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+ - NASA is migrating ISS laptops from Windows to Linux

Submitted by celticryan
celticryan writes "NASA is making a change on the International Space Station. In what has been linked to possible issues with exploit vulnerability with Windows XP, the laptops that provide the ISS crew with vital capabilities for day-to-day operations (called OpsLAN) are being transitioned from Windows XP to Debian. Keith Chuvala, leader of the Laptops and Network Integration Teams said, "We migrated key functions from Windows to Linux because we needed an operating system that was stable and reliable – one that would give us in-house control. So if we needed to patch, adjust or adapt, we could.""

+ - Nokia releases new Asha software platform in a new phone->

Submitted by egil
egil writes "The new, tiny Asha 501 touchscreen phone from Nokia is based on a brand new software platform which supports what makes Nokia different. It is affordable, yet full of Nokia DNA, such as smooth swipe UI, a healthy dose of Nokia design features cues, and a fully featured touchphone with battery life measured in weeks instead of hours. 3G variants will follow later this year."
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+ - Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us->

Submitted by spiralx
spiralx writes "Based on TIME Magazine's feature this month, Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released on May 8 the list of prices (known as the "chargemaster") of 100 common medical treatments across all US hospitals, and the prices Medicare paid for the same treatments, showing for the first time the vast discrepancies across different providers, even those within several miles of each other. Nationwide for instance, inpatient services for joint replacement vary from $5,300 at a hospital in Ada, Oklahoma, to a high of $223,000 at a hospital in Monterey Park, California."
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+ - At $99, Nokia Asha 501 has 48 days of standby , free Facebook, fast browsing

Submitted by SmartAboutThings
SmartAboutThings writes "Nokia has launched the Asha 501 with a price tag of 99$ and you'd think it's just another feature phone. Well, this is actually a low-end "smartphone" that is very durable, has 14 hours of battery, 48 days of standby, free Facebook and even comes in 6 different colors. A real back-up phone, don't you think?"

+ - NZ govt tries to gain powers over all privately run networks->

Submitted by therevfincham
therevfincham writes "

The new bill now gives the GCSB sweeping powers of oversight and control over the design, deployment and operation of all data and telecommunications networks run by network providers in New Zealand.

The New Zealand government is seeking to pass a bill which would see the Government Communications Security Bureau have input on all aspects of operation and design of network infrastructure in the country, as well as extending its powers to spy on residents, including the power to stop network providers from reselling overseas services that do not permit interception."
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+ - Backdoor Targeting Apache Servers Spreads to nginx, Lighttpd

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "Last week's revelation of the existence of Linux/Cdorked.A, a highly advanced and stealthy Apache backdoor used to drive traffic from legitimate compromised sites to malicious websites carrying Blackhole exploit packs, was only the beginning — ESET's continuing investigation has now revealed that the backdoor also infects sites running the nginx and Lighttpd webservers. Researchers have, so far, detected more than 400 webservers infected with the backdoor, and 50 of them are among the world's most popular and visited websites."

+ - DARPA wants huge Holy Grail of mobile ad hoc networks->

Submitted by coondoggie
coondoggie writes "Even the often far-reaching researchers at Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) seems to think this one is a stretch: Develop what's known as mobile ad-hoc wireless technology that lets 1000- 5000 nodes connect simultaneously and securely connect in the field. For the past 20 years, researchers have unsuccessfully used Internet-based concepts in attempts to significantly scale mobile ad hoc network (MANET), DARPA said. A constraint with current MANETs is they can only scale to around 50 nodes before network services become ineffective."
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+ - Windows Store In-App Ad Revenue Plummets->

Submitted by jfruh
jfruh writes "One of the hooks Microsoft has used to get developers to build apps for Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 has been pubCenter, an ad network that's easy to add to apps and provides revenue back to publishers. But many developers found that on April 1 that revenue abruptly dropped by an order of magnitude, with most potential ad impressions going unsold; one developer reported only 160,000 ads served to 60 million requests, a fill rate of less than 0.3%. Since many of the ads before April 1 had been for Bing, this may be a sign that Microsoft is no longer willing to subsidize its developers — and that advertisers aren't that interested in buying ads in Windows 8 apps."
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+ - Global Economy Rests on Silicon Produced in Just Four Fabs->

Submitted by Jeremiah Cornelius
Jeremiah Cornelius writes "Silicon chips are unarguably at the basis for nearly every aspect driving today's global economy. The advanced fabrication technology that enables 14-nanometer etching — now poised to drive the next wave in 2014 — is held by just four companies. "The fabs in which microchips are made, ...cost billions of dollars. And they make the microchips on which all nearly all advanced smartphones, PCs, servers, and other critical pieces of IT infrastructure depend." This level of investment for nano-scale manufacturing is possible today from Intel, Samsung, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC), and GlobalFoundries, the last of which announced today that it aims to be the world’s leading contract chip manufacturer by both volume and revenue. Almost every new electronic device in the next year will use chips fabbed in one or more of these factories, meaning greater dependency than ever on just a handful of manufacturers. What does this mean for supply chain capacity and the possibility for increased risk of constraint and disruption?"
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+ - Google Mandates All App Updates Must Come From Play Store

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes "The Google Play store has been an Eden for hackers wanting to get malicious code onto Android devices. A number of things made the marketplace too tempting for attackers to resist, including the open source nature of the operating system, lax vetting of developers, and the ability to modify code in runtime by pushing app updates from outside the store.

Recently, Google took steps to remedy that situation with important policy changes that prohibit developers from sending users who download apps from Google Play to another site outside of the marketplace for updates. The policy change with the most security implications reads: “An app downloaded from Google Play may not modify, replace or update its own APK binary code using any method other than Google Play’s update mechanism."

+ - Blackberry CEO: Tablets will be dead in 5 years->

Submitted by UnknowingFool
UnknowingFool writes ""In five years I donâ(TM)t think thereâ(TM)ll be a reason to have a tablet anymore," Blackberry CEO Thoratein said in an interview with Bloomberg. This is opposite to the growth that analysts like have speculated. It might be comparable to PDAs where smartphones have largely replaced them. Certainly the tablet is an in-between devices but it's not clear what will replace it in this role. It may be a case of sour grapes as Blackberry's PlayBook has failed to capture any significant market share."
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Bitcoin

One Bitcoin By the Numbers: Is There Still Profit To Be Made? 239

Posted by timothy
from the nature-of-money dept.
massivepanic writes with an article that "runs through the logistics of mining a Bitcoin on everyday gaming computers while keeping an eye on power consumption, time spent, and return on investment. From the article: 'I have mined a Bitcoin. This was not much of an accomplishment a year or two ago, but in 2013, after the infamous early-April peak at $260, unearthing a Bitcoin is no easy task. Competition is on the rise and we are getting close to the end of the good ol' days of Bitcoin; the time when a desktop computer or two have any real mining capabilities.'"

+ - Richard Branson plans orbital spaceships for Virgin Galactic->

Submitted by Velcroman1
Velcroman1 writes "Following the historic first rocket-powered flight of its SpaceShipTwo vehicle, Virgin Galactic plans to build a fleet of spaceships and begin ferrying hundreds of tourists into space in 2014. And then? A whole new kind of spacecraft, Sir Richard Branson said. “We’ll be building orbital spaceships after that,” Branson told Fox News Tuesday, "so that people who want to go for a week or two can.” Assuming the cost is on the same scale, would you pay a few hundred grand for a few weeks in orbit?"
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+ - Sterile Environment Causing Increase in Allergies->

Submitted by Koreantoast
Koreantoast writes "A recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found in the United States that immigrant children born in the developing world are are less likely to develop allergies, ranging from food allergies to hay fever to eczema, than those born in the US, and long term, foreign born immigrants are more likely to develop allergies over time versus their peers back in the developing world. This phenomenon isn't particular to the US either: studies done in other industrialized nations show a similar pattern. Scientists hypothesize that people in the developing world benefit from greater exposures to infections and microbes, and that the cleaner, more sterile environment in the industrialized world has weakened people's immune systems, making them hypersensitive to otherwise harmless particles. Has the Western world gone too far in creating a sterile society, swinging the pendulum to the point where now it hurts their health?"
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+ - Hackers could abuse electric car chargers to cripple the grid, researchers say->

Submitted by alphadogg
alphadogg writes "Hackers could use vulnerable charging stations to prevent the charging of electric vehicles in a certain area, or possibly even use the vulnerabilities to cripple parts of the electricity grid, a security researcher said during the Hack in the Box conference in Amsterdam on Thursday. While electric cars and EV charging systems are still in their infancy, they could become a more common way to travel within the next 10 years. If that happens, it is important that the charging systems popping up in cities around the world are secure in order to prevent attackers from accessing and tempering with them, said Ofer Shezaf, of HP ArcSight. At the moment, they are not secure at all, he said."
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Q: What do you call a principal female opera singer whose high C is lower than those of other principal female opera singers? A: A deep C diva.

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