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+ - Oculus Rift raises another $16 million->

Submitted by Craefter
Craefter writes "On the E3 it seems that the Oculus Rift caused a mental erection with the investors this year. Some investors (Spark Capital and Matrix Partners) were able to push $16 million in the direction of Oculus VR in the hopes for the product to hype.
This is all very nice, the HD unit looks a bit more slick than the ski goggles with the tablet glued in front of it from the first version but it would have been better if the next gen consoles would commit support for it. We all know how well the wave stick from the PS3 was adapted as an afterthought.
That said, major titles like the 9 year old Half-Life 2 and the 6 year old Team Fortress 2 are getting full support for the Oculus. I hope in the future developers would implement support for a VR headset per-default in their games and not years after the fact. A bit like the EAX standard from Soundblaster. That worked out well too."
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+ - Oracle drops GNU GPL from MySQL's man page licence->

Submitted by sfcrazy
sfcrazy writes "While naive users believed that Oracle will emerge as a champion of free software and polish OOo and MySQL to compete with arch rival Microsoft — the company disappointed everyone. There are reports that MySQL has changed its man page license — it has moved away from GNU GPL. The changes took place between MySQL 5.5.30 to MySQL 5.5.31.

MySQL 5.5.30 man page license clearly said that: This documentation is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it only under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; version 2 of the License.

Where as, the MySQL 5.5.31 licence says: This software and related documentation are provided under a license agreement containing restrictions on use and disclosure and are protected by intellectual property laws. Except as expressly permitted in your license agreement or allowed by law, you may not use, copy, reproduce, translate, broadcast, modify, license, transmit, distribute, exhibit, perform, publish, or display any part, in any form, or by any means. Reverse engineering, disassembly, or decompilation of this software, unless required by law for interoperability, is prohibited."
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+ - Google Patents Image-Capturing Walking Sticks 2

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes "GeekWire reports that Google has patented an image-capturing walking stick, which can boldly go where no Google Street View Car can. The walking stick has embedded cameras and location sensors, and a switch at the bottom that causes the device to snap pictures whenever the stick hits the ground. The patent also covers using canes and crutches in a similar fashion."

+ - Microsoft to start dumping Surface RT to schools for $199->

Submitted by onyxruby
onyxruby writes "In a move that will remind many of Apple in the 80's Microsoft is going to start dumping Surface RT computers to educational institutions. In a further effort to try to gain mind share for their disastrous Surface RT platform Microsoft is giving away 10,000 Surface RT's to teachers through the ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education).

The strategy of flooding the educational market was quite successful for Apple. Unfortunately for Microsoft today's computers require management and the Surface RT presents significant management challenges in terms of the inability to join the computer to a domain or available management tools."
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+ - Ubuntu Carrier Advisory Group Announced

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "With the focus from Ubuntu on phones, tablets, TVs, and of course the desktop, 7 carriers have signed onto their Ubuntu Carrier Advisory Group including Deutsche Telekom, Everything Everywhere, Telecom Italia, Korea Telecom, LG UPlus, Portugal Telecom, and SK Telecom.

The group is designed for the carriers to let "mobile operators shape Ubuntu’s mobile strategy. Members receive advance confidential briefings and provide us with industry insight to ensure that Ubuntu meets their needs"."

+ - The Ancient Telegram Postal Service Comes To An End 160 Years Later

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "The telegram postal service will come to an end after 160 years with the world's last one being sent somewhere in India on July 15. The telegram postal service may not be a favorite means of communication among the people today with the wide range of high-end technology devices available now, but some still rely on the 160-year-old service to send messages to their dear ones. But this is likely to end July 15, when the last telegram will be sent somewhere in India."

+ - Norconex Gives Back to Open-Source->

Submitted by kalhomoud
kalhomoud writes "Norconex HTTP Collector
Norconex has always been a big consumer of open-source libraries and products. The time has come for us to give back. That's why we are open-sourcing a handful of libraries and products we hope will benefit others as well. Norconex’s newest released product is the open-source web crawler: Norconex HTTP Collector.

The primary focus of this web crawler is to make it easier for enterprise search integrators and developers when dealing with all types of crawling requirements. We wanted for ourselves something very portable, extensible, modular, and working with most search engines. At the same time, we’ve tried to keep the libraries easy for less technical people. Documentation covers all its existing features and is freely available as well.

Community support is provided via GitHub, while Norconex offers professional support as well. Check it out!"
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+ - Robo-Cat Runs without a Brain->

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes "The latest addition to the growing field of fast four-legged robots is no bigger than a housecat, yet it can tackle more realistic terrain than its larger predecessors. Three years in the making, "Cheetah-cub" runs about 5 kilometers per hour and can descend steps up to 20% its leg length. For its size—23 centimeters long and 1 kilogram in weight—it may be a record-holder among other robo-quadrupeds, its developers say, attaining speeds seven times its body length per second. It even has an advantage over real cats: It runs with no brain telling it what to do. Cheetah-cub self-adjusts its movement as needed because of three springs in each leg that adapt dynamically to the irregularities in its stride. The legs are modeled after a cat's, with three segments (think foot, calve, and thigh) moved via cables that connect to motors in the body. Power is supplied through a leash attached to the robot. The researchers hope to use the robot to study the biomechanics of animal locomotion and eventually to come up with quadruped robots that can be used in search and rescue operations."
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+ - Jon 'Maddog' Hall on Project Cauã and a server in every highrise->

Submitted by Qedward
Qedward writes "Project Cauã, the Free and Open Source Software and Hardware (FOSSH) project conceived by Linux International executive director Jon “Maddog” Hall to make it possible for people to make a living as a systems administrator, is set to launch in Brazil next month.

The vision of Project Cauã is to promote more efficient computing following the thin client/server model, while creating up to two million privately-funded high-tech jobs in Brazil, and another three to four million in the rest of Latin America.

Hall explained that Sao Paolo in Brazil is the second largest city in the Western Hemisphere and has about twelve times the population density of New York City. As a result, there are a lot of people living and working in very tall buildings.

Project Cauã will aim to put a server system in the basement of all of these tall buildings and thin clients throughout the building, so that residents and businesses can run all of their data and applications remotely.

“In effect it’s kind of like creating a private cloud for every building,” Hall told Techworld."
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Schneier: NSA Secrecy and Personal Privacy->

From feed by bsfeed
In an excellent essay about privacy and secrecy, law professor Daniel Solove makes an important point. There are two types of NSA secrecy being discussed. It's easy to confuse them, but they're very different. Of course, if the government is trying to gather data about a particular suspect, keeping the specifics of surveillance efforts secret will decrease the likelihood of...
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+ - Bitpint! Cambridge pub acepts Bitcoins as payment for pints(of real beer).->

Submitted by Grantbridge
Grantbridge writes ""The Haymakers in Chesterton is now accepting digital currency Bitcoin for its wares — and all you need to pay your way is a virtual Bitcoin wallet and a QR reader.
Rob Curtis, one of the managers at the High Street pub, said the virtual currency was âoecatching onâ at the watering hole and fittingly for an online innovation, word has been getting around on Twitter."

You can now use your bitcoins to buy real beer in the Haymakers Pub in Cambridge (Chesterton). It doesn't mention how they control for the fluctuating exchange rate. The pub produces a QR code on the till you scan with your smartphone and make the payment that way. Is this the first pub to accept bitcoins for beer?"
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+ - First particle comprising four quarks discovered->

Submitted by ananyo
ananyo writes "Physicists have resurrected a particle that may have existed in the first hot moments after the Big Bang. Arcanely called Zc(3900), it is the first confirmed particle made of four quarks, the building blocks of much of the Universe’s matter. Until now, observed particles made of quarks have contained only three quarks (such as protons and neutrons) or two quarks (such as the pions and kaons found in cosmic rays)."
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Google News Sci Tech: Nasa selects record number of women for astronaut trainee class - Telegraph.co.u->

From feed by feedfeeder

Telegraph.co.uk
Nasa selects record number of women for astronaut trainee class
Telegraph.co.uk
After an extensive year-and-a-half search, Nasa has selected eight candidates to be its newest astronaut trainees; four of which are women. This is the highest number of women selected in the program's history. The potential astronauts were selected from a...
Hoxie, we have an astronautHays Daily News
NASA picks eight astronaut trainees that may go to asteroids and Mars (video)Engadget
Astronaut 'I scream': New NASA astronaut candidates excited to be chosencollectSPACE.com
WCN (WestminsterCollege Network)-Boston Globe-Laramie Boomerang
all 167 news articles

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"We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat's next-to-last theorem." -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982

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