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United States

Submission + - GOP opposes net neutrality, internet piracy (patexia.com)

Submitted by
ericjones12398
ericjones12398 writes: "While GOP candidates won't stop publicly disavowing it, all eyes are on the Republican platform. The convention, which closed Thursday, inserted a number of controversial planks regarding abortion, English-only laws and a committee to examine the possibility of returning to the gold standard. Receiving considerably less attention was the downright Orwellian naming of the "Internet freedom plank," which opposes net neutrality."

Comment Re:$313? (Score 1) 1264

by camionbleu (#41161163) Attached to: US Doctors Back Circumcision

Yes, indeed. I wish I still had some mod points for your post. Having recently seen what my ER invoice would have been if I had not had insurance, I entirely understand what you are saying. Although my health insurance did not cover most of the visit, it reduced the bill by a factor of five, merely by contractually obliging the hospital not to charge their hand-waving rates. Anyone without insurance would have been well and truly drained by the healthcare vampires.

However, the visit was NOT for an emergency circumcision, and I heartily encourage parents of male babies to leave their sons uncut.
Science

Submission + - Inflammatory response linked to autism. (nytimes.com)

Submitted by infodragon
infodragon writes: A few interesting quotes

"At least a subset of autism — perhaps one-third, and very likely more — looks like a type of inflammatory disease."

"These findings are important for many reasons, but perhaps the most noteworthy is that they provide evidence of an abnormal, continuing biological process. That means that there is finally a therapeutic target for a disorder defined by behavioral criteria like social impairments, difficulty communicating and repetitive behaviors. "

"One large Danish study, which included nearly 700,000 births over a decade, found that a mother’s rheumatoid arthritis, a degenerative disease of the joints, elevated a child’s risk of autism by 80 percent. Her celiac disease, an inflammatory disease prompted by proteins in wheat and other grains, increased it 350 percent. Genetic studies tell a similar tale. Gene variants associated with autoimmune disease — genes of the immune system — also increase the risk of autism, especially when they occur in the mother. "
Open Source

Submission + - Diaspora slowly becoming a community-run project, but is it too late? (opensource.com)

Submitted by caseyb89
caseyb89 writes: Last week, the Diaspora team opened its Pivotal Tracker for community developer participation, and redesigned their home page to better reflect the community. They also disposed of their invite-only memberships. Diaspora faced criticism from the beginning for calling itself an open source project without being fully open. Their slow progress to openness continues with the announcement of turning Diaspora over to the community, which they said would be a gradual shift. Either you're open, or you aren't. Diaspora is somewhere in the middle.

Submission + - Lexmark to exit inkjet printer market (pcpro.co.uk)

Submitted by Barence
Barence writes: Lexmark has announced it will stop making inkjet printers and cut 1,700 jobs as part of a cost-cutting restructuring move. Lexmark will stop all inkjet development worldwide by 2013, and close its Philippines-based inkjet supplies manufacturing plant by 2015. This will provide annual savings of $85 million, rising to $95 million by 2015. The total restructuring cost before tax is expected to be $160 million. The company is also looking into the possible sale of its inkjet-related technology.
Microsoft

Submission + - Windows 8 Secure Boot May turn tables on Microsoft Says Developer (paritynews.com)

Submitted by hypnosec
hypnosec writes: A Red Hat developer, Matthew Garrett, has claimed that there are ways to modify Microsoft’s cryptographic keys and users can replace the keys that are shipped by default with their own keys allowing them to run any software and as a matter of fact keep Microsoft’s software from running on the system. The whole problem around secure boot is that Windows 8 requires Microsoft as its root of trust meaning that only that code or application or software can be executed onto a Windows 8 system which is signed by Microsoft. The developer has found a way of getting rid of all the keys supplied by Microsoft and in a way turning tables on Microsoft. This particular finding is a results of Windows 8 certification requirement itself "insists that the key databases be completely modifiable." This gives users the power to delete the cryptographic keys supplied by the manufacturer and even those of Microsoft. This deletion would render the system in what is called a "Setup Mode" whereby it will boot just about anything – even something without a valid signature.

Submission + - New Zealand patent legislation rewritten after Microsoft meeting (legislation.govt.nz) 1

Submitted by
ciaran_o_riordan
ciaran_o_riordan writes: "After two private meetings with Microsoft and IBM, New Zealand's proposed new patent legislation has been changed by "replacing an exclusion in clause 15(3A) (which relates to computer programs) with new clause 10A. Rather than excluding a computer program from being a patentable invention, new clause 10A clarifies that a computer program is not an invention for the purposes of the
Bill". This is the same Patents Bill launched in 2009."
Electronic Frontier Foundation

Submission + - 2012 EFF Pioneer Award Winners Names Revealed (eff.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In 2012, EFF Pioneer Award winners are Hardware Hacker Andrew (bunnie) Huang , Anti-ACTA Activist and La Quadrature du Net cofounder Jérémie Zimmermann, and Groundbreaking Anonymity Group Tor "Every year, our Pioneer Awards celebrate those who have made a difference for digital freedom. We are extraordinarily proud of this year's winners and their unflagging dedication to protecting the rights of technology users around the world," said EFF Executive Director Shari Steele. "Whether it's your right to reverse engineer a game console, or to avoid the interference of overbroad IP enforcement, or to block websites or governments from tracking your every online move, these winners are working hard to protect our online freedom." 21st edition of the annual EFF Pioneer Awards ceremony will take place September 20 in San Francisco.
Virtualization

Submission + - VMware Abandons VRAM-based Pricing Model (paritynews.com)

Submitted by hypnosec
hypnosec writes: VMware has announced a new pricing structure abandoning the VRAM based pricing model completely thus giving its customers the much needed relief. About a year ago, VMware came up with a pricing scheme under which it started charging customers based on the virtual infrastructure instead of physical infrastructure. The virtualization leader asked its customer to pay based on the VRAM thus, in a way, penalizing them for deploying more virtual machines on comparatively less physical servers. Today, VMware’s CEO Pat Gelsinger announced at VMworld conference that they are going to do away with the VRAM-based pricing model. “Today I am happy to say we are striking this word from the vocabulary,” he said. Pricing hasn't been announced yet but a file [PDF] present on VMware's site does give an indication about the new pricing.

Submission + - How Apple killed the Linux desktop (wired.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Klint Finley discusses Miguel de Icaza's idea of how OSX killed Linux on the desktop due to splintered GUI programs on Linux, including the lack of backward compatibility. It also relates the lack of graphical toolkits available on Linux causing developers to use OSX as a desktop for server programming and because "development was shifting to the web"

Article also on cnn.com http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/27/tech/web/apple-linux-desktop/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

Submission + - UK license-plate cameras have "gaps in coverage" (guardian.co.uk)

Submitted by Aguazul2
Aguazul2 writes: UK police are sad that despite having the most comprehensive driver surveillance system of any developed country, there are still gaps in their coverage. From the article: The cameras automatically record plate/time/location information and send it to a central data store, which has complete nationwide records for 6 years. Also interesting is that a unspecified "particular driving style" can be used to evade detection by the cameras. It appears, however, that criminals are well aware of the cameras and take other routes. Big Brother technology, coming soon to a country near you!

Comment Re:Cheerleading for Kraft (Score 1) 559

by camionbleu (#41064841) Attached to: California Wants Genetically Modified Foods To Be Labelled

California is not asking for the label to show the exact gene sequence (which would be directly analogous to the recipe or source code examples you refer to). California Proposition 37 would mandate a label indicating the presence of GM ingredients. To borrow your analogies, it would be like stating that your car has an engine computer (but not revealing the code) or indicating the sugar content of your can of Coke.

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