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Submission + - The US vs. Europe: Freedom of Expression vs. Privacy 1

Submitted by GoddersUK
GoddersUK writes: Rory Cellan-Jones writes about the recent European Court judgement on the right to be forgotten in terms of US/EU cultural differences (and perhaps a bit of bitterness on the EU side at US influence online):

He tells me... ..."In the past if you were in Germany you were never worried that some encyclopedia website based in the United States was going to name you as a murderer after you got out of jail because that was inconceivable. Today that can happen, so the cultural gap that was always there about the regulation of speech is becoming more visible."... ...Europeans who have been told that the internet is basically ungovernable — and if it does have guiding principles then they come from the land of the free — are expressing some satisfaction that court has refused to believe that.

(And, certainly, it seems, here in the UK, that even MEPs keen on the principle don't really know how this ruling will work in practice or what the wider consequences will be. Video here.

Submission + - NASA's Plan to Block Light From Distant Stars to Find 'Earth 2.0' (vice.com)

Submitted by Daniel_Stuckey
Daniel_Stuckey writes: Over the last five years, NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope has found dozens of potentially habitable planets. The only problem is that we can’t actually see them, because the glare from those planets’ stars makes it impossible to image them directly. A new, audacious plan to completely block out the light from those stars, however, could change all of that. The plan calls for a satellite to be sent out several tens of thousands of miles from Earth. The satellite will unfold a huge, flower-shaped metal shade that will literally block the light of some far-out star to the point where a space telescope, which will directly communicate with Starshade, will be able to image whatever planets are orbiting it directly. It’s called Starshade, and, given the name, it works exactly how you might expect it to. If you look directly at the sun, you're not going to be able to see anything in the sky around it. Hold up something between your eyes and the sun to block it, however, and you'll be able to see much better.

Submission + - How Rising Seas Could Sink Nuclear Plants On The East Coast (huffingtonpost.com)

Submitted by mdsolar
mdsolar writes: "During the 1970s and 1980s, when many nuclear reactors were first built, most operators estimated that seas would rise at a slow, constant rate. That is, if the oceans rose a fraction of an inch one year, they could be expected to rise by the same amount the next year and every year in the future.

But the seas are now rising much faster than they did in the past, largely due to climate change, which accelerates thermal expansion and melts glaciers and ice caps. Sea levels rose an average of 8 inches between 1880 and 2009, or about 0.06 inches per year. But in the last 20 years, sea levels have risen an average of 0.13 inches per year — about twice as fast.

And it's only getting worse. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has laid out four different projections for estimated sea level rise by 2100. Even the agency's best-case scenario assumes that sea levels will rise at least 8.4 inches by the end of this century. NOAA's worst-case scenario, meanwhile, predicts that the oceans will rise nearly 7 feet in the next 86 years.

But most nuclear power facilities were built well before scientists understood just how high sea levels might rise in the future. And for power plants, the most serious threat is likely to come from surges during storms. Higher sea levels mean that flooding will travel farther inland, creating potential hazards in areas that may have previously been considered safe. During Superstorm Sandy, for example, flooding threatened the water intake systems at the Oyster Creek and Salem nuclear power plants in New Jersey. As a safety precaution, both plants were powered down. But even when a plant is not operating, the spent fuel stored on-site, typically uranium, will continue to emit heat and must be cooled using equipment that relies on the plant's own power. Flooding can cause a loss of power, and in serious conditions it can damage backup generators. Without a cooling system, reactors can overheat and damage the facility to the point of releasing radioactive material."

Submission + - Cisco complains to Obama about NSA adding spyware to routers

Submitted by pdclarry
pdclarry writes: Glenn Greenwald's book No Place to Hide reveals that the NSA intercepts shipments of networking gear destined for overseas and adds spyware. Cisco has responded by asking the President to intervene and stop this practice, as it has severely hurt their non-US business, with shipments to other countries falling from 7% for emerging countries to over 25% for Brazil and Russia.

Submission + - Uk to end net neutrality (dailydot.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The uk government is planning on vetoing the EU legislation that enforces net neutrality under the guise of "won't anyone think of the child pornography blocking?" again.

Submission + - Apple remains mum about fawlty MacBookPro's..petition reaching 4000 signatures

Submitted by kirthn
kirthn writes: (btw found that the support staff at Apple is reading this item and have been downvoting it...)

The petition (found here https://www.change.org/en-AU/p... )against fawlty MBP early 2011 editions have reached almost 4000 out of 5000 and will be send to Tim Cook

Meanwhile more than 347 pages are on the Apple help forums ( https://discussions.apple.com/... ), and Apple remains mum about it

Submission + - Petition for flawed early-2011 MacBookPro reached 3500 sig's (change.org)

Submitted by kirthn
kirthn writes: As one of the affected 2011-MBP users (a fawlty AMD discrete video-chip), just signed the petition ( https://www.change.org/en-AU/p...) as well which is addressed to Tim Cook and Craig Federighi....5000 signatures are needed, and it's now at the moment 3500. It's still open, so slashdot this story and get more petitions.
  The discussions on this issue on Apple Forums have reached over 340 pages......it's incredible that Apple stays mum about this...

Comment Re:So in other words, it will be just like Firewir (Score 3, Informative) 355

by kirthn (#46996743) Attached to: Can Thunderbolt Survive USB SuperSpeed+?

same niche market that Apple made popular ;)......it was Apple who made USBpopular, with their first iMac.....USB was also original by Intel, and did hardly anything for 5 years...then came the first iMac, and suddenly almost overnight USB was hot...it took PC's about 2 years to catch up, from PS/2

would not underestimate the influence of Apple ...

Comment SCSI, Firewire (Score 1) 355

by kirthn (#46996733) Attached to: Can Thunderbolt Survive USB SuperSpeed+?

It wil have the same position as SCSI, Firewire etc...meaning CPU independent throughput, and higher-end systems, and more reliable.....

as for market share compared to USB...it was Apple who made USBpopular, with their first iMac.....USB was also original by Intel, and did hardly anything for 5 years...then came the first iMac, and suddenly almost overnight USB was hot...it took PC's about 2 years to catch up, from PS/2

would not underestimate the influence of Apple ...

Submission + - EU delivering more data voluntarily to NSA? (www.zeit.de)

Submitted by kirthn
kirthn writes: Weakening the EU further. According to this german article in respectable German newspaper Die Zeit at http://www.zeit.de/2014/19/dat... the EU wants to deliver voluntarily more meta-data to NSA without getting much back..

This troubles me as it this info is more used on economic, scientific, industrial espionage in order to weaken the EU than on so called War on Terror..(https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/03/metadata_survei.html)

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