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KDE

Submission + - Open-Source Desktops Losing Competitiveness? (phoronix.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Peter Penz has been a KDE user K Desktop Environment 1.2 and led the development of the Dolphin file manager for the past six years, but now he's quitting KDE development and handing off Dolphin. The reasons for quitting KDE development are described in his blog post where he speaks of KDE losing competitiveness to Apple and Microsoft, increased complexity, and other reasons. Are open-source desktops losing?
Piracy

Submission + - UK's 'Three Strikes' Piracy Measures Published (techweekeurope.co.uk)

Submitted by
judgecorp
judgecorp writes: "The UK regulator Ofcom, has published details of plans to disconnect illegal file-sharers. It is the "three strikes" policy which ISPs unsuccessfully appealed against, and requires ISPs to keep a list of persistent copyright infringers (identified as usual by their IP address...). ISPs will have to send monthly warning letters to those who infringe above a certain threshold. If a user gets three letters within a single year, the ISP must hand anonymised details to the copyright owner, who can apply for a court order to obtain the infringer's identity (or at least, an identity associated with that IP address)."

Submission + - UK Government - "Pay a £20 fee to acquit yourself of file-sharing (maybe)" (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Dr_Barnowl
Dr_Barnowl writes: The BBC reports that the UK government plans to introduce a £20 fee if you wish to appeal against an allegation of copyright infringement, within 20 days of your accusation. Note that this doesn't guarantee acquittal, as only "excuses" covered in the Digital Economy Act will be valid even for consideration. This scheme could be in place as early as 2014, so John Smith, General Secretary of the Musicians' Union says "We urge ISPs to begin building their systems now and to work constructively with rights holders, Ofcom and government to get notice-sending up and running as soon as possible,". What are the thoughts of Slashdot?
Piracy

Submission + - Suspected internet pirates will have 20 working days to appeal (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Dupple
Dupple writes: Suspected internet pirates will have 20 working days to appeal against allegations of copyright infringement and must pay £20 to do so, according to revised plans to enforce the UK's Digital Economy Act.

The details are contained in secondary legislation presented to Parliament and a draft code published by Ofcom.
Biotech

Submission + - Injected proteins protect mice from lethal radiation dose (nature.com)

Submitted by ananyo
ananyo writes: Two anti-clotting compounds already approved for use in humans may have a surprising role in treating radiation sickness. Last year's nuclear accident in Fukushima, Japan, renewed anxiety over the lack of treatments for radiation poisoning. It was long thought that the effects of exposure to high doses of radiation were instantaneous and irreversible, leading to destruction of the gut and loss of bone marrow cells, which damages blood-cell production and the immune system.
The two compounds are thrombomodulin (Solulin/Recomodulin), currently approved in Japan to prevent thrombosis, and activated protein C (Xigris). Treating mice with either drug post-exposure led to an eightfold increase in key bone marrow cells needed for the production of white blood cells, and improved the survival rates of mice receiving lethal radiation doses by 40–80% (abstract).
And yes, the lead author's name really is Geiger.
Australia

Submission + - Australian telco causes minor panic while preparing web filter (scmagazine.com.au)

Submitted by
Twisted64
Twisted64 writes: "Australia's largest telco, Telstra, has been frightening users of its mobile data services for the last week. Logging revealed that HTTP requests from a mobile device on Telstra's network were duplicated with a request from another server, located in Chicago.

Eyebrows were raised on the Whirlpool forums, with fears that Telstra was giving up Australian browsing data to a US company and therefore the US government. Following a well-worded letter Telstra revealed today that the reason for this behaviour is that the company is preparing an opt-in web filter.

Personally, while the idea of my browsing data being logged anywhere does not fill me with joy, the idea of the US government having access to it (randomised or not) is probably going to be enough to make me switch to an inferior carrier once my current plan ends."

Submission + - Traccar, open source tracking server (traccar.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Traccar is open source server for various GPS tracking devices. At the moment server supports many types of trackers, mostly cheap devices made in Asia. Versions starting from 1.0 include embedded HTTP server and simple web application to manage devices.
Traccar is written in Java and portable between different operating systems and platforms.
Google

Submission + - How satnav maps are made (pcpro.co.uk)

Submitted by
nk497
nk497 writes: "Satnav firms go to great lengths to keep their maps up-to-date. This feature reveals exactly how TomTom, Google, OpenStreetNav and NavTeq ensure their databases are accurate with millions of updates a day from their own mapping cars, tracking systems on third-party fleets, and user data — and shows which method leads to the most accurate satnav system."
Government

Submission + - ADA to force Netflix to provid closed captioning on content (sfgate.com) 2

Submitted by Shivetya
Shivetya writes: A judge has decided that the American Disabilities Act requires services like Netflix to provide Closed Captioning support for any video it streams on its website. The easiest means to comply would be to remove all videos which do not have a closed captioning component, the other route would require Netflix to pay to have this done to any video it wants to provide. The implications to other provides is immense as well.
Crime

Submission + - MI5 Chief Warns of 'Astonishing' Levels of Cyber Attacks (ibtimes.co.uk)

Submitted by AlistairCharlton
AlistairCharlton writes: Internet vulnerabilities are being exploited aggressively by criminals and states alike to an astonishing extent, according to MI5 chief Jonathan Evans.

Speaking publicly for the first time in two years, Evans said entire states, and not just individual criminals, are conducting cyber crime and leaving our government secrets and safety at risk.
EU

Submission + - EU Commissioner Reveals He Will Simply Ignore Any Rejection Of ACTA (techdirt.com)

Submitted by Dupple
Dupple writes: whatever happens next week, the European Commission will wait for the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to rule on whether ACTA is compatible with EU law. If it is found to be incompatible, De Gucht admits that rather than accept this ruling, the European Commission will try to find some trick to circumvent it:
If the Court questions the conformity of the agreement with the Treaties we will assess at that stage how this can be addressed.
This implicitly confirms that the referral was simply a way to buy time, rather than an honest question about ACTA's legality.
Medicine

Submission + - Transplant Surgeon Called Dibs on Steve Jobs' Home

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: The Commercial Appeal reports that Dr. James Eason, the surgeon who performed Steve Jobs' liver transplant, found himself grilled at length Monday by Shelby County Commission members. The Univ. of Tennessee-Methodist Transplant Institute, which Eason heads, is in a bitter dispute over the distribution of human organs. Pressed for details by Commissioners West Bunker and Terry Roland about the 2009 liver transplant that Eason performed on the late Steve Jobs, Eason acknowledged that he's now living in the Memphis home that Jobs used during his convalescence. Bunker asked, "Was that a deal cut to get him a transplant here locally?" Eason: "I understand. It's a fair question. Absolutely not." Eason said a company lined up the housing for Jobs. "I took care of him and visited him in that home. And when I learned that it was going to be going on the market, I asked him, I asked the administrator of the LLC, if I could purchase it." So, is it time for Apple to shed some light on The Mystery of Steve Jobs' Memphis Mansion? It was reported that Apple lawyer George Riley, reportedly a friend of Eason's, helped Jobs with the arrangements for the Memphis mansion, which was acquired at a bargain price of $850,000 from the State of Tennessee by the mysterious LCHG, LLC on 3/26/2009. LCHG was formed on 3/17/2009, apparently just days before Jobs received his liver (on 3/21/2010, Jobs noted he was coming up on the 1-year anniversary of his transplant). Records show that title to the mansion was transferred to Eason in May, 2011, about three months after the National Enquirer painted a grim picture of Jobs' health (Jobs died on Oct. 5, 2011). LCHG, LLC was dissolved in February 2012.
Bug

Journal + - Journal: new fallacy 10

Journal by Bill Dog

It is claimed that there is a certain kind of logical fallacy, dubbed "No true Scotsman". But the logical fallacy is only in its ever being applied, what I hereby officially dub as the "the 'No true Scotsman' logical fallacy applies here" logical fallacy. Or the TNTSLFAH fallacy, for short.

Submission + - Mac users offered pricier hotels (reuters.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Travel site Orbitz found out that Mac users tend to select pricer rooms and swanky hotels. So, from now on, they will show more expensive hotel options to Mac users than to PC users.
This is why, although I am a Mac user, my Firefox agent string says "Windows XP" :)
Microsoft

Submission + - Did Microsoft use information about partner products in designing Surface? (cnet.com) 2

Submitted by
ozmanjusri
ozmanjusri writes: ""Microsoft looked at what the [PC makers] were doing, seeing if it could meet their Windows 8 needs and then took action based on that," according to Patrick Moorhead, president of Moor Insights & Strategy and formerly an executive at Advanced Micro Devices.

Microsoft partners, PC OEMs like Acer, Asus, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Toshiba, and Sony are unhappy with Microsoft's actions as the software giant could potentially have used confidential information about their products, pricing strategies, marketing plans and more before deciding to compete with them.

Information like that could potentially be used to Microsoft's advantage."
Advertising

Submission + - Orbitz Showing Mac Users More Expensive Hotels (wsj.com) 3

Submitted by dracocat
dracocat writes: Orbitz has discovered that Mac users pay up to 30% more for their hotels than those using Windows. In response it has begun to experiment with showing more expensive hotels to Mac users. The WSJ Article claims that this sort of targeting will only become more prevalent in the future.

The WSJ has confirmed through searches that the results for Mac users are many times more expensive than those shown to Windows users. Orbitz has replied that users always have the option to re-order by price if they don't like the initial order of hotels provided.

I generally am on board with using data to show more relevant results, but not sure how I feel about the supposed relevant results being more expensive. Is this inevitable or do we need some sort of screen bias protection?

Submission + - Lonesome George is dead at 100. (canoe.ca) 1

Submitted by camperdave
camperdave writes: Lonesome George, the last remaining tortoise of his kind and a conservation icon, died on Sunday of unknown causes, the Galapagos National Park said. He was thought to be about 100 years old.

Submission + - Robots join search for Amelia Earhart's lost plane (innovationnewsdaily.com)

Submitted by
raque
raque writes: "Following up on an earlier story.
A group of aviation archaeologists will use underwater robots along with submersibles and sonar to search for Amelia Earhart's plane. The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery will search this July for the aircraft, which went down 75 years ago. "If there's wreckage there that can be recovered, we need to know what it is, how big it is, what it looks like, and what it's made of so we can prepare a recovery expedition that has equipment to raise whatever's there," said Richard Gillespie, the group's executive director.
Also explained are how this is being paid for and what FedEx did to help."

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