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+ - Samsung Could Have Bought Android but Laughed Idea out of the Boardroom->

Submitted by concertina226
concertina226 (2447056) writes "According to Dogfight: How Apple and Google Went to War and Started a Revolution by Wired's contributing editor Fred Vogelstein, engineer Andy Rubin, who started the Android project in 2003, pitched the mobile operating system idea to Samsung.

"I pitch the whole Android vision to them like they are a venture capitalist. And at the end and I am out of breath, with the whole thing laid out ... there is silence. Literally silence, like there are crickets in the room," said Rubin, who had flown out to Seoul with his team in 2004 to pitch to the electronics giant.

Google acquired Android for $50m two weeks after the Samsung presentation and the icing on the cake for Rubin, was receiving a call from Samsung the day after the acquisition was announced, demanding that Rubin meet with them to discuss his "very, very interesting proposal"."
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+ - 500,000 Belkin WeMo Users Are Wide Open To Attackers

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "IOActive has uncovered multiple vulnerabilities in Belkin WeMo Home Automation devices that could affect over half a million users and give attackers the ability to remotely control WeMo Home Automation attached devices over the Internet, remotely monitor the devices, perform malicious firmware updates, and access an internal home network.

The vulnerabilities found within the Belkin WeMo devices expose users to several potentially costly threats, from home fires with possible tragic consequences down to the simple waste of electricity. The reason for this is that, after attackers compromise the WeMo devices, they can be used to remotely turn attached devices on and off at any time. Given the number of WeMo devices in use, it is highly likely that many of the attached appliances and devices will be unattended, thus increasing the threat posed by these vulnerabilities."

+ - PHP UK Conference 2014 Welcomes PHP Developers in the City of London->

Submitted by Qarea
Qarea (2461348) writes "PHP UK Conference 2014 will take place in London, UK, on February 21-22, 2014.

PHP UK Conference is an annual community organized event held for the 9th time this year. It unites great speakers from all around the world and all the enthusiasts interested in PHP.

The Brewery was chosen for holding the event. Situated right in the heart of the City of London, The Brewery occupies the site of the former Whitbread brewery in East London. It was opened in 1750 and brewing continued on the site until 1976. Now it is a beautiful place with creative atmosphere. Unique rooms and ambient lighting encourage networking and learning.

What is the idea?

A two-day conference is dedicated to the latest and newest trends in PHP development. It features amazing talks, great socials, 30 speakers and 700 delegates! The main goal is to deliver the most up-to-date PHP content and other web related issues in a professional, comfortable and exciting way.

PHP UK Conference is always a perfect place for networking and engaging with a great amount of international speakers and delegates. Everyone can attend the event, whether you are an experienced web developer or just staring out.

Each day will start with an inspiring keynote presentation, followed by choosing one of three tracks of talks. Each day will close with a panel session and evening's social event. There's also exhibition space for all sponsors, to fill in the spaces in between. The event will even provide special place for delegates to relax and charge their equipment, communicate with other attendees. The event is going to be the most exciting PHP UK ever!

Topics to be discussed:

During two days 30 skilled specialists will hold talks in order to share their ideas and experience with the interested audience. Here are some of the planned speeches:
  • Web Security and You;
  • MySQL 5.6 — Online Operations and Improved Diagnostics;
  • PHP 5.NEXT: The New Bits;
  • Scaling with Symfony2;
  • Debugging HTTP;
  • Caching Best Practices;
  • Unbreakable Domain Models;
  • I've Been Hacked, Now What?
  • Profiling PHP Applications.

QArea team will visit PHP UK Conference 2014

A team of PHP developers from QArea software development company are planning to visit this great event in London. They are excited of the opportunity to meet international PHP experts and hope to learn lots of new techniques, share their own experience and establish new contacts.

QArea is a company of over 250 dedicated IT specialists who provide clients worldwide with innovative and cost-effective outsourcing services. QArea delivers high-quality web, mobile, software development, QA, design and other IT services. Since 2001 it has met a huge growth and owns a portfolio with such companies as Microsoft, eBay, Skype, The Huffington Post, AOL, Symantec, Universal Electronics. It has R&D Center in Ukraine and 4 representative offices in USA, France, Switzerland and Malta."
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+ - NVIDIA Launches GTX 750 Ti with New Maxwell Architecture->

Submitted by Vigile
Vigile (99919) writes "NVIDIA is launching the GeForce GTX 750 Ti today which would normally just be a passing mention for a new $150 mainstream graphics card. But the fact that the company is using this as the starting point for its Maxwell architecture is actually pretty interesting. With a new GPU design that reorganizes the compute structure into smaller blocks, Maxwell is able to provide 66% more CUDA cores with a die size that is just 25% bigger than the previous generation all while continuing to use the same 28nm process technology we have today. Power and area efficiency were the target design points for Maxwell as it will eventually be integrated into NVIDIA's Tegra line too. As a result the GeForce GTX 750 Ti is able to outperform AMD's Radeon R7 260X by 5-10% while using 35 watts less power at the same time."
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+ - Advice for a new Solution Architect

Submitted by mikaere
mikaere (748605) writes "After ~20 years as a developer on the Microsoft stack (code, database, business intelligence), I have decided to move into a role as a Solution Architect.

I would like to know what, in the vast wisdom of the Slashdot hivemind, are the key aspects of a good Solution Architect ?"

+ - Why Improbable Things Really Aren't ->

Submitted by sixoh1
sixoh1 (996418) writes "Scientific American has an excellent summary of a new book "The Improbabilty Principle: Why Coincidences, Miracles, and Rare Events Happen Every Day" by David J. Hand. The summary offers a quick way to relate statistical math (something that's really hard to intuit) to our daily experiences with unlikely events. The simple equations here make it easier to understand that improbable things really are not so improbable, which Hand call the "Improbability Principle":

How can a huge number of opportunities occur without people realizing they are there? The law of combinations, a related strand of the Improbability Principle, points the way. It says: the number of combinations of interacting elements increases exponentially with the number of elements. The “birthday problem” is a well-known example.

Now if only we could harness this to make an infinite improbability drive!"
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+ - Community-sourced news site, soylentnews.org, goes live 18

Submitted by umafuckit
umafuckit (2980809) writes "soylentnews.org is the new way of taking the pulse of the nerd community. Soylentnews is a grassroots-based platform with the content feeds are powered by readers like you. The objective is to highlight news stories of general importance to everyone, but especially nerds. News about technology, art, science and politics: it's all there. Soylentnews is the new kid on the block and will adapt quickly to satisfy our community's needs and and push boundaries like never before. This is a real community site: no changes in format without a general consensus from the community. Stop by and see what you think of the freshly-launched site."

+ - Target's Cyber Security Staff Raised Concerns in Months Before Breach->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "Target Corp.’s computer security staff raised concerns about vulnerabilities in the retailer’s payment card system at least two months before hackers stole 40 million credit and debit card numbers from its servers, people familiar with the matter said.

At least one analyst at the Minneapolis-based retailer wanted to do a more thorough security review of its payment system, a request that at least initially was brushed off, the people said. The move followed memos distributed last spring and summer by the federal government and private research firms on the emergence of new types of malicious computer code targeting payment terminals, a former employee said.

The suggested review also came as Target was updating those payment terminals, a process that can open security risks because analysts would have had less time to find holes in the new system, the employee said. It also came at a difficult time—ahead of the carefully planned and highly competitive Black Friday weekend that would kick off the holiday shopping period.

It wasn’t clear whether Target did the requested review before the attack that ran between Nov. 27 and Dec. 18. The nature of the feared security holes wasn’t immediately clear, either, or whether they allowed the hackers to penetrate the system.

The sheer volume of warnings that retailers receive makes it hard to know which to take seriously. Target has an extensive cyber security intelligence team, which sees numerous threats each week and could prioritize only so many issues at its monthly steering committee meetings, the former employee said.

Target declined to confirm or comment on the warning.

The breach has caused headaches for Target customers who have dealt with fraudulent charges and have had millions of credit and debit cards replaced by issuers. Investigators and card issuers haven’t quantified damages from the attack."
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+ - New Encryption Scheme Could Protect Your Genome->

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit (1205606) writes "As the cost of genetic sequencing plummets, experts believe our genomes will help doctors detect diseases and save lives. But not all of us are comfortable releasing our biological blueprints into the world. Now cryptologists are perfecting a new privacy tool that turns genetic information into a secure yet functional format. Called homomorphic encryption, the method could help keep genomes private even as genetic testing shifts to cheap online cloud services."
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+ - SPAM: New blood cells fight brain inflammation

Submitted by Benzainload895
Benzainload895 (3510209) writes "Hyperactivity of our immune system can cause a state of chronic inflammation. If chronic, the inflammation will affect our body and result in disease. In the devastating disease multiple sclerosis, hyperactivity of immune cells called T-cells induce chronic inflammation and degeneration of the brain. Researchers at BRIC, the University of Copenhagen, have identified a new type of regulatory blood cells that can combat such hyperactive T-cells in blood from patients with multiple sclerosis. By stimulating the regulatory blood cells, the researchers significantly decreased the level of brain inflammation and disease in a biological model."
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+ - Google acquires Israeli security startup SlickLogin->

Submitted by Fnord666
Fnord666 (889225) writes "SlickLogin, an Israeli startup and developer of smart identification technology through user smartphones has been acquired by Google for several million (the official transaction amount remains undisclosed). SlickLogin was founded under a year ago by Or Zelig, Eran Galili and Ori Kabeli. The company first unveiled its technology at TechCrunch Disrupt held last September. the company has yet to launch their product nor have they any customers to date."
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+ - Scientists create pizza that can last years

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at the US Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center have created a pizza that can be stored for up to three years while still remaining edible. 'It pretty much tastes just like a typical pan pizza that you would make at home and take out of the oven or the toaster oven,' said Jill Bates who heads up the lab. 'The only thing missing from that experience would be it's not hot when you eat it. It's room temperature.'"

+ - Reimplementing "git clone" in Haskell from the bottom up->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "A Haskell implementation of the git clone command with extensive implementation notes:

In order to give some structure to my ongoing investigation of git’s data structures, protocols and implementation I decided to re-implement git clone without using any of git’s plumbing commands or any of the existing git libraries. Along the way I tried to keep some implementation notes that should help to understand some of the building blocks required to replicate the clone functionality.

"
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Sigmund Freud is alleged to have said that in the last analysis the entire field of psychology may reduce to biological electrochemistry.

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