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+ - Time to disable texting from the driver's seat?->

Submitted by LeadSongDog
LeadSongDog writes "The good folks at the American Automobile Association's Foundation for Traffic Safety have been funding the University of Utah to examine the distraction of hands-free controls. Fitted up with brain-monitor skullcaps, subjects were shown to be most distracted when they had to focus on voice commands, especially when drafting texts and emails. Once again, we find that multitasking is illusory, something always suffers."
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+ - Macs No More: After Edward Snowden, Time to Come to the Penguin->

Submitted by jrepin
jrepin writes "With each new version of Mac OS X, the computer becomes more and more like an iPhone or an iPad — a device designed for controlled consumption, not real creating. (With Windows 8 and the Surface, Microsoft has a head start.) The idea is to turn the computer from a general-purpose anything-machine into a ad-distributing appliance. Your mind is meant to become one too. The personal computer is political. The time for liberation has kind of come."
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+ - Oracle discontinues free Java time zone updates->

Submitted by Noel Trout
Noel Trout writes "For a long time in the Java world, there has been a free tool called the "tzupdater" or Time Zone Updater released as a free download first by Sun and then Oracle. This tool can be used to apply a patch to the Java runtime so that time zone information is correct. This is necessary since some time zones in the world are not static and change more frequently than one might think; in general time zone updates can be released maybe 4-6 times a year. The source information backing the Java timezone API comes from the open source Olson timezone database that is also used by many operating systems. For certain types of applications, you can understand that these updates are mission critical. For example, my company operates in the private aviation sector so we need to be able to display the correct local time at airports around the world.

So, the interesting part is that Oracle has now decided to only release these updates if you have a Java SE support contract. See the following link:
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/tzupdater-download-513681.html
Being Oracle, such licenses are far from cheap.

In my opinion, this is a pretty serious change in stance for Oracle and amounts to killing free Java for certain types of applications, at least if you care about accuracy. We are talking about the core API class java.util.TimeZone. This begs the question, can you call an API free if you have to pay for it to return accurate information? What is the point of such an API? Should the community not expect that core Java classes are fully functional and accurate? I believe it is also a pretty bad move for Java adoption for these types of applications. If my company as a startup 10 years ago would have been presented with such a license fee, we almost certainly could not have chosen Java as our platform as we could not afford it."
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+ - Ask Slashdot: How will MS monetize this?->

Submitted by LeadSongDog
LeadSongDog writes "The Beeb blurbs that MS will now be "giving" away Outlook, but it comes at a price: you have to run the (freebeer) Win8.1 update to get it. Other platforms still need to cough up the big bucks/pounds/Euros/yaddayadda. So how are they turning this into a revenue stream?"
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+ - TSA eliminates all invasive X-ray machines

Submitted by dsinc
dsinc writes "The Transportation Security Administration announced it has finished removing from all airports the X-ray technology that produced graphic and controversial images of passengers passing through security screening checkpoints.
The machines, which the TSA first deployed in 2008, provoked public outrage as the technology, better able than traditional X-rays to detect hidden contraband, also created images that appeared as if they were "virtual nudes." Critics called this an invasion of privacy and questioned whether the scanning devices truly lacked the ability to save the images, as the TSA claimed."

+ - Binary.. older than you thought!->

Submitted by LeadSongDog
LeadSongDog writes "From our wait-a-minute...that's-no-moon! department, the mother corps advises that today's giant asteroid 1998 QE2 is actually the primary of a binary system. Hiding close to the biggie is a smaller (but still dangerous) 600 m diameter secondary. Seems 16% of large asteroids are binaries..."
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+ - British Architects Develop Open-Source House Building->

Submitted by Iddo Genuth
Iddo Genuth writes "Think of a world where you could simply download the blueprints of your future home for free just like you download any open source software today. A team of British architects developed just that and they are hoping their project called WikiHouse will radically change the way we think about building homes."
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Government

DOJ Fights To Bury Court Ruling On Government Surveillance 100

Posted by timothy
from the gotta-know-when-t'-holder dept.
coolnumbr12 writes with this IBTimes excerpt: "The Justice Department may soon be forced to reveal a classified document that details unconstitutional surveillance of American citizens. The Justice Department has fought to keep the document secret for about a year, but a recent court order demands that they respond to a formal request filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation by next week, June 7, 2013."

The clothes have no emperor. -- C.A.R. Hoare, commenting on ADA.

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