eatfrog - Slashdot User

Submission + - Internet-based political party opens doors (nytimes.com)

Submitted by AlamedaStone on Sunday July 24, 2011 @06:15AM

AlamedaStone writes: New York Times Op-Ed Columnist Thomas L. Friedman writes (edited for brevity):

"If [...] idiocy by elected officials [...] leaves you wishing that we had more options today [...] not only are you not alone, but help may be on the way.

Thanks to a quiet political start-up that is now ready to show its hand, a viable, centrist, third presidential ticket, elected by an Internet convention, is going to emerge in 2012. "

Currently it looks like more liberal-inclined individuals are registering, but it would make for a healthier system if more viewpoints were represented.

Submission + - OS X 10.7.2 beta seeded to developers (winbeta.org)

Submitted by

BogenDorpher

on Sunday July 24, 2011 @04:44AM

BogenDorpher writes: "OS X Lion 10.7.2 has been seeded to developers just three days after Lion's public release. Oddly, there has been no developer seed of 10.7.1, which probably means 10.7.1 will be a bug-fix update coming within the next week or two."

Submission + - Uh oh! Android password data stored in plain text. (thehackernews.com)

Submitted by

jampola

on Sunday July 24, 2011 @04:42AM

jampola writes: "So The Hacker News is reporting that Android password data is being stored as plain text in it's SQlite database. The Hackers news says that "The password for email accounts is stored into the SQLite DB which in turn stores it on the phone's file system in plain text.Encrypting or at least transforming the password would be desirable." — I'm sure most would agree encrypted password data in at least SHA or MD5 would be kind of a good idea!"

Submission + - Are YOU at the IETF 81 Meeting? Why not? 2

Submitted by Desmoden on Sunday July 24, 2011 @04:06AM

Desmoden writes: Or go to NANOG, or participate in IEEE? Any other standards group? While at the IETF this year I'm bothered by the number of professionals standards folk, and not enough users. These group are for users, but you are all under represented.

So if you aren't here, or don't go. Would love to hear why?

Submission + - Norway Gunman Used Call of Duty As Training Simula (ngohq.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 24, 2011 @02:10AM

An anonymous reader writes: According to Breivik's dairy, he used Call of Duty: Modern Warfare as a training simulation. "I see MW2 more as a part of my training-simulation than anything else. I've still learned to love it though and especially the multiplayer part is amazing. You can more or less completely simulate actual operations."

Submission + - Fujitsu Launches Dual-Boot Phone - Symbian & W (gadgetizor.com)

Submitted by

dkd903

on Sunday July 24, 2011 @01:11AM

dkd903 writes: "Fujitsu has gone one step ahead by launching a Smartphone which is capable dual-booting between Symbian OS and Windows 7, NOT Windows Phone 7. The phone also comes with a two-year license for Microsoft Office Personal 2010."

Submission + - Skype to have its own Division at Microsoft (winbeta.org)

Submitted by

BogenDorpher

on Sunday July 24, 2011 @12:56AM

BogenDorpher writes: "Microsoft, back in May, announced a definitive agreement to acquire Skype for $8.5 billion. According to Skype's CEO Tony Bates, Microsoft's purchase of the internet voice and video giant is set to close by October, once the deal gets clearance by European regulators, and is set to have its own division at the software giant."

Submission + - Online Call to Shoot President Ruled Free Speech

Submitted by

Hugh Pickens writes

on Saturday July 23, 2011 @11:22PM

Hugh Pickens writes writes: "USA Today reports that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed the conviction of a man who threatened to shoot President Obama, saying his Internet message board comments amounted to free speech and ruled that prosecutors "failed to present sufficient evidence to establish beyond a reasonable doubt" that the man "had the subjective intent to threaten a presidential candidate." Walter Bagdasarian was found guilty two years ago of making threats against the presidential candidate in comments he posted on a Yahoo.com financial website after 1 am on Oct. 22, 2008, as Obama's impending victory in the race for the White House was becoming apparent. Bagdasarian told investigators he was drunk at the time. The observation that Obama "will have a 50 cal in the head soon" and a call to "shoot the [racist slur]" weren't violations of the law under which Bagdasarian was convicted because the statute doesn't criminalize "predictions or exhortations to others to injure or kill the president," said the majority opinion written by Judge Stephen Reinhardt. "On a practical level, it's a very thin line between Bagdasarian's free speech and the guy who doesn't just spew threats online but actually carries them out," writes journalist Paul Whitefield. "It's remarkable how inconvenient the law can be at times, isn't it?""

Submission + - Heathrow To Install Facial Recognition Scanners (itworld.com)

Submitted by

itwbennett

on Saturday July 23, 2011 @10:17PM

itwbennett writes: "Slashdot readers will recall that back in February, Heathrow airport required full body scanning for select individuals. Now we learn that the airport is installing facial recognitions scanners. The scanners will be used to capture passengers' faces before entering security checks and again before boarding. The stated goal is to prevent illigal immigration."

Submission + - Norway terrorism: Help decode encrypted document (pccts.com) 4

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 23, 2011 @08:02PM

An anonymous reader writes: It appears that the perpetrator of Friday's terrorist attack in Norway, claimed to be part of the PCCTS, or the Knights Templar. On the PCCTS home page, there is a number of creepy hidden links, including what appears to be a interactive strategic map of the USA. Google has also revealed a PDF that appears to contain an encrypted message.

The Slashdot community has helped Norwegians with decoding encrypted information before, and although the circumstances are far more gloomy this time around, I hope the crypto experts amongst you would still like to have a go at it. Who knows — maybe it might even help prevent further loss of lives.

Submission + - Google+ Suspending User Accounts Enmass? (zdnet.com)

Submitted by

ideonexus

on Saturday July 23, 2011 @07:47PM

ideonexus writes: "Reports of Google+ deleting user accounts all over, including Limor Fried — AKA Lady Ada / Adafruit Industries recently featured in Wired Magazine and former Google employee Kirrily “Skud” Robert for violating Google's identity ToS. Other users are finding themselves locked out of their accounts without an explanation of how they violated the ToS. The worst part for these individuals is that a lock-out of Google+ includes being locked out of all Google services, including email, calendar, and documents."

Submission + - 'The Code Has Already Been Written'

Submitted by theodp on Saturday July 23, 2011 @07:14PM

theodp writes: John D. Cook points out there's a major divide between the way scientists and programmers view the software they write. Scientists see their software as a kind of exoskeleton, an extension of themselves. Programmers, on the other hand, see their software as something they will hand over to someone else, more like building a robot. To a scientist, the software soup's done when they get what they want out of it, while professional programmers give more thought to reproducibility, maintainability, and correctness. So what happens when the twain meet? 'The real tension,' says Cook, 'comes when a piece of research software is suddenly expected to be ready for production. The scientist will say 'the code has already been written' and can't imagine it would take much work, if any, to prepare the software for its new responsibilities. They don't understand how hard it is for an engineer to turn an exoskeleton into a self-sufficient robot.'

Submission + - Victory for evolution in Texas (ncse.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 23, 2011 @06:55PM

An anonymous reader writes: Pop the champagne corks. The Texas Board of Education has unanimously come down on the side of evolution. In an 8-0 vote, the board today approved scientifically accurate high school biology textbook supplements from established mainstream publishers--and did not approve the creationist-backed supplements from International Databases, LLC.

Submission + - Personal DNA Sequencing Machine One Step Closer

Submitted by oxide7 on Saturday July 23, 2011 @04:33PM

oxide7 writes: A new, low cost semiconductor-based gene sequencing machine has been developed and may unlock the door to advanced medicines and life itself. A team led by Jonathan Rothberg of Ion Torrent in Guilford, Conn is working on a system which uses semiconductors to decode DNA, dramatically reducing costs and taking them closer to being able to reach the goal of a $1000 human genome test. The current optical based system costs around $49000 and is already on the market and being used in over 40 countries.

Submission + - Undersea Cables Damaged by Earthquake (gigaom.com)

Submitted by

ColoradoAuthor

on Wednesday March 16, 2011 @10:04AM

ColoradoAuthor writes: "The horrific earthquake and the ensuing tsunami in Japan have caused widespread damage to undersea communications, according to data collected by telecom industry sources. Initially, it was thought that the damage to the cables that connect Japan and Asia to each other and other parts of the world was limited, but new data shows the extent of the problems."

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