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Submission + - 12 Months with MongoDB (wordnik.com)

Submitted by DinkyDoorknob
DinkyDoorknob writes: One year ago today we started the investigation to find an alternative to MySQL to store, find, and retrieve our corpus data. After months of experimentation in the non-relational landscape (and running a scary number of nightly builds), we settled on MongoDB. To mark the one-year anniversary of what ended up being a great move for Wordnik, I’ll describe a summary of how the migration has worked out for us.

Submission + - Treating cancer with light

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Can skin cancer be treated with light? Scientists at the University of California, Irvine (UC Irvine), believe so. They're exploring new ways to image cancerous lesions using LEDs that might advance a technique for treating cancer called photodynamic therapy (PDT). In PDT, photosensitizing chemicals that absorb light are injected into a tumor, which is then exposed to light. The chemicals generate oxygen radicals from the light energy, destroying the cancer cells. PDT is currently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of esophageal and lung cancer.
Microsoft

Submission + - Bill Gates' successor at Microsoft to retire (reuters.com)

Submitted by suraj.sun
suraj.sun writes: Microsoft's software chief Ray Ozzie, who took over the role from Bill Gates and pushed the company firmly in the direction of the Internet, will take an entertainment job at the company and then retire.

Ozzie, 54, who created the groundbreaking Lotus Notes email system early in his career, took on the role of overseeing Microsoft's software direction in 2006. Gates retired from day-to-day work at the company in 2008.

He had made a splash at the company the year before, shortly after he joined, with his now-famous "Internet Services Disruption" memo, which pushed Microsoft toward the Internet and cloud computing, the provision of services and data over the Internet.

Ozzie's key project, the "Azure" platform for developing cloud-based applications, debuted this year to moderate success. The company is extending beyond Azure, trying to grab a greater share of customers' tech spending by offering to handle their servers, data storage and other computing needs.

According to a memo sent by Ballmer on Monday, Ozzie will focus on entertainment efforts at the company and retire after an unspecified time.

Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69H4Z320101018
Security

Submission + - Voltage SecureData Brings “No Compromise&rdq (marketwire.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: New Release Balances Data Security and Compliance with Minimal Business Impact and Significant Cost Savings

Palo Alto, CA – Oct. 18, 2010 — Voltage Security, Inc. (www.voltage.com), a global leader in enterprise data protection inside and outside the cloud, today announced the release of Voltage SecureData for the Teradata platform, a standalone package that enables Teradata customers to efficiently comply with PCI DSS requirements—as well as state regulations, Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX), Gramm-Leach-Bliley (GLBA) and others—without adversely affecting storage and database performance. The new release, part of the Voltage End-to-End Data Protection platform, offers companies an unmatched level of data protection with significant cost savings while ensuring operational efficiency.

“With Voltage’s innovative data protection technologies, corporations using Teradata Active Enterprise Data Warehouse or any of the Teradata appliances can reduce the risk of a data breach without any impact to critical business intelligence flows across multiple lines of business,” said Mark Bower, vice president of product management, Voltage Security. “Voltage SecureData effectively combines data security and compliance with minimal operational impact. For organizations with PCI or other compliance requirements that must rely on data warehouse operations for analytics on credit cards or other sensitive data, this is a major competitive advantage.”

Voltage SecureData for the Teradata platform offers significant value in a business environment where many companies that face compliance requirements continue to struggle with the limitations of an effective data protection solution. The new offering enables efficient, high-scale data protection while simultaneously ensuring minimal impact on data warehouse operations, specifically Extract, Transform and Load (ETL) operations. This is a critical factor for corporations that function with massive data sets and rely on optimal data flow.

Voltage SecureData on Teradata builds on Voltage Security’s reputation for delivering solutions that “just work” by leveraging game-changing technology for end-to-end information protection. For example, Voltage Identity-based Encryption (IBE), provides simplified key management and eliminates the types of issues that block the proliferated use of encryption and introduce management and administrative hassles; and Voltage Format-Preserving Encryption (FPE), which does the simple task of maintaining the format and structure of data even when encrypted, thus making it much easier to protect data at the moment of collection and wherever it is accessed and used by applications or stored in databases. Protection follows the data wherever it goes, and, as in this case, extends security beyond the data warehouse.

Teradata has a long history of partnering with industry leaders to offer integrated, purpose-built platforms based on the most powerful, scalable, and reliable technology, and the new release continues that tradition. This exclusive solution from Voltage Security combines critical data security with marginal business impact and additional cost savings.

Availability & Pricing
Voltage SecureData platform components start at $25K. Voltage SecureData for Teradata is available now and is priced per Teradata node. To purchase, please contact Voltage Security Sales at http://www.voltage.com/info/email.htm

Web Seminar: Data Protection & Compliance for Data Warehouse Operations
To learn more about the PCI DSS requirements and security best practices that impact data warehouse operations, Voltage Security and the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC) conducted a free web seminar. To view the recorded session, please visit: http://bit.ly/ac1s9R

About Voltage Security
Voltage Security, Inc., an enterprise security company, is an encryption innovator and global leader in enterprise data protection for data residing both inside and outside the cloud. Voltage solutions provide cloud-scale encryption and simplified key management for protecting sensitive information wherever it is stored and processed, on-premise or in private and public clouds. Voltage solutions are in use at almost 1,000 enterprise customers, including some of the world’s leading brand-name companies in payments, banking, retail, insurance, energy, healthcare and government.

Voltage solutions reduce the risks associated with theft of sensitive and private information, support privacy guidelines including PCI DSS, HITECH, U.S. Data Breach Disclosure laws and European Data Privacy directives, and uniquely provide security of data coupled with unmatched usability which results in significantly lowered total cost of ownership.

Harnessing award-winning cryptography and key management, including Voltage Identity-Based Encryption (IBE) and a breakthrough innovation in data usability, Format-Preserving Encryption (FPE), Voltage solutions have changed how enterprises protect their most valuable asset, their customer data. Offerings include Voltage SecureMail, Voltage SecureData, Voltage SecureFile and Voltage Cloud Services which provides cloud scale encryption and key management for businesses, partners and their customers. The Company has been issued several patents based upon breakthrough research in mathematics and cryptographic systems. To learn more about Voltage customers please visit voltage.com/customers.

###

Teradata is a trademark or registered trademark of Teradata Corporation in the United States and other countries

Voltage Identity-Based Encryption, Voltage Format-Preserving Encryption, Voltage SecureMail, Voltage SecureFile, Voltage SecureData and the Voltage Cloud Services are registered trademarks of Voltage Security, Inc.

CONTACT:
Paula Dunne
CONTOS DUNNE COMMUNICATIONS
1-408-776 -1400 office
paula@contosdunne.com email
Education

Submission + - What if We Ran Universities Like Wikipedia? 1

Submitted by
Pickens
Pickens writes: "Do university bureaucracies still make sense in the era of networks? The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that in a session at the Educause conference called “The University as an Agile Organization,” David J. Staley, director of the Harvey Goldberg Center for Excellence in Teaching at Ohio State University, laid out the findings of a focus group he conducted asking educators what a college would look like if it ran like Wikipedia. The "Wiki-ized University" wouldn’t have formal admissions, says Staley, people could enter and exit as they wished and the university would consist of voluntary and self-organizing associations of teachers and students “not unlike the original idea for the university, in the Middle Ages." In addition the curriculum of the "Wiki-ized University" would be intellectually fluid, and instead of tenure, professors' longevity "would be determined by the community." Staley predicts that a new form of academic organization is emerging that will be driven by volunteerism. "We do see some idea today of how “volunteer teaching” might look: think of the faculty at a place like the University of Phoenix. Most teaching faculty have day jobs—and in fact are hired because they have day jobs—and teach at the university for a nominal stipend," writes Staley. "If something like the Phoenix model is what develops in a wiki-ized university setting, this would suggest that a new type of “professorate” will emerge, consisting of those who teach or publish or conduct research for their own personal or professional satisfaction or for some other nonmonetized benefit.""
Patents

Submission + - Apple sues over use of MagSafe connector (macrumors.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: From MacRumors:
"Sanho, maker of the popular HyperMac line of external batteries for Apple notebooks, will halt sales of the MagSafe charging cables required for connecting its batteries to Apple's machines as of November 2nd. ...
Apple filed suit against Sanho early last month over the accessory company's use of the MagSafe interface, alleging patent infringement. Sanho had hoped to escape the eye of Apple by utilizing official MagSafe connectors recycled from Apple adapters, but their incorporation into new products was deemed by Apple to be an inappropriate usage."

Note that many Apple notebook models have non-user-replaceable batteries.

Comment Re:Video (Score 4, Insightful) 1671

by Padrino121 (#31738964) Attached to: Wikileaks Releases Video of Journalist Killings

The disappointing theme your comment highlights is your lack of appreciation for the very thing we are supposedly fighting for, the right to democracy and freedom which at their heart value human life. This type of war includes a significant amount of urban warfare and at times collateral damage however regardless of how fatigued one is it is inexcusable to brush off these types of events as mistakes grouped in with the more mundane things we all do when tired. Mistake or not if I fall asleep at the wheel and take someone's life I will be held accountable for it, albeit not the same as if I take a life on purpose but none the less I will be held accountable.

In addition to the points I made above let's discuss one of the issues that applies to your position equally as well as mine. If "mistakes" were made and innocent people died why the obvious cover-up by the military when it was apparent they could not hide the truth?

Comment Supply and Demand? (Score 1) 727

by Padrino121 (#31465820) Attached to: Why Are Digital Hearing Aids So Expensive?

Although the technology itself is not very new the packaging (behind the ear or in ear hearing aids are purpose built devices) is left to a few specialized companies. That in addition to the fact that the market will bear these prices, assuming statistically older people with generally more resources are buying, and you are left with the prices you are running into. I recently had a similar experience with a good friends mother and after 6K for the pair with a fairly heavy hit on the savings account she is happy as can be and would do it again in a heartbeat.

Comment Throttle Inbound Connections (Score 5, Informative) 497

by Padrino121 (#31385288) Attached to: Coping With 1 Million SSH Authentication Failures?

I have a similar situation and cannot limit to very specific IP ranges. I have done the following with good success. I pulled some examples from my configuration that can be tweaked for yours if you like.

1. Limit incoming SSH attempts to a low number. In my case I limit to 2 connections in 60 seconds. I can tighten it even more but this did a lot to kill brute force attempts.
iptables -I INPUT -p tcp -i vlan1 --dport 2242 -j DROP
iptables -I INPUT -p tcp -i vlan1 --dport 2242 -m state --state NEW -m limit --limit 2/min -j ACCEPT
iptables -I INPUT -p tcp -i vlan1 --dport 2242 -m state --state RELATED,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT

2. Automatic blacklist via DenyHosts. This helps cut down attempts from known ranges without even giving them the chance even at a slow rate. http://denyhosts.sourceforge.net/
Censorship

Submission + - How to silence free speech silently (washingtonpost.com) 1

Submitted by
quizzicus
quizzicus writes: "The Washington Post writes today about a sensitive White House document detailing how to screen for, silence, and remove protesters who show up at the President's public appearances. Obtained by an ACLU subpoena in the Rank v. Jenkins case, the Presidential Advance Manual (pdf) lays out strategies such as searching audience members at the door for hidden protest material, strategically placing "rally squads" throughout the crowd to intercept and shout down hecklers, and forcefully removing dissenters who cannot be squelched. The manual advises, however, that staff should "decide if the solution would cause more negative publicity than if the demonstrators were simply left alone.""
Portables (Games)

Submission + - Hackers release universal PSP unrbicker (maxconsole.net)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A collective group of hackers including the likes of Dark_Alex, Noobz and Booster have released a new piece of software which will replicate the exact functions of Sony's Jigkick battery (even better) — that means it is now possible for homebrew enabled PSP's to UNBRICK and DOWNGRADE their systems at their own will.
Hardware Hacking

Submission + - Iraqi insurgent engineers designing better IEDs (time.com)

Submitted by nbauman
nbauman writes: Saif Abdallah says his inventions have helped kill or maim scores, possibly hundreds, of Americans. For more than four years, he has been developing remote-control devices that Sunni insurgents use to detonate improvised explosive devices (IEDs), the roadside bombs that are the No. 1 killer of U.S. soldiers in Iraq. The only time he ever felt a pang of regret was in the spring of 2006, when he heard that the Pentagon, in a bid to fight the growing IED menace, had roped in a team of scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Abdallah, an electronics engineer by training, once dreamed of studying for a Ph.D. there. "I thought to myself, If my life had gone differently, who knows? I might have been on that team," he says, his eyes widening as he imagines that now impossible scenario. Then he shrugs. "God decided I should be on the other side," he says. Abdallah, 28, "fits every geek stereotype," according to Time http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1632 805,00.html, with thick glasses, acne and a flash drive on his key chain. His bedroom workbench in Baghdad has soldering irons, old printed circuit boards, discarded TV remotes, etc. that he uses to build remote control detonators.
Movies

Submission + - Motion Picture Industry revenue up in 2006 (hollywoodreporter.com)

Submitted by
Fusen
Fusen writes: "Even though we are subjected to numerous reports on piracy destroying the earth as we know it, a recent MPA study reveals that revenue from all filmed media increased 8% in 2006.

"After a disappointing 2005, the six major companies have received official confirmation from the MPA that their all-media revenue from filmed entertainment — comprising money from home video, television, theatrical and pay TV — expanded by 8% in 2006 to reach $42.6 billion.""

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