sgt.nachos - Slashdot User

Submission + - Amazon Patents Annotating Books, Digital Works 1

Submitted by theodp on Wednesday March 07, 2012 @12:23AM

theodp writes: On Tuesday, the USPTO granted Amazon a patent on its Method and System for Providing Annotations of a Digital Work, which covers 'receiving an annotation of the digital work, storing the annotation, and providing the annotation to a user.' This includes annotations received in a graphical or handwriting format, as well as highlighting of text.

Submission + - $1B of TSA Nude Body Scanners Made Worthless (wordpress.com)

Submitted by

TheNextCorner

on Tuesday March 06, 2012 @08:11PM

TheNextCorner writes: "This video is here to demonstrate that the TSA’s insistence that the nude body scanner program is effective and necessary is nothing but a fraud, just like their claims that the program is safe (radiation what?) and non-invasive (nude pictures who?). The scanners are now effectively worthless, as anyone can beat them with virtually no effort."

Submission + - Congress repeals first amendment amid security concerns. (wsws.org) 1

Submitted by girlintraining on Monday March 05, 2012 @08:52PM

girlintraining writes: The Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011 passed unanimously in the US Senate and had only 3 votes against in the House this past Thursday. The bill provides the Department of Homeland Security the power to declare any location or event a restricted area. There is no requirement that these restricted areas be published ahead of time. Violators of the no-protest zones will be jailed and stripped of their rights. The bill was introduced shortly before a coordinated assault led by the DHS led to mass arrests of the Occupy protests against various corporate interests. Obama is set to pass the bill later this week.

Comment cricket (Score 2) 294

by sgt.nachos on Thursday February 23, 2012 @07:02PM (#39141717) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Best Mobile Phone Solution With No Data Plan?

cricket has a $35 a month plan that has unlimited minutes and texting.

Submission + - Climate Change-Induced Drought Caused the Mayan Collapse (vice.com)

Submitted by

pigrabbitbear

on Thursday February 23, 2012 @03:23PM

pigrabbitbear writes: "The collapse of the Mayan empire has already caused plenty of consternation for scientists and average Joes alike, and we haven’t even made it a quarter of the way through 2012 yet. But here’s something to add a little more fuel to the fire: A new study suggests that climate change killed off the Mayans."

Submission + - Nigerian Scam Artists Taken for $33,000 (couriermail.com.au)

Submitted by smitty777 on Thursday February 23, 2012 @02:57PM

smitty777 writes: An Australian woman who was being used by a group of Nigerian scam artists stole over $33,000 from the group who employed her. Her bank account was being used to funnel the cash from a dodgy internet car sales website. Irony aside, it makes one wonder how these folks ever got the nerve to go to the police with this matter. Those of you wondering, this article offers some answers to the question of why so many of these scams originate from this area.

Submission + - Transparency Launches as Linux of Drug Development (xconomy.com)

Submitted by

awjourn

on Thursday February 23, 2012 @01:58PM

awjourn writes: "During his years working in pharma R&D, Tomasz Sablinski was frustrated by the industry's need for secrecy and it's utter inability to design patient-friendly drug trials. So he founded Transparency Life Sciences, a company that's developing three drugs based on input from patients and physicians, who log onto the company's site and voice their opinions about how drugs should be designed and tested."

Submission + - Brain Scans Detect Autism In Six Month Olds (singularityhub.com)

Submitted by

kkleiner

on Thursday February 23, 2012 @12:05PM

kkleiner writes: "A new study shows that brain scans can detect autism in children as young as 6 months old. Researchers at University of North Carolina’s Institute for Developmental Disabilities imaged the brains of 92 children who were at high risk for autism. Scans were performed when the children were 6 months, 1-year, and 2-years old. At 2 years, the age when children are typically diagnosed, 30 percent of the children were found to have autism. The researchers then compared the brain images of the autistic children with the others. They saw differences in the brain’s white matter, the axon-laden pathways that transmit electrical signals to distant parts of the brain. Of the 15 pathways analyzed, 12 were significantly different between autistic and non-autistic children."

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