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Submission + - Microsoft To Launch Minecraft Education Portal For Teachers

Submitted by Mickeycaskill
Mickeycaskill writes: Microsoft wants to help educators use Minecraft to teach pupils about maths, history, creative design and other subjects and skills, claiming the game is already being used in classrooms in the US and UK.

Minecraft developer Mojang was bought by Microsoft last year for $2.5 billion and the game has been featured in a number of HoloLens demos, an indication of how it sees the former indie phenomenon as more than just a game.

“Very soon after Minecraft launched, we noticed teachers bringing the game into their classrooms,” said a blog post. “Often inspired by the passion of their students, they started using Minecraft to design history lessons, teach language classes, explore mathematics, physics, computer science, writing, and more."

Submission + - How the next US nuclear accident will happen (thebulletin.org)

Submitted by Lasrick
Lasrick writes: Anthropologist Hugh Gusterson analyzes safety at US nuclear facilities and finds a disaster waiting to happen due to an over-reliance on automated security technology and private contractors cutting corners to increase profits. Gusterson follows on the work of Eric Schlosser, Frank Munger, and Dan Zak in warning us of the serious problems at US nuclear facilities, both in the energy industry and in the nuclear security complex.

Submission + - Depression: The secret struggle startup founders won't talk about (businessinsider.com)

Submitted by mattydread23
mattydread23 writes: In May, Cambrian Genomics CEO Austen Heinz committed suicide. The news stunned friends and family, and sparked a conversation about the growing problem of depression among startup founders. Some estimates say 30% of startup founders suffer from depression, but many are reluctant to talk about their struggle for fear of alienating investors and employees. This feature by Business Insider includes conversations with a friend of Heinz, plus many investors and other startup founders who are starting to talk about the problem and figure out how to make things better.

Submission + - Exploring the Relationships Between Tech Skills (Visualization) (dice.com)

Submitted by Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster writes: Simon Hughes, Dice's Chief Data Scientist, has put together an experimental visualization that explores how tech skills relate to one another. In the visualization, every circle or node represents a particular skill; colors designate communities that coalesce around skills. Try clicking “Java”, for example, and notice how many other skills accompany it (a high-degree node, as graph theory would call it). As a popular skill, it appears to be present in many communities: Big Data, Oracle Database, System Administration, Automation/Testing, and (of course) Web and Software Development. You may or may not agree with some relationships, but keep in mind, it was all generated in an automatic way by computer code, untouched by a human. Building it started with Gephi, an open-source network analysis and visualization software package, by importing a pair-wise comma-separated list of skills and their similarity scores (as Simon describes in his article) and running a number of analyses: Force Atlas layout to draw a force-directed graph, Avg. Path Length to calculate the Betweenness Centrality that determines the size of a node, and finally Modularity to detect communities of skills (again, color-coded in the visualization). The graph was then exported as an XML graph file (GEXF) and converted to JSON format with two sets of elements: Nodes and Links. "We would love to hear your feedback and questions," Simon says.

Submission + - First human colonies should be among Venus' clouds

Submitted by StartsWithABang
StartsWithABang writes: When we talk about humans existing on worlds other than Earth, the first choice of a planet to do so on is usually Mars, a world that may have been extremely Earth-like for the first billion years of our Solar System or so. Perhaps, with enough ingenuity and resources, we could terraform it to be more like Earth is today. But the most Earth-like conditions in the Solar System don't occur on the surface of Mars, but rather in the high altitudes of Venus' atmosphere, some 50-65 km up. Despite its harsh conditions, this may be the best location for the first human colonies, for a myriad of good, scientific reasons.

Submission + - The Real-Life Dangers of Augmented Reality (ieee.org)

Submitted by Tekla Perry
Tekla Perry writes: Today's augmented reality devices have yet to go through extensive tests of their impact on their wearers' health and safety. But by looking at existing research involving visual and motor impairments, two Kaiser Permanente researchers find they can draw conclusions about the promise and perils of augmented reality, and point to ways wearable developers can make these devices safer.

Submission + - France... Just another country cracking down on Uber (techcrunch.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The police charged the two executives with two different charges. First, according to them, Uber is running an illegal taxi company. Uber has been struggling with this charge in many countries, starting with the U.S.

Second, the police said that Uber France is concealing digital documents. Itâ(TM)s hard to tell what the police was looking for when they raided the French office. But apparently, some documents are missingâ¦

Maybe your next ride will be transacted over the Silk Road using bitcoin!

Submission + - Malwarebytes Offers Pirates Its Premium Antimalware Product For Free

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Malwarebytes, a security company best known for its Malwarebytes Anti-Malware (MBAM) product, has debuted an Amnesty program for Windows users. If you pirated Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, purchased a counterfeit version of the software, or are having problems with your key in general, the company is offering a free replacement key. Malwarebytes offers a wide variety of security solutions, including a freeware antimwalware product for home users. The premium version will set you back $24.95 for one year and can be used on up to three PCs.

Submission + - Interview: Ask Linus Torvalds a Question

Submitted by samzenpus
samzenpus writes: Linus Torvalds, the man behind the development of the Linux kernel, needs no introduction to Slashdot readers. Recently, we talked about his opinion on C++, and he talked about the future of Linux when he's gone. It's been a while since we sat down with Linus to ask him questions, so he's agreed to do it again and answer any you may have. Ask as many questions as you'd like, but please keep them to one per post.

Comment Re:Good thing Slashdot isn't in the EU (Score 4, Informative) 401

by samzenpus (#49930833) Attached to: European Court: Websites Are Responsible For Users' Comments

Nothing is "outright deleted with some regularity." The flag just puts the comment on a list that an editor looks over every day. We ban spammers who we find leaving links in comments, and occasionally mod down any egregious trolls that aren't already at -1. That's it. We've deleted comments in the past under legal threat but it's not our policy to do so normally. This comment showed up on the list but none of the editors are going to delete it. We think it's important to maintain a place where you can say whatever you want, even if that thing isn't popular or as in this case, correct.

Submission + - Restaurateur settles after being extorted by BMI (nypost.com) 1

Submitted by Frosty Piss
Frosty Piss writes: BMI claims Amici III in Linden, New York didn't have a license when it played four tunes in its eatery one night last year, including the beloved “Bennie and the Jets” and “Brown Sugar,” winning a $24,000 judgment earlier this year, as well as more than $8,200 in attorney’s fees. Giovanni Lavorato, who has been in business for 25 years, says the disc jockey DJ brought into the eatery paid a fee to play tunes. 'It’s ridiculous for me to pay somebody also,' he said. 'This is not a nightclub. This is not a disco joint . . . How many times do they want to get paid for the stupid music?'

Submission + - How Today's Low-Power x86 & ARM CPUs Compare To Intel's Old NetBurst CPUs (phoronix.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In trying to offer a unique look at how Intel x86 CPU performance has evolved since their start, Phoronix celebrated their 11th birthday by comparing modern CPUs to old Socket 478 CPUs with the NetBurst Celeron and Pentium 4C on an Intel 875P+ICH5R motherboard. These old NetBurst processors were compared to modern Core and Atom processors from Haswell, Broadwell, Bay Trail and other generations. There were also some AMD CPUs and the NVIDIA Tegra K1 ARM processor. Surprisingly, in a few Linux tests the NetBurst CPUs performed better than AMD E-Series APUs and an Atom Bay Trail. However, for most workloads, the 45+ other CPUs tested ended up being multiple times faster; for the systems where the power consumption was monitored, the power efficiency was obviously multiple times better.

Submission + - Microsoft Will Help Iowa Caucuses Go High-Tech

Submitted by jfruh
jfruh writes: Poltical party caucuses are one of the quirkier aspects of American political life: local party members gather in small rooms across the state, discuss their preferences, and send a report of how many delegates for each candidate will attend later county and statewide caucuses to ultimately choose delegates to the national convention. It's also a system with a lot of room for error in reporting, as local precinct leaders have traditionally sent in reports of votes via telephone touch-tone menus and paper mail. In 2016, Microsoft will help both Democrats and Republicans streamline the process in a fashion that will hopefully avoid the embarassing result from 2012, when Mitt Romney was declared the winner on caucus night only for Rick Santorum to emerge as the true victor when all votes were counted weeks later.

Submission + - Mars One Applicant Numbers Inflated

Submitted by jklovanc
jklovanc writes: Mars One has admitted that they wildly inflated the number of completed applications. While they reported over 200,000 applications the number of completed applications was actually 4,227. It is apparent that they do not have the public support the want us to think they do.

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