×
Oracle

Submission + - Oracle makes Red Hat kernel changes available as broken-out patches (oracle.com)

Submitted by Artefacto
Artefacto writes: The Ksplice team has made available a git repository with the changes Red Hat made to the kernel broken down. They are calling this project RedPatch.

This comes in response to a policy change Red Hat had operated in early 2011 with the goal of undercutting Oracle and other vendor's strategy of poaching RedHat's customers. The Ksplice team says they've doing the work they're now making available since the policy was implemented; they claim to be now making it public because they "feel everyone in the Linux community can benefit from the work".

For Ksplice, we build individual updates for each change and rely on source patches that are broken-out, not a giant tarball. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to take the right patches to create individual updates for each fix, and to skip over the noise — like a change that speeds up bootup — which is unnecessary for an already-running system. We’ve been taking the monolithic Red Hat patch tarball and breaking it into smaller commits internally ever since they introduced this change.

At Oracle, we feel everyone in the Linux community can benefit from the work we already do to get our jobs done, so now we’re sharing these broken-out patches publicly.
Google

Submission + - Flash Player Update Forces Installation of Google Toolbar (adobe.com) 4

Submitted by
breakpoint8088
breakpoint8088 writes: "Flash users who don't want the Google Toolbar should avoid updating Flash, at least on 64-bit Windows 7. I finally relented and allowed Adobe Flash to update on my Windows 7 box, and my security solution caught it trying to install the Google Toolbar-- without asking. Other people are seeing this as well. Adobe has not yet commented."

Submission + - 15 year jail sentence for pirating movies. (torrentfreak.com) 1

Submitted by
Xpo3
Xpo3 writes: ""The RIAA has welcomed a mind-boggling jail sentence handed to a man who sold pirated movies and music. The 37-year-old man pleaded guilty to six felony counts of selling counterfeit media after he sold five movies and one music CD to an undercover investigator without the permission of copyright holders. As a result he will go to jail in Mississippi for 15 years to be followed by three years of supervised release." -TorrentFreak"
Crime

Submission + - In Mississippi: 15 Year Jail Sentence For Movie and Music Copyright Infringement (torrentfreak.com)

Submitted by patella.whack
patella.whack writes: A guilty plea for six counts of selling counterfeit media gets a defendant 15 years in Mississippi. An undercover reporter from the Attorney General’s Intellectual Property Theft Task Force managed to buy a total of five copied movies and one music CD from the defendant who had 10,500 pirated discs at home and 2 prior convictions: one for assaulting a police officer 17 years ago and one for CD piracy that got him a year under house arrest.

          Says the RIAA: "[This] highlights the fact that the individuals engaging in these activities are frequently serial criminals for whom IP theft is simply the most convenient and profitable way they could steal from others."

          Frequently serial criminals? 15 years? I wonder how much of his sentence can be attributed to his priors rather than to other factors...

Submission + - Africa makers get energy from pee (makerfaireafrica.com)

Submitted by aglider
aglider writes: A few sources is reporting about this technology breakthrough.
A group of African students built a small generator where with

1 Liter of urine gives you 6 hours of electricity.

It's not 100% clear how much energy you can get out of that liter (you insensitive Imperial clod) though.
It's also not 100% clear whether the main aim of the setup is to purify water or to generate energy thanks to electrolysis.
In any case either aim would be a great thing in a continent like Africa. And the whole world as well.
Businesses

Submission + - Cyber Weapon Friendly Fire: Chevron Hit by Stuxnet (informationweek.com)

Submitted by
CowboyRobot
CowboyRobot writes: "The pioneering Stuxnet computer virus, which was designed to attack a single Iranian uranium enrichment facility, went on to infect PCs around the world. Security experts have identified thousands of resulting Stuxnet infections. On Monday, multinational energy giant Chevron became the first U.S. company to admit that it, too, was infected by Stuxnet.

"'Escaped' continues to be a puzzling term when applied to a virus that relied on numerous Microsoft zero-day vulnerabilities and propagation vectors," said Sean McBride, the director of analysis for Critical Intelligence, in a SANS newsletter. "On the other hand, if your system was not the single underground facility in Iran that Stuxnet was intended to disrupt, the infection was benign. Such collateral damage is part of the price industry gets to pay for — what was then — two more years of Iran [being] without a nuclear weapon.""
Microsoft

Submission + - Windows Chief Steven Sinofsky Leaves Microsoft (computerworld.com)

Submitted by
CWmike
CWmike writes: "Steven Sinofsky, the executive in charge of Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system and the driving force behind the new OS, is leaving the company effective immediately, Microsoft announced late Monday. Sinofsky was also the public face for Windows 8 and its new Metro interface, posting constant updates in a Windows 8 blog that charted its development. His last post, fittingly, was entitled 'Updating Windows 8 for General Availability.' The OS was officially launched at the end of last month. According to the All Things D blog, there was growing tension between Sinofsky and other members of the Microsoft executive team, who didn't see him as enough of a team player. But Microsoft's official position is that the decision was a mutual one. Sinofsky had only good things to say about his former employer."
Privacy

Submission + - Petraeus case shows FBI's authority to read email (yahoo.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Back in April, we discussed how the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act defines email that has resided on a server for more than six months can be considered abandoned. The recent investigation of General Petraeus brings this issue to light again, and perhaps to a broader audience. Under current US law, federal authorities need only a subpoena approved by a federal prosecutor — not a judge — to obtain electronic messages that are six months old or older. Do you know anyone these days who doesn't have IMAP accounts with 6+-month-old mail on them?
Microsoft

Submission + - Sinofsky leaves Microsoft, Julie Larson-Green now in charge of Windows Division (winbeta.org)

Submitted by BogenDorpher
BogenDorpher writes: Steven Sinofsky, the man who was behind the development and marketing of Windows (including the recently released Windows 8), Internet Explorer, Outlook.com, and SkyDrive had apparently left the company. In his place, Julie Larson-Green will run the Windows division while Tami Reller will take charge of the business of Windows.

Submission + - Lithium ion battery prices to drop? (anl.gov)

Submitted by
mtrachtenberg
mtrachtenberg writes: "A California company working with Argonne National Labs is talking about a new anode for lithium ion batteries; it claims a 300%+ increase in energy density and is talking about volume manufacturing by 2014.

The company, California Lithium Battery, is talking about a potential 70% price drop in the cost of EV battery packs. If this happens, EVs suddenly begin to make sense."
Firefox

Submission + - The Shumway Open SWF Runtime Project (mozilla.org)

Submitted by theweatherelectric
theweatherelectric writes: Mozilla is looking for contributors interested in working on Shumway. Mozilla's Jet Villegas writes, 'Shumway is an experimental web-native runtime implementation of the SWF file format. It is developed as a free and open source project sponsored by Mozilla Research. The project has two main goals: 1. Advance the open web platform to securely process rich media formats that were previously only available in closed and proprietary implementations. 2. Offer a runtime processor for SWF and other rich media formats on platforms for which runtime implementations are not available.'
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft makes Direct X 11.1 a Windows 8 Exclusive! (theverge.com)

Submitted by BluPhenix316
BluPhenix316 writes: Microsoft has made Direct X 11.1 a Windows 8 Exclusive. I think this is merely a update to make Direct X more integrated with Windows 8. Is this going to be the trend? To lock you into the OS updates so Windows 7 doesn't last as long as Windows XP has?
Math

Submission + - Your Unconscious Brain Can Do Math, Process Language (ieee.org)

Submitted by the_newsbeagle
the_newsbeagle writes: It's hard to determine what the unconscious brain is doing since, after all, we're not aware of it. But in a neat set of experiments, researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's consciousness lab found evidence that the unconscious brain can parse language and perform simple arithmetic. The researchers flashed colorful patterns at test subjects that took up all their attention and allowed for the subliminal presentation of sentences or equations. In the language processing experiment, researchers found that subjects became consciously aware of a sentence sooner if it was jarring and nonsensical (like, for example, the sentence "I ironed coffee").

Slashdot Top Deals