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+ - Latest Windows 10 Preview Build Brings Unexpectedly Large Number of Enhancements

Submitted by Deathspawner
Deathspawner (1037894) writes "Following its huge Windows 10 event last Wednesday, Microsoft released a brand-new preview build to the public, versioned 9926. We were told that it'd give us Cortana, Microsoft's AI assistant, as well as a revamped Start menu and updated notifications pane. But as it turns out, that's not even close to summing up all that's new with this build. In fact, 9926 is easily the most substantial update rolled out so far in the beta program, with some UI elements and integral Windows features seeing their first overhaul in multiple generations."

+ - What Makes a Great Software Developer?->

Submitted by Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster (2598977) writes "What does it take to become a great—or even just a good—software developer? According to developer Michael O. Church’s posting on Quora (later posted on LifeHacker), it's a long list: great developers are unafraid to learn on the job, manage their careers aggressively, know the politics of software development (which he refers to as 'CS666'), avoid long days when feasible, and can tell fads from technologies that actually endure... and those are just a few of his points. Over at Salsita Software’s corporate blog, meanwhile, CEO and founder Matthew Gertner boils it all down to a single point: experienced programmers and developers know when to slow down. What do you think separates the great developers from the not-so-fantastic ones?"
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+ - Google Fiber announces new cities->

Submitted by plate_o_shrimp
plate_o_shrimp (948271) writes "From WRAL:

Google officials confirmed Tuesday that the [RDU] area is among the latest to be outfitted with Google Fiber, which promises Internet speeds 100 times faster than existing connections....According to the Wall Street Journal, Charlotte, Atlanta and Nashville, Tenn., also are in line for Google’s ultra-fast service.

"
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+ - MBRI develops modular open-source underwater camera

Submitted by linuxwrangler
linuxwrangler (582055) writes "In an effort to "monitor the depths without sinking the budget", the Monterey Bay Research Institute has developed the See Star modular underwater camera system. Using a GoPro camera along with support batteries and lights encased in housings made from PVC pipe, the design was conceived as open-source from the start with all hardware and software available on bitbucket. They are already working on new versions and plan to demonstrate it at various Maker Faires."

Google News Sci Tech: The Internet of Things just got a watchdog: FTC issues official report - Ars Tec->

From feed by feedfeeder

Firstpost
The Internet of Things just got a watchdog: FTC issues official report
Ars Technica
On Tuesday morning at the annual State of the Net conference in Washington DC, Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman Edith Ramirez gave a keynote address announcing the FTC's latest initiative: watching the Internet of Things for privacy violations.
Internet of Things: A security threat to business by the backdoor?ZDNet
FTC: The Internet of things is already here — and it needs to be securedWashington Post (blog)
FTC Staffers Recommend Minimizing Internet of Things Data CollectionMultichannel News
The Hill-Times of India-PC Pro
all 98 news articles

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+ - How not to waste your money on the second wave of 802.11ac wireless gear->

Submitted by alphadogg
alphadogg (971356) writes "The best way to avoid wasting your money on Wave 2 of 802.11ac access points is to not buy them right away, and the second-best is to not overreact to their presence on your network. Wave 2 APs have been on the market for about a year, dating back to last January’s release of the Asus RT-AC87U, but the technology hasn’t yet become commonplace among enterprise users."
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+ - Tesla P85D g-forces hold iPhone against seat and elicit surprising reactions->

Submitted by FikseGTS
FikseGTS (3604833) writes "DragTimes puts a few unsuspecting riders in the seat of a 691HP Tesla P85D while using the Tesla's "Insane" mode launch. An iPhone goes flying out of a kids hand and sticks to the rear seat from the g-forces and others have some interesting choice of words from the experience. Clean and Explicit versions of the video are availalbe."
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+ - Vivaldi - New Web Browser Looks a Lot Like Opera.->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "With Microsoft touting its upcoming new browser for Windows 10, codenamed Spartan, it's interesting to see that yet another web browser entering the already crowded market. For most, there's only three browsers: Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer. Vivaldi, as the proposed new browser is called, has a very Opera-like feel to it. And, there's good reason for that, considering that former CEO and co-founder of Opera, Jon von Tetzchner, is the creator of the new project."
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+ - Vivaldi: the geeks' new browser of choice?->

Submitted by cdysthe
cdysthe (3645207) writes "The former CEO of Opera has launched a new web browser, Vivaldi, that rebuffs the modern trend for minimalism. Whilst Google Chrome and Internet Explorer have shifted towards stripped-down browsers that do little more than display web pages, Vivaldi is something of a throwback, stuffing features into the browser."
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+ - The "mammoth snow storm" falls flat->

Submitted by mi
mi (197448) writes "You heard the scare-mongering, you heard the governors and mayors closing public transit and declaring driving on public road a crime . But it turned out to have been a mistake. Boston may have been hit somewhat, but further South — NYC and Philadelphia — the snowfall was rather underwhelming. Promised "2-3 feet" snow, NYC got only a few inches.

Is this an example of "better safe than sorry", or is government's overreach justified by questionable weather models exceeding the threshold of honest mistake?"
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+ - Valve's Economist Yanis Varoufakis Appointed Greece's Finance Minister->

Submitted by eldavojohn
eldavojohn (898314) writes "A turnover in the Greek government resulted from recent snap elections placing SYRIZA (Coalition of the Radical Left) in power — just shy of an outright majority by two seats. Atheist and youngest Prime Minister in Greek history since 1865 Alexis Tsipras has been appointed the new prime minister and begun taking immediate drastic steps against the recent austerity laws put in place by prior administrations. One such step has been to appoint Valve's economist Yanis Varoufakis to position of Finance Minister of Greece. For the past three years Varoufakis has been working at Steam to analyze and improve the Steam Market but now has the opportunity to improve one of the most troubled economies in the world."
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+ - Finding your longitude on Earth with Jupiter's moons 1

Submitted by StartsWithABang
StartsWithABang (3485481) writes "If you want to know where you are on Earth, you typically use a GPS or, barring that, other terrestrial landmarks to help determine your location. If you didn't have access to that sort of technology or knowledge, you could still use some well-known objects in the sky to determine your latitude. Longitude, however, is trickier, since it's arbitrarily defined. Perhaps surprisingly, for centuries, the best way to determine it was by using the moons of Jupiter, and watching when they enter/exit the shadow of the giant planet."

+ - Opera founder unveils feature-rich Vivaldi power browser.->

Submitted by cdysthe
cdysthe (3645207) writes "Almost two years ago, the Norwegian browser firm Opera ripped out the guts of its product and adopted the more standard WebKit and Chromium technologies, essentially making it more like rivals Chrome and Safari. But it wasn’t just Opera’s innards that changed; the browser also became more streamlined and perhaps less geeky.

Many Opera fans were deeply displeased at the loss of what they saw as key differentiating functionality. So now Jon von Tetzchner, the man who founded Opera and who would probably never have allowed those drastic feature changes, is back to serve this hard core with a new browser called Vivaldi."
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+ - Researchers Tie Regin Malware to NSA, Five Eyes Intel Agencies

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 (1100399) writes "Researchers at Kaspersky Lab have discovered shared code and functionality between the Regin malware platform and a similar platform described in a newly disclosed set of Edward Snowden documents 10 days ago by Germany’s Der Spiegel.

The link, found in a keylogger called QWERTY allegedly used by the so-called Five Eyes, leads them to conclude that the developers of each platform are either the same, or work closely together.

“Considering the extreme complexity of the Regin platform and little chance that it can be duplicated by somebody without having access to its source codes, we conclude the QWERTY malware developers and the Regin developers are the same or working together,” wrote Kaspersky Lab researchers Costin Raiu and Igor Soumenkov today in a published report."

+ - Why Screen Lockers On X11 Cannot Be Secure->

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa (887896) writes "One thing we all remember from Windows NT, is the security feature requiring the user to press CTRL-ALT-DEL to unlock the workstation (this can still be enabled with a policy setting). The motivation was to make it impossible for other programs to mimic a lock screen, as they couldn't react to the special key combination. Martin Gräßlin from KDE team takes a look at the lock screen security on X11. On a protocol level, X11 doesn't know anything of screen lockers. Also the X server doesn't know that the screen is locked as it doesn't understand the concept. This means the screen locker can only use the core functionality available to emulate screen locking. That in turn also means that any other client can do the same and prevent the screen locker from working (for example opening a context menu on any window prevents the screen locker from activating). That's quite a bummer: any process connected to the X server can block the screen locker, and even more it could fake your screen locker."
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All theoretical chemistry is really physics; and all theoretical chemists know it. -- Richard P. Feynman

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