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Piracy

Submission + - Police raid home of 9-year-old Pirate Bay user, seize 'Winnie the Pooh' laptop (bgr.com) 1

Submitted by zacharye
zacharye writes: Copyright enforcement might be getting out of hand in Scandinavia. As anti-piracy groups and copyright owners continue to work with authorities to curtail piracy in the region, police this week raided the home of a 9-year-old suspect and confiscated her “Winnie the Pooh” laptop. TorrentFreak reports that the girl’s home was raided after local anti-piracy group CIAPC determined copyrighted files had been downloaded illegally at her residence. Her father, the Internet service account holder, was contacted by CIAPC, which demanded that he pay a 600 euro fine and sign a non-disclosure agreement to settle the matter. When the man did not comply, authorities raided his home and collected evidence, including his 9-year-old daughter’s notebook computer...
Media

Submission + - Best console for the kids this holiday?

Submitted by
undulato
undulato writes: "I've got an aging, fat PS3 with only a couple of games that I still play on it but three kids under 9 who love Skylanders, iPet, Lego whatever etc. We all watch movies on it and it has been pretty much the centre of our entertainment world for a few years now.

I've already got a spare HDMI monitor we could use for a screen so my question is — should we go for a new console this Christmas? Just buy another controller or two and a new game or two for PS3 and be done? Or get the still pretty viable Xbox 360, or even plump for a cheap Wii or even a Wii U if we're feeling flush. What does Slashdot think?"
Government

Submission + - World Governments Object to New gTLDs like .wtf, .sucks, .baby, .amazon (paritynews.com) 3

Submitted by hypnosec
hypnosec writes: ICANN is receiving more and more requests for new top level domains (gTLDs) and Governments around the world are busy registering their complaints and objections with the proposed names it has been noticed. Till date more than 200 objections have been raised against proposed gTLDs with Australia leading the pack with over 120 objections. Some of the other countries which are at the forefront of registering their objections include France, Germany and India. US and UK are near the bottom of the list with their fewer objections. ICANN’s “early warnings” about national objections to gTLDs serves as formal objections but it doesn’t mean that these domains will never be signed off. There is always room for discussions and mediation that would allow prospect registrants to keep on pursuing their claims. Australia has objected to names such as ‘.baby’, ‘.app’, ‘.beauty’ among other. It has also objected to names such as ‘.sucks’ and ‘.wtf’ stating that these names have “an overtly negative or critical connotation.”
Games

Submission + - Unity 3D now targets Linux (unity3d.com)

Submitted by xonen
xonen writes: It is now official — with the release of Unity3D version 4, Linux is an official target platform.

"Unity 4 Pro delivers the efficient and flexible workflow, graphical polish and power, smooth performance, fine tuned animations and creative control you need to make, ship and sell professional games."

The little catch here, is that Linux is not yet supported as host platform — you will still need a Windows or OSX computer to develop your games. However, we can expect a great deal of existing and new games to be released as Linux version too soon, especially since both the indie ('free') and pro versions of Unity3D support building for Linux target.
Apple

Submission + - U.S. judge orders Apple to immeditately tell Samsung details of HTC deal (blogspot.pt)

Submitted by
quantr
quantr writes: "A U.S. judge has ordered Apple Inc to disclose to rival Samsung Electronics details of a legal settlement the iPhone maker reached with Taiwan's HTC Corp, including terms of a 10-year patents licensing agreement.
The Korean electronics giant had earlier filed a motion to compel its U.S. rival — with whom it is waging a bitter legal battle over mobile patents across several countries — t o reveal details of the settlement that was reached on Nov. 10 with HTC but which have been kept under wraps.
In August, the iPhone maker won a $1.05 billion verdict against Samsung after a U.S. jury found that certain Samsung gadgets violated Apple's software and design patents.
Now, legal experts say the question of which patents are covered by the Apple-HTC settlement, and licensing details, could be instrumental in Samsung's efforts to thwart Apple's subsequent quest for a permanent sales ban on its products."
Patents

Submission + - Apple ordered to share HTC deal details with Samsung (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by another random user
another random user writes: A US judge has ordered Apple to disclose details of its patent-sharing deal with HTC to its rival, Samsung. Apple and HTC signed a 10-year licence agreement earlier this month, but did not make the details public.

Samsung, which is also involved in various patent disputes with Apple, asked the courts to tell Apple to furnish the information. It said it was "almost certain" the deal covered some of the patents at the centre of its dispute with Apple.

The court ordered Apple to produce a full copy of the settlement agreement "without delay", subject to an "attorneys' eyes only" designation, meaning it will not be made public.
Technology

Submission + - Cloaking technology could protect offshore rigs from destructive waves (gizmag.com)

Submitted by cylonlover
cylonlover writes: Recent years have seen much progress in the development of invisibility cloaks which bend light around an object so it can't be seen, but can the same principles be applied to ocean waves that are strong enough to smash steel and concrete? That's the aim of Reza Alam's underwater “invisibility cloak.” The assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, recently outlined how to use variations of density in ocean water to cloak floating objects from dangerous surface waves.

Submission + - GNOME 3 to support a "classic" mode

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: LWN.net is reporting that GNOME developer Matthias Clasen has announced that, with the upcoming demise of "fallback mode," the project will support a set of official GNOME Shell extensions to provide a more "classic" experience. "And while we certainly hope that many users will find the new ways comfortable and refreshing after a short learning phase, we should not fault people who prefer the old way. After all, these features were a selling point of GNOME 2 for ten years!"

Submission + - Electric Cars DOA without Supercharged Batteries 1

Submitted by
greenjobsguru
greenjobsguru writes: "This is the typical chicken and egg problem. No charging stations, no electric cars; no electric cars, no charging stations. Unless scientists deliver some serious breakthroughs in battery capacity and charge time in the next few years, we're going to need charging stations everywhere. Home, office, retail parking lots, shopping malls, airports, and yes, gas stations. The US has currently about 160,000 gas stations, but research outfit Frost and Sullivan estimate we'll have 4.1 million charging stations to keep our electric cars juiced up --yes, that's 25 times the number of gas stations! And preferably powered by renewable energy (bummer! we'll also need a smart grid for that...).
Then, we'll have a real clean transportation industry, with plenty of good paying green jobs. So, let's try and stay optimistic."
The Military

Submission + - Why Iron Dome Might Only Work For Israel (thediplomat.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Many this week have declared Israel's American financed Iron Dome rocket defense system a success. Some have even gone so far to declare it a vindication of Ronald Reagen's 1980's Star Wars missile defense system. Pundits have even gone so far to assume the system could be sold to other nations. However, the Iron Dome may not be the game changer many are making it out to be.

Taking out unsophisticated rockets is quite different than advanced missiles: "...the technical and strategic challenges of shooting down ballistic missiles differ considerably from those of shooting down unguided rockets. BMD shares with rocket defense some common technological ground; both require fast reaction time and impressive sensor capabilities, and the Iron Dome project has benefited from technical work on missile defense. However, ballistic missiles in flight behave differently from unguided, sub-atmospheric rockets."
Science

Submission + - Scientists Reveal Single Gene Is the Difference Between Humans and Apes (medicaldaily.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: What makes us human? Some say that it is the development of language, though others argue that animals have language as well. Some say that it is our ability to use tools, though many animals are able to use rocks and other objects as primitive tools. Some say that it is our ability to see death coming.
Now, researchers believe that they have found the definitive difference between humans and other primates, and they think that the difference all comes down to a single gene.
Researchers from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland attribute the split of humanity from apes to the gene miR-941. They say that the gene played an integral role in human development and contributed to humans' ability to use tools and learn languages.
Supercomputing

Submission + - Supercomputers' growing resilience problems (computerworld.com.au) 2

Submitted by
angry tapir
angry tapir writes: "As supercomputers grow more powerful, they'll also grow more vulnerable to failure, thanks to the increased amount of built-in componentry. Today's high-performance computing (HPC) systems can have 100,000 nodes or more — with each node built from multiple components of memory, processors, buses and other circuitry. Statistically speaking, all these components will fail at some point, and they halt operations when they do so, said David Fiala, a Ph.D student at the North Carolina State University, during a talk at SC12. Today's techniques for dealing with system failure may not scale very well, Fiala said."
Privacy

Submission + - UK to use "Risk-Profiling Software" to Screen all Airline Passengers and Cargo (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by dryriver
dryriver writes: The BBC reports: 'The UK branch of an American company — SAS Software — has developed a hi-tech software programme it believes can help detect and prevent potentially dangerous passengers and cargo entering the UK using the technique known as "risk profiling". So, what exactly is risk profiling and can it really reduce the risk of international terrorism? Risk profiling is a controversial topic. It means identifying a person or group of people who are more likely to act in a certain way than the rest of the population, based on an analysis of their background and past behaviour — which of course requires the collection of certain data on people's background and behaviour to begin with. When it comes to airline security, some believe this makes perfect sense. Others, though, say this smacks of prejudice and would inevitably lead to unacceptable racial or religious profiling — singling out someone because, say, they happen to be Muslim, or born in Yemen. The company making the Risk-Profiling Software in question, of course, strongly denies that the software would single people out using factors like race, religion or country of origin. It says that the programme works by feeding in data about passengers or cargo, including the Advanced Passenger Information (API) that airlines heading to Britain are obliged to send to the UK Border Agency (UKBA) at "wheels up" — the exact moment the aircraft lifts off from the airport of departure. Additional information could include a combination of factors, like whether the passenger paid for their ticket in cash, or if they have ever been on a watch list or have recently spent time in a country with a known security problem. The data is then analysed to produce a schematic read-out for immigration officials that shows the risk profile for every single passenger on an incoming flight, seat by seat, high risk to low risk.'
Chrome

Submission + - Researcher claims to have Chrome 0day, Google says 'prove it' (securityledger.com)

Submitted by
chicksdaddy
chicksdaddy writes: "Google's been known to pay $60,000 for information on remotely exploitable vulnerabilities in its Chrome web browser. So, when a researcher says that he has one, but isn't interested in selling it, eyebrows get raised. And that's just what's happening this week, with Google saying it will wait and see what Georgian researcher Ucha Gobejishvili has up his sleeve in a presentation on Saturday at the Malcon conference in New Delhi. Gobejishvili has claimed that he will demonstrate a remotely exploitable hole in the Chrome web browser at Malcon. He described the security hole in Chrome as a “critical vulnerability” in a Chrome DLL. “It has silent and automatically (sp) download functionand it works on all Windows systems” he told Security Ledger.
However, more than a few questions hang over Gobejishvili’s talk. The researcher said he discovered the hole in July, but hasn't bothered to contact Google. He will demonstrate the exploit at MalCon, and have a “general discussion” about it, but won’t release source code for it. “I know this is a very dangerous issuethat’s why I am not publishing more details about this vulnerability,” he wrote. Google said that, with no information on the hole, it can only wait to hear the researcher's Malcon presentation before it can assess the threat to Chrome users."

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Geekiest way to cook a turkey? (altonbrown.com)

Submitted by almostadnsguy
almostadnsguy writes: There seem to be a lot of ways to cook a turkey the geekiest ones are probably out of the realm of possibility for normal geeks. However, Within the limits of normal society (or outside if you wish) what is the geekiest way to do it. The link included is to the web site of my favorite geek celebre-chef (Alton Brown).

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