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Medicine

Followup: Ultraviolet Vision After Cataract Surgery 311

Posted by timothy from the sounds-like-a-fun-upgrade dept.
xmas2003 writes "Several months ago, I posted to Slashdot about being able to see ultraviolet light after cataract surgery. While a lot of the discussion whimsically discussed the best way for 'Captain UV' or 'UltraMan' to use this 'super-power,' there were some people who were skeptical or (incorrectly) said this is Tetrachromatic vision. I've subsequently done more testing using an Oriel Instruments MS257 Monochromator and was able to see color down to 350nm — below the usual ~400nm limit of the visual spectrum. It's also easily demonstrable with a pair of 400nm and 365nm UV flashlights. Some readers who also have UV vision commented this can be quite annoying at black-lit Disney Rides, Halloween Haunted Houses, etc. Fortunately for me, it's just an interesting oddity so far. Along those lines, some interesting related stories about using UV vision during World War II and Star Gazing. Finally, many/most people end up getting vision debilitating cataracts, so my experience having a Crystalens implanted after cataract surgery may be informative."
Open Source

LibreOffice 3.5 Released 205

Posted by timothy from the because-it-is-awesome dept.
First time accepted submitter wrldwzrd89 writes "The Document Foundation, the team behind the free and open-source office suite called LibreOffice, has released their latest and greatest version. As is typical with major releases of LibreOffice, there are significant new features making their debut in this version. The component with the biggest upgrade is Calc, which now has support for up to 10,000 sheets per workbook among its new features. Also noteworthy among the new features is support for importing Microsoft Visio files in Impress and Draw. The full feature list is available in a PDF hosted on Dropbox; LibreOffice itself can be downloaded here."
Government

Did Anonymous Take Down CIA.gov? 125

Posted by timothy from the scheduled-demolition-of-the-old-bailey dept.
jfruh writes "The CIA's website has been down intermittently since Friday, apparently the victim of a DDOS attack. One of the more interesting questions of the story is whether elements of Anonymous are behind this — a question that even prominent members of the Anonymous movement can't seem to answer with any certainty. Perhaps this is obvious, but it seems that an anarchic, leaderless grouping can be hard to keep tabs on."
Hardware Hacking

Stanford's Francis Fukuyama Builds Personal Surveillance Drone 92

Posted by timothy from the who-is-this-fukuyama-guy? dept.
HerbieTMac writes "Political science professor Francis Fukuyama builds and flies his own personal surveillance drones. His current model requires ground visibility but he is working on the HAM license that would allow fully remote operation. His YouTube videos (video 1 , video 2) are particularly impressive." I had no idea that Francis Fukuyama had such technical interests.
GUI

Linux Of the Future May Be About Which Environment, Not Which Distribution 214

Posted by timothy from the mo'-zilla-mo'-zilla dept.
itwbennett writes "In its 2012 roadmap, the Mozilla Foundation highlights plans to create its own soup-to-nuts mobile platform, known as Boot to Gecko. With this move, the Mozilla Foundation 'is finally shaking off its dependence on browser revenues and treading where Google, with ChromeOS; Canonical, with Unity on Ubuntu; and (most recently) the Plasma community's Spark tablet have already started: the creation of standards-based platforms that rely on robust web applications (in varying degrees) more than native-run apps to provide the user experience,' writes blogger Brian Proffitt. 'I very much think that we are heading for a time when Linux flavors will be identified by environments, not distributions.'"
Transportation

Laser Scanner May Allow Passengers To Take Bottled Drinks On Planes Again 343

Posted by timothy from the why-haven't-they-banned-belts-and-shoelaces? dept.
cylonlover writes "Besides having to remove our shoes, the volume limitations regarding liquids and gels in carry-on baggage has become a major hassle in the world of post 9-11 airport security. Hopefully, however, we may soon be able to once again bring our big bottles of water and tubes of toothpaste aboard airliners in our overnight bags. Britain's Cobalt Light Systems has developed a scanner called the INSIGHT100, that uses laser light to assess the liquid contents of containers, even if those containers are opaque."
NASA

White House Wants Devastating Cuts To NASA's Mars Exploration 422

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the carl-sagan-grave-spin-powerful-enough-to-drive-generator dept.
The Bad Astronomer writes "The White House released its proposed NASA budget for FY13, and while much of it remains the same from last year, one particular program got devastating news: Mars exploration got a crippling $226 million cut, more than 38% of its budget. This means killing two future missions outright and threatening others. The reasons for this are complex, including huge cost overruns on James Webb Space Telescope and the Curiosity Mars rover, but it also points to a political lack of valuing science in America." A followup to news from before the budget was released, this has details on the actual proposed cuts and re-allocations.
Image

Mozart and Bach Handel Subway Station Crime 353

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the youth-flee-iron-maiden dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports that transit officials have started to get a handel on subway crime when they started playing Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, and Strauss at the Lake Street light-rail station after neighborhood residents complained about the station becoming a haven for rowdy teens and vagrants. 'If it encourages some people to wander away because it's not their favorite type of music, I guess that's OK,' says Acting Transit Police Chief A.J. Olson. The program is modeled after one is Portland that has shown early signs of success, though the numbers are so small as to be statistically insignificant and even supporters of the music haven't reached a consensus on whether such environmental changes actually deter crime or just push it down the block. Not everyone is sold on using 'lovely lovely Ludwig Van' as a deterrent. 'Classical music lovers hate the fact that urban planners use classical music to disperse youth,' says Minneapolis City Council Member Gary Schiff. 'Does it chase crime away?' adds Olson. 'It's hard to measure. But I do think it makes it a more pleasant place to wait for a train.'"
Space

ESA Discovers Unexpected 'Haze' of Microwave Transmissions 69

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the god-chain-smokes dept.
astroengine writes "The European space observatory Planck has discovered something peculiar about our galaxy: it's humming in microwaves and, for the moment, the source of the 'hard' radiation surrounding the galaxy's core is a complete mystery. Also, the Milky Way is home to previously unknown 'islands' of cold carbon monoxide gas, helping astronomers uncover the distribution of star-forming regions."
Businesses

Apple-Approved Fair Labor Inspections Begin At Foxconn 334

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the five-minute-tea-break-required-between-beatings dept.
redletterdave writes "Apple announced on Monday that the Fair Labor Association has begun inspecting Foxconn's Chinese factories, upon Apple's request. Apple said that Auret van Heerden, the president of the FLA, is leading a group of labor rights experts in the first round of inspections at the sprawling plant in Shenzhen, China, more informally known as 'Foxconn City.' The FLA's independent assessment — completely supplementary to Apple's own auditing practices — will involve interviewing thousands of Foxconn employees about the working and living conditions, including working hours, compensation, managerial issues, and health and safety conditions. Foxconn has 'pledged full cooperation with the FLA,' and will reportedly allow unrestricted access to all of their operations. The investigative team will report their findings in early March on the FLA's website. Apple's other suppliers, including Quanta and Pegatron, will be inspected later this spring. By the time summer rolls around, the FLA hopes to have covered 90 percent of facilities where Apple products are built and assembled."
GNOME

GNOME 3: Beauty To the Bone? 647

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the needs-more-ponies dept.
someWebGeek writes "According to the GNOME design crew, as reported by Allan over at As Far as I Know, GNOME 3 will represent a new approach to GNOME application design. The design patterns being developed and employed may effect a new, prettier interface, but more importantly a new mindset about the entire project, a mindset intended to encourage greater deep beauty in the application layers below the user interface. Maybe...for now, I'm sticking to the sinking ship of KDE in the Ubuntu ocean."
Businesses

EU and US Approve Google-Motorola Deal 187

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the rocka-google-rola dept.
angry tapir writes "European regulators have given Google the green light to take over Motorola Mobility. The U.S. $12.5 billion deal faced strong opposition from open source and consumer rights advocates, including Consumer Watchdog, but the European Commission announced on Monday that the acquisition could go ahead, without conditions." Later in the day the DOJ announced an end to its investigation, greenlighting the acquisition in the U.S. as well.
Technology

Ask Slashdot: Making a Tablet Run Only One Application? 260

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the write-your-own-exokernel dept.
An anonymous reader asks "I'm working for a medical centre who want to make a tablet with various videos and webpages about smoking cessation available in their waiting room. The tablet can't access the Internet because of security policies. I'm planning to use a local server with copies of the (Creative Commons) videos and pages accessed through local webpages using the tablet's browser. How can I make only the browser be available to the tablet users? Ideas? Suggestions?"
Security

Cryptome Hit By Blackhole Exploit Kit 49

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the leaks-were-sleeping-around dept.
wiredmikey writes with an excerpt from Security Week:"Whistleblower site Cryptome has been hacked and infected by the Blackhole exploit kit. ... Cryptome co-founder John Young however told SecurityWeek that the Cryptome site is in the process of cleaning everything up, and that process should be finished by the end of the day. Founded in 1996, Cryptome publishes thousands of documents, including many related to national security, law enforcement and military. On Feb. 12, a reader advised the site that accessing a file had triggered a warning in their antivirus about the Blackhole exploit kit. ... Subsequent analysis found thousands of files on the site had been infected." Cryptome has certainly seen worse.
Education

MIT's Online Education Prototype Opens For Enrollment 42

Posted by Soulskill from the now-they-face-the-wrath-of-khan dept.
OldHawk777 writes with news that MITx, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's online learning initiative, has opened free enrollment for its first course: 6.002x: Circuits and Electronics. "Modeled after MIT’s 6.002 — an introductory course for undergraduate students in MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) — 6.002x will introduce engineering in the context of the lumped circuit abstraction, helping students make the transition from physics to the fields of electrical engineering and computer science. ... 'We are very excited to begin MITx with this prototype class,' says MIT Provost L. Rafael Reif. 'We will use this prototype course to optimize the tools we have built by soliciting and acting on feedback from learners.' To access the course, registered students will log in at mitx.mit.edu, where they will find a course schedule, an e-textbook for the course, and a discussion board. Each week, students will watch video lectures and demonstrations, work with practice exercises, complete homework assignments, and participate in an online interactive lab specifically designed to replicate its real-world counterpart. Students will also take exams and be able to check their grades as they progress in the course. Overall, students can expect to spend approximately 10 hours each week on the course."

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