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Microsoft

Submission + - Windows Chief Steven Sinofsky Leaves Microsoft (computerworld.com)

Submitted by
CWmike
CWmike writes: "Steven Sinofsky, the executive in charge of Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system and the driving force behind the new OS, is leaving the company effective immediately, Microsoft announced late Monday. Sinofsky was also the public face for Windows 8 and its new Metro interface, posting constant updates in a Windows 8 blog that charted its development. His last post, fittingly, was entitled 'Updating Windows 8 for General Availability.' The OS was officially launched at the end of last month. According to the All Things D blog, there was growing tension between Sinofsky and other members of the Microsoft executive team, who didn't see him as enough of a team player. But Microsoft's official position is that the decision was a mutual one. Sinofsky had only good things to say about his former employer."
Idle

Submission + - Micron Associates, Elderly woman who botched religious fresco demands royalties (goodreads.com)

Submitted by ldwinkle
ldwinkle writes: The elderly Spanish woman who ruined a religious fresco with her botched restoration is now demanding royalties from her work after it became an unlikely tourist attraction.
Cecilia Gimenez, who is in her 80s, made headlines across the world after attempting a DIY restoration that left the 19th century fresco of Christ at her local church in Borja resembling a monkey.
The altered image of Ecce Homo – Behold the Man – became an internet sensation and sent thousands of curious sightseers to the Sanctuario de Misericordia to laugh at her handiwork.
Authorities threatened to sue Mrs Gimenez for her unauthorised attempt, which she insisted had been carried out with only good intentions because the painting was in need of repair.
But popularity for the modified masterpiece grew with even budget airline Ryanair offering cheap deals to nearby Zaragoza airport encouraging “pilgrims” to visit the work that was quickly dubbed “Ecce Mono” – Behold the Monkey.
An internet petition to keep the repair job garnered widespread support and seizing an opportunity to swell its coffers, the church began levying a 4 euro (£3) entrance fee on visitors, earning 2,000 euros in the first four days.

Continue Reading:
http://micronassociates.net/hi-TECH/2012/09/21/elderly-woman-who-botched-religious-fresco-demands-royalties/
Privacy

Submission + - Petraeus case shows FBI's authority to read email (yahoo.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Back in April, we discussed how the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act defines email that has resided on a server for more than six months can be considered abandoned. The recent investigation of General Petraeus brings this issue to light again, and perhaps to a broader audience. Under current US law, federal authorities need only a subpoena approved by a federal prosecutor — not a judge — to obtain electronic messages that are six months old or older. Do you know anyone these days who doesn't have IMAP accounts with 6+-month-old mail on them?
Microsoft

Submission + - Sinofsky leaves Microsoft, Julie Larson-Green now in charge of Windows Division (winbeta.org)

Submitted by BogenDorpher
BogenDorpher writes: Steven Sinofsky, the man who was behind the development and marketing of Windows (including the recently released Windows 8), Internet Explorer, Outlook.com, and SkyDrive had apparently left the company. In his place, Julie Larson-Green will run the Windows division while Tami Reller will take charge of the business of Windows.

Submission + - Lithium ion battery prices to drop? (anl.gov)

Submitted by
mtrachtenberg
mtrachtenberg writes: "A California company working with Argonne National Labs is talking about a new anode for lithium ion batteries; it claims a 300%+ increase in energy density and is talking about volume manufacturing by 2014.

The company, California Lithium Battery, is talking about a potential 70% price drop in the cost of EV battery packs. If this happens, EVs suddenly begin to make sense."
Firefox

Submission + - The Shumway Open SWF Runtime Project (mozilla.org)

Submitted by theweatherelectric
theweatherelectric writes: Mozilla is looking for contributors interested in working on Shumway. Mozilla's Jet Villegas writes, 'Shumway is an experimental web-native runtime implementation of the SWF file format. It is developed as a free and open source project sponsored by Mozilla Research. The project has two main goals: 1. Advance the open web platform to securely process rich media formats that were previously only available in closed and proprietary implementations. 2. Offer a runtime processor for SWF and other rich media formats on platforms for which runtime implementations are not available.'
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft makes Direct X 11.1 a Windows 8 Exclusive! (theverge.com)

Submitted by BluPhenix316
BluPhenix316 writes: Microsoft has made Direct X 11.1 a Windows 8 Exclusive. I think this is merely a update to make Direct X more integrated with Windows 8. Is this going to be the trend? To lock you into the OS updates so Windows 7 doesn't last as long as Windows XP has?
Math

Submission + - Your Unconscious Brain Can Do Math, Process Language (ieee.org)

Submitted by the_newsbeagle
the_newsbeagle writes: It's hard to determine what the unconscious brain is doing since, after all, we're not aware of it. But in a neat set of experiments, researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's consciousness lab found evidence that the unconscious brain can parse language and perform simple arithmetic. The researchers flashed colorful patterns at test subjects that took up all their attention and allowed for the subliminal presentation of sentences or equations. In the language processing experiment, researchers found that subjects became consciously aware of a sentence sooner if it was jarring and nonsensical (like, for example, the sentence "I ironed coffee").
Education

Submission + - "Clandestine" UK Database keeps Records on 8 Million School Children (rt.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Russia Today reports: 'A newly uncovered clandestine computer network, known as the ‘One System,’ can reportedly share children’s personal details across different UK agencies, including age, sex, address and their school behavior records – all without parents ever knowing. One of Britain’s biggest government contractors has created a database containing the personal details of 8 million children, the Sunday Times revealed. The database was created by Capita – a company specializing in IT systems – and includes information on a child’s sex, age, exam results, if they have special needs, bad behavior like absenteeism and how many minutes late they are to lessons. This information can then be shared with numerous agencies, including the police, the NHS and child protection units and charities, all without parental consent. Teachers collect data on all children, not just ones deemed to be at risk. This includes recording how many minutes late they are for class. The One System is already employed by about 100 local authorities, and was created two years after Contact Point – a similar database which was set up by the then-Labour government, but scrapped by the current coalition because of security concerns. Documents obtained by the Sunday Times revealed that classroom information is gathered by teachers and submitted to the One System up to six times a day to provide a “golden thread of data” that can be accessed by anyone working with children. In an Orwellian twist, the firm hires photographers to take pictures of schoolchildren, which they then offer for sale to their parents before uploading them onto the database.'
Businesses

Submission + - Amazon Donates 2,000 Kindles to Wounded Veterans (beyond-black-friday.com)

Submitted by
destinyland
destinyland writes: "Amazon's just announced that they're donating 2,000 Kindles to a charity for wounded soldiers and their families. And they're also promising to hire at least 1,200 more veterans within the next year at fulfillment centers around the country through Amazon's
Military Talent Program. As the U.S. prepares to celebrate Veterans Day, Amazon's press release notes that they've been named one of the top military-friendly employers for two years in a row, by U.S. Veterans magazine, and one Kindle blog also notes that Amazon has even quietly created a special program which allows some customer service employees to work from home, for which Amazon has actively recruited military spouses for the program, as well as wounded veterans"

Submission + - Idiocracy has begun (livescience.com) 1

Submitted by barefoot_professor
barefoot_professor writes: Are Humans Becoming Less Intelligent?
As reported by LiveScience, "The study, published today (Nov. 12) in the journal Trends in Genetics, argues that humans lost the evolutionary pressure to be smart once we started living in dense agricultural settlements several thousand years ago."
Security

Submission + - Cyber Espionage Campaign Targets Israel and Palestine (thehackernews.com)

Submitted by
thn
thn writes: "Cyber Espionage Campaign Targets Israel and Palestine, Israel has banned its police force from connecting to the Internet and from using memory sticks or disks in an effort to curb a cyberattack. The ban, enacted last week, is meant to prevent a malware program called Benny Gantz-55 named after Benny Gantz, Israel's Chief of General Staff from infecting the police's computer network Read here: http://thehackernews.com/2012/11/cyber-espionage-campaign-targets-israel.html"
Linux

Submission + - Fully Open A13-OLinuXino Single-Board Linux Computer (pcworld.com)

Submitted by Penurious Penguin
Penurious Penguin writes: Via LXer, an article from PCWorld describes the A13-OLinuXino, produced by OLIMEX. Similar, but distinct from the Raspberry Pi, the Linux-powered OLinuXino is touted as "fully open", with all CAD files and source-code freely available for both personal and commercial reuse. Its specs include an Allwinner A13 Cortex A8 1GHz processor, 3D Maili400 GPU, 512MB RAM, all packed into a nano-ITX form and fit for operation in industrial environments between -25C and 85C. The device comes with Android 4.0, but is capable of running other Linux distros, e.g., ArchlinuxARM.
Science

Submission + - Artificial self-healing skin can sense touch (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by thomst
thomst writes: Science Magazines's Tim Wogan reports that chemical engineer Zhenan Bao of Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, and her team have increased the conductivity of a self-healing polymer by incorporating nickel atoms. The polymer they have produced is sensitive to applied forces like pressure and torsion (twisting) because such forces alter the distance between the nickel atoms, changing the electrical resistance of the polymer. Their work is published online in the November 1 issue of Nature Nanotechnology (abstract here, full article paywalled). Now Bao and her team are working on making the polymer more flexible.

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