casals - Slashdot User

Submission + - Microsoft Starts Rolling Out New Xbox 360 Dashboard (paritynews.com)

Submitted by hypnosec on Tuesday October 16, 2012 @01:34PM

hypnosec writes: Microsoft has started rolling out the new Xbox 360 dashboard today with some new features such as Internet Explorer, a Xbox Music app among others. The 7 years old Xbox dashboard didn’t receive a redesign or an update for quite a long time and this is the reason Microsoft rolled one out today. Some of the major changes include recommendations and ratings, pinning, Xbox video, enhanced search on top of the IE browser and new music app. Some of the minor changes include resizing of fonts and more tiles on the screen.

Submission + - Is India UNCIVILIZED for your girl child? (firstpost.com)

Submitted by

NewYork

on Tuesday October 16, 2012 @01:30PM

NewYork writes: "As per National Crime Records Bureau, every 22 minutes a rape is committed in India and out of which 30% are against minors.
The conviction rate is below 25%, police refuse to register the complaint, rapist relatives visit victim's house to show off their hegemony and Indian politicians are saying gang-rape is consensual sex."

Submission + - FARK users attempt to bring an article from The Onion to life with. (indiegogo.com)

Submitted by UncHellMatt on Tuesday October 16, 2012 @12:59PM

UncHellMatt writes: What started out as a joke within FARK's "TotalFark Discussion" referencing The Onion article about Joe Biden washing his TransAM has blossomed into a full fledged fund drive to give Joe Biden a TransAm. "Now, Uncle Joe won't be able to accept this behemoth of steely American grace and power. He has these pesky laws and regulations and political-y things to deal with," the page reads. "Take into consideration his magnanimity and power of personality, he probably wouldn't be able to drive the Trans AM without causing a mass outpouring of Conservative Tears."

The original FARK thread can be found here.

Submission + - Intellectual property Huawei's last line of defense (patexia.com)

Submitted by

ericjones12398

on Tuesday October 16, 2012 @12:51PM

ericjones12398 writes: "Huawei’s sordid intellectual property past has caught up to them. After nearly a decade of IP property theft accusations from networking gear rivals, last week’s House Intelligence Committee’s report labeled Huawei a security threat and urged U.S. companies to steer clear of the Chinese telecom giant. Now a champion of Chinese patent reform, Huawei may not just be banished from U.S. soil, but forever victimized by its nation’s dirty IP reputation."

Submission + - GOG Responds To Linux Request (gog.com)

Submitted by FutureSuture on Tuesday October 16, 2012 @12:41PM

FutureSuture writes: We've seen a lot more of you guys voting on this wish recently and I thought it was only fair for me to update you. Linux is a great platform, and we love how much passion you guys are showing for it here on our wishlist. We definitely know that it's one of the top things our community wants from us, but it's also really difficult to bring the GOG.com level of support and ease-of-use to the wide variety of distros that are commonly used by Linux users. If we're able to bring GOG.com games to Linux--and we're constantly evaluating ways that we can do this--we want to make sure that we're doing it the GOG.com way: simple, easy, and it "just works." I'm not telling you guys to give up hope--we know how much you want this--but what I am saying is that this is harder to support than it might seem initially, and we're not ready to move to support Linux officially just yet.

Submission + - The space jump -- in Lego! (hlntv.com)

Submitted by

mykepredko

on Tuesday October 16, 2012 @11:36AM

mykepredko writes: "All this chatter about Felix Baumgartner and his remarkable space jump, but where's the love for this brave little Lego man. Just because he's physically incapable of suffering from ebullism, going into a flat spin, or bleeding out through his eyes doesn't make this guy's faithful recreation of the space jump any less remarkable. Two fearless pioneers — one, a person; the other, plastic — plummeting from amazing heights. In the case of the Lego Man, that means about 365 feet, according to the video's "Scale 1:350" note."

Submission + - "Getting Things Done" Gets A Boost from Charles Simonyi (xconomy.com)

Submitted by

waderoush

on Tuesday October 16, 2012 @11:18AM

waderoush writes: "He's famous now for dating Martha Stewart and going into space (twice), but Charles Simonyi is known to software engineers mainly as the father of Microsoft Word and the creator of 'intentional programming,' a method that generates code automatically based on high-level commands from domain experts. Now Simonyi and his Bellevue, WA, company Intentional Software are teaming up with 'Getting Things Done' author David Allen to translate the personal-productivity guru's time-management technique into mobile apps. Surprisingly, there's never been an official GTD app — and Allen dismisses most to-do-list software as 'dispersive rather than integrative.' But in an extended Q&A with Xconomy, Allen says 'These guys [at Intentional Software] came to me tabula rasa and said ‘we don’t know what’s needed, but we think we have a technology that could be utilized to help knit together a lot of this stuff.’' No product development timeline has been announced.
"

Submission + - Google reportedly working on 10-inch tablet Nexus tablet with Samsung (networkworld.com)

Submitted by colinneagle on Monday October 15, 2012 @11:48AM

colinneagle writes: While Apple is busying itself with an iPad Mini, it seems that Google is looking to come out with an even larger version of its popular Google Nexus 7 tablet.

CNET is reporting that Google is working on a 10-inch Nexus tablet that may even sport a pixel density greater than what Apple touts in its third-generation iPad.

The 10.1-inch tablet will boast a pixel density that is higher than Apple's third-generation iPad, said Richard Shim, an analyst at NPD DisplaySearch.

The 2,560x1,600 display will have a PPI (pixels per inch) of about 299, said Shim. That tops the 264 PPI on the 9.7-inch 2,048x1,536 Retina iPad.

"It's going to be a high-end device," Shim said — in contrast with Google's $199 Nexus 7 and upcoming $99 tablet.

But probably the biggest news is the partnership with Samsung. "They'll partner with Samsung and cobrand it with Samsung," Shim said.

Note that the Galaxy Nexus 7 was done in partnership with Asus.

Submission + - First planet found in a four-star system... by amateur planet hunters

Submitted by

The Bad Astronomer

on Monday October 15, 2012 @11:33AM

The Bad Astronomer writes: "For the first time, a planet has been found in a stellar system composed of four stars. The planet, called PH-1, orbits a binary star made of two sun-like stars in a tight orbit. That binary is itself orbited by another binary pair much farther out. Even more amazing, this planet was found by two "citizen scientists", amateurs who participated in Planet Hunters, a project which puts Kepler Observatory data online for lay people to analyze. At least two confirmed planets have been found by this project, but this is the first — ever — in a quaternary system."

Submission + - Coming To a Warzone Near You: Kamikaze Drones (thediplomat.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15, 2012 @11:24AM

An anonymous reader writes: While drone technology is used by some of the world's most advanced nations, it seems a new style of drone could even open up such lethal weapons to Hezbollah and other non-state actors.

Suicide Drones that do not need to come back to base and that could be used as an assassination style weapon. They are also cheap to produce as the technology is not new. The United States, South Korea and North Korea are all working to produce viable weapons. The author notes:

"Unlike cruise or ballistic missiles, “suicide” drones make it possible for the controller to call off an attack even after the device has been “armed,” when, for example, a target has moved to a new position, or if the risks of collateral are deemed too high due to changes on the ground. The applications for dense combat environments, and perhaps even urban theaters of operations involving beyond-line-of-sight targets, are evident."

Submission + - Typemock CEO: I was wrong - design for testability (typemock.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15, 2012 @11:19AM

An anonymous reader writes: When starting Typemock, my stand was that testing and design are separate. That you don’t have to change your design in order to be testable, and that your design should be based on the business of your software and not testability. I believed that design and testing tools are two separate issues, and I trusted that developers are good enough to create the best design or refactor to a better design, suitable for the system.
I was wrong.

Submission + - Reiser4 File-System Still In Development (phoronix.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15, 2012 @11:19AM

An anonymous reader writes: Reiser4 still hasn't been merged into the mainline Linux kernel, but it's still being worked on by a small group of developers following Hans Reiser being convicted for murdering his wife. Reiser4 was updated in September on SourceForge to work with the Linux 3.5 kernel and has been benchmarked against EXT4, Btrfs, XFS, and ReiserFS. Reiser4 loses out in most of the Linux file-system performance tests, has much stigma due to Hans Reiser, and Btrfs is surpassing it feature-wise, so does it have any future in Linux ahead?

Submission + - Issue-wise crodfunding for Free Software (freedomsponsors.org)

Submitted by casals on Monday October 15, 2012 @11:11AM

casals writes: On the crowdfunding stream: there's a site that recently came up with the idea of microcrowdfunding free/libre software projects issues, called FreedomSponsors (www.freedomsponsors.com). Individuals (developers) register and are paid to solve tasks — issues related to free/libre software projects. There's already a plugin to provide integration with Jira (and more plugins are planned) so using it with existing issue trakcers should be easy. It's a different approach from Gittip (www.gittip.com) since it has a freelance-oriented approach; seems a nice way to get paid for short-term projects and at the same time to speed up issue solving on open source projects (since there are already a lot of companies that already use free/libre libraries/frameworks).

Submission + - Kindle Paperwhite (blogspot.com) 1

Submitted by gloriankleo on Monday October 15, 2012 @10:50AM

gloriankleo writes: The Kindle Paperwhite was released on October 1, 2012. It has a 6", 212 ppi display (an almost-XGA resolution of 758×1024) with built-in light.

Submission + - Passwords Easier to Steal Than Ever: 8 Mistakes to Avoid (cettatech.com)

Submitted by

CettaTech

on Monday October 15, 2012 @10:34AM

CettaTech writes: "Companies rely on passwords to protect sensitive info from hackers. But unfortunately, passwords often aren’t given the attention they deserve, leaving data barely more secure than it would be with no password at all.

Here are some of the worst password mistakes users make, to give you a better understanding of small security passwords:

Keeping it simple – A recent analysis of stolen passwords revealed that too many users come up with passwords with fewer than six characters, only use lower-case letters, or choose a name, dictionary word or consecutive numbers (like ’12345?).
Using the same password over and over again – For many users, if one of their passwords is stolen, not only is all of their personal data at risk, but so is any company protected by the same password.
Not using the full keyboard – Using numbers as well as letters can make a password a lot stronger. But few users take the next step and incorporate special characters such as !@#$%.
Writing the password down – As we wrote about recently, an alleged Russian spy recently learned that a strong password does no good when it’s written down and attached to the user’s computer.
Staying logged in – Users may have strong passwords committed to memory and not written down anywhere — but then give prying eyes easy access to sensitive data by staying logged in to databases and applications when they get up from their desks. As companies that have been hit by inside hackers know, you can’t always trust everyone you work with.

Companies often try to use password policies to keep those mistakes from hampering security. But policies must be done right in order to have an effect. Here are some common password policy mistakes IT departments make:

Going overboard – Requiring users to have a new and extremely complex password every 30 days may only encourage folks to ignore the rules or keep passwords written down.
Getting lax – Some companies require strong passwords for users for their initial log-ins, but then get lax on other levels of security. That gives potential hackers only one tough password to crack, rather than several.
Not staying updated – Password policies don’t always get looked at and revised very often. So even companies with good password policies might not be including all necessary systems.

Best bet: Instead of forcing users to follow strict password rules, some experts recommend training folks and offering tips on creating strong passwords that are easy to remember. Also, the use of a secure password manager can help users who need to keep a lot of different passwords.

How does your company keep passwords manageable while also making sure all sensitive data is sufficiently protected?"

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