Submission + - Streamtu.be - HTML5/CSS3 realtime Twitter rankings (streamtu.be)
kjeldahl writes: Monitors Twitter, looking for links mentioned in tweets and ranks destination sites by frequency. Auto-resolves shortened links etc. Site titles and ranks are collected and animated in real-time. Useful to see what links are being mentioned, or which links contain actual useful information during real-time events. Disclaimer: My site.
Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Centralized Management of iPads
yubb writes: I work with many school districts where Windows is only server and desktop OS in sight. We build networks this way so we have a centralized place for deploying apps, applying security policies and for ease of management.
With the release of the iPad, everyone suddenly realized that they needed tablets. With this "realization" comes another layer of management. I just lost all of the tools I had previously used to manage the network and its devices. There is LDAP integration for iPad, but it seems limited to mail/contacts. Without LDAP integration I lose the ability to easily give users access to their network shares and other network resources.
Another major hurdle is authenticating the iPad users with our content filter so they get the same policies as they're accustomed to on their desktop. Our content filter utilizes Active Directory and since the iPads don't login to AD, they don't get the right filtering policy.
The administrators in the school districts seem set on the iPad and not really open to any alternatives like the Archos netbook/tablet: http://www.archos.com/products/nb/archos_9/index.html?country=us&lang=en Although they claim that they want to explore the iPad because it will revolutionize education, not being open to other options seems to indicate otherwise. It seems Apple's slick advertising and the public wanting the next new thing is playing a part here as well. But for something to be able to work well for the end user it needs to be easily manageable from the IT staff side, which is why I would prefer a Windows-based tablet (remember, we're an all-Windows network).
Is there anything I can do to alleviate this management nightmare? My belief is that a Windows-based tablet is the best answer; however, I'm not so sure I'll be able to convince the decision-makers of that.
With the release of the iPad, everyone suddenly realized that they needed tablets. With this "realization" comes another layer of management. I just lost all of the tools I had previously used to manage the network and its devices. There is LDAP integration for iPad, but it seems limited to mail/contacts. Without LDAP integration I lose the ability to easily give users access to their network shares and other network resources.
Another major hurdle is authenticating the iPad users with our content filter so they get the same policies as they're accustomed to on their desktop. Our content filter utilizes Active Directory and since the iPads don't login to AD, they don't get the right filtering policy.
The administrators in the school districts seem set on the iPad and not really open to any alternatives like the Archos netbook/tablet: http://www.archos.com/products/nb/archos_9/index.html?country=us&lang=en Although they claim that they want to explore the iPad because it will revolutionize education, not being open to other options seems to indicate otherwise. It seems Apple's slick advertising and the public wanting the next new thing is playing a part here as well. But for something to be able to work well for the end user it needs to be easily manageable from the IT staff side, which is why I would prefer a Windows-based tablet (remember, we're an all-Windows network).
Is there anything I can do to alleviate this management nightmare? My belief is that a Windows-based tablet is the best answer; however, I'm not so sure I'll be able to convince the decision-makers of that.
Submission + - Intel Debuts Ultra-Thin Processors
adeelarshad82 writes: Intel has announced a series of ultra-low-voltage processors aimed at "ultrathin" laptops. The company also suggested it would be following up with more processors aimed at tablets at next month's Computex show. The announcement focused on six processors aimed at the "consumer ultra low voltage" market, ranging from the Core i7 family down through versions called Core i5 (2 models), Core i3, Pentium, and Celeron. Intel said these new chips are dual-core manufactured at 32nm, and based on the Nehalem architecture, which I assume actually means the Westmere shrink of the chip. Intel will also be introducing the Core i3, i5, i7 technology in CULV processors to give the lineup a boost.
Submission + - Why Online Privacy Is Broken (threatpost.com)
Trailrunner7 writes: One of the more trite and oft-repeated maxims in the software industry goes something like this: We're not focusing on security because our customers aren't asking for it. They want features and functionality. When they ask for security, then we'll worry about it. Not only is this philosophy doomed to failure, it's now being repeated in the realm of privacy, with potentially disastrous effects. A quick search of recent news on the privacy front reveals that just about all of it is bad. Facebook is exposing users' live chat sessions and other data to third parties. Google is caught recording not only MAC address and SSID information from public Wi-Fi hotspots, but storing data from the networks, as well.
But the prevailing attitude among corporate executives in these cases seems to be summed up by Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who famously said this not too long ago: "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."
If you look beyond the patent absurdity of Schmidt's statement for a minute, you'll find another old maxim hiding underneath: Blame the user.
You want privacy? Don't use our search engine/photo software/email application/maps. That's our data now, thank you very much. Oh, you don't want your private chats exposed to the world? Sorry, you never told us that.
But the prevailing attitude among corporate executives in these cases seems to be summed up by Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who famously said this not too long ago: "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."
If you look beyond the patent absurdity of Schmidt's statement for a minute, you'll find another old maxim hiding underneath: Blame the user.
You want privacy? Don't use our search engine/photo software/email application/maps. That's our data now, thank you very much. Oh, you don't want your private chats exposed to the world? Sorry, you never told us that.
Submission + - Google keeps PacMan available for play (tekgoblin.com)
tekgoblin writes: If you had fun playing PacMan on Google (Google) for the 30th anniversary (I know I did), fear not Google has kept PacMan available for play. PacMan is available at http://www.google.com/pacman permanently. Google had this to say:
We’ve been overwhelmed — but not surprised :) — by the success of our 30th anniversary PAC-MAN doodle. Due to popular demand, we’re making the game permanently available at www.google.com/pacman.
Thanks to NAMCO for helping to make this wonderful collaboration happen. Enjoy!
Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP Search Products & User Experience
We’ve been overwhelmed — but not surprised
Thanks to NAMCO for helping to make this wonderful collaboration happen. Enjoy!
Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP Search Products & User Experience
Submission + - Citizen Scientists Help Explore the Moon
Pickens writes: "NPR reports that NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is doing such a good job photographing every bit of the moon's surface that scientists can't keep up, so Oxford astrophysicist Chris Lintott is asking amateur astronomers to help review, measure and classify tens of thousands of moon photos streaming to Earth using the website MoonZoo, where anyone can log on, get trained and become a space explorer. "We ask people to count the craters that they can see ... and that tells us all sorts of things about the history and the age of that bit of surface," says Lintott. Volunteers are also asked to identify boulders, measure the craters and generally classify what is found in the images. If one person does the classification — even if they're an expert — then anything odd or interesting can be blamed on them but with multiple independent classifications the team can statistically calculate the confidence in the classification and that's a large part of the power of Moon Zoo and Lintott adds the British and American scientists heading up the LRO project have been randomly checking the amateur research being sent in and find it as good as you would get from an expert. "There are a whole host of scientists ... who are waiting for these results, who've already committed to using them in their own research.""
Submission + - Physicists Do What Einstein Thought Impossible (discovermagazine.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Einstein worked on Brownian motion (the movement of small particles in a fluid as they collide with water molecules) in 1905, but said it would be "impossible" to determine the speed and direction of a single particle during this dance. Now researchers have gone and done it, by suspending a dust-sized glass sphere in air (which slowed down its dance moves, since it had fewer collisions with spaced-out air molecules than it would have with water molecules). The researchers held the sphere in place with "laser chopsticks," and then watched how the glass bead bounced around to determine its direction and speed.
Submission + - Adobe founders on Flash and internet standards
An anonymous reader writes: An interview with the founders of Adobe (and creators of PostScript) Charles Geschke and John Warnock. Three interesting quotes:
"It is so frustrating that this many years later we're still in an environment where someone says if you really want this to work you have to use Firefox. The whole point of the universality of the Web would be to not have those kind of distinctions, but we're still living with them. It's always fascinating to see how long it takes for certain pieces of historical antiquity to die away. The more you put them in the browsers you've codified them as eternal, and that's stupid".
"With Flash what we're trying to do is both beef it up and make it robust enough so that at least you can get one language that's platform-independent and will move from platform to platform without hitting you every time you turn around with different semantics".
"You can see why, to a certain extent, Apple and Microsoft view that as a challenge because they would like you to buy into their implementation of how the seamless integration with the Web goes. What we're saying is it really shouldn't matter. That cloud ought to be accessible by anybody's computer and through any sort of information sitting out on the Web."
"It is so frustrating that this many years later we're still in an environment where someone says if you really want this to work you have to use Firefox. The whole point of the universality of the Web would be to not have those kind of distinctions, but we're still living with them. It's always fascinating to see how long it takes for certain pieces of historical antiquity to die away. The more you put them in the browsers you've codified them as eternal, and that's stupid".
"With Flash what we're trying to do is both beef it up and make it robust enough so that at least you can get one language that's platform-independent and will move from platform to platform without hitting you every time you turn around with different semantics".
"You can see why, to a certain extent, Apple and Microsoft view that as a challenge because they would like you to buy into their implementation of how the seamless integration with the Web goes. What we're saying is it really shouldn't matter. That cloud ought to be accessible by anybody's computer and through any sort of information sitting out on the Web."
Submission + - Emergency dispatcher fired for facebook drug joke (news.com.au)
kaptink writes: Dana Kuchler, a 21-year veteran of the West Allis' Dispatch Department, was fired from her job for making jokes on her Facebook page about taking drugs. She appealed to an arbitrator, claiming the Facebook post was a joke pointing out she had written "ha" in it and urine and hair samples tested negative for drugs. But the arbitrator said she should be entitled to go back to work after a 30-day suspension, but the City of West Allis complained that was not appropriate.
Is posting bad jokes on Facebook a justifiable reason to give someone the boot?
Is posting bad jokes on Facebook a justifiable reason to give someone the boot?
Submission + - Security researchers warn of typhoid-like adware (pcpro.co.uk)
Barence writes: Security experts at the University of Calgary are warning against a new adware threat — dubbed Typhoid — that could display adverts to Wi-Fi hotspot users. The new threat mirrors typhoid, with healthy carriers passing on the effects of the virus to anyone they come into contact with, without showing signs of infection themselves. According to the research, the adware convinces computers within range to communicate with the infected PC rather than the legitimate access point. According to the researchers, Typhoid adware works over any non-encrypted wireless connections, and can carry a potential payload as well as irritating marketing.
Submission + - Brief History of Social Games (radoff.com)
Tarinth writes: Social games (such as Farmville, etc.) are hardly new--because games have been part of recorded history for thousands of years. An infographic has integrated many of the key games from history (starting with Egypt's Senet game from 3100BC) to present, showing major milestones along the way such as play-by-mail, Dungeons and Dragons and Magic the Gathering. Today's social games phenomena, which might better be better called "social network games" is the confluence of several trends ranging from asynchronous gameplay, social play and virtual economies--all of which are shown within the infographic.
Submission + - Facebook bug lets hackers delete friends (cio.com.au)
swandives writes: There's lot of talk about Facebook and privacy at the moment, but a bug in Facebook's website lets hackers delete Facebook friends without permission. Steven Abbagnaro, a student from Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York reported the flaw, writing proof-of-concept code that scrapes publicly available data from users' Facebook pages and deletes all of their friends, one by one. The victim first has to click on a malicious link while logged into Facebook.
Abbagnaro's code exploits the same underlying flaw that was first reported by Alert Logic security analyst, M.J. Keith, who discovered cross-site request forgery bug, where the website doesn't properly check code sent by users' browsers to ensure that they were authorized to make changes on the site.
Abbagnaro's code exploits the same underlying flaw that was first reported by Alert Logic security analyst, M.J. Keith, who discovered cross-site request forgery bug, where the website doesn't properly check code sent by users' browsers to ensure that they were authorized to make changes on the site.
Submission + - Vimeo to Support WebM Video (vimeo.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Vimeo has plans in progress to offer WebM video content in the near future. In response to a question posted on the community forums, Vimeo's Andrew Pile responded, 'We've been working for it for a few weeks now and hope to have some preliminary videos for people to play with soon. It looks promising!'
Submission + - Any Android Phones Can Process Credit Cards Now 1
adeelarshad82 writes: A plug-in device known as Square, accompanied by an app, is helping the concept of mobile payments anywhere, anytime on android phones. A simple swipe through Square allows it to read the credit card and send instructions to the mobile app which then allows the user to make payment. Square can be plugged into the 3.5mm headphone jack. The device and the app are free, however Square banks 2.75 percent of the total transaction in addition to a charge of 15 cents per swipe, and 3.5 percent plus 15 cents for each transaction made with a keyed in entry.
