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

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Iphone

Submission + - Testing iOS 5 & iPhone 4S Battery Life

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Recently Apple users have complained about shorter battery life on their new iPhone 4S devices, which may actually be a problem with how the new iOS 5 uses GPS to set time zones. While Apple is currently looking into the issue, PCMag's Sascha Segan ran his own tests to see if there was a difference. Taking a Verizon iPhone 4 running iOS 4, an AT&T iPhone 4 running iOS 5, and a Sprint iPhone 4S, all three phones were setup up with no accounts pushing, Bluetooth off and location services on, and the screen on maximum brightness. As the results rolled in, it turns out that there isn't much difference in battery life between the three devices.
HP

Submission + - HP shows prototype ARM-based server (hp.com)

Submitted by Anon E. Muss
Anon E. Muss writes: HP formally announced Project Moonshot today, including the "Redstone" ARM-based server. They also announced plans to build servers based on Atom processors. The server is only a prototype at this point, but the concept looks promising. They're packing hundreds of CPU's in a 4U chassis.

Submission + - Batteries again exploding in airline luggage (chicagotribune.com)

Submitted by SpuriousLogic
SpuriousLogic writes: A United Airlines employee sustained minor injures after a battery shipped in a bag exploded at O'Hare International Airport, officials said.

The employee was taken to Resurrection Medical Center in fair-to-serious condition but officials said the employee sustained, "minor injuries", according to a Chicago Fire Department spokesman.

The explosion occurred as the employee was moving the bag and it burst open, hurting the man's arm, fire officials said.

Officials believe the incident was accidental and no criminal activity is suspected, officials said.

A United Airlines spokeswoman said while flights are not being affected passengers may experience delays retrieving their bags.

Transportation Security Administration officials said the item was checked in the C concourse of the airport. Police and FBI officials are on the scene and are investigating.

The owner of the bag is being interview by law enforcement officials. Officials said the bag was orginally checked in Houston, Texas and had a final destination at O'Hare.
AI

Submission + - John McCarty - Father of AI and LISP - dies at 84 (wired.com)

Submitted by Tx-0
Tx-0 writes: John McCarthy died on Monday at the age of 84, according to Stanford University, where he served on the faculty for almost four decades. In organizing the Dartmouth Summer Research Conference on Artificial Intelligence in 1956, McCarthy not only added a term to the popular lexicon, he founded an entirely new area of research alongside fellow pioneers Marvin Minsky, Nathaniel Rochester, and Claude Shannon. In the years to come, he would go on invent LISP — one of the world’s most influential programming languages — and he played a major role in the development of time-sharing systems.
Privacy

Submission + - Feds Shy Away From Raiding Email Without Warrant (forbes.com)

Submitted by nonprofiteer
nonprofiteer writes: In December, a federal judge ruled that the 4th amendment applies to email and that the feds cannot go after it without a warrant. (We have Smilin' Bob to thank for that — https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/12/breaking-news-eff-victory-appeals-court-holds). Though the federal judge's decision only applies to the four states in his jurisdiction, it looks like federal agencies are applying it nationally. An internal email written by the IRS general counsel cites the law and says that its collectors can no longer get the contents of suspected tax cheats' email by sending letters to their ISPs, though it can get non-content information, like who they email and how they pay for their accounts.
Crime

Submission + - UK Crimestoppers Faux Pas

Submitted by realitycheckplease
realitycheckplease writes: Crimestoppers UK tweeted about this scam warning this morning. http://www.crimestoppers-uk.org/fraud/types-of-fraud/common-scams/postal-scam-email-from-parcel-delivery-service-65455465 — it's a 6 year old scam that was closed down by a UK telephone regular in 2005 (see http://www.phonepayplus.org.uk/News-And-Events/News/2009/10/Postal-scam-chain-email-2009.aspx) but about which warnings have continued to circulate. Instead of checking their facts and perhaps putting out an alert that this is an old scam, this quango that acts alongside UK law enforcement is presenting this as a current scam that people need to be aware of. Is propagating such outdated scam warnings on what is often seen as an official law enforcement related website any different to retweeting false tweets about public disorder or terrorist incidents?
Science

Submission + - MIT can now see through concrete walls (extremetech.com)

Submitted by
MrSeb
MrSeb writes: "Up there with invisibility, teleportation, and being able to cancel mid-season TV breaks, x-ray vision is one of the most sought after superpowers — and that seems to be what a couple of researchers from MIT have managed to do. It isn’t quite x-ray vision — it uses microwaves instead — but MIT’s radar array, made by Gregory Charvat and John Peabody, can see through 8-inch concrete walls. Basically, it works just like a normal radar system: 44 antennae send out S-band microwaves (2-4GHz, about 10cm peak to peak). Most of these microwaves — 99.4% — bounce off the solid concrete wall. The 0.6% that make it through bounce off any objects on the other side, and then come back through the wall, losing another 99.4% of the waves. By the time the microwaves return to the array, the signal is just 0.0025% of its original strength. The reflected waves are then amplified, subtracted from the concrete wall's echo using an analog crystal filter, and then converted into moving blobs by a computer. The entire rig is about 8 feet wide, and it is designed to be mounted on a military truck for urban warfare — but it could revolutionize emergency response, too, with the ability to see through rubble and collapsed buildings for survivors."
Facebook

Submission + - Jail Upheld For Nonexistent Riot (eweekeurope.co.uk)

Submitted by
judgecorp
judgecorp writes: "Two Facebook users who attempted to organise riots in their UK home towns during August have lost their appeals against four-year jail terms, which were imposed even though no-one actually showed up, in the real world, for the events. The Lord Chief Justice has said the severe sentences are intended to provide "both punishment and deterrence". Prime Minister David Cameron considered asking for powers to shut down social media during any similar events."
Businesses

Submission + - UBS: Our risk systems did detect $2bn rogue trader (computerworlduk.com)

Submitted by DMandPenfold
DMandPenfold writes: UBS has insisted its IT systems did detect unusual and unauthorised trading activity, before rogue trader Kweku Adoboli ran up a $2 billion (£1.3 billion) loss on the bank’s derivatives desk.

Interim chief executive Sergio Ermotti, who is running the company following Oswald Grubel’s resignation last month, sent a memo to employees saying the bank is aware that its systems did detect the rogue activity.

In the memo, Ermotti wrote: “Our internal investigation indicates that risk and operational systems did detect unauthorised or unexplained activity but this was not sufficiently investigated nor was appropriate action taken to ensure existing controls were enforced.”

He added: “We have to be straight with ourselves. In no circumstances should something like this ever occur. The fact that it did is evidence of a failure to exercise appropriate controls.”

The news comes as the heads of UBS’ global equities business, Francois Gouws and Yassine Bouhara, also resigned.

Submission + - 2nd man charged for fake records at TVA nuke plant (forbes.com) 1

Submitted by Osgeld
Osgeld writes: CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — A second contractor employee at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Watts Bar Nuclear Plant has been charged with falsifying electrical cable inspection records and TVA said in a statement Tuesday that the discovery shows its safeguards are working as designed.

Submission + - Slideshare ditches Flash, rebuilds site in HTML5 (gigaom.com)

Submitted by Frankie70
Frankie70 writes: Slideshare has ditched Adobe Flash technology entirely, and rebuilt its website using the HTML5 markup language. This means that SlideShare is now viewable on every kind of mobile device, from iPads to iPhones to Android devices and beyond.

Slashdot Top Deals

Understanding is always the understanding of a smaller problem in relation to a bigger problem. -- P.D. Ouspensky

Close