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Comment Re:Smartphone with 50 Megapixel CCD sensor ? (Score 1) 94

by newbie_fantod (#48676345) Attached to: Kodak-Branded Smartphones On the Way

The only way Kodak can really make a difference... is to equip the Kodak branded smartphone with its own 50 Megapixel CCD sensor

If they released a 100% open phone with complete and transparent control over what data gets transmitted and stored, that would make a difference. Somehow though, I expect the 50MP sensor is more likely.

Submission + - Wikipedia reports 50 links from Google 'forgotten' (networkworld.com)

Submitted by netbuzz
netbuzz writes: The Wikimedia Foundation this morning reports that 50 links to Wikipedia from Google have been removed under Europe’s “right to be forgotten” regulations, including a page about a notorious Irish bank robber and another about an Italian criminal gang. “We only know about these removals because the involved search engine company chose to send notices to the Wikimedia Foundation. Search engines have no legal obligation to send such notices. Indeed, their ability to continue to do so may be in jeopardy. Since search engines are not required to provide affected sites with notice, other search engines may have removed additional links from their results without our knowledge. This lack of transparent policies and procedures is only one of the many flaws in the European decision.”

Submission + - The Long and Winding Road to the Surveillance Society (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by smugfunt
smugfunt writes: There is a new blog post by Adam Curtis tracing some of the strange connections and interesting characters in the evolution of the digital Panopticon we find ourselves living in. He posits that many of the data-driven systems now used in all sectors of society have the effect (deliberate and accidental) of forestalling change/fostering stability. As always, he brings to our attention some hitherto unnoticed 'men behind the curtain'.

Submission + - Microsoft Kills Security Update Emails, Blames Canada (krebsonsecurity.com)

Submitted by tsu doh nimh
tsu doh nimh writes: In a move that may wind up helping spammers, Microsoft is blaming a new Canadian anti-spam law for the company’s recent decision to stop sending regular emails about security updates for its Windows operating system and other Microsoft software. Some anti-spam experts who worked very closely on Canada’s Anti-Spam Law (CASL) say they are baffled by Microsoft’s response to a law which has been almost a decade in the making. Indeed, an exception in the law says it does not apply to commercial electronic messages that solely provide “warranty information, product recall information or safety or security information about a product, goods or a service that the person to whom the message is sent uses, has used or has purchased.” Several people have observed that Microsoft likely is using the law as a convenient excuse for dumping an expensive delivery channel.

Submission + - Canadian Supreme Court Delivers Huge Win For Internet Privacy (michaelgeist.ca)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: For the past several months, many Canadians have been debating privacy reform, with the government moving forward on two bills involving Internet surveillance and expanded voluntary, warrantless disclosure of personal information. Today, the Supreme Court of Canada entered the debate and completely changed the discussion, issuing its long-awaited R. v. Spencer decision, which examined the legality of voluntary warrantless disclosure of basic subscriber information to law enforcement. Michael Geist summarizes the findings, noting that the unanimous decision included a strong endorsement of Internet privacy, emphasizing the privacy importance of subscriber information, the right to anonymity, and the need for police to obtain a warrant for subscriber information except in exigent circumstances or under a reasonable law.

Submission + - FSF publishes Email Self-Defense Guide and infographic (fsf.org)

Submitted by gnujoshua
gnujoshua writes: The FSF has published a (rather beautiful) infographic and guide to encrypting your email using GnuPG. In their blog post announcing the guide they write:

One year ago today, an NSA contractor named Edward Snowden went public with his history-changing revelations about the NSA's massive system of indiscriminate surveillance. Today the FSF is releasing Email Self-Defense, a guide to personal email encryption to help everyone, including beginners, make the NSA's job a little harder. We're releasing it as part of Reset the Net, a global day of action to push back against the surveillance-industrial complex.

Submission + - Testing 65 Different GPUs On Linux With Open Source Drivers (phoronix.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: How good are open source graphics drivers in 2014 given all the Linux gaming and desktop attention? Phoronix has tested 65 different GPUs using the latest open source drivers covering Intel HD Graphics, NVIDIA GeForce, AMD Radeon, and AMD FirePro hardware. Of the 65 GPUs tested, only 50 of them had good enough open source driver support for running OpenGL games and benchmarks. Across the NVIDIA and AMD hardware were several pages of caveats with different driver issues encountered on Linux 3.15 and Mesa 10.3 loaded on Ubuntu 14.04. Intel graphics on Linux were reliable but slow while AMD's open-source Linux support was recommended over the NVIDIA support that doesn't currently allow for suitable graphics card re-clocking. Similar tests are now being done with the proprietary Linux drivers.

Submission + - Russia Retaliates: Blocks GPS, Bans US Use Of Its Rocket Engines (zerohedge.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Moscow is banning Washington from using Russian-made rocket engines, which the US has used to deliver its military satellites into orbit, said Russia’s Deputy PM, Dmitry Rogozin, who is in charge of space and defense industries.

According to Rogozin, Russia is also halting the operation of all American GPS stations on its territory from June 1.

Russia currently hosts 11 ground-based GPS stations, the Deputy PM said.

The move comes after the US refused to place a signal correction station for Russia’s own space-based satellite navigation system, GLONASS, on American territory, he explained.

This is a major problem for the US military because (as Bloomberg reports),

The Pentagon has no “great solution” to reduce its dependence on a Russian-made engine that powers the rocket used to launch U.S. military satellites, the Defense Department’s top weapons buyer said.

“We don’t have a great solution,” Frank Kendall, the undersecretary of defense for acquisition, said yesterday after testifying before a Senate committee. “We haven’t made any decisions yet.”

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel ordered the Air Force to review its reliance on the rocket engine after tensions over Russia’s takeover of Ukraine’s Crimea region prompted questions from lawmakers about that long-time supply connection.

United Launch Alliance LLC, a partnership of Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co., uses the Russian-made RD-180 engine on Atlas V rockets.

Submission + - Linus Torvalds Receives IEEE Computer Pioneer Award (i-programmer.info)

Submitted by mikejuk
mikejuk writes: "Linus Torvalds, the "man who invented Linux" is the 2014 recipient of the IEEE Computer Society's Computer Pioneer Award -
"For pioneering development of the Linux kernel using the open-source approach".
According to Wikipedia, Torvalds had wanted to call the kernel he developed Freax (a combination of "free", "freak", and the letter X to indicate that it is a Unix-like system), but his friend Ari Lemmke, who administered the FTP server it was first hosted for download, named Torvalds' directory linux.
In some ways Git can be seen as his more important contribution — but as it dates from 2005 it is outside the remit of the IEEE Computer Pioneer award."

Submission + - Bullied Student Records Bullies, Gets Hit With Felony Charges For Violation (techdirt.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Here comes another story highlighting the danger of schools "outsourcing" their disciplinary problems to law enforcement. As we've stated before, this does nothing more than turn routine misconduct into criminal behavior, which is a great way to derail a student's future.

A Pennsylvania teen, who claimed to have been bullied constantly (and ignored by school administration), made an audio recording of his tormentors using a school-supplied iPad. He brought this to the school's attention, which duly responded by calling the cops to have him arrested for violating Pennsylvania's wiretapping law. (h/t to Techdirt reader btr1701)

Maybe the future holds better outcomes, but for right now, everyone involved had a chance to stop this from reaching this illogical conclusion, but no one — from the administrators to their legal team to local law enforcement to the presiding judge — was interested in reining this in. In the end, it looks as though an innate desire to punish someone was satisfied every step of the way.

Submission + - Study Finds U.S. is an Oligarchy, Not a Democracy

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Researchers from Princeton University and Northwestern University have concluded, after extensive analysis of 1,779 policy issues, that the U.S. is in fact an oligarchy and not a democracy. What this means is that, although 'Americans do enjoy many features central to democratic governance', 'majorities of the American public actually have little influence over the policies our government adopts.' Their study (PDF), to be published in Perspectives on Politics, found that 'When the preferences of economic elites and the stands of organized interest groups are controlled for, the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.'

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