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+ - Open Source Projects for Beginners->

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes "Whoever said 'everyone has to start somewhere' has clearly never tried contributing to an open source project — the Linux Kernel development team in particular is known for its savagery. But if you're determined to donate your time and talents, there are some things you can do to get off on the right foot. Of course you should pick something you're interested in and that you use. Check, and double check. You should also research the project, learn about the process for contributing, and do your utmost to avoid asking questions that you can find the answers to. But beyond that there are some hallmarks of beginner-friendly open source projects like Drupal, Python, and LibreOffice — namely, a friendly and active community, training and mentorship programs, and a low barrier to entry."
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+ - Amtrak Upgrades Wi-Fi 1

Submitted by WillgasM
WillgasM writes "A bit of good news for American travelers, according to The NYT, "After years of criticism of the wireless service on its trains, Amtrak announced on Thursday that it had upgraded its cellular-based Wi-Fi using broadband technologies that will improve the speed and reliability of the Internet in its passenger cars."
So far the service has been rolled out on the high-speed Acela lines and a few routes in California, but they hope to have the rest of their trains upgraded by the end of Summer. We're still an order of magnitude away from high-speed rails in other countries, but it's nice to know someone's trying."

+ - Leaked MS Video parodies Chrome ad->

Submitted by Stratus311
Stratus311 writes "An article from The Verge shows a video leaked from Microsoft that parodies Google's Chrome ad.

Microsoft and Google have been locked in a war of words over a YouTube Windows Phone app, but in the midst of the arguments a new Scroogled ad has emerged. Designed to be an internal-only video, a copy has somehow managed to find its way onto the web right in the middle of Google's I/O developer conference.

"
Link to Original Source

+ - Everest is Melting

Submitted by Titus Andronicus
Titus Andronicus writes "Sudeep Thakuri of the University of Milan and his colleagues have discovered that 'Glaciers in the Mount Everest region have shrunk by 13 percent in the last 50 years and the snowline has shifted upward by 180 meters (590 feet).' The Himalayan glaciers provide some of the fresh water supply to around 1.5 billion people in northeast India, Bangladesh, Tibet, and other places. According to this National Academy of Sciences report, changes in precipitation patterns (including monsoons) and changes in water usage patterns by humans might affect the water supply more than the shrinking glaciers."

+ - Survey on the Future of Open Source, and Lessons from the Past

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "Andy Oram on quality, security, and community driving open source adoption "All too often, the main force uniting competitors is the fear of another vendor and the realization that they can never beat a dominant vendor on its own turf. Open source becomes a way of changing the rules out from under the dominant player. OpenStack, for instance, took on VMware in the virtualization space and Amazon.com in the IaaS space. Android attracted phone manufacturers and telephone companies as a reaction to the iPhone.""

+ - Google says it has 900 million Android activations->

Submitted by alphadogg
alphadogg writes "Google's Android OS has more than 900 million users, the company said Wednesday as its I/O event began in San Francisco. Google also announced several APIs that will let developers add more capabilities to their Android apps, including in the areas of location and improving battery life. "It's been an amazing year for Android developers," said Android and Chrome vice president Sundar Pichai. Google has sent more money to developers through their Play Store sales in the last four months than it did in all of 2012 and revenue per user is now 2.5 times higher than it was a year ago, the company said."
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+ - Samsung claims progress on 5G.->

Submitted by briancox2
briancox2 writes "Technology for the next generation of mobile internet connectivity being developed by Samsung promises download speeds that will WOW you. Samsung has claimed that the new technology can download HD movies in seconds. Representatives believe this technology will be available within 7 years. Internet use will mean something completely different in 2020 with data transfer speeds that can provide you with any software package, OS distro or complete TV series while you tie your shoes."
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+ - Ask Slashdot: What is the Best Email Encryption Gateway for a Small Business?

Submitted by Attila Dimedici
Attila Dimedici writes "I am in the process of implementing a Email Encryption Gateway for my company. I checked with my various contacts in the industry and came away with Voltage as the best solution. However, as I have been working with them to implement a solution, I have been sadly disappointed by their lack of professionalism. Every time I think I am one question away from being ready to pull the trigger, I discover something that my contact with them had not mentioned before that has to be ironed out by the various stakeholders on my end. So, my question for Slashdot Users is this, what is your experience with implementing an Email Encryption Gateway for your company and who what solution would you recommend?"

+ - Hubble Discovers 'Planetary Graveyard'->

Submitted by astroengine
astroengine writes "The Hubble Space Telescope has discovered rocky remains of planetary material ‘polluting’ the atmospheres of two white dwarfs — a sign that these stars likely have (or had) planetary systems and that asteroids are currently being shredded by extreme tidal forces. Although white dwarfs with polluted atmospheres have been observed before, this is the first time evidence of planetary systems have been discovered in stars belonging to a relatively young cluster of stars. “We have identified chemical evidence for the building blocks of rocky planets,” said Jay Farihi of the University of Cambridge in a Hubble news release. “When these stars were born, they built planets, and there’s a good chance that they currently retain some of them. The signs of rocky debris we are seeing are evidence of this — it is at least as rocky as the most primitive terrestrial bodies in our Solar System.”"
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+ - Open Compute Moves On To Efficient Switches ->

Submitted by judgecorp
judgecorp writes "Having created open source designs for more efficient data centre servers and power supplies, the Open Compute project (launched by Facebook in 2011, is now moving on to create shared designs for energy efficient switches. This is the first hardware to be designed from scratch by the group — and it's not clear how established network hardware vendors will like the idea"
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+ - Weird Geological Features Spied on Mars->

Submitted by astroengine
astroengine writes "The High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera carried by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has spotted a strange geological feature that, for now, defies an obvious explanation. Found at the southern edge of Acidalia Planitia, small pits with raised edges appear to hug a long ridge. So far, mission scientists have ruled out impact craters and wind as formation processes, but have pegged the most likely cause to be glacial in nature."
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+ - Perfectly Secure Quantum Internet Running At Los Alamos For Two Years->

Submitted by jpwilliams
jpwilliams writes "A network leveraging quantum mechanics has been under testing for two years at Los Alamos National Labs.

Because observing a message inevitably changes it, messages based on quantum mechanics are theoretically perfectly secure.

The Los Alamos network works off of a hub and spoke model, where all messages go into a central hub and then out to another end point in the network.

Apparently, some companies are already providing quantum networking, with banks and other security firms interested."
Link to Original Source

+ - There is no reason at all to use MySQL: MariaDB, MySQL founder Michael Widenius-> 1

Submitted by sfcrazy
sfcrazy writes "In this exclusive interview MySQL founder Michael Widenius talks about the reasons of decline of MySQL, what Oracle is doing wrong and how MariaDB is fast replacing it. There are quite some interesting information in this interview. The take out of this interview is — "...there is no reason at all to use MySQL 5.5 instead of MariaDB 5.5. The same will be true for the next generation.""
Link to Original Source

+ - Firefox is the first browser to pass the MathML Acid2 test->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "Frédéric Wang, an engineer at the MathJax project, reports that the latest nightly build of Firefox now passes the MathML Acid2 test. Screenshots in his post show a comparison with the latest nightly Chrome Canary, and it's not pretty.
He writes "Google developers forked Webkit and decided to remove from Blink all the code (including MathML) on which they don't plan to work in the short term.""
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