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Submission + - Rumblefish claims it owns "America the Beautiful" by United States Navy Band (adafruit.com)

Submitted by ptorrone
ptorrone writes: Adafruit is now shipping the USA made open-source Arduinos, in celebration Ladyada the engineer posted a Arduino rotating in front of an American flag with the public domain “America the Beautiful” by United States Navy Band as the music. Adafruit immediately received notice from from YouTube stating that the song is owned by Rumblefish. Rumblefish previously claimed to own copyright to ambient birdsongs too.

Submission + - Square Enix Pulls, Apologizes For Mac Version of FFXIV

Submitted by _xeno_
_xeno_ writes: Just over a week after Warner Bros. pulled the PC version of Batman: Arkham Knight due to bugs, Square Enix is now being forced to do the same thing with the Mac OS X version of Final Fantasy XIV (which was released at the same time as Batman: Arkham Knight). The rather long note explaining the decision apologizes for releasing the port before it was ready and blames OS X and OpenGL for the performance discrepancy between the game's performance on identical Mac hardware running Windows. It's unclear when (or even if) Square Enix will resume selling an OS X version — the note indicates that the development team is hopeful that "[w]ith the adoption of DirectX11 for Mac, and the replacement of OpenGL with a new graphics API in Apple’s next OS, the fundamental gap in current performance issues may soon be eliminated." (I'm not sure what "the adoption of DirectX11 for Mac" refers to. OS X gaining DirectX 11 support is news to me — and, I suspect, Microsoft.) Given that the game supports the aging PS3 console, you'd think the developers would be able to find a way to get the same graphics as the PS3 version on more powerful Mac OS X hardware.

Submission + - This Is The Rare PlayStation Console Built By Sony And Nintendo

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Long before Sony and Nintendo were rivals, the two companies were partners for a brief time. In 1998 the duo started work on SNES-CD, a video game media format that was supposed to augment the cartridge-based SNES by adding support for higher-capacity CDs. In 1991 at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Sony introduced the “Play Station” (yes, with a space) but it never saw the light of day. Now, more than two decades later, Imgur user DanDiebold has uploaded images of the unreleased console. This particular model (about 200 Play Station prototypes were created) confirms that the system was supposed to be compatible with existing SNES titles as well as titles to be released in the SNES-CD format. In other words, it would have been the world's first hybrid console: game developers and gamers alike would be able to use both SNES cartridges and CDs. If you want to learn more about this particular prototype, check out the following thread on Assembler Games.

Submission + - Machine learning system detects emotions and suicidal behavior (thestack.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A new machine learning technology is being developed by Israeli scientists which can identify emotion in text messages and email, such as sarcasm, irony and even antisocial or suicidal thoughts. The new computerised system, created by Eden Saig a computer science student at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, is described in a paper titled ‘Sentiment Classification of Texts in Social Networks.’ The system works by recognising repeated word patterns and was developed by Saig after he studied a course in artificial intelligence (AI) supervised by Professor Shaul Markovich. Saig explains that voice tone and vocal inflections are so crucial for conveying feelings in verbal communication, while with text and email messages these characteristics are lost – recently encouraging users to illustrate sentiment through superficial smileys or emoticons. Applying machine learning algorithms to popular opinion Facebook pages, Saig was able to use the results to pick out stereotypical habits in social network conversations. “Now, the system can recognise patterns that are either condescending or caring sentiments and can even send a text message to the user if the system thinks the post may be arrogant,” said Saig.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: What Is Your Most Odd Hardware Hack?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Another Slashdotter once asked what kind of things someone can power with an external USB battery. I have a followup along those lines: what kind of modifications have you made to your gadgets to do things that they were never meant to do? Consider old routers, cell phones, monitors, etc. that have absolutely no use or value anymore in their intended form. What can you do with them? Have you ever done something stupid and damaged your electronics?

Submission + - What to know before transitioning your team to Git (opensource.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: When Emma Jane Hogbin Westby is into something, she's all in, and then she shares what she learns. For example, she doesn't just use Drupal, she wrote a couple of books about learning Drupal, and she created—and shared—a knitting pattern for Drupal socks. Using Drupal is how Emma Jane got started using Git. Then she wrote a book about using Git for Teams, created an O'Reilly video about Collaborating with Git, and, like she did with Drupal, she speaks about the open source project at tech events.

In this interview, Opensource.com catches up with Emma Jane before her upcoming OSCON talk and training and asked her about learning Git and using it with teams.

Submission + - Firefox 39 Released, Bringing Security Improvements and Social Sharing (mozilla.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Today Mozilla announced the release of Firefox 39.0, which brings an number of minor improvements to the open source browser. (Full release notes.)They've integrated Firefox Share with Firefox Hello, which means that users will be able to open video calls through links sent over social media. Internally, the browser dropped support for the insecure SSLv3 and disabled use of RC4 except where explicitly whitelisted. The SafeBrowsing malware detection now works for downloads on OS X and Linux(Full list of security changes.) The Mac OS X version of Firefox is now running Project Silk, which makes animations and scrolling noticeably smoother. Developers now have access to the powerful Fetch API, which should provide a better interface for grabbing things over a network.

Submission + - Theresa May named internet villain of the year (theguardian.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Home Secretary, Theresa May, has been named the UK internet industry’s villain of the year for pursuing “snooper’s charter” legislation without fully consulting the sector.

The gong, part of the annual ISPA awards, was given for “forging ahead with communications data legislation that would significantly increase capabilities without adequate consultation with industry and civil society”.

“With an investigatory powers bill due before parliament in the coming months, it is essential that ISPs are consulted,” the Internet Services Providers’ Association (ISPA) added.

Submission + - Why Microsoft kept 2 browsers in Windows 10 (windows10update.com)

Submitted by Ammalgam
Ammalgam writes: A lot of people have heard about Microsoft’s new browser called Edge that will be included in the Windows 10 Operating System. Microsoft are positioning Edge as their new, fresh, modern browser that will be forward looking and free from Internet Explorer’s baggage. What is less well known is that Internet Explorer is also coming to Windows 10 and will play an integral secondary role in the OS. On Windows10Update.com, Onuora Amobi does the breakdown and answers the question — why does Windows 10 have 2 browsers?

Submission + - 3-D Ultrasonic Fingerprint Scanning Could Strengthen Smartphone Security (gizmag.com)

Submitted by Zothecula
Zothecula writes: Researchers at the University of California, Davis and Berkeley have managed to miniaturize medical ultrasound technology to create a fingerprint sensor that scans your finger in 3D. This low-power technology, which could improve on the robustness of current-generation capacitive scanners, could soon find its way to our smartphones and tablets.

Submission + - Hackers watching 'Hackers' (the movie) (hopesandfears.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In honor of Hackers turning 20 this year, we assembled a group of actual hackers (from Hack Manhattan) to watch the cult classic and comment amongst other things: misconceptions about hacking, wearable technology, its nuanced view on law and order, and why 90s fashion had so many pockets.

"HACKER 2: I think one of the most unrealistic parts is taking a floppy that you wrote on a machine, putting it in another one, and all of the files had no read errors.

H&F: Or pulling it out of the trash and still having it work.

  HACKER 2: Yeah, with the gum on it.

  HACKER 3: Floppies were resilient!

  HACKER 2: No, they were not!”

"HACKER 5: Why don't you see more Hackers-era Angelina Jolie cosplays?

HACKER 1: I cringe watching this movie because I'm so embarassed at how much I modeled myself after Cereal Killer when I was like 16.

HACKER 5: 90s was such a pragmatic fashion. So many pockets!"

"H&F: I think the one thing that sets it apart was the styling, the outfits are really good, even kinda believable for the 90s. Not enough leather dusters though.”

http://www.hopesandfears.com/h...

Submission + - Lenovo VP of Design 'might think about' building a retro Thinkpad (lenovo.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In a recent blog post, David Hill thinks loudly about designing and possibly releasing a retro thinkpad that reminds of the IBM thinkpad of olden days. While already having a clear idea what this product line should look like, he is hesitant to commit to making this a thing. With a blue enter key, 16:10 display, dedicated volume controls, rubberized paint, a 7 row classic keyboard and more, this might be a new take on a solid heritage.

Submission + - Final step in sugar-to-morphine conversion deciphered (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: The last piece of the poppy puzzle is now in hand: Plant geneticists have isolated the gene in the plant that carries out the last unknown step in converting glucose and other simple compounds into codeine, morphine, and a wide variety of other medicines. The discovery sets the stage for splicing the full suite of genes needed to produce these drugs into yeast, which could then produce safer and cheaper versions.

Submission + - Amazon Opens Up Echo's Alexa To Developers (i-programmer.info)

Submitted by mikejuk
mikejuk writes: Amazon announced Echo. a wireless speaker with a built-in, voice-controlled, personal assistant called Alexa in November last year. Seven months down the line, Echo became available for purchase in the US and UK and will begin shipping on July 14th.In future Alexa will no longer be tied exclusively to Echo. Amazon has announced that the Alexa Voice Service (AVS), the cloud-based service behind Echo, is being made available for free to third party hardware makers who want to integrate Alexa into their devices.To propel developers and hardware manufacturers interest in voice technology and their adoption of Alexa, Amazon has also announced a $100 Million Alexa Fund, open to anyone, startups to established brands, with an innovative idea for using voice technology.
Could it be Amazon's Alexa that beats Siri and Cortana into the home in devices other than mobile phones and tablets?

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