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Submission + - Doctors diagnose a patient with aid of House episode

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A man in Germany was helped by the series House, as doctors used an episode to help in diagnosis of a patient. Doctors we baffled by the combination of symptoms in a 55-year old patient. Remembering an episode, House had been used during teaching of medical students, helped the treating doctor to realise the probably cause and check for it.

Submission + - Dice Holdings, Inc, deleting unflattering stories from Slashdot firehose 4

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Stories submitted to the Slashdot firehose that take a negative view on the site's redesign are being deleted. 4 hours ago, it was full of anti-beta posts. Now they are gone. That's right. A forum that usually leaves V14GRA spam in place for posterity is deleting user content.

Submission + - New Microsoft CEO Member of Myhrvold-Gates Patent Club

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: It turns out a pretty good clue that new Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella enjoyed an inside track for the top job at the software giant was just a patent search away. While a USPTO search turned up no issued or pending patents assigned to Microsoft that listed Nadella as an inventor, it did surprisingly turn up 33 patent applications listing Nadella, Bill Gates, and Nathan Myhrvold as co-inventors, most of which were assigned to Intellectual Ventures holding company Elwha, LLC. So, with Nadella and Gates driving Microsoft, is it time for the software giant to provide an explanation for why its top execs were moonlighting for a patent bully, and how that squares with the Microsoft Standards of Business Conduct?

Submission + - RSA discovers cybercriminals using Hand of Thief Trojan targeting Linux (wwpi.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Barely two weeks after reporting about the commercialization of the KINS banking Trojan, RSA revealed this week another weapon being used in a cybercriminal’s arsenal. It appears that a Russia based cybercrime team has set its sights on offering a new banking Trojan targeting the Linux operating system. This appears to be a commercial operation, which includes support/sales agents and software developer(s).

Submission + - Google puts ads on Google Maps (muktworld.com)

Submitted by sfcrazy
sfcrazy writes: While the online publications are struggling to find revenue models, Google continues to expand its ad network to other service. Google is now integrating display ads with Google Maps. With this move Google is now enabling businesses to reach out to customers in a more targeted manner.

At the same time in return of telling Google where they are users continue to get top tier services for free. (before oversensitive pseudo-privacy advocates jump at Google, you should know that every GPS and mobile device tracks your location. Google or Apple, Nokia/Microsoft maps also know where you are).

Submission + - Memory Wars May Herald In Mobile Devices With Terabytes of Capacity (computerworld.com)

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: With 3D NAND flash going into high production and one startup demonstrating a resistive NAND (RRAM) flash array, it may not be long before mobile devices have hundreds of gigabytes of capacity, even a terabyte with performance only limited by the bus. Samsung announced it is now mass producing three-dimensional (3D) Vertical NAND (V-NAND) chips, and start-up Crossbar said it has created a prototype of its RRAM chip. Both technologies offer many times what current NAND flash chips offer today in capacity and performance. Which technology will prevail is still up in the air, but experts believe it will be years before RRAM can challenge NAND, but it's almost inevitable that it will overtake it as even 3D NAND heads for an inevitable dead end. Others believe 3D NAND, currently at 24 layers, could reach more than 100, giving it a lifespan of five or more years.

Submission + - Upside-down sensors cause rocket crash 3

Submitted by Michi
Michi writes: According to Anatoly Zak, the crash of the Russion Proton rocket on 1 July was apparently caused by several angular velocity sensors having been installed upside down.

Each of those sensors had an arrow that was supposed to point toward the top of the vehicle, however multiple sensors on the failed rocket were pointing downward instead.

It seems amazing that something as fundamental as this was not caught during quality control. Even more amazing is that the design of the sensors permits them to be installed in the wrong orientation in the first place. Even the simplest of mechanical interlocks (such as a notch at one end that must be matched with a corresponding projection) could have prevented the accident.

Submission + - Which PHP Framework to learn? EllisLab selling CodeIgniter... (ellislab.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Been working with ExpressionEngine CMS for several years, and started learning PHP a few months back. It appears that most developers use a framework to speed up the process, so I started exploring the various options. I was naturally leaning toward CodeIgniter since it's used heavily in EE, and also made by EllisLab. I'd held off due to a number of blog posts regarding an uncertain future with the framework (no major updates in a very long time). Today, EllisLab posted a story about how they're "seeking a new owner" for the framework.

That said, I'm curious what others' thoughts are in regards to the future of the framework, and what might be the next best (similar) option.

Submission + - big.LITTLE: ARM's Strategy For Efficient Computing (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: big.LITTLE is ARM's solution to a particularly nasty problem: smaller and smaller process nodes no longer deliver the kind of overall power consumption improvements they did years ago. Before 90nm technology, semiconductor firms could count on new chips being smaller, faster, and drawing less power at a given frequency. Eventually, that stopped being true. Tighter process geometries still pack more transistors per square millimeter, but the improvements to power consumption and maximum frequency have been falling with each smaller node. Rising defect densities have created a situation where — for the first time ever — 20nm wafers won't be cheaper than the 28nm processors they're supposed to replace. This is a critical problem for the mobile market, where low power consumption is absolutely vital. big.LITTLE is ARM's answer to this problem. The strategy requires manufacturers to implement two sets of cores — the Cortex-A7 and Cortex-A15 are the current match-up. The idea is for the little cores to handle the bulk of the device's work, with the big cores used for occasional heavy lifting. ARM's argument is that this approach is superior to dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS) because it's impossible for a single CPU architecture to retain a linear performance/power curve across its entire frequency range. This is the same argument Nvidia made when it built the Companion Core in Tegra 3.

Submission + - The French Parliament votes a legislation that gives priority to Free Software

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The French Parliament just wrote into law the first instance of Free Software priority in a public service, by adopting the Bill on Higher Education and Research. April, after extensively contributing to the debate, especially welcomes this vote and congratulates Deputies and Senators for recognising the importance of Free Software in the Public Service for Higher Education, since it alone can ensure equal access to the future public service. April hopes that this first step will be followed by other legislation in favour of Free Software. It also thanks all the persons who mobilised and contacted the Parliament Members.
The Internet

Ship Anchor, Not Sabotaging Divers, Possibly Responsible For Outage 43

Posted by samzenpus from the who's-to-blame dept.
Nerval's Lobster writes "This week, Egypt caught three men in the process of severing an undersea fiber-optic cable. But Telecom Egypt executive manager Mohammed el-Nawawi told the private TV network CBC that the reason for the region's slowdowns was not the alleged saboteurs — it was damage previously caused by a ship. On March 22, cable provider Seacom reported a cut in its Mediterranean cable connecting Southern and Eastern Africa, the Middle East and Asia to Europe; it later suggested that the most likely cause of the incident was a ship anchor, and that traffic was being routed around the cut, through other providers. But repairs to the cable took longer than expected, with the Seacom CEO announcing March 23 that the physical capability to connect additional capacity to services in Europe was "neither adequate nor stable enough," and that it was competing with other providers. The repairs continued through March 27, after faults were found on the restoration system; that same day, Seacom denied that the outage could have been the work of the Egyptian divers, but said that the true cause won't be known for weeks. 'We think it is unlikely that the damage to our system was caused by sabotage,' the CEO wrote in a statement. 'The reasons for this are the specific location, distance from shore, much greater depth, the presence of a large anchored vessel on the fault site which appears to be the cause of the damage and other characteristics of the event.'"
The Military

United States Begins Flying Stealth Bombers Over South Korea 567

Posted by samzenpus from the nice-day-for-a-flight dept.
skade88 writes "The New York Times is reporting that the United States has started flying B-2 stealth bomber runs over South Korea as a show of force to North Korea. The bombers flew 6,500 miles to bomb a South Korean island with mock explosives. Earlier this month the U.S. Military ran mock B-52 bombing runs over the same South Korean island. The U.S. military says it shows that it can execute precision bombing runs at will with little notice needed. The U.S. also reaffirmed their commitment to protecting its allies in the region. The North Koreans have been making threats to turn South Korea into a sea of fire. North Korea has also made threats claiming they will nuke the United States' mainland."
Mars

4-Billion-Pixel Panorama View From Curiosity Rover 101

Posted by samzenpus from the take-a-look dept.
A reader points out that there is a great new panorama made from shots from the Curiosity Rover. "Sweep your gaze around Gale Crater on Mars, where NASA's Curiosity rover is currently exploring, with this 4-billion-pixel panorama stitched together from 295 images. ...The entire image stretches 90,000 by 45,000 pixels and uses pictures taken by the rover's two MastCams. The best way to enjoy it is to go into fullscreen mode and slowly soak up the scenery — from the distant high edges of the crater to the enormous and looming Mount Sharp, the rover's eventual destination."

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