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Science

Submission + - Neanderthal DNA found in most humans

Torino10 writes: A recent article in the magazine Science( http://www.sciencemag.org/special/neandertal/ ) and written about on the Ars Technica website http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/05/neanderthal-genome-draft-done-indicates-interbreeding-occurred.ars states that the majority of humans found outside of Africa have between 1-4% neandertal DNA. Earlier comparisons of mitochondrial DNA did not show a link.
Privacy

Lower Merion School's Report Says IT Dept. Did It, But Didn't Inhale 232

PSandusky writes "A report issued by the Lower Merion School District's chosen law firm blames the district's IT department for the laptop webcam spying scandal. In particular, the report mentions lax IT policies and record-keeping as major problems that enabled the spying. Despite thousands of e-mails and images to the contrary, the report also maintains that no proof exists that anyone in IT viewed images captured by the webcams."
Security

Security Firm Reveals Microsoft's "Silent" Patches 84

CWmike writes "Microsoft silently patched three vulnerabilities last month, two of them affecting enterprise mission-critical Exchange mail servers, without calling out the bugs in the accompanying advisories, a security expert said on Thursday. Two of the three unannounced vulnerabilities, and the most serious of the trio, were packaged with MS10-024, an update to Exchange and Windows SMTP Service that Microsoft issued April 13 and tagged as 'important,' its second-highest threat ranking. Ivan Arce, CTO of Core Security Technologies, said Microsoft patched the bugs, but failed to disclose that it had done so — which could pose a problem. 'They're more important than the [two vulnerabilities] that Microsoft did disclose,' said Arce. 'That means [system] administrators may end up making the wrong decisions about applying the update. They need that information to assess the risk.'"
The Internet

Submission + - Bell Novatel MiFi 2372 Massive Recall (mobilesyrup.com)

sicapo writes: MobileSyrup has a story about Bell recalling Novatel Mifi 2372 Access Point because "battery may swell...” They've discontinued the service on all devices and offer their USB Turbo Key as a replacement. Except that poeple who choose the MiFi because they have no USB port (ex:IPOD) or want access for simultaneous users (my case) are screwed...
Apple

Submission + - Android Tablet Guns For iPad With Flash (thinq.co.uk)

Stoobalou writes: Adobe has been showing off a prototype of a tablet device running the Android OS and Flash.

The war of words between Apple and Adobe refuses to go away with Adobe CTO now accusing Steve Jobs of acting like Big Brother (the distopian dictator from George Orwell's classic novel 1984, not the pathetically voyeuristic TV showcase for egomaniacal, exhibitionist nutjobs).

Piracy

Estimating Game Piracy More Accurately 459

An anonymous reader tips a post up at the Wolfire blog that attempts to pin down a reasonable figure for the amount of sales a game company loses due to piracy. We've commonly heard claims of piracy rates as high as 80-90%, but that clearly doesn't translate directly into lost sales. The article explains a better metric: going on a per-pirate basis rather than a per-download basis. Quoting: "iPhone game developers have also found that around 80% of their users are running pirated copies of their game (using jailbroken phones). This immediately struck me as odd — I suspected that most iPhone users had never even heard of 'jailbreaking.' I did a bit more research and found that my intuition was correct — only 5% of iPhones in the US are jailbroken. World-wide, the jailbreak statistics are highest in poor countries — but, unsurprisingly, iPhones are also much less common there. The highest estimate I've seen is that 10% of worldwide iPhones are jailbroken. Given that there are so few jailbroken phones, how can we explain that 80% of game copies are pirated? The answer is simple — the average pirate downloads a lot more games than the average customer buys. This means that even though games see that 80% of their copies are pirated, only 10% of their potential customers are pirates, which means they are losing at most 10% of their sales."
Apple

Submission + - iPad with 3G is Here Early (apple.com)

jamesyouwish writes: Well looks like Jobs did it again and the iPad with 3G is here early. Can't wait for AT&Ts networks to get even slower!

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