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Mozilla

Submission + - Firefox Finally Gets Gstreamer Multimedia Backend! (blogspot.ca)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: So what does this mean? I believe not much yet for the enduser, at least this is a very nice infrastructure change to enable stuff like hardware acceleration e.g. on mobile devices. And from my point of view also a good separation: Do one thing and do it well. Let gstream do the multimedia stuff and Mozilla all that compositing.

Submission + - Webcomic Gets Adapted Into Feature Film (phdmovie.com) 2

Submitted by Technically Inept
Technically Inept writes: To the best of my knowledge, Jorge Cham's Piled Higher and Deeper (better known as PhD Comics) is the first webcomic to be adapted into a feature-length film. After months spent on a college campus screening tour, Piled Higher and Deeper: The Movie is finally available for purchase and streaming. And, like its comic inspiration, the PhD pokes fun at the frustrations of graduate students, those noble folks who enter academia with dreams of changing the world and inspiring young minds, only to be thwarted by indifferent professors, lazy undergrads and the ever-present fear that they'll never graduate.

From Comics Alliance: http://www.comicsalliance.com/2012/04/19/phd-comics-the-movie-video/#ixzz1sc9nHRsi
Android

Submission + - Accountability - Not Code Quality- Makes iOS Safer Than Android (threatpost.com) 1

Submitted by
chicksdaddy
chicksdaddy writes: "Threatpost is reporting on a new study of mobile malware that finds accountability, not superior technology, has kept Apple's iOS ecosystem free of viruses, even as the competing Android platform strains under the wait of repeated malicious code outbreaks.
Dan Guido of the firm Trail of Bits and Michael Arpaia of iSEC Partners told attendees at the SOURCE Boston Conference on Thursday about an empirical analysis of existing malicious programs for the Android and iOS platforms shows that Google is losing the mobile security contest badly — every piece of malicious code the two identified was for the company's Android OS, while Apple's iOS remained free of malware, despite owning 30% of the mobile smart phone market in the U.S. Apple's special sauce? Policies that demand accountability from iOS developers, and stricter controls on what applications can do once they are installed on Apple devices."
Open Source

Submission + - Scientists Can Recreate Brain 'Flow' State in Lab; You too, soon (fellowgeek.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A small software startup called “GoFlow”, a company that is making a DIY opensource kit for tDCS. tDCS, in case you are wondering, stands for “transcranial Direct Current Stimulation".
Tennis players report it, expert video game players know it well. It is a state in which you are utterly focused on the task, one in which you learn faster and perform better. All with the flip of a switch.

GoFlow is attempting to build a $99.00 device that can be comfortably worn while doing whatever it is you do...
The Military

Submission + - Hypersonic test aircraft pealed apart after 3 minutes of sustained Mach 20 speed (networkworld.com) 1

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's experimental Hypersonic Technology Vehicle (HTV-2), lost significant portions of its outer skin and became uncontrollable after three minutes of sustained Mach 20 speed last August. That was the conclusion of an independent engineering review board (ERB) investigating the cause of what DARPA calls a "flight anomaly" in the second test flight of the HTV-2."
Science

Submission + - 'Huge' water resource exists under Africa (bbc.co.uk) 2

Submitted by gambit3
gambit3 writes: Scientists say the notoriously dry continent of Africa is sitting on a vast reservoir of groundwater. They argue that the total volume of water in aquifers underground is 100 times the amount found on the surface.
Across Africa more than 300 million people are said not to have access to safe drinking water.
Freshwater rivers and lakes are subject to seasonal floods and droughts that can limit their availability for people and for agriculture. At present only 5% of arable land is irrigated.
Android

Submission + - Lindholm Testifies that Java Memo was Misinterpreted (wsj.com)

Submitted by
benfrog
benfrog writes: "Ex-Sun and current Google employee Tim Lindholm testified that it was "not what he meant" when asked about the smoking gun email (included here that essentially said that Google needed to get a license for Java because all the alternatives "suck[ed]". He went on in "brief but tense testimony" to claim that his day-to-day involvement with Android was limited."
Toys

Submission + - LEGO is in trouble with feminists (foxnews.com)

Submitted by
Bravoc
Bravoc writes: "The new “LEGO Friends” rolled out in December featuring LadyFigs, curvier takeoffs on the traditional boxy LEGO men. Construction sets include a hot tub, a splash pool, a beauty parlor, an outdoor bakery and a “cool convertible," as well as an inventor's workshop.
But the SPARK Movement objects to the "LadyFigs," the female version of the little figures who man the spaceships, trucks and forts children create. "Ladyfigs" are somewhat anatomically correct, which hypersexualizes girls, according to the group.
"They have little breasts and they have fancy hair," the organization's executive director, Dana Edell, told FoxNews.com. "And it just disturbs us that this is the image that they want girls to see."
(as opposed to mostly anatomically incorrect BIG breasts and fancy hair — ala Barbi. Maybe they are just upset at fancy hair?)"
Privacy

Submission + - Whistleblower: NSA has all of your email (democracynow.org)

Submitted by mspohr
mspohr writes: From DemocracyNow!
National Security Agency whistleblower William Binney reveals he believes domestic surveillance has become more expansive under President Obama than President George W. Bush. He estimates the NSA has assembled 20 trillion "transactions" — phone calls, emails and other forms of data — from Americans. This likely includes copies of almost all of the emails sent and received from most people living in the United States. Binney talks about Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act and challenges NSA Director Keith Alexander’s assertion that the NSA is not intercepting information about U.S. citizens.
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/20/whistleblower_the_nsa_is_lying_us
Earth

Submission + - Most Detailed Maps Yet of Africa's Groundwater (scienceworldreport.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A scattergun approach to borehole drilling in Africa is likely to be unsuccessful.

This is the message from a group of UK researchers who have, for the first time, quantified the amount, and potential yield, of groundwater across the whole of Africa.

They estimate the total volume of groundwater to be around 0.66 million km3 — more than 100 times the available surface freshwater on the continent — and hope that the assessment can inform plans to improve access to water in Africa, where 300 million people do not have access to safe drinking water.
Space

Submission + - Weekend Lyrid Meteor Shower Visible From Earth (space.com)

Submitted by
jamaicaplain
jamaicaplain writes: "The annual Lyrid meteor shower will hit its peak this weekend and promises to put on an eye-catching display. NASA scientists plan to track the Lyrid meteor shower using a network of all-sky cameras on Earth, as well as from a student-launched balloon in California. Meanwhile, an astronaut on the International Space Station will attempt to photograph the meteors from space."
Science

Submission + - Eating meat helped early humans reproduce (latimes.com) 1

Submitted by PolygamousRanchKid
PolygamousRanchKid writes: If early humans had been vegans we might all still be living in caves, Swedish researchers suggested in an article Thursday. When a mother eats meat, her breast-fed child's brain grows faster and she is able to wean the child at an earlier age, allowing her to have more children faster, the article explains. "Eating meat enabled the breast-feeding periods and thereby the time between births to be shortened," said psychologist Elia Psouni of Lund University in Sweden. "This must have had a crucial impact on human evolution."

She notes, however, that the results say nothing about what humans today should or should not eat.
Media

Submission + - London 2012 Olympics Win Gold Medal For Cluelessness By Banning Video And Photo (techdirt.com)

Submitted by SolKeshNaranek
SolKeshNaranek writes:

As Techdirt has reported, the London 2012 Olympics bring with them a range of "special" measures guaranteed to make London a place for lovers of freedom to avoid this summer. But it seems that the organizers wish to ensure that anyone attending will also have a rather miserable time:

Fans in the crowd won't be allowed to upload snippets of the day's action to YouTube — or even, potentially, to post their snaps from inside the Olympic Village on Facebook. And a crack team of branding "police", the Games organisers Locog have acknowledged, will be checking every bathroom in every Olympic venue — with the power to remove or tape over manufacturers' logos even on soap dispensers, wash basins and toilets.

The same thing happened four years ago in Beijing as well, when non-sponsor brands were taped over in bathrooms so they didn't get "a free ride." That's because the real focus of the Olympic games is not anything the athletes might be doing, but keeping sponsors and business partners happy.

With just a little more than three months to go until the opening of the London 2012 Games, attention is increasingly turning to what many legal experts consider to be the most stringent restrictions ever put in place to protect sponsors' brands and broadcasting rights, affecting every athlete, Olympics ticket holder and business in the UK.

That's desperately sad. What is supposedly the greatest sporting event in the world could have been turned into the ultimate demonstration of how social media let spectators become participants through the real-time sharing of experiences.

Instead, the London 2012 organizing committee's obsession with policing brands and controlling what audiences do means that the recently-unveiled motto for this summer's games — 'Inspire a generation' — could hardly have been more inappropriate.

The young people that are meant to be inspired by the London games will find themselves forbidden to use properly the very means that would have let them do that: the social networks where they share their most important moments. As a result, London 2012 looks likely to be the most petty-minded and joyless Olympics so far.
Science

Submission + - Studies Suggest Massive Increase in Scientific Fraud (nytimes.com)

Submitted by Titus Andronicus
Titus Andronicus writes: Scientific fraud has always been with us. But as stated or suggested by some scientists, journal editors, and a few studies, the amount of scientific “cheating” has far outpaced the expansion of science itself. According to some, the financial incentives to “cut corners” have never been greater, resulting in record numbers of retractions from prestigious journals.

From the article: “For example, the journal Nature reported that published retractions had increased tenfold over the past decade, while the number of published papers had increased by just 44 percent.”

Submission + - Survey finds no hint of dark matter near Solar System--no hint of a clue, either (nature.com)

Submitted by Eponymous Hero
Eponymous Hero writes: Does dark matter exist or doesn't it? It seems these results don't shed as much light as we'd hoped.

"Moni Bidin says he’s not sure whether dark matter exists or not. But he says that his team’s survey is the most comprehensive of its type ever done, and the puzzling results must be reckoned with. 'We don’t have a good comprehension of what is going on,' he says."

This has the smell of a Neutrinogate scandal, but at least we've been warned about the shoulder shrugging.

"As an example, Newberg notes that the researchers assumed that the group of stars they examined were smoothly distributed above and below the plane of the Milky Way. But if the distribution turns out to be lumpier, as is the case for stars in the outer parts of the galaxy, then the resulting calculations of dark matter density could be incorrect.

Flynn agrees that there are a number of ways that the method employed by Moni Bidin and his co-authors 'could get it wrong.'"
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Technology Makes It Harder to Save Money

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "LiveScience reports that a survey conducted for the American Institute of CPAs reveals that while more than half of US adults believe technology has made it easier to spend money, just 3 percent think it has made it easier to save. The research found that Americans who subscribe to digital services spend an average of $166 each month for cable TV, home Internet access, mobile phone service and digital subscriptions, such as satellite radio and streaming video — the equivalent of 17 percent of their monthly rent or mortgage payment. and those who download songs, apps and other products spend an additional $38 per month. "Our gadgets and connections can bring benefits like mobility and efficiency,” says Jordan Amin. “But they can also bring financial challenges, like taking money that could go to savings, for instance, or contributing to credit card debt." If facing a financial crunch, Americans would rather change what they eat than give up their cell phones, downloads or digital TV services. Asked to choose the one action they would most likely take in tight time, 41 percent said they would cut back on eating out, 20 percent said they would cut off cable TV, 8 percent said they would end cell phone service and 8 percent said they would stop downloading songs and digital products."

Submission + - Slingshot drone fleet targets US heartland (foxnews.com)

Submitted by
KDN
KDN writes: "UAV's in the US: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/04/20/slingshot-drone-fleet-targets-us-heartland/

When I read this I couldn't help thinking of Wild E Coyote chasing the Road Runner: The UAVs are launched like a slingshot using a 100-foot bungee cord: The pilot ties the bungee to a stake in the ground, gets the proper tension and hooks the bungee to the aircraft before lofting it into the skies "
Medicine

Submission + - Researchers bypass spinal cord paralysis with brain-computer interface (extremetech.com)

Submitted by
MrSeb
MrSeb writes: "Scientists at Northwestern University in Chicago, with funding from the National Institutes of Health, have successfully bypassed the spinal cord and restored fine motor control to paralyzed limbs using a brain-computer interface. The researchers have created a neuroprosthesis that combines a brain-computer interface (BCI) that’s wired directly into 100 neurons in the motor cortex of the subject, and a functional electrical stimulation (FES) device that’s wired into the muscles of the subject’s arm. When the subject tries to move his arm or hand, that cluster of around 100 neurons activates, creating a stream of data which can then be read and analyzed by the BCI to predict what muscles the subject is trying to move, and with what level of force. The end result is a computer network that effectively replaces the nervous system and restores remarkably accurate fine motor control to a paralyzed arm. The subject, in this case, was a rhesus monkey rather than a human — but our anatomy is very, very similar to that of our primate cousins. The research paper notes that, worldwide, 130,000 people per year sustain spinal cord injury — with half of those becoming paralyzed from the neck down. Many of these could be helped with such a neuroprosthesis."
Canada

Submission + - Canadian bureacracy can't answer simple question: What's this study with NASA? (ottawacitizen.com)

Submitted by
Saint Aardvark
Saint Aardvark writes: "It seemed like a pretty simple question about a pretty cool topic: an Ottawa newspaper wanted to ask Canada's National Research Council about a joint study with NASA on tracking falling snow in Canada. Conventional radar can see where it's falling, but not the amount — so NASA, in collaboration with the NRC, Environment Canada and a few universities, arranged flights through falling snow to analyse readings with different instruments. But when they contacted the NRC to get the Canadian angle, "it took a small army of staffers— 11 of them by our count — to decide how to answer, and dozens of emails back and forth to circulate the Citizen’s request, discuss its motivation, develop their response, and “massage” its text." No interview was given: "I am not convinced we need an interview. A few lines are fine. Please let me see them first," says one civil servant in the NRC emails obtained by the newspaper under the Access to Information act. By the time the NRC finally sorted out a boring, technical response, the newspaper had already called up a NASA scientist and got all the info they asked for; it took about 15 minutes."
Social Networks

Submission + - Facebook, Instagram, Ben Bernanke: Thank You for the New Tech Bubble (vice.com)

Submitted by
pigrabbitbear
pigrabbitbear writes: "Those who continue to inflate the tech bubble will be quick to remind us all of how they’ve learned from the past. That this time, it’s simply different. They do have a point. Silicon Valley (and Alley) have matured. Startups these days are focused, driven, and efficient, creating products that people actually use. In a period of less than a year after its launch, Instagram was used by 5 million users, who by August of 2011 had uploaded 150 million photos.

But even with these impressive results, it’s impossible to ignore the fact that many of the fundamental economic factors that led the first bubble remain."

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