Forgot your password?

Close
typodupeerror
Microsoft

Windows 8 system requirements Windows 8 – we->

Submitted by sauchox
sauchox writes "Microsoft shared the news concerning the requirements that tablets must meet to be able to work under the control of Windows 8, because of it we know what devices we can expect. So what the manufacturers, that will want to receive the honorable title of “Certified for Windows 8, have to include in their devices?"
Link to Original Source
Operating Systems

Cinder Mobile OS Lets Users Send More Power To Slow Apps 92

Posted by timothy
from the would-like-something-like-that-in-my-laptop dept.
alphadogg writes with this excerpt from Network World: "Stanford University researchers are designing an operating system from the ground up to handle the power and security requirements of mobile devices. The Cinder operating system is already working on an Arm chip, and members of the team are working on making it run on the HTC G1 handset, according to Philip Levis, a Stanford assistant professor. Levis spoke about Cinder at the Stanford Computer Forum on Tuesday. If an application isn't running as fast as the user wants, a Cinder-based phone could include a button to boost the energy allocated to that application, Levis said. Cinder also could allow users to download any code and run it safely on their phones in a 'sandbox' mode."

Comment: Re:oookay. (Score 3, Insightful) 47

by Azar (#26673153) Attached to: Lucene and SOLR Get Commercial Support

"...in the hopes of making it the defacto choice of search technologies used by companies within their products. 'The Lucene search library ranks amongst the top 5 Apache projects... According to Lucid Imagination officials, the Solr search server, which transforms the Lucene search library into a ready-to-use search platform for building applications...

I agree, it could have been more explicit in giving a brief description, but was it really that difficult to glean what it does from the summary?

Technology

LED Lighting As Cheap As CFLs Invented 553

Posted by Soulskill
from the bright-ideas dept.
mcgrew writes "New Scientist reports that a British team has overcome the obstacles to cheap LED lighting, and that LED lamps as cheap as CFLs will be on the market in five years. Quoting: 'Gallium nitride cannot be grown on silicon like other solid-state electronic components because it shrinks at twice the rate of silicon as it cools. Crystals of GaN must be grown at 1000C, so by the time a new LED made on silicon has cooled, it has already cracked, rendering the devices unusable. One solution is to grow the LEDs on sapphire, which shrinks and cools at much the same rate as GaN. But the expense is too great to be commercially competitive. Now Colin Humphreys's team at the University of Cambridge has discovered a simple solution to the shrinkage problem. They included layers of aluminium gallium nitride in their LED design... These LEDs can be grown on silicon as so many other electronics components are. ... A 15-centimetre silicon wafer costs just $15 and can accommodate 150,000 LEDs making the cost per unit tiny.'"

Comment: Re:Short lifespan? I don't think so. (Score 1) 249

by Azar (#25981141) Attached to: Real-World Benchmarks of Ext4

Is there some reason the version under Linux would be so comparatively fragile?

My understanding is that Silicon Graphics (now SGI) wrote XFS specifically for their hardware which was designed to handle power failures, and would maintain enough power to finish it's current I/O operations. Since almost none (if any) x86 hardware has this built-in feature, XFS isn't as robust as it was on native SGI hardware. I can't find the references for this tibit, though. So take it with a grain of salt. It's just what I remember being told when XFS was first appearing on the Linux scene.

Although, some of the issues that people see on XFS may be due to modified files that haven't been flushed to disk before the system loses power. XFS intentially zeros any unwritten data blocks to avoid possible security issues arising from residual data [1]. I believe XFS also uses out-of-order writes for both meta-data and data so a loss of power could mangle some data.

There are a couple of slightly older, but still well-written, roundups about file system comparions. One here and one here.

Comment: Re:Short lifespan? I don't think so. (Score 4, Interesting) 249

by Azar (#25976435) Attached to: Real-World Benchmarks of Ext4

I was wondering why it was omitted from this article as well. I believe that it's because JFS just doesn't seem to have the mindshare of ext3, XFS, or even ReiserFS. After reading various filesystem comparisons, I chose it as my FS and I have been using it for over a year without a single issue. I don't have to worry about long fsck times at reboot, my CPU has less load when deleting or copying a large volume of files (virtual machines or CD/DVD isos usually), never had any file loss or corruption, and it seems to complete large file operations quicker than ext3 (what I used previously). There are some things that ext3 does better than JFS, but overall I prefer the advantages of JFS over the advantages of ext3.

I know that if I were to rebuild an older computer that had lower specs, or perhaps a set-top box like MythTV that I wanted to be more power effecient then JFS is going to be my choice for the filesystem.

Security

Encrypted Images Vulnerable To New Attack 155

Posted by kdawson
from the bye-bye-deniability dept.
rifles only writes "A German techie has found a remarkably simple way to discern some of the content of encrypted volumes containing images. The encrypted images don't reveal themselves totally, but in many cases do let an attacker see the outline of a high-contrast image. The attack works regardless of the encryption algorithm used (the widely-used AES for instance), and affects all utilities that use single symmetric keys. More significant to police around the world struggling with criminal and terrorist use of encryption, the attack also breaks the ability of users to 'hide' separate encrypted volumes inside already encrypted volumes, whose existence can now for the first time be revealed." The discoverer of this attack works for a company making full-disk encryption software; their product, TurboCrypt, has already been enhanced to defeat the attack. Other on-the-fly encryption products will probably be similarly enhanced, as the discoverer asserts: "To our knowledge is the described method free of patents and the author can confirm that he hasn't applied for protection."
Music

RIAA gets first victory in court

Submitted by Azar
Azar writes "After testimony wrapped up earlier today a verdict was handed down. Jammie Thomas, 30, from Minnesota had damages of $220,000 levied against her today. In the first such lawsuit to go to trial, the record companies accused Jammie Thomas of downloading the songs without permission and offering them online through a Kazaa file-sharing account. The jury ordered Thomas to pay the six record companies that sued her $9,250 for each of 24 songs they focused on in the case. They had alleged she shared 1,702 songs in all. During the three-day trial, the record companies presented evidence they said showed the copyrighted songs were offered by a Kazaa user under the name "tereastarr." Their witnesses, including officials from an Internet provider and a security firm, testified that the Internet address used by "tereastarr" belonged to Thomas."
Security

Unisys investigated for covering up cyberattacks

Submitted by Stony Stevenson
Stony Stevenson writes "Unisys, a major government IT contractor, reportedly is being investigated for allegedly failing to detect cyberattacks, and then covering up its failings. Two US congressmen have called for an investigation into cyberattacks aimed at the Department of Homeland Security, along with a contractor charged with securing those networks.

In the letter they say the House Committee on Homeland Security's investigations led them to believe the department is under attack by foreign powers, and could be at risk because of "incompetent and possibly illegal activity" by a U.S. contractor. The congressmen didn't name the contractor in the letter. However, the Washington Post on Monday reported that the FBI is investigating Unisys, a major information technology firm with a US$1.7 billion Department of Homeland Security contract, for allegedly failing to detect cyber break-ins traced to a Chinese-language Web site and then trying to cover up its deficiencies."
Programming

Geany - A Perfect Programming IDE

Submitted by
muszek
muszek writes "Complain as much as you want about software availability under Linux, but when it comes to programming tool, we don't have to feel inferior. Over the past one and a half decades, geeks created many editors... for other geeks. But what about casual programmers? Those that want a simple and lightweight IDE? Ubuntu News has a review of Geany — a quite new, but really well designed editor that has all of the essential features and manages to be easy to pick up. What programming IDE(s) do you use under Linux? What makes it better than other tools?"
The Courts

Jobs made me do it: Ex-Apple CFO cuts plea deal

Submitted by
PetManimal
PetManimal writes "Apple's former CFO Fred Anderson has released a statement saying that Steve Jobs ordered him to backdate stock options. It looks like this is part of a plea deal with the SEC. From the article:

Anderson was told by Jobs in late January 2001 that Jobs had an agreement with the board of directors to grant stock options on Jan. 2, according to the statement from Anderson's attorney. Anderson "cautioned" Jobs that the grant for executives would have to be priced based on the date of the board agreement "or there could be an accounting charge," and also told Jobs the board would have to confirm it had given prior approval for the grant dates "in a legally satisfactory method." Jobs assured him that the board had given approval and Anderson "relied on these statements by Mr. Jobs and from them concluded the grant was being properly handled," the statement said.
"
Privacy

US Feds expose thousands of SSNs

Submitted by msblack
msblack writes "The New York Times is reporting that an Office of Management and Budget exposed over 30,000 SSNs on its website which now notes that information has been removed. As many as 100,000 to 150,000 individuals may have been affected. Taxpayer cost for notifications and credit monitoring is $4 million."

Poland has gun control.