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Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft Getting Cooler 1

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: Microsoft is getting hip again, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll, but Google with Android still the coolest kid in school, Apple doing great as well. The polling organization asked the US's finest 18 and 29-year-olds what the coolest tech brands are, allowing them to give a 'thumb up' for brands they liked. Interestingly, for the first time in a long while around half answered Microsoft. The opinion was that Microsoft is cooler now than it was a year or two ago. 'It's more customizable, and not as rigid as an Apple phone, where you have to buy all the products from Apple. If you want a ringtone, you don't have to pay iTunes. I know Apple is the cool, hip brand right now, but if Microsoft keeps coming out with new tech I'm sure it'll be back soon.', Josh Johnson, a 24-year-old media arts student at the University of South Carolina commented. Although 'coolness' remains, at best, an amorphous concept, consumer perceptions are pivotal in determining the longevity of products, particularly in the fast-moving consumer electronics industry. The survey 'definitely shows that Microsoft's efforts are paying off, but we'll have to see how cool translates into customers,' said Gartner analyst Michael Gartenberg.
Government

Submission + - Federally funded research to be publicly available within 1 year of publication (whitehouse.gov)

Submitted by Z80xxc!
Z80xxc! writes: The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy announced a "policy memorandum" today requiring any federal agency with over $100 million in R&D expenditures each year to develop plans for making all research funded by that agency freely available to the public within one year of publication in any peer-reviewed scholarly journal. The full memorandum is available on the White House website. It appears that this policy would not only apply to federal agencies conducting research, but also to any university, private corporation, or other entity conducting research that arises from federal funding. For those in academia and the public at large, this is a huge step towards free open access to publicly funded research.
Yahoo!

Submission + - Mayer Terminates Yahoo's Remote Employee Policy

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: AllThingsD's Kara Swisher reported and tweeted that Marissa Mayer (CEO since July 2012) has just sent an all-hands email ending Yahoo's policy of allowing remote employees. Hundreds of workers have been given the choice: start showing up for work at HQ (which would require relocation in many cases), or resign. (They can forget about Yahoo advice pieces like this). Mayer has also been putting her stamp on Yahoo's new home page, which was rolled out Wednesday. She's also been fixing the customer service 'hold' music. Oh yeah, and she recently gave birth to a baby boy.
Politics

Submission + - Rep. Judy Chu Starts "Intellectual Property" Caucus with Rep. Howard Coble (pasadenasun.com)

Submitted by cervesaebraciator
cervesaebraciator writes: U.S. Representative Judy Chu (D-CA) will be starting a new caucus with the ostensible purpose of protecting the intellectual property rights of filmmakers, musicians and other artists. The new caucus, styled the Congressional Creative Rights Caucus, will be formed along with Rep. Howard Coble (R-NC). Chu's office released a statement, including the following:

American innovation hinges on creativity – it is what allows our kids to dream big and our artists to create works that inspire us all. The jobs that result are thanks entirely to our willingness to foster creative talent, and an environment where it can thrive and prosper." [...] The Congressional Creative Rights Caucus will serve to educate Members of Congress and the general public about the importance of preserving and protecting the rights of the creative community in the U.S. American creators of motion pictures, music, software and other creative works rely on Congress to protect their copyrights, human rights, First Amendment rights and property rights.

Submission + - Carmakers Oppose opening up 5GHZ Spectrum Space for unlicensed WiFi (dailytech.com)

Submitted by s122604
s122604 writes: Automakers aren't too happy about a recent U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proposal, which uses part of the wireless spectrum assigned to vehicle-to-vehicle technology for Wi-Fi instead.

The FCC announced that it plans to free up 195 MHz of spectrum in the 5 GHz band for unlicensed use in an effort to address the U.S.' spectrum crisis. This could potentially lead to Wi-Fi speeds faster than 1 gigabit per second.
The Military

Submission + - There is Plenty to Cut at the Pentagon 2

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "William D. Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy, writes that although we have been bombarded with tales of woe about the potentially devastating impacts of cutting the Pentagon budget 8% under the sequester, examples of egregious waste and misplaced spending priorities at the Pentagon abound and one need look no further than the department's largest weapons program, the F-35 combat aircraft which has just been grounded again after a routine inspection revealed a crack on a turbine blade in the jet engine of an F-35 test aircraft in California. Even before it has moved into full-scale production, the plane has already increased in price by 75%, and it has so far failed to meet basic performance standards. By the Pentagon's own admission, building and operating three versions of the F-35 — one for the Air Force, one for the Navy and one for the Marines — will cost more than $1.4 trillion over its lifetime, making it the most expensive weapons program ever undertaken. And in an era in which aerial combat is of diminishing importance and upgraded versions of current generation US aircraft can more than do the job, it is not at all clear that we need to purchase more than 2,400 of these planes. Cutting the two most expensive versions of the F-35 will save over $60 billion in the next decade. But some say the F-35 program is too big to kill. The F-35 funnels business to a global network of contractors that includes Northrop Grumman and Kongsberg Gruppen ASA of Norway. It counts 1,300 suppliers in 45 states supporting 133,000 jobs — and more in nine other countries, according to Lockheed. “It’s got a lot of political protection,” says Winslow Wheeler, a director at the Project on Government Oversight’s Center for Defense Information in Washington. “In that environment, very, very few members of Congress are willing to say this is an unaffordable dog and we need to get rid of it.”"
Chrome

Submission + - Google Releases Chrome 25 With Voice Recognition Support

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Google on Thursday released Chrome version 25 for Windows, Mac, and Linux. While Chrome 24 was largely a stability release, Chrome 25 is all about features, including voice recognition support via the newly added Web Speech API and the blocking of silent extension installation. You can update to the latest release now using the browser's built-in silent updater, or download it directly from google.com/chrome.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: How to deal with a company that appears unconcerned that their use 3

Submitted by jetkins
jetkins writes: As the owner of my own mail domain, I have the luxury of being able to create unique email addresses to use when registering with web sites and providers. So when I started to receive virus-infected emails recently, at an address that I created exclusively for use with a well-known provider of tools for the Systems Administration community (and which I have never used anywhere else), I knew immediately that either their systems or their subscriber list had been compromised.

I passed my concerns on to a couple of their employees whom I know socially, and they informed me that they had passed it up the food chain, but I have never received any sort of official response, nor seen any public notification or acceptance of this situation.

When I received another virus-infected email at that same address this week, I posted a polite note on their Facebook page. Again, nothing.

If it was a company in any other field, I might expect this degree of nonchalance, but given the fact that this company is staffed by — and primarily services — geeks, I'm a little taken aback by their apparent reticence.

So, since the polite, behind-the-scenes approach appears to have no effect, I now throw it out to the group consciousness: Am I being paranoid, or are these folks being unreasonable in refusing to accept or even acknowledge that a problem might exist? What would you recommend as my next course of action?
Displays

Submission + - Carmack On VR Latency (altdevblogaday.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: For a while now, John Carmack has been pushing to bring virtual reality technology back to the gaming world. VR was largely abandoned over a decade ago when it became apparent that the hardware just wasn't ready to support it. In 2013, things are different; cheap displays with a high pixel density and powerful processors designed for small systems are making virtual reality a... reality. One of the last obstacles to be conquered is latency — the delay between moving your head and seeing your perspective change in the virtual world. In a lengthy and highly-technical post at #AltDevBlogADay, Carmack has outlined a number of strategies for mitigating and reducing latency. With information and experience like this being shared with the game development community at large, it shouldn't be long until VR makes a permanent place for itself in our gaming lives.
Piracy

Submission + - Copyright Alert System to launch Monday (dailydot.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Starting next week, most U.S. Internet users will be subject to a new copyright enforcement system that could force them to complete educational programs, and even slow their Internet speeds to a crawl.

A source with direct knowledge of the Copyright Alert System (CAS), who asked to not to be named, has told the Daily Dot that the five participating Internet service providers (ISPs) will start the controversial program Monday.

The ISPs—industry giants AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner, and Verizon—will launch their versions of the CAS on different days throughout the week. Comcast is expected to be the first, on Monday.
Education

Submission + - Columbia University study slams traditional online classes

Submitted by
lpress
lpress writes: "A Columbia University study of the efficacy of "traditional online classes" concluded that “the online format had a significantly negative relationship with both course persistence and course grade, indicating that the typical student had difficulty adapting to online courses.”

A review of the study reports that online results were poor across the board, but there the results were not homogeneous. For example “males, Black students, and students with lower levels of academic preparation experienced significantly stronger negative coefficients for online learning compared with their counterparts". Some courses — social science and professional school classes — also fared poorly online.

The study concludes with four policy recommendations to cope with the problems they found, but only one — wholesale improvement of courses seems viable and we may be learning how to do that in MOOCs."
Android

Submission + - HTC Required by FTC Patch Vulnerabilities on Smartphones and Tablets (ftc.gov)

Submitted by
haberb
haberb writes: "I always thought my HTC phones were of average or above average quality, and certainly no less secure than an vanilla android install, but it turns out someone was still not impressed.

Mobile device manufacturer HTC America has agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that the company failed to take reasonable steps to secure the software it developed for its smartphones and tablet computers, introducing security flaws that placed sensitive information about millions of consumers at risk.

Perhaps this will push HTC to release some of the ICS upgrades they promised a few months ago but never delivered, or perhaps the reason they fell through in the first place?"
China

Submission + - Growing Public Unrest Leads China to Admit to "Cancer Villages" (bbc.co.uk) 1

Submitted by eldavojohn
Bitcoin

Submission + - The Internet Archive to Pay Salaries in Bitcoin, Requests Donations (paritynews.com)

Submitted by hypnosec
hypnosec writes: Bitcoin is gaining popularity among mainstream sites lately and the latest to adopt the digital currency as a medium of donations and payments is the Internet Archive. Ready to accept donation in the form of Bitcoin, the Internet Archive announced that it wants to do so to pay some part of employees’ salaries, if they choose to, in Bitcoin. The Archive, known for its storage of digital documents especially the previous version of webpages, is looking to start part salary payments in Bitcoin by April 2013 if everything goes well.

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