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Music

Ozzy Osbourne's Genome Reveals Some Neanderthal Lineage 151

Posted by samzenpus from the born-to-rock dept.
ByOhTek writes "CNN reports that in July, rocker Ozzy Osbourne became one of few to submit his blood to have his full genome sequenced and analyzed. The results are in, and it turns out his genome reveals some Neanderthal lineage. What does Ozzie have to say about it? 'I was curious, given the swimming pools of booze I've guzzled over the years - not to mention all of the cocaine, morphine, sleeping pills, cough syrup, LSD, Rohypnol... there's really no plausible medical reason why I should still be alive. Maybe my DNA could say why,' he wrote."
Security

Hiding Backdoors In Hardware 206

Posted by Soulskill from the hamster-escape-route dept.
quartertime writes "Remember Reflections on Trusting Trust, the classic paper describing how to hide a nearly undetectable backdoor inside the C compiler? Here's an interesting piece about how to hide a nearly undetectable backdoor inside hardware. The post describes how to install a backdoor in the expansion ROM of a PCI card, which during the boot process patches the BIOS to patch grub to patch the kernel to give the controller remote root access. Because the backdoor is actually housed in the hardware, even if the victim reinstalls the operating system from a CD, they won't clear out the backdoor. I wonder whether China, with its dominant position in the computer hardware assembly business, has already used this technique for espionage. This perhaps explains why the NSA has its own chip fabrication plant."
Businesses

IE6 Addiction Inhibits Windows 7 Migrations 470

Posted by Soulskill from the second-verse-same-as-the-first dept.
eldavojohn writes "As anyone in the industry will tell you, a lot of money went into developing web applications specific to IE6. And corporations can't leave Windows XP for Windows 7 until IE6 runs (in some way) on Windows 7. Microsoft wants to leave that non-standard browser mess behind them, but as the article notes, 'Organizations running IE6 have told Gartner that 40% of their custom-built browser-dependent applications won't run on IE8, the version packaged with Windows 7. Thus, many companies face a tough decision: Either spend time and money to upgrade those applications so that they work in newer browsers, or stick with Windows XP.' Support for XP is going to end in April 2014. In order to deal with this, companies are looking at virtualizing IE6 only (instead of a full operating system) so that it can run on Windows 7 — even though Microsoft says this violates licensing agreements. IE6 is estimated to have roughly 16% of browser market share, and due to mistakes in the past it may never truly die."

Comment What about Java (Score 3, Interesting) 162

by yorkrj (#29163033) Attached to: DOJ Gives Oracle Approval To Buy Sun

The only thing I'm concerned about regarding this deal is how this will change Java. The way I see it, one of two things will happen: One, current Oracle staff will manage the Java platform development and bad things will happen (all sorts of bad things could happen). Two, Oracle will deem Java an unprofitable product and will spin off a free software foundation, the likes of Mozilla or Apache.
Microsoft

Microsoft In Mobile Search Deal With Verizon 104

Posted by kdawson from the sea-spider dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Verizon Wireless will forge a deal with Microsoft to include the software giant's Live Search on its mobile phones, giving Microsoft a victory over rival Google and ending a months-long dance toward the partnership. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will announce the deal in his keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas." InfoWorld notes that Microsoft is rumored to be changing the name of its Live Search service to Kumo, which is Japanese for "cloud."
Earth

Green Is In At CES, But Is It Real? 165

Posted by timothy from the hi-fi-jumpropes dept.
OTL writes "You've heard the talk of 'Green' throughout the whole of 2008, but the way a product affects the environment will be a huge consideration in consumer buying habits, at least when it comes to gadgets. But, the CEA report also said that consumers are very skeptical about the green claims made by high-tech firms for their products. More than 38 percent of those interviewed by the CEA said they were confused by green product claims and 58 percent wanted to know the specific attributes that prompted hi-tech firms to label their products green."

Feed Science Daily: 'Man-made' Water Has Different Chemistry (sciencedaily.com)

From feed by sdfeed
As population growth, food production and the regional effects of climate change place greater stress on the Earth's natural water supply, "man-made" water -- created by removing salt from seawater and brackish groundwater through reverse osmosis desalination -- will become an increasingly important resource for millions of humans, especially those in arid regions such as the Middle East, the western United States, northern Africa and central Asia.
Power

Submission + - SPAM: Refrigerator technology to cool computers

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "Researchers today said they are working on a way to use tiny refrigerator components to cool computers, a move they say would increase system performance and shrink the size of the devices. Researchers at Purdue University said they have developed miniature refrigerator technology such as compressors and evaporators to cool computer innards. Researchers said they have developed a model for designing tiny compressors that pump refrigerants using penny-size diaphragms made of ultra-thin sheets of a plastic called polyimide and coated with an electrically conducting metallic layer to help remove heat. [spam URL stripped]"
Link to Original Source
Privacy

Submission + - Acquire Online (acquireonline.org)

Submitted by
kardnull
kardnull writes: "This site shows how small and tiny security cameras are getting. These security cameras are being used by the government and and for personal home use. The technology and costs have become more afordable. The site is in Spanish and has good information."
Earth

Submission + - Looking for methods to reclaim energy from brush

Submitted by peas_n_carrots
peas_n_carrots writes: Every year, the prolific trees and weeds in my yard produce mountains of cellulosic material. I put as much out for the weekly brush pickup as I can, but even 3 large trash cans a week isn't enough to keep up. When an older tree dies and is cut down, it leaves a whole lot of wood waste. It's not high-quality hardwood, but it burns well. I usually have a couple bonfires a year and cook marshmallows & yams.

I've always hoped there would be some way to reclaim the vast amount of heat energy released from burning the brush. It's essentially a carbon-neutral solar-powered energy source (plants absorb sunlight, breathe in CO2 and build fibrous structures). A Stirling engine seems like an ideal candidate, but there's no good source of consumer-grade models (500-2000W). All the ones I've found are either trinkets powered by body heat or coffee, or industrial grade ones made by the likes of WhisperGen (in New Zealand). I don't have the equipment to build a reliable, useful Stirling engine. My vision for a heat reclamation system looks something like a Stirling engine on top of a chiminea, which is very good at funneling heat up and out its stack. The engine would turn a generator and charge batteries and such.

Burning for home heating is only feasible during the winter. Much of the brush is not good for burning indoors either. I've thought of using it for heating water, but tying that into the water system would be complicated/costly. What other ideas does the resourceful Slashdot crowd have?
The Media

Submission + - RBS issues global stock and credit crash alert (telegraph.co.uk)

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: How long till Main stream news picks this up? This was yesterday in the Telegraph.

To Quote:

The Royal Bank of Scotland has advised clients to brace for a full-fledged crash in global stock and credit markets over the next three months as inflation paralyses the major central banks.

"A very nasty period is soon to be upon us — be prepared," said Bob Janjuah, the bank's credit strategist.

A report by the bank's research team warns that the S&P 500 index of Wall Street equities is likely to fall by more than 300 points to around 1050 by September as "all the chickens come home to roost" from the excesses of the global boom, with contagion spreading across Europe and emerging markets.
PlayStation (Games)

Submission + - Say hello to the PS-Wii (independent.co.uk)

Submitted by Curly Top
Curly Top writes:
They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but surely this is going a bit far. In their quest to make Playstation 3 the ultimate home entertainment system, the bods at Sony seem to have been spending a bit too much time playing their rival's console, the Nintendo Wii.
Despite their new DualShock 3 pad still not having a confirmed Europe release date , according to gaming website gamesindustry.biz , Sony are busy developing another new controller — and, interestingly, it may have been inspired by Nintendo's revolutionary Wiimote .
Is it just me or is Sony going a bit too far with his one? Full article at IndyBlogs
Businesses

Submission + - Staffing Agencies the curse of modern IT 1

Submitted by kupojsin
kupojsin writes: As a junior-mid level sys admin who recently left my place of employment I'd expected to encounter a minimum amount of IT staffing agencies in my next job hunt. What has surprised me during the process however is that I've ONLY been able to find Staffing agency listings on virtually every place I search, whether it be Dice, Monster, Craigslist etc. Often search results on these sites are 90-95% recruitment agencies. I've utilized a throwaway email address and phone number (grand central) on my resume and now I'm glad I did, due to the sheer number of replies I get from staffing agencies. Does anyone still get IT jobs the old fashioned way nowadays?

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