7413086
submission
jdelisle writes:
NASA scientists have produced the most compelling evidence yet that bacterial life exists on Mars. Microscopic worm-like structures have been found in a Martian meteorite that hit the Earth 13,000 years ago. According to NASA, these structures are almost certainly fossilized bacteria.
"This is very strong evidence of life on Mars" said David Mackay, a senior scientist at the NASA Johnson Space Center.
The so-called bio-morphs are embedded beneath the surface layers of the rock, suggesting that they were already present when the meteorite arrived, rather than being the result of subsequent contamination by Earthly bacteria.
7411638
submission
suitablegirl writes:
Today's Federal Register includes an official notice from the FCC that it is proposing a rule that would "preserve the open Internet." Net Neutrality has been a hot topic in recent days; two weeks ago a White House official spoke out in favor of the concept and took a shot at the broadband industry.
Speaking at a telecom policy conference last week, Deputy CTO Andrew McLaughlin compared censorship in China — where President Obama's recent comments on open Internet values were blocked from Chinese Web sites — to the need for net neutrality rules so as to prevent corporations from acting as gatekeepers of information and speech.
7410540
submission
jogrim writes:
Consumer group preps legal challenge to Facebook terms. Getting poked all the way from Norway.
7409412
submission
coondoggie writes:
Whether or not anyone actually ever gets this money remains to be seen but at the behest of the Federal Trade Commission, a federal judge has ordered the mastermind of what was a vast international spam network to pay $15.15 million in a default judgment for his role in running the operation which sent out billions of junk e-mails. The anti-spam organization Spamhaus Project called Atikinson's crew the largest spam gang in the world which at one point may have accounted for as much as one-third of the world's spam. The group's specialty was pushing male-enhancement pills, prescription drugs, and weight-loss pills, the FTC stated.
[spam URL stripped]Link to Original Source
7408238
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jvillain writes:
India is about to pull the plug so to speak on 25 million cell phones in the name of fighting terrorism.
7407204
submission
MikeChino writes:
When a disaster strikes, it’s often difficult to get shelters up in time for displaced residents. Enter Concrete Cloth, a durable new waterproof building material made of cement sandwiched between fabric. The cloth can be molded into any shape when bonded with water, and it takes just two hours to set. Since the cloth has a life span of 10 years, it can be used in situations where displacement is prolonged, and the material's durability also makes it ideal for military use.
7406786
submission
jtavares2 writes:
In what is being dubbed as Throttlegate, scours of users on many message boards have been complaining about inexplicably aggressive throttling policies on their Dell Latitude E6500 and E6400 laptops which cause its CPUs to be throttled to less than 5% of its theoretical maximum even while in room temperatures! In many cases, the issue can triggered just by playing a video or performing some other trivial, but CPU intensive, task. After being banned from the Dell Forums for revealing "non-public information", one user went so far as to write and publish a 59-page report explaining and diagnosing the throttling problem in incredible detail. Dell seems to be silent on the issue, but many users are hoping for a formal recall.
7404582
submission
Lucas123 writes:
Researchers at Harvard Medical School pored over survey data from more than 4,000 "wired" hospitals and determined that computerization of those facilities not only didn't save them a dime, but the technology didn't improve administrative efficiency. The study also showed most of the IT systems were aimed improving efficiency for hospital management not doctors, nurses and medical technicians. "For 45 years or so, people have been claiming computers are going to save vast amounts of money and that the payoff was just around the corner. So the first thing we need to do is stop claiming things there's no evidence for. It's based on vaporware and [hasn't been] shown to exist or shown to be true," said Dr. David Himmelstein, the study's lead author.
7396174
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atilla filiz writes:
A pub has reportedly been fined £8,000 after a customer downloaded copyrighted material on its Wi-Fi connection. ...
Legal experts are baffled by the ruling. Internet law professor Lilian Edwards, of Sheffield Law School, told ZDNet that companies that operate a public Wi-Fi hotspot should "not be responsible in theory" for users' illegal downloads under "existing substantive copyright law".
7389500
submission
eldavojohn writes:
Congressman Peter King (Republican — New York) is calling for a probe into Wikileaks with regards to the half million 9/11 pager messages published recently. He has announced plans involving his Washington staff conducting a preliminary investigation under the premise that this action 'raises security issues.' A word of caution, Congressman King has been known to make inflammatory and unpopular statements.
7377412
submission
truesaer writes:
I'll be spending all of next year backpacking through South America. In the past I've used internet cafes while away, but this time I plan to bring a netbook and rely primarily on wifi hotspots. I'll be facing the same issues and risks that business travelers in hotels and airports face, as well as those that millions of other backpackers, gap-year travelers, and students encounter. Since my trip is so long I'll have no choice but to access my banking, credit card, and investment accounts on public networks. Other than an effective firewall, a patched system, and the use of SSL what else should I do to protect my information? Keep in mind that many places have very poor bandwidth and latency, and that I will not have a system at home to connect through.
7351056
submission
The Installer writes:
Frank's legislation would allow the Treasury Department to license and regulate online gambling companies that service American customers. Frank argues that online gambling should be legal as a matter of personal liberty and that the federal government could collect increased tax revenues if Internet gambling is regulated.
In September, a U.S. appeals court in Philadelphia upheld the 2006 law, rejecting a challenge from an association of offshore bookies that the federal prohibition was too vague and violated privacy rights.
U.S. bettors have been estimated to supply at least half the revenue of the $16 billion Internet gambling industry, which is largely hosted overseas.
7344506
submission
ericatcw writes:
Through tools such as Visual Basic and Visual Studio, Microsoft may have done more than any other vendor to make drag and drop-style programming mainstream. But its superstar developers seem to prefer old-school modes of hacking code. During the panel at the Professional Developers Conference earlier this month, the devs also revealed why they think writing tight, bare-metal code will come back into fashion, and why parallel programming hasn't caught up with the processors yet.
7330444
submission
Geoffrey.landis writes:
Andrew Rivkin of the NYT blog profiles Judith Curry, a climate scientist at Georgia Tech who-- unlike many climate scientists-- does not simply dismiss the arguments "climate skeptics," but attempts to engage them in dialogue. She can, as well, be rather pointed in criticizing her colleagues, as in a post on the skeptic site climateaudit where she argues for greater transparency for climate data and calculations (mirrored here). In this post she makes a point that tribalism in science is the main culprit here-- that when scientists "circle the wagons" to defend against what they perceive to be unfair (and unscientific) attacks, the result can be damaging to the actual science being defended.
Is it still possible to conduct a dialogue, or is there no possible common ground? Stay tuned.
