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Comment Re:The mouse... (Score 1) 414

by bcat24 (#26122331) Attached to: The Age of Touch Computing

I only have last year's MacBook Pro with the limited multi-touch pads, but using my work laptop's Dell's touch-pad is almost painful now. The two-finger scroll is insanely great, in particular. Hitting a scrollbar with a cursor seems like a cruel joke now.

You know about edge-scrolling, right? Almost all touchpad software supports it, though it's not always enabled by default. When it's on, you can scroll vertically/horizontally by sliding your finger across the right/bottom edge of the touchpad. It's not as neat as two-finger scrolling or a real scroll wheel, but it sure beats using a scrollbar.
Medicine

Doctor Performs Amputation By Text Message 242

Posted by samzenpus from the l33t-5ki11z dept.
Peace Corps Online writes "Vascular surgeon David Nott performed a life-saving amputation on a boy in DR Congo following instructions sent by text message from a colleague in London. The boy's left arm had been ripped off and was badly infected and gangrenous; there were just 6in (15cm) of the boy's arm remaining, much of the surrounding muscle had died and there was little skin to fold over the wound. 'He had about two or three days to live when I saw him,' Nott said. Nott, volunteering with the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, knew he needed to perform a forequarter amputation requiring removal of the collar bone and shoulder blade and contacted Professor Meirion Thomas at London's Royal Marsden Hospital, who had performed the operation before. 'I texted him and he texted back step by step instructions on how to do it,' Nott said."

Comment Re:Silverlight (Score 1) 329

by bcat24 (#25788611) Attached to: Adobe Releases Preview of 64-bit Flash For Linux

I don't think the GPL was the way to go for Java either, as Java needs to be fairly standardized. I would like to see a new OSS license that prevents forking, but allows me to read the source code, submit patches upstream, and recompile. However the license would prohibit people from distributing altered/forked versions. Such a license might very well convince Adobe to release the source code, as well as Nvidia for their drivers.

I can see the benefits of such a license for some applications, but I think it would create a real headache for Linux distributions. Very few distros ship upstream software as-is. Instead, they apply patches to improve integration with the rest of the system. The last thing Sun wants to do is review every single tweak Fedora or Debian or Ubuntu (or whoever) makes to their codebase. What you propose is certainly better than a binary blob, but it still has some issues, IMO.
Space

Magnetic Portals Connect Sun and Earth 235

Posted by Soulskill from the no-cake-jokes-allowed dept.
MaxwellEdison writes "Scientists have discovered evidence of magnetic portals connecting the Earth and the Sun every 8 minutes. 'Several speakers at the Workshop have outlined how FTEs form: On the dayside of Earth (the side closest to the sun), Earth's magnetic field presses against the sun's magnetic field. Approximately every eight minutes, the two fields briefly merge or "reconnect," forming a portal through which particles can flow. The portal takes the form of a magnetic cylinder about as wide as Earth. The European Space Agency's fleet of four Cluster spacecraft and NASA's five THEMIS probes have flown through and surrounded these cylinders, measuring their dimensions and sensing the particles that shoot through.'"

Oil-Immersion Cooled PC Goes To Retail 210

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the next-up-hot-grits dept.
notthatwillsmith writes "Everyone's seen mods where someone super-cools a PC by submersing it in a non-conductive oil. It's a neat idea, but most components aren't designed to withstand a hot oil bath; after prolonged exposure materials break down and components begin to fail. Maximum PC has an exclusive hands-on, first look at the new Hardcore Computer Reactor, the first oil-cooled PC available for sale. Hardcore engineered the Reactor to withstand the oil, using space-age materials and proprietary oil. The Reactor's custom-manufactured motherboard, videocards, memory, and SSD drives are submersed in the oil, while the dry components sit outside the bulletproof tank. The motherboard lifts out of the oil bath on rails, giving you relatively easy access to components, and the overall design is simply jaw-dropping. Of course, we'd expect nothing less for a machine with a base price of $4000 that goes all the way up to $11k for a fully maxed out config."
Security

AT&T, 2Wire Ignoring Active Security Exploit [Updated] 134

Posted by kdawson from the complicit-in-the-attacks dept.
An anonymous reader writes "2Wire manufactures DSL modems and routers for AT&T and other major carriers. Their devices suffer from a DNS redirection vulnerability that can be used as part of a variety of attacks, including phishing, identity theft, and denial of service. This exploit was publicly reported more than eight months ago and applies to nearly all 2Wire firmware revisions. The exploit itself is trivial to implement, requiring the attacker only to embed a specially crafted URL into a Web site or email. User interaction is not required, as the URL may be embedded as an image that loads automatically with the requested content. The 2Wire exploit bypasses any password set on the modem/router and is being actively exploited in the wild. AT&T has been deploying 2Wire DSL modems and router/gateways for years, so there exists a large vulnerable installed base. So far, AT&T/2Wire haven't done anything about this exploit." Update: 04/09 17:48 GMT by KD : AT&T spokesman Seth Bloom sends word that AT&T has not been ignoring the problem. According to Bloom: "The majority of our customers did not have gateways affected by this vulnerability. For those that did, as soon as we became aware of the issue, we expeditiously implemented a permanent solution to close the vulnerability. In fact, we've already updated the majority of affected 2Wire gateways, and we're nearing completion of the process. We've received no reports of any significant threats targeting our customers."
Sun Microsystems

Submission + - Failure to patch flaw exposes data on 60,000 (computerworld.com) 1

Submitted by
KevMar
KevMar writes: "Serving as the latest reminder of that fact is Antioch University in Yellow Springs, Ohio, which recently disclosed that Social Security numbers and other personal data belonging to more than 60,000 students, former students and employees may have been compromised by multiple intrusions into its main ERP server. The break-ins were discovered Feb. 13 and involved a Sun Solaris server that had not been patched against a previously disclosed FTP vulnerability, even though a fix was available for the flaw at the time of the breach, university CIO William Marshall said today."
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Slashdot Most Overrated Blog According to TIME (time.com) 16

Submitted by
Amit Agarwal
Amit Agarwal writes: "In their annual list of Top 25 blogs, the TIME magazine has added Slashdot to the category of most overrated blogs. The review says — Reading Slashdot these days is like visiting the IT guy at work. He's infuriatingly smug and cares passionately about stuff you don't care about, and views your lack of interest as further confirmation of his intellectual superiority."
Announcements

Submission + - Polymer ICs offer new flexibility (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by
muahaha
muahaha writes: "The BBC are reporting a novel way of encapsulating ultra-thin silicon wafers — the stretchy circuits could be used for many applications including smart surgical gloves, aircraft, 360-degree surveillance devices and Borg-esque brain and biomedical implants among many others. The rugged devices are made from organic polymers. May I be the first in welcoming our new bionic overlords.... Rash."
Classic Games (Games)

Bobby Fischer Is Dead At 64 377

Posted by kdawson from the new-kind-of-chess dept.
A number of readers wrote in to make sure we know that former world chess champion Bobby Fischer has died in Reykjavik, Iceland, where he had lived since 2005. No cause of death was given.

iPhone Trojan Sign of Things to Come? 151

Posted by Zonk from the im-in-ur-iphone-removin-ur-apps dept.
climber writes "Just days after the first scareware for OSX, researchers are pondering the problems of an iPhone exploit that could lead to larger issues. The Trojan pulls legitimate apps off the phone if you try to remove it, but it only infects iPhones that have 'been modified or opened through a security hole in the system.' Though this worm is more of an annoyance than anything else, it could be a proof of concept for a more serious attack. 'The fear is hackers may be experimenting and gathering research that will increase the dangers of a more malicious attack in the near future. It is clear at least one writer -- the author of this piece at Web Worker Daily -- thinks that the iPhone should be left on the dresser in the morning. She offers several reasons that the device isn't a good corporate tool.'"
The Internet

Is It Time for a 'Kinder, Gentler HTML'? 382

Posted by Zonk from the because-the-current-one-is-pointy dept.
jg21 writes "Via the Web 2.0 Journal, a worthy link to Yahoo! Architect and JSON inventor Douglas Crockford's latest ideas to fix HTML. He's categorically not a fan of HTML 5, which is still just an Editor's Draft and not endorsed by W3C yet. Crock puts forward ten ideas that in his view would provide extensibility without complexity, adding that the simplification of HTML he is proposing would reduce the cost of training of web developers and incorporates the best practices of AJAX development. From the article: 'The problems with HTML will not be solved by making it bigger and more complicated. I think instead we should generalize what it does well, while excising features that are problematic. HTML can be made into a general application delivery format without disrupting its original role as a document format.'"
Censorship

Digg.com Attempts To Suppress HD-DVD Revolt 1142

Posted by kdawson from the toothpaste-back-in-the-tube dept.
fieryprophet writes "An astonishing number of stories related to HD-DVD encryption keys have gone missing in action from digg.com, in many cases along with the account of the diggers who submitted them. Diggers are in open revolt against the moderators and are retaliating in clever and inventive ways. At one point, the entire front page comprised only stories that in one way or another were related to the hex number. Digg users quickly pointed to the HD DVD sponsorship of Diggnation, the Digg podcast show. Search digg for HD-DVD song lyrics, coffee mugs, shirts, and more for a small taste of the rebellion." Search Google for a broader picture; at this writing, about 283,000 pages contain the number with hyphens, and just under 10,000 without hyphens. There's a song. Several domain names including variations of the number have been reserved. Update: 05/02 05:44 GMT by J : New blog post from Kevin Rose of Digg to its users: "We hear you."
Movies

Submission + - Jack Valenti dead

Submitted by
Widowwolf
Widowwolf writes: "WASHINGTON (CNN) — Jack Valenti, the longtime head of the Motion Picture Association of America, has died at age 85, the association announced Thursday. Valenti suffered a stroke "recently," said a representative at the Motion Picture Association of America, which he led for 38 years. No cause of death was immediately announced. Valenti was central to creating the MPAA rating system — now G, PG, PG-13, R and NC-17 — as a way to rate films' appropriateness for certain age groups. Valenti was a life member of the Directors Guild of America and a member of the board of trustees of the American Film Institute"

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