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Cloud

Department of Defense May Give Private Cloud Vendors Access To Top Secret Data 60

Posted by Soulskill from the what-could-possibly-go-wrong dept.
An anonymous reader sends news that the U.S. Department of Defense is pondering methods to store its most sensitive data in the cloud. The DoD issued an information request (PDF) to see whether the commercial marketplace can provide remote computing services for Level 5 and Level 6 workloads, which include restricted military data. "The DoD anticipates that the infrastructure will range from configurations featuring between 10,000 and 200,000 virtual machines. Any vendors selected to the scheme would be subject to an accreditation process and to security screening, and the DoD is employing the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program to establish screening procedures for authorized cloud vendors, and to generate procedures for continuous monitoring and auditing."
Moon

Russia Pledges To Go To the Moon 197

Posted by Soulskill from the no-tanks-they-promise dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Russia's space agency, Roscosmos, has announced it intends to bring humans to the Moon by roughly 2030. Russia plans a full-scale exploration of the Moon's surface. Agency head Oleg Ostapenko said that by the end of the next decade, "based on the results of lunar surface exploration by unmanned space probes, we will designate [the] most promising places for lunar expeditions and lunar bases.
Japan

Fukushima Radiation Still Poisoning Insects 119

Posted by Soulskill from the still-waiting-on-mothra dept.
sciencehabit writes: Eating food contaminated with radioactive particles may be more perilous than previously thought — at least for insects. Butterfly larvae fed even slightly tainted leaves collected near the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station were more likely to suffer physical abnormalities and low survival rates than those fed uncontaminated foliage, a new study finds. The research suggests that the environment in the Fukushima region, particularly in areas off-limits to humans because of safety concerns, will remain dangerous for wildlife for some time. In other lingering radiation news, reader Rambo Tribble writes: Forest detritus, contaminated in the aftermath of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster (abstract), is decaying at a much slower rate than normal, building up and creating a significant fire risk. This, in turn, is creating a real potential for the residual radioactive material to be distributed, through smoke, over a broad area of Europe and Russia. Looking at different possible fire intensities, researchers speculate, "20 to 240 people would likely develop cancer, of which 10 to 170 cases may be fatal." These figures are similar to those hypothesized for Fukushima.
Music

Say Goodbye To That Unwanted U2 Album 323

Posted by timothy from the auf-wiedersehen-baby dept.
Ronin Developer writes Apple has listened to the complaints of those who object to having received a pushed copy of U2's latest album as part of their recent campaign. While nobody has been charged for the download, some objected to having it show up in their purchases and, in some cases, pushed down to their devices. While it is possible to remove the album from your iTunes library, it takes more steps than most would like to take. Apple has responded and released a tool to make it possible to remove the album from your iTunes library in a single step.
Iphone

iPhone 6 Sales Crush Means Late-Night Waits For Some Early Adopters 222

Posted by timothy from the who'd-a-thunk-it dept.
Even after the months of hype and speculation, the behind-the-scenes development and manufacture, and then the announcement Tuesday, it seems Apple's servers weren't quite ready for the workout they got from would-be early adopters of its newest iPhone. Preorders through Verizon Wireless and AT&T largely started without a hitch at midnight, though some customers on Twitter have since complained about issues. Those problems were nothing compared to the issues experienced by Sprint and T-Mobile customers. The Sprint and T-Mobile sites were still down for many users nearly two hours after presales were slated to start. Access to Sprint's site faded in and out, while the T-Mobile site continued to display a form to register for a reminder for when the preorders began. Some people joked on Twitter that they "might as well wait for the iPhone 6S now." Apple's store itself was down for a few hours, too.
Canada

Canada Tops List of Most Science-Literate Countries 221

Posted by timothy from the one-end-of-the-moose-has-more-gravity dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A recent survey of scientific education and attitudes showed the Canadian population to have the highest level of scientific literacy in the world, as well as the fewest reservations about the direction of scientific progress (full report). A key factor is a high level of scientific knowledge among the general population (despite comparatively low numbers of people employed in STEM fields). Another is a higher level of comfort with choosing rationality over religious belief — only 25% of Canadians surveyed agreed with the statement "We depend too much on science and not enough on faith", as opposed to 55% in the U.S. and 38% in the E.U.

I also wonder if the vaunted Canadian healthcare system plays a role. When advances in medical science are something you automatically expect to benefit from personally if you need them, they look a lot better than when you have to scramble just to cover your bills for what we have now."

Comment Acquiring Sun was not about Java, but about Oracle (Score 1) 371

by MouseR (#47633213) Attached to: Oracle Hasn't Killed Java -- But There's Still Time

I dont the article looks at the reason why Oracle bought Sun.

Sure, the hardware itself was icing on the cake but the basic reality is that Oracle has an enormous investment in Sun hardware by optimizing the DBs for that platform, but mostly, because the software stack has an even heavier investment in Java for the processing of the data itself as well as middleware. If you think PLSQL is important to oracle, Java has taken an as-much important role in treating the data and managing apps.

When Sun was failing and about to hit the dust, no price was too high for Oracle to save that Hardware & Software investment. The absolute-next worse thing to a competitor (like IBM, SAP etc) buying it and giving therm control over Oracle's Java investment through license or platform direction.

I'm convinced the buyout was an absolute critical must for Oracle. Does that mean they want to push the platform forward? I can't answer that. They did ditch JavaFX and roll some of it back into J7. But one thing for sure, they wont let it die any way or another.

Disclaimer: I work for Oracle but these are not Oracle's opinions. That's my opinion only. I do NOT work anywhere near related activities to the server stack, Sun hardware or Java code. I do end-user native app developments that make use of some Java middleware.

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