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Submission + - India launches five foreign satellites (bbc.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: India has put into orbit five foreign satellites, including one built by France two from Canada and one each from Singapore and Germany. The PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) has so far successfully launched 67 satellites, including 40 foreign ones, into space. The PSLV costs about Rs. 100 crore (20 Million USD) and the cost is seen as a major advantage India has over other countries in terms of commercial launches. When talking about the cost of the project, the Prime Minister of India noted that the India’s Mars mission cost less than movie Gravity.

Comment Re:The cost (Score 4, Insightful) 242

by Zocalo (#47359633) Attached to: Court Allowed NSA To Spy On All But 4 Countries
Worthless is right. It's supposedly to prevent terrorism (at least that's how the proponents of wholesale data capture usually justify it), which would typically be a small cell of individuals looking to strike a handful of small high value targets. Yet despite having access to every single phone call in Iraq plus, no doubt, a whole array of other sources of intelligence the NSA appears to have been caught completely unaware by a major military offensive involving thousands that has effectively overrun about a third of the major towns and cities in the country. Missing the odd needle in the haystack would perhaps be excusable, but they pretty much overlooked the entire hayfield on that one.

Even so, I'm betting they'll use that as an excuse to justify collecting more than just metadata, which is now demonstrably not up to the job, rather than scrapping the whole expensive business and working out what sources of methods might actually give tangible results and using those instead.

Submission + - Shark! New Sonar Buoy Will Warn Beachgoers When Large Sharks Are Near (gearjunkie.com)

Submitted by stephendavion
stephendavion writes: While the risk of being attacked by a shark is certainly low, it’s one of those terrors that can weigh heavy on the mind of a beach-goer, particularly in higher-risk beaches such as some in Australia and South Africa. A new device is currently being developed to warn swimmers when a shark is detected in the water near a beach, and — no surprise — the Aussies are behind it.

The Clever Buoy is being called the “world’s first shark detection buoy” by its developers. The project is a collaboration between Australian telecommunications company Optus and marine safety company Shark Attack Mitigation Systems.

Submission + - WinZip distributes infected 18.5 update

Submitted by VMB74
VMB74 writes: Paying WinZip customers received an e-mail notification of the Free Upgrade to WinZip 18.5 availability yesterday. The e-mail included a link to the following site:
http://www.winzip.com/en/landi...

Clicking the Get Update button downloads a 802K winzip180xp.exe executable which installs nothing more than a Rocket PUP. Please do not try to run the downloaded winzip180xp.exe on a useful Windows machine you care about. Cleanup is very time consuming.

Here are the VirusTotal scan results:
https://www.virustotal.com/en/...

And the most amazing part is the response of the WinZip technical support which I provided with all technical details. Here it comes in full, in the original formatting, and with the original spelling:

"Hi, I am writing in response to your message:

Thank you for your inquiry.

This is the false positive warning message from Windows or Antivirus application when you are downloading any executable(.exe) files. The WinZip application setup file and other downloads from WinZip download page are safe and does not contains any Virus, malware etc.

Please temporarily disable the your Antivirus application and complete the download of WinZip application Setup file. After completing the download, Please enable your Antivirus application.

Thanks,
Mukesh, WinZip Customer Support"

Submission + - Samsung release first SSD with 3D NAND (pcper.com)

Submitted by Vigile
Vigile writes: As SSD controllers continue to evolve, so does the world of flash memory. With the release of the Samsung 850 Pro SSD announced today, Samsung is the first company to introduce 3D NAND technology to the consumer. By using 30nm process technology that might seem dated in some applications, Samsung has been reliably able to stack lithography and essentially "tunnel holes" in the silicon while coating the inside with the material necessary to hold a charge. The VNAND being used with the Samsung 850 Pro is now 32 layers deep, and though it lowers the total capacity per die, it allows Samsung to lower manufacturer costs with more usable die per wafer. This results in more sustainable and reliable performance as well as a longer life span, allowing Samsung to offer a 10 year warranty on the new drives. PC Perspective has a full review with performance results and usage over time that shows Samsung's innovation is leading the pack.

Submission + - Facebook Did Have Permission to Use Your Data for Research

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In light of the media frenzy regarding Facebook's use of user data to conduct a psychology experiment, it's worth noting that Facebook's terms of service gives Facebook the right to utilize user data for 'data analysis, testing, research and service improvement.' To use Facebook at all, users would have had to agree to this provision. Bottom line: if you don't want to be the subject of psychology experiments, read your social media terms of service.

Submission + - How often do economists commit misconduct? (retractionwatch.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: A survey of professional academic economists finds that a large percentage are quite willing to cheat or fake data to get the results they want.

From the paper’s abstract:

This study reports the results of a survey of professional, mostly academic economists about their research norms and scientific misbehavior. Behavior such as data fabrication or plagiarism are (almost) unanimously rejected and admitted by less than 4% of participants. Research practices that are often considered “questionable,” e.g., strategic behavior while analyzing results or in the publication process, are rejected by at least 60%. Despite their low justifiability, these behaviors are widespread. Ninety-four percent report having engaged in at least one unaccepted research practice.

That less than 4% engage in “data fabrication or plagiarism” might seem low, but it is a terrible statistic. Worse, the other results make me think that the many of the 96% who said they didn’t do this were lying. 40% admit to doing what they agree are “questionable” research practices, while 94% admit to committing “at least one unaccepted research practice.”

In other words, almost none of these academic economists can be trusted in the slightest. As the paper notes, “these behaviors are widespread.”

Submission + - Microsoft takes down No-IP.com domains (technet.com) 4

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: For some reason that escapes me, a Judge has granted Microsoft permission to hijack NoIP's dns. This is necessary according to Microsoft to thwart a 'global cybercrime epidemic' being perpetrated by infected Microsoft machines.

Submission + - Baton Bob Strikes Back (against police that coerced Facebook post from him) (ajc.com)

Submitted by McGruber
McGruber writes: In June 2013, Atlanta police arrested (http://www.ajc.com/news/news/baton-bob-arrested-following-run-in-with-officer/nYWtd/) costumed street performer "Baton Bob" (wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...) during the middle of a street performance after Baton Bob was allegedly involved in a verbal altercation with mall security guards.

Now, a year later, Baton Bob has filed a federal lawsuit (http://www.ajc.com/news/news/state-regional/baton-bob-strikes-back-at-atlanta-police/ngWps/) accusing Atlanta police of violating his constitutional rights, assault, discrimination, privacy violations and identify theft. The slashdot-worthy part of the story is that Atlanta Police allegedly forced Baton Bob to make a pro-police statement on his Facebook page before officers would allow Bob to be released on bond. According to the lawsuit:

At approximately 3:40 p.m., while Plaintiff sat handcuffed and without an attorney, he was told to dictate a public statement to Officer Davis, who then typed and posted the message to the Baton Bob Facebook account. The message read:

“First of all, the atl police officer that responded to the incident thru security has been very respectful and gracious to me even in handcuffs. So, the situation escalated from a complaint from a security officer in the area and for some reason she rolled up on me like she didn’t know who I was and like I had not been there before. For them to call police to come to intervene was not necessary. So, out of it, because of my fury, the Atlanta police officer did not understand the elements of the situation, so he was trying to do his job, respectfully and arrested my ass!!!!!!!!! I’ll be out tomorrow so look out for my show at 14th and Peachtree. So now I’m waiting to be transported so I can sign my own bond and get the hell out of here. I want to verify, that the Atlanta police was respectful to me considering the circumstances. See you when I see you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“As promised, Plaintiff was then given a signature bond and released from jail.”

Submission + - Ninety-nine percent of the ocean's plastic is missing 3

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Millions of tons. That’s how much plastic should be floating in the world’s oceans, given our ubiquitous use of the stuff. But a new study finds that 99% of this plastic is missing. One disturbing possibility: Fish are eating it. If that’s the case, “there is potential for this plastic to enter the global ocean food web,” says Carlos Duarte, an oceanographer at the University of Western Australia, Crawley. “And we are part of this food web.”

Submission + - Grandmother buys old building in Japan, finds 55 classic arcade cabinets (geek.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A grandmother agreed to purchase an old building in Chiba, which is just outside of Tokyo. When her family arrived to check out the contents of the building it was discovered that the first two floors used to be a game center in the 1980s. Whoever ran it left all the cabinets behind when it closed, and it is full of classic and now highly desirable games.

In total there are 55 arcade cabinets, most of which are the upright Aero Cities cabinets, but it’s the game boards that they contain that’s the most exciting discovery.

Submission + - FreeDOS is 20 years old

Submitted by Jim Hall
Jim Hall writes: In a June 29, 1994 post in comp.os.msdos.apps on USENET, a physics student announced an effort to create a completely free version of DOS that everyone could use. That project turned into FreeDOS, 20 years ago! Originally intended as a free replacement for MS-DOS, FreeDOS has since advanced what DOS could do, adding new functionality and making DOS easier to use. And today in 2014, people continue to use FreeDOS to support embedded systems, to run business software, and to play classic DOS games!

Submission + - White House may name patent reform opponent as new head of Patent Office

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Obama Administration is set to appoint Phil Johnson, a pharmaceutical industry executive, as the next Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, according to sources. The move is likely to anger patent reform advocates given Johnson’s past efforts to block legislation aimed at reining in patent trolls, and in light of his positions that appear to contradict the White House’s professed goal of fixing the patent system. The top job at the Patent Office has been vacant for around 18-months since the departure of previous director David Kappos in early 2013. Currently, the office is being managed by former Googler Michelle Lee, who was appointed deputy director in December. Earlier this month, Republican Senators led by Orrin Hatch (R-UT) sent a letter to President Obama that praised Lee but that also described the current UPSTO management structure as “unfair, untenable and unacceptable for our country’s intellectual property agency.”

Submission + - Microsoft's OpenXML SDK released under Apache 2.0 License (openxmldeveloper.org)

Submitted by fatalGlory
fatalGlory writes: Microsoft has released version 2.5 of the SDK for OpenXML under the Apache 2.0 license. Because of this license, there are now no platform restrictions, and Eric White blogs about his plans to port the SDK to Linux and OSX via Mono. Hopefully this will help interoperability between MS-Office and other office software going forward. The code is on GitHub: https://github.com/OfficeDev/O...

Submission + - Can successful geeks find trophy wives? Should they? (sciencedaily.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: So I came across this study which claims that the myth of successful men obtaining "trophy wives" is just that, a myth.

Evidently, according to the researcher, most men end up with a woman "who is similar to themselves in education, race, religion and physical attractiveness". She (the researcher is a woman) says this is a good thing!

I don't know about you, but I'm hardly Mr. Handsome and if I'm relegated to someone "similar...in... physical attractiveness" I think I will be disappointed. Sure you can call this shallow or whatever but I'd say a huge proportion of men throughout history have chosen their mates on that basis (remember, Helen of Troy wasn't noted for her intellect or character or cooking skills. Einstein had many affairs with comely students.). So I was hoping that my prodigious (ha ha) brain and more importantly, the success it has brought me, might help compensate for some of my other deficiencies (yes, ha ha that too). That and the fact that I am from the rich West living in a developing country with a huge number of young women is helping my odds.

So what is your (anecdotal) experience? Is this researcher correct in saying that it is almost impossible for even a very successful man to break the norms and find a woman significantly more physically attractive than him? In that case I ask, doesn't that take away from one of the major reasons why men want to strive to achieve and be successful? If women really don't care so much about how successful you are, why work so hard? (I know that there are many other reasons to try to be successful but this has got to be one of the big ones).

And yes, I'm obviously having difficulties finding said trophy wife.

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