 10 is expected to be installed on a billion devices within the next three years and to achieve that milestone, they will need to upgrade a significant number of devices to the new OS from Windows 7 or 8.1.

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