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Science

Submission + - New GM Crops Could Make Superweeds Even Stronger (wired.com)

Submitted by Lasrick
Lasrick writes: Now that Monsanto and others have created a new breed of superweed that is resistant to herbicides, the next step is to genetically modify crop plants to resist super doses of more chemicals, which in turn will create super weeds resistant to entire CLASSES of chemicals, which in turn...you get the idea. This is ridiculous.
Security

Submission + - ShowIP Firefox add-on secretly leaks URL data (sophos.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: According to researchers at Sophos, a popular Firefox add-on appears to have started leaking private information about every website that users visit to a third-party server, including sensitive data which could identify individuals or reduce their security.

ShowIP is designed to "show the IP address(es) of the current page in the status bar" and is used by over 170,000 Firefox users.

However, the full URL of every webpage visited is sent to the Germany-based ip2info.org website, using unencrypted connections.

In addition, the add-on has no warning that sites you visit might be disclosed, no privacy policy small print explaining its behaviour, and no apparent way to opt-out of the data-sharing.

Submission + - Scam artist Naveen Jain is doing it again. (washingtonpost.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: He waited some years to be forgotten, but this scam artist is about to take another company public and is going to screw his investors after the IPO.

Submission + - An Open Letter To Developers of Ad Blocking Software (itproportal.com) 1

Submitted by hypnosec
hypnosec writes: John Battelle, CEO Federated Media Publishing sends out an open letter to Developers of Ad Blocking Applications: Dear Developers of Ad Blocking applications, I'll cut straight to the chase. What have we done to you to deserve your wrath? The ad blockers that you design prevent our ads from being displayed. Less advertising means less revenue for producing the quality content that you and everybody else craves and needs. High quality online content allows readers all over the world to educate and better themselves, without incurring any relative costs. Think about it: without online advertising where would the Internet be? Every site that depends on display advertising and page views would find it very hard to make ends meet. Producing good content is generally a very expensive procedure. As it stands, the overwhelming majority of the traditional (by traditional, I mean those who make a living out of writing) online content community works using the following equation.

Monthly Revenue = average advert slots per page x total number of page views x average cost per advert impression

Decreasing any of the variables on the right hand side will decrease revenue on the left hand side. And preventing adverts from displaying can have a devastating effect on the online media ecosystem, directly affecting web designers, journalists, editors, copywriters, developers, sales people, operations teams etc.

"When advertising works, millions keep their jobs" — Reader's Digest Ad
Hardware

Submission + - $36 000 worth of (unattended) MacBooks destroyed by urine in Pennsylvania (dailymail.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: An 11-year-old Pennsylvania boy has been charged after urinating on $36,000 worth of Apple MacBook computers, owned by his school.

Local police were called to Upper Allen Elementary School in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday after teachers discovered the boy had relieved himself on around 30 laptops.

The expensive technology, which had been sitting unattended on a cart in a school hallway, was 'damaged beyond repair', police said.

  Boy 11 destroys 36 000 worth of MacBooks with ..... URINE! Whoever would think that leaving 36 000 worth of MacBooks unattended could led to trouble?
AI

Submission + - Face Recognition Maps History via Art (i-programmer.info)

Submitted by mikejuk
mikejuk writes: Face recognition techniques usually come with a certain amount of controversy. A new application, however, is unlikely to trigger any privacy concerns because all of the subjects are long dead.
FACES: Faces, Art, and Computerized Evaluation Systems will attempt to apply face recognition software to portraits. Three University of California, Riverside researchers have just received funding to try and piece together the who's who in history.
  “Almost every portrait painted before the 19th century was of a person of some importance. As families fell on hard times, many of these portraits were sold and the identities of these subjects were lost. The question we hope to answer is, can we restore these identities?”
  If the algorithm can be fine tuned we can look forward to the digitized collections of museums and art galleries around the world suddenly yielding a who-knew-who social network graph that could put more science, and computer science at that, into history.
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft alleged anticompetitive practices agains (groklaw.net)

Submitted by andydread
andydread writes: We discussed the accusation against Microsoft by Barnes and Noble about their patent attacks on Android. The details are out on the extent that Microsoft has gone to make open source undesirable in the marketplace. Barnes and Noble says that this is not just about Android. According to B&N Its about all open source in general and they have filed a detailed complaint (PDF) with the ITC spelling out what they call "extortive practices" on the part of Microsoft against open source. Now we have a list of the actual patents in question and B&N explaining how each one of these patents are invalid.
Google

Submission + - Google's secret lab (technewsworld.com)

Submitted by phaedrus5001
phaedrus5001 writes: Apparently, Google has a secret lab known as 'Google X' where they are working on over a hundred different projects. From the article:"These include a space elevator project, experiments working to connect home appliances and dinner dishes to the Internet, robots that can go to work instead of their owners, and the development of driverless cars for the mass market."
And, just maybe, Skynet as well...
Businesses

Submission + - Tech Site Sues Ex-Employee, Claiming Rights To His (forbes.com)

Submitted by nonprofiteer
nonprofiteer writes: Noah Kravitz worked as a mobile phone reviewer for a tech website called Phonedog for four and a half years. While there, he started a Twitter account (of his own volition) with the handle @PhoneDog_Noah to tweet his stories and videos for the site as well as personal stuff about sports, food, music, etc. When he left Phonedog, he had approximately 17,000 followers and changed his Twitter handle to @noahkravitz.

This summer, Phonedog started barking that it wanted the Twitter account back, and sued Kravitz, valuing the account at $340,000 (!), or $2.50 per follower per month. Kravitz claims the Twitter account was his own property. A California judge ruled that the case can proceed and theoretically go to trial. Meanwhile, Kravitz continues to tweet.
Apple

Submission + - Siri Protocol Cracked (applidium.com)

Submitted by jisom
jisom writes: Today, we managed to crack open Siri’s protocol. As a result, we are able to use Siri’s recognition engine from any device. Yes, that means anyone could now write an Android app that uses the real Siri! Or use Siri on an iPad! And we’re goign to share this know-how with you.
China

Submission + - Why Is China Building Gigantic Structures In the M (gizmodo.com)

Submitted by cornholed
cornholed writes:

New photos have appeared in Google Maps showing unidentified titanic structures in the middle of the Chinese desert. The first one is an intricate network of what appears to be huge metallic stripes, the second structure seems to be some kind of giant targeting grid, and the third one consists of thousand of lines intersecting in a titanic grid that is about 18 miles long.
Security

Submission + - New Malware Signed With Stolen Government Certific (threatpost.com)

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: Security researchers claim that malware spreading via malicious PDF files is signed with a valid certificate stolen from the Government of Malaysia, in just the latest evidence that scammers are using gaps in the security of digital certificates to help spread malicious code.

The malware,identified by F-Secure as a Trojan horse program dubbed Agent.DTIW, was detected in a signed Adobe PDF file by the company's virus researchers recently. The malicious PDF was signed using a valid digital certificate for mardi.gov.my, the Agricultural Research and Development Institute of the Government of Malaysia. According to F-Secure, the Government of Malaysia confirmed that the certificate was legitimate and had been stolen "quite some time ago.
Apple

Submission + - Apple Recall 1st Gen iPod Nano (geek.com)

Submitted by fatp
fatp writes: Apple is recalling first-generation iPod nano due to fire risk. In the iPod nano (1st generation) Replacement Program, it's said: "Apple has determined that, in very rare cases, the battery in the iPod nano (1st generation) may overheat and pose a safety risk. Affected iPod nanos were sold between September 2005 and December 2006." According to speculation in geek.com, the replacement will be "reconditioned devices that were in storage."

I dug out my iPod Nano. There is no songs. But I can find traces of failed attempt to install iPod Linux.
Censorship

Submission + - Piracy Bill Could Be Used To Attack Open Source (itworld.com)

Submitted by
jfruhlinger
jfruhlinger writes: "Just how bad is the anti-piracy bill making its way through the U.S. Congress? It allows copyright holders to gain court orders to shut down, with little or no proof, anyone they believe is infringing their rights online. And that isn't just Web hosts: it includes distributors of software packages, which may be payback for Mozilla's refusal to help Homeland Security censor DNS. Open source projects, which generally don't have a deep-pocketed corporation backin them, could be particularly vulnerable to legal challenges."

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