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Submission + - BBC's Connected TV strategy (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: At our BBC Online Briefing event in Radio Theatre, Broadcasting House, Paul Caporn and I presented the recently open sourced TV Application Layer which provides the platform for the BBC’s Connected TV strategy.

Submission + - KDE Plasma Can Now Run On Wayland (phoronix.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: With the upcoming KDE 4.11, there's an initial Wayland backend through the KWin manager. The developer behind the code notes on his blog: "Once the system is fully started you can just use it. If everything works fine, you should not even notice any difference, though there are still limitations, like only the three mouse buttons of my touchpad are supported ;-)"
Ubuntu

Submission + - Keep your /home folder clean. Mundus 2.1.0 is out! (mundusproject.org)

Submitted by
sebikul
sebikul writes: "Mundus is a small utility that can help you keep your /home folder clean. It keeps an internal database of known applications and folders, and automagically detects those apps that where uninstalled but left configuration files. It can then make a backup and clean them. This version allows it to update its database without needing to update the software. More and more apps are being added every week!"
Piracy

Submission + - Police raid home of 9-year-old Pirate Bay user, seize 'Winnie the Pooh' laptop (bgr.com) 1

Submitted by zacharye
zacharye writes: Copyright enforcement might be getting out of hand in Scandinavia. As anti-piracy groups and copyright owners continue to work with authorities to curtail piracy in the region, police this week raided the home of a 9-year-old suspect and confiscated her “Winnie the Pooh” laptop. TorrentFreak reports that the girl’s home was raided after local anti-piracy group CIAPC determined copyrighted files had been downloaded illegally at her residence. Her father, the Internet service account holder, was contacted by CIAPC, which demanded that he pay a 600 euro fine and sign a non-disclosure agreement to settle the matter. When the man did not comply, authorities raided his home and collected evidence, including his 9-year-old daughter’s notebook computer...
Technology

Submission + - Bessel beam "tractor beam" concept theoretically demonstrated (gizmag.com)

Submitted by cylonlover
cylonlover writes: Last year, NASA revealed it was evaluating three potential “tractor beam” technologies to deliver planetary or atmospheric particles to a robotic rover or orbiting spacecraft. At the time, the third of these, which involved the use of a Bessel beam, only existed on paper. Researchers at Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) have now proven the theory behind the concept, demonstrating how a tractor beam can be realized in the real world – albeit on a very small scale.
Android

Submission + - Xamarin: "Android Ported to C#" (xamarin.com)

Submitted by
Eirenarch
Eirenarch writes: "Xamarin has just announced that they got the Java part of Android ported to C# via machine translation. The resulting OS called XobotOS is available on Github. They claim some serious performance gains over Dalvik. For them this is an experiment that they are not planning to focus on but they will be using some of the technologies in Mono for Android."
Space

Submission + - Venus to Appear in Once-In-A-Lifetime Event (sciencedaily.com)

Submitted by revealingheart
revealingheart writes: ScienceDaily reports that on 5 and 6 June this year, millions of people around the world will be able to see Venus pass across the face of the Sun in what will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It will take Venus about six hours to complete its transit, appearing as a small black dot on the Sun's surface, in an event that will not happen again until 2117.

Transits of Venus occur only on the very rare occasions when Venus and Earth are in a line with the Sun. At other times Venus passes below or above the Sun because the two orbits are at a slight angle to each other. Transits occur in pairs separated by eight years, with the gap between pairs of transits alternating between 105.5 and 121.5 years — the last transit was in 2004.

"We are fortunate in that we are truly living in a golden period of planetary transits and it is one of which I hope astronomers can take full advantage," writes Jay M Pasachoff, an astronomer at Williams College, Massachusetts.
Businesses

Submission + - IBM offers retirement with job guarantee through 2013 (computerworld.com)

Submitted by dcblogs
dcblogs writes: IBM is offering employees who are nearing retirement — and may be worried about a layoff — a one-time voluntary program that would ensure their employment through Dec. 31, 2013. The program, described in a letter addressed to IBM managers, "offers participants 70% of their pay for working 60% of their schedule." Participating employees would receive "the same benefits they do today, most at a full-time level, including health benefits and 401(k) Plus Plan automatic company contributions." IBM isn't offering the program in lieu of U.S. workforce cutbacks. In 2006, IBM employed about 127,000 in U.S. The Alliance@IBM, a CWA local, now estimates the U.S. workforce at around 95,000. How far IBM will go in cutting gets debate, including one radical estimate.
Cloud

Submission + - IBM dumps Siebel in favour of open-source SugarCRM (computerworlduk.com)

Submitted by sweetpea86
sweetpea86 writes: IBM is planning to replace its Siebel based customer relationship management products with software owned by open-source software-as-a-service (SaaS) vendor SugarCRM. This is the second major contract loss for Siebel, as HP recently revealed that it too would be replacing the platform with products provided by SaaS vendor Salesforce.com. However, the changes are perhaps unsurprising given that Siebel was bought by Oracle in 2005 for £3.5 billion.
Businesses

Company Accidentally Fires Entire Staff Via Email 333

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the now-intended-for-two dept.
redletterdave writes with an amusing tale of missent email. From the article: "On Friday, more than 1,300 employees of London-based Aviva Investors walked into their offices, strolled over to their desks, booted up their computers and checked their emails, only to learn the shocking news: They would be leaving the company. The email ordered them to hand over company property and security passes before leaving the building, and left the staff with one final line: 'I would like to take this opportunity to thank you and wish you all the best for the future. 'This email was sent to Aviva's worldwide staff of 1,300 people, with bases in the U.S., UK, France, Spain, Sweden, Canada, Italy, Ireland, Germany, Norway, Poland, Switzerland, Belgium, Austria, Finland and the Netherlands. And it was all one giant mistake: The email was intended for only one individual."

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