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+ - A New AOL? Leaving Google's Silo->

Submitted by Jeremiah Cornelius
Jeremiah Cornelius writes "Google continues raising hackles as the company calls into question the commitment to open source roots from which it grew and often promoted. Developer Ken Kinder: "...It seems reasonable to believe that, unlike Eric Schmidt, Larry Page does not believe in open standards or an open Internet. Google has, in just a few short months, dropped support for open standards en masse, including RSS, XMPP, iCal/CalDav, and Podcasts. Additionally, other services are being forcefully “integrated” into Google+, which has no complete public API and no interoperability with other systems. Google, is, in other words, the new AOL: A silo separate from the open web, with very limited interoperability." Kinder's considered and thoughtful blog entry poses a number of alternatives to the services from Google, especially those consumed from Android devices. "I’m trying to pick services... where there’s a clear and predictable business relationship between me and the provider. Moving from Google Calendar to Yahoo Calendar solves very little... because Yahoo’s business interests are exactly the same: advertising and consumer lock-in.""
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+ - MariaDB vs. MySQL: A Performance Comparison->

Submitted by Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster writes "MariaDB is a fork of the MySQL source code, split off in the wake of concerns over what Oracle would do with MySQL licensing. In addition to its role as a “drop-in replacement” for MySQL, MariaDB also includes some new features that (some claim) make it better than MySQL. Jeff Cogswell compares MySQL and MariaDB and suggests (in his opinion) that there's "more than enough reason to ditch MySQL and switch over to MariaDB and stay there." Why? While he breaks down MariaDB's new features and thinks many of them aren't that fantastic, and while MariaDB's performance isn't that much better than that of MySQL ("MariaDB’s performance appears a bit better on multi-core machines, but I strongly suspect that one could tweak MySQL to match"), the questions over Oracle and MySQL licensing give him pause. "MariaDB shows every indication that it will be around for quite awhile, while you can’t really say the same of Oracle’s MySQL," he writes. "Free-and-open MySQL competes with Oracle’s proprietary and extremely competitive tools. That alone is grounds for concern—will Oracle do something to impede MySQL’s development?""
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+ - Going All the Way: GPL'ing Our Theme->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "If you’ve been vising our site for awhile now (thanks, by the way), you’ve certainly noticed that things have been looking a little lessterrible, as of late. We’ve been working on turning “The Powerbase” into a more modern and aesthetically pleasing site, and the recent change of theme is a major step in that direction.

While we’re certainly happy with the look and feel of the site, what we think really makes our current setup special is that we’re now able to release our WordPress theme as a GPL project.

What did you expect?"
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+ - Debian GNU/Hurd 2013 Released->

Submitted by jrepin
jrepin writes "The GNU Hurd is the GNU project's replacement for the Unix kernel. It is a collection of servers that run on the Mach microkernel to implement file systems, network protocols, file access control, and other features that are implemented by the Unix kernel or similar kernels (such as Linux). Debian GNU/Hurd team announces the release of Debian GNU/Hurd 2013. This is a snapshot of Debian "sid" at the time of the Debian "wheezy" release (May 2013), so it is mostly based on the same sources. Debian GNU/Hurd is currently available for the i386 architecture with more than 10.000 software packages available (more than 75% of the Debian archive."
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+ - Russia to test drones to monitor wildlife and track poachers->

Submitted by garymortimer
garymortimer writes "VLADIVOSTOK, Russia, Officials say they’ll test unmanned aerial vehicles at a nature reserve on Russia’s Pacific coast this summer to monitor wildlife and crack down on poachers.

“UAVs are silent and can fly at a very low altitude to produce high-resolution imagery and detect poachers, their boats and vehicles,” Alexandra Filatkina, deputy director for development at the Kronotsky nature reserve on the Kamchatka Peninsula, told RIA Novosti Friday."
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+ - Cold Fusion heats up->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "The paper "Indication of anomalous heat energy production in a reactor device containing hydrogen loaded nickel powder." documents the experimental analysis of the prototype E-Cat HT. Good news: it works!"
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+ - Additive manufacturing method builds objects with 3D curves instead of 2D layers->

Submitted by Sabine Hauert
Sabine Hauert writes "Mataerial is a new 3D printing method that uses extrusion technology and a two-component thermosetting polymer to build up objects on any working surface that the polymer can adhere to, including floors, walls and ceilings, without the need for additional support structures. While other 3D printing methods build up objects by successive 2D layering, this process truly builds up objects in all three dimensions: a script takes 3D models designed by the user in CAD software, converts them into 3D curves and then these 3D curves are converted into paths that are fed in the robotic arm. By combining these 3D curves, a variety of shapes can be achieved that would be impossible with other 3D printing methods."
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+ - Intel's Linux OpenGL Driver Faster Than Apple's OS X Driver->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "The open-source Intel Linux graphics driver has hit a milestone of now being faster than Apple's own OpenGL stack on OS X. The Intel Linux driver on Ubuntu 13.04 is now clearly faster than Apple's internally-developed Intel OpenGL driver on OS X 10.8.3. when benchmarked from a "Sandy Bridge" class Mac Mini. Only some months ago, Apple's GL driver was still trouncing the Intel Linux Mesa driver."
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+ - Dealing with a Fear of Technological Change? 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "Despite the fact that I am fairly young at twenty-four years old, people see me as rather "old school." I regularly use Lynx, IRC, Pine, have many consoles open, and am currently typing this on an older plain black laptop that has a matte 4:3 display and no chiclet keys. As the days progress, I am coming to the realization that the "old school" computing world that I grew up in is slowly fading away and a new world of Windows 8, Web 3.0, tablets, smart televisions, and social networking is starting to become fairly common. If there is anything I have learned, it is that most humans have a desire to throw out the old and accept the new without any sort of hesitation. Like many Slashdot users (I am sure you know who you are), I do not accept the new as easily as I probably should. How have you learned to adapt and accept things that are new and different in the world of technology and computers? If not, what are some effective strategies to utilize to keep these kids off my lawn?"

+ - Rice Professor Predicts Humans Out Of Work In 30 Years-> 1

Submitted by kkleiner
kkleiner writes "Rice University professor Moshe Vardi has been evaluating technological progress in computer science and artificial intelligence and has recently concluded that robots will replace most, if not all, human labor by 2045, putting millions out of work. The issue is whether AI enables humans to do more or less. But perhaps the real question about technological unemployment of labor isn't "How will people do nothing?" but "What kind of work will they do instead?""
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+ - 50 million Apache OpenOffice downloads in a year->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "Just a few days after the one year anniversary of the release of the first version of OpenOffice from the Apache Foundation (Apache OpenOffice 3.4) on 8 May 2012, the project can now boast 50 million downloads of the open source office suite. 10 million of those downloads happened since the beginning of March. In contrast, LibreOffice claimed it had 15 million unique downloads of its office suite in all of 2012."
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Idle

+ - Unraveling Claims of Conspiracy Behind Venezuela's Shortage->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "Is it a subtle and devious conspiracy? Incompetent government at work? Market forces? Or perhaps the law of unintended consequences? Any way you look at it, Venezuela is in a bad way, as reported by the Guardian: "First milk, butter, coffee and cornmeal ran short. Now Venezuela is running out of the most basic of necessities – toilet paper. . . Economists say Venezuela's shortages stem from price controls meant to make basic goods available to the poorest parts of society and the government's controls on foreign currency. "State-controlled prices – prices that are set below market-clearing price – always result in shortages. The shortage problem will only get worse, as it did over the years in the Soviet Union," said Steve Hanke, professor of economics at Johns Hopkins University. President Nicolás Maduro, who was selected by the dying Hugo Chávez to carry on his "Bolivarian revolution", claims that anti-government forces, including the private sector, are causing the shortages in an effort to destabilise the country. ""
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