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Security

Submission + - New York City pushes plan to prevent cyberattacks on elevators, boilers (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "Imagine what would happen if an attacker broke into the network for the industrial control systems for New York City's elevators and boiler systems and decided to disrupt them, imperiling the lives of hundreds of thousands of residents relying on them. Think it could never happen? Think again.

FBI Chief dishes on technology, insider threats and cyber criminals. "You could increase the speed of how elevators go up or down," says Steve Ramirez, business analyst, analysis and communications in the Office of the CIO of the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), which provides public housing for low- to moderate-income families in the five boroughs of the city. And if attackers ever successfully penetrated the network-based industrial control systems (ICS) for the boilers, they could raise the heat levels for municipal boilers, causing them to explode."
Books

Submission + - Book Review: Scala for the Impatient Ninja (amazon.com)

Submitted by K77
K77 writes: Have you noticed all the excitement about Scala lately? It *is* a remarkable language, built in part on an audacious wager that a productive language can come from academia. Don't believe it? Well, the number of job postings for Scala programmers is rising and brining with it a tide of new books. "Scala for the Impatient" should be at the top of your list, especially if you're too busy to read programming books.

I don't read programming books. I read code. So I did my usual thing with Scala: I cut straight to the grammar. Scala is my first expereince with a language I could not effectively grok from just the grammar. I could see there's a *lot* going on with Scala, much of it subtle and beautiful. I knew I needed help.

First, let's give credit where due: there are plenty of fair to middling books on Scala now. Most of them are pretty similar, both to each other and to contemporary books for other languages. That's not too surprising: publishers have worked out a pretty reliable script for developing programming books which sell. "Scala for the Impatient" takes that script and folds, spindles, mutilates and generally does a host of other things better left unsaid. Good for us!

Cay Horstmann (of Core Java fame) does some things which surprise and delight in "Scala for the Impatient." First, he invites you to *experience* Scala as the first indispensible step to learning Scala. The first chapter sets tone by dragging you headfirst into the water, deliberately not explaining everything right away. Be assured, it gets explained later. Just swim. This sets the stage for the exploratory approach used thorughout the book. This is a refreshing contrast to the many books which take a dry, almost clinical approach to Scala.

Another thing Horstmann has done is think very deeply about what you need to learn and when. He tells you in plain English what you must understand right away, what you'll need soon, and what you can safely leave to the Scala gods. And he tells you *why*. The result is a bit unconventional but works perfectly. Consequently, functional programming does not come into full view until chapter 12. (Wow!) But there is not one flat stretch on this roller coaster. Chapters 2 through 10 are intense. They have to be, to prepare you. Along they way, precursors of functional programming are introduced so artfully you might not notice.

The last third of the book deals with cool stuff which is attracting so many users to Scala: actors for concurrency, parsing your own domain specific languages, and in particular making sushi out of XML.

Here are some general thoughts to close. Do the exercises. They're worth it! Bring your A-game; you'll need it. Kudos to the publisher for letting Horstmann take some risks. The result is a well edited, fast-faced and rewarding.
Government

Submission + - NY Times Apple Tax Article Flawed (forbes.com)

Submitted by bonch
bonch writes: Forbes contributer Tim Worstall points out that the NY Times article claiming Apple pays less than 10 percent of its profit in taxes was based on a flawed assumption of the corporate tax system. The 9.8% figure came from Greenlining Institute, who compared Apple's 2011 profits to taxes calculated according to 2010 profits. In the corporate tax system, estimated quarterly tax payments are made based on the previous year's profits until actual profits are calculated at the end of the trading year, when the balance is then paid to the IRS.

Submission + - Microsoft to bring full Internet Explorer browsing to Xbox 360 (theverge.com) 4

Submitted by Eponymous Hero
Eponymous Hero writes: Heads up, developers, you may soon have a new browser platform variation for testing your site: IE9 on the Xbox 360. No word yet on whether it will have a unique vendor CSS prefix, seeing as it is a "modified" version of the browser. It's also still unclear how developers will be able to leverage the Kinect's features with the web browsing experience.

Microsoft may be late to the game (pun intended) as far as web browsers on the console — Playstation and Wii have offered this feature for quite some time — but with game consoles taking over the living room as entertainment centers, this may mark the first time a game console becomes a target platform for testing.
Education

Submission + - The most epic scavenger hunt returns

Submitted by gotfork
gotfork writes: The world's largest scavenger hunt, covered in previous years on Slashdot, is now taking place at the University of Chicago. The competition is fierce: in 1999 one team build a working breeder reactor in the quad, but only won second place. Items on this year's list include your appendix in a jar (210), a disappearing spoon made of metal (105), a chromatic typewriter (216), an xyloexplosive (33) and a weaponized Xerox machine (83). Check out the full list here (PDF). Not bad for the school where "where fun comes to die".
Space

Submission + - Sun Leaves No Shock Wave in its Wake (discovery.com)

Submitted by
astroengine
astroengine writes: "The sun and all that surrounds it — us included — are having a slower ride through space than originally thought, new findings from a NASA satellite shows. Precise measurements of neutrally charged particles such as helium flowing into the solar system from interstellar space show the heliosphere — the region of space under the sun's influence — is moving at 52,000 mph relative to the outside environment. That's a change from 59,000 mph measured by NASA's now-defunct Ulysses spacecraft. That 7,000-mph difference may not sound like much, but the effect of the speed is squared.

"This reduction of 7,000 mph is a reduction of about 25 percent of the pressure pushing on the heliosphere that we thought was there is actually there," David McComas, lead scientist for NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer, or IBEX, told Discovery News. The upshot is that no shock wave is being produced by the sun's heliosphere in the interstellar medium we're in now."
Networking

Submission + - Why Your Wi-Fi Is Too Slow, And How To Fix It (itworld.com)

Submitted by
jfruh
jfruh writes: "There was a time when Wi-Fi, particularly 802.11n, was so much faster than most people's Internet connections that it didn't seem worth the bother to troubleshoot connections that weren't as fast as the spec promised. But with more and more people connected via high-speed broadband and using their internal networks to stream high-definition video, many are finding subpar Wi-Fi networks to be a bottleneck. Here's a list of possible solutions that will help you squeeze all the speed you can out of your current Wi-Fi setup (and yes, "overcome the laws of physics" is on the list)."
Businesses

Submission + - Is Gamification a Good Motivator? (informationweek.com) 2

Submitted by
CowboyRobot
CowboyRobot writes: "Growing up, many of our teachers used "gamification" techniques such as a gold star sticker on a test (essentially a "badge") or a public display of which students had completed a set of readings ("leaderboard"). These were intended to motivate students to strive to do better.

Now, these techniques are increasingly common in the workplace where the parallel with computer games is more intentional. A report by Gartner predicts that "by 2015, 50% of organizations that manage innovation processes will gamify those processes". One example would be assigning badges for submitting work on time, another would be having a leaderboard in an office to show who completed a training module first.

The idea of using game mechanics in work or study environments is not new, but its ubiquity is. Educators can discuss how effective gamification is in classrooms, but how useful is it as a motivator in the workplace?"
NASA

Submission + - Vesta is a Baby Planet, Not an Asteroid (discovery.com)

Submitted by
astroengine
astroengine writes: "Vesta, the second largest object in the main asteroid belt, has an iron core, a varied surface, layers of rock and possibly a magnetic field — all signs of a planet in the making, not an asteroid. This is the conclusion of an international team of scientists treated to a virtual front row seat at Vesta for the past 10 months, courtesy of NASA's Dawn robotic probe. Their findings were presented during a NASA press conference on Thursday. As to why Vesta never made it to full planethood, scientists point to Jupiter. When the giant gas planet formed, nearby bodies such as Vesta found their orbits perturbed. "Jupiter started to act like a spoon in a pot, stirring up the asteroid belt and the asteroids started bumping into one another," Dawn lead scientist Christopher Russell, with the University of California, Los Angeles, told Discovery News. "If they're just out there gently orbiting and everything is going smoothly, then without Jupiter in the picture, they would gather mass and get bigger and bigger and bigger. But with Jupiter there, stirring the pot, then the asteroids start bumping into one another and breaking apart, so nothing grew in that region, but started to shrink.""

Submission + - The Trouble With ACTA: Geist's Analysis of Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (michaelgeist.ca)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Earlier this year, Canadian law professor Michael Geist appeared at the European Parliament's INTA Committee Workshop on ACTA and delivered a ten-minute takedown of the agreement. Geist's full report to the European Parliament has now been released. It conclues that ACTA's harm greatly exceeds its potential benefits and recommends rejecting the agreement in its current form.
IOS

Submission + - 'iPad mini' reportedly set for October launch, $200-$250 price tag (bgr.com)

Submitted by zacharye
zacharye writes: Apple is indeed preparing a smaller version of its wildly popular iPad tablet and it will launch this coming October for between $200 and $250, a new report claims. Numerous earlier reports have suggested that an iPad with a 7.85-inch display will launch in the third or fourth quarter this year, and now these rumors have been reinforced...
Privacy

Submission + - Newt Gingrich loves spam (computerworld.com) 1

Submitted by
richi
richi writes: "Newt Gingrich's Newt 2012 organization is aiding and abetting spammers. Hard to believe, I know, but it turns out his organization is offering targeted email addresses to spammers.

Now that Newt Gingrich has conceded defeat... ahem, sorry, suspended his campaign, Newt 2012 is thought to be at least $4,300,000 in the hole. So, in a bizarre twist of moral logic, it's selling its email lists to spammers."

Submission + - Univ. of Minnesota compiles database of peer-reviewed, open-acces textbooks (insidehighered.com) 1

Submitted by
BigVig209
BigVig209 writes: "Univ. of MN is cataloging open-access textbooks and enticing faculty to review the texts by offering $500 per review. Despite the author calling the open-source rather than open-access, this may be the first time a land-grant, public university makes this kind of resource available to faculty and students."
Science

Submission + - "Social Jetlag" May be Making You Fat (sciencemag.org) 1

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: A new study suggests that, by disrupting your body's normal rhythms, your alarm clock could be making you overweight. The study concerns a phenomenon called "social jetlag." That's the extent to which our natural sleep patterns are out of synch with our school or work schedules. when we wake up earlier than we're supposed to--or spend all weekend sleeping in and then get up at 6 am on Monday--it makes our body feel like it's spending the weekend in one time zone and the week in another. For people who are already on the heavy side, greater social jet lag corresponds to greater body weight
Google

Submission + - University of Hawaii partnership wth Google being challenged (honoluluweekly.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A recent move by the University of Hawaii forcing all students and faculty to migrate their independent university email accounts to Google has raised serious questions, prompting one student to file a complaint with the US Dept. of Education, with senior faculty questioning both the implementation and scope of this partnership.
IOS

Submission + - Apple To Help Foxconn Improve Factories (reuters.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: in a welcome move, Apple has agreed to help share initial costs with Foxconn in improving the factories being used to manufacture iDevices. From the article:

Foxconn chief Terry Gou did not give a figure for the costs, but the group has been spending heavily to fight a perception its vast plants in China are sweatshops with poor conditions for its million-strong labor force. It regards the criticism as unfair. "We've discovered that this (improving factory conditions) is not a cost. It is a competitive strength," Gou told reporters on Thursday after the ground-breaking ceremony for a new China headquarters in Shanghai. "I believe Apple sees this as a competitive strength along with us, and so we will split the initial costs."
Security

Submission + - Apple Auto-Disables Old Flash Players In Mac OS X 10.7.4 (securityweek.com)

Submitted by wiredmikey
wiredmikey writes: Just released, and coming in at 370 MB in size, the Mac OS X 10.7.4 update includes general OS fixes, and addresses more than 30 security vulnerabilities. But aside from typical security fixes, Apple has made an interesting move in an effort to protect users. Through this latest software update, Safari 5.1.7 will now automatically disable older — and typically more vulnerable — versions of the Adobe Flash player.

While many software vendors would prefer OS makers to keep their hands off their software, the move appears to be welcomed by Adobe, which has constantly battled vulnerabilities in its widely installed Flash Player.

While Apple has been criticized over its security practices and lack of cooperation and communication with security researchers, this is Apple's second action reaching across normal vendor boundaries after its recent auto-disabling Java release, in reaction to the now infamous Flashback Trojan that has been in the spotlight recently.
NASA

Submission + - ATK Liberty rocket to launch private space taxi by 2015 (video) (tech-stew.com)

Submitted by
wizardofoz99
wizardofoz99 writes: "The aerospace company that built solid rocket boosters for the space shuttle announced it is developing its own private launch system, a spaceship and rocket that will fly astronauts to and from low Earth orbit. The first manned missions could launch in about three years.

ATK's Kent Rominger, vice president and program manager for Liberty has revealed plans for a complete launch system that uses the Liberty rocket, which includes a space capsule to carry passengers to low-Earth orbit and to the International Space Station (ISS).

"We are looking at space tourism," Rominger said. "Also other [space] stations, such as Bigelow — we can help build the station. We're also looking at other nations that aren't partners on the space station that would like to have stand-alone missions."

Liberty will use the original Ares 1 engine for the first stage and the European Astrium Ariane 5 rocket as the second. Liberty will be 300 feet (91 meters) tall."
Science

Submission + - Anything Can Be A Touch Screen Thanks To Disney Research

Submitted by surewouldoutlaw
surewouldoutlaw writes: Remember that scene in Fantasia where Mickey turns all the brooms into an army of workers? Well, Disney isn't quite there, yet. But scientists with the company's research lab at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh have been able to turn virtually any surface, including liquid water and the human body, into a multi-touch interface. The new system is called Touché, and it is as awesome as it sounds.
Hardware

Submission + - Heathkit Educational Systems Closes Shop For Good (arrl.org)

Submitted by
scharkalvin
scharkalvin writes: "For the second time since 1992, Heathkit Educational Services (HES) has shuttered its doors. Rumors of the legendary kit-building company’s demise were posted on QRZ.com, with several readers bringing the news to the attention of the ARRL. In August 2011, Heathkit announced it was returning to the kit building business, and in September, that it would once again be manufacturing Amateur Radio kits.

On LinkedIn, a popular networking site, HES Chief Executive Officer Lori Marciniak listed her employment ending at Heathkit as of March 2012. Likewise, Heathkit’s Marketing and Sales Director Ernie Wake listed his employment ending in April 2012. An unsubstantiated report on Wikipedia states that “[in] December 2011, Heathkit Educational Systems laid off most employees and in March 2012, the company indefinitely suspended operations.”

It looks like Heathkit is gone for good. Their plans on re-entering the kit market died with the current ecconomy."

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