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NASA

The Sun Unleashes Coronal Mass Ejection At Earth 220

Posted by Soulskill from the return-fire dept.
astroengine writes "Yesterday morning, at 08:55 UT, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory detected a C3-class flare erupt inside a sunspot cluster. 100,000 kilometers away, deep within the solar atmosphere (the corona), an extended magnetic field filled with cool plasma forming a dark ribbon across the face of the sun (a feature known as a 'filament') erupted at the exact same time. It seems very likely that both eruptions were connected after a powerful shock wave produced by the flare destabilized the filament, causing the eruption. A second solar observatory, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, then spotted a huge coronal mass ejection blast into space, straight in the direction of Earth. Solar physicists have calculated that this magnetic bubble filled with energetic particles should hit Earth on August 3, so look out for some intense aurorae — a solar storm is coming."
Censorship

Submission + - State Dept disappointed by Mideast Blackberry ban (thehill.com)

Submitted by GovTechGuy
GovTechGuy writes: State Dept spokesman PJ Crowley said Monday that the Department is "disappointed" by the United Arab Emirates' decision to ban Blackberry messaging services due to security concerns. Saudi Arabia is reportedly planning similar measures, while India, Kuwait and Bahrain have also complained of their inability to monitor messages sent using the device's encrypted messaging services. Crowley called the free flow of information vital to innovative economies.
Science

Submission + - BP "carpet bombed" Gulf oil spill site

Submitted by oxide7
oxide7 writes: Embattled British energy giant BP Plc (LON.BP), which is preparing to permanently seal the leaking offshore Macondo well, has come under heavy criticism from a US congressional subcommittee for using excessive chemical dispersants to control the oil spill. Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass), chairman of the House Energy and Environment Subcommittee and BP's leading critic, has accused the company of not obeying a federal directive that restricted the use of the chemical dispersants.

Submission + - Wikileaks "a clear and present danger"

Submitted by
bedmison
bedmison writes: "In an op-ed in the Washington Post titled "WikiLeaks must be stopped", Marc A. Thiessen writes that "WikiLeaks represents a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States.", and that the United States has the authority to arrest its founder, Julian Assange, even if it has to contravene international law to do so. Thiessen also suggests that the new USCYBERCOM be unleashed to destroy WikiLeaks as an internet presense. From the article:

"With appropriate diplomatic pressure, these governments may cooperate in bringing Assange to justice. But if they refuse, the United States can arrest Assange on their territory without their knowledge or approval. In 1989, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel issued a memorandum entitled "Authority of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to Override International Law in Extraterritorial Law Enforcement Activities."

This memorandum declares that "the FBI may use its statutory authority to investigate and arrest individuals for violating United States law, even if the FBI's actions contravene customary international law" and that an "arrest that is inconsistent with international or foreign law does not violate the Fourth Amendment." In other words, we do not need permission to apprehend Assange or his co-conspirators anywhere in the world.

Arresting Assange would be a major blow to his organization. But taking him off the streets is not enough; we must also recover the documents he unlawfully possesses and disable the system he has built to illegally disseminate classified information.

This should be done, ideally, through international law enforcement cooperation. But if such cooperation is not forthcoming, the United States can and should act alone. Assange recently boasted that he has created "an uncensorable system for untraceable mass document leaking." I am sure this elicited guffaws at the National Security Agency. The United States has the capability and the authority to monitor his communications and disrupt his operations.""
NASA

Submission + - NASA, ESA pick key Mars joint mission instruments (networkworld.com)

Submitted by coondoggie
coondoggie writes: Scientists at NASA and the European Space Agency have picked the all-important instruments for their joint Mars mission set to blast off in 2016. The mission instruments onboard ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter will focus on nailing down components in the Martian atmosphere — in particular looking for methane because mapping methane will let scientists investigate whether or not Mars is a living planet, researchers stated.

Submission + - Wikileaks: "No regrets - we are changing the game" (thelocal.de)

Submitted by praps
praps writes: In a remarkably open interview, Wikileaks spokesman Daniel Schmitt says that he has no regrets about releasing 92,000 classified US documents on the Afghanistan war, although he acknowledges the "possibility that someone might be harmed". Schmitt claims that the site is "changing the game" of journalism, but admits to some disappointment that the New York Times didn't even link to Wikileaks after getting all the material for free. And there are some interesting insights into the way the organisation works — not least that everyone involved is living on savings.

Submission + - WikiLeaks Gets A Funding Model: Flattr, A Pirate B (techcrunch.com)

Submitted by
climenole
climenole writes: "Flattr is another Sweden-based outfit with close links to The Pirate Bay as the the brainchild of a group of people formerly associated with The [infamous] Pirate Bay, including Peter Sunde. Flattr has a micropayments business model based on the idea of people tipping content they like, Digg or perhaps Facebook Like buttons — but this time with real money. As a result, WikiLeaks Afghan War Diary, which has made headlnes around the world, is currently pulling in hundreds of Flattrs, with most of them anonymous."
Apple

Submission + - Apple sues "inferior quality" iPod, iPhone and iPa (appleinsider.com)

Submitted by
climenole
climenole writes: "Apple has take a number of accessory makers to court, filing a complaint that says "many are of inferior quality and reliability, raising significant concerns over compatibility with and damage to Apple’s products."

The suit, detailed in a report by Bloomberg, cited an example of a user who complained that a battery charger actually drained the battery rather than replenishing its charge."

Submission + - Film studios don't want to sue downloaders anymore (itnews.com.au)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Lawyers for the film industry have submitted that it is "not desirable" to sue individual internet users alleged to have infringed copyright on day one of an appeal in a high-profile court case in Australia that got underway earlier today. The Hollywood studios have claimed that Australian laws mean they don't have to sue the "primary infringer" of copyright — the individual user — but that an alternative person can be held responsible. The film industry wants to make internet service providers responsible for the actions of users on their networks. It lost the original court hearing last year but lodged an appeal.
IBM

Submission + - The Mainframe: Dead Or Alive? (blogspot.com)

Submitted by FlorianMueller
FlorianMueller writes: When the EU Commission launched its antitrust investigation against IBM last week, some were wondering whether there would still be mainframes around when the case is settled. But not so fast: eWEEK Europe just conducted a poll on mainframe spendings, and 30% of the respondents even plan to increase their mainframe capacities. At a recent presentation of the new mainframe generation, an IBM executive boldly said: "Western civilization runs on this system." So does IBM, owing 25% of its revenues and more than 40% of its total profits to the mainframe business. Mainframe software is a $24.5 billion market, twice as big as the Linux market. 200-300 billion lines of legacy code (much of it in COBOL) are still in use. So it's not just Microsoft and patent activists who take an interest in this.

Submission + - United States to legislate on web accessibility (webdragon.com.au)

Submitted by webdragonau
webdragonau writes: The US Department of Justice has finally decided to be explicit about how the Americans with Disabilities Act applies to websites. At present, it's not known which reference standard will be used (WCAG 2.0, Section 508, etc). Here's hoping that this becomes more than just a step in the right direction, and gives both corporations and consumers a clear guide for expectations.

Submission + - Astrophotography Equatorial Mounts

Submitted by Timoris
Timoris writes: With the Perseids approaching rapidly, I am looking for a good beginner's motorized Equatorial mount for astrophotography. I have seen a few for $150 to $200, but apperently the motor vibrations makes for poor photographs. Orion makes good mounts, but are out of my price range ($350) and the motor is sold separately, adding to the price half over again. Does anyone have any good experiance with any low mid priced mounts?
The Internet

Submission + - BIND to remove DNS Neutrality (circleid.com)

Submitted by alphatel
alphatel writes: In a recent post, Paul Vixie, founder of ISC and author of MAPS (the original email RBL), has proposed a new method for BIND which "rates" domains. Opening with "Most new domain names are malicious", DNS queries would be sent to 'cooperating good guys' which can be used to filter out entire blocks of TLDs or country codes. In this new "Response Policy Zone" (DNS RPZ) method, all queries which fail to meet an unknown standard are redirected. As most people are familiar, elsewhere almost always winds up being the DNS host's advertising channel rather than the trash heap. Those fighting for net neutrality have denounced the change but ISC is already publishing a patch and would "like to hear from content providers who want to be listed by ISC as having reputation content available in this format, and also recursive DNS vendors whose platforms can subscribe to reputation feeds in this format. An online registry will follow."

Submission + - Amazon EC2/S3 vs. traditional Webhosting? 3

Submitted by Tasha26
Tasha26 writes: I was recently asked to name a good webhosting site (and the friend didn't want GoDaddy for some reason), but then I wondered how an Amazon EC2/S3 solution compares (in price or advantage) over traditional web-hosting? Maybe there's a study on it or someone has experience of running a site from Amazon. I looked at the Amazon pricing but it turns out to be a structure: I/O connections, bandwidth, S3, EC2... even if you don't use S3 but your Firefox S3 app. pings to it, you get billed. Too many variables for a straightforward comparison. Any help would be much appreciated, thanks.

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