Submission + - ArchBang Brings Arch Linux's Greatest Features to (lifehacker.com)
jasonmco writes: For those in love with Arch Linux and tired of the painstaking installation process, ArchBang is the perfect solution. It has everything about Arch that you will love, and installs in just a few minutes with everything you need.
Arch Linux is still pne of the most favorite Linux distributions due to its ability to create your own customized Linux distribution. The problem is with installation. It just becomes super tedious as far as new installation or reinstallation is concerned. Anyway, after seeing the Linux Action Show's episode on the Arch-based Chakra, ArchBang become one of my favorites. Here's why...
Arch Linux is still pne of the most favorite Linux distributions due to its ability to create your own customized Linux distribution. The problem is with installation. It just becomes super tedious as far as new installation or reinstallation is concerned. Anyway, after seeing the Linux Action Show's episode on the Arch-based Chakra, ArchBang become one of my favorites. Here's why...
Submission + - Barnes & Noble Urges U.S. to Probe Microsoft o (bloomberg.com)
PolygamousRanchKid writes: Barnes & Noble Inc. (BKS) asked U.S. regulators to investigate whether Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) seeks to monopolize the mobile-device market by demanding patent royalties on electronics running on Google Inc.'s Android operating system.
Those actions were part of a "series of tactics designed by Microsoft to raise its rivals' costs and prevent Android- based devices from taking away sales of Microsoft's Windows operating system," Peter Barbur, of Cravath Swaine & Moore in New York, said in the Oct. 17 letter to Gene Kimmelman, the Justice Department's chief counsel for competition policy.
Without providing figures, Barnes & Noble said Microsoft was demanding the same amount in patent fees that it would charge users of its Windows Phone operating system.
Those actions were part of a "series of tactics designed by Microsoft to raise its rivals' costs and prevent Android- based devices from taking away sales of Microsoft's Windows operating system," Peter Barbur, of Cravath Swaine & Moore in New York, said in the Oct. 17 letter to Gene Kimmelman, the Justice Department's chief counsel for competition policy.
Without providing figures, Barnes & Noble said Microsoft was demanding the same amount in patent fees that it would charge users of its Windows Phone operating system.
Submission + - Bank Of America: A Little View (usposting.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Bank of America Corp. is in talks to hire former CEO Wind Telecomunicazioni SpA Luigi Gubitosi for a role of leadership in the Italian investment bank, three people familiar with the discussions.
Bank of America, the second largest equity investors in the U.S., aims to increase its presence in Italy, southern Europe, after the end of Maurizio Tamagnini left the company in September, according to people who declined to be identified, because the negotiations are private.
Bank of America, the second largest equity investors in the U.S., aims to increase its presence in Italy, southern Europe, after the end of Maurizio Tamagnini left the company in September, according to people who declined to be identified, because the negotiations are private.
Submission + - Obama: Smart People Not Mired in Student Loan Debt 4
theodp writes: 'When Michelle and I graduated from law school,' President Obama told online personal finance writers last week, 'our combined debt was $120,000 and it took us 10 years to pay off. We were lucky because we'd gone to a law school where we knew we could earn it,' explained the Harvard Law alum. 'It remains smart to spend on things that are going to increase your productivity and your income over the long term. In the same way that law school paid off for Michelle and I.' But, as Malcolm Gladwell pointed out in Outliers, sometimes people confuse being smart with being lucky. Not that Barack isn't a sharp guy, but he also had the good fortune to complete Harvard Law in 1991 when tuition was $13,400 (it's now $47,600) and unemployment was 6.9% (it's now 9.1%). Also, those still repaying loans disbursed when Obama attended Harvard only pay 2.47% interest today, while students receiving loans since 2006 are not only hit with a whopping 7.90% rate, their interest expense deductions are still capped at $2,500, the same level the Obamas enjoyed for most of the life of their loans (after 2012, interest will only be deductible for 5 years). Interestingly, even with these advantages over the students of today, a humble Michelle Obama in 2008 credited book royalties from her husband's best sellers for getting the Obamas out from under their student loan debt — not the couple's 'smart' spending on Harvard Law diplomas.
Submission + - Obama: "We don't have enough engineers' (computerworld.com)
dcblogs writes: President Obama wants to boost engineering graduation rates by 10,000 a year. In 2009, the U.S. produced 126,194 engineering graduates for bachelor's and master's degrees and for Ph.D.s. The U.S. had just over 1.9 million engineers in 2010. The unemployment rate in 2010 for all engineers was 4.5%. "We've made incredible progress on education, helping students to finance their college educations, but we still don't have enough engineers," said Obama. He's counting on the private sector to help expand the number of graduates.
Submission + - Cell phone link to brain cancer overhyped? (discovermagazine.com)
The Bad Astronomer writes: "Following up on the story posted to Slashdot earlier, the "possible" link between cell phones and brain cancer is very tenuous, to say the least. Looking at the actual data reveals the results are indistinguishable from no connection at all. Not surprisingly, these results are being widely misinterpreted."
Submission + - North Korea Training "Cyberwarriors" Abroad (itworld.com)
jfruhlinger writes: "A North Korean defector claims that the secretive totalitarian state is nurturing a team of "cyberwarriors," identifying young people with computer skills and sending them abroad to learn the latest hacking techniques, while lavishing priviledges on their families at home to keep them loyal. This could lead to an escalation in tensions, especially given that the U.S. military believes that cyberattacks from foreign countries constitute acts of war."
Submission + - More details of first quantum computer (technologyreview.com)
holy_calamity writes: "Technology Review explains that the the quantum computing system recently bought by Lockheed is actually a specialised co-processor to help a conventional computer with machine learning tasks. D-Wave's system is hard-coded with a particular machine learning algorithm that solves problems using a network of linked superconducting qubits. A coder can use an API to push data to the specialised processor as needed to improve the accuracy of the trained software. Google are using a D-Wave system as a kind of exotic cloud service, having software in Mountain View use the APIs over the internet."
Submission + - Netflix reflects on the AWS outage (tekgoblin.com)
tekgoblin writes: "On the 21st of April, Amazon Web Services experienced a major outage an outage which took many large websites offline. Websites that were affected included Reddit.com, Hootsuite for example. The outage was chalked up to a change that was made to upgrade network capacity that also shifted traffic off of one of the redundant routers on the Amazon Elastic Block Store. Amazon states that the shift was done incorrectly which caused the outage.
Netflix also resides on AWS but was not affected by the outage and they want to tell you why. Netflix was designed to be aws Netflix reflects on the AWS outageready for exactly the type of failure that happened at Amazon on the 21st. The Netflix servers did not use EBS as their main data storage and when the traffic was routed off the EBS at Amazon Netflix was still up."
Netflix also resides on AWS but was not affected by the outage and they want to tell you why. Netflix was designed to be aws Netflix reflects on the AWS outageready for exactly the type of failure that happened at Amazon on the 21st. The Netflix servers did not use EBS as their main data storage and when the traffic was routed off the EBS at Amazon Netflix was still up."
Submission + - A time for a change in the PhD system (physorg.com) 1
fysdt writes: "According to a series of articles published in Nature, the world has too many PhDs and not enough academic jobs to sustain them. Researchers point out that it is either time to make changes in the system or eliminate it altogether."
Submission + - LibreOffice 3.4 Beta 2 Released (ostatic.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Some of the changes include — calc, filters, writer, libs-gui, and more.
Submission + - This Tech Bubble is Different 3
theodp writes: Tech bubbles happen, writes BW's Ashlee Vance, but we usually gain from the innovation left behind. But this one — driven by social networking — could leave us empty-handed. Math whiz Jeff Hammerbacher provides a good case study. One year out of Harvard, 23-year-old Hammerbacher arrived at Facebook, was given the lofty title of research scientist and put to work analyzing how people used the social networking service. Over the next two years, Hammerbacher assembled a team that built a new class of analytical technology, one which translated insights into people's relationships, tendencies, and desires into precision advertising and higher sales. But something gnawed at him. Hammerbacher looked around Silicon Valley at companies like his own, Google, and Twitter, and saw his peers wasting their talents. 'The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads,' he says. 'That sucks.' Silicon Valley historian Christophe Lecuyer agrees: 'It's clear that the new industry that is building around Internet advertising and these other services doesn't create that many jobs. The loss of manufacturing and design knowhow is truly worrisome.'
Submission + - Intel will support USB 3 alongside Thunderbolt (edibleapple.com) 1
An anonymous reader writes: Intel doesn’t see Thunderbolt, the blazingly fast transfer technology first introduced on the MacBook Pro back in February, as an exclusive competitor to USB 3. Rather, the company views the technologies as being complementary, according to Kirk Skaugen, the VP of Intel’s Architecture Group who relayed the message at Intel’s developer conference in Beijing this past Wednesday.
Submission + - Swedish file-sharers file for Religious status (torrentfreak.com) 1
nloop writes: A group of file-sharers in Sweden have requested that their religion, Kopimism, be officially recognized in Sweden. Although this status has been denied once in the past the struggle for religious freedom from persecution continues. Aside from deeming CTRL+C CTRL+V as sacred symbols other beliefs include the flow of information being ethically right and closed source software being "akin to slavery."
