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Space

Submission + - Incoming! The Sun Unleashes CME at Earth (discovery.com)

Submitted by
astroengine
astroengine writes: "It's been an exciting day on the sun. This morning, at 08:55 UT, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) detected a C3-class flare erupt inside a sunspot cluster. 100,000 kilometers away, deep within the solar atmosphere (the corona), an extended magnetic field filled with cool plasma forming a dark ribbon across the face of the sun (a feature known as a "filament") erupted at the exact same time. It seems very likely that both eruptions were connected after a powerful shock wave produced by the flare destabilized the filament, causing the eruption. A second solar observatory, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), then spotted a huge coronal mass ejection (CME) blast into space, straight in the direction of Earth. Solar physicists have calculated that this magnetic bubble filled with energetic particles should hit Earth on August 3, so look out for some intense aurorae, a solar storm is coming..."
Google

Submission + - Google Chrome now has resource-blocking adblock (google.com)

Submitted by
MackieChan
MackieChan writes: "It seems to have slipped under the radar, but Google Chrome now has resource-blocking abilities, and may have had the ability for some time. Using the "beforeload" event on the document, an extension can now intercept resources from loading. Adblock for Chrome has already added it, and I expect the other 'ad-blocking' extensions have as well. Before you start praising Google, however, its the WebKit team that deserves your credit; one chromium developer responded to praise by stating '... thank Apple — they added it to WebKit, we just inherited it.' Firefox vs Chrome just got a bit more exciting."
Google

Submission + - Google Receives Last Shipment of Nexus One Smartph (linuxpromagazine.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Google's experiment in direct-selling nears conclusion as the company's online store received its last batch of Nexus One smartphones this week. Once this batch is out, the only way to get the phone is through a hardware partner like Vodafone or KT. Developers in need of a Nexus One for testing the newest versions of Android (over-the-air updates are handled by Google in the Nexus One's case) can still buy the phone through Android Market Publisher page.

Submission + - UVB-76 goes offline. (abovetopsecret.com)

Submitted by leathered
leathered writes: Tinfoil hatters around the world are abuzz that UVB-76, the Russian shortwave radio station that has been broadcasting its monotonous tone almost uninterrupted since 1982, has suddenly gone offline. Of course no one knows what the significance of this is, but best brush up on your drills just in case.
Cellphones

Submission + - Any Android Phones Can Process Credit Cards Now 1

Submitted by adeelarshad82
adeelarshad82 writes: A plug-in device known as Square, accompanied by an app, is helping the concept of mobile payments anywhere, anytime on android phones. A simple swipe through Square allows it to read the credit card and send instructions to the mobile app which then allows the user to make payment. Square can be plugged into the 3.5mm headphone jack. The device and the app are free, however Square banks 2.75 percent of the total transaction in addition to a charge of 15 cents per swipe, and 3.5 percent plus 15 cents for each transaction made with a keyed in entry.

Submission + - Mark Twain to Reveal All After 100 Year Wait

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "The Independent reports that one of Mark Twain's dying wishes is at last coming true: an extensive, outspoken and revelatory autobiography which he devoted the last decade of his life to writing is finally going to be published one hundred years after his death. Twain, the pen name of Samuel Clemens, left behind 5,000 unedited pages of memoirs when he died in 1910, together with handwritten notes saying that he did not want them to hit bookshops for at least a century but in November the University of California, Berkeley, where the manuscript is in a vault, will release the first volume of Mark Twain's three volume autobiography. Scholars are divided as to why Twain wanted his autobiography kept under wraps for so long with some believing it was because he wanted to talk freely about issues such as religion and politics. Michael Shelden, who this year published "Man in White," an account of Twain's final years, says that some of his privately held views could have hurt his public image. "He had doubts about God, and in the autobiography, he questions the imperial mission of the US in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines," says Shelden. "He's also critical of [Theodore] Roosevelt, and takes the view that patriotism was the last refuge of the scoundrel. Twain also disliked sending Christian missionaries to Africa. He said they had enough business to be getting on with at home: with lynching going on in the South, he thought they should try to convert the heathens down there." Interesting enough Twain had a cunning plan to beat the early 20th century copyright law with its short copyright terms. Twain planned to republish every one of his works the moment it went out of copyright with one-third more content, hoping that availability of such 'premium' version will make prints based on the out-of-copyright version less desirable on the market."

Submission + - First Anarchist's Cookbook Convictions (telegraph.co.uk)

Submitted by analysethis
analysethis writes: In the UK last month the author/compiler of the well-known-in-internet-circles 'terrorist handbook' pleaded guilty to seven counts of collecting information that could have been used to prepare or commit acts of terrorism, with a maximum jail term of 10 years. Today the first people caught with downloaded copies have been put behind bars — a white supremacist father and son pairing getting 10 & 2 years respectively, convicted of three counts of possessing material useful for acts of terror. How many will be emptying their recycle bins after this conviction?

As of writing, the book is still freely available on Amazon.com to buy.
Businesses

Submission + - iPad is not "killing" netbook sales (winsupersite.com)

Submitted by mantis2009
mantis2009 writes: Paul Thurrott, the prolific technology analyst and Windows expert, reacts strongly to an article highlighted on Slashdot. Thurrott takes numbers from IDC and the Wall Street Journal, indicating that netbook sales have not in any meaningful way been affected by sales of Apple's tablet computer, the iPad. Money quote: "...netbooks and sub-12-inch machines[] will sell 45.6 million units in 2011 and 60.3 million in 2013. If I remember the numbers from 2009, they were 10 percent of all PCs, or about 30 million units. Explain again how the iPad will beat that. Please. Even the craziest iPad sales predictions are a small percentage of that."

Submission + - Gadget Lab Hardware News and Reviews Zune Hackers (wired.com)

Submitted by AnotherUsername
AnotherUsername writes: A three member developer team has created a toolkit that will allow developers to create programs for the Zune and ZuneHD. The toolkit, called OpenZDK allows for homebrew application development that includes making new applications, porting old ones, creating emulators and possibly having a rogue app store. Currently, there are no applications or games for the development kit yet. The OpenZDK wiki has tips for getting started, though.
Security

Submission + - Xen Virtual vs Dedicated Server Security 1

Submitted by pushf popf
pushf popf writes: I'm considering moving an app from a physical server (app owns whole machine) to a Xen Virtual Machine. The data is reasonably sensitive (a breach would get people pissed off, maybe sued, but no financial info is stored).

Does anybody have any actual information on whether or not a properly managed Xen server and Linux instance in a secure hosting facility is more/less/as secure as a dedicated server in the same facility?

Does Xen introduce any significant attack vectors?
Apple

Submission + - 450,000 iPads sold but how many returned? (zdnet.com)

Submitted by Kitkoan
Kitkoan writes: From the article:



Apple announced that it had sold 300,000 iPads by end of day Saturday, and now we’re hearing that more than 450,000 have been sold. What’s most interested about that stat, though, is that I heard from a source that there’s a tremendous amount of buyer’s remorse with the iPad, and people are coming in droves to return them.
Security

Submission + - Twitter spammers attack John C Dvorak (sophos.com)

Submitted by xsee
xsee writes: Spammers have once again committed a massive attack against the Twitter micro-blogging service. While pimping a website that sells a diet product hundreds of tweeters were victimized including John C. Dvorak a popular technical writer, blogger, and podcaster. Twitter users who were victimized should revoke API access in their twitter profile to stop propagating these messages.
Handhelds

Submission + - LG's Windows Phone 7 Series early prototype unveil (engadget.com)

Submitted by suraj.sun
suraj.sun writes: Exclusive: LG's Windows Phone 7 Series early prototype unveiled (with video!)

Microsoft's Aaron Woodman just pulled off a little surprise here at The Engadget Show: he brought out LG's Windows Phone 7 Series pre-production prototype!

The QWERTY slider is the first branded Windows Phone 7 Series device the world's ever seen, and while the hardware and software are both obviously early, we can tell you a few things about it:

it's just a hair thicker than an iPhone or Nexus One, there are dedicated hardware camera, volume, and power buttons in addition to the back, home, and search buttons dictated by Windows Phone 7 Series, and we noticed a five megapixel camera with a flash on the back, along with a headphone jack.

Engadget : http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/27/exclusive-lgs-windows-phone-7-series-early-prototype-unveiled/

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