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Apple

Submission + - Should Apple Kill the iPod? (theglobeandmail.com) 3

Submitted by mykepredko
mykepredko writes: Back in 2006, Apple was riding high on the success of its iPod. The gadget accounted for more than 50% of Apple's first-quarter revenue that year as a digital music revolution was in full swing. Now the iconic iPod is an afterthought, bringing in a mere 8% of Apple revenue – and falling fast as other gadgets take over the digital jukebox role on top of many other functions.

The article implies that the iPod is a dying part of the business — I would have liked to see revenues for the iPod from 2006 to today to see if it really is a "dying" line but the question is valid — should Apple drop the iPod and concentrate on the Mac, iPad and iPhone lines?
Facebook

Submission + - Google+: Worse Than a Ghost Town (pbs.org)

Submitted by Pigskin-Referee
Pigskin-Referee writes: When Google rolled out the beta of their "magical and revolutionary" social network (oops, sorry — that's Apple's line), I dutifully signed up like everybody else in the tech industry. I played around with it and found some features I really liked — and some that made me scratch my head and think "Why in the world can't I do that? I can do it on Facebook." I circlified my friends and acquaintances, followed a few people I knew only by reputation, thoroughly enjoyed the "instant upload" feature for smart phones despite its scary aspects, got thoroughly annoyed while trying to navigate the interface a few times, and then ... headed back to Facebook. It seems as if most others are doing the same thing; I've noticed a drop-off in posts on G+ lately (when I bother to go there). I haven't given up on it, but it's an afterthought, whereas Facebook is a part of my life. It's not that Facebook is technically better — in many ways, it's not (although Facebook as been hard at work, making improvements to give people the functionality they've found and like on G+). Ultimately, social networking is about the people, and in general, the people I care about and enjoy "hanging out" with (to borrow a G+ term) are on Facebook. I'll log onto G+ if I want to get into a technical discussion or a political argument. Many of my colleagues are there. But my friends are on Facebook.
Cloud

Submission + - Amazon CloudFront is in Brazil (cedexis.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: As of today, Connect Time and Response Time (as Cedexis defines them) have improved a whopping 15.2% and 12.8% respectively measured from real users across 9 networks in Brazil to the Amazon CloudFront. It hasn't been announced yet, but we think the Internet just got faster for Brazilian users on CloudFront. Nice work AWS!
NASA

Submission + - NASA Rolls Out Space Exploration Road Map (yahoo.com)

Submitted by
MarkWhittington
MarkWhittington writes: "NASA and the space agencies of a variety of countries, including members of the European Union, Canada, Japan, Russia, India, the Ukraine, and South Korea, have rolled out the latest version of a space exploration roadmap.

NASA and its partners have created two road maps, called "Asteroid First" and "Moon First." This represents the continuing argument over which destination astronaut explorers should go to first. Should it be an Earth approaching asteroid, as President Obama insists? Or should it be the moon, as many people in Congress, NASA, and NASA's partner agencies suggest?

In any event, all roads lead to Mars in the current plan. Both visits to an asteroid and to the moon are considered practice runs for what will be needed to go to Mars."
Patents

Submission + - Say NO to software patents (whitehouse.gov) 1

Submitted by hAckz0r
hAckz0r writes: The WhiteHouse.gov ( https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petitions ) now has an online petition to stop the USPTO from issuing any more software patents. One must register first with the petition site, wait for the confirming email, login, then locate the "Open Petitions" menu to go to the list of petitions. Scroll down to the one called "Direct the Patent Office to Cease Issuing Software Patents", and then do what you think is right. They need 3,428 petitions total to make it meaningful, and has logged 1,572 as of my entry.
Network

Submission + - Low-Latency Network Connects London And Hong Kong (eweekeurope.co.uk) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Financial traders and law firms are set to benefit from a new low-latency network between London and Hong Kong, which can conduct data on a round trip from Europe to Asia in around 176 milliseconds.

The cable network, run by UK-based trading technology company BSO Network Solutions, has been in place for some time, but previously had to route around large parts of Russia, due to difficulties laying fibre in that country.

However, a new lower latency and higher availability ‘Transit Mongolia’ connection has helped to reduce the time of a round trip by more than 20 milliseconds during the last 12 months.

The news follows an announcement from Hibernia Atlantic last week that a new transatlantic submarine communications cable will be installed on the Atlantic seabed, to connect financial traders in New York and London. The cable will initially be lit with 40Gb technology, which could be upgraded to 100Gb technology in the future.
Cellphones

Submission + - Swedish Daycare Tracks Kids With GPS Devices (inhabitots.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A daycare center in Sweden is testing a new system for that will prevent missing children by placing GPS tracking devices on kids while they are outside of the confines of the nursery walls. The transmitters will report to a synced mobile phone, alarming teachers if a child moves out of a certain distance. The tracking devices clip easily to reflective vests that the children of the Malmoe daycare wear when outside of the school.
Privacy

Submission + - VPN Service Snitched on Alleged LulzSec Member (securityweek.com) 2

Submitted by wiredmikey
wiredmikey writes: Yesterday, Cody Kretsinger, a 23-year-old from Phoenix, Arizona was arrested and charged with conspiracy and the unauthorized impairment of a protected computer.

How did the Feds track down the alleged LulzSec member? It turns out that a VPN service reportedly used to mask his online identify and location was the one who handed over data to the FBI.

According to the federal indictment, Kretsinger registered for a VPN account at HideMyAss.Com under the user name “recursion”. Following that, the indictment said that Kretsinger and other unknown conspirators conducted SQL injection attacks against Sony Pictures in attempt to extract confidential data.

“At a later date it came as no surprise to have received a court order asking for information relating to an account associated with some or all of the above cases,” they wrote in the post this morning. “As stated in our terms of service and privacy policy our service is not to be used for illegal activity, and as a legitimate company we will cooperate with law enforcement if we receive a court order (equivalent of a subpoena in the US).”

You can be sure that HideMyAss is not the only provider to be hit with subpoenas to hand over user data. It’s likely the FBI and other officials are digging deep and requesting similar information from other VPN providers and online services such as Pastebin, Twitter, and other tools and web services commonly used by hackers.
Android

Submission + - DroidSheep App Lets Users Hijack HTTPS Sessions (threatpost.com)

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: Following the success of the Firesheep application, a new Android application called DroidSheep allows users to hijack Web sessions of popular online services over insecure Wifi connections.

DroidSheep enables Android-based man in the middle attacks against a wide range of Web sites, including Facebook.com, Flickr.com, Twitter.com, Linkedin.com, and non-encrypted services like Google Maps. DroidSheep’s official website claims that the app will work on almost any website that uses cookies.
Power

Submission + - Ammonia: The Fuel Technology Of The Future? (allcartech.com)

Submitted by thecarchik
thecarchik writes: Ammonia: Useful in fertilizers, cleaning products and fairly unpleasant in direct human contact. Used as a fuel for vehicles? Certainly not impossible.

Rather than using hydrogen to power fuel cells and the associated high-pressure storage problems associated with this, we could would use water to produce hydrogen from electrolysis, and this is then combined with nitrogen from the air to produce ammonia.

The ammonia itself would then be burned in an internal combustion engine, but the burning process only releases water vapor and nitrogen, rather than the unburned hydrocarbons and other pollutants that internal combustion is normally associated with.

In theory, the ammonia is also simple and cheap to produce — enough so that it could be sold at 20 cents per gallon. As long as researchers keep working on radical ideas such as Ammonia powered cars or "urine powered cars", they are bound to one day to hit on the formula that can be widely adopted.
Privacy

Submission + - Are Some CAs Too Big to Fail? (threatpost.com)

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: In the wake of this weekend's revelations of the seriousness of the attack on certificate authority DigiNotar, security experts have renewed criticism of the Internet's digital certificate infrastructure, with some wondering if larger certificate authorities (CAs) might be too big to fail.

Would Mozilla and Microsoft and Google have revoked trust in root certificates from VeriSign or Thawte had they been compromised? Unlikely.

"It's not a simple matter of removing certificates from a database, because they're not in any databases," says researcher Moxie Marlinspike, who presented an alternative approach to the current SSL infrastructure last month at DEFCON. "We may never track them all down."

Submission + - Fans boycott Star Wars on Blu-ray (deadline.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: FTFA: "LucasFilm has confirmed some very controversial changes in its upcoming 9-disc Blu-ray release of Star Wars: The Complete Saga with 40 hours of extras. (...) The Ewoks’ eyes have been CGI’ed and now blink. Yoda’s not quite the same Yoda of yore because of digitalized alterations. (...) [T]here are widespread online campaigns cropping up to boycott this new Blu-ray collection when it goes on sale September 16th."

Submission + - TSA Groper Files SLAPP Suit Against Blogger (techdirt.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: TSA employee Theldala Magee has filed a lawsuit against a blogger demanding $500k in damages for alleging a particularly invasive search involving multiple incursions of a finger into the passenger's vagina. The passenger, who likened the feeling to being raped, is being sued for defamation for supposedly sullying the otherwise good name of a checkpoint smurf.
Science

Submission + - Satellite Spots Burning Man Festival from Space (discovery.com)

Submitted by
MikeCapone
MikeCapone writes: "A European Space Agency (ESA) satellite has captured what has become one of modern society's most hedonistic adventures--Burning Man. Taken about 400 miles up, the picture shows Black Rock City in full swing along with all of its 50,000-something attendees. ESA compiled the photograph using four photos, each with a resolution of about 16 feet. The perfect tribute as Burning Man just entered its 25th year. The festival started at San Francisco's Ocean Beach back in 1986 and relocated 120 miles north of Reno in 1990."

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