Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror

+ - Ask Slashdot: How can I prepare for the Theft of my Android Phone? 5

Submitted by Adam Jorgensen
Adam Jorgensen writes "Last week my 4-week old Moto G phone was stolen while getting onto the train at Salt River in Cape Town, South Africa. That in itself is no big deal. Cellphone theft is a huge problem here in South Africa and I've had at least two previous cellphones stolen. The big deal this time, for me at least, was that this was the first time I've lost an Android phone to theft.

When I actually sat down and through about it, losing a fully configured Android phone is actually a big deal as it provides ready access to all kinds of accounts, including ones Google account. This could potentially allow the thief to engage in all kinds of malicious behaviour, some of which could have major implications beyond the scope of the theft.

Luckily for me it seems that the thief did the usual thing: Dumped the sim card, wiped the phone and switched it off. It's probably had it's IMEI changed by now and been sold on to some oblivious punter, possibly some oblivious punter in another country.

Still, the potential for serious issue is making me have second thoughts about replacing the phone with anything capable of doing much more than calling.

My question is this: Are there any serious solutions out there for Android that secure against theft?

By serious I mean solutions that go beyond the laughably easy to defeat "Find My Phone" and "Remote Wipe" options provided at present. Presently I'm thinking along the lines of:
  • Full encryption of phone contents
  • Some kind of "Travel Safe" mode that would lock the phone down and trigger a full wipe of not unlocked correctly (Including wiping the phone on next boot if not unlocked before being switched off/running out of battery).

So, any ideas?"

+ - Meat Makes Our Planet Thirsty 2

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Mames McWilliams writes in the NYT that with California experiencing one of its worst droughts on record, attention has naturally focused on the water required to grow popular foods such as walnuts, broccoli, lettuce, tomatoes, strawberries, almonds and grapes. "Who knew, for example, that it took 5.4 gallons to produce a head of broccoli, or 3.3 gallons to grow a single tomato? This information about the water footprint of food products — that is, the amount of water required to produce them — is important to understand, especially for a state that dedicates about 80 percent of its water to agriculture." But for those truly interested in lowering their water footprint, those numbers pale next to the water required to fatten livestock. Beef turns out to have an overall water footprint of roughly four million gallons per ton produced (PDF). By contrast, the water footprint for “sugar crops” like sugar beets is about 52,000 gallons per ton; for vegetables it’s 85,000 gallons per ton; and for starchy roots it’s about 102,200 gallons per ton.

There's also one single plant that's leading California’s water consumption and it's one that’s not generally cultivated for humans: alfalfa. Grown on over a million acres in California, alfalfa sucks up more water than any other crop in the state. And it has one primary destination: cattle. "If Californians were eating all the beef they produced, one might write off alfalfa’s water footprint as the cost of nurturing local food systems. But that’s not what’s happening. Californians are sending their alfalfa, and thus their water, to Asia." Alfalfa growers are now exporting some 100 billion gallons of water a year from this drought-ridden region to the other side of the world in the form of alfalfa.

Beef eaters are already paying more. Water-starved ranches are devoid of natural grasses that cattle need to fatten up so ranchers have been buying supplemental feed at escalating prices or thinning their herds to stretch their feed dollars. But McWilliams says that in the case of agriculture and drought, there’s a clear and accessible actions most citizens can take: Changing one’s diet to replace 50 percent of animal products with edible plants like legumes, nuts and tubers results in a 30 percent reduction in an individual’s food-related water footprint. Going vegetarian reduces that water footprint by almost 60 percent. "It’s seductive to think that we can continue along our carnivorous route, even in this era of climate instability. The environmental impact of cattle in California, however, reminds us how mistaken this idea is coming to seem.""

+ - Google Chairman: $19 Bn for 50 People? Good for Them!

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes "Speaking at an SXSW panel, Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt emphasized that Google is 'very, very worried' about the class tensions that underlie recent Bay Area protests, where high-salaried techies have driven up rents. 'Ninety-nine percent of people have seen no economic improvement over the last decade,' he said, adding that 'the data suggest that the problem gets worse' and will become the 'number one issue in democracies around the world.' Schmidt's solution to this displacement? Foster conditions — e.g., better education, looser immigration laws, and deregulation in strictly-controlled areas like energy and telecommunications — that encourage the creation of fast-growing startups ('gazelles') that generate lots of jobs. When interviewer Steven Levy noted 'gazelles' like the 50-employee WhatsApp which was acquired by Facebook for a reported $19 billion seem to lead to more inequality, Schmidt brushed aside the apparent contradiction. 'Let us celebrate capitalism,' the tax-us-if-you-can Schmidt said, opening his arms. '$19 billion for 50 people? Good for them.' Eric, meet Tom."

+ - Are unlimited WiMAX/LTE mobile internet only plans extinct?->

Submitted by engele
engele writes "I recently accepted a new job that allows me to work from home, but unfortunately traditional network options are unavailable (ie no cable or DSL).

I know that Clearwire is no more, but are there any other LTE/WiMAX options that don't have data caps?

I need to be able to work all day on a Citrix connection and transfer a very limited number of files, send and receive email, etc.

I don't need phone service.

Any thoughts?"
Link to Original Source

+ - Ice Age Fossils Found During Los Angeles Subway Exploration

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "During an exploratory dig to extend one of L.A.'s subway lines (yes! Los Angeles actually does have an underground), a host of fossils from the Ice Age were uncovered, including the skull of a sea lion. The dig site is close to the La Brea Tar Pits, where the preserved remains of various plants and animals were discovered in the early 1900s. The La Brea Tar Pit fossils are estimated to be between 11,000-55,000 years old, and the most common animals found were dire wolves."

+ - UK to associate with Germany for 5G->

Submitted by Niranjan Nallapothula
Niranjan Nallapothula writes "David Cameroon has announced a new agreement between United Kingdom and Germany to develop 5G Technology, as well as boost momentum for the Internet of Things.

Germany and Britain will collaborate and work for the development for future – super fast mobile network 5G, UK Prime Minister – David Cameroon’s speech at the opening of Europe’s Largest Technology show – CeBIT 2014. Germany primaryly focused on three factors, namely 5G and its benefits in future years (‘Download one full length movie in less than a second’), Internet of things and strengthening of EU Digital market."
Link to Original Source

+ - Up to 1000 NIH Investigators Dropped Out Last Year->

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes "New data show that after remaining more or less steady for a decade, the number of investigators with National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding dropped sharply last year by at least 500 researchers and as many as 1000. Although not a big surprise—it came the same year that NIH’s budget took a 5% cut—the decline suggests that a long-anticipated contraction in the number of labs supported by NIH may have finally begun."
Link to Original Source

+ - You Know Who Else Collected Metadata? The Stasi->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "The East German secret police, known as the Stasi, were an infamously intrusive secret police force. They amassed dossiers on about one quarter of the population of the country during the Communist regime.

But their spycraft — while incredibly invasive — was also technologically primitive by today's standards. While researching my book Dragnet Nation, I obtained the above hand drawn social network graph and other files from the Stasi Archive in Berlin, where German citizens can see files kept about them and media can access some files, with the names of the people who were monitored removed.

The graphic shows forty-six connections, linking a target to various people (an "aunt," "Operational Case Jentzsch," presumably Bernd Jentzsch, an East German poet who defected to the West in 1976), places ("church"), and meetings ("by post, by phone, meeting in Hungary")."
Link to Original Source

+ - How to complete the equivalent of a Computer Science BS for free online

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "I am a middle school math teacher and I also run a programming club. I recent completed my M.Ed in math education and was inspired to try to do the new GT online MS in Computer Science in a couple of years. I have some background in programming: 2 intro to comp sci course, Java, C++, Python, they main scripting languages and a bunch of math background. I also read through this great article on getting these pre-requisites completed through coursera but unfortunately you need to wait for courses to enroll. I would like to just learn these on my own time, no credit necessary. Suggestions?"

Comment: Re:I still can't figure out what they did (Score 1) 85

Reminds me of the courtroom scene in Idiocracy ;)

JUDGE What're you objectifying on?

Dizz looks unsure for a moment.

  JOE (whispering to Dizz) C'mon, just put me on the stand!

DIZZ Okay. Yeah. Okay, your honor?.. I object that this guy also broke my apartment!

JOE What??

DIZZ Yeah, your honor! And I object he's not gonna have any money to pay me after he pays for all the money he stole from the hospital.

 

Japan

3 Years Later: A Fukushima Worker's Eyewitness Story 137

Posted by timothy
from the is-that-just-the-regular-ominious-music? dept.
Lasrick writes "Tuesday, March 11 is the 3rd anniversary of the Fukushima disaster. In this article, a worker at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station gives his eyewitness account of what happened there in the immediate wake of a massive earthquake and tsunami that caused three of the station's reactor cores to melt." The witness, says the story, "was promised anonymity as a condition of providing his account."

+ - Flappy Bird Clones Flood the Windows Store

Submitted by SmartAboutThings
SmartAboutThings writes "I never understood the craziness and popularity behind the Flappy Bird game and I somewhat agreed with the founder when he pulled down the game from mobile stores. But now more and more copycats are basically flooding the Windows Store . In the ‘New & Rising’ section on the Windows Store there are featured 1,000 Windows 8 apps and from my basic calculation, around 20% are Flappy Bird clones. Considering the fact that there are now more than four million daily downloads from the Windows Store, I wonder how many of these contain Flappy Bird copycats"

+ - Fukushima worker gives eyewitness account about what happened that day->

Submitted by Lasrick
Lasrick writes "Tuesday, March 11 is the 3rd anniversary of the Fukushima disaster. In this article, a worker at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station gives his eyewitness account of what happened there on March 11, 2011, in the immediate wake of a massive earthquake and tsunami that caused three of the station’s reactor cores to melt."
Link to Original Source

+ - Google faces up to $5 billion fine from Competition Commission of India->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "Google is facing investigation by the Competition Commission of India and potentially faces fines upto 10% of its three year average turnover. While Google has settled anti-trust cases in the US and European Union, Indian competition regime does not have provisions for settlement process.
More details at the Times of India link."
Link to Original Source

+ - Data Vizualization: Key routes and communities in the London bike rental network->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "I thought my new blog article might be of interest to Slashdot readers. It's about a series of visualizations built from London bike rental data. My favourite is the second map, it shows the main routes that exist between rental areas, coloured according to the local communities that exist in the network.

So you can see the major flows of bike traffic within the city, which are mostly between major railway stations and work destinations. You can also see how the different local networks relate to each other — Hyde Park is it's own little world, for example, while the networks around Kings Cross, Waterloo, and Liverpool Street are far more interconnected."
Link to Original Source

The other line moves faster.

Close