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Comment Re: Read between the lines (Score 1) 303

by xkpe (#46456325) Attached to: Google Chairman on WhatsApp: $19 Bn For 50 People? Good For Them!

Lower wages - always good for business

That's not true if your economy relies on consumption, just look at what happen to some European countries when they decided to cut on salaries and benefits to overcome crisis, people had less money to spend, they were already in-debt to the limit, that led to a decrease in consumption resulting in a big percentage of companies closing down and a cyclic recession.

Submission + - UK MP denies ISP filters are overblocking sites -- even when they are (pcpro.co.uk) 1

Submitted by nk497
nk497 writes: Reports that new parental controls from ISPs are blocking legitimate sites are "fanciful", according to the government's child safety advisor, Claire Perry — the MP who pushed for the filters to be put into place. She dismissed recent reports that the newly implemented filters were blocking harmless sites — including her own — as "anecdotal evidence". "When these filters came out there was anecdotal evidence — some of it completely, completely fanciful — that sites were being overblocked. Including mine, which is ridiculous, because it wasn't," she said,

Contrary to her comments, UK ISPs have faced continued criticism for blocking harmless sites — including child safety websites, suicide prevention charity the Samaritans, news site TorrentFreak, and even the jQuery website.

Submission + - Major Breakthrough in Stem Cell Research ! (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: Scientists in Japan have created embryonic-like stem cells by simply bathing ordinary skin or blood cells in a weak acid solution for half an hour in an astonishing breakthrough that could allow doctors in the future to repair diseased tissue with a patient’s own cells.

The human body is built of cells with a specific role — nerve cells, liver cells, muscle cells — and that role is fixed.

However, stem cells can become any other type of cell, and they have become a major field of research in medicine for their potential to regenerate the body.

The scientists believe that the acidity of the solution created a "shock" that caused the blood cells of adult mice to revert to their original, embryonic-like state. From this pluripotent state, the newly created stem cells were cultured in specially prepared solutions of growth factors to develop into fully mature cells, including an entire foetus.

Although the research was carried out on laboratory mice, scientists believe that the same approach should also work on human cells. It radically changes the way “pluripotent” stem cells – which can develop into any of the specialised tissues of the body – can be created from a patient’s own cells as part of a “self-repair” kit.

Submission + - best x86 tablet for a white hack

Submitted by Gregory oakley-stevenson
Gregory oakley-stevenson writes: Im looking for a x86 tablet prefable working with kali and ubuntu.
Keep getting stuck with secure boot and 32 bit uefi, any one with a good tablet?

Submission + - Java-Based DDoS Bot Hits Windows, Mac, Linux Computers (threatpost.com)

Submitted by msm1267
msm1267 writes: A malicious Java application that infects Windows, Mac and Linux machines for the purpose of building a DDoS botnet has been discovered. The botnet communicates over IRC and can carry out distributed denial of service attacks using either HTTP or UDP flood attacks. Researchers said today that the malicious Java application exploits a patched Java vulnerability,

Submission + - EU seeking to block legal content

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: According to Big Brother Watch the EU's anti terror chief is seeking to block "undesirable" legal websites (emphasis added):

"Setting out the action being taken by the EU he [Gilles de Kerchove] said: 'The Commissioner for Home Affairs will set up a forum to discuss with the big players – Google, Facebook, Twitter – how we can improve the way one removes from the internet the illegal and if not illegal, undesirable websites.'"

Undesirable, apparently, meaning whatever the authorities want it to at any given time. Remember guys, crimethink hurts us all!

Submission + - Fair play and fixing: The growing pains of eSports (redbull.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Over the last few years, eSports has exploded in popularity — but it's also been dogged by scandal, from match fixing to allegations of pot splitting and cheating. A new feature takes a look at some of the worst examples and how they've affected the growing sport. But in speaking to leading experts and casters, the author comes to an interesting conclusion — does this simply mean that the industry has come of age? After all, it's not like major league sports don't have their scandals:

"Perhaps the handful of eSports scandals we've seen in the last few years put this right up there with the baseball and football: after all, there wouldn't be a temptation if the tournaments weren’t becoming serious business."

Submission + - Online courses blocked in countries like Cuba, Iran, Syria and Sudan (insidehighered.com)

Submitted by HSkirts
HSkirts writes: A prominent US provider of free, online top university courses – and one that prides itself on taking knowledge to the third world – has now blocked students from Syria, Iran and a few other countries on the grounds that they are under US sanctions.

Federal regulations prohibit U.S. businesses from offering services to countries subject to economic sanctions — a list that includes Cuba, Iran, Syria and Sudan — but as recently as this month, students in those countries were still able to access Coursera’s MOOCs. When a student last week attempted to log in from a Syrian IP address, the website produced an error message:
“Our system indicates that you are attempting to access the Coursera site from an IP address associated with a country currently subject to U.S. economic and trade sanctions. In order for Coursera to comply with U.S. export controls, we cannot allow you access to the site.”

Submission + - US bans students from "blacklisted" countries from getting access to COURSERA

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Coursera is an online website that offers free courses from many of the world’s top universities. Now, all students from Syria, Sudan, Iran and Cuba will no longer be able to access Coursera. The official blog provides more info regarding the ban. From the blog post — United States export control regulations prohibit U.S. businesses, such as MOOC providers like Coursera, from offering services to users in sanctioned countries, including Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria. Under the law, certain aspects of Coursera’s course offerings are considered services and are therefore subject to restrictions in sanctioned countries, with the exception of Syria.

Submission + - UK Government Plans Switch to Open Source (theguardian.com)

Submitted by Karashur
Karashur writes: Ministers are looking at saving tens of millions of pounds a year by abandoning expensive software produced by firms such as Microsoft. Some £200m has been spent by the public sector on the computer giant's Office suite alone since 2010.

The Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude believes a significant proportion of that outlay could be cut by switching to free "open-source" software, such as OpenOffice, or Google Docs.

Submission + - Angry Birds Website Defaced by "Anti-NSA" Hacker (ibtimes.co.uk)

Submitted by DavidGilbert99
DavidGilbert99 writes: Rovio has confirmed to IBTimes UK that its website was hacked for a brief time by someone who didn't like the revelations earlier this week that the NSA and GCHQ are piggybacking on apps like the popular smartphone game to spy on users. The identity of the hacker is unknown beyond the fact he is a "friend" of the Syrian Electronic Army. Rovio has denied it collaborates with any spy agency and is going to re-evaluate its partnership with the ad agencies accused of leaking the data.

Submission + - Human Beings May Not Be Cut Out for Space

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: The human body did not evolve to live in space and the longest any human has been off Earth is 437 days. Some problems, like the brittling of bone, may have been overcome already. Others have been identified — for example, astronauts have trouble eating and sleeping enough — and NASA is working to understand and solve them. But Kenneth Chang reports in the NYT that there are some health problems that still elude doctors more than 50 years after the first spaceflight. The biggest hurdle remains radiation. Without the protective cocoon of Earth’s magnetic field and atmosphere, astronauts receive substantially higher doses of radiation, heightening the chances that they will die of cancer. Another problem identified just five years ago is that the eyeballs of at least some astronauts became somewhat squashed. “It is now a recognized occupational hazard of spaceflight,” says Dr. Barratt. “We uncovered something that has been right under our noses forever.” NASA officials often talk about the “unknown unknowns”, the unforeseen problems that catch them by surprise. The eye issue caught them by surprise, and they are happy it did not happen in the middle of a mission to Mars. Another problem is the lack of gravity jumbles the body’s neurovestibular system (PDF) that tells people which way is up. When returning to the pull of gravity, astronauts can become dizzy, something that Mark Kelly took note of as he piloted the space shuttle to a landing. “If you tilt your head a little left or right, it feels like you’re going end over end.” Beyond the body, there is also the mind. The first six months of Scott Kelly’s one-year mission are expected to be no different from his first trip to the space station. Dr. Gary E. Beven, a NASA psychiatrist, says he is interested in whether anything changes in the next six months. “We’re going to be looking for any significant changes in mood, in sleep, in irritability, in cognition." In a Russian experiment in 2010 and 2011, six men agreed to be sealed up in a mock spaceship simulating a 17-month Mars mission. Four of the six developed disorders, and the crew became less active as the experiment progressed. “I think that’s just an example of what could potentially happen during a Mars mission, but with much greater consequence,” says Dr. Beven. “Those subtle changes in group cohesion could cause major problems.”

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