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hydrofix writes:
Half-Life 3 is the long awaited sequel to Half-Life 2 which has been in development for more than five years. Gabe Newell, Valve director, has earlier made his stance on Windows 8 clear, saying that “Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space.” And at the Ubuntu Developer Summit, Valve employee Drew Bliss said that Linux is a more viable platform for gaming than Windows 8. But at LinuxCon Europe, Newell now officially solidified Valve’s stance on Windows 8 by announcing that Half-Life 3 will be exclusive to Linux.
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hydrofix writes:
Techdirt has been following a story of DoJ's classified interpretation of the PATRIOT Act. Specifically, it's all about Section 215, the so-called "business-records provision," which empowers FBI to get businesses to turn over any records it deems relevant to a security investigation. Senators Ron Ryden and Mark Udall have been pushing the government to reveal how it uses these provisions to deploy 'dragnets' for massive amounts of information on private citizens "without any connection to terrorism or espionage," a secret reinterpretation that is "inconsistent with the public's understanding of these laws." After NYTimes reporter Charlie Savage had his Freedom of Information request denied, NYTimes has now sued the government to reveal how it interprets the very law under which it's required to operate.
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hydrofix writes:
A thin band of antiprotons enveloping the Earth has been spotted for the first time. The find, described in Astrophysical Journal Letters [arXiv], confirms theoretical work that predicted the Earth's magnetic field could trap antimatter. The antiprotons were spotted by the Pamela satellite launched in 2006 to study the nature of high-energy particles from the Sun and cosmic rays. Aside from confirming theoretical work that had long predicted the existence of these antimatter bands, the particles could also prove to be a novel fuel source for future spacecraft — an idea explored in a report for Nasa's Institute for Advanced Concepts.
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hydrofix writes:
Apple on Friday dealt a serious legal blow to HTC and the Android platform in general. A U.S. International Trade Commission judge has ruled that HTC infringed on two patents Apple submitted in a March 2010 complaint. The scary outcome of the decision could in a worst-case scenario result in an import ban against many or even all Android-based HTC products in the U.S. market. "I have looked at those patents before and they appear to be very fundamental. They are very likely to be infringed by code that is at the core of Android," writes Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents. HTC has appealed the judgement to the six ITC commissioners, who will ultimately have the final say on the patent verdict.
20808092
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hydrofix writes:
In an interview with Russia Today's Laura Emmett Jullian Assange hinted that the CIA has a backdoor interface to Facebook, calling the site 'the most appalling spying machine ever invented.'
"Here we have the world's most comprehensive database about people: their relationships, their names, their addresses, their locations, their communications, their relatives – all sitting within the United States, all accessible to US intelligence."
"Facebook, Google, Yahoo all these major US organizations have built-in interfaces for US intelligence. It's not a matter of serving a subpoena, they have an interface they have developed for US intelligence to use.
