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Education

Submission + - Berkeley High School to cut science labs (eastbayexpress.com)

Submitted by vandon
vandon writes: East Bay Express news has this rather odd news about plans for Berkeley High School to cut science labs as part of the school's measures to "address Berkeley's dismal racial achievement gap." Apparently white students at the school do "far better than the state average while black and Latino students [do] worse." Fair enough. That's something worth looking into, but taking away science labs? According to one of the people who helped put forth the proposal, "science labs were largely classes for white students." So, just do away with them? Why not explore why that is? Or see if there's something more proactive to be done about it? Of course, it's not even true that it's just white kids taking science labs.
Security

Submission + - GSM Decryption Published 3

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "The NY Times reports that German encryption expert Karsten Nohl says that he has deciphered and published the 21-year-old GSM algorithm, the secret code used to encrypt most of the world's digital mobile phone calls, in what he called an attempt to expose weaknesses in the security system used by about 3.5 billion of the 4.3 billion wireless connections across the globe. Others have cracked the A5/1 encryption technology used in GSM before, but their results have remained secret. “This shows that existing GSM security is inadequate,” Nohl told about 600 people attending the Chaos Communication Congress. “We are trying to push operators to adopt better security measures for mobile phone calls.” The GSM Association, the industry group based in London that devised the algorithm and represents wireless operators, called Mr. Nohl’s efforts illegal and said they overstated the security threat to wireless calls. “This is theoretically possible but practically unlikely,” says Claire Cranton, a GSM spokeswoman, noting that no one else had broken the code since its adoption. “What he is doing would be illegal in Britain and the United States. To do this while supposedly being concerned about privacy is beyond me.” Simon Bransfield-Garth, the chief executive of Cellcrypt, says Nohl's efforts could put sophisticated mobile interception technology — limited to governments and intelligence agencies — within the reach of any reasonable well-funded criminal organization. “This will reduce the time to break a GSM call from weeks to hours,” Bransfield-Garth says. “We expect as this further develops it will be reduced to minutes.”"

Submission + - cygWinik 7 : integrate Windows and *nix seamlessly

Submitted by nikhim
nikhim writes: This is actually new release of Winik project with anew name, a new approach and better. cyWinik is portable means no more installation and will recreate registry when it needed. It is almost like *nix OS and icluded almost uptodate *nix applications such as KDE 3.5. :) cygWinik is a cygwin distro that users can install in Windows like other applications program. cygWinik is unix like and users can select program from menus. Users can select WM such as KDE, Gnome, Icewm, Wmaker, Xfce etc. cygWinik is a new Winik. This is the best cygwin distro right now comparable with Linux distro but better in their own category. cygWinik did not need to dual boot or emulate but now integrate with Windows seamlessly either seen as Windows application or using single Windows and run thier own Windows Manager. CygWInik come with a lot of menus and panel and did not need to be start from bash shell. You only need to know where to click to control it. Just run cygWinik.exe and you are in control of almost everything.

Visit cygWinik site: https://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/cygwinik/index.php?title=Main_Page

Submission + - Microsoft China Borrows from Plurk (plurk.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft China recently released it's Juku service in asia which they are touting as a local innovation. In reality, the site appears to be a blatant copy Plurk, a micro-blogging site that has become very popular in asia.
Unix

Submission + - Judge Overturns 2007 Unix Copyright Decision (networkworld.com) 2

Submitted by
snydeq
snydeq writes: "A federal appeals court has overturned a 2007 decision that Novell owns the Unix code, clearing the way for SCO to pursue a $1 billion copyright infringement case against IBM. In a 54-page decision, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals said it was reversing the 2007 summary judgment decision by Judge Dale Kimball of the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah, which found that Novell was the owner of Unix and UnixWare copyrights. SCO CEO Darl McBride called the decision a "huge validation for SCO.""
Education

Submission + - New species of worms release 'bombs' (yahoo.com)

Submitted by
caffiend666
caffiend666 writes: "A newly found deep ocean worm 'can cast off green glowing body parts, a move scientists think may be a defensive effort to confuse attackers. Researchers have dubbed the newly discovered critters "green bombers."' ... 'The first of the new species has been given the scientific name Swima bombiviridis.' So, it's a naturally occuring animal that rips off it's arms and throws them and we're not talking about a game from ID Sofware?"
Windows

Submission + - Use Windows 7 for free for 120 days, legally

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Just like Windows Vista, Windows 7 can be used legally for up to 120 days without activating with a valid 25-character alphanumeric product key. Windows typically comes with a 30-day time limit for users to activate their copy of the operating system, but there's a command that is often used by corporate administrators to reset the 30-day countdown. It rearm command be used up to three times without violating the Windows 7 EULA. Thus, if the user resets the countdown on the last day each time, he or she can gain up to 90 extra days to use Windows 7 legally and for free.
Robotics

Submission + - Who's Responsible if an Autonomous Machine Kills? 1

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "The Guardian reports that the Royal Academy of Engineering has published a report exploring the social, legal and ethical implications of ceding control to machines that are truly autonomous — systems that can adapt, learn from their experience and make decisions for themselves. Within a decade, we could be routinely interacting with machines that are truly autonomous like robotic surgeons that may be able to perform operations much more reliably than any human and smart homes that keep an eye on elderly people and allow them to be more independent. "It's a very difficult area for the law because the idea that a machine might be responsible for something is not an easy concept at all," says Chris Elliott, a systems engineer, lawyer and visiting professor at Imperial College London. "If you take an autonomous system and one day it does something wrong and it kills somebody, who is responsible? Is it the guy who designed it? What's actually out in the field isn't what he designed because it has learned throughout its life." To help society prepare for their arrival, the report recommends public engagement efforts on autonomous systems (PDF) and debate about their impact to understand and address the expectations and concerns of public stakeholders in the development and implementation of the technologies. "Part of my concern is that when we start seeing these things emerging, we're going to suddenly find that the people who could bring benefits to us won't because they're scared of the legal uncertainty," says Elliot. "So one of the things we're trying to promote is a debate about the rights and wrongs — the ethics — and that should inform the law afterwards.""
XBox (Games)

Submission + - Xbox 360 failure rate is 54.2%

Submitted by Colonel Korn
Colonel Korn writes: The Seattle PI Blog is reporting that a soon to be published Game Informer survey finally shows the failure rate of XBOX 360s: 54%! The survey also shows the rates of failure for the PS3 (11%) and Wii (7%). Impressively, only 4% of respondents said they wouldn't buy a new 360 because of hardware failures.
The Internet

Submission + - Domain Tasting Finally Wiped Out by ICANN

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "Ars Technica reports that the practice known as "domain tasting," whereby scammers used the "Add Grace Period" to grab huge numbers of domains, throw up pages full of advertising, then withdraw the applications before the bill came due, has finally come to an end thanks to a change in ICANN policy. Domain tasters managed to make money with the practice, which essentially cost them nothing, by registering variants of some domain name in bulk and sampling a wide range of typos for a popular site; any names with staying power could be kept, while the rest could be discarded after a few days at no cost. In 2008, ICANN decided to act. It allowed domain registrars to withdraw as many as 10 percent of their total registrations but they would face penalties for anything above that. Starting in June 2008, ICANN adopted a budget that included a charge of $0.20 for each withdrawal above the limit. In July 2009 ICANN raised the penalty to $6.75, the cost of a .org registration. The results were dramatic. Even under the low-cost budget provisions, domain withdrawals during the grace period dropped to 16 percent of what they had been prior to its adoption. Once the heavy penalties took hold, the withdrawal rate dropped to under half a percent. "The problem was identified and then a solution produced that has effectively seen the death of domain tasting in less than a year," says ICANN CEO Rob Beckstrom."

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