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Submission + - Demand for Linux Skills Rising This Year (dice.com) 2

Submitted by Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster writes: This year is shaping up as a really good one for Linux, at least on the jobs front. According to a new report (PDF) from The Linux Foundation and Dice, nearly all surveyed hiring managers want to recruit Linux professionals within the next six months, with 44 percent of them indicating they’re more likely to hire a candidate with Linux certification over one who does not. Forty-two percent of hiring managers say that experience in OpenStack and CloudStack will have a major impact on their hiring decisions, while 23 percent report security is a sought-after area of expertise and 19 percent are looking for Linux-skilled people with Software-Defined Networking skills. Ninety-seven percent of hiring managers report they will bring on Linux talent relative to other skills areas in the next six months.

Submission + - Microsoft Convinced That Windows 10 Will Be Its Smartphone Breakthrough (itworld.com) 1

Submitted by jfruh
jfruh writes: At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, handset manufacturers are making all the right noises about support for Windows 10, which will run on both ARM- and Intel-based phones and provide an experience very much like the desktop. But much of the same buzz surrounded Windows 8 and Windows 7 Phone. In fact, Microsoft has tried and repeatedly failed to take the mobile space by storm.

Submission + - New Zealand spied on nearly two dozen Pacific countries (zdnet.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: New documents from Edward Snowden indicate New Zealand undertook "full take" interception of communications from Pacific nations and forwarded the data to the NSA.

The data, collected by New Zealand's Government Communications Security Bureau, was then fed into the NSA's XKeyscore search engine to allow analysts to trawl for intelligence.

The New Zealand link helped flesh out the NSA's ambitions to intercept communications globally.

Submission + - 'The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress' Coming to the Big Screen 2

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: Hollywood Reporter reports that Twentieth Century Fox recently picked up the movie rights to "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress," based on the classic sci-fi book by Robert A. Heinlein and will retitled the movie as 'Uprising'. Heinlein's 1966 sci-fi novel centers on a lunar colony's revolt against rule from Earth and the book popularized the acronym TANSTAAFL (There ain't no such thing as a free lunch), a central, libertarian theme. The novel was nominated for the 1966 Nebula award (honoring the best sci-fi and fantasy work in the U.S.) and won the Hugo Award for best science fiction novel in 1967. An adaptation has been attempted twice before — by DreamWorks, which had a script by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, and by Phoenix Pictures, with Harry Potter producer David Heyman attached — but both languished and the rights reverted to Heinlein's estate. Brian Singer, who previously directed X-Men: Days of Future Past, will adopt the screenplay and reportedly direct. Several of Heinlein's novels have been adapted for the big and small screen, including the 1953 film Project Moonbase, the 1994 TV miniseries Red Planet, the 1994 film The Puppet Masters, and — very loosely — the 1997 film Starship Troopers.

Submission + - US Air Traffic Control System Is Riddled With Vulnerabilities

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A recently released report (PDF) by the US Government Accountability Office has revealed that despite some improvements, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) still needs to quash significant security control weaknesses that threaten the agency’s ability to ensure the safe and uninterrupted operation of the national airspace system (NAS). The report found that while the "FAA established policies and procedures for controlling access to NAS systems and for configuring its systems securely, and it implemented firewalls and other boundary protection controls to protect the operational NAS environment [...] a significant number of weaknesses remain in the technical controls—including access controls, change controls, and patch management—that protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of its air traffic control systems."

Submission + - One Year Later, We're No Closer To Finding MtGox's Missing Millions (itworld.com)

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: When Mt. Gox collapsed on Feb. 28, 2014, with liabilities of some ¥6.5 billion ($63.6 million), it said it was unable to account for some 850,000 bitcoins. Some 200,000 coins turned up in an old-format bitcoin wallet last March, bringing the tally of missing bitcoins to 650,000 (now worth about $180 million). In January, Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper, citing sources close to a Tokyo police probe of the MtGox collapse, reported that only 7,000 of the coins appear to have been taken by hackers, with the remainder stolen through a series of fraudulent transactions. But there’s still no explanation of what happened to them, and no clear record of what happened on the exchange.

Submission + - The Mexican Drug Cartels' IT Guy (vice.com)

Submitted by sarahnaomi
sarahnaomi writes: It could have been any other morning. Felipe del Jesús Peréz García got dressed, said goodbye to his wife and kids, and drove off to work. It would be a two hour commute from their home in Monterrey, in Northeastern Mexico’s Nuevo León state, to Reynosa, in neighboring Tamaulipas state, where Felipe, an architect, would scout possible installation sites for cell phone towers for a telecommunications company before returning that evening.

That was the last time anyone saw him.

What happened to Felipe García? One theory suggests he was abducted by a sophisticated organized crime syndicate, and then forced into a hacker brigade that builds and services the cartel’s hidden, backcountry communications infrastructure. They’re the Geek Squads to some of the biggest mafia-style organizations in the world.

Submission + - Ubisoft's newest video game requires a prescription (www.cbc.ca)

Submitted by wired_parrot
wired_parrot writes: Ubisoft, in partnership with McGill university, has developed a game designed to treat lazy eye. The game works as a treatment by training both eyes using different levels of contrast of red and blue that the patient sees through stereoscopic glasses. It is hopeful that the new treatment will bring a more effective way of addressing a condition that affects 1-5% of the population.

Submission + - Mars Curiosity experiences short circuit; rover to be stationary for days (techienews.co.uk) 1

Submitted by hypnosec
hypnosec writes: NASA has revealed that its Mars Curiosity rover has experienced a transient short circuit and has a result the rover has halted all work temporarily while its engineers analyse the situation. NASA reveled that from the telemetry data it received from Curiosity indicated a transient short circuit following which vehicle followed its programmed response, stopping the arm activity underway at the time of the irregularity in the electric current. NASA has parked Curiosity as its engineers analyse the issues and figure out if any damage has been done. NASA did say that transient short circuit would have little effect on rover's operations in some systems, but it could force the team to restrict use of rover's mechanism.

Submission + - Linux 4,0 Getting No-Reboot Patching (zdnet.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: ZDNet reports that the latest changes to the Linux kernel include the ability to apply patches without requiring a reboot. From the article: "So, Red Hat and SUSE both started working on their own purely open-source means of giving Linux the ability to keep running even while critical patches were being installed. Red Hat's program was named kpatch, while SUSE' is named kGraft. ... At the Linux Plumbers Conference in October 2014, the two groups got together and started work on a way to patch Linux without rebooting that combines the best of both programs. Essentially, what they ended up doing was putting both kpatch and kGraft in the 4.0 Linux kernel." Note: "Simply having the code in there is just the start. Your Linux distribution will have to support it with patches that can make use of it."

Submission + - Technology's Legacy: The 'Loser Edit' Awaits Us All (nytimes.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The NY Times Magazine has an insightful article putting into words how I've felt about information-age culture for a while now. It's about a phenomenon dubbed the "loser edit." The term itself was borne out of reality TV — once an outcome had been decided, the show's producers would comb back through the footage and selectively paste together everything that seemed to foreshadow the loser's fall.

But as the information age has overtaken us, this is something that can happen to anyone. Any time a celebrity gets into trouble, we can immediately search through two decades of interviews and offhand comments to see if there were hints of their impending fall. It usually becomes a self-reinforcing chain of evidence. The loser edit happens for non-celebrities too, using their social media posts, public records, leaked private records, and anything else available through search.

The worst part is, there's no central place to blame. The news media does it, the entertainment industry does it, and we do it to ourselves. Any time the internet gets outraged about something, there are a few people who happily dig up everything they can about the person they now feel justified in hating — and thus, the loser edit begins.

Submission + - AMD Enters Virtual Reality Fray With LiquidVR SDK At GDC (hothardware.com) 1

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: AMD is jumping into the virtual reality arena and announced today that its new LiquidVR SDK will help developers customize VR content for AMD hardware. The upcoming LiquidVR SDK makes a number of technologies available which help address obstacles in content, comfort and compatibility that together take the industry a major step closer to true, life-like presence across all VR games, applications, and experiences," AMD representatives said in a statement. Oculus is one of the VR companies that will be working with AMD's LiquidVR SDK and it seems to like what it's seen so far. "Achieving presence in a virtual world continues to be one of the most important elements to delivering amazing VR," said Brendan Iribe, CEO of Oculus. "We're excited to have AMD working with us on their part of the latency equation, introducing support for new features like asynchronous timewarp and late latching, and compatibility improvements that ensure that Oculus' users have a great experience on AMD hardware.

Submission + - White House issues veto threat as House prepares to vote on EPA 'secret science' (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: The U.S. House of Representatives could vote as early as this week to approve two controversial, Republican-backed bills that would change how the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) uses science and scientific advice to inform its policies. Many Democrats, scientific organizations, and environmental groups are pushing back, calling the bills thinly veiled attempts to weaken future regulations and favor industry. White House advisors today announced that they will recommend that President Barack Obama veto the bills if they reach his desk in their current form.

Submission + - Rosetta snaps a picture of its own shadow on the comet below (cnet.com)

Submitted by mpicpp
mpicpp writes: The ESA released an image Tuesday of the comet-orbiting Rosetta leaving a fleeting mark on the comet: its shadow. The space agency describes it as being "encircled in a wreath of light." It was a rare confluence of circumstances that enabled the image to exist as the sun, spacecraft and comet all came into alignment.

The shadow is diffuse, rather than sharp. The ESA explains this by noting, "If you were standing on the surface with Rosetta high above you, there would be no place in the shadow where the entire Sun would be blocked from view, which explains why there is no fully dark core to the shadow."

The image was taken during a close flyby of the comet on February 14, but the ESA just now brought it to the public's attention. Rosetta — which was launched back in 2004 and sent on a mission to approach and study Comet 67P — was at a distance of about 3.7 miles from the comet's surface at the time.

What's so intriguing about the shadow image is that it's something familiar happening in an alien place, 317 million miles away. We're all used to seeing our shadows here on Earth. Rosetta casting a shadow on a comet puts its epic space adventure into a more human perspective.

Submission + - Former MLB Pitcher Doxes Internet Trolls, Delivers Real-World Consequences

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: When Twitter trolls began posting obscene, sexually explicit comments about his teenage daughter, former MLB pitcher Curt Schilling responded by recording their comments and gathering personal information readily available to the public. He then doxxed two of them on his blog, resulting in one being suspended from his community college and the other being fired from his part-time job as a ticket seller for the New York Yankees. There were seven others in Curt's crosshairs, all college athletes, but although he hasn't publicly doxxed those individuals he hints, 'I found it rather funny at how quickly tone changed when I heard via email from a few athletes who’d been suspended by their coaches. Gone was the tough guy tweeter, replaced by the "I’m so sorry apology used by those only sorry because they got caught.'

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