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Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft Azure Cloud Storage Suffers Major Outage Over Expired SSL Certificate (threatpost.com)

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: Microsoft's public cloud storage service suffered a global outage due to a lapsed security certificate.

Beginning around 4 p.m. EST, developers and other Azure customers began being blocked from accessing files.

"Storage is currently experiencing a worldwide outage impacting HTTPS operations (SSL traffic) due to an expired certificate," according to a message on the Windows Azure Service Dashboard that remained posted Friday night. "HTTP traffic is not impacted. We are validating the recovery options before implementing them. Further updates will be published to keep you apprised of the situation. We apologize for any inconvenience this causes our customers."
Your Rights Online

Submission + - Whitehouse.gov petition to make cell phone unlocking legal needs 15K petitions (whitehouse.gov)

Submitted by namalc
namalc writes: Recently the Librarian of Congress declared cell phone locking to be illegal for phones sold after Jan 26. Now, a whitehouse.gov petition https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/make-unlocking-cell-phones-legal is coming close to the number of signatures needed to get a formal response from the Whitehouse.
Crime

Submission + - Wash. state bill allows police to enter gun owners' homes (examiner.com)

Submitted by Examiner News
Examiner News writes: A new gun control bill sponsored by three Democrats is making its way through Washington state’s legislature. On Tuesday, SB 5737-2013-14 was filed in the state legislature. If passed into law, it would allow local sheriffs to enter the homes of gun owners for regular inspections (more than once a year) on whether firearms are properly stored.

Submission + - Moon Water: Apollo Astronauts Discover Plagioclase

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A new analysis of lunar samples brought back to the Earth by Apollo astronauts in the early 1970s indicates that the moon's interior may have been a little damp in the early days. While this might not be any 'Moon River,' per see, scientists are baffled about the current beliefs for the planet as deposit's left on the moons surface are typically comets, asteroids and other object that bare no moisture. Yet the findings, published online Sunday in the journal Nature Geoscience, show mounting evidence that the moon once contained some "native" water.
Transportation

Submission + - Bombardier to test electric buses that charge wirelessly (www.cbc.ca)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Bombardier's electric transit technology will be tested next winter on buses in Montreal, followed in early 2014 on a route in the German city of Mannheim. The transportation giant's Primove technology is designed to allow buses to be charged by underground induction stations when they stop to let passengers hop on and off.

(This technology while impressive may not make it to the U.S. even if proven successful due to the lack of popularity of public transportation is still impressive. If they could only get my phone to charge wirelessly.) ZU
Facebook

Submission + - Facebook Lets Users Pay To Promote Friends' Posts (itworld.com)

Submitted by
jfruh
jfruh writes: "This fall, Facebook introduced the concept of "promoted posts" — posts that you could pay (generally small amounts, starting at under $10) to ensure that more people of your followers saw more often. Now, if you're feeling generous, you can promote your friends' posts as well. Facebook offers some semi-plausible reasons why you might want to do this (if your friend is raising funds for a charity marathon, say, or looking for a new roommate). Perhaps a more likely reason for the move came in Facebook's recent report to the SEC, in which it says revenues it's collected from the promoted posts program "have not been material.""
Government

Submission + - President Obama Calls For New 'Space Race' Funding (theverge.com)

Submitted by dmfinn
dmfinn writes: While his union address covered a wide range of topics, President Obama made sure not to skip over the U.S.'s space program. The talking point was nearly identical to the one he gave in 2009, in which he called for space R&D spending to be increased past the levels seen during the the original cold war space race. Now, 4 years after that speach, it appears things have gone the opposite way. Since 2009 NASA has seen some serious cuts. Not only has the space-shuttle program been deactivated, but the agency was forced to endure harsh funding cuts during the presidents latter term. Despite an ominous history, it now seems that Obama is back on the space objective, pushing congress to increase non-defensive R&D spending to 3% of the U.S. GDP. It's important to keep in mind that not all of this money goes directly to space related programs, though under the proposed budget the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy Office of Science, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology Laboratories will have their budgets doubled.There will also be an increase in tax credits towards companies and organizations working on these R&D projects.

Should the U.S. go back to its 'Let's put a man on the moon" ideology, or is the federal government fighting an uphill battle against newly emerging private space expeditions? Either way, the question remains whether or not Obama will act on any of the propositions.

Submission + - Putting a radio station on the Raspberry Pi (sourcefabric.org)

Submitted by
johanneswilm
johanneswilm writes: "A project to stream an online radio station using a Raspberry Pi as the streaming and content organization server. Hidden away in a wall somewehre, this could apparently make it a bit harder for government censors in repressive regimes to shut down an unpleasant opposition station, assuming that the government has little technical expertise. Creative apps using the Raspberry Pi seem to be hot, but are they really useful? Will anyone actually ever use the device in a real production environment, or will people revert to using normal servers/desktop PCs when things get serious?"

Submission + - Collaborative LaTeX editor with Preview in your web browser (writelatex.com) 1

Submitted by Celarent Darii
Celarent Darii writes: Slashdot readers have undoubtably heard of Google Docs and the many other online word processing solutions that run in the browser. However, as a long-time user of TeX and LaTeX, these solutions are not my favorite way of doing things. Wouldn't it be nice to TeX something in your browser? Well, look no further, there is now a Online collaborative LaTeX editor with integrated rapid preview. Some fantastic features: quasi-instant preview, automatic versioning of source, easy collaboration and you can even upload files and pictures. Download your project later when you get home. Are you a TeX guru with some masterpieces? Might I suggest uploading them? For the beginner: you can start here.

Full disclosure: I am not affiliated with the site in anyway, just a fan. Hope exposure on Slashdot gets the word out on this great resource, which is very useful while travelling!
Wireless Networking

Submission + - Could Australia cancel Digital Dividend auction and create unlicensed band? (theconversation.edu.au)

Submitted by uanmi
uanmi writes: The Australian government is trying to sell 90 MHz in the 700 MHz band (the old analog television). One of the mobile carriers Vodafone has stated it will not participate in the auction for 700 MHz spectrum. Another Optus has stated the cost is too high and is yet to declare if it will participate. Telstra is expected to bid for a maximum allocation of 45 MHz. Another solution that has been proposed is for the 90 MHz to be turned into an unlicensed band for future use that might include high power public Wi-Fi system with cells that could be up to 30 km in size. If the carriers don’t realise that they’re getting access to waterfront property and act to purchase the spectrum at an anticipated cost of AUD$3 billion then the alternative could be a solution that brings change to the entire telco industry. 90 MHz unlicensed spectrum in the 700 MHz band would create havoc for the wireless industry and force price reductions across the board.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: What is your favorite monitor for programming?

Submitted by BadassFractal
BadassFractal writes: I'm in the market for a new large desktop monitor (or two) which I intend to use almost exclusively for programming and all sorts of software development-related work. I'm trying to keep the cost down reasonable, and I do enjoy as large of a resolution as possible. What do people "in the know" out there use these days for that purpose? I'm thinking a 1920x1200 24" would be good, unless there's an affordable 2560xFoo option out there. I keep hearing about nameless Korean 27" screens, any thoughts on that one?

Thanks!
China

Submission + - China Claimed Millions of Computers Hacked by U.S.-based Servers (xinhuanet.com)

Submitted by hackingbear
hackingbear writes: While we have heard reports of computers being hacked from China almost every other day, China's National Computer Network Emergency Response Centre identified 7.8 million computers in China had been hacked in the first six months of last year, with the most common location of the attackers being in the US (pay wall). According to CNCERT, 73,286 overseas IPs were involved in hacking China’s 14.19 million IPs, among which 10.5 million received attacks from US-based servers, 780,000 from South Korea and 778,000 from Germany. Apparently, as neither side can prove their claims or disprove the other's claims with absolutely indisputable evidences, the war of words will keep going.
Government

Submission + - Earth-buzzing asteroid could be worth big bucks: $195B if we could catch it (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "The asteroid NASA say is about the half the size of a football field that will blow past Earth on Feb 15 could be worth up to $195 billion in metals and propellant. That's what the scientists at Deep Space Industries, a company that wants to mine these flashing hunks of space materials, thinks the asteroid known as 2012 DA14 is worth — if they could catch it."
IOS

Submission + - Latest iOS Jailbreak Used Seven Million Times In Four Days (forbes.com)

Submitted by Sparrowvsrevolution
Sparrowvsrevolution writes: Over the first half of last week, Apple was been hit with the largest mass-hacking incident in its history. And the perpetrators were the company’s own users.

Nearly seven million iPhone, iPad and iPod touch owners cracked Apple’s restrictions on their devices using the jailbreaking tool Evasi0n in just the first four days it was online, according to the latest count of unique devices released by Jay Freeman, the administrator of the app store for jailbroken devices known as Cydia. That makes the iOS-hacking app the fastest-adopted jailbreak software of all time, Freeman says. The last jailbreak that came close was likely Jailbreakme 3 in 2011, which was used only 1.4 million times in nine days.

The high number of cracked devices may be a sign that Apple users want more open, less restricted gadgets. But it also reflects the higher number of iOS devices in the market since the last jailbreak, and pent up demand. It took hackers longer than ever before to develop this jailbreak: 136 days compared with as little as two weeks for the iPhone 3GS.

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