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Submission + - Facebook Chiefs quizzed over Facial Recognition Technology (mirolta.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: This summer, Facebook’s ever growing ability to collect valuable information about its 900m users has come under scrutiny from the most senior law makers in America.

Facebook’s Privacy and Policy Manager Rob Sherman has been summoned to the US senate about the social network behemoth’s use of facial recognition technology. Minnesota Senator Al Franken called the hearing to examine Facebook and get answers from its senior management about new features such as default tagging suggestions in photos and about why there is so little information about the technology it utilises on its site....

Submission + - Mathematician Claims Proof of Connection between Prime Numbers (nature.com)

Submitted by cekerr
cekerr writes: A Japanese mathematician claims to have the proof for the ABC conjecture, a statement about the relationship between prime numbers that has been called the most important unsolved problem in number theory.

Mathematician Shinichi Mochizuki of Kyoto University in Japan has released a 500-page proof of the abc conjecture, which proposes a relationship between whole numbers — a 'Diophantine' problem.

The abc conjecture, proposed independently by David Masser and Joseph Oesterle in 1985, might not be as familiar to the wider world as Fermat’s Last Theorem, but in some ways it is more significant. “The abc conjecture, if proved true, at one stroke solves many famous Diophantine problems, including Fermat's Last Theorem,” says Dorian Goldfeld, a mathematician at Columbia University in New York. “If Mochizuki’s proof is correct, it will be one of the most astounding achievements of mathematics of the twenty-first century.”

The proof is contained over four papers produced by Mochizuki: INTER-UNIVERSAL TEICHMULLER THEORY I-IV

Submission + - Secret International Agreements to Censor the Internet (commondreams.org)

Submitted by stoicio
stoicio writes: kurzweilai.net has a story linked from the original located at CommonDreams.org stating, "Negotiators from the U.S. and eight other Pacific Rim countries meeting at a secluded resort in Leesburg, Viriginia, working out deals in the secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement that could hamper free speech on the Internet"

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has also presented notes on this.
Government

Submission + - US President intending to implement CISPA by executive order (techdirt.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A draft of a new executive order is circulating among insiders that will attempt to implement CISPA without congressional approval. Jason Miller of Federal News Radio claims to have seen it and according to him, it contains most of the provisions of the Lieberman/Collins Cybersecurity Act that failed in the U.S. Senate. The provisions appear to put pressure on companies to "share" information with the government.
Linux

Submission + - Performance benefits of the "noop" I/O scheduler on Linux when using SSDs (anchor.com.au)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The default I/O scheduler in Linux, Completely Fair Queueing, is a pretty good all-round option for traditional hard drives. Its assumptions don't translate to SSDs at all, which are fast becoming quite popular. Disabling the scheduler entirely can have substantial benefits in certain usage cases, which Anchor investigates here.

Submission + - Author Threatens to Sue Book Reviewers over Trademark Infringement (the-digital-reader.com)

Submitted by Nate the greatest
Nate the greatest writes: Do you know what is crazier than sending DMCA notices to a site like Lendink which doesn't host any content? It's when an author threatens to sue book reviewers over trademarks. Jazan Wild, a comics creator, is sending out threatening emails to any and all book blogs who review a recently published book called Carnival of Souls. The book was written by Melissa Marr, and it happens to use a title which Jazan Wild owns the registered trademark. He's also suing the publisher for trademark infringement, but HarperCollins is laughing it off. The book blog Bookalicious posted the email they got from Jazan. Needless to say they did not take down the review.

Submission + - 58% of South Australia's Power Generated by Wind Farms (reneweconomy.com.au)

Submitted by SA_Democrat
SA_Democrat writes: You've probably heard people saying that wind energy doesn't work, well, South Australia would beg to differ. Ongoing investment in wind farms has resulted in wind providing 58% of demand . Australia has a National electricity grid, so excess energy is exported to other states. Of course, in a country this size, the wind is always blowing somewhere.
Power

Submission + - Japanese Mayor: Radioactive Lunch Serves Educational Purpose (fukushima-diary.com) 2

Submitted by Jeremiah Cornelius
Jeremiah Cornelius writes: In Japan's Miyagi prefecture, harmful levels of cesium-137 were detected in compulsory school lunches served to Elementary and Middle School students, as recently as August.

In response to the public disclosure of the radioactive school lunches, Takao Abe, The Mayor of Kawasaki City, said having to eat radioactive food serves an educational purpose. "Students need to know they live in (a world with) danger by consuming radioactive school lunches. It’s wrong to educate children to be conscious about this level of radiation. There is a risk of being hit by car, there is also a risk of being stabbed by a passerby."

Kawasaki City is some 130km from Tepco's failed Fukushima nuclear plant. On August 30, 12 Bq/kg of cesium were detected in the lunches served to Nakaniida junior high school. Similar levels have been recorded in frozen tangerines and canned apples served in prefecture school lunches, since at least April.
Education

Submission + - Is a Computer Science Degree Worth Getting Anymore? (infoworld.com) 1

Submitted by
snydeq
snydeq writes: "Self-taught technologists are almost always better hires than those with a bachelor's degree in computer science and a huge student loan, writes Andrew Oliver. 'A recruiter recently asked me why employers are so picky. I explained that of the people who earned a computer science degree, most don't know any theory and can't code. Instead, they succeed at putting things on their resume that match keywords. Plus, companies don't consider it their responsibility to provide training or mentoring. In fairness, that's because the scarcity of talent has created a mercenary culture: "Now that my employer paid me to learn a new skill, let me check to see if there's an ad for it on Dice or Craigslist with a higher rate of pay." When searching for talent, I've stopped relying on computer science degrees as an indicator of anything except a general interest in the field. Most schools suck at teaching theory and aren't great at Java instruction, either. Granted, they're not much better with any other language, but most of them teach Java.'"
Technology

Submission + - Exposing the Machinery of the Resistome (utexas.edu) 1

Submitted by aarondubrow
aarondubrow writes: 2011 Nobel Prize Winner, Bruce Beutler, is using the Ranger supercomputer at The University of Texas at Austin for an ambitious new project to discover all of the genes involved in the mammalian immune response – the so-called "resistome." Over several years, Beutler's lab will sequence the protein coding portions of genes in 8,000 mice to detect the impact of mutations on immunity. This means scanning, enriching and sequencing 500 billion base pairs every week. The project represents a "Big Data" problem of the highest order.
Intel

Submission + - Intel Unveils 10-watt Haswell Chip

Submitted by adeelarshad82
adeelarshad82 writes: At IDF, Intel announced company's fourth-generation Core processor code-named Haswell. The chip is based off of the same 22nm process used in the current third-generation Core products. What makes this chip remarkably different from the third-generation chips is its ability to product twice the graphic capabilities at a much lower power consumption which Intel has acheived by making use of a number of tactics.
Windows

Submission + - Is Windows Phone 8 Already in Trouble? (slashdot.org)

Submitted by
Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster writes: "In the days following Nokia unveiling the Lumia 920 and 820 at a high-profile event in New York City, various publications have begun questioning whether Windows Phone 8’s rollout will be smooth as silk or rougher than a rocky patch of country road. The Verge, following up on its report that Nokia had faked some of the footage promoting the new Lumia devices’ cameras, tried to give Microsoft a minor aneurism with a Sept. 11 story questioning whether Windows Phone 8 would launch on schedule; it alluded to “delays and bugs” in testing.

Ars Technica, meanwhile, threw its own darts with a Sept. 6 story highlighting the total lack of information about Windows Phone 8’s release date.

Compare that to Amazon’s rollout of the Kindle Fire HD, which has a definite release date and pricing, or Apple’s iPhone 5, which—at least if history is any indication—will also make its debut with a price-tag and shelf date in place. As these IT giants head into the crucial holiday shopping season, Microsoft’s information vacuum could end up confusing consumers to the point where they turn to rival vendors for satisfaction."
Microsoft

Submission + - Windows Store opens to developers worldwide (msdn.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A year ago this week at //build/, Microsoft unveiled the largest developer opportunity ever coming with Windows 8 and Windows Store. You may also recall that at Windows 8 RTM last month, Microsoft opened the Windows Store for any qualifying business. Starting today, the Store is officially open for all individual developers in 120 markets around the world to register and submit their apps. This marks the last significant milestone for the Windows Store before Windows 8 becomes generally available on October 26, and signifies the moment where all individual developers across the world can access the Store in preparation for the biggest developer opportunity ever.
Government

Submission + - Steve Mann Is Fighting for Your Cyborg Rights (vice.com) 1

Submitted by
pigrabbitbear
pigrabbitbear writes: "Last month, Dr. Steve Mann, a professor at the University of Toronto who has been living as a cyborg for his entire adult life, was attacked by employees at a Parisian McDonald’s.

He’d gone into the restaurant to use the bathroom — McDonald’s in France tend to have single-occupancy, “cyborg friendly,” bathrooms — and grab some food with his family. The management, however, objected to his head-mounted camera glasses, a system called “EyeTap” that captures images at 120 frames per second in 1080 × 1920-pixel resolution. Even after they had been shown a doctor’s note explaining the device and the impossibility of removing it without special surgical tools, the McDonald’s employees allegedly roughhoused Dr. Mann, ripped up his note, and kicked him out of the restaurant onto the street. After Dr. Mann made his story public online, McDonald’s corporate responded with an assurance that nothing of the sort had happened.

Then he released the images. Taken with the very glasses his aggressors objected to, the pictures show the perpetrators in flagranti, surrounding the cyborg at eye-level and swiping at his head."

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