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Firefox

Submission + - Time: Firefox 4 RC 1 Posted, IE9 Launch Confirmed (conceivablytech.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The next generation of browsers is ready to land. Microsoft just confirmed that IE9 will launch on March 14 (9am for those who cannot wait) and Mozilla is just released the download link of Firefox 4 RC1. As usual, the official announcement is expected to arrive later today. Mozilla said that it does not expect to make any changes to this release anymore and (hopefully) publish it as Firefox 4 shortly.
Democrats

Obama Nominates RIAA Lawyer For Solicitor General 463

Posted by CmdrTaco from the this'll-be-great dept.
Xiph1980 writes "President Barack Obama on Monday nominated former Recording Industry Association of America lawyer Donald Verrilli Jr. to serve as the nation's solicitor general. The solicitor general is charged with defending the government before the Supreme Court, and files friend-of-the court briefs in cases in which the government believes there is a significant legal issue. The office also determines which cases it would bring to the Supreme Court for review. Verrilli is best known for leading the recording industry's legal charge against music- and movie-sharing site Grokster. That 2003 case ultimately led to Grokster's demise when the US Supreme Court sided with the RIAA's verdict."

Comment The world is full of pansies now. (Score 2) 352

by Kincaidia (#34860200) Attached to: Balancing Choice With Irreversible Consequences In Games
Does anyone remember the old days of Everquest? Now THERE were consequences. You've played played the character for YEARS as opposed to a measly 50 hours, and you kill one random fish and "Feel the hatred of an entire race"... Or part of your epic quest requires you to sacrifice being able to enter your home city without being attacked. So people worrying about small forks in a game where you can always just start over make me chuckle inside. Oh, how soft we've gotten... and I'm sure the Barbarians of Halas still hate my ranger, as well as the High Elves, just for killing that Royal Fish in Lake Rathetear... Consequences make you care.

Submission + - Is Skype down? (skype.com)

Submitted by ghstridr
ghstridr writes: I'm in an online class today, using Skype for conferencing to a Fuze meeting. Upon further investigation, the main website is up, but neither support.skype.com or heartbeat.skype.com seems to be reachable.
Security

Submission + - NSA Considers Its Networks Compromised (net-security.org) 1

Submitted by Orome1
Orome1 writes: Debora Plunkett, head of the NSA's Information Assurance Directorate, has confirmed what many security experts suspected to be true: no computer network can be considered completely and utterly impenetrable — not even that of the NSA. "There's no such thing as 'secure' any more," she said to the attendees of a cyber security forum sponsored by the Atlantic and Government Executive media organizations, and confirmed that the NSA works under the assumption that various parts of their systems have already been compromised, and is adjusting its actions accordingly.
Sci-Fi

Dr. Who's Sonic Screwdriver Exists 179

Posted by CmdrTaco from the master-still-not-real-tho dept.
Phoghat writes "Television's favourite Time Lord could not exist without his trusty sonic screwdriver, as it's proved priceless in defeating Daleks and keeping the Tardis in check. Now Doctor Who's famous cure-all gadget could become a reality for DIY-ers across the world, say engineers. Ultrasonic engineers at Bristol University and The Big Bang: UK Young Scientists and Engineers Fair are uncovering how a real life version of the fictional screwdriver — which uses sonic technology to open locks and undo screws — could be created."

Comment Not really... (Score 1) 1

by Kincaidia (#34272824) Attached to: Woah! IE9 is the fastest browser?
It's akin to saying you won the race because you're sitting at the finish line, but you never actually moved from it at the beginning of the race. http://digitizor.com/2010/11/17/internet-explorer-9-caught-cheating-in-sunspider-benchmark/ ..and MS response:http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2010/11/17/html5-and-real-world-site-performance-seventh-ie9-platform-preview-available-for-developers.aspx In short, the sunspider benchmark does an expensive loop that has no use, so IE9 "optimizes" it by not executing it. So it cheats.

Submission + - Link Between Weird Quantum Phenomena

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Researchers have uncovered a fundamental link between the two defining properties of quantum physics. Stephanie Wehner of Singapore's Centre for Quantum Technologies and the National University of Singapore and Jonathan Oppenheim of the United Kingdom's University of Cambridge published their work today in the latest edition of the journal Science. The result is being heralded as a dramatic breakthrough in our basic understanding of quantum mechanics and provides new clues to researchers seeking to understand the foundations of quantum theory. The result addresses the question of why quantum behaviour is as weird as it is—but no weirder.
Businesses

Stuxnet Virus Now Biggest Threat To Industry 254

Posted by CmdrTaco from the or-just-don't-click-attachments dept.
digitaldc writes "A malicious computer attack that appears to target Iran's nuclear plants can be modified to wreak havoc on industrial control systems around the world, and represents the most dire cyberthreat known to industry, government officials and experts said Wednesday. They warned that industries are becoming increasingly vulnerable to the so-called Stuxnet worm as they merge networks and computer systems to increase efficiency. The growing danger, said lawmakers, makes it imperative that Congress move on legislation that would expand government controls and set requirements to make systems safer."
Government

Submission + - FDA Sidesteps Cancer Concerns over TSA Body Scanne (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by suraj.sun
suraj.sun writes: The US TSA has recently come under scrutiny for, among other things, its use of X-ray full-body scanners in airports to see through clothes and to detect non-metallic explosives. But are they safe? A group of UC-San Francisco professors recently raised a number of safety concerns regarding these scanners.

Unlike a medical X-ray, the TSA X-ray machines are lower-energy beams that can only penetrate clothing and the topmost layers of skin. But according to the UCSF professors, the low-enegy rays do a "Compton scatter" off tissue layers just under the skin, possibly exposing some vital areas and leaving the tissues at risk of mutation.

When an X-ray Compton scatters, it doesn't shift an electron to a higher energy level; instead, it hits the electron hard enough to dislodge it from its atom. The authors note that this process is "likely breaking bonds," which could cause mutations in cells and raise the risk of cancer.

Dr. Holdren passed the letter on to the FDA for review. But, in the FDA's response, the agency cite five studies in response to the professors' request for independent verification of the safety of these X-rays; however, three are more than a decade old, and none of them deal specifically with the low-energy X-rays the professors are concerned about. The letter also doesn't mention the FDA's own classification of X-rays as carcinogens in 2005.

ARS technica: http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/11/fda-sidesteps-safety-concerns-over-tsa-body-scanners.ars
Government

Submission + - Americans Support an Internet 'Kill Switch' (securityweek.com)

Submitted by wiredmikey
wiredmikey writes: Sixty-one percent of Americans said the President should have the ability to shut down portions of the Internet in the event of a coordinated malicious cyber attack, according to a recent study. The findings suggest the public may support a pending cybersecurity bill that would give the President far-reaching authority over the Internet in the case of an emergency.

The "Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010" introduced in June, and being debated in congress, would allow the president to take emergency measures to protect the nation's most critical infrastructure if a cyber vulnerability is being exploited or is about to be exploited...
Science

Submission + - Can Reddit Save Lives? (neontommy.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Reddit, Facebook and YouTube all have separate forums/pages/channels dedicated to suicide prevention. But can social networks actually prevent suicide?

Submission + - Report: Facebook, Skype Getting Really Friendly (crn.com)

Submitted by cgriffin21
cgriffin21 writes: Facebook and Skype are reportedly in talks over a deal that would integrate Skype calling capabilities into Facebook user accounts. Such an agreement would give both Skype and Facebook not only a leg up on rival VoIP and social networking services from the likes of Google, but also the combined force of two Internet-based services beloved by consumers. The talks, which were reported by All Things Digital Wednesday, stems from Facebook's goal of merging IP communications and social networking communities more closely together. Facebook in recent weeks had also been rumored to be developing a mobile device of its own.
Security

Malware Running On Graphics Cards 103

Posted by CmdrTaco from the freeing-up-the-cpu dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Given the great potential of general-purpose computing on graphics processors, it is only natural to expect that malware authors will attempt to tap the powerful features of modern GPUs to their benefit. In this paper, the authors demonstrate the feasibility of implementing a malware that can utilize the GPU (PDF) to evade virus scanning applications. Moreover, the authors discuss the potential of more sophisticated attacks, like accessing the screen pixels periodically to harvest private data displayed on the user screen, or to trick the the user by displaying false, benign-looking information when visiting rogue web sites (e.g., overwriting suspicious URLs with benign-looking ones in the browser's address bar)."
Privacy

Submission + - evercookie: the invulnerable cookie (downloadsquad.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Using eight different techniques and locations, a 'security' guy has developed a cookie that is very, very hard to delete. If just one copy of the cookie remains, the other locations are rebuilt.

My favourite storage location is in 'RGB values of auto-generated, force-cached PNGs using HTML5 Canvas tag to read pixels (cookies) back out' — awesome.

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