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Government

Secret Service Runs At "Six Sixes" Availability 248

Posted by timothy from the only-need-half-as-many dept.
PCM2 writes "ABC News is reporting that the US Secret Service is in dire need of server upgrades. 'Currently, 42 mission-oriented applications run on a 1980s IBM mainframe with a 68 percent performance reliability rating,' says one leaked memo. That finding was the result of an NSA study commissioned by the Secret Service to evaluate the severity of their computer problems. Curiously, upgrades to the Service's computers are being championed by Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, who says he's had 'concern for a while' about the issue."
Medicine

Submission + - Man HIV Free 2 Years After Stem Cell Treatment (singularityhub.com)

Submitted by kkleiner
kkleiner writes: According to a recent report in the New England Journal of Medicine, a stem cell transplant performed in Germany has unexpectedly removed all signs of HIV from a 42 year old American patient. The unnamed white male was treated two years ago for Leukemia with a dose of donor stem cells and his HIV RNA count has dropped to zero and remained there since. While the treatment was for Leukemia, Dr. Gero Hutter and colleagues at the Charite Universitatsmedizen in Berlin had selected the stem cell donor for his HIV resistant genes. While there are still many questions unanswered, this is the first such case of stem cells treating HIV that has been reported in a NEJM-caliber publication.
Government

Leak Shows US Lead Opponent of ACTA Transparency 164

Posted by timothy from the putting-on-an-acta dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Throughout the debate over ACTA transparency, the secret copyright treaty, many countries have taken public positions that they support release of the actual text, but that other countries do not. Since full transparency requires consensus of all the ACTA partners, the text simply can't be released until everyone is in agreement. A new leak from the Netherlands fingers who the chief opponents of transparency are: the United States, South Korea, Singapore, and Denmark lead the way, with Belgium, Germany, and Portugal not far behind as problem countries."
Transportation

Porsche Unveils 911 Hybrid With Flywheel Booster 197

Posted by timothy from the yeah-well-I-get-better-mileage dept.
MikeChino writes "Porsche has just unveiled its 911 GT3 R Hybrid, a 480 horsepower track vehicle ready to rock the 24-hour Nurburgring race this May. Porsche's latest supercar will use the same 911 production platform available to consumers today, with a few race-ready features including front-wheel hybrid drive and an innovative flywheel system that stores kinetic energy from braking and then uses it to provide a 160 horsepower burst of speed. The setup is sure to offer an advantage when powering out of turns and passing by other racers."

Comment Re:It's true (Score 1) 965

by Lucid 3ntr0py (#30979646) Attached to: Apple's Trend Away From Tinkering
You buy them for that 1%...and the status. And I don't know if atrocious to drive is the right word as they generally are a drivers car (read if you don't know what you're doing, esp on an older Porsche - like a 911 Whale Tail- you are going to spin it out).
Image

Facebook Master Password Was "Chuck Norris" 319

Posted by samzenpus from the ad-nauseum-roundhouse dept.
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "A Facebook employee has given a tell-all interview with some very interesting things about Facebook's internals. Especially interesting are all the things relating to Facebook privacy. Basically, you don't have any. Nearly everything you've ever done on the site is recorded into a database. While they fire employees for snooping, more than a few have done it. There's an internal system to let them log into anyone's profile, though they have to be able to defend their reason for doing so. And they used to have a master password that could log into any Facebook profile: 'Chuck Norris.' Bruce Schneier might be jealous of that one."
Linux

Submission + - 75% of Linux code now written by paid developers (apcmag.com)

Submitted by i_want_you_to_throw_
i_want_you_to_throw_ writes: During a presentation at Linux.conf.au 2010 in Wellington, LWN.net founder and kernel contributor Jonathan Corbet offered an analysis of the code contributed to the Linux kernel between December 24 2008 and January 10 2010. The Linux world makes much of its community roots, but when it comes to developing the kernel of the operating system, it's less a case of "volunteers ahoy!" and more a case of "where's my pay?"
Google

Submission + - Google Re-enabled Chinese Censorship (google.com) 3

Submitted by hackingbear
hackingbear writes: Google has rather quietly re-enabled search result censoring, as evident in this search query for June 4 incident. The search returns censored results not quite related to the incident and the censorship foot note is displayed. The same query returned uncensored results a few hours after Google made its China announcement. (I tested it.) According to news reports from Hong Kong and oversea Chinese media (here is the Google translation,) Google are negotiating with the Chinese government which so far has not taken any real actions but just made some standard general statements on the matter. Has Google backed down? It could be just Google's negotiation tactic, but it also casts a doubt on their stance and motive.
IBM

Submission + - IBM Client for Smart Work with Ubuntu support rele (canonical.com)

Submitted by Extend
Extend writes: At Lotusphere today we announced the availability of the IBM Client for Smart Work complete with support from Canonical. It is a significant milestone both for potential end users and for the Canonical and IBM channel.

One of the gating factors to widespread adoption of Linux in the corporate desktop has been the perceived availability of the the required software stack on top of the operating system. While there have been various solutions available, either they have been too much work to assemble or self-support, or the feature set is not complete enough.

ICSW on Ubuntu offers the full set of replacement technologies for a typical Microsoft shop. Calendaring, scheduling, email and office productivity are all delivered via the Lotus product suite. There is access to Lotus Live which brings cloud-based services for those who prefer that route with minimal hardware overheads.

Lotus Live also delivers (deep breath) file sharing, document/content management, instant messaging, presence awareness, web conferencing, VoIP, IP telephony integration, application integration, mashups, blogs, wikis, community, social bookmarks, activities, profiles, portal, and dashboards/scorecards depending on the level of subscription required. Which is an impressive feature set.

Ubuntu as the operating system also bring freedom from the licensing and upgrading cycle and allow the savings to be spent in more innovative ways. Canonical will support these infrastructures for as little as $5.50 per month for a typical 1000 seat installation. Compare that to the licensing and support for a Microsoft installation.

You can get an unsupported version of ICSW from the Ubuntu site today. IBM partners who would like to adding this product to their portfolio and reselling Ubuntu support should contact us here. Canonical partners can contact their account manager.

Steve George, Canonical

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