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We've improved Slashdot's video section; now you can view our video interviews, product close-ups and site visits with all the usual Slashdot options to comment, share, etc. No more walled garden! It's a work in progress -- we hope you'll check it out (Learn more about the recent updates).

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+ - Verizon Makes It Very Clear Its 'Spectrum Crunch' Never Existed->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "If you recall, the wireless industry has spent much of the last decade proclaiming that a "spectrum crunch" was afoot, declaring that unless the government did exactly as requested, wireless growth and innovation would grind to a halt. AT&T was quick to claim that it needed to buy T-Mobile because of said spectrum crunch, though the company's own leaked documents highlighted that this simply wasn't true .."
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+ - Megaupload programmer pleads guilty, get a year in prison->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "When MegaUpload was shut down a few years back, seven of the company's employees were indicted by the U.S. We heard a lot about Kim Dotcom's court proceedings, but not much about the others. A few days ago, we received word that programmer Andrus Nomm has been arrested in Virginia. This came as a surprise to everyone involved. MegaUpload attorney Ira Rothken said it was likely Nomm has made a deal with the Feds. Now, we know for sure: Nomm has pleaded guilty to felony copyright infringement, and has been sentenced to a year and a day in prison. In a statement, the Department of Justice said they will continue to pursue his co-conspiritors."
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+ - Cosmic Ray Particles to Reveal the Melted Nuclear Fuel in Fukushima's Reactors->

Submitted by the_newsbeagle
the_newsbeagle (2532562) writes "Muons, produced when cosmic rays collide with molecules in the atmosphere, are streaming through your body as you read this. The particles pass through most matter unimpeded, however they can interact with heavy elements like uranium and plutonium. That's why engineers at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi power plant are using muon detectors to look for the melted nuclear fuel inside the plant's three melted-down reactors. By determining where muons are being diverted from their paths, the detectors create images of the blobs of fuel. That's necessary because nobody knows exactly where the radioactive gloop ended up during the meltdowns."
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+ - Bipartisan Bill Would Mandate Warrant To Search Emails->

Submitted by jfruh
jfruh (300774) writes "Bills were introduced into both the House and Senate yesterday that would amend the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, requiring a warrant to search Americans' email messages stored on third-party servers even if they're more than 180 days old. The current version of the law was passed in 1986, and was written in an environment where most email users downloaded emails to their computer and erased them after reading them."
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+ - Browser-based VR could reintroduce "Skip Intro" syndrome

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "Hardware-accelerated 3D running in the web browser isn't massively new, but relatively few websites have been taking advantage of it. Inkflash, which just launched a couple of months ago, is one of the first sites with a mainstream subject (book buying and discovery, in this case) to really take advantage of 3D in the browser. Visitors can explore themed book rooms, wandering from one room to the next; it's like a sprawling virtual library, all running in the browser.

Native browser support for VR headsets is already being baked into experimental builds of Chrome and Firefox. This immediately warrants the question, can traditional websites incorporate 3D/VR without falling into the Flash-era "Skip intro" trap? (i.e. all shininess without adding anything of functional value). Inkflash works well because 3D navigation and content exploration are built into the core concept. But what about more "traditional" websites? Will they suffer when their owners inevitably rush to join the impending VR bandwagon, and websites are retro-fitted for 3D?"

+ - 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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