Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
Privacy

Assange Internet Link Cut By State Actor, Claims Wikileaks (rt.com) 475

Posted by msmash from the internet-down dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report by RussianToday: WikiLeaks has activated "contingency plans" after its co-founder's internet service was intentionally cut off by a state actor, the media organization said in a tweet. The internet is one of the few, if not only, available ways for Julian Assange, who has been locked up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for more than four years, to maintain contact with the outside world. Facing extradition to Sweden over allegations of rape, which he denies, the Australian computer programmer has been holed up in the embassy in West London since 2012. He claims the extradition is actually a bid to move him to a jurisdiction from which he can then be sent to the US, which is known to be actively investigating WikiLeaks. The unverified claims of state sabotage come as WikiLeaks continues to release damaging documents, most recently thousands of hacked emails from Hillary Clinton's campaign manager John Podesta.

Submission + - Boeing CEO Vows To Beat Elon Musk To Mars (bloomberg.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Boeing Chief Executive Officer Dennis Muilenburg sketched out a Jetsons-like future at a conference Tuesday, envisioning a commercial space-travel market with dozens of destinations orbiting the Earth and hypersonic aircraft shuttling travelers between continents in two hours or less. And Boeing intends to be a key player in the initial push to send humans to Mars, maybe even beating Musk to his long-time goal. “I’m convinced the first person to step foot on Mars will arrive there riding a Boeing rocket,” Muilenburg said at the Chicago event on innovation, which was sponsored by the Atlantic magazine. Like Musk’s SpaceX, Boeing is focused on building out the commercial space sector near earth as spaceflight becomes more routine, while developing technology to venture far beyond the moon. The Chicago-based aerospace giant is working with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to develop a heavy-lift rocket called the Space Launch System for deep space exploration. Boeing and SpaceX are also the first commercial companies NASA selected to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station. Boeing built the first stage for the Saturn V, the most powerful U.S. rocket ever built, which took men to the moon. Nowadays, Muilenburg sees space tourism closer to home “blossoming over the next couple of decades into a viable commercial market.” The International Space Station could be joined in low-earth orbit by dozens of hotels and companies pursuing micro-gravity manufacturing and research, he said. Muilenburg said Boeing will make spacecraft for the new era of tourists. He also sees potential for hypersonic aircraft, traveling at upwards of three times the speed of sound.
Medicine

Submission + - Standford's Open Source Human Motion Software (stanford.edu)

Submitted by eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: Standford's OpenSim software is a human motion modeling package that is currently making the rounds at museums where 'visitors walk across a pressure-sensitive floor and are presented at the other side with color-coded print outs of their weight distribution, identifying even slight imbalances that might be putting undue stress on their limbs and joints.' This project can also help with planning surgery. The work of Scott L. Delp, Frank C. Anderson, Allison S. Arnold, Peter Loan, Ayman Habib, Chand T. John, Eran Guendelman, and Darryl G. Thelen has been published in IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering (note that this is a different effort from the virtual world of the same name). Although Standford's press release says it is now open source, I cannot find what license they are using nor can I access their SVN browser after registering.
The Courts

Submission + - US launches eBay-Craigslist dispute criminal probe (techworld.com.au)

Submitted by
angry tapir
angry tapir writes: "The U.S. Department of Justice has opened an investigation into whether eBay executives broke the law and stole trade secrets while sitting on the board of Craigslist.org. The investigation is centered on the activities of eBay executives who managed the Craigslist relationship between 2004 and 2007, a period when eBay morphed from a US$30 million Craigslist investor, with a seat on its board of directors, into a direct competitor in the lucrative online classified advertising market."
Linux

Submission + - Linux kernel moves to Github (lkml.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Linus Torvalds has announced that he will be distributing the Linux kernel via Github until kernel.org servers are fully operational following the recent server compromise.

But hey, the whole point (well, *one* of the points) of distributed development is that no single place is really any different from any other, so since I did a github account for my divelog thing, why not see how well it holds up to me just putting my whole kernel repo there too?
Microsoft

Submission + - Sony Attacks Microsoft's Publishing Policies (gamergaia.com)

Submitted by winston18
winston18 writes: Sony’s vice president of publisher relations has went on record as saying that Microsoft is protecting an inferior technology with their policies regarding content on Xbox Live Arcade and multiplatform titles. The comments stem from Microsoft’s admission that they reserve the right to deny titles on Xbox Live if they launch on the Playstation Network first.
Programming

Submission + - Weak typing - the lost art of the keyboard (i-programmer.info)

Submitted by mikejuk
mikejuk writes: How do you type? Hunt and peck? Two thumbs? Touch type? Two thumbs touch type?
For the first time since the computer was invented the standard QWERTY keyboard is challenged by new ways of inputing text. And yet even the iPad virtual keyboard has two useless dimples on the F and J keys. Perhaps it isn't time to give up on the home keys just yet.
Google

Submission + - Google Patents Glove for 'Seeing With Your Hand'

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Is Google Couch Search about to go Beta? GeekWire reports that Google co-founder Sergey Brin is among the inventors listed on a patent issued to the search giant this week for 'Seeing With Your Hand', using a glove with sensors for viewing a room or controlling a computer with gestures. From the patent: 'When a small object is lost, for example, underneath a couch, humans naturally put their hands under the couch to locate the lost object by touch. While gathering information by touch is in some cases an acceptable substitute for seeing, in many situations it may be desirable to 'see' the inaccessible environment to better gather information.'
Security

Submission + - Linux Kernel Attackers Didn't Know What They Had (threatpost.com)

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: The attack that compromised some high-value servers belonging to kernel.org--but not the Linux kernel source code--may have been the work of hackers who simply got lucky and didn't realize the value of the servers that they had gotten their hands on.

The attackers made a couple of mistakes that enabled the administrators at kernel.org to discover the breach and stop it before any major damage occurred. First, they used a known Linux rootkit called Phalanx that the admins were able to detect. And second, the attackers set up SSH backdoors on the compromised servers, which the admins also discovered. Had the hackers been specifically targeting the kernel.org servers, the attack probably would've looked quite different.
Chrome

Submission + - Google Is Prepping Chrome As A Game Platform (conceivablytech.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Video gaming is a big topic for web browsers as well as HTML5, but there are few enthusiast gamers who are taking this scenario serious. Can a Joystick API and a 3D Client change the perception? On Friday I noticed that Google is heavily pushing New Game, a game developer conference that is focused on HTML5-based gaming content — and, of course, content that runs in web browsers. The fact that such an event already exists and that there is game content being developed in HTML5, is quite stunning by itself. However, Google also noted that a sandboxed native client (NaCl) with 3D (in addition to 2D) will be available in Chrome soon, which will allow the browser to connect to traditional C and C++ code via its integrated Pepper API.
The Internet

Submission + - Former Wikileaks spokesman destroyed documents (activepolitic.com) 2

Submitted by bs0d3
bs0d3 writes: Former Wikileaks spokesman Daniel Domscheit-Berg claims to have destroyed more than 3,500 unpublished files that had been sent from unknown informants and are now apparently lost irrevocably. Among the files destroyed include the U.S. gov's "no-fly list" and inside information from 20 right wing organizations. Daniel Domscheit-Berg is now known as one of the founders of openleaks.
Education

Submission + - More Stanford Computing Courses go free (i-programmer.info)

Submitted by mikejuk
mikejuk writes: Following on the recent Slashdot item on the availablity of a free Stanford AI course there is news that two other Stanford Computer Science courses are also joining in this "bold experiment in distributed education" in which students not only have access to lecture videos and other course materials but will actively participate by submitting assignments and getting regular feedback on their progress. The subjects are Machine Learning with Andrew Ng and Database with Jennifer Widom.
This open approach looks as if it might be a sucess with well over 100,000 prospective students signing up to the AI course alone.
Technology

Submission + - Hacker Steve Built Hand-Mounted Tacit Sonar Device (geektech.in)

Submitted by
GeekTech.in
GeekTech.in writes: "This innovations takes out the stick from a blind man’s hand. Steve has been working on the Tacit, a wrist mounted sonar device with haptic feedback, it’s like strapping a bat to your wrist to help you see. It makes use of two sonar ping sensors to measure the distance to the nearest obstacle, the relative distance to an object is then fed back to the user using two servos which apply pressure to the back of the wrist."
Sony

Submission + - PS3 Enjoys Retail-Wide Sales Spike After Price Cut (industrygamers.com) 1

Submitted by donniebaseball23
donniebaseball23 writes: Sony, after nearly two years on standing firm on PS3's price, dropped the console to $249, and it's been having an immediate impact. IndustryGamers reports that GameStop has already noted a "significant" increase in PS3 sales, while big box retailer Target confirmed an "immediate lift" in sales and recommended PS3 as a "great option" for its customers. Not only that, but leading e-tailer Amazon saw PS3 sales explode by 400% in the days after the price cut. All told, in the months ahead, analysts are expecting Sony to see as much as a 30% sales bump for PS3 this holiday season.
Games

Submission + - Rage and The Tech Behind Id Tech 5 (hothardware.com)

Submitted by
MojoKid
MojoKid writes: "id Software's long-awaited FPS, Rage, is set to ship in October. When it launches, Rage will be the first game to feature id's newest graphics engine, dubbed id Tech 5. id Tech 5 has evolved considerably since the company started talking about it four years ago, however. While it contains a number of additional features, MegaTexturing remains one of the game's most visible advances. MegaTexturing uses a single large texture to map the terrain of an entire area. Data from that texture is streamed in depending on where the player is standing and what's visible. Effects that would normally be blended in traditional tiled texturing can be baked into the megatexture and streamed off disc when needed. The advantage of megatexturing is that it allows artists to create unique environments rather than resorting to a variety of tricks to hide repetitive texture tiles."

Slashdot Top Deals

I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best. -- Oscar Wilde

Close