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Sci-Fi

Submission + - Google Doodle celebrates Stanislaw Lem (geek.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Google Doodle for today celebrates the Polish author Stanislaw Lem who died in 2006 aged 86. It’s also one of Google’s most ambitious doodles, and certainly one of the longest.

The doodle is both animated and interactive, with the central character being a robot that looks a lot like Lem. The artwork was inspired by the Daniel Mroz illustrations for Lem’s work The Cyberiad.

A few spoilers/things to look out for: the doodle is actually a lot more interactive than it first seems. Robot eyes will follow your mouse cursor, you can make the bird and cat fly or run away by clicking on them, there’s a chance the bird will sit on your mouse cursor if you stay still long enough, and the “N” object that appears near the end changes every time you complete the doodle. There’s even an extra incentive for completing the doodle three times in the form of an extra finale taken from another story.

Submission + - 250k users exposed in Naijaloaded hack (scmagazine.com.au)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Almost 250,000 names, addresses and mobile numbers of users of popular Nigerian youth forum Naijaloaded have been exposed after the site was hacked.

A hacker by the name of TheMrX uploaded a shell on the website and accessed its 42mb user database.
Apple

Submission + - Has Apple made programmers cool? (cnet.co.uk) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: CNET suggests that Apple has totally changed the general public's perception of programmers: It's now suddenly cool to code. No matter what platform you're on. They argue that App Store millionaire success stories have "turned a whole generation of geek coders from social misfits into superheroes". Apparently, gone are the days when a programmer was the last person you wanted to talk to at a party: "Mention to someone that you make apps and their interest will pick up instantly. This is an astonishing change from what a programmer in the 80s could have expected in reaction to their job description". The App Store millionaires, or 'Appillionaires', may have done all of us programmers a huge favour. Programming is now socially acceptable: "Previous generations strapped on electric guitars and fought for superstardom in sweaty dive bars, but today's youth boot up Xcode on their MacBook Pros."
Games

Submission + - Galaxy Explorer, an experimental HTML5 video game (galaxy-explorer.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The latest venture from the LABS team at NYC ad agency mcgarrybowen is Galaxy Explorer, an experimental video game powered by HTML5 and CSS3 that debuted at Google Creative Sandbox in late October.

There's a hamster superhero. An evil pirate and his band of Arrrgonauts. And, yes, a galaxy made of pancakes. But levity aside, the true hero of this side-scrolling adventure is the original technology pioneered by the mcgarrybowen LABS team. Experimenting with animation and the communication between multiple browsers, they were able to create "transparent" windows with each individual element in its own browser, but with all of them responding to one another to create a cohesive experience.

Strap on your jetpack and get ready to explore the galaxy: http://galaxy-explorer.com/

Submission + - Open source CMS, DMS, CRM combo?

Submitted by
Eric Eikrem
Eric Eikrem writes: "I am responsible for IT in a Norwegian NGO. We want to improve usability and functionality of our external web pages and also improve internal processes by employing a suitable CRM-solution and a user friendly DMS. We would like an open source CMS, DMS and CRM combo; either a solution that does it all, or separate solutions that work well together, and I was wondering whether the Slashdot community could help recommend solutions that work (and help me stay away from those that don't)."
Security

Submission + - Shots Fired at White House

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "The NY Times reports that federal authorities are investigating shots that struck the White House on Friday and seeking a man believed to have fled the scene shortly after gunfire was heard in the immediate vicinity. Secret Service agents heard multiple shots fired and witnessed a car speeding away, westbound, on Constitution Avenue. The car and an AK-47 assault rifle were found, abandoned, at a corner of Constitution Avenue and 23rd Street a couple of minutes later. The shooting occurred 750 yards from the White House, just outside the outer security perimeter of the White House complex, which extends to the south edge of the Ellipse and is one of the most heavily policed parts of the country with a uniformed force of 1,400 officers at fixed positions on the White House grounds, as well as patrolling in cars and on bicycles. Evidence at the scene has authorities seeking Oscar Ramiro Ortega who has a criminal record that includes domestic violence and drug charges. Police searched the Occupy DC protest camp, on McPherson Square just blocks from the White House, after reports that Mr. Ortega might have spent time there. The most recent White House shooting incident was in 1994 when four shots were fired from a 9mm handgun at the Executive Residence from an unknown point south of the Ellipse and one round penetrated a first-floor window and landed in the State Dining Room, and another was found in a Christmas tree near the South Portico."
Space

Submission + - Life-Bearing Lake Possible on Icy Jupiter Moon (discovery.com)

Submitted by
astroengine
astroengine writes: "New research shows the jumbled ice blocks crowning the surface of Jupiter's icy moon Europa are signs of large liquid lakes below, a key finding in the search for places where life might exist beyond Earth. Drawing from studies of underground volcanoes in Iceland and Antarctica, scientists ran computer models to see if the chaotic formations on Europa's surface could be explained by the same geologic processes seen on Earth. It turns out that not only could this be further evidence for a sub-surface ocean, but also a mechanism that mixes ice and water, circulating nutrients and energy to get from the frozen surface to the ocean below."
SuSE

Submission + - openSUSE 12.1 released (opensuse.org) 1

Submitted by MasterPatricko
MasterPatricko writes: The openSUSE project is proud to present the release of openSUSE 12.1! This release represents more than eight months of work by our international community and brings you the best Free Software has to offer. Improvements include the latest GNOME 3.2 desktop as well as the newest from KDE, XFCE and LXDE; your ownCloud made easy with mirall; Snapper-shots of your file system on btrfs; and much, much more. Other notable changes include moving from sysvinit to systemd, improving the boot process, and being built on GCC 4.6.2 including link-time optimization. More packages than ever are available from the openSUSE instance of the Open Build Service, and soon you'll be able to create customised respins on SUSE Studio.
Iphone

Submission + - Syrian Protesters Roll Out New iPhone and iPad App (thedailybeast.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: I thought you’d want to check out our cool article on how protesters in Syria, dealing with a strict media blackout, have rolled out new iPhone and iPad apps to share news, stories, and even jokes.

Amid a brutal crackdown, rebels are fighting back on their iPhones. Babak Dehghanpisheh on how the Arab Spring’s newest weapon keeps the opposition informed—and the regime in check.

Submission + - HTC being trolled by porn peddlers (techcrunch.com)

Submitted by phaedrus5001
phaedrus5001 writes: From the article: "The porn peddlers at Vivid Entertainment have filed a cease and desist notice against the company for use of the “Vivid” name. According to TMZ, Vivid’s legal counsel filed the notice because they are afraid consumers will think the LTE-capable smartphone is somehow connected to Vivid’s adult video empire."
A porn-based smart phone? Siri would certainly be a lot more interesting...
Science

Submission + - High-speed movies reveal the secret behind frog's (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: On paper, a frog's leap is impossible. Research has shown that the amphibian's hop, which can launch one as far as it five times its body length, requires more power than its muscles can generate. Now a study of the northern leopard frog reveals how the frogs make their prodigious jumps despite relatively small muscles: They turn themselves into catapults.
Security

Submission + - Hacked VCU Server Exposes 176,000 Individuals (securityweek.com)

Submitted by wiredmikey
wiredmikey writes: A server at Virginia Commonwealth University, containing files with personal information on current and former VCU and VCU Health System faculty, staff, students and affiliates, was breached in October, during a two step attack.

The breached server contained data on 176,567 individuals including a name or eID, Social Security Number and, in some cases, date of birth, contact information, and various programmatic or departmental information.

The university said it would not automatically grant everyone potentially impacted by the incident identity theft protection, but said it would honor individual requests for such services.
Idle

Submission + - Mongolia wants to use artificial glaciers to cool (wired.com)

Submitted by phaedrus5001
phaedrus5001 writes: From the article: "The city of Ulan Bator will attempt to capture some of the cool winter temperatures in huge ice blocks that will slowly melt over the summer and cool down the city. The aim is to build artificial ice shields — or “naleds” — that occur naturally in far northern climates and can grow to be more than seven meters thick. They grow when river water pushes through cracks in the surface of the ice during the day and then freezes to add an extra layer of ice when night falls.

Engineering consortium EMI-ECOS will try to replicate this process by creating holes in the ice that is forming over the Tuul river. This will be repeated over and over again until the ice is much thicker than it would be if left alone."

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