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Submission + - How secure are Snowden's laptops? (washingtonpost.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Marc thiessen, columnist for the Washington post, claimed in a recent op-ed that the biggest problem with Edward Snowden is the reams of data on his laptops. He wrote, "Snowden is reportedly carrying four laptop computers loaded with top-secret U.S. intelligence documents. No doubt the spy agencies in the countries he is visiting have been feasting on the reams of classified information in his possession.". Surely the laptops are encrypted and well protected given Snowden's background. How easy would it be for a country with a sophisticated cyber program to access the content of his laptops? Are the Chinese and Russians truly feasting or are still preparing the appetizers?

Submission + - Beware the Internet

Submitted by frost_knight
frost_knight writes: Washington Post opinion writer Robert J. Samuelson writes "If I could, I would repeal the Internet. It is the technological marvel of the age, but it is not — as most people imagine — a symbol of progress. Just the opposite. We would be better off without it." It is his belief that the dangers of the Internet outweigh its benefits.

Submission + - New Vaccine May Protect People from Multiple Malaria Strains (jci.org)

Submitted by Jagungal
Jagungal writes: It is being reported that Researchers at Queensland’s Griffith University have had promising results with a new vaccine against Malaria. The malaria parasite is transmitted by mosquitoes and kills over 600,000 people each year. The vaccine which has been trialed in mice is the first to trigger an immune response to the whole malaria parasite. Past research on the development of vaccines have mainly focused on targeting specific parasite antigens. However, researchers said that many of these vaccines have failed because the antigen targets are highly variable.

Submission + - 2013 brings high demand for software developers

Submitted by Bridg
Bridg writes: Recent articles claim that the demand for software developers is on the rise. Predicted to be one of the top demanded jobs of 2013, software development (and computer science in general) continues to grow within businesses and universities across the country. Colleges and studies throughout the country now deem computer science one of the top 5 highest paying majors of 2013. Statistics point to computer science, software development, and IT as the careers of the future. Now the question is, with constant automation and artificial intelligence, will the glory of the computer scientist endure?

Submission + - Firefox 23 Makes JavaScript Obligatory (i-programmer.info) 3

Submitted by mikejuk
mikejuk writes: It seems that Firefox 23, currently in beta, has removed the option to disable JavaScript. Is this good for programmers and web apps?
Why has Mozilla decided that this is the right thing to do?
The simple answer is that there is a growing movement to reduce user options that can break applications. The idea is that if you provide lots of user options then users will click them in ways that aren't particularly logical. The result is that users break the browser and then complain that it is broken. For example, there are websites that not only don't work without JavaScript, but they fail in complex ways — ways that worry the end user. Hence, once you remove the disable JavaScript option Firefox suddenly works on a lot of websites.
Today there are a lot of programmers of the opinion that if the user has JavaScript off then its their own fault and consuming the page without JavaScript is as silly as trying to consume it without HTML.
Is there an option to turn off HTML?
I think not.

Submission + - D.C. awards Obamacare IT work to offshore outsourcer (computerworld.com)

Submitted by dcblogs
dcblogs writes: Infosys, an India-based offshore IT outsourcing firm, recently announced that it had won a $49.5 million contract to develop a health benefit exchange for the District of Columbia. The contract was awarded to a U.S.-based Infosys subsidiary, Infosys Public Services. That's one of the larger government contracts won by an offshore outsourcing firm, but it's unclear whether any of the work will be done overseas. The District isn't disclosing any contract details. An FOIA request for the contract has been submitted. Infosys is one of the largest users of H-1B visa, and has been under a grand jury investigation for its use of B1, visitor visas.

Submission + - AMD/ATI drops WindowsXP support (amd.com) 1

Submitted by Billly Gates
Billly Gates writes: The latest beta drivers for the Catalyst drivers control suite only list Vista as the lowest version they will support. We still have almost a year before WindowsXP support finally ends. Will NVidia follow?

So if you own a AMD system you will not receive audio, chipset, video, or any other drivers for your XP system and must upgrade or use an outdated legacy version. Looks like another death knell for this very long lasting platform.

Submission + - Snowden: NSA spying on EU diplomats and administrators (www.dw.de)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: According to a report dated 2010 recently provided by Snowden to the German news magazine "Der Spiegel", the NSA has systematically been spying on institutions of the EU in Washington DC, New York, and Brussels. Methods of spying include bugging, phone taps, and network intrusions and surveillance according to the documents.

Submission + - The Goleden Age of Microsoft Windows Is Over (channelnomics.com)

Submitted by ChannelGonzo
ChannelGonzo writes: Larry Walsh at Channelnomics gives Redmond the rough treatment saying the once ubiquitous OS Windows "ain’t what it used to be" and not even the launch of Windows 8.1 will help get its mojo back. While Microsoft may not be entirely responsible for the decline of the PC market, the contention is that the commercial market really didn’t need another operating system. Businesses are reticent to change and consumers have too many choices to allow Windows to maintain its market leadership. The problem is exacerbated by Microsoft's late entry into the tablet wars and a host of not insignificant defections by major OEMs like HP, which recently inked a reseller partnership with Google.

Submission + - Asteroid mining: Start of an evil empire or a new epoch in human history? (examiner.com)

Submitted by MarkWhittington
MarkWhittington writes: TV actor Rainn Wilson, best known for his role as Dwight in "The Office," engaged on a mock debate with Planetary Resources co-founder Peter Diamandis on the question of whether asteroid mining is evil or not. Wilson, while he may have been speaking tongue in cheek, was reflecting the way in which space companies are treated in the movies. Besides the evil corporation in "Avatar," other examples include the evil corporation in the "Alien" movies and even the insane space entrepreneur/Bond villain Hugo Drax in "Moonraker." Thus the question arises, if Planetary Resources and/or its main rival Deep Space Industries actually succeed and make trillions of dollars, will they be seen as evil is some do Halliburton or Bain Capital? Or will they be seen as a benefit to humankind for helping to open up the high frontier of space?

Submission + - Unlikely Planets Found in Violent Star Clusters (discovery.com)

Submitted by astroengine
astroengine writes: When it comes to forming planets, Mother Nature isn’t very picky. Despite horrific conditions inside densely packed open clusters, stars apparently have no problem forming and hanging on to an orbital brood. That’s the conclusion from a new study that used data collected by NASA’s now-dormant Kepler space telescope to hunt for planets in a one-billion-year old open cluster called NGC 6811, a collection of about 70 stars located about 3,400 light years away in the constellation Cygnus.

Submission + - Breaking Supercomputers' Exaflop Barrier (slashdot.org)

Submitted by Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster writes: Breaking the exaflop barrier remains a development goal for many who research high-performance computing (HPC). Some developers predicted that China’s new Tianhe-2 supercomputer would be the first to break through. Indeed, Tianhe-2 did pretty well when it was finally revealed—knocking the U.S.-based Titan off the top of the Top500 list of the world’s fastest supercomputers. Yet despite sustained performance of 33 petaflop/s to 35 petaflop/s and peaks ranging as high as 55 petaflops, even the world’s fastest supercomputer couldn’t make it past (or even close to) the big barrier. Now, the HPC market is back to chattering over who’ll first build an exascale computer, and how long it might take to bring such a platform online. Bottom line: It will take a really long time, combined with major breakthroughs in chip design, power utilization and programming, according to Nvidia chief scientist Bill Dally, who gave the keynote speech at the 2013 International Supercomputing Conference last week in Leipzig, Germany. In a speech he called “Future Challenges of Large-scale Computing” (and in a blog post covering similar ground), Dally described some of the incredible performance hurdles that need to be overcome in pursuit of the exaflop.

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