Comment Re:Separate agencies (Score 1) 1040
I wish I had mod points. I keep hearing "Aaaaa" in my head.
Submission + - In GOP Debate, Gingrich Calls NASA a 'Bureaucracy' (yahoo.com)
MarkWhittington writes: "During the New Hampshire Republican debate, the following question was asked, "President Obama effectively killed government-run spaceflight to the International Space Station and wants to turn it over to private companies. What role should the government play in future space exploration?" Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich was the only candidate to give a coherent answer, which consisted of an attack on NASA as a “bureaucracy” that “can’t innovate.” Gingrich also made the case for private incentives for space exploration."
Submission + - Paul Allen on the Dark Side of the Ocean and More
theodp writes: A week after his 60 Minutes appearance, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen lets his guard down a bit more as he talks about his new book 'Idea Man' at Town Hall Seattle to a hometown audience that included his old college girlfriend Rita (who served up chicken that Bill Gates found spoon-eating good). In a wide-ranging interview, Allen cops to being a fan of Star Wars, Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica, says it took him 25 years to 'play a half-decent Purple Haze,' and explains the appeal of a personal submarine this way: 'It turns out if you go 1,000 feet down in the ocean, it's really dark, and the animals are really strange, but if you put on some Pink Floyd, it's fantastic.' Allen added that 'no one has disagreed or contradicted any fact or any memory' in the memoir, which includes a story of overhearing Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer plotting to dilute Allen's Microsoft shares into insignificance at a time with Allen was dying of non-Hodgkins lymphoma.
Submission + - Truth About Cracking SSL Certificates... (digicert.com)
An anonymous reader writes: How long would it take to crack or break a 2048-bit SSL Certificate? Check out the video and stats.
Submission + - Iran Says Siemens Helped US, Israel Build Stuxnet (computerworld.com) 1
CWmike writes: "Iran's Brigadier General, Gholam Reza Jalali, accused Siemens on Saturday with helping U.S. and Israeli teams craft the Stuxnet worm that attacked his country's nuclear facilities. 'Siemens should explain why and how it provided the enemies with the information about the codes of the SCADA software and prepared the ground for a cyber attack against us,' Jalali told the Islamic Republic News Service. Siemens did not reply to a request for comment on Jalali's accusations. Stuxnet, which first came to light in June 2010 but hit Iranian targets in several waves starting the year before, has been extensively analyzed by security researchers. Symantec and Langner Commuications say Stuxnet was designed to infiltrate Iran's nuclear enrichment program, hide in the Iranian SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) control systems that operate its plants, then force gas centrifuge motors to spin at unsafe speeds. Jalali suggested that Iranian officials would pursue Siemens in the courts, and claimed that Iranian researchers traced the attack to Israel and the U.S. He said information from infected systems was sent to computers in Texas."
Submission + - Open Source Programming Tools on the Rise (infoworld.com)
snydeq writes: "InfoWorld's Peter Wayner takes a look at 13 open source development projects making waves in the enterprise. From Git to Hadoop to build management tools, 'even in the deepest corners of proprietary stacks, open source tools can be found, often dominating. The reason is clear: Open source licenses are designed to allow users to revise, fix, and extend their code. The barber or cop may not be familiar enough with code to contribute, but programmers sure know how to fiddle with their tools. The result is a fertile ecology of ideas and source code, fed by the enthusiasm of application developers who know how to "scratch an itch".'"
Submission + - GPL Violations by D-Link and Boxee (infinityoverzero.com)
An anonymous reader writes: D-Link and Boxee violate the GPL by Tivoization of the Boxee Box!
The Boxee Box was shipped containing GPLv3 software, but D-Link and Boxee refuse to permit installation of custom software. Go to http://infinityoverzero.com/bbox/ for the whole story.
Openboxee.
The Boxee Box was shipped containing GPLv3 software, but D-Link and Boxee refuse to permit installation of custom software. Go to http://infinityoverzero.com/bbox/ for the whole story.
Openboxee.
Submission + - Asus Xtion Kinect clone available (i-programmer.info)
mikejuk writes: Asus has launched Xtion Pro — $189 — which uses the same hardware as its full body sensor the Wavi Xtion but doesn't have any software other than an SDK for Windows and Linux. This, of course makes it useful only if you are going to develop applications using it.
It comes with PrimeSense's drivers and the NITE body tracking software. Asus has also announced a $20,000 competition for the best game using it. This is just a way to get some software to go with the full product launch later in the year but it is also going to set up an app store to help developers market their creations.
Microsoft's own Kinect SDK is technically better but it isn't available just yet and it could well have a restrictive license. At the moment only Asus is saying to developers — "use our hardware to make commercial apps, we'll even help you to sell them and here's a competition to sweeten the deal"
It comes with PrimeSense's drivers and the NITE body tracking software. Asus has also announced a $20,000 competition for the best game using it. This is just a way to get some software to go with the full product launch later in the year but it is also going to set up an app store to help developers market their creations.
Microsoft's own Kinect SDK is technically better but it isn't available just yet and it could well have a restrictive license. At the moment only Asus is saying to developers — "use our hardware to make commercial apps, we'll even help you to sell them and here's a competition to sweeten the deal"
Submission + - Review: openSUSE Linux 11.4 with KDE Desktop (dedoimedo.com)
jrepin writes: "Long, enthusiastic review of openSUSE GNU/Linux 11.4 KDE 64-bit edition by a GNOME user from Dedoimedo. Read on to find out what convinced him so well to give this Linux distribution a score of 9.7 out of 10."
Ask Jazz Technical Lead Dr. Erich Gamma 83
As IBM continues to build out Jazz, their community-oriented development site, technical lead Dr. Erich Gamma has offered to answer questions about Jazz or anything else in his realm of expertise. Among his many accomplishments, Erich worked with Kent Beck on the Java unit testing framework, JUnit, and was actively involved until JUnit 4. Dr. Gamma was also one of the fathers of Eclipse and the original lead on the Eclipse Java development tools. Feel free to fire away on Eclipse, Java, JUnit, the Rational suite, the Jazz site, or anything else you think Erich might be able to answer. Usual Slashdot interview rules apply. Update 19:05 GMT by SM: As pointed out by user Hop-Frog, Dr. Gamma is also co-author of the influential computer science textbook Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software.
Moblin V2.0 Beta For Netbooks and Nettops 50
superbubba writes "The Moblin steering committee is happy to release the Moblin v2.0 beta for netbooks and nettops for developer testing. With this release, developers can begin to experience and work with the source code of the visually rich, interactive user interface designed for Intel Atom based netbooks."
Comment Re:Governments... (Score 1) 67
Not completely private sector. Because they are a defense contractor, they must use U.S. citizens and can't outsource outside of the Unites States.
Submission + - Is Apple Killing Linux on the Desktop 1
Domains May Disappear writes: "Chris Howard has an interesting commentary at Apple Matters on recent trends in OS market share that says that while OS X has seen continual growth, from 4.21% in Jan 2006 to 7.31% in December 2007 at the same time, Linux's percentage has risen from only 0.29% to 0.63%. The reasons? "Apple has Microsoft Office, Linux doesn't; Apple has Adobe Creative Suite, Linux doesn't; Apple has easily accessed and easy to use service and support, Linux doesn't; Apple is driven by someone who has some understanding of end-user needs, Linux is not," says Howard. "Early in the decade it seemed that if you wanted a Windows alternative, Linux was it. Nowadays, an Apple Mac is undoubtedly the alternative and, with its resurgence and its Intel base, a very viable one.""
Submission + - EFF Busts Bogus Online Testing Patent (eff.org)
Panaqqa writes: "It's taking a while, but the EFF's Patent Busting Project is making progress. In the latest news, the USPTO has now officially rejected one of the 10 awful patents targeted, making the world safe again for administering tests over the Internet. This joins the reexamination of a patent on automated remote access of a computer over a network and the revokation of a patent on recording live performances to CD as notable successes for the EFF."
Submission + - Whatever Happened to Eric Raymond? (linuxjournal.com)
Glyn Moody writes: "Once the the unofficial voice of open source, Eric Raymond has been pretty silent for the last few years. I asked him why, and for his thoughts on open source past, present and future. As well as telling me about the reasons for stealth mode, his biggest surprise in the ten years since the publication of Cathedral and the Bazaar, and why World Domination would be a "damned near-run thing either way", he also explained how the open source way can solve climate change, sea acidification, water shortages and resource depletion. Time for ESR to un-stealth?"
