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Programming

Are Amazon's web services going Open Source?->

Submitted by ruphus13
ruphus13 writes "Amazon has been one of the early movers in the cloud computing space, with its AWS offerings, including S3 and EC2. Now, there is a lot of chatter around the imminent open sourcing of all its APIs and services and the impact that will have on the other 'clouds' out there — public or private. From the article, "Amazon faces significant threats from open source cloud computing efforts if it pursues a purely proprietary path...Amazon can't ignore the cost advantages and diversity of product offerings that open source players are already offering in the cloud computing space. The company's best move is to open source its tools, which will end up diversifying them, play on a level field in terms of cost with the open source alternatives, and charge for services. Absent these moves, the company will lose potential customers to free, open source alternatives...Word is Amazon's legal team is currently 'investigating' open sourcing their various web services API's including EC2, S3, etc.", although these have not been confirmed by Amazon."
Link to Original Source
Robotics

Italian company proposes robot firefighter

Submitted by Big Nemo '60
Big Nemo '60 writes "From an Italian engineering magazine: Mr. Domenico Piatti, an engineer and fire brigade officer in Naples (Italy), developed an autonomous firefighting robot specially (but not exclusively) designed for motorway/railroad tunnels.

Named ROBOGAT, the robot moves along a lightweight monorail, that also includes mains for water (and optionally foam). It is equipped with both visible and infrared cameras. When a fire alert is triggered in the tunnel, two robots will start, one from each end of the tunnel, and traveling at up to 60 km/h they will reach the site of the fire. Once there, they will autonomously attach to the closest water/foam plug and aim to the fire with their multiple rotating nozzles. The external body is made of a ceramic/titanium composite, also once the robot is attached to the water plug, water is used to cool the "skin" of the robot before feeding the nozzles.

While the robot is fully autonomous, an operator from a control room may take over as needed. The robot runs on batteries; optionally, water from the mains can operate a small turbine recharging the batteries and extending the operating time. The whole thing is quite small, and can be easily retrofitted in existing galleries.

Company website (in English): http://www.robogat.com/home_Eng.htm

(Notice: I am not related in any way with the manufacturing company, I just found a featured article in the magazine of the Italian National Council of Engineers — only in dead tree form, sorry.)"
Security

Obama's cybersecurity plan echoes Bush's failures->

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes "President Obama on Friday presented his long-awaited cybersecurity plan, which included the establishment of a new White House office headed by a cybersecurity "coordinator" who would oversee and advise Obama on this issue. He also proposed hiring a separate official dedicated to privacy and civil liberties concerns. The proposal, which bears a striking resemblance to the six-year-old National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, is ambitious in its scope and scale and it likely will face many of the same roadblocks that previous efforts in this area have faced. Obama should send a short and sweet memo to the heads of all of the federal agencies, saying, "This is my cybersecurity coordinator. He speaks directly for me on this issue. Listen to him. If you're not interested in helping me fix this problem--which you all helped create, by the way--then step aside. Adults are working here.""
Link to Original Source
Government

First Internet Election Takes Place in Hawaii

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes "The Washington Post reports that voting has ended in what is being touted as the nation's first all-digital election and city officials say it has been a success after some 7.300 voters in Honolulu's neighborhood council election were able to pick winners entirely online or via telephone. Although only 6.3 percent of eligible voters cast ballots, city officials say the experiment appears to have generated few problems and it even saved the financially strapped city around $100,000. "It is kind of the wave of the future," said Bryan Mick, a community relations specialist with the city Neighborhood Commission, "so we're kind of glad in a way that we got to be the ones who initiated it." Before the first day of balloting, voters living in 22 neighborhood board districts with contested races received a passcode that, along with the last four digits of their Social Security number, gave them access to an election Web site created by Everyone Counts. Voting also was conducted by phone, with results electronically fed into the same computer system that collected the Web votes. Lori Steele, head of Everyone Counts, the San Diego-based firm chosen by the commission to run the election, said the computer codes in her firm's system are available for auditing, and that each completed ballot is heavily encrypted and more secure than that used in Internet banking. Web voting, which produces no paper record, cannot be used in city council or state elections because state law bars voting systems that do not include a vote verification process. "The technology side, it works," said Joan Manke, executive secretary of the commission. "So my sense is because it's a change, it's something totally new, it takes time. I think, for people to buy into it, to want to actually try it.""
Earth

SPAM: Green Tax Credits

Submitted by
welcome2green.com
welcome2green.com writes "Get Thousands of dollars in energy-efficient tax credits for going green. If you are thinking about doing some eco-friendly home improvements or undertaking a new construction project, you may qualify for tax credits. This article lists items that qualify for the tax credits and some guidelines you need to know about. Save money — Go Green [spam URL stripped]"
Link to Original Source
Mozilla

Mozilla Mulls Dropping Firefox For Win2K, Early XP->

Submitted by
CWmike
CWmike writes "Mozilla is pondering dropping support for Windows 2000 and Windows XP without Service Pack 3 when it ships the follow-up to Firefox 3.5 in 2010, show discussions on the mozilla.dev.planning forum by developers and Mozilla executives, including the company's chief engineer and its director of Firefox. 'Raise the minimum requirements on Gecko 1.9.2 (and any versions of Firefox built on 1.9.2) for Windows builds to require Windows XP Service Pack 3 or higher,' said Michael Conner, one of the company's software engineers, to start the discussion. Mozilla is currently working on Gecko 1.9.1, the engine that powers Firefox 3.5, the still-in-development browser the company hopes to release at some point in the second quarter. Gecko 1.9.2, and the successor to Firefox 3.5 built on it — dubbed 'Firefox.next' and code named 'Namoroka' — are slated to wrap up in 'early-to-mid 2010,' according to Mozilla."
Link to Original Source
Microsoft

Office 2010 will come in 32-bit and 64-bit flavors

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "It looks like Office 2010 will be the first version of Microsoft Office to come as a 64-bit flavor. Surely that will kickstart development of 64-bit applications. In an e-mail exchange with Ars today, a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed that Office 2010 will be available in both flavors: "Yes, Office will have two separate 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Office 2010 will be the first to do this.""

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