Math

Possible Issues With the P != NP Proof 147

Posted by Soulskill from the intuitively-obvious-to-the-most-casual-observer dept.
An anonymous reader writes "We previously discussed news that Vinay Deolalikar, a Principal Research Scientist at HP Labs, wrote a paper that claimed to prove P is not equal to NP. Dick Lipton, a Professor of Computer Science at Georgia Tech, analyzed the idea of the proof on his blog. In a recent post, he explains that there have been many serious objections raised about the proof. The post summarizes the issues that need to be answered in any subsequent development, and additional concerns are raised in the comment section."
Quake

Quake Live Beta Ends, Optional Subscription Plans Added 100

Posted by Soulskill from the as-long-as-they-don't-charge-by-the-rocket dept.
An anonymous reader sends news that the beta tag has come off of id's Quake Live, and they've added two subscription plans to monetize the game. The announcement asserts early and often that the game's current "Standard" play options will remain free-to-play. The lower subscription tier gets extra maps, a new Freeze Tag game mode, and clan creation abilities, among other things, for $2 per month. The higher plan, which is twice as expensive, grants players those benefits plus the capability to create their own private servers.
Operating Systems

Extreme Memory Oversubscription For VMs 129

Posted by Soulskill from the eXtreme-virtualization dept.
Laxitive writes "Virtualization systems currently have a pretty easy time oversubscribing CPUs (running lots of VMs on a few CPUs), but have had a very hard time oversubscribing memory. GridCentric, a virtualization startup, just posted on their blog a video demoing the creation of 16 one-gigabyte desktop VMs (running X) on a computer with just 5 gigs of RAM. The blog post includes a good explanation of how this is accomplished, along with a description of how it's different from the major approaches being used today (memory ballooning, VMWare's page sharing, etc.). Their method is based on a combination of lightweight VM cloning (sort of like fork() for VMs) and on-demand paging. Seems like the 'other half' of resource oversubscription for VMs might finally be here."
Classic Games (Games)

How Death Rally Got Ported 89

Posted by Soulskill from the not-the-opposite-of-starboarded dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Last year, I got the opportunity to port Remedy Entertainment's Death Rally to modern platforms off its original MS-DOS sources. I wrote an article about the porting process for Game Developer magazine, and now I've posted the text of the article for general consumption. 'The source software platform was DOS, Watcom C, and some Dos4GW-style DOS extender. The extender basically meant you could use more than 640k of memory, and would not need any weird code for data larger than 64k. The game displayed in VESA 640x480 and MCGA 320x200 graphics modes, all with 8-bit palettes; there was no true color anywhere. There were also some per-frame palette change tricks that emulators have trouble with. The source code was mostly pure C with a couple dozen inline assembly functions. There were a few missing subsystems, specifically audio and networking, which would have to be replaced completely anyway, as well as one file for which the source code was lost and only a compiled object was available.'"
Cellphones

iPhone vs. Android Battle Goes To Afghanistan 146

Posted by Soulskill from the no-blood-for-apps dept.
redlined writes "Cell phones are tired of waiting for the troops to come home and are going to war themselves. Tech startup Berico Tailored Systems, Lockheed Martin and apparently an army of Slashdot users are currently making tactical 3G cellular networks and smartphone applications for the military to use overseas. While DARPA has held a competition to develop iPhone and Android applications, tactically-deployable 3G networks from companies like those above should open up a slew of opportunities for Apple and Google to duke it out on an actual battlefield."
Crime

FBI Prioritizes Copyright Over Missing Persons 372

Posted by CmdrTaco from the well-that-makes...-something dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The FBI has limited resources, so it needs to prioritize what it works on. However, it's difficult to see why dealing with copyright infringement seems to get more attention than identity theft or missing persons. In the past year, the FBI has announced a special new task force to fight intellectual property infringement, but recent reports have shown that both identity theft and missing persons have been downgraded as priorities by the FBI, to the point that there are a backlog of such cases."
Music

VideoLAN Announces libaacs 105

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i-hear-what-you're-doing-there dept.
supersloshy writes "VideoLAN, makers of the well-known media player VLC, have just announced a new project called libaacs. The libaacs library's intention is to provide a free software library to implement the AACS specification, the copy-protection found on things such as Blu-ray discs. Note that this isn't meant to actually be a decoding library. It includes no AACS keys and is solely developed for research purposes."
Space

Polar Flares To Be Visible Tonight 88

Posted by CmdrTaco from the shiny-happy-colors dept.
ideaMUX writes "NASA's solar dynamics observatory recently detected an M-class flare hurling a coronal mass ejection (CME) into space. The CME is not fully directed toward Earth, but some of the plasma cloud may be visible in the magnetosphere tonight, causing a geomagnetic disturbance and possible aurora. NASA said M-class flares are medium-sized, and can cause brief radio blackouts that affect Earth's Polar regions. Minor radiation storms sometimes follow M-class flares."
Data Storage

New Toshiba Drives Wipe Data When Turned Off 239

Posted by CmdrTaco from the how's-that-gonna-work dept.
CWmike writes "Toshiba on Tuesday introduced a new hard drive feature that can wipe out data after the storage devices are powered down. The Wipe feature in Toshiba's SED (Self-Encrypting Drives) will allow for deletion of secure data prior to disposing or re-purposing hard drives, Toshiba said. The technology invalidates a hard-drive security key when a system's power supply is turned off. The new Wipe capability will go into future versions of the SED drives, for which no timeframe was given. Beyond use in PCs, Toshiba wants to put this feature on storage devices in copiers and printers."
Privacy

Browser Private Modes Not So Private After All 198

Posted by CmdrTaco from the don't-look-at-my-prvates dept.
CWmike writes "Browsing in 'private mode" isn't as private as users think, reports Gregg Keizer. 'There are some traces left behind [by all browsers] that could reveal some of the sites that you've been to,' said researcher Collin Jackson. He, along with three colleagues, will present their findings on Tuesday at the Usenix Security Symposium in DC. IE, Firefox and Safari, for instance, leave traces of SSL encryption keys even when run in private mode, while IE and Safari on Windows preserve self-signed SSL certificates in a 'vault' file that could be read by others to track the browser's path. Firefox also retains evidence of some certificates. Private mode has also been billed as a way for users to hide themselves from the prying eyes of sites that try to track habits and histories. Jackson said most users see that as the biggest attraction to private mode. 'Some browsers do a better job of protecting you from other types of scenarios, such as Web site tracking,' Jackson said. 'Safari is very much more willing to reveal you to Web sites than the others.'"
Government

Ted Stevens and Sean O'Keefe In Plane Crash 512

Posted by CmdrTaco from the end-of-the-tubes dept.
necro81 writes "The NY Times is reporting that former Senator Ted Stevens was aboard a small plane with eight others that crashed in remote southwest Alaska Monday night. Some news outlets are reporting that he died, along with at least four others. Meanwhile, the North American CEO of aerospace firm EADS and former NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe was was also reported in the crash. Rescue crews from the Alaska Air National Guard reached the site about ten hours after the initial crash."
Cellphones

BBC Builds Smartphone Malware For Testing Purposes 60

Posted by Soulskill from the mainstream-security-research dept.
siliconbits writes "BBC News has shown how straightforward it is to create a malicious application for a smartphone. Over a few weeks, the BBC put together a crude game for a smartphone that also spied on the owner of the handset. The application was built using standard parts from the software toolkits that developers use to create programs for handsets. This makes malicious applications hard to spot, say experts, because useful programs will use the same functions."
Education

Monkeys Exhibit the Same Economic Irrationality As Us 254

Posted by samzenpus from the I-wanna-spend-like-you-oo-oo dept.
grrlscientist writes "Laurie Santos is trying to find the roots of human irrationality by watching the way our primates make decisions. This video documents a clever series of experiments in 'monkeynomics' and shows that some of the stupid decisions we make are made by our primate relatives too."
Security

SMS Trojan Steals From Android Owners 168

Posted by CmdrTaco from the no-way-i-wanted-hott-sexx dept.
siliconbits writes "A Trojan posing as a media player for Android smartphones automatically sends text messages to premium rate numbers, according to Kaspersky Lab. Company officials say the Trojan, dubbed Trojan-SMS.AndroidOS.FakePlayer.a, is the first of its kind for the Android platform, even though SMS Trojans are currently the most widespread type of malware on mobile phones."

How Star Trek Artists Imagined the iPad... 23 Years Later 324

Posted by CmdrTaco from the read-it-on-tos-yesterday dept.
MorderVonAllem submitted an incredibly cool article about the computers and set design of Star Trek. If you are into that sort of thing, you're going to really like this one. It says "There are a lot of similarities between Apple's iPad and the mobile computing devices—known as PADDs—used in the Star Trek universe. Ars spoke to designers Michael Okuda, Denise Okuda, and Doug Drexler to find out the thinking and inspiration behind the PADD and how closely the iPad represents a real-life incarnation of that dream."

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