74903253
submission
jfruh writes:
Posts on Facebook may increasingly center of video in the near future, but company founder Mark Zuckerberg is looking ahead to the next thing — and in his opinion the next thing is "immersive 3D content." This may explain the company's puzzling decision to buy Oculus VR for $2 billion.
74903095
submission
jfruh writes:
Of the many things Oracle acquired when it absorbed Sun, the SPARC processors have not exactly been making headlines. But that may change next month when the company debuts a new, lower-cost chip that will compete with Intel's Xeon.
74868967
submission
jfruh writes:
Next month's Def Con security conference will feature, among other things, new tools that will help you hack into the RFID readers that secure doors in most office buildings. RFID cards have been built with more safeguards against cloning; these new tools will bypass that protection by simply hacking the readers themselves.
74868833
submission
jfruh writes:
The West African nation of Guinea will be getting its first fibre optic Internet cable by 2017, built by Chinese telecom giant Huawei. Funded by the Guinean government and Chinese banks, the cable will provide high-speed Internet access to many Guinean institutions, and may provide connectivity to neighboring countries as well.
74495487
submission
jfruh writes:
TripAdvisor had been fined half a million euros in Italy for publishing "misleading" information in its reviews. But now an Italian court has thrown out that punishment, saying that the site clearly states that the reviews are user-submitted and that TripAdvisor can't confirm all details.
74495313
submission
jfruh writes:
The front desk is staffed by a female android in a white tunic. The bellhop is a mechanical velociraptor. A giant robot arm put luggage into cubbyholes. It's the Henn-na Hotel in Nagasaki and it's opening this Friday, and it's a place where 'basically guests will see only robots, not humans,' according to general manager Masahiko Hayasaka.
74439985
submission
jfruh writes:
When Google opened up its Maps to user edits, a lot of useful information got added — along with plenty of spam and outright abuse, some of it obscene, which led to the program being shut down. Now the company is planning to reopen things to user input, recruiting local mappers that they're calling "regional leads" to filter out problematic content.
74439733
submission
jfruh writes:
Most Slashdotters rightfully roll their eyes when people panic about the "radiation" put out by cell phone. But there is a germ of truth to some of the nervous talk: when the FCC assesses how much radio-frequency radiation a phone user will absorb, they work on the assumption you'll be wearing it in a belt clip, rather than putting it in your pocket as most people do.
74339037
submission
jfruh writes:
Google Street View keeps going to all sorts of exotic places — up the sheer cliff wall of El Capitan, for example. So why are there so many gaps in, for instance, the streets of the Sunset District, an easily accessible residential neighborhood in San Francisco, just a few miles from Google HQ? The answer may be a combination of privacy requests and technical glitches, but Google is talking. Observers noted in one case on an island road, the Street View car apparently stopped its journey right next to a bar.
74338781
submission
jfruh writes:
GNU project founder Richard Stallman can seem a little (if you'll forgive the turn of phrase) proprietary at times over open source software, to the point of insisting on calling Linux "GNU/Linux." But one thing he'll always admit is that nobody can control how properly licensed open source software can be used — even if it's being used by government agencies for purposes he opposes. That was his take on the recent intra-open source debate that arose upon revelations of the NSA's extensive use of free and open source software.
74284077
submission
jfruh writes:
Renee James, Intel's president and head of the company's software group has departed, supposedly to "pursue other opportunities." But a high-profile heir apparent doesn't just leave voluntarily, and it seems likely that she is in part taking the fall for Intel's acquisition of McAfee, the promised synergies of which have failed to materialize. Then again, Intel is a traditionally very stable company, but there's been a lot of churn in the uper ranks lately: is something wrong?
74258411
submission
jfruh writes:
Artificial intelligence typically requires heavy computing power, which can only help manufacturers of specialized chip manufacturers like Nvidia. That's why the company is pushing its Digits software, which helps users design and experiment with neural networks. Version 2 of digits moves out of the command line and comes with a GUI interface in an attempt to move interest beyond the current academic market; it also makes programming for multichip configurations possible.
74258299
submission
jfruh writes:
Samsung's profits were below expectations, but to look on the bright side, the reason is one that many companies want to have: so many people want to buy Galaxy S6 phones that the company can't make them fast enough to meet demand. The phone features curved glass that is tricky to manufacture.
74228011
submission
jfruh writes:
For everyone who's created a folder on their phone called "dumb apps I can't remove" or the like, a ray of hope has come from China. The Shanghai Consumer Council has filed a suit against Samsung for not only placing so much bloatware on their phones, but also making it impossible for the user to easily remove the apps. The lawsuit is meant to discourage smartphone vendors from weighing their products down with pre-installed software
74227943
submission
jfruh writes:
Kotver is in many ways a typical clickfraud trojan: it hijacks the user's browser process to create false clicks on banner ads, defrauding advertisers and ad networks. But one aspect of it is unusual: it updates the victim's installation of Flash to the most recent version, ensuring that similar malware can't get in.
