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Comment Re:language wars still hot for good reason (Score 2) 144

by msclrhd (#45568357) Attached to: Zuckerberg Shows Kindergartners Ruby Instead of JavaScript

Python is a good language to build up from the ground up -- just type "python" and you start a Python interpreter. You can then start typing. For example:

        >>> 5
        5
        >>> 5*2
        10

This allows you to only teach the absolute minimum of what is needed at the time. You can even tie it into things like mathematics.

Submission + - Jolla: Ex-Nokia employees launch smartphone (MeeGo resurrected)

Submitted by mrspoonsi
mrspoonsi writes: A team of ex-Nokia employees has released the first handset running on a new smartphone platform. The Jolla phone — pronounced Yol-la — is powered by open-source operating system Sailfish, but can run most apps designed for Google's Android platform. The platform — originally called MeeGo — was developed by Nokia, but dumped in 2011 in favour of the company adopting the Windows Phone system. Nokia released just one handset running the software, the N9-00. Antti Saarnio, chairman and co-founder of Jolla, told the BBC in May that MeeGo — now called Sailfish — had not been given enough chance to succeed.

Submission + - The Biggest Fraud in Kickstarter History is Currently Unfolding (kickstarter.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The SmartDuino project launched on Kickstarter last October promised many things, including making it super simple for hobbyist to create amazing electronic projects easily, and ended up raising an amazing $157,571 for project creator Dimitri Albino. But allegations of fraud soon came out shortly after funding ended — including Arduino creator Massimo Banzi calling Mr. Albino's claims of being the manufacturer of the Arduino a lie and claimed his project violated the Arduino Trademark. Now a year later, after many broken promises and no products delivered, the project backers are demanding answers, refunds and threatening international legal action in what looks to be the largest fraud in Kickstarter history.

And to add insult to the victims of this, Mr. Albino's company, SmartMaker, is currently running multiple other projects on crowdfunding site Indiegogo which so far have raised over $420,000 and also have had similar fraud claims being made.

Submission + - Dalek Caan joins Linkedin, gets 600 contacts.

Submitted by Guru Jim
Guru Jim writes: Interesting article about the foibles of Social Networks. Linkedin is generally regarded as having the highest level of quality for it's members, but a fake profile for Dalek Caan gained 600 contacts and resulted in multiple calls from Sales people wanting to set up meetings or catch up for a coffee. There was no real restrictions on the farming of contacts and it enabled the mapping of organisational charts pretty easily. Should Linkedin be doing more to protect it's users and should Linkedin users be more skeptical of peoples profile?

Submission + - US Working to Kill UN Privacy Resolutions (foreignpolicy.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: The United States and its key intelligence allies are quietly working behind the scenes to kneecap a mounting movement in the United Nations to promote a universal human right to online privacy, according to diplomatic sources and an internal American government document obtained by The Cable.

American representatives have made it clear that they won't tolerate such checks on their global surveillance network.

Submission + - Jailbreaking and unlocking might be restricted in treaty pushed by Obama (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by SonicSpike
SonicSpike writes: The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) treaty pushed by the Obama administration could complicate efforts to loosen restrictions on jailbreaking and unlocking smartphones, tablets, or other consumer electronics.

A working draft of the treaty published by WikiLeaks prohibits the manufacturing or distribution of devices or services "for the purpose of circumvention of any effective technological measure." It goes on to prohibit devices and services that "have only a limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent any effective technological measure, or are primarily designed, produced, or performed for the purpose of the circumvention of any effective technological measure."

Derek Khanna, a Yale Law Fellow who submitted a White House petition that led to the Obama administration publicly supporting the end of a ban on unlocking, wrote in Slate that "while the White House was publicly proclaiming its support of cellphone unlocking, it was secretly negotiating a treaty that would ban it."

The treaty text never specifically mentions jailbreaking or unlocking, but the lack of an exemption to the ban on circumventing technological measures has Khanna worried.

"The treaty as proposed would stop all methods of circumvention," Khanna wrote in an e-mail to Ars. "The key is that there must be an exemption to allow for unlocking. In the draft text, there is no exemption for unlocking."

Submission + - UK Government says progress made on internet filters. (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by PsyMan
PsyMan writes: Using a ruse involving a blatent "think of the children" line the UK Government is ploughing ahead with its latest internet censoring project. ISP's are of course unwittingly/eagerly assisting the ConDem Overlords in their quest to create a controlable media blackout switch and so far results are looking promising.

First they blocked Pr0n but I did not care as I did not publically delare that I ever looked at pr0n............Then they blo

Submission + - EFF says Mark Shuttleworth is wrong about trademark (muktware.com)

Submitted by sfcrazy
sfcrazy writes: Last week Canonical sent a cease and desist letter to EFF staffer Micah F Lee asking him to remove the word Ubuntu from the URL as well as removed the Ubuntu logo from the site. Lee responded through an attorney who said that Canonical’s “request were not supported by trademark laws and interferes with protected speech.” Shuttleworth apologized, though it was cheeky, and while he dubbed the Mir opponents as non-technical (hello KDE, systemD, Wayland, Intel) he also went on to explain why they needed to protect their trademark.

Now there is official response from EFF.

In the blog post EFF has explained that Shuttleworth is far from reality and was totally wrong about trademark. Looks like Canonical needs some communication experts. One more thing Mark should stop blogging.

Submission + - Modern Microsoft Word Does Not Reliably Read Earlier Formats: A 1989 Print Test (blogspot.ca)

Submitted by badger.foo
badger.foo writes: Prompted by a fabulous rant by Charlie Stross named Why Microsoft Word must Die, Peter Hansteen dug out from his archives the simplest possible 1989-vintage Microsoft Word .DOC document, and has the data to prove that newer versions or Microsoft Word do in fact not reliably read files from earlier versions. Case in point: An ASCII table print test generated and saved as .DOC in 1989.

Submission + - GCHQ guilty of industrial scale subversion .. (theguardian.com)

Submitted by codeusirae
codeusirae writes: A British engineer who works on anti-hacking systems at Google has furiously accused the UK and US spying agencies of "industrial scale subversion of the judicial process" by tapping the company's internal networks .. a senior engineer at Google since 2010, complains that "nobody at GCHQ or the NSA will ever stand before a judge and answer for this industrial-scale subversion of the judicial process" ...

Submission + - Google sparks online outrage with forced Google+ signups for YouTube users 3

Submitted by NewtonsLaw
NewtonsLaw writes: Although Google has copped flak before when they've messed around with the winning formula that is YouTube, the world's most successful and popular video sharing site, I suspect that they weren't ready for the tsunami of anger that has been unleashed against them as a result of their latest changes.

All non-passive YouTube users (ie: anyone who wants to leave or reply to comments on videos) must now create a Google+ identity and link it to their YouTube channel.

Cynics (such as myself) are seeing this as a nasty piece of *evil* blackmail on the part of Google as it attempts to boost the numbers of G+ users and the levels of activity within the G+ community.

Unfortunately, in doing this, Google seems to have completely forgotten the KISS strategy that made their search engine so distinctive and a darling of Net users everywhere. The YouTube comments system was also very simple, very clean and surprisingly effective.

Now however, users must fight their way through the acres of dross that are associated with a Google+ account and although the new system offers a few extra features, much of the essential core functionality of the previous YouTube comments system has been destroyed.

There are presently several online petitions demanding that Google reinstate the old comments system and numerous "rant videos" from upset YouTube users but perhaps the best demonstration of how poorly this forced change has gone down is the like/dislike ratio and the nature of the comments on Google's own YouTube promotional video for these changes.

Owch!

Submission + - Feedly Forces its Users to Create Google+ Profiles

Submitted by somegeekynick
somegeekynick writes: Feedly users, a lot of whom migrated from the now-defunct Google Reader, are now finding out that they will not be able to login to the service without a Google+ Profile. In a blog post from Edwin Khodabakchian, which was posted almost at the same time the change rolled out, the reason for the change is stated as following Google's own move from using OAuth to Google+ for authentication. What has riled up a lot of users, as can be read in the comments, is that this change has come without warning and a lot of feeds are now being "held hostage" by Feedly, especially for users who are reluctant to create Google+ Profiles.

Submission + - Microsoft Admits Windows 8.1 Update May Bork Your Mouse, Promises a Fix (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: Microsoft has several valid reasons why you should upgrade to Windows 8.1, which is free if you already own Windows 8. However, there's a known issue that might give some gamers pause before clicking through in the Windows Store. There have been complaints of mouse problems after applying the Windows 8.1 update, most of which have been related to lag in video games, though Microsoft confirmed there are other potential quirks. Acknowledging the problem, Microsoft says it's also actively investigating the issues and working on a patch.

Submission + - Project seeks to build inexpensive 9-inch monitor for Raspberry Pi (computerworld.com.au)

Submitted by angry tapir
angry tapir writes: A Kickstarter project is aiming to bring an inexpensive 9-inch portable monitor to the popular US$25 Raspberry Pi PC, which comes without a keyboard, mouse or monitor. The "HDMIPi" will include an LCD panel that will show images at a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels. Computers can be hooked up to the monitor via an HDMI controller board that can be wired to the LCD. The display is being made by Raspi.TV and Cyntech.

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