Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Programming

A Decade of Agile Programming — Has It Delivered? 395

Posted by timothy from the tell-you-at-the-next-scrum dept.
snydeq writes "InfoWorld offers a look back at the first decade of agile programming. Forged in February 2001 when a group of developers convened in Utah to find an alternative to documentation-driven, 'heavyweight' software development practices, The Manifesto for Agile Software Development sought to promote processes that accommodate changing requirements, collaboration with customers, and delivery of software in short iterations. Fast-forward a decade, and agile software development is becoming increasingly commonplace, with software firms adopting agile offshoots such as Scrum, Extreme Programming, and Kanban — a trend some see benefiting software development overall."
Games

Submission + - Facebook User Files Class-Action Against Zynga (industrygamers.com)

Submitted by donniebaseball23
donniebaseball23 writes: IndustryGamers reports that Nancy Graf of St. Paul, Minnesota has filed a class-action lawsuit against social gaming leader Zynga, alleging that the company illegally shared Facebook user data of its 218 million users with advertisers. The suit goes on to specify that Zynga’s actions are a violation of federal law and Zynga’s contract with Facebook. Filed in federal court, the suit seeks monetary relief for those whose personal information was wrongly shared and injunctive relief to prevent more violations by Zynga. "This appears to be another example of an online company failing the American public with empty promises to respect individual privacy rights," explained Michael Aschenbrener of Edelson McGuire LLC, co-lead attorney for the class action.
Security

Submission + - Kaspersky download site hacked to spread fake AV (trendmicro.eu)

Submitted by anton_kg
anton_kg writes: According to a report in ITPro by Jennifer Scott, Kaspersky have been in touch to confirm that their servers were in fact compromised and the redirection was very real. The breach was made by exploiting “a third party app used for site admin”. The malicious redirection was in place for three and a half hours.
Several reports in Kaspersky user forums seem to indicate that the security software manufacturer was recently compromised by cybercriminals trying to punt fake security software.
Hardware

Submission + - Dell and Sprint unveil two new 4G netbooks

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: It’s a 4G netbook, courtesy of Sprint and Dell! In everything but radio capabilities, the netbook — namely, the Inspiron Mini 10 — is a standard affair. It has a 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450 CPU, 1GB of RAM, Intel GMA 3150 graphics, a 250GB hard drive and a 10.1-inch widescreen display at 1024×600. It runs Windows 7 Starter Edition and comes with the usual gaggle of USB ports, along with 802.11 b/g/n WiFi. On the other hand, it can leverage high-speed WiMAX when it’s available, and EVDO Rev. A when it isn’t. A 4G Inspiron 11z was the second computer announced--it has a Core i3 processor and an 11.6-inch display.
NASA

Submission + - With hiccups, NASA satellite half way to Pluto (networkworld.com)

Submitted by coondoggie
coondoggie writes: Over-coming a couple "stressful" hiccups, NASA's New Horizons satellite mission to Pluto has reached the halfway mark. Launched in January 2006, the New Horizons satellite has been hurtling toward Pluto at about 50,000 mph. Even at that rate the 1,054lb satellite will get it close to the dwarf planet sometime around July 2015.
Privacy

Submission + - Un-killable 'Evercookie' Killed By Researchers (threatpost.com)

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: The persistent method that security researcher Samy Kamkar introduced last week for storing tracking data on a user's machine, known as the "Evercookie," is even more worrisome when used on mobile devices, according to another researcher's analysis.

The Evercookie is a simple method for forcing a user's machine to retain browser cookies by storing the data in a number of different locations. The method also has the ability to recreate deleted cookies if it finds that the user has removed them. Created by Kamkar as a demonstration of a way that sites could use to persistently track users even after they clear their browser cookies, the Evercookie has drawn the attention of a number of other researchers who have spent some time looking for methods to defeat it. A researcher in South Africa took a look at the way the the Evercookie works on both Safari on the desktop and on mobile devices, and found that it can be undone in some circumstances. However, he also found that the mobile version of Safari fares far worse in its handling of the Evercookie than the standard version does.
The Courts

Facebook Says It Owns 'Book' 483

Posted by samzenpus from the first-book dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Chicago Tribune is reporting that Facebook has sued a tiny start-up called Teachbook.com over the use of 'book' in its name. The start-up, which has two employees, aims to provide tools for teachers to manage their classrooms and share lesson plans and other resources. 'Effectively they're bombing a mosquito here, and we're not sure why they want to do that,' Teachbook.com co-director Greg Shrader told the Tribune. Facebook said its use of 'book' in its name is 'highly distinctive in the context of online communities and networking websites.' Facebook apparently is alleging that no other online 'network of people' can use the word 'book' in its name without violating its trademark."
Space

Bacteria From Beer Lasts 553 Days In Space 138

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i'll-drink-to-that dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Some specific bacteria colonies from Beer (the place, not the beverage) left for several days outside the ISS actually survived extreme temperatures, UV and other radiations, lack of water and all the like. They were later brought back to Earth for examination: such resistant bacteria may be the base of life support systems or bio-mining on colonies off Earth, and of course for terraforming, eventually. No clue in the article about how dangerous those bacteria might have become after the exposure or when they'll start eating their examiners."
Science

Submission + - Danish suborbital rocket launch planned for Aug 30 (universetoday.com)

Submitted by egil
egil writes: The most amazing hobby project ever: Build a suborbital manned rocket — and while you're at it, a sea lauch platform and a submarine. It seems unbelieveable, but the posts documents this amazing project, started by Peter Madsen and Kristian von Bengtson. The project home page has more information. Although covered in the Danish press, the guys have obviously been more busy with rocket science than PR.
Government

Submission + - Philly requiring bloggers to pay $300 (washingtonexaminer.com) 1

Submitted by Kurofuneparry
Kurofuneparry writes: Pennsylvania generally and Philadelphia specifically have had a number of budget issues and some bloggers are seeing the results. From the article: "yes, cash-strapped cities can’t very well ignore potential sources of income. But at the same time, there must be some room for discretion and common sense."
Social Networks

Submission + - Gaming Foursquare check-in with 9 lines of Perl (thebuzzmedia.com)

Submitted by rsk
rsk writes: Mayank Lahiri has hacked together a 9-statement Perl script that mocks a Foursquare check-in (HTTP POST) allowing you to claim a check-in to any location. Running the script only requires you know the Venue ID (from the website) and lat/long GPS coordinates for the location (available from the "link" link on Google Maps when location is centered). I'm fairly certain this violates the ToS of Foresquare, so becoming the Mayor of Google HQ could be harder than you thought.
News

Submission + - 9th Circuit Rules Copyright Preempts Right of Publ (blogspot.com) 1

Submitted by David Weiskopf
David Weiskopf writes: This past week, in Jules Jordan Video vs. 144942 Canada (August 16, 2010), in which Plaintiff (an adult film star) sued Defendant for its pirating and redistributing of plaintiff's films, the Ninth Circuit held, in what I consider to be a very troubling ruling, that the Plaintiff's (California-based) right of publicity claim was preempted by his available claims for copyright infringement under federal copyright law. Specifically, in reversing the lower District Court and vacating the judgment in favor of plaintiff, the Court's three judge panel (which included Judge Kozinski, who, you might remember, famously dissented from the Ninth Circuit's Order rejecting the suggestion of an en banc hearing in Wendt vs. Host International, Inc., based in part on his argument that the Ninth Circuit should have found that that the right of publicity claim at issue was preempted by the the actors' federal copyright claims) held that "[Plaintiff's] right of publicity claim falls within the subject matter of copyright, and that the rights he asserts are equivalent to the rights within the scope of Section 106 of the Copyright Act. The essence of [Plaintiff's] claim is that [Defendants] reproduced and distributed the DVDs without authorization. [Plaintiff's] claim is under the Copyright Act." The Court's primary reasoning appears based on the facts of the case, where the Court makes clear that Defendant's infringing acts were comprised solely of reproducing and distributing pirated DVDs; Defendant did not otherwise use Plaintiff's name or likeness in promoting the fake DVDs, but simply redistributed the illicitly made copies containing the original and otherwise properly authorized performance (likeness) of Plaintiff.
Patents

Submission + - Apple patents tech to record iPhone thieves (goodgearguide.com.au)

Submitted by
angry tapir
angry tapir writes: "A new Apple patent proposes a mechanism to catch iPhone thieves: it would record the voice of the current user of the phone, take photographs of the user, geotag the photograph and activate the accelerometer to "determine a current mode of transportation of the electronic device." (View the patent itself here. [PDF])"

Slashdot Top Deals

Today is a good day for information-gathering. Read someone else's mail file.

Close