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Android

Submission + - Chrome on Android 50% faster than Safari on Iphone (blaze.io)

Submitted by jperl
jperl writes: Testing by blaze software has shown that Chrome on Android performed much faster on 45.000 web pages than IPhone's Safari. Chrome performed better in 84% of the webpages, with an median loading time of 2.144 seconds, resulting in being 52% faster than Safari. Another suprising result was that iPhone 4.3 and Android 2.3 did not perform much faster than previous versions.

The study was done primarily on iPhone 4 and Google Nexus S. The websites used were those of the Fortune 1000 companies.

Meanwhile Apple has also released a statement explaining the gap in performance: http://www.blaze.io/business/embeded-browser-vs-native-browser/
Privacy

Daniel Ellsberg On WikiLeaks, Google and Facebook 87

Posted by Soulskill from the locking-out-big-brother dept.
angry tapir writes "The Silicon Valley companies that store our personal data have a growing responsibility to protect it from government snooping, according to Daniel Ellsberg, the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers. Discussing the growing role of Internet companies in the public sphere, Ellsberg said companies such as Google, Facebook and Twitter need to take a stand and push back on excessive requests for personal data." Ellsberg spoke as part of a panel at an event from the Churchill Club, which included Clay Shirky, Jonathan Zittrain and others discussing the WikiLeaks situation.
Input Devices

Submission + - New Linux kernel 2.6.30 native multitouch support (lii-enac.fr) 1

Submitted by
Mohamed-Ikbel Boulabiar
Mohamed-Ikbel Boulabiar writes: "The new linux kernel 2.6.30 now support natively multitouch event. These events are sent through the MT_* messages added to the kernel by Henrik Rydberg and now available in the last 2.6.30. We have collaborated with the Linux team to add the needed events and to allow native support. This is different from MPX, that is only Multi user and not multitouch, and only support one keyboard/mouse per user acting simultaneously on the same screen. Here you can find a video showing the multitouch capabilities : http://www.lii-enac.fr/en/projects/shareit/linux.html Thanks, Best Regards"
IBM

Submission + - How IBM Plans to Win Jeopardy! (technologyreview.com)

Submitted by wjousts
wjousts writes: Technology Review is reporting on IBM's plans to take on Trebek at his own game. The "Watson" computer system uses natural-language processing techniques to break down questions into their structural components and then search it's database for relevant answers. A televised matchup with Trebek is planned for next year.

Damn you Trebek!
United States

Submission + - Jobless IT pro buys radio ads to find work 1

Submitted by
netbuzz
netbuzz writes: "The 65-year-old software engineer has worked for a who's who of industry and government entities, yet his phone that used to ring regularly with work offers has gone silent. So, Larry Fowler figures that what works for car dealerships and furniture stores just might find work for him. He's paid out $1,500 to buy a series of radio ads touting his technical skills and achievements ... delivered in his own everyman voice. You can listen to the commercial and judge for yourself.

http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/42019"
Security

Submission + - memcpy() Is Going to Be Banned (infoq.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The memcpy() function has been recommended to be banned and will most likely enter Microsoft's SDL Banned list later this year. memcpy() joins the ranks of other popular functions like strcpy, strncpy, strcat, strncat which were banned due to their security vulnerability through buffer overruns.
Software

Submission + - Is Phoning Home Killing Our Computers?

Submitted by Bones3D_mac
Bones3D_mac writes: As a Mac user, I've been spared much of the headache of viruses and other nasty surprises most PC users have been dealing with on a daily basis. Lately though, I've been looking into the windows side of things to expand my available toolsets, such as tablet laptops for things like photoshop and lightweight 3D modeling work.

The problem, however, is how do I keep a mission-critical system like this safe when the applications being used on it require an internet connection to phone home? Obviously, having no external connections would do a lot to prevent anything from causing damage to the data stored on the system. But it seems that it's become increasingly difficult to keep the internet out of the equation when it comes to the more expensive software.

Should commercial developers be considering other methods of preventing piracy besides just phoning home? Or should we start holding them responsible for making our mission-critical systems needlessly vulnerable due to their software's requirement that an internet connect always be present?
Medicine

Submission + - Only 7 swine flu deaths, not 152, says WHO (smh.com.au)

Submitted by
Philip K Dickhead
Philip K Dickhead writes: "A member of the World Health Organisation (WHO) has dismissed claims that more than 150 people have died from swine flu, saying it has officially recorded only seven deaths around the world. Vivienne Allan said in an interview with Australian Broadcasting, that the body had confirmed worldwide there had been just seven deaths — all in Mexico — and 79 confirmed cases of the disease. Ms. Allen, of WHO's patient safety program stated "Unfortunately that [150-plus deaths] is incorrect information and it does happen, but that's not information that's come from the World Health Organisation. That figure is not a figure that's come from the World Health Organisation and, I repeat, the death toll is seven and they are all from Mexico." Ms Allan said WHO had confirmed 40 cases of swine flu in the Americas, 26 in Mexico, six in Canada, two in Spain, two in Britain and three in New Zealand."
United States

Submission + - Study Says People Don't Understand Rain Forecasts 1

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "Cognitive Psychologist Susan Joslyn writes that many people don't understand what the 20 percent chance of rain actually refers to. Many people think it means that it will rain over 20 percent of the area covered by the forecast or for 20 percent of the time period covered by the forecast. "When a forecast says there is 20 percent chance of rain tomorrow it actually means it will rain on 20 percent of the days with exactly the same atmospheric conditions," Joslyn says. To probe people's understanding of the term probability of precipitation, a technique used in public forecasts since the late 1960s, Joslyn and her colleagues tested more than 450 Pacific Northwest college students. Each student only saw one icon or "precipicons," that is visual representation of the chance of rain and forecast, and filled out a questionnaire. Two of the questions asked how much of the time it would rain and over approximately what area of the region would it likely rain today. The correct answer for both questions was "can't tell from this forecast," and only 43 percent of the students correctly responded to both questions. Joslyn says that if the misunderstandings uncovered in this research exist among a college-educated group of students from the Pacific Northwest, where it frequently rains, then similar error probably occur in similar, or larger, numbers elsewhere among the general public. "In dealing with a forecast about rain people must simultaneously consider several hypothetical outcomes, their corresponding levels of uncertainty and their consequences. For some people it may be easier to commit to a single outcome, reducing cognitive load, and proceed as through the uncertainty has been resolved. In some cases they may not be aware of this simplification.""
Cellphones

Submission + - First Open Source Smartphone Discontinued (bernerzeitung.ch) 1

Submitted by
TuxMobil
TuxMobil writes: "Bad news for freerunner fans, development of the first Open Source smartphone will be discontinued. OpenMoko executive director Sean Moss-Pulz told at OpenExpo in Bern (Switzerland) that the number of staffs will be reduced to be able to stay in business. OpenMoko had high intentions: the offspring from Taiwanese electronic manufacturer First International Computer (FIC) wanted to produce an Open Source smartphone. Not only with Open Source software pre-installed, but with free drivers and open specifications of the hardware components. This would give programmers as well as users complete freedom. Up to now the manufacturer has produced two models, the first has been sold 3,000 times and the second one has been bought 10,000 times. Both models were targeted primarily to developers. From the beginning OpenMoko had to fight with different problems. The smartphones came into market with a huge delay. Some series came with construction defects. Also changes in the team slowed down the development. Software development for the current smartphone will be continued but with less resources Moss-Pultz told. He still hopes the community will support the Freerunner: "Buy the Freerunner, help to correct bugs and write new programms". http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/20/1551200 http://mobile.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/25/1751228 http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/16/0037221 http://mobile.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/24/1739200"
Google

Submission + - Wikia is dead, all hail google (jimmywales.com)

Submitted by jperl
jperl writes: Economic crisis has found another popular victim.
The free and open source web search engine Wikia will be closed down today at March 31, 2009. This was announced today by Jimmy Wales founder of wikipedia in his blog.
In an interview with CNet Jimmy Wales said:
"This one is too far away." and "It was going to take at least a another year to two before it's usable by the public, and we can't afford that right now."
Businesses

Submission + - Firefox tops European browser market for 1st time (ostatic.com)

Submitted by ruphus13
ruphus13 writes: The EC took a decidedly harder stance against Microsoft and its anti-competitive practices in the browser wars. Those restrictions seem to have yielded results. Firefox, for the first time, has the largest market share amongst browsers. From the post, "StatCounter is now reporting that Firefox 3.0 is the most popular browser in Europe--for the first time. Number one in Europe? That's a milestone, and a sign of very healthy browser competition in Europe. If the European Commission's recent efforts to force Microsoft to offer more browser choice in Windows succeed, Firefox may well stay number one." It is also interesting to note that Firefox has 100% market share on 1 continent — Antarctica! The article states, "I'm guessing the data comes from one user — and he's using Firefox."

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