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Submission + - Ask Slashdot: How do I stay employable? 2

Submitted by illcar
illcar writes: Hi, I am 40 year old working as a senior developer for one of the biggest investment banks. I have always worked as full time employee in my career. However the the last 5-6 years had been very tough for me because of office politics, outsourcing, and economic conditions. The financial industry is not doing well, and we maybe at the brink of another round of layoffs. My family is growing, my spouse does not work, and I still do not own a house yet. I am worried regarding my job security & career growth. Considering medicare does not kick in till 65, I am still looking at 25 long years of career. I am wondering what would be the best way for me to stay employable in the coming years?

1. Should I stay technical, and be ready to work as consultant/contractor? How does medical insurance work in that case?
2. Should I capitalize on the domain knowledge, and move onto business/managerial side?
3. Will the MBA degree or alternate career help?
4. Any other suggestions?

Thanks.
Science

Submission + - Graphene Makes Saltwater Drinkable (fellowgeek.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Graphene once again proves that it is quite possibly the most miraculous material known to man, this time by making saltwater drinkable.

The process was developed by a group of MIT researchers who realized that graphene allowed for the creation of an incredibly precise sieve. Basically, the regular atomic structure of graphene means that you can create holes of any size, for example the size of a single molecule of water.

Using this process scientist can desalinate saltwater 1,000 times faster than the Reverse Osmosis technique.
Google

Submission + - Google Nexus 7 vs. Amazon Kindle Fire: Small-Screen Tablet Showdown (blogspot.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Google branded tablet from Asus, dubbed the Nexus 7, is priced at $199 and will be available directly through Google Play. So how do these two tablets stack up? Read on for our side-by-side comparison.
Let's just get this out of the way right now: From a pure spec standpoint, the Nexus 7 is the superior tablet in nearly every way. The 1,280-by-800-pixel display on the Nexus 7, while not up to the Retina's 264 pixels per inch, will deliver a crisper 216 pixels per inch to the Kindle Fire's 169.
Pushing all of those pixels on the Nexus 7 will be Nvidia's quad-core Tegra 3 processor, clocking in at 1.2GHz. The dual-core, 1-GHz TI OMAP4 processor in the Kindle Fire is still going to get you through most basic tasks, like Web browsing, media playback, and most apps. But for the next generation of power-hungry games and apps, the aging chipset on the Kindle Fire won't be able to keep up with the Nexus 7.
Both tablets will connect to 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi networks, but the Nexus 7 has the added benefit of built-in Bluetooth and NFC. That means it'll work with the vast selection of Bluetooth speakers and peripherals, while NFC could be used with Google Wallet or to easily share information between devices.
There are two storage options for the Nexus 7, $199 for 8GB or $249 for 16GB, but Google has yet to announce a cloud-storage option to rival Amazon's free unlimited cloud storage for Amazon content and 5GB for non-Amazon content.
Censorship

Submission + - Google today began censoring search results about guns and ammunition (gunsandammo.com) 2

Submitted by SpuriousLogic
SpuriousLogic writes: Yesterday, after searching for whatever firearm-related term on Google — “5.56 ammo,” for example — not only would one see general search results, but also a few shopping results.

Not anymore, it seems. According to an online retailer who contacted us to shed light on this outrage, they received a lengthy email from Google Shopping stating per the company’s new policies, all firearms, ammo and accessories will not be approved to be listed.

Indeed, it seems Google is sticking to their guns, if you’ll pardon the expression; search results for even the broadest terms turn up no results on Google shopping (see screenshot at left).

Google Shopping outlined its new policy — part of the company’s transition to its new identity, Google Commercial — in an email sent to the retailer that they were kind enough to forward directly to Guns & Ammo:

Dear Merchant,

We’re writing to let you know about some upcoming changes to the product listings you submit to Google. As we recently announced, we are starting to transition our shopping experience to a commercial model that builds on Product Listing Ads. This new shopping experience is called Google Shopping. As part of this transition, we’ll begin to enforce a set of new policies for Google Shopping in the coming weeks. A new list of the allowed, restricted, and prohibited products on Google Shopping is available on our new policy page – http://www.google.com/appserve/mkt/ApI7UWRj6OCZpd.

Based on a review of the products you’re currently submitting, it appears that some of the content in your Merchant Center account, HamLund Tactical, will be affected by these policy changes. In particular we found that your products may violate the following policies:

Weapons

When we make this change, Google will disapprove all of the products identified as being in violation of policies. We ask that you make any necessary changes to your feeds and/or site to comply, so that your products can continue to appear on Google Shopping.

To help you through this new set of policies and how to comply with them, we would like to give you some specific suggestions regarding the changes needed to keep your offers running on Google Shopping.

Weapons
As highlighted on our new policy page http://www.google.com/appserve/mkt/ApI7UWRj6OCZpd, in order to comply with the Google Shopping policies you need to comply first with the AdWords policies http://www.google.com/appserve/mkt/StQ08jAzM4fVtG. We do not allow the promotion or sale of weapons and any related products such as ammunitions or accessory kits on Google Shopping. In order to comply with our new policies, please remove any weapon-related products from your data feed and then re-submit your feed in the Merchant Center. For more information on this policy please visit http://www.google.com/appserve/mkt/GbBNIGHOribLzf.

We’re constantly reviewing our policies, and updating them when necessary, to ensure we’re offering the best experience possible to our users. We’ve identified a set of policy principles to govern our policy efforts on Google Shopping in the U.S. These principles are:

1) Google Shopping should provide a positive experience to users. Showing users the right products at the right time can truly enhance a user’s experience. When people trust us to deliver them to a destination that’s relevant, original, and easy to navigate this creates a positive online experience to the benefit of both users and merchants.

2 ) Google Shopping should be safe for all users. User safety is everyone’s business, and we can’t do business with those who don’t agree. Scams, phishing, viruses, and other malicious activities on the Internet damage the value of the Internet for everyone. Trying to get around policies or “game the system” is unfair to our users, and we can’t allow that.

3) Google Shopping should comply with local laws and regulations. Many products and services are regulated by law, which can vary from country to country. All advertising, as well as the products and services being advertised, must clearly comply with all applicable laws and regulations. For the most part, our policies aren’t designed to describe every law in every country. All advertisers bear their own responsibility for understanding the laws applicable to their business. Our policies are often more restrictive than the law, because we need to be sure we can offer services that are legal and safe for all users.

4) Google Shopping should be compatible with Google’s brand decisions. Google Shopping must be compatible with company brand decisions. Our company has a strong culture and values, and we’ve chosen not to allow ads that promote products and services that are incompatible with these values. In addition, like all companies, Google sometimes makes decisions based on technical limitations, resource constraints, or requirements from our business partners. Our policies reflect these realities.

We’ve given much thought to our stance on this content, as well as the potential effect our policy decision could have on our Merchants, and we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.

Sincerely,

The Google Shopping Team

© 2012 Google Inc. 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043 You have received this mandatory email service announcement to update you about important changes to your Google Merchant Center account.

Well. This is disappointing — and pretty odd, considering gun sales are through the roof. So exactly what criteria is this ban based on? Let’s break it down point by point.

Google Shopping should provide a positive experience to users.
This, of course, applies to all who are opposed to guns, or to criminals looking to score a Saturday Night Special. But what about law-abiding, responsible gun owners? Clearly Google hasn’t taken us into account.
Google Shopping should be safe for all users.
As was stated, Google isn’t necessarily referring to weapons or keeping users physically safe, but rather their computers from malware and viruses — which admittedly is a smart move, but that should be a no-brainer for any website. Even if Google was referring to the physical well-being of its users, we could point out that it’s still OK to shop for kitchen knives, which work just the same on people as they do on veggies.
Google Shopping should comply with local laws and regulations.
So in which state is it absolutely, 100-percent illegal to purchase guns, ammo or accessories? Sure, there are plenty of regulations in place, but just saying, “Ah screw it,” and banning a legal practice rather than comply with state regulations — no matter how much of a pain in the you-know-what it is — on every sale is just laziness.
Google Shopping should be compatible with Google’s brand decisions.
Ah yes, Almighty Google and its moral high horse. We’d actually love to see Google’s official ethical code, considering this is the same company that was keen on limiting search results in China, per the request of the country’s Communist government.
For a company whose unofficial motto is, “Don’t be evil,” Google has some pretty questionable business practices. If they think limiting gun sales won’t make much of a difference, their sorely mistaken, and chances are, it’s a lesson they’re about to learn the hard way.

Read more: http://www.gunsandammo.com/2012/06/28/google-sparks-outrage-censors-guns-ammo-and-accessories/#ixzz1zJG2qwcf
Desktops (Apple)

Submission + - Mac Flashback attack began with Wordpress blogs (eweek.com)

Submitted by beaverdownunder
beaverdownunder writes: Alexander Gostev, head of the global research and analysis team at Kaspersky, says that “tens of thousands of sites powered by WordPress were compromised. How this happened is unclear. The main theories are that bloggers were using a vulnerable version of WordPress or they had installed the ToolsPack plug-in.”
Science

Submission + - Eating meat helped early humans reproduce (latimes.com) 1

Submitted by PolygamousRanchKid
PolygamousRanchKid writes: If early humans had been vegans we might all still be living in caves, Swedish researchers suggested in an article Thursday. When a mother eats meat, her breast-fed child's brain grows faster and she is able to wean the child at an earlier age, allowing her to have more children faster, the article explains. "Eating meat enabled the breast-feeding periods and thereby the time between births to be shortened," said psychologist Elia Psouni of Lund University in Sweden. "This must have had a crucial impact on human evolution."

She notes, however, that the results say nothing about what humans today should or should not eat.
Hardware

Submission + - Why Amazon Can't Make A Kindle In the USA (forbes.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Decades of outsourcing manufacturing have left US industry without the means to invent the next generation of high-tech products that are key to rebuilding its economy, as noted by Garry Pisano and Willy Shih in a classic article Thus in "Restoring American Competitiveness" (Harvard Business Review, July-August 2009)

The US has lost or is on the verge of losing its ability to develop and manufacture a slew of high-tech products. Amazon's Kindle 2 couldn't be made in the US, even if Amazon wanted to:

- The flex circuit connectors are made in China because the US supplier base migrated to Asia.
- The electrophoretic display is made in Taiwan because the expertise developed from producing flat-panel LCDs migrated to Asia with semiconductor manufacturing.
- The highly polished injection-molded case is made in China because the US supplier base eroded as the manufacture of toys, consumer electronics and computers migrated to China.
- The wireless card is made in South Korea because that country became a center for making mobile phone components and handsets.
- The controller board is made in China because US companies long ago transferred manufacture of printed circuit boards to Asia.
- The Lithium polymer battery is made in China because battery development and manufacturing migrated to China along with the development and manufacture of consumer electronics and notebook computers.

An exception is Apple, which "has been able to preserve a first-rate design capability in the States so far by remaining deeply involved in the selection of components, in industrial design, in software development, and in the articulation of the concept of its products and how they address users' needs."
HP

Submission + - Best Buy HP TouchPad clearance pricing policy chan (tekgoblin.com)

Submitted by iceman7679
iceman7679 writes: we mentioned that Best Buy in the U.S. would not be featuring the same HP TouchPad price drops of $99 and $150 that HP had initiated on their own online store. In fact, they were stopping the sales of the devices and sending them back to HP. But we stumbled upon a Best Buy Community Forums link where a corporate Best Buy representative just gave an update to someone nearly an hour ago that seem to change that decision.
Games

Submission + - Star Wars The Old Republic Sales Limited At Launch (gamergaia.com)

Submitted by Calidreth
Calidreth writes: The ranks upon ranks of troopers in this picture may turn out to be artistic license after all, as it turns out Star Wars: The Old Republic will have a deliberately limited number of copies on sale at its launch. The publisher says it hopes this will ensure a smooth launch and a better experience for all involved. Is this a considerate act towards prospective players by EA, or is it a way to drive preorders for a game that has yet to even announce a release date higher still? Strange as it may seem, we might all look back on this as the start of a new best practice for MMOs.
IBM

Submission + - IBM Chief: All CEOs Reluctant to Invest in R&D

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: In his Centennial Conversation at the Computer History Museum, IBM CEO Sam Palmisano emphasized the importance of investing in R&D, even in a down economy. 'Shareholder expectations for higher returns don't diminish when the economy stutters,' said Sam. 'And yet, Tom Watson Sr. actually increased research investment during the Great Depression.' Palmisano added, 'I will tell you that my own instinctive reflex isn't to continue investing $6 billion a year during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. In that regard, I'm like all CEOs.' Yes, to paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen, Sam Palmisano is no Tom Watson. And while he didn't mention it in his speech, just days earlier, Palmisano exercised an option for 300,000 IBM shares at $97.59, which were immediately unloaded for more than $50 million at prices ranging from $178.72-$183.63 (IBM closed Friday at $157.54). Watson, by the way, famously refused to grant stock options to himself and other execs.
Cloud

Submission + - Changing Landscape of IT 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The IT industry is a lot different than it was 10 years ago, it underwent a huge boom in terms of labor and services requirements to keep up with the times. Now, we are entering a consolidation phase. The cloud makes it easier for companies to host e-mail, so now instead of organizations having their own exchange guy they will outsource it to the cloud, instead of having a bunch of network engineers they will deploy wireless and no longer need cabling and as much network engineering services. What do you think the long trend of this will be? What skills do you think will be useful in 10 years? Is IT going to put it's own out of work like we did with the post office and libraries?

Submission + - Massive DeviantArt Copyright Infringement (deviantart.com) 4

Submitted by
Harshmage
Harshmage writes: "Vitaly Alexius, the artist and creative mind behind Romantically Apocalyptic (www.rom.ac), has found that his art has been lifted from his DeviantArt page, and is being printed by a third party (re: not DA). Art4love.com, owned and operated by Craig Pravada and Chad Love Lieberman, is selling prints of Alexius' artwork at enormous prices. To this end, Alexius is forming a Class Action against the two. If you are an artist, please go through Art4love.com to see if you have been stolen from, screenshot your evidence, and join Alexius in this pursuit of justice."

Submission + - Hijacking the controls of a Japanese Toilet (blogspot.com)

Submitted by rtsandiego
rtsandiego writes: Mission accomplished. I've verified that the use of an "off the shelf" learning remote control is capable of learning the IR data command streams for the Toto Toilet! Have fun by starting and stopping the Bidet commands on your unsuspecting friends!

Submission + - Your own Radio Telescope

Submitted by
solune
solune writes: "I was throwing some trash in the dumpster the other day when I noticed a few DirecTV satellite dishes in the dumpster.

Over the last few days I got to thinking: is it possible to set up a distributed radio telescope array? Surely, by now, there's a way to synchronize countless small dishes to probe the skies.

Of course, it's entirely possible I have no clue as to how arrays work, and/or the frequencies involved."
Education

Submission + - Teacher Cannot Be Sued For Denying Creationism (csmonitor.com)

Submitted by gzipped_tar
gzipped_tar writes: A federal appeals court ruled on Friday that a public high school teacher in Mission Viejo, California may not be sued for making hostile remarks about religion in his classroom. The decision stems from a lawsuit filed by a student charging that the teacher’s hostile remarks about creationism and religious faith violated a First Amendment mandate that the government remain neutral in matters of religion. A three-judge panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that the lawsuit against an advanced placement history teacher must be thrown out of court because the teacher was entitled to immunity.

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