Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Submission + - Massive change to Windows 9 - strip out Metro? (winbeta.org)

Submitted by bricko
bricko writes: The Chinese Government infamously announced recently that they have banned the use of Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 on Government PC's due to the cloud/Modern UI integration. While it may not sound like a big deal on the surface, Microsoft are currently panicking regarding the whole ordeal, and are currently reconsidering a number of plans with Windows 9.

Microsoft has already made drastic changes to the way employees at Microsoft access test builds. Instead of the builds being freely accessible via Microsoft CorpNet, an employee is required to request a new build which is personally assigned to them, this change will attempt to minimize leaks dramatically.

According to WZOR, Windows 9 Enterprise Edition could potentially see the removal of cloud-based integration within the operating system, along with the ability to completely disable the Modern UI 2.0.

Submission + - Secret trade agreement covering 68% of world services published by WikiLeaks (rt.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: The text of a 19-page, international trade agreement being drafted in secret was published by WikiLeaks on Thursday as the transparency group’s editor commemorated his two-year anniversary confined to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.

Fifty countries around the globe have already signed on to the Trade in Service Agreement, or TISA, including the United States, Australia and the European Union. Despite vast international ties, however, details about the deal have been negotiated behind closed-doors and largely ignored by the press.

In a statement published by the group alongside the leaked draft this week, WikiLeaks said “proponents of TISA aim to further deregulate global financial services markets,” and have participated in “a significant anti-transparency manoeuvre” by working secretly on a deal that covers more than 68 percent of world trade in services, according to the Swiss National Center for Competence in Research.

Submission + - NIgerian born UK TV repairman sentenced 16 months prison for 91% reuse (theguardian.com) 1

Submitted by retroworks
retroworks writes: The Guardian uses a stock photo of obvious electronic junk in its coverage of the sentencing of Joseph Benson of BJ Electronics. But film of the actual containers showed fairly uniform, sorted televisions which typically work for 20 years. In 2013, the Basel Convention Secretariat released findings on a two-year study of the seized sea containers containing the alleged "e-waste", including Benson's in Nigeria, and found 91% working and repaired product. The study, covered in Slashdot last February, declared the shipments legal, and further reported that they were more likely to work than new product sent to Africa (which may be shelf returns from bad lots, part of the reason Africans prefer used TVs from nations with strong warranty laws).

Director of regulated industry Harvey Bradshaw of the UK tells the Guardian: "This sentence is a landmark ruling because it's the first time anyone has been sent to prison for illegal waste exports." But 5 separate university research projects question what the crime was, and whether prohibition in trade is really the best way to reduce the percentage of bad product (less than 100% waste). Admittedly, I have been following this case from the beginning and interviewed both Benson and the Basel Secretariat Executive Director, and am shocked that the UK judge went ahead with the sentencing following the publication of the E-Waste Assessment Study last year. http://retroworks.blogspot.com... But what do Nerds at Slashdot think about the campaign to arrest African geeks who pay 10 times the value of scrap for used products replaced in rich nations?

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Replicated filesystem for linux - disconnected use

Submitted by TarpaKungs
TarpaKungs writes: There are many clustered filesystems for linux — most seem to have HPC clustering or failover in mind and assume there is relatively continuous network connectivity between the hosts.

I'm after one that would suit multiple clients (laptops typically) in a "business/home" usage scenario with very intermittent connectivity.

Right now, I have a central fileserver at home which is backed up properly and similar at work. I work mostly on a laptop (which is the way everyone in my family and most of my work colleagues are going. I occasionally sync back to my home server and work servers with unison over ssh, which is a great tool.

I'm not looking for a caching solution that depends on the network being there — I'm after a full on replicated (at the file level, not the block) filesystem preferably with no concept of a master (unison handles this quite well).

So there seem to be a couple of directions I could take:

1) Run unison as root from a script with a carefully chosen config file per FS area. Write a script runs when (say) at-home WiFi is detected, so as to avoid syncing over a mobile link. Email errors to me for manual fixing (unison generally "does the right thing" and baulks before doing something that is not provably correct).

Or

2) Find a more elegant solution that works at the kernel or daemon level.

So:

1 — Anyone done this and did it work out?

2 — Are there any well maintained linux network filesystems worth looking at that would behave well in a WAN-with-intermittent-connectivity context?

Cheers

Tim

Submission + - EFF to unveil Open Wireless Router for Open Wireless Movement (techienews.co.uk)

Submitted by hypnosec
hypnosec writes: A new movement dubbed the Open Wireless Movement is asking users to open up their private Wi-Fi networks for total strangers – a random act of kindness – with an aim of better securing networks and facilitating better use of finite broadband resources. The movement is supported by non-profit and pro-internet rights organisations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Mozilla, Open Rights Group, and Free Press among others. EFF is planning to unveil one such innovation – Open Wireless Router – at the Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE X) conference to be held next month on New York. This firmware will allow individuals to share their private Wi-Fi to total strangers to anyone without a password.

Submission + - Computing a Cure for HIV (huffingtonpost.com)

Submitted by aarondubrow
aarondubrow writes: The tendency of HIV to mutate and resist drugs has made it particularly difficult to eradicate. But in the last decade scientists have begun using a new weapon in the fight against HIV: supercomputers. Using some of the nation's most powerful supercomputers, teams of researchers are pushing the limits of what we know about HIV and how we can treat it. The Huffington Post describes nine ways supercomputers are helping scientists understand and treat the disease.

Submission + - Teaching College Is No Longer a Middle Class Job (guernicamag.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: When you think of somebody who teaches at a college, you typically bring to mind moderately affluent professors with nice houses and cars. All that tuition has to go into big salaries, right? Unfortunately, it seems being a college instructor is becoming less and less lucrative, even to the point of poverty. From the article: "Most university-level instructors are ... contingent employees, working on a contract basis year to year or semester to semester. Some of these contingent employees are full-time lecturers, and many are adjunct instructors: part-time employees, paid per class, often without health insurance or retirement benefits. This is a relatively new phenomenon: in 1969, 78 percent of professors held tenure-track positions. By 2009 this percentage had shrunk to 33.5." This is detrimental to learning as well. Some adjunct faculty, desperate to keep jobs, rely on easy courses and popularity with students to stay employed. Many others feel obligated to help students beyond the limited office hours they're paid for, essentially working for free in order to get the students the help they need. At a time when tuition prices are rising faster than ever, why are we skimping on the most fundamental aspect of college?

Submission + - Google's Nest buys Home Monitoring Camera Company Dropcam

Submitted by rtoz
rtoz writes: The popular home monitoring camera startup "Dropcam" will be acquired by Nest Labs, the maker of smart thermostats and smoke detectors.

The deal is worth $555 million in cash.

Nest itself was purchased by Google just four months ago for $3.2 billion.

Dropcam is a cloud-based Wi-Fi video monitoring service. It was founded in 2009. Dropcam lets users place cameras throughout a home for live-viewing and recording. The cameras also include options for night vision and two-way talking with built-in microphones.

Dropcam has never disclosed sales, but it is routinely the top-selling security camera on Amazon, and it recently branched into selling in retail stores like Apple and Best Buy.

People concerned about the privacy implications of Google’s acquisition of Nest may be further unsettled by Nest’s purchase of a home surveillance company. Nest's founder Matt Rogers anticipated this issue , insisted that there’s no reason to worry. In his blog post, he says that data won’t be shared with anyone, including Google, without a customer’s permission.

Nest has run into product challenges recently. In April, Nest said it was suspending sales of its smoke alarms after it determined the units could be switched off unintentionally. The products are now back on the market.

Submission + - BlackBerry back in profit (net4tech.net)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Upon arrival at the controls of BlackBerry last November, CEO John Chen seemed determined to turn things around. In only four months, it has already achieved its objectives, namely reducing operational costs by 30%. To do this, he has had to continue to cut in the workforce, reduced by half in two years.

John Chen estimated that BlackBerry has 80% chance of escape, against 50% a year ago. First positive sign. Results for the first quarter of 2014 During this period, it reported net income of $ 23 million against a loss of 84 million a year ago. However, these results take into account the sale of a building complex sold 500 million. Thus excluding exceptional items, BlackBerry still recorded a loss of $ 60 million, which is still two times lower than analysts' forecasts.

Submission + - ICANN CEO Wants To Make Progress On US Split At London Meeting (itworld.com)

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé hopes to make progress on preparations to take over running the world's central DNS servers from the U.S. government's National Telecommunications and Information Agency when the organization meets in London next week. 'I think this is a meeting where the ICANN community has to deal with the fact, the good fact, that its relationship with the U.S. government, which characterized its birth, its existence and growth, has now run its course,' Chehadé said.

Comment Re:Too Big to Be Indicted... (Score 1) 245

by pegdhcp (#47204305) Attached to: NSA's Novel Claim: Our Systems Are Too Complex To Obey the Law
this is sounding like a punishment duty I unfortunately did not think about during my previous incarnation as an operations manager :) shame on me I guess. "hey, you are going to explain memory upgrade requirement for SAP on MS (I know I know, long story) platform from 16 GB to 64 GB to accounting!"

Submission + - MIT and Caltech's coding breakthrough could accelerate mobile network speeds (networkworld.com)

Submitted by smaxp
smaxp writes: What if you could transmit data without link layer flow control bogging down throughput with retransmission requests, and also optimize the size of the transmission for network efficiency and application latency constraints? Researchers from MIT, Caltech and the University of Aalborg claimed to have accomplished this with stateless transmission using Random Linear Network Coding, or RLNC. The universities have collaborated to commercialize this promising technology through joint venture called Code On Technologies.

Submission + - Tiniest Linux COM yet? (linuxgizmos.com)

Submitted by __aajbyc7391
__aajbyc7391 writes: An open-spec COM that runs OpenWRT Linux on a MIPS-based Ralink RT5350 SoC has won its Indiegogo funding. The $20, IoT-focused VoCore measures 25 x 25mm. How low can you go? Tiny computer-on-modules (COMs) for Internet of Things (IoT) applications are popping up everywhere, with recent, Linux-ready entries including Intel’s Atom or Quark-based Edison, Ingenic’s MIPS/Xburst-based Newton, Acme Systems’s ARM9/SAM9G25 based Arrietta G25, and SolidRun’s quad-core i.MX6-based MicroSOM. Now, an unnamed Chinese startup has raised over six times its $6,000 Indiegogo funding goal for what could be the smallest, cheapest Linux COM yet.

Comment Re:Not denying something is different from forcing (Score 1) 406

by pegdhcp (#47051193) Attached to: Did Mozilla Have No Choice But To Add DRM To Firefox?
This is the most unethical and/or idiotic argument I have ever seen in /. . You sir, besides being an Anonymous Coward, are also a complete idiot. I do not know what is your fucking degree is, but it obviously was granted by mistake, during an examination that does not require existence of a brain in your skull. I can write programs in several languages, and this is my profession for the last 24 years. By your argument, while I should be able to use my rights, 99% of human population would need to learn coding in order to be able to use theirs, in a society which spent more time to type on a keyboard than write using a pen.....

Comment Re:Not denying something is different from forcing (Score 1) 406

by pegdhcp (#47035007) Attached to: Did Mozilla Have No Choice But To Add DRM To Firefox?
Unfortunately, it is easier for some people to let other people to think for them, instead of doing it themselves. Such as, some people have difficulty to see RMS' is not the only ethical analysis of the current political and technical situation of IT. At the most basic level; If there is a software utility exist in a platform I use,I can choose to use or not to use it, so I have the freedom. If such utility does not exist I cannot decide to use it so I do not have the freedom....

Slashdot Top Deals

I tell them to turn to the study of mathematics, for it is only there that they might escape the lusts of the flesh. -- Thomas Mann, "The Magic Mountain"

Close