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Submission + - Wozniak Gets Personal On Innovation

Submitted by snydeq
snydeq writes: Companies are doggedly pursuing the next big thing in technology, but nothing seems to be pointing to the right way these days, claims the legendary Steve Wozniak. The reason? 'You tend to deal with the past,' replicating what you know in a new form. Consider the notion of computing eyeware like Google Glass: 'People have been marrying eyewear with TV inputs for 20 years,' Wozniak says. True innovation, Wozniak claims, becomes more human, more personal. People use technology more the less it feels like technology. 'The software gets more accepted when it works in human ways — meaning in noncomputer ways.' Here, Wozniak says, is the key to technology's role in the education system.

Submission + - Hewlett Packard Turns Buggy Software and Firmware Into a Revenue Stream!

Submitted by neversleepy
neversleepy writes: In the face of ever declining server sales. And in a move certian to affect many readers here, Hewlett Packard decides to provide updates to firmware and critical OS drivers only to customers who pay a premium for a CarePack, extended service contract. If this affects you negatively, try telling Hewlett Packard what you think about payola for hardware bug fixes.

Or maybe, the time is right to abandon vanity servers?

Submission + - Alleged Silk Road Founder Indicted Again, This Time in New York (wired.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Wired reports, "Federal authorities today announced a Grand Jury indictment against Ross Ulbricht, the alleged founder and owner of the underground drug emporium Silk Road. The indictment, in New York, includes one count for narcotics conspiracy, one count of running a criminal enterprise, one count of conspiracy to commit computer hacking and one count of money laundering, according to the indictment. It’s the second indictment for the the 29-year-old, who was arrested last October in San Francisco. Ulbricht was previously charged in New York at the time of his arrest, but authorities had until December to obtain an indictment against him based on new evidence seized. They sought an extension of that time and announced the indictment today. Ulbricht had been previously indicted in Maryland on charges of conspiring to have a former administrator of Silk Road murdered in exchange for $80,000. "

Submission + - Voter Shortsightedness May Skew Elections (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: “Are you better off than you were 4 years ago?” Ronald Reagan’s famous question in the U.S. presidential election of 1980 is generally a good yardstick for picking a candidate, or at least for judging a leader’s economic policies. But few voters follow it. Instead, they are swayed by economic swings in the months leading up to the election, often ignoring the larger trends. Why are we so shortsighted? A psychological study of voting behavior suggests an answer and points to a simple fix.

Submission + - Audience Jeers Contestant Who Uses Game Theory to Win at 'Jeopardy'

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: USA Today reports that Arthur Chu, an insurance compliance analyst and aspiring actor, has won $102,800 in four Jeopardy! appearances using a strategy —- jumping around the board instead of running categories straight down, betting odd amounts on Daily Doubles and doing a final wager to tie — that has fans calling him a "villain" and "smug". Arthur's in-game strategy of searching for the Daily Double that has made him such a target. Typically, contestants choose a single category and progressively move from the lowest amount up to the highest, giving viewers an easy-to-understand escalation of difficulty. But Arthur has his sights solely set on finding those hidden Daily Doubles, which are usually located on the three highest-paying rungs in the categories (the category itself is random). That means, rather than building up in difficulty, he begins at the most difficult questions. Once the two most difficult questions have been taken off the board in one column, he quickly jumps to another category. It's a grating experience for the viewer, who isn't given enough to time to get in a rhythm or fully comprehend the new subject area. "The more unpredictable you are, the more you put your opponents off-balance, the longer you can keep an initial advantage," says Chu. "It greatly increases your chance of winning the game if you can pull it off, and I saw no reason not to do it." Another contra-intuitive move Chu has made is playing for a tie rather than to win in "Final Jeopardy" because that allows you advance to the next round which is the most important thing, not the amount of money you win in one game. "In terms of influence on the game, Arthur looks like a trendsetter of things to come," says Eric Levenson. "Hopefully that has more to do with his game theory than with his aggressive button-pressing."

Submission + - Greenland's fastest glacier sets new speed record (washington.edu)

Submitted by vinces99
vinces99 writes: The latest observations of Jakobshavn Glacier show that Greenland’s largest glacier is moving ice from land into the ocean at a speed that appears to be the fastest ever recorded. Researchers from the University of Washington and the German Space Agency measured the speed of the glacier in 2012 and 2013. The results were published Feb. 3 in The Cryosphere, an open access journal of the European Geosciences Union.

Jakobshavn Glacier, which is widely believed to be the glacier that produced the large iceberg that sank the Titanic in 1912, drains the Greenland ice sheet into a deep-ocean fjord on the west coast of the island. This speedup of Jakobshavn means that the glacier is adding more and more ice to the ocean, contributing to sea-level rise.

“We are now seeing summer speeds more than four times what they were in the 1990s, on a glacier which at that time was believed to be one of the fastest, if not the fastest, glacier in Greenland,” said lead author Ian Joughin, a glaciologist at the UW’s Polar Science Center.

The new observations show that in summer of 2012 the glacier reached a record speed of more than 10 miles (17 km) per year, or more than 150 feet (46 m) per day. These appear to be the fastest flow rates recorded for any glacier or ice stream in Greenland or Antarctica, researchers said.

Submission + - Kansas drops plan for municipal broadband ban (kansas.com)

Submitted by Mokurai
Mokurai writes: "Facing public backlash over a Senate bill that would outlaw community broadband services statewide, Sen. Julia Lynn, R-Olathe, announced on Monday the postponement of hearings set to take place this week. Senate Bill 304 would prohibit cities and counties from building public broadband networks."

The bill was reportedly "introduced by John Federico, a cable industry lobbyist."

I didn't see this on SlashDot when it was introduced, but the Internet definitely responded to the threat of damage.

Submission + - Secure Smartphone Developed (popularmechanics.com)

Submitted by Shooter28
Shooter28 writes: From the source: Just more than a month before the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spanish handset maker Geeksphone, in partnership with encrypted communications firm Silent Circle, announced a smartphone that takes mobile security seriously. It's called Blackphone, and it runs PrivatOS, a security-focused version of Android.

This is supposed to a unlocked phone that can be used on any carrier and was developed with the help of the creator of PGP. Just how secure this actually is yet to be determined.

Submission + - Comedians Found To Have Higher Levels Of Four Psychotic Personality Traits (yahoo.com)

Submitted by cold fjord
cold fjord writes: Yahoo has a story from Reuters, "Having an unusual personality structure could be the secret to making other people laugh, scientists said ... In a study in the British Journal of Psychiatry, researchers analyzed comedians from Australia, Britain and the United States and found they scored significantly higher on four types of psychotic characteristics compared to a control group of people who had non-creative jobs. The traits included a tendency towards impulsive or anti-social behavior, and a tendency to avoid intimacy. "The creative elements needed to produce humor are strikingly similar to those characterizing the cognitive style of people with psychosis — both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder," said Gordon Claridge of the University of Oxford's department of experimental psychology, who led the study."

Submission + - Heat Waves in Australia are Getting More Frequent - and Hotter (climatecouncil.org.au)

Submitted by vikingpower
vikingpower writes: In a landmark report on bushfires and climate change, the Australian Climate Council concludes that heat waves in Australia, as driven by climate change, are becoming more frequent — and that they get hotter. "It is crucial that communities, emergency services, health services and other authorities prepare for the increasing severity and frequency of extreme fire conditions.", says the Council in the report. Sarah Perkins, one of the report's co-authors, was interviewed by The Guardian Australia. "“While we can’t blame climate change for any one event, we can certainly see its fingerprint. This is another link in the chain.” Perkins said her latest work had analysed heatwave trends up to 2013. She said the trend “just gets worse – it’s a bit scary really”." Already back in 2009, the United Nations World Meteorological Organization signaled that a Southeast Australian heatwave was the hottest in 100 years.

Submission + - NSA Collects 200 Million Text Messages Per Day (theguardian.com)

Submitted by ilikenwf
ilikenwf writes: A new release from the files obtained by Edward Snowden have revealed that the NSA collects millions of text messages per day. These are used to gain travel plans, financial data, and social network data. The majority of these texts and data belong to people who are not being investigated for any crime or association. Supposedly, "non-US" data is removed, but we all know that means it is sent to a partner country for analysis, which is then sent back to the NSA.

Submission + - There's a huge energy scandal happening right underneath your feet (medium.com)

Submitted by gallifreyan99
gallifreyan99 writes: Researchers from Duke revealed today that they had discovered nearly 5,900 gas leaks under the streets of Washington DC, including 12 that posed a serious risk of explosion. And it's not just Washington: a gas industry whistleblower who is part of the team showed this was happening in cities all over America. Why is that a big deal? Leaky pipes cause death, destruction —and the data means natural gas could actually be one of the worst fuels around.

Submission + - Revolutionary Scuba Mask Creates Breathable Oxygen Underwater On Its Own (themindunleashed.org) 3

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: With the Triton Oxygen Respirator, it might be possible to breathe beneath the surface of the water as if you were a fish. Requiring no bulky tank to keep your lungs pumping properly, this invention of scuba diving equipment is much more ergonomic and organic in design.

The regulator comprises a plastic mouthpiece that requires you to simply bite down. There are two arms that branch out to the sides of the scuba mask that have been developed to function like the efficient gills of a marine creature. The scaly texture conceals small holes in the material where water is sucked into Jeabyun Yeon's Triton. Chambers inside separate the oxygen and release the liquid so that you can breath comfortably in the ocean.
Internet Explorer

Open Source Add-on Rewrites the User Interface of IE11 86

Posted by timothy from the people-still-use-ie? dept.
An anonymous reader writes "This is how Internet Explorer would look if you move the tabs to the top like in other browsers. Developed as a design and UX study, the open source add-on replaces the default navigation bar and combines three traditionally separate toolbars into one. The UX project started in 2004 to demonstrate that it is feasible to combine the address, search, and find box into one. Additionally, Quero offers a variety of customization options for IE, including making the UI themeable or starting Microsoft's desktop browser always maximized."

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