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Technology

Submission + - Grady Booch Documenting Computers to Chart (techzwn.com)

Submitted by jjp9999
jjp9999 writes: Computer scientist Grady Booch, an original creator of the Unified Model Language, hopes to do for computing what Sagan did for the universe with ‘Cosmos.’ By presenting the history and state of global computing, both the good and the bad, he hopes to help society ‘be intentional how about how we will shape the future of computing as well as how we might choose to be shaped by it It is as if we have created a new world, and chose to step inside it,’ he said. This will be done through a transmedia documentary series, ‘Computing: The Human Experience.’ According to Booch, ‘We will set the stage, we will pose the questions, but our audience can draw their own conclusions.as well as hopefully be inspired to be part of creating that future.’
Chrome

Submission + - Chrome 15 - World's Most Popular Browser (i-programmer.info)

Submitted by mikejuk
mikejuk writes: The browser universe is changing with Microsoft no longer in charge of what constitutes a de facto web standard. Now the role seems to belong to the Gecko and WebKit layout engines aka Firefox and Chrome.
Chrome over took Firefox in November and now it has overtaken IE8. You can now be sure that over 45% of the browsers that visit your site support HTML5 including features that Microsoft refuses to support like WebGL.
It is also interesting to notice that the auto-update policies of both Google and Mozilla pay off with the latest browser versions replacing the older versions very rapidly. Now Microsoft has decided that this is a good idea and from January IE 6, 7 and 8 will be upgraded automatically to either IE8 or IE9. I doubt that this will stop the slide — the browser world now belongs to Google and Mozilla.
Privacy

Submission + - Your BitTorrent Activity May Be Online and Searcha (krebsonsecurity.com)

Submitted by OverTheGeicoE
OverTheGeicoE writes: You might think that Facebook privacy is bad, but if you're a BitTorrent user, you've got bigger problems. Krebs on Security has a story about youhavedownloaded.com, a site that indexes download activity for BitTorrent and other file-sharing services by IP address. It isn't perfect; it doesn't have records for a lot of activity, and it doesn't disambiguate information for shared IP addresses. Still, if it has records on you, that may be bad enough to expose you to legal action from MPAA or RIAA, or perhaps just uncomfortable discussions with Mom and Dad.
Hardware

Submission + - World's first programmable quantum photonic chip (extremetech.com) 1

Submitted by
MrSeb
MrSeb writes: "A team of engineering geniuses from the University of Bristol, England has developed the world's first re-programmable, multi-purpose quantum photonic computer chip that relies on quantum entanglement to perform calculations. With multiple waveguide channels (made from standard silicon dioxide), and eight electrodes (see image above), the silicon chip is capable of repeatedly entangling photons. Depending on how the electrodes are programmed, different quantum states can be produced. The end result is two qubits that can be used to perform quantum computing. Most importantly, though, unlike existing quantum photonic setups which require apparatus the size of a "large dining table," this new chip is tiny: just 70mm (2.7 inches) by 3mm. Quantum chips are here, folks!"
AI

Journal Journal: Artificial intelligence/genetic learning achieved 14

Journal by msobkow

MSS Code Factory 1.8.2745 just accomplished something new and rather amazing: it became a true artificial intelligence capable of learning about a generic business application model and able to adapt an implementation of itself to being able to learn how to work with that application implementation.

Submission + - Kindle Touch Gets World's Simplest JailBreak (the-digital-reader.com)

Submitted by Nate the greatest
Nate the greatest writes: Can you play an mp file? Then you can jailbreak the new Kindle Touch.

A new hack was posted this morning that roots the Kindle Touch/K5 and opens the way for future hacks. The hacker also reveals that the K5 runs on HTML5, which should make it a lot easier to come up with new apps. Epub, anyone?
Censorship

Submission + - Pirates Praise Draconian Anti Piracy Bill (activepolitic.com)

Submitted by bs0d3
bs0d3 writes: If you tell everyone that they have to survive on rations, like one candy bar a day.. they will complain. If you take away all of their food, and then give them a candy bar, they will be happy. That's exactly what's happened with SOPA. After people protested coica and pipa, SOPA was drafted. SOPA was so infinitely worse, that people would welcome the day when coica returned. That's exactly what happened. Today they've got pirates, freedom of speech advocates, and technology blogs; not only praising a new internet censorship bill, but also taking part in helping to create it. The language of the bill is similar to coica and protectip; bills that previously these groups had protested. But now that things seem to be going even worse, people have forgotten the original objective and are supporting this new process.
Science

Submission + - 'Vocal Fry' Creeping Into U.S. Speech (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: A curious vocal pattern has crept into the speech of young adult women who speak American English: low, creaky vibrations, also called vocal fry. Pop singers, such as Britney Spears, slip vocal fry into their music as a way to reach low notes and add style. Now, a new study of young women in New York state shows that the same guttural vibration—once considered a speech disorder—has become a language fad.
The Military

Submission + - German City Evacuated for WWII Bomb Removal 2

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "In the largest bomb-related evacuation in Germany's post-war history, life has come to a standstill in the German city of Koblenz, where 45,000 people — nearly half of the citys population — have been evacuated after the discovery of three bombs that were dropped by American and British warplanes in the last years of World War II. "Its the largest German evacuation since the end of the war," says fire brigade spokesman Ronald Eppelsheim. The largest of the explosives is a 1.8-ton British air bomb that has the potential to destroy the citys center but the focus of attention isn't on the largest bomb — it's on the much smaller, 125-kilogram American high-explosive bomb. "This one has been transformed on impact of the earth. We might have some serious problems deactivating the detonator," says bomb-disposal squad member Jurgen Wagner. The deactivation of bombs is a common practice in Germany. Last year, a bomb exploded in the German town Gottingen — killing three members of a bomb-disposal squad."

Submission + - Superluminal Neutrinos? yes and no 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Question shout-out to my fellow Physicists out there. If you aren't familiar with the Scharnhorst effect, you may want to Google it first. In essence, the idea is that photons travelling through empty space interact with the virtual particles that arise from vacuum fluctuations. They occasionally are absorbed and then readmitted. Scharnhorst speculated that light travelling between two plates placed close enough that they experience the Casmir effect would encounter fewer virtual particles and thus wouldn't slow down as much. Effectively, the speed of light we normally measure is really the vacuum dampened speed. Now here comes the question: Would Neutrinos who interact substantially less with physical matter also be relatively immune to virtual particles? I would think yes. If this is so then the recent Neutrino superluminal results aren't really a problem. It's really just a measurement of the un-dampened speed of light.-Peter B.

Submission + - In Soviet Russia DDOS The Opposition?

Submitted by theshowmecanuck
theshowmecanuck writes: Websites which exposed violations in Russia's parliamentary elections were inaccessible Sunday in a hacking attack they said was aimed at preventing them revealing the extent of election day fraud.
Censorship

Submission + - The Personal Computer is Dead

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Richard Stallman rankled many with his good riddance to Steve Jobs' 'malign influence on people's computing.' But now RMS gets an amen-of-sorts from Harvard Law School Prof Jonathan Zittrain, who explains in The Personal Computer is Dead why you should be afraid — very afraid — of the snowballing replicability of the App Store Model. 'If we allow ourselves to be lulled into satisfaction with walled gardens,' warns Zittrain, 'we'll miss out on innovations to which the gardeners object, and we'll set ourselves up for censorship of code and content that was previously impossible. We need some angry nerds.' Searchblog's John Battelle, who's also solidly in the tear-down-this-walled-garden camp, adds: 'I'm not a nerd, quite, but I’m sure angry.' Are Stallman's views on their way to becoming positively mainstream?

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