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Apple

Submission + - Apple Being Investigated for Antitrust Violations (latimes.com) 1

Submitted by RCourtney
RCourtney writes: Federal officials plan to examine whether Apple Inc. is violating antitrust rules by requiring software developers to use Apple programming tools to create applications for the iPhone and iPad. Apple's policy prevents developers from using outside tools such as Adobe Systems Inc.'s Flash format, which is used in many Web videos, games and interactive graphics, to design apps for Apple's popular devices.

Submission + - House Calls For Hearing On Stock Market "Glitch" (computerworld.com)

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: The House Financial Services securities subcommittee plans to hold a hearing next Tuesday to examine what caused the U.S. Stock Market to plunge almost 1,000 points in a half hour Thursday, and it called on the SEC to investigate possible problems with computer algorithms that may have exacerbated a human order-entry error and lead to the precipitous drop. 'Reports have surfaced that much of this movement was potentially as a result of a computer glitch," Committee Chairman Kanjorski said. "We cannot allow a technological error to spook the markets and cause panic. This is unacceptable. In this day and age and with the use of such complex technology, we should be able to make sure that our financial markets are effectively monitored and investors are protected.'
Games

Submission + - Will Cartridges Come Back? Is Disc Media Dead? (dasreviews.com)

Submitted by sk8pmp
sk8pmp writes: Will the cost of solid state memory going down, will we see the return of the game catridge? Or will digital distribution reign supreme and transition our entertainment into the cloud? This editorial explores the beginnings of the cartridge vs disc battle and theorizes a second one in the future.
Google

Submission + - Chrome Kills The http:// Prefix (cnet.com) 2

Submitted by
circletimessquare
circletimessquare writes: "Inevitable or sinister? Monitoring the latest developer releases, Stephen Shankland at cnet news has made the interesting observation that Google intends to do away with the http:/// prefix in Chrome's address bar. Most Slashdot readers will have an automatic negative reaction to this idea, but, to 99% of web users, the prefix is simply an archaic, unnecessary bit of technical jargon. However, Chrome currently relays everything typed in the address bar to Google unless the http:/// is prefixed. So the subtle implication is that soon there will be no defense from Google seeing everything you type in Chrome's address bar. Most dastardly of all: Chrome has just diminished the joke that is Slashdot's name."
Biotech

Submission + - Bio-Detector Scans for 3,000 Viruses and Bacteria (inhabitat.com)

Submitted by separsons
separsons writes: Researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory recently unveiled a three-inch-long bio-detector than can scan for 3,000 different types of viruses and bacteria in just 24 hours. The device, dubbed the Lawrence Livermore Microbial Detection Array (LLMDA), boasts significant advantages over traditional bio-detectors, which can only identify a maximum of 50 pathogens. The three-inch-long glass slide is packed with 388,000 probes that can detect more than 2,000 viruses and 900 bacteria. The device may have huge implications in identifying agents released during biological and chemical attacks. Plus, in more everyday uses, LLMDA can ensure food, drug and vaccine safety and help diagnose medical problems. Scientists' next version of LLMDA is even more impressive: A new bio-detector will be lined with 2.1 million probes that can scan for 5,700 viruses and thousands of bacteria as well as fungi and protozoa.
Idle

Submission + - Comedy Central plans cartoon series about Jesus (skunkpost.com)

Submitted by crimeandpunishment
crimeandpunishment writes: If you thought the controversy over the depiction of Mohammad on "South Park" was heated, just wait till Comedy Central's cartoon series about Jesus Christ hits the airwaves. The network says the show features Jesus as a regular guy who moves to New York.
Science

Submission + - You're Part Caveman, Say Scientists (foxnews.com)

Submitted by Velcroman1
Velcroman1 writes: Many of us are part caveman, according to an analysis of Neanderthal genes sequenced for the first time in a recent study. "The Neanderthals are not totally extinct," said study leader Svante Paabo of the Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. "In some of us they live on a little bit." In fact, between 1 percent and 4 percent of some modern humans' DNA came from Neanderthals, who lived between about 130,000 and 30,000 years ago, the researchers report.

Submission + - Hidden Digital Recorder Reveals NYPD Manipulating

Submitted by mliu
mliu writes: The New York Police Dept has long denied the existence of quotas in arrests. However, as making a recording in NY only requires a single party's consent, a Brooklyn cop carried a digital voice recorder with him and surreptitiously recorded his superior and fellow cops as he went about his job. The recordings reveal that in addition to quotas backed by threat of discipline, the cops also were pressured to suppress attempts to report crimes in order to make crime statistics appear more favorable for the department and the mayor. As the article describes, this perfectly dovetails a survey released earlier this year wherein retired NYPD supervisors described "intense pressure" to show declines in crime by manipulating statistics. After his whistle blowing, his commander had him forcibly committed to a mental ward.

Submission + - Mechanism Behind Tourette's Syndrome Exposed (healthday.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: "A family in which the father and all eight of his children have Tourette syndrome held clues to treating the neurological disorder that can cause debilitating, involuntary motor and verbal tics. By studying the family's genome, researchers identified a mutation on the HDC gene that encodes the enzyme L-histidine decarboxylase, which is involved in regulating levels of the neurotransmitter histamine in the central nervous system. While the variant itself is likely very rare — meaning most people with Tourette syndrome don't have the precise mutation — what's known about the gene's function in the body hints at new treatments, researchers explained." Too bad about the last part, but it seems as though this could still lead to effective treatments.

Submission + - F.C.C. Proposes New Rules on Internet Access (nytimes.com)

Submitted by boilednut
boilednut writes: The Federal Communications Commission proposed an approach to regulating broadband Internet service on Thursday that would reclassify the transmission component as a basic utility subject to the agency’s oversight in order to enforce consumer protections and equal access.
Security

Submission + - Have We Lost the Desktop Security Battle? (threatpost.com)

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: For years, security experts, analysts and even users have been lamenting the state of desktop security. Viruses, spam, Trojans and rootkits have added up to create an ugly picture. But, the good news is that the desktop security battle may be over. The less-than-good news, however, is that we may have lost it. Jeremiah Grossman, CTO of WhiteHat Security, said Thursday that many organizations, particularly in the financial services industry, have gotten to the point of assuming that their customers' desktops are compromised. And moving forward from that assumption, things don't get much prettier.
Security

Submission + - 12 "White Hat" hackers you should know (itworld.com)

Submitted by JimLynch
JimLynch writes: These "White Hat" security researchers are ethical hackers whose discoveries and inventions shake things up — as they try to stay one step ahead of their underground "Black Hat" cousins
Privacy

Submission + - Deleting Yourself From The Web (net-security.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: If there is one positive thing that the recent Facebook privacy changes have brought, it is a raised awareness about the fact that we ourselves are the best guardians of our information. People have begun realizing that it is better to remove some information from their various social-networking accounts and blogs that can be tied to them. There is one problem, though. We might have not thought about it when we first started using these networks, but by now it has become obvious that once you put something online, it will usually stay there indefinitely. Yes, you can take down pages and deactivate accounts, but search engines have an uncanny ability to spit out information that you don't even remember putting online.
Security

Submission + - Security Firm Reveals Microsoft's 'Silent' Patches (computerworld.com)

Submitted by CWmike
CWmike writes: Microsoft silently patched three vulnerabilities last month, two of them affecting enterprise mission-critical Exchange mail servers, without calling out the bugs in the accompanying advisories, a security expert said on Thursday. Two of the three unannounced vulnerabilities, and the most serious of the trio, were packaged with MS10-024, an update to Exchange and Windows SMTP Service that Microsoft issued April 13 and tagged as 'important,' its second-highest threat ranking. Ivan Arce, CTO of Core Security Technologies, said Microsoft patched the bugs, but failed to disclose that it had done so — which could pose a problem. 'They're more important than the [two vulnerabilities] that Microsoft did disclose,' said Arce. 'That means [system] administrators may end up making the wrong decisions about applying the update. They need that information to assess the risk.' Secret patches are neither new or rare. 'This has been going on for many years and the action in and of itself is not a huge conspiracy," said Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Security. What is unusual is that Core took Microsoft's silent updates public. Saying that Microsoft 'misrepresented' and 'underestimated' the criticality of MS10-024 because it didn't reveal the two bugs, Core urged company administrators to 'consider re-assessing patch deployment priorities.' Microsoft confirmed this instance and defends the practice, noting that updates can "be destructive to customer environments." But Storms echoed Arce's concern about possible misuse of the practice, which could result in a false sense of security among users.

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