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Chrome

Submission + - IE9 Is Better At Blocking Malware Than Chrome, Safari, And Firefox Combined

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Is Microsoft’s Windows Internet Explorer 9 the most secure browser out there? It depends who you ask. A study published today by NSS Labs says that indeed Microsoft bests Google, Mozilla, and Apple when it comes to blocking malware. Out of the 84,396 URLs, IE9 blocked 95 percent of malicious activity, Chrome blocked 33 percent, while Safari and Firefox both blocked less than 6 percent.

NSS told the site that this wasn't sponsored by Microsoft. Very surprising.
Mars

Submission + - Curiosity Rover Finds "Ancient Streambed" Proving Mars Once Had Water (twitter.com) 3

Submitted by eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: As NPR reports, NASA's Curiosity Rover has tweeted pictures of proof of water on Mars. Indications arose earlier this year but researchers are now calling this proof of a stream ankle to hip deep running at about three feet per second judging by the pictures. The shapes prove these rocks were weathered as they were transported by something and the sizes tell you that that something couldn't be wind.
Microsoft

Submission + - OS Review: Windows 8 RTM (activewin.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: I saw over on OSNews that ActiveWin posted a 45-page review of Windows 8 RTM, with a lot of screenshots. There is lot of controversy over the new OS if the metro-style apps will be suitable for a business environment, or flop like Vista did.
Government

Submission + - Look Inside North Korea's Ryugyong Hotel for the First Time

Submitted by derekmead
derekmead writes: There’s no more fitting metaphor for North Korea’s Ryugyong Hotel than the fact that it’s shaped a stock market crash. Construction on the hotel began in 1987, and was supposed to be completed by 1989. By 1992, after the fall of the Soviet Union — and the resulting loss of cash flow from Moscow — put a major pinch on North Korea’s funds, construction on what was to be the world’s tallest structure at its inception halted, leaving a giant skeleton of building towering over the glittery squalor of Pyongyang like a wireframe spaceship.

In 2008, after 16 years of sitting listlessly, construction restarted on the 105-story building. It’s hard to imagine how that could even happen. Imagine 16 years of the elements pounding away at the building’s concrete skeleton, and then imagine finding construction workers who could pick up where others left off.

But now, 25 years after breaking ground, North Korean officials have opened still-unfinished hotel up for visitors, and some folks from travel agency specializing in North Korea have become the first Westerners to take pictures inside the structure. The first thing you notice is how audacious the plans actually are. Sure, the aged concrete and rusty guardrails make it clear that the structure has been sitting for some time, but it’s incredible that it was even built in the first place.
Biotech

Submission + - First mammals observed regenerating tissue (nature.com)

Submitted by
ananyo
ananyo writes: "Two species of African spiny mouse have been caught at something no other mammal is known to do — completely regenerating damaged tissue. The work could help improve wound healing in humans.
The species — Acomys kempi and Acomys percivali — have skin that is brittle and easily torn, which helps them to escape predators by jettisoning patches of their skin when caught or bitten. Researchers report that whereas normal laboratory mice (Mus musculus) grow scar tissue when their skin is removed, African spiny mice can regrow complete suites of hair follicles, skin, sweat glands, fur and even cartilage (abstract). Tissue regeneration has not been seen in mammals before, though it is common in crustaceans, insects, reptiles and amphibians."
Crime

Submission + - New Zealand Prime Minister Apologizes to Megaupload Boss Kim Dotcom (bbc.com)

Submitted by arisvega
arisvega writes: He said sorry because a New Zealand law enforcement agency was judged to have illegally spied on Mr Dotcom.

The investigation was illegal because the agency is only authorised to spy on foreigners. Mr Dotcom became a New Zealand citizen in 2010.

In a statement, Mr Key said: "I apologise to Mr Dotcom... We failed to provide that appropriate protection for him." The illegal surveillance was the result of "basic errors" said Mr Key.

The spying was carried out just before police raids that shut down file-storing service Megaupload.
Earth

Submission + - New comet might blaze brighter than the full Moon (astronomynow.com)

Submitted by UnresolvedExternal
UnresolvedExternal writes: A new comet has been discovered that is predicted to blaze incredibly brilliantly in the skies during late 2013. With a perihelion passage of less than two million kilometres from the Sun on 28 November 2013, current predictions are of an object that will dazzle the eye at up to magnitude —16. That's far brighter than the full Moon. If predictions hold true then C/2012 S1 will certainly be one of the greatest comets in human history, far outshining the memorable Comet Hale-Bopp of 1997 and very likely to outdo the long-awaited Comet Pan-STARRS (C/2011 L4) which is set to stun in March 2013.
Networking

Submission + - Terabit Ethernet is Dead, for Now (slashdot.org)

Submitted by
Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster writes: "Sorry, everybody: terabit Ethernet looks like it will have to wait a while longer.

The IEEE 802.3 Industry Connections Higher Speed Ethernet Consensus group met this week in Geneva, Switzerland, with attendees concluding—almost to a man—that 400 Gbits/s should be the next step in the evolution of Ethernet. A straw poll at its conclusion found that 61 of the 62 attendees that voted supported 400 Gbits/s as the basis for the near term “call for interest,” or CFI.

The bandwidth call to arms was sounded by a July report by the IEEE, which concluded that, if current trends continue, networks will need to support capacity requirements of 1 terabit per second in 2015 and 10 terabits per second by 2020. In 2015 there will be nearly 15 billion fixed and mobile-networked devices and machine-to-machine connections."
Apple

Submission + - Steve Jobs Joins House of Wax

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "The LA Times reports that Steve Jobs is about to join Barack Obama, Jackie Chan, Nicole Kidman and Mozart at Madame Tussauds Hong Kong, the tourist attraction famous for creating hauntingly lifelike sculptures of famous people. The model of Jobs, to be unveiled to mark the first anniversary of Jobs' death, is based on pictures taken of the tech innovator during a 2006 Fortune magazine shoot and shows the Apple Inc. cofounder in a relaxed position, arms crossed loosely over his chest, with a pair of silver-rimmed Lunor glasses perched on his face and wearing a black cotton turtle neck, Levi 501 jeans and New Balance trainers. The company says a team of artists spent three months working on the wax figure, inserting each strand of hair one by one into the wax head using a forked needle, and using fine silk threads to recreate the subtle veining in the whites of his eyes. The figure will remain at the Historical and National Heroes attraction of Madame Tussauds Hong Kong through November 26, before travelling on to Madame Tussauds Bangkok and then Madame Tussauds Shanghai."
United States

Submission + - NZ Spied on Kim Dotcom, broke own laws (tvnz.co.nz)

Submitted by byrdfl3w
byrdfl3w writes: The New Zealand Government Communications Security Bureau are in hot water after illegally intercepting information in the Kim Dotcom case. Prime Minister John Key gave a series of "no comments" to thorny questions on the issue, leaving many to wonder what other secret missions NZ Governmental agencies may have undertaken at the behest of the United States.
Mr Key yesterday announced he had asked for an investigation into the unlawful interception of communications by the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB), saying it had acquired communications without statutory authority.
The law allows the GCSB to intercept the communications of foreigners without a warrant in some circumstances, but it cannot intercept the communications of New Zealand citizens or residents even when it has a warrant.
Space

Submission + - New Theoretical Clock Transcends Both Time and Space (sciencedaily.com) 1

Submitted by
SchrodingerZ
SchrodingerZ writes: "Scientists at Berkeley Labsin California have theorized a new idea for a clock that can remain ticking even after the death of our universe. The idea is to create a four dimensional crystalline structure that is unaffected by third dimensional havoc. It would work by having the ‘electric field of [an] ion trap holds charged particles in place and Coulomb repulsion causes them to spontaneously form a spatial ring crystal. Under the application of a weak static magnetic field, this ring-shaped ion crystal will begin a rotation that will never stop,’ says Berkeley faculty Xiang Zhang. ‘The persistent rotation of trapped ions produces temporal order, leading to the formation of a space-time crystal at the lowest quantum energy state.’ It is considered to be 4-dimesional because ‘a spatial ring of trapped ions in persistent rotation will periodically reproduce itself in time, forming a temporal analog of an ordinary spatial crystal. With a periodic structure in both space and time, the result is a space-time crystal’. Because this space-time ‘crystal’ would already be at the lowest quantum state possible, theorists believe the structure could continue on after the rest of the universe fades and destroys itself ( thermodynamic equilibrium). Though the idea is mathematically sound (proven by nobel prize winner Frank Wilczek), constuction and manipulation is still only theoretical."
Piracy

Submission + - The Swiss Pirate Party has its First Mayor

Submitted by bs0d3
bs0d3 writes: Alex Arnold from the Pirate Party Switzerland, has been elected mayor of Eichberg. This is the first mayoral win for the pirates in Switzerland, and hopefully just the begining of things to come. Thomas Bruderer, president of the Pirate Party Switzerland, is delighted: "This result is for our young party is an important milestone. To win a majority vote shows that our members are not just a marginal phenomenon; but are in the midst of society."
Apple

Submission + - Apple stole iPad clock design from Swiss Rail company (networkworld.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Apple received a lot of criticism during the Apple/Samsung litigation this past Summer as folks deemed it absurd that Apple was able to patent things such as icon design and the overall form factor of a smartphone.

Well as it turns out, it appears that Apple has engaged in some copying of its own in the form of the new clock icon design used in iOS 6 on the iPad- a rather ironic turn of events given that Apple railed against Samsung for copying its own iOS icons. Specifically, the clock icon in iOS 6 on the iPad is a blatant copy of a Hans Hilfiker design to which both the trademark and copyright is owned by the Swiss Federal Railways service.
Privacy

Submission + - Advertisers never intended to honor DNT (zdnet.com)

Submitted by oldlurker
oldlurker writes: After much discussion where many hoped a voluntary Do Not Track standard was agreed with advertisers, it turns out the advertisers already had a very different interpretation than most of us on how to practice it:

"Two big associations, the Interactive Advertising Bureau and the Digital Advertising Alliance, represent 90% of advertisers. Downey says those big groups have devised their own interpretation of Do Not Track. When the servers controlled by those big companies encounter a DNT=1 header, says Downey, "They have said they will stop serving targeted ads but will still collect and store and monetize data.”

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