Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Submission + - Ubuntu Linux 14.04 LTS Trusty Tahr Released

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Ubuntu Linux version 14.04 LTS (code named "Trusty Tahr") has been released and available for download. This updated version includes the Linux kernel v3.13.0-24.46, Python 3.4, Xen 4.4, Libreoffice 4.2.3, MySQL 5.6/MariaDB 5.5, Apache 2.4, PHP 5.5, improvements to AppArmor allow more fine-grained control over application, and more. The latest release of Ubuntu Server is heavily focused on supporting cloud and scale-out computing platforms such as OpenStack, Docker, and more. As part of the wider Ubuntu 14.04 release efforts the Ubuntu Touch team is proud to make the latest and greatest touch experience available to our enthusiast users and developers. You can install Ubuntu on Nexus 4 Phone (mako), Nexus 7 (2013) Tablet (flo), and Nexus 10 Tablet (manta) by following these instructions. On a hardware front, ARM multiplatform support has been added, enabling you to build a single ARM kernel image that can boot across multiple hardware platforms. Additionally, the ARM64 and Power architectures are now fully supported. See detailed release note for more information here and a quick upgrade to a newer version of Ubuntu is possible over the network.

Submission + - NASA proposes "water world theory" for origin of life

Submitted by William Robinson
William Robinson writes: A new study from researchers at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has proposed the "water world" theory as the answer to our evolution, which describes how electrical energy naturally produced at the sea floor might have given rise to life. While the scientists had already proposed this hypothesis called "submarine alkaline hydrothermal emergence of life" the new report assembles decades of field, laboratory and theoretical research into a grand, unified picture.

Submission + - Steam vulnerability allows hackers to bypass security and swipe account data (theinquirer.net)

Submitted by llebeel
llebeel writes: Malwarebytes has uncovered a way for hackers to steal Steam accounts while bypassing an additional security measure.

When logging in on a PC you haven't used before, Steam Guard will appear as a window asking for a verification code that will have been sent to your email address. Without the code, you can't log in. Malwarebytes claims to have found that scammers have come up with a way to get around this security measure.

Submission + - Big win for Open Government and Transparency in Mississippi (djournal.com)

Submitted by Chris Elkins
Chris Elkins writes: Text messages are now officially considered public records. An investigative reporter fought for access to what he believed were public records. He took his fight to the state and won. Mississippi open government and transparency advocates view this unanimous commission opinion as precedent-setting for all government bodies and public officials in the state.

Submission + - What Tech Products Were Built to Last? (itworld.com)

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: When you think about tech products these days, you probably think 'refresh cycle' more than 'built to last.' But as it turns out there are plenty of tech products that put up with hard, daily use year after year. ITworld dug into the BuyItForLife subreddit to suss out 10 such products (some more strictly 'tech' than others). Among those with the strongest recommendations for their ability to outlast their peers: Logitech MX510 mouse, Brother black & white laser printer, Casio G-Shock watch, Alvin Draf-Tec Retrac mechanical pencil, Sony Dream Machine alarm clock. What's your longest-lasting, hardest-working device?

Submission + - Click Like? You may have given up the right to sue. (nytimes.com)

Submitted by sandbagger
sandbagger writes: The New York Times reports that General Mills, the maker of cereals like Cheerios and Chex as well as brands like Bisquick and Betty Crocker, has quietly added language to its website to alert consumers that they give up their right to sue the company if they download coupons, 'join' it in social media communities. Who'd have imagined that clicking like requires a EULA?

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 + - Is TQP liable for Heartbleed damages?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: TQP has asserted its SSL related patents very effectively, having never lost a case, and having won millions in licensing settlements. Even the might of Newegg's Lee Cheng lost to the tune of $2.3million. But, since heartbleed, it's been shown that web encryption is faulty. And since TQP owns SSL on the web, and given how TQP has devoted zero efforts to support its licensees from TQP's defective technology, shouldn't TQP be liable for damages?

Submission + - Land Rover Just Solved First-World Problems With Lasers And Cameras

Submitted by cartechboy
cartechboy writes: Today's cars feature cooled cupholders, touchscreens, and even high-speed Internet. But those were yesterday's problems. Land Rover just solved tomorrow's problems with its Discovery Vision Concept with lasers for eyes and the ability to be driven via smartphone. Those lasers are actually the headlights and they give it nearly a thousand more feet of range than conventional headlights. There's also two cameras that read the road and conditions ahead which allows the laser headlights to dim themselves to avoid glare for oncoming traffic. These lasers can also generate an infrared-derived scan of the terrain on the ground and obstacles ahead. This data can be used for everything from projecting the hidden parts of the driving surface on the lower part of the windshield to an augmented-reality view. Now combine all this with smartphone connectivity and you can pilot the vehicle from the comfort of your couch. People, this the future. Are you ready?

Submission + - Not Everyone Needs Probiotics, Suggests Study of Hunter-Gatherer Guts (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: After taking an antibiotic or catching an intestinal bug, many of us belt down probiotic drinks to restore the “natural balance” of organisms in our intestines. Probiotics are one of the fastest growing products in the food industry, now added to yogurts, drinks, and baby food. Yet, not everyone needs them to stay healthy. A new study of the gut bacteria of hunter-gatherers in Africa has found that they completely lack a bacterium that is a key ingredient in most probiotic foods and considered healthy. What’s more, the Hadza don’t suffer from colon cancer, colitis, Crohn’s, or other diseases of the colon that are found in humans eating modern diets in Western nations.

Submission + - PowerVR "Wizard" GPU Is First Mobile Gaming GPU With Hardware Ray Tracing (imgtec.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Imagination Technologies, the people who make the PowerVR line of mobile GPUs, have unveiled a new mobile gaming GPU ("Wizard") that does realtime ray tracing in hardware, at gaming frame rates. It has long been predicted that 3D games would eventually begin to employ true ray tracing to create computationally expensive visual effects like realistic reflections, refractions, shadows and lighting in realtime games. The PowerVR "Wizard" GPU is the first mobile GPU that can do just that in hardware. It remains to be seen how many commercial game engines, game development studios and mobile games will decide to make use of this new interesting new hardware capability. The question whether rival GPU manufacturers like Nvidia or AMD will also jump on the ray tracing bandwagon and put hardware ray tracing units in their future GPUs is also open at this point. If the hardware ray tracing trend catches on, however, and the hardware needed for it becomes mainstream, and more powerful in time, it could make for interesting virtual experiences like "true photoreal VR" when used in conjunction with a VR headset like the Oculus Rift for example.

Submission + - Does Heartbleed Disprove 'Open Source is Safer'? (datamation.com)

Submitted by jammag
jammag writes: "Almost as devastating is the blow Heartbleed has dealt to the image of free and open source software (FOSS). In the self-mythology of FOSS, bugs like Heartbleed aren't supposed to happen when the source code is freely available and being worked with daily. As Eric Raymond famously said, 'given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow'...Tired of FOSS's continual claims of superior security, some Windows and OS X users welcome the idea that Heartbleed has punctured FOSS pretensions. But is that what has happened?"

Submission + - Do backups on Linux no longer matter? (sourceforge.net) 5

Submitted by cogcritter
cogcritter writes: In June of 2009, the dump/restore utilities version 0.4b42 for Linux's ext3 filesystem were released. This was the last version where incremental dumps could actually be used. A bug introduced in 0.4b43, one year later, causes restore to fail when processing an incremental backup unless, basically, no directory deletions occurred since the level 0 part of the backup set was taken.

The bug is certainly present in Debian Wheezy, and comments in Debian's defect tracking system suggest that the bug has permeated out into other distros as well.

How can Linux's backup/restore tools for its popular ext2/ext3 filesystem be broken for 3+ years, and nobody seems to care? Does nobody take backups? Or do they not use incremental backups? How many people are going to find themselves scrambling when they next NEED to restore a filesystem, and find themselves in possession of long-broken tools?

Just in case this article is where some hapless sysadmin ends up, the workaround is to go to dump.sf.net, go to the files section, pull down the 0.4b42 version and build it for yourself. For me, I think going forward I'm going to switch to filesystem mirroring using rsync.

Slashdot Top Deals

Today is a good day for information-gathering. Read someone else's mail file.

Close