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Microsoft

Microsoft's SkyDrive Drops Silverlight 358

Posted by CmdrTaco
from the well-thats-not-good dept.
mikejuk writes "Microsoft's SkyDrive, a web service that provides cloud storage for end user files, has just acquired a revamped user interface — and it is HTML5 based. Yes, another Microsoft website has dropped Silverlight. How can Microsoft expect independent developers to base their future on Silverlight when Microsoft itself is abandoning it like a sinking ship? Whatever happened to 'eating your own dog food'? It seems that now Microsoft would rather eat dog food made elsewhere..."
Patents

Ask Slashdot: Reducing Software Patent Life-Spans? 274

Posted by timothy
from the getting-rid-of-seems-the-obvious-answer dept.
seattle_coder writes "Many have advocated for the elimination of software patents. The arguments generally are that software patents are handed out too easily, and that they're too difficult and expensive to fight. Some say that patents just plain don't make sense for software, which is such a dynamic technology. Given that the standard patent lifetime is 20 years, and software changes so rapidly, is the life-span the problem for software patents? Would reducing the software patent lifetime to 5 years or even less be the thing to do?"
Security

Security Service Accidentally Makes Websites 60% Faster 81

Posted by Soulskill
from the missing-the-punchline dept.
EastDakota writes "CloudFlare was originally conceived by the team behind the open source community. Project Honey Pot as an easy way to protect any website from hackers and spammers. The concern from the beginning was that it would add latency. It was quite a surprise when the free service launched 8 months ago and ended up speeding up websites by 60%."
Nintendo

Dearth of New Nintendo Games Could Indicate Wii 2 118

Posted by Soulskill
from the could-also-indicate-laziness dept.
A speculative piece at Kotaku looks at the release cycle of Nintendo games over the past 10 years, pointing out a current lull that's quite similar to the one near the launch of the Gamecube. They suggest this could be because first-party developers are busily working on games for the Wii 2. Quoting: "The spring of 2002 was the longest Nintendo game drought on record, and has a number of characteristics in common with the season we're entering now. Nintendo has launched a major piece of technology (the 3DS) and is initiating the gradual retirement of a console with a large and reliable installed base. While we entered into this data mining project with the presumption that we could recognize a pattern that presaged a new console release—the Wii 2, obviously—the last time there was a Nintendo game drought this pronounced was after the release of the Gamecube. Still, you can neatly overlay the release history of the Gamecube overtop the current release history of the Wii—they match that closely."
Facebook

+ - Marines have an informal agreement with Facebook->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "Spanish blogger discovered that US Marines have an informal agreement with Facebook to remove any page. In an article entitled " U.S. Marines Creating Island for Network Defense ", in this month issue of a military magazine, Brigadier General Kevin Nally head of Command, Control, Computers and Communications (C4) of the Marine Corps of the United States explains it, the Marines have an informal agreement with Facebook to remove any page that violates OPSEC, to disclose personally identifiable personal information from the Marines or attempts to impersonate officers. Also reports that the public relations office of the Marine Corps monitors Facebook and if you need a direct line to the headquarters of the network to request immediate withdrawal of information."
Link to Original Source
Science

+ - Texas man Gets Full Face Transplant ->

Submitted by RedEaredSlider
RedEaredSlider writes "A Texas man recieved the third full face transplant performed in the U.S. yesterday at Brigham and Women's Hospital.

The patient was Dallas Wiens, whose face was burned in a power line accident in 2008. He was left blinded and with little sensation where his face used to be. Wiens lost his lips, eyes, nose and much of the muscle and nerve tissue because the burns he suffered penetrated to the bones.

Dr. Bohdan Pomahac, director of the Burn Center at Brigham and Women's Hospital and leader of the surgical team, said in a press conference that Wiens will not look the way he did before, nor will he look like the person who donated his face. The reason is that Wiens' bone structure is different and the tissues will change shape as they heal."
Link to Original Source
Space

+ - Was The Early Universe 2 Dimensional Spacetime?->

Submitted by
astroengine
astroengine writes "According to two theoretical physicists, our current four-dimensional Universe (3 dimensions of space, 1 dimension of time) is actually an evolution from a lower-dimensional state. The early Universe may have existed with just one spatial dimension (plus one time dimension) up until the Universe cooled below an energy state of 100 TeV. At this point, a transition occurred when the spatial dimension "folded" to create 2 dimensions. At 1 TeV, it folded again to create the Universe we know today: 3 dimensions of space, one of time. This may sound like a purely theoretical study, but there might be evidence of the evolution of universal dimensions in cosmic ray measurements and, potentially, in gravitational wave cut-off frequency."
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