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Crime

Submission + - Two People Killed For Social Media Use in Mexico (cnn.com)

Submitted by nonprofiteer
nonprofiteer writes: A man and a woman in Mexico were tortured — the man's arm nearly severed, the woman disemboweled — and hung from a bridge in Nuevo Laredo. From CNN: "Signs left near the bodies declared the pair, both apparently in their early 20s, were killed for posting denouncements of drug cartel activities on a social network.

"This is going to happen to all of those posting funny things on the Internet," one sign said. "You better (expletive) pay attention. I'm about to get you.""

Awful. And preceded by a story of two Mexicans being threatened with 30-year-sentences for tweeting a rumor about an attack on a school: http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep/05/world/la-fg-mexico-tweeters-20110906
Google

Submission + - Be Careful Talking About Your Google Results (forbes.com)

Submitted by nonprofiteer
nonprofiteer writes: Personalized search results means you might spill private information about yourself by talking about yours. Piece has an anecdote from a conference session: "One of the speakers was talking about a racial bias he had noticed in Google search: when he searched for “black women” or “black girls,” Google suggested a series of porn-related pages. But it did not offer up XXX-content when he searched for “white women” or “white girls.”

An interesting anecdote! But when my friend ran the search on her own computer, she didn’t get the same explicit results. When she told the speaker about not getting too porn with those particular search words, he was surprised (and perhaps embarrassed). It appeared Google had personalized content for him, without him realizing."
Iphone

Submission + - Smartphones Becoming Sole Computer of Choice (smartertechnology.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The build-out of 3G networks in developing coutries, plus ultra-low prices from the likes of Samsung, will make the smartphone the sole compuuter of millions of citizens worldwide. And by 2016, 97 percent of smartphones will use touchscreens. Now don't get me wrong--I carry an iPad and an iPod Touch in my backpack and love touchscreens--but I still like a phone that fits in my pocket. However I'm going to be in the minority because apparently in five years the majority of wireless communicators will be smartphones.
Businesses

Submission + - Netflix To Lose 1 Million Subscribers (tekgoblin.com)

Submitted by
tekgoblin
tekgoblin writes: "In light of the recent price increase at Netflix, it made quite a few subscribers mad. Netflix expects to lose around 1 million total subscribers in the short term after the price changes. Price changes that split the streaming and DVD costs separately when they were combined previously which inevitably increase the subscription prices. On top of the price increase Netflix will lose their contract with Starz in February which will cost them around 1,000 total streaming titles from their collection."
Iphone

Submission + - iPhone 5 to have radical new design, images show (bgr.com)

Submitted by zacharye
zacharye writes: The iPhone 5 hasn’t been announced yet, but that has not stopped accessory makers from posting upcoming cases for the highly anticipated handset. Case-Mate has published a page on its website with six different case designs for the new iPhone 5, and we’re loving the radical new body shown in the images. We’ve heard tons of speculation that the iPhone 5 will be thinner and lighter than the current model and these cases suggest it will have tapered edges and a slim profile as well...
Input Devices

Submission + - Synaptics working on more advanced touch for smart (techworld.com.au)

Submitted by
angry tapir
angry tapir writes: "Touch specialist Synaptics is working on technologies that will allow touchscreens to mimic the feel of a physical keypad, in order to make smartphones easier to use, according to company technology strategist Andrew Hsu. The goal is to build a touchscreen with the tactile feedback of a keypad. Users should be able run their fingers over virtual keys and get the same sensation as a mechanical keypad gives, allowing them to feel where the buttons are, and then activate them by pushing down a little bit harder, according to Hsu."
Robotics

Submission + - Libyan Rebels Are Flying Their Own Mini-Drone (wired.com)

Submitted by suasfan22
suasfan22 writes: The Libyan revolutionaries are more of a band of enthusiastic amateurs than experienced soldiers. But it turns out the rebels have the kind of weaponry usually possessed by advanced militaries: their very own drone.

Aeryon Labs, a Canadian defense firm, revealed on Tuesday that it had quietly provided the rebel forces with a teeny, tiny surveillance drone, called the Aeryon Scout. Small enough to fit into a backpack, the three-pound, four-rotor robot gave Libyan forces eyes in the sky independent of the Predators, Fire Scout surveillance copters and manned spy planes that NATO flew overhead. Don't worry, it's not armed.

Submission + - When algorithms control the world (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by MTCicero
MTCicero writes: The BBC has an interesting if not apocalyptic take on the spread of algorithms into everyday life. Perhaps the author should have spent a little more time discussing how algorithms in everyday life have improved things like communications, medical care, etc... I guess doom and gloom sells more ads
Canada

Submission + - Small Canadian Drone used by Libyan rebels (suasnews.com)

Submitted by
garymortimer
garymortimer writes: "While NATO countries fly unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) high above Libya, none of these UAVs, or the vital intelligence they provide, was available to the Libyans fighting to free their country – they were fighting blind. So, they got one of their own. It can now be disclosed that the Libyan rebels have been using the Aeryon Scout Micro UAV to acquire intelligence on enemy positions and to coordinate their resistance efforts.

Representatives from the Transitional National Council (TNC) were looking for an imagery solution to provide to the troops on the ground. They evaluated a series of micro UAVs and chose the Aeryon Scout – and they needed it delivered immediately to those fighting at the front. Large UAVs are often flown far away from the frontline – often overseas – making it difficult to get the imagery to troops in combat. With the Aeryon Scout, the operator has direct control over the UAV and is able to see imagery in real-time."
Science

Submission + - Evangelical Scientists Debate Creation Story 3

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Polls by Gallup and the Pew Research Center find that four out of 10 Americans believe humanity descend from Adam and Eve but NPR reports that evangelical scientists are now saying publicly that they can no longer believe the Genesis account and that it is unlikely that we all descended from a single pair of humans. "That would be against all the genomic evidence that we've assembled over the last 20 years so not likely at all" says biologist Dennis Venema, a senior fellow at BioLogos Foundation, a Christian group that tries to reconcile faith and science. "You would have to postulate that there's been this absolutely astronomical mutation rate that has produced all these new variants in an incredibly short period of time. Those types of mutation rates are just not possible. It would mutate us out of existence." Venema is part of a growing cadre of Christian scholars who say they want their faith to come into the 21st century and say it's time to face facts: There was no historical Adam and Eve, no serpent, no apple, no fall that toppled man from a state of innocence. "There's nothing to be scared of here," adds Venema. "There is nothing to be alarmed about. It's actually an opportunity to have an increasingly accurate understanding of the world — and from a Christian perspective, that's an increasingly accurate understanding of how God brought us into existence.""
Australia

Submission + - Australian research network plans for 100Gbps (computerworld.com.au)

Submitted by
angry tapir
angry tapir writes: "The Australian Academic and Research Network (AARNet) has announced a wide range of initiatives around network upgrades, collaboration, and mobility as part of a new five-year plan. The plan includes delivering a 100Gbps backbone to its education and research customers, to ensure sufficient "headroom" for major projects such as the Square Kilometre Array radio telescope, which Slashdot has previously discussed."

Submission + - Data Centers in the Desert: Phoenix, Vegas Are Hot (datacenterknowledge.com)

Submitted by 1sockchuck
1sockchuck writes: The hot, dry climates of Phoenix and Las Vegas are turning out to be a magnet for huge data centers. CyrusOne today unveiled plans for a 1 million square foot colo center in Phoenix, which already has at one mega-datacenter. Vegas is home to the SuperNAP, one of the largest and shiniest data centers around.

Submission + - Could software engineers fix America? 2

Submitted by flaming error
flaming error writes: Could software engineers fix America's federal government?

Software engineers are strong in skills that others may lack. They know, for example, that design choices are imperfect trade-offs, that a cost/benefit analysis must analyze both the costs *and* the benefits. They know that the best design is generally the simplest design that meets the requirements, that lines of code *deleted* are more helpful than lines of code added.

What if legislators were all software engineers? I would like to think they would go back to the original spec, the Preamble, and the original design, the Constitution — and delete nearly everything since. Every legislative bill ever written that strayed from the legislature's enumerated powers would be deleted, every extra-constitutional federal bureaucracy shuttered.

The federal government would no longer be an ATM machine. Programs we loathe would be scrapped, programs we love would be scrapped, programs we've invested in or have come to depend on would all be scrapped, if they are outside the scope of the core design (which can evolve, but only under properly approved Engineering Change Orders).

America would no longer police the world. We would sustain no military presence within other countries' borders. Any war would require causus belli and be initiated and terminated by Congress, not by the military or its commander-in-chief.

The federal government would no longer regulate the citizens, nor track them, nor even necessarily know who they are. Births, deaths, marriages, crime, and taxes would be managed by the several states, who would each be obliged to respect the decisions of the others. Federal taxes would be paid exclusively by the states, and assessed proportional to their representation in Congress.

It would hurt us all. But it could result in a coherent product that really works.

At least it would compile.

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