Soulskill - Slashdot User

Programing now starting in Elementary Schools-> 0

Submitted by

the agent man

on Friday May 18, @12:39PM

the agent man writes "The idea of getting kids interested in programming in spite of their common perception of programming to be "hard and boring" is an ongoing Slashdot discussion. With support of the National Science Foundation the Scalable Game Design project has explored how to bring computer science education into the curriculum of middle and high schools for some time. The results are overwhelmingly positive suggesting that game design is not only highly motivational across gender and ethnicity but even finding new ways of tracking programing skills transferring from game design to STEM simulation building. This NPR story highlights an early and unplanned foray into brining game design based computer science education even to Elementary Schools. A short story includes a nice video of students sharing their experiences."
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Facebook Privacy Suit Seeks $15 Billion-> 0

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 18, @04:52PM

An anonymous reader writes "The folks at Facebook may be focusing on their IPO today, but a complaint filed in federal court has given them something else to think about. The filing consolidates 21 separate but similar cases and alleges Facebook invaded users privacy by tracking their browsing behavior even after they had logged out of the site. The claim seeks $15 billion in damages. 'If the claimants are successful in their case against Facebook, they could prevent Menlo Park from collecting the huge amount of data it collects about its users to serve ads back to them. Like the previous lawsuits, Facebook is once again being accused of violating the Federal Wiretap Act, which provides statutory damages per user of $100 per day per violation, up to a maximum per user of $10,000. The complaint also asserts claims under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the Stored Communications Act, various California Statutes and California common law.'"
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EA To Provide Free Distribution to Kickstarter Games-> 0

Submitted by The God of Code on Friday May 18, @03:12PM

The God of Code writes "EA has announced that they will be waiving all Origin distribution fees for crowd-funded games — like those from Kickstarter — for the first 90 days. "The public support for crowd-funding creative game ideas coming from small developers today is nothing short of phenomenal," Origin VP David DeMartini commented. "It's also incredibly healthy for the gaming industry. Gamers around the world deserve a chance to play every great new game, and by waiving distribution fees on Origin we can help make that a reality for successfully crowd-funded developers". The recently funded Wasteland 2 developer Brian Fargo applauds EA's move, saying "Having Origin waive their distribution fees for 90 days for fan funded games is a major economic bonus for small developers. We look forward to bringing Wasteland 2 to the Origin audience.""
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Wozniak's Original System Description of the Apple ][-> 0

Submitted by

CowboyRobot

on Friday May 18, @11:44AM

CowboyRobot writes "Opening with the line, "To me, a personal computer should be small, reliable, convenient to use and inexpensive." Stephen Wozniak gave his system description of the Apple-II in the May, 1977 issue of BYTE.
It's instructive to read what was worth bragging about back then, such as integral graphics, "A key part of the Apple-II design is an integral video display generator which diectly accesses the system's programmable memory. Screen formatting and cursor controls are realized in my design in the form of about 200 bytes of read only memory."
And it shows what the limitations were in those days, "While writing Apple BASIC, I ran into the problem of manipulating the 16 bit pointer data and its arithmetic in an 8 bit machine.
My solution to this problem of handling 16 bit data, notably pointers, with an 8 bit microprocessor was to implement a nonexistent 16 bit processor in software, interpreter fashion.""
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How NASA and SpaceX get along together-> 0

Submitted by mblase on Friday May 18, @01:59PM

mblase writes "SpaceX and NASA have been working hard to make this weekend's launch happen--and that has meant navigating the cultural differences between this small, young startup and the huge veteran space agency. The relationship involves daily calls and emails between people who live in two different worlds: age versus youth, bureaucracy versus a flat startup-like structure, and a sense of caution versus a desire to move forward quickly. But they both have an almost religious belief in the need for humans to venture forth into space, a geeky love for rockets, technical know-how--plus, they both need each other to succeed."
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The nearest supernova candidate to Earth - IK Peg-> 0

Submitted by

The Bad Astronomer

on Friday May 18, @12:08PM

The Bad Astronomer writes "What's the nearest star to Earth that can explode as a supernova? Spica, at 260 light years away, is the nearest massive star that can explode, but IK Pegasi — a Sirius-like binary composed of a normal star and a white dwarf — will also one day blow. At a distance of 150 light years it's truly the closest supernova candidate. Happily, that's too far away to damage the Earth when it goes off — and it won't explode for millions of years at least, by which time it'll be even farther away. Either way, we're safe... for now."
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Cops' Warrantless Cell Phone Tracking Now Better Than GPS-> 0

Submitted by Sparrowvsrevolution on Thursday May 17, @04:34PM

Sparrowvsrevolution writes "On Thursday, the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing to discuss a proposed bill to limit location tracking of electronic devices without a warrant, what it’s calling the Geolocational Privacy and Surveillance Act, or the GPS Act. Ahead of that hearing, University of Pennsylvania computer science professor Matt Blaze submitted written testimony telling Congress that phone carriers, as well as the law enforcement agencies that they share data with, can now use phones’ proximity to cell towers and other sources of cellular data to track their location as precisely or even more precisely than they can with global positioning satellites. Thanks to the growing density of cell towers and the proliferation of devices like picocells and femtocells that transmit cell signals indoors, even GPS-less phones can be tracked with a high degree of precision and can offer data that GPS can’t, like the location of someone inside a building or what floor they’re on.

With the GPS Act, Congress is considering expanding the ban on warrantless tracking of cars with GPS devices that the Supreme Court decided on in January. Blaze's testimony suggests they need to include non-GPS tracking of cell phones in that ban, a measure that law enforcement agencies are strongly resisting."
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Slo-mo microbes extend the frontiers of life-> 0

Submitted by ananyo on Friday May 18, @06:28AM

ananyo writes "A newly-discovered microbial community living tens of metres beneath the Pacific Ocean floor use so little oxygen that researchers believe they may be living at the absolute minimum energy requirement needed to subsist. For years, scientists thought that the ascetic conditions of the deep sub-seabed — high pressure, minimal oxygen and a low supply of nutrients and energy — made such environments uninhabitable to any form of life.
The discovery extends the lower bound for life (abstract only). The surface of Mars, for instance, may be inhospitable, but there may be conditions below the surface that are reminiscent of the deep subsurface on Earth. As microbiologist Bo Jørgensen comments in the Nature piece, while the discovery does not mean there is life on Mars, “it’s now really challenging to show where there is no life”."
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Geeks in the Public Forum?-> 0

Submitted by cedarhillbilly on Friday May 18, @06:34AM

cedarhillbilly writes "New Scientist reviews the Geek Manifesto by Mark Henderson. In the book, Henderson pleads for citizens who value science to force it onto the mainstream political agenda and other main walks of life. Questions for real life are "Do you have to give up tech practice to undertake a public role (MIT inventor to tea party favorite)?" also "Is political life (compromise, working by consensus, irrationality) antithetical to the 'geek' values?""
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"Inexact" chips save power by fudging the maths-> 0

Submitted by Barence on Friday May 18, @06:38AM

Barence writes "Computer scientists have unveiled a computer chip that turns traditional thinking about mathematical accuracy on its head by fudging calculations. The concept works by allowing processing components — such as hardware for adding and multiplying numbers — to make a few mistakes, which means they are not working as hard so use less power and get through tasks more quickly. The Rice University researchers say prototypes are 15 times more efficient and could be used in some applications without having a negative effect."
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