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+ - Ubuntu sticking to six-month release schedules->

Submitted by Barence
Barence writes "Ubuntu has shelved the idea of moving to rolling releases, and will continue to release a new version every six months. Earlier this year, Ubuntu developers discussed the idea of moving to rolling releases, with new features added to the OS as and when they were ready. However, In an interview with PC Pro, Canonical CEO Jane Silber said the developers had taken a "cold, hard look at our long-standing practices" and decided to stay with twice-yearly releases. It has, however, cut support on non-LTS releases from 18 to nine months."
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+ - Aereo Ruling Could Impact Pandora->

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes "Aereo's court battles are far from over, to be sure, but the ruling earlier this month that the TV streaming service doesn't violate copyright laws must have the folks at music streaming service Pandora shaking their heads, wondering why they're still paying royalties that currently consume more than half their revenues. The implications of Aereo's business model are far-reaching and may ultimately 'be resolved by Congress, just as it did when cable first came on the scene, by passing legislation to redefine a public performance,' writes broadcast industry attorney David Oxenford."
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+ - IBM robotic coworker will help engineers fix broken systems->

Submitted by coondoggie
coondoggie writes "When it comes to fixing broken systems, especially in remote locations, engineers could soon turn to a new mobile robotic system IBM is developing that could help them more easily find the broken equipment, offer up information about the system and provide real-time visual support from supervising experts. The mobile maintenance, repair and operations prototype includes an application that lets a supervisor monitor an engineer's progress towards the maintenance site, and a robotic arm coupled with a camera system, a microphone and laser pointer."
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+ - NASA lets us watch the Sun spin for 3 years in 4 minute video-> 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "Back in February 2010 NASA launched the Solar Dynamics Observatory–a 3-axis stabilized satellite and fully redundant spacecraft. The aim of the SDO is to monitor solar activity and see how that impacts space weather.

As part of its observations, the SDO captures an image of the Sun every 12 seconds using the onboard Atmospheric Imaging Assembly, but varies those shots across 10 different wavelengths. NASA has now collected 3 year’s worth of image data from the SDO and has put together a video letting us see the Sun spin in all its glory."
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+ - What's actually wrong with DRM in HTML5? ->

Submitted by kxra
kxra writes "The Free Culture Fondation has posted a thorough response to the most common and misinformed defenses of the W3C's Extended Media Extensions (EME) proposal to inject DRM into HTML5. They join the EFF and FSF in a call to send a strong message to the W3C that DRM in HTML5 undermines the W3C’s self-stated mission to make the benefits of the Web “available to all people, whatever their hardware, software, network infrastructure, native language, culture, geographical location, or physical or mental ability.” The FCF counters the three most common myths by unpacking some quotes which explain that 1. DRM is not about protecting copyright. That is a straw man. DRM is about limiting the functionality of devices and selling features back in the form of services. Second, that DRM in HTML5 doesn’t obsolete proprietary, platform-specefic browser plug-ins; it encourages them. And third, that the Web doesn’t need big media; big media needs the Web."
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+ - Did A Boxing Brain Injury Influence The Boston Bomber?-> 1

Submitted by ewolfson
ewolfson writes "Much speculation about the mind-state of Tamerlan Tsarnaev follows the death of one of the two brothers implicated in the April 15 terrorist bombing at the Boston Marathon.

As federal investigators probe possible sources of radicalization, some wonder less about the mind and more about the brain function underlying the apparently angry — some might say "sick" — motives propelling the Chechen immigrant to explode bombs near the race's finish line, killing three and wounding more than 130.

Tsarnaev won the New England Golden Gloves championship in 2009 and 2010, as a highly disciplined amateur boxer before dying April 19 in an epic shootout with police, improvised explosives strapped to his body. Given the prevalence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, CTE, among boxers, might the terrorism suspect have experienced brain damage leading to such destructive, and self-destructive, carnage?"
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+ - Cray-1 vs. AMD 7990, Then vs. Now->

Submitted by EmagGeek
EmagGeek writes "In 1976, a Cray-1 supercomputer cost $36M (in 2013 dollars) and could execute floating point math at 160 MFLOP. The supercomputer had a 5.2V power supply that delivered almost 800 amps to the circuitry. The machine was the size of a small Volkswagen and required a refrigeration system to dissipate the 4000 watts of electricity it took to run.

The fastest PC video card on the market today costs $1000 and can execute floating point math at 8,200,000 MFLOP, consumes energy at a rate of just less than 400 watts, and is about the size of a paperback book.

50,000 times faster, 1/36,000 the price, 1/10th the energy, and about 1/5,000 the volume. It's interesting how they had to solve the enormous power requirements of supercomputers at the time, and how they have continued to solve them over the years as power densities have increased."
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+ - Microsoft to Unveil Next Xbox on May 21->

Submitted by hypnosec
hypnosec writes "Microsoft has finally laid to rest all the rumours surrounding its next-gen gaming console by confirming the release date and time of the next Xbox. Microsoft is set to unveil its next gaming console on May 21 at a special press event at 10AM Pacific Time (18:00 GMT) on the Xbox Campus in Redmond, Washington. 19 days down the line Microsoft will continue the Xbox conversation at Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in LA."
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+ - Kenneth Appel Remembered For Four Color Theorem->

Submitted by mikejuk
mikejuk writes "Kenneth Appel (1932-2013) together with Wolfgang Haken, proved the four color theorem and broke new ground in using a computer to complete the proof. For the first time a computer played a major role in proving a major mathematical theorem.This was not a proof that was liked by all mathematicians. The use of the computer resulted in a proof that could not be checked by an unaided human. It was a huge shock for many mathematicians at the time to have to move over and allow a computer to take part in mathematics. There was a feeling at the time, and perhaps there still is, that the proof was a temporary matter and soon a real mathematician would step up and provide a "real" proof. Even today many mathematicians have their reservations about the proof and there have been attempts to simplify it, but so far they all involve computers. Mathematicians are still searching for something that would look more like an elementary proof.
Appel and Haken's proof may be the most controversial in mathematics but it also put the computer into pure mathematics.
Kenneth Appel died on April 19, 2013 at the age of 80."
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+ - British Military Wants Money To Stop Attack That Could 'Bring Down Government'->

Submitted by judgecorp
judgecorp writes "The British Ministry of Defence says the UK should invest 20 percent of its turnover (maybe £100 billion) protecting the nation's data — because a cyber attack on military targets could bring down the British Government. This could all be hype: te MoD's head of information security suggested that an online attack might cause a military operation to fail, which could then bring about vote of no confidence in the government. The call for budget will fall on deaf ears in a recession — and the MoD may well be basing its ideas on a hyped idea of the dangers."
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+ - Smart Grid Power Analysis?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "BGE, my electric company has been rolling out their new smart grid meters for the past year and are providing some very interesting graphs on their site. Unfortunately, the graphs are very basic and don't allow for trend analysis. I'm looking for a tool or tools that could take the exported data (XML or CSV) and then allow for a more detailed analysis. There has to be a company or a developer who's built something to take data from other smart grid enabled power providers..."

+ - Women In Tech: Take More Risks, Elite Execs Say->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "Work-life balance is a myth designed to make you feel guilty. Risk-taking is vital to your career success. Women often hold on to what they are good at for too long before moving on to new roles. Check out this candid advice and other tech career tips from Wal-Mart and Boeing's female CIOs and other top IT execs.They spoke at a Michigan Council for Women in Technology leadership event in Detroit this week — sponsored by the big 3 automakers, whose CIOs also participated. Think automotive IT doesn't have lots of new jobs for women? Think again, these CIOs say."
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+ - Unanimous: Provo Utah council approves Google Fiber->

Submitted by symbolset
symbolset writes "In a unanimous vote the Provo Municipal Council has agreed to a plan to sell the city's troubled iProvo fiber Internet network to Google.

Although this makes Provo, Utah the third city to embrace Google's ambitious gigabit fiber to the home plan the existing network will allow the residents of Provo to see faster installation than the others. Google had previously announced plans to proceed immediately on approval."
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+ - Stop standardizing HTML->

Submitted by pfignaux
pfignaux writes "When HTML first appeared, it offered a coherent if limited vocabulary for sharing content on the newly created World Wide Web. Today, after HTML has handed off most of its actual work to other specifications, it’s time to stop worrying about this central core and let developers choose their own markup vocabularies and processing."
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+ - Google's Data Center Building Boom Accelerates->

Submitted by 1sockchuck
1sockchuck writes "While Facebook is making headlines by unstealthing its plans for a huge Iowa server farm, Google is expanding its data center footprint virtually everywhere, in what amounts to the largest investment in data center infrastructure in the history of the Internet. This month company has unveiled $1.4 billion in expansions across three facilities in Belgium, North Carolina and Iowa. It's also building in South Carolina and is planning an expansion in The Dalles, Oregon. Google is now spending more than $1 billion per quarter on servers and data centers. Apple and Microsoft are also building more server farms. What do these huge expansions tell us about the future of Internet infrastructure? Big data means big data centers."
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