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Moon

Submission + - Roaming robot may explore mysterious Moon caverns (nature.com)

Submitted by
ananyo
ananyo writes: "William 'Red' Whittaker often spends his Sundays lowering a robot into a recently blown up coal mine pit near his cattle ranch in Pennsylvania. By 2015, he hopes that his robot, or something like it, will be rappelling down a much deeper hole, on the Moon.
The hole was discovered three years ago when Japanese researchers published images from the satellite SELENE1, but spacecraft orbiting the Moon have been unable to see into its shadowy recesses. A robot might be able to “go where the Sun doesn't shine”, and send back the first-ever look beneath the Moon's skin, Whittaker told attendees at a meeting of the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) programme in Hampton, Virginia, last week.
And Whittaker is worth taking seriously-his robots have descended into an Alaskan volcano and helped to clean up the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant. There's a video of the rover with the story (unfortunately not showing it spelunking)."
Government

Submission + - How Airport Security Is Killing Us (businessweek.com)

Submitted by another random user
another random user writes: This week marks the beginning of the busiest travel time of the year. For millions of Americans, the misery of holiday travel is made considerably worse by a government agency ostensibly designed to make our journeys more secure. Created in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Transportation Security Administration has largely outlived its usefulness, as the threat of a terrorist attack on the U.S. homeland continues to recede. These days, the TSA’s major role appears to be to make plane trips more unpleasant. And by doing so, it’s encouraging people to take the considerably more dangerous option of traveling by road.

According to one estimate of direct and indirect costs borne by the U.S. as a result of 9/11, the New York Times suggested the attacks themselves caused $55 billion in “toll and physical damage,” while the economic impact was $123 billion. But costs related to increased homeland security and counterterrorism spending, as well as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, totaled $3,105 billion. Mueller and Stewart estimate that government spending on homeland security over the 2002-11 period accounted for around $580 billion of that total.

If Americans really care about saving lives this Thanksgiving travel season, for goodness’ sake, don’t beef up airport security any further. Slashing the TSA will ensure that more people live to spend future holidays with loved ones.
Businesses

Submission + - Unresolved Issues Swirl Around Securing Mobile Payments (banktech.com)

Submitted by
CowboyRobot
CowboyRobot writes: "While many mobile payments startups are using both traditional and nontraditional authentication methods, regulatory uncertainty still exists around liability for fraud attacks on customers using mobile payments. Although there haven't been any public attacks from fraudsters on alternative mobile payments providers such as Square, LevelUp or Dwolla, anecdotal stories are already circulating among security experts and regulators of such attacks. One thing that still has to be worked out in this area is regulatory oversight. "The regulators are not yet clear who owns the regulatory oversight for these environments. These technologies tend to fall through the cracks even in terms of card-present or card-not-present.""
Music

Submission + - Best way to know which online Intnl Music Stores are legit?

Submitted by
rjnagle
rjnagle writes: "I'm an American lover of music who is interested in buying legally music from other countries. How do I know which CD/online music stores are legit and actually benefit the artist? I'm very cost-conscious and prefer indie music anyway, so the types of international music for sale on Amazon/itunes tends to be from the bigger labels. Suppose I wanted to buy music from Pakistan/Ukraine/China/Brazil/Chad. What's the best way to identify which labels or online stories are authorized to sell them? Perhaps all I need is a list of the best known online music stores for each region (Yesasia.com, etc)."

Submission + - A better brain powered computer cursor (stanford.edu)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Stanford Researchers have developed a new algorithm that significantly improves the control and performance of neural prosthetics: brain-controlled computer interfaces for individuals suffering from spinal cord injury and neurodegenerative disease to aid interaction with computers, drive electronic wheelchairs, and control robotic arms and legs. With this algorithm, monkeys implanted with multielectrode arrays in motor regions of their brain controlled a computer cursor more quickly and accurately than ever before, including navigation around obstacles. Further, the system maintained this high performance across 4 years, demonstrating long-term reliability. These improvements in performance and robustness are crucial for clinically-useful neural prosthetics, and pave the way for success in clinical trails.
Your Rights Online

Submission + - Coffee and Intellectual Property (allafrica.com)

Submitted by cervesaebraciator
cervesaebraciator writes: A "Coffee Branding Workshop," sponsored by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), was held recently in Arusha City wherein the Director General of the Tanzania Coffee Board presented a paper entitled "Supporting the Coffee Sector with added Value Products Through Intellectual Property and Branding." The paper encouraged the use of intellectual property claims, including trademarks, copyrights, patents, and designs, as sources of income which can be used to support agriculture in Africa. The Director General claimed, "[Intellectual property rights] are the basis for today's knowledge based economy and international competitiveness". This is no doubt related to a broader effort to advance western style intellectual property in Africa through claims of the benefits it offers agriculture. Promoting western style intellectual property law as a means of third world development is a popular strategy for WIPO, the only branch of the UN to have significant wealth deriving from contributions independent of Member States. On a related note of interest to Slashdotters, there is a history of tension between WIPO advocates and FOSS advocates.
Piracy

Submission + - The real reason why the MPAA fears piracy (aardvark.co.nz)

Submitted by
NewtonsLaw
NewtonsLaw writes: "I'm pretty sure that everyone reading this will be aware of the movie Iron Sky.

I've been waiting for a long time to watch this movie and finally it has been uploaded to YouTube so I watched it on the weekend.

As the title credits rolled, I rushed off and pre-ordered the BluRay disk of the movie, which isn't due for release here in NZ until December 14th.

I am proof that making your wares available for free can actually promote sales — but only so long as your content is good enough (which Iron Sky certainly is). So, perhaps the reason that the MPAA fears piracy is because it lets people see just how crappy most of their material is *before* they fork over their hard earned cash.

I blogged about this in more detail today"
Android

Submission + - First dual-booting tablet can run Linux/Android (pengpod.com)

Submitted by garbagechuteflyboy
garbagechuteflyboy writes: PengPod is the first dual-booting tablet; It's able to run both Linux and Android. Pengpod is now running the latest Plasma Active which gives this powerful Linux tablet features that were previously only available to iPad and Android tablets. PengPod is currently selling Pre-orders on Indiegogo.
PengPod hoping to ship inexpensive Linux tablets with 7, 10 inch displays liliputing
Android and Linux on a dual-booting tablet Ars Technica
Meet the PengPod, a 'true Linux' tablet starting at $120 PCWorld

Submission + - Hounded By Recruiters, Codes Put Themselves Up For Auction (forbes.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: When Pete London posted a resume on LinkedIn in December 2009, the JavaScript specialist stumbled into a trap of sorts. Shortly after creating a profile he received a message from a recruiter at Google. Just days later, another from Mozilla. Facebook reached out the next month and over the course of the next two years, nearly every big name in tech – attempt to lure him to a new employer. He received 530 messages in all, or one every 40 hours... the only problem? Pete London didn't exist.
Nintendo

Submission + - Nintendo Wii U Teardown Reveals Simple Design (pcper.com)

Submitted by Vigile
Vigile writes: Nintendo has never been known to be very aggressive with its gaming console hardware and with today's release (in the US) of the Wii U we are seeing a continuation of that business model. PC Perspective spent several hours last night taking apart a brand new console to reveal a very simplistic board and platform design topped off with the single multi-chip module that holds the IBM PowerPC CPU and the AMD GPU. The system includes 2GB of GDDR3 memory from Samsung and Foxconn/Hon-Hai built wireless controllers for WiFi and streaming video the the gamepad. Even though this system is 5 years newer, many analysts estimate the processing power of Nintendo's Wii U to be just ahead of what you have in the Xbox 360 today.
Science

Submission + - Cancer can teach us about our own evolution (guardian.co.uk)

Submitted by
hessian
hessian writes: "Cancer, it seems, is embedded in the basic machinery of life, a type of default state that can be triggered by some kind of insult. That suggests it is not a modern aberration but has deep evolutionary roots, a suspicion confirmed by the fact that it is not confined to humans but is widespread among mammals, fish, reptiles and even plants. Scientists have identified genes implicated in cancer that are thought to be hundreds of millions of years old. Clearly, we will fully understand cancer only in the context of biological history."

Submission + - Taxing the value of copyright? (skolelinux.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: "Why isn't the value of copyright taxed?" is the question raised by Norwegian blogger Petter Reinholdtsen. He suggest to make the tax office provide incentives to get more copyrighted works to enter the public domain, and to make it easier to figure out who to contact to be allowed to use copyrighted works, by taxing the value of copyright.
Linux

Submission + - Linux on the TI-Nspire graphing calculator (wordpress.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Developers been working hard for the past few months to get Linux ported to the TI-Nspire calculator.

The port is not yet fully stabilized nor quite ready for broad consumption and requires some user-level knowledge of Linux systems, but is definitely worth a try. Experimental support for root filesystem installed on USB mass storage is being worked on, so that Datalight’s proprietary Flash FX/Reliance filesystem used by TI’s OS isn’t a limit anymore. This also means that the native TI-Nspire OS image is not replaced by the Linux system, and Linux can been booted on demand.

Support for USB keyboard, X server, directFB, Wi-Fi (with the help of a powered USB hub) and text-based Internet browsing is progressively being added and tested.
Science

Submission + - Deathstar! Europe Building Most Powerful Laser Ever Built (singularityhub.com)

Submitted by
kkleiner
kkleiner writes: "On the coattails of CERN’s success with the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), Europeans and the world at large have another grand science project to be excited about: the Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI) project to build the most powerful laser ever constructed. These lasers will be intense enough to perform electron dynamics experiments at very short time scales or venture into relativistic optics, opening up an entirely new field of physics for study. Additionally, the lasers could be combined to generate a super laser that would shoot into space, similar to the combined laser effect of the Death Star in the Star Wars trilogy, though the goal is to study particles in space, not annihilate planets."

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