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Electronic Frontier Foundation

Submission + - EFF, 9 other groups, push Open Wireless Movement (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
netbuzz
netbuzz writes: "Forging ahead with an initiative that proved controversial when introduced last year, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and nine other groups today are advancing the Open Wireless Movement to encourage ubiquitous sharing of Internet access. "We envision a world where sharing one's Internet connection is the norm," said EFF Activist Adi Kamdar, in a press release. "A world of open wireless would encourage privacy, promote innovation, and benefit the public good, giving us network access whenever we need it. And everyone – users, businesses, developers, and Internet service providers – can get involved to help make it happen.""
Technology

Submission + - ARM Announces 64-Bit Cortex-A50 Architecture (hothardware.com)

Submitted by
MojoKid
MojoKid writes: "ARM debuted its new 64-bit microarchitecture today and announced the upcoming launch of a new set of Cortex processors, due in 2014. The two new chip architectures, dubbed the Cortex-A53 and Cortex-A57, are the most advanced CPUs the British company has ever built, and are integral to AMD's plans to drive dense server applications beginning in 2014. The new ARMv8 architecture adds 64-bit memory addressing, increases the number of general purpose registers to 30, and increases the size of the vector registers for NEON/SIMD operations. The Cortex-A57 and A-53 are both aimed at the mobile market. Partners that've already signed on to build ARMv8-based hardware include Samsung, AMD, Broadcom, Calxeda, and STMicro."
Space

Submission + - The space sim isn't dead after all! (robertsspaceindustries.com)

Submitted by cwebster
cwebster writes: Chris Roberts' (creator of the wing commander series) new foray into PC games is officially a "go". The new game, Star Citizen, is slated to be what anyone who has played wing commander or privateer dreams it could be. Best of all, Chris cut out the publishers (EA owns the rights to WC) and is self funding this project. There are 20 days left in the funding campaign to meet the ambitious stretch goals. Contribute at kickstarter or the main site for the game.
Programming

Submission + - Closed-Source Team Development at Cost Zero (techgage.com)

Submitted by
Deathspawner
Deathspawner writes: "Many Web services provide open-source teams with an infrastructure for collaborative development, but what if you're a small team with little-to-no funding looking to develop closed-sourced software? Without fully being aware of your options, many believe that closed-source team collaboration is impossible on no budget. That's anything but the truth, however. Techgage explores how it can be done, encompassing server hosting, revision control, bug-tracking and other key development requirements."

Comment Re:seems a tad optimistic. (Score 1) 150

by Smartcowboy (#41800833) Attached to: The Past, Present, and Future of OSS

It is official; Netcraft now confirms: Slashdot is dying

One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered fat nerds talking about Linux community when IDC confirmed that Slashdot's market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all message boards that normal people don't care about. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that Slashdot has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Slashdot is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last ]in the recent Richard Stallman-lookalike contest.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict Slashdot's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Slashdot faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Sashdot because Slashdot is dying. Things are looking very bad for Slashdot. As many of us are already aware, Slashdot continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

Cowboy Neal is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of recent polls. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time article developers CmdrTaco and Jon Katz only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: Slashdot is dying.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

Kuro5shin leader Rusty states that there are 7000 users of his crappy site. How many users of Ars Technica are there? Let's see. The number of fat losers at comic book shops versus people using the expression "Micro$oft" on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore, there are about 7000/5 = 1400 Ars Technica users. Open Source posts on Usenet are
about half of the volume of posts about people eating diswasher soap. Therefore there are about 700 users of Bitcoin. A recent article put Tolkein fans at about 80 percent of the
Slashdot market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 Slashdot users. This is consistent with the number of people buying Real Dolls.

Due to the troubles out of Andover, abysmal sales and so on, NewsForge went out of business and was taken over by OSDI who sell another troubled software development model. Now Feed.com is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.

All major surveys show that Slashdothas steadily declined in market share. Slashdot is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Slashdot is to survive at all it will be among Cheeto-staind t-shirt wearers. Slashdot continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Slashdot is dead.

Fact: Slashdot is dying
Math

Submission + - Maths and nature link 'proven' by Manchester scientists (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by
hessian
hessian writes: "The largest ever research project into mathematical patterns in flowers has proved a link between number sequences and nature, Manchester scientists said.

Data from 557 sunflowers from seven countries was collected for the Turing's Sunflowers project, set up to celebrate the centenary of the mathematician's birth, and growers kept video diaries about their flowers' progress.

It showed 82% of the flowers conformed to complex structures including the mathematical Fibonacci sequence — where each number is the sum of the previous two."
Science

Submission + - Hurricane Sandy Is 'Meteorologically Mind-Boggling,' Scientists Say

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Scientists have been following and projecting Sandy's path with all the tools at their disposal: ocean buoys, radar and satellite imagery, and computer modeling. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration also gathers information from special reconnaissance aircraft, which fly over hurricanes and can drop instruments into them to measure wind speeds, air pressure, temperature, and altitude. The latest data gathered on Hurricane Sandy point to an unprecedented and mighty tempest, scientists say.

Comment Stupid me (Score 2) 150

by Smartcowboy (#41800619) Attached to: The Past, Present, and Future of OSS

"open source software along with computers and technology as a whole has gone from the sidelines to a prevalent position in the lives of modern consumers."

And stupid me though that the final goal of open source were to empower us by making us more than mere consumer. I tough that open source was about making us freeer human beings.
Books

Submission + - Funding models for a free e-book? (teachrdan.com)

Submitted by
danspalding
danspalding writes: "I'm an adult education teacher in SF who wrote an e-book about how to teach adults, called "How to Teach Adults." It will be available to download for free in January 2013. I Kickstarted enough money for editing, design and publicity, but not enough to pay me anything up front. I'm considering making a $1, $10 and $25 version available from Amazon as a way for folks to donate money to me, as well as a straight up PayPal link on my site. (Although I hate PayPal.) Is it possible to produce quality material for teachers to download for free in a way that's economically sustainable? Might readers accidentally pay for a copy without realizing there's a free download and get pissed off? And where should I host the free-to-download version?"
IBM

Submission + - IBM Reports Carbon Nanotube Chip Breakthrough (nytimes.com)

Submitted by yawaramin
yawaramin writes: IBM has apparently made a breakthrough in arranging carbon nanotubes into the logic gates necessary to make a chip. This should help miniaturise and speed up processors beyond what today's silicon-based technologies are capable of. The article notes though that perfecting the carbon nanotube technology could take up the rest of this decade.
The Military

Submission + - Targeting the President's DNA 2

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "The Atlantic reports that experts in genetics and microbiology are convinced we may be only a few years away from the development of advanced, genetic bio-weapons able to target a single human being based on their DNA. The authors paint a scenario of the development of a virus that causes only mild flu in the general population but when the virus crosses paths with cells containing a very specific DNA sequence, the sequence would act as a molecular key to unlock secondary functions that would trigger a fast-acting neuro-destructive disease that produces memory loss and, eventually, death. The requisite equipment including gene sequencers, micro-array scanners, and mass spectrometers now cost over $1 million but on eBay, it can be had for as little as $10,000. According to Ronald Kessler, the author of the 2009 book In the President’s Secret Service, Navy stewards gather bedsheets, drinking glasses, and other objects the president has touched—they are later sanitized or destroyed—in an effort to keep would-be malefactors from obtaining his genetic material. However no amount of Secret Service vigilance can ever fully secure the president’s DNA, because an entire genetic blueprint can now be produced from the information within just a single cell. How to protect the President? The authors propose open-sourcing the president’s genetic information to a select group of security-cleared researchers who could follow in the footsteps of the computer sciences, where “red-team exercises,” are extremely common practices so a similar testing environment could be developed for biological war games. "Advances in biotechnology are radically changing the scientific landscape. We are entering a world where imagination is the only brake on biology," write the authors. "In light of this coming synbio revolution, a wider-ranging relationship between scientists and security organizations—one defined by open exchange, continual collaboration, and crowd-sourced defenses—may prove the only way to protect the president.""
Databases

Submission + - Vermont cops replace clunky records management system with open-source solution (7dvt.com) 1

Submitted by McGruber
McGruber writes: Alternative weekly newspaper, Seven Days, Vermont's Independent Voice [http://www.7dvt.com/], has a fascinating article about Valcour, the Burlington, Vermont Police Department's open-source integrated dispatch and records management system [http://www.7dvt.com/2012burlington-pds-computer-system-was-clunky-and-costly-so-chief-mike-schirling-built-new-one].

Prior to Valcour's going live on October 1, 2011, Burlington polce were spending more than a third of their time on paperwork and data entry — writing reports on crime when they could be out fighting it. The department’s former records management system, called New World, made analyzing crime stats and patterns extremely difficult and time-consuming. According to the article:

Deputy Chief Jennifer Morrison helped design and implement Valcour. She cops to having 'zero' experience designing software, but says the genius of Valcour is its simplicity. At any given time, an officer or dispatcher can log into the system and see a dashboard showing everything that’s happening in the city — and neighboring jurisdictions — including every officer on duty, every call for service, who’s involved and what’s occurring. "

The article also describes how much money the police department is saving by having replaced the proprietary software it used to use — the savings can buy a lot of donuts.

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