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Submission + - Meet the SeeTel Phoenix, the first Android phone designed and made in Africa (htxt.co.za)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The SeeTel Phoenix makes use of an Android 4.4.2 operating system with plans to upgrade to 5.1 in the near future. It is equipped with two cameras, one a 5MP rear camera and the other a 2MP front camera. Internal storage is pegged at 8GB and a microSD slot is included for extra storage. Powered by 1GB RAM and a 1700 mAH lithium ion battery the device is dual-SIM compatible and should cost less than R3 000.

Submission + - Russia to close 40% of its universities by 2016 (universityworldnews.com)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: According to Russian Minister of Education and Science Dmitry Livanov the number of Russian universities will be cut by 40% by the end of 2016

Livanov said the number of universities was five times higher now than during the days of the USSR and was too high: “This is mainly the result of the opening of a huge number of private universities during the 1990s. Unfortunately, the results of our monitoring showed that the quality of education provided by some of them is very poor

He said that some institutions acted as “offices for the sale of certificates that do not have an established training process and qualified teachers”

The majority of cuts will affect private universities that provide a poor standard of education. This year, quality checks officially started on 10 March, and the results will be submitted to the Education Ministry by 30 May

An official spokesman for the ministry said it was a possible that some of the closed universities, including their infrastructure and teachers, could be absorbed by other regional universities that would continue to operate

As part of the plans, up to 100 universities will be subject to quality assessments over the next few months and this may result in some being closed. The process is set to be completed by the middle to the end of 2016

The latest plans have been welcomed by some of Russia’s leading employers. German Gref, President of Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank which employs about 240,000 workers, said the nation needed a transition to a new model of education

“At present, the majority of Russian students, teachers and employers are unhappy with the quality of higher education. In the case of employers, about 60% consider the quality of higher education in the country to be inadequate, and in need of improvement,” Gref said

Submission + - China plans to invest $1.25 trillion on re-shaping industry and manufacturing

Submitted by dkatana
dkatana writes: The Chinese plan to invest $1.25 trillion over the next three years in modernizing and transforming the nation's industry in a bid to re-shape the huge manufacturing sector and turn it into a streamlined paragon of efficiency and flexibility.

Today, China's manufacturing industry is extremely power hungry and consumes most of the electricity generated by power plants, which also churn out mountains of pollution.

NXP and Huawei will develop a global leading Industry 4.0 networking solution that creates sustainable value for customers in Greater China region and potentially across the globe

Submission + - Is Japan losing its influence in global semiconductor market? (viralnewschart.com)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: In the 1990's Japan-based semiconductor manufacturers wielded their greatest influence on the global stage by holding six of the top 10 positions. The six Japan-based companies that were counted among the top-10 semiconductor suppliers in 1990 is a number that has not been matched by any country or region since

The number of Japan-based companies ranked in the top-10 in semiconductor sales slipped to four in 1995, fell to three companies in 2000 and 2006, and then to only two companies in 2014 – Toshiba and Renesas – among the top-10 semiconductor suppliers

Assuming the NXP/Freescale merger is completed later in 2015, Toshiba will be the lone Japan-based company left in the top-10 ranking

Will America be the next to lose global semiconductor influence?

Submission + - POS vendor uses same password - 166816 - non-stop since 1990 (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by mask.of.sanity
mask.of.sanity writes: Fraud fighters David Byrne and Charles Henderson say one of the world's largest Point of Sale systems vendors has been slapping the same default passwords – 166816 – on its kit since 1990. Worse still: about 90 per cent of customers are still using the password. Fraudsters would need physical access to the PoS in question to exploit it by opening a panel using a paperclip.

But such physical PoS attacks are not uncommon and are child's play for malicious staff. Criminals won't pause before popping and unlocking. The enraged pair badged the unnamed PoS vendor by its other acronym labelling it 'Piece of S***t

Submission + - Security Companies Accused Of Exaggerating Iran's Cyberthreats Against The U.S. (dailydot.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A widely-read report accusing Iran of hundreds of thousands of cyberattacks against the U.S. is being criticized as hugely inaccurate as well as motivated by marketing and politics, according to a new whitepaper and critics around the security industry. The original report, solicited by a conservative think tank and published by Norse in the lead up to the RSA Security Conference, hit the front page of the New York Times by calling handshakes and network scans "sophisticated cyberattacks."

Submission + - Hubble finds something astronomers can't explain

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: The Hubble Space Telescope has spotted the explosion of a star that does not fit into any theory for stellar evolution.

The exploding star, which was seen in the constellation Eridanus, faded over two weeks — much too rapidly to qualify as a supernova. The outburst was also about ten times fainter than most supernovae, explosions that destroy some or all of a star. But it was about 100 times brighter than an ordinary nova, which is a type of surface explosion that leaves a star intact. "The combination of properties is puzzling," says Mario Livio, an astrophysicist at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland. "I thought about a number of possibilities, but each of them fails" to account for all characteristics of the outburst, he adds.

We can put this discovery on the bottom of a very long list of similar discoveries by Hubble, which this week is celebrating the 25th anniversary of its launch.

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