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Submission Summary: 0 pending, 5 declined, 59 accepted (64 total, 92.19% accepted)

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Submission + - Bleep Labs Brings You Arduino-based Nebulophone (engadget.com)

Submitted by
ScuttleMonkey
ScuttleMonkey writes: "Bleep Labs, the same people who brought you the Thingamagoop (and now Thingamagoop2!), have released a new fun gadget — the Arduino-based Nebulophone. "What do you get when you mash together an Arduino-based synth with a Stylophone-like keyboard? A month ago, even we wouldn't have known, but now that Handmade Music Austin has come and gone, we're happy to say that this beautiful concoction leads to the creation of a Nebulophone. Unfortunately, there's no video (yet) to showcase what this musical wonder can do, but we're told that it has 'adjustable waveforms, a light controlled analog filter, LFO and an arpeggiator that can be clocked over IR.'""
Government

Submission + - SourceForge Clarifies Denial of Site Access (ow.ly)

Submitted by
ScuttleMonkey
ScuttleMonkey writes: "Recently there were some complaints from certain users outside the U.S. stating that they were no longer able to access SourceForge.net. SF.net (who shares a corporate overlord with Slashdot) has outlined the reasons for these bans and until someone with sufficient power to alter U.S. law or the lists governing who is allowed to access what data from where, there is unlikely to be a change in these bans. It is worth noting that SF.net is not alone in these difficulties as the same problems have been reported from other repositories like Google Code. "As one of the first companies to promote the adoption and distribution of free and open source software, and one that still puts open source at the center of its corporate ideals, restrictions on the free flow of information rub us the wrong way. However, in addition to participating in the open source community, we also live in the real world, and are governed by the laws of the country in which we are located. Our need to follow those laws supersedes any wishes we might have to make our community as inclusive as possible. The possible penalties for violating these restrictions include fines and imprisonment. Other hosting companies based in the US have similar legal and technical restrictions in place.""
Spam

Submission + - Researchers Claim "Effectively Perfect" Spam Block (newscientist.com)

Submitted by
ScuttleMonkey
ScuttleMonkey writes: "A team of computer scientists from the International Computer Science Institute in Berkeley, CA are claiming to have found an "effectively perfect" method for blocking spam. The new system deciphers the templates a botnet is using to create spam and then teachers filters what to look for. "The system [] works by exploiting a trick that spammers use to defeat email filters. As spam is churned out, subtle changes are typically incorporated into the messages to confound spam filters. Each message is generated from a template that specifies the message content and how it should be varied. The team reasoned that analysing such messages could reveal the template that created them. And since the spam template describes the entire range of the emails a bot will send, possessing it might provide a watertight method of blocking spam from that bot.""
Mozilla

Submission + - Mozilla Tries New "Lorentz" Dev Model (developer.com)

Submitted by
ScuttleMonkey
ScuttleMonkey writes: "With the recent release of Firefox 3.6, Mozilla has also decided to try out a new development model dubbed "Lorentz." A blend of both Agile and more traditional "waterfall" development models, the new methodology aims to deliver new features much more quickly while still maintaining backwards compatibility, security, and overall quality. Only time will tell if this is effective, or just another management fad. "If the new approach sounds familiar, that's because Unix and Linux development has attempted similar kinds of release variations for iterating new features while maintaining backwards compatibility. HP-UX, for example, is currently on its HP-UX 11iv3 release, which receives updates several times a year that add incremental new functionality. The Linux 2.6.x kernel gets new releases approximately every three months, which include new features as well.""
Space

Submission + - 15 Year Old Student Discovers New Pulsar (nrao.edu) 1

Submitted by
ScuttleMonkey
ScuttleMonkey writes: "For the second time in as many years a student has made a discovery while participating in the Pulsar Search Collaboratory (PSC), a joint program between the National Radio Astronomy Observatory and West Virginia University designed to get students and teachers involved in analyzing data from the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT). This time it was high school sophomore Shay Bloxton who discovered a brand new pulsar. "For Bloxton, the pulsar discovery may be only her first in a scientific career. "Participating in the PSC has definitely encouraged me to pursue my dream of being an astrophysicist," she said, adding that she hopes to attend West Virginia University to study astrophysics. Late last year, another West Virginia student, from South Harrison High School, Lucas Bolyard, discovered a pulsar-like object called a rotating radio transient. His discovery also came through participation in the PSC.""
The Military

Submission + - New Brain Scans Can Spot PTSD (wewqeqweqweqweqewqweqwe.net)

Submitted by
ScuttleMonkey
ScuttleMonkey writes: "Neuroscientists think they may have found a scientific method to identify post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) using a brain imaging method call magnetoencephalography (MEG). In the test study the scientists studied 74 vets with PTSD and 250 civilians without and were able to spot the PTSD sufferers with 90% accuracy. "MEG machines are a fast, sensitive and accurate way to measure electric activity in the brain. Whereas CT scans and MRIs record brain signals every few seconds, MEGs can do it by the millisecond, catching biomarkers and brain activity that the other tests inevitably miss. The study could be a breakthrough for the military, who’ve been scrambling to address a surge in post-traumatic symptoms among newly returning vets. Right now, troops are evaluated by mental health experts, but diagnosis is a crap-shoot: symptoms can take years to show up, and vary from person to person, even among those exposed to the same traumas. The Pentagon’s already been pushing for more objective, systematized diagnosis tools, like portable at-home sleep monitors and genetic testing to detect PTSD vulnerability. They’ve even launched a program to create stress-mitigating pharmaceuticals.""
Government

Submission + - US Blocking Costa Rican Sugar Trade to Force IP La (asdfasfasdfasdf.org)

Submitted by
ScuttleMonkey
ScuttleMonkey writes: "For the last couple of days news has been trickling in about how the U.S. is trying to ram IP laws down Costa Rica's throat by blocking their access to the US sugar market. Techdirt has a good summary of the various commentaries and a related scoop in the Bahamas where the U.S. is also applying IP pressure. "The first is in Costa Rica, which is included in the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). Yet like with other free trade agreements that the US has agreed to elsewhere, this one includes draconian intellectual property law requirements. I still cannot understand why intellectual monopoly protectionism — the exact opposite of "free trade" — gets included in free trade agreements. At least in Costa Rica, a lot of people started protesting these rules, pointing out that it would be harmful for the economy, for education and for healthcare. So the Costa Rican government has not moved forward with such laws. How has the US responded? It's blocking access to the US market of Costa Rican sugar until Costa Rica approves new copyright laws.""
Operating Systems

Submission + - Ubuntu 10.04 Alpha 2 and Early Fedora 13Benchmarks (phoronix.com)

Submitted by
ScuttleMonkey
ScuttleMonkey writes: "Given that early benchmarks of the Lucid Lynx were less than encouraging, Phoronix decided to take the latest alpha out for a spin and has set it side-by-side with an early look at Fedora 13. "Overall, there are both good and bad performance improvements for Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Alpha 2 in relation to Ubuntu 9.10. Most of the negative regressions are attributed to the EXT4 file-system losing some of its performance charm. With using a pre-alpha snapshot of Fedora 13 and the benchmark results just being provided for reference purposes, we will hold off on looking into greater detail at this next Red Hat Linux update until it matures.""
Government

Submission + - Why Counter-Terrorism is in Shambles (consortiumnews.com)

Submitted by
ScuttleMonkey
ScuttleMonkey writes: "Early last week several questions were submitted to former CIA analyst Ray McGovern about the sad state of counter-terrorism in the United States and he has answered frankly, and in-depth. In addition, McGovern also solicited former FBI attorney/special agent Coleen Rowley to review his answers and provide her own comments. Ray's largest advice to the intelligence community was to "HOLD ACCOUNTABLE THOSE RESPONSIBLE. More 'reform' is the last thing we need. Sorry, but we DO have to look back. The most effective step would be to release the CIA Inspector General report on intelligence community performance prior to 9/11. That investigation was run by, and its report was prepared by an honest man, it turns out. It was immediately suppressed by then-Acting DCI John McLaughlin — another Tenet clone — and McLaughin’s successors as director, Porter Goss, Michael Hayden, and now Leon Panetta.""
Movies

Submission + - Adding up the explanations for ACTA's "shameful se (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by
ScuttleMonkey
ScuttleMonkey writes: "Several sources are reporting on a Google event this week that attempted to a href="http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/01/actas-shameful-secret.ars">bring some transparency to the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) that has so far been treated like a "shameful secret." Unfortunately, not many concrete details were uncovered so Ars tried to lay out why there has been so much secrecy especially from an administration that has been preaching transparency. "The reason for that was obvious: there's little of substance that's known about the treaty, and those lawyers in the room and on the panel who had seen one small part of it were under a nondisclosure agreement. In most contexts, the lack of any hard information might lead to a discussion of mindnumbing generality and irrelevance, but this transparency talk was quite fascinating—in large part because one of the most influential copyright lobbyists in Washington was on the panel attempting to make his case. [...] [MPAA/RIAA Champion Steven] Metalitz took on three other panelists and a moderator, all of whom were less than sympathetic to his positions, and he made the lengthiest case for both ACTA and its secrecy that we have ever heard. It was also surprisingly unconvincing.""
Science

Submission + - Jan. 11, 1902 — Popular Mechanics Launches (adskhjladsjklhadsf.net)

Submitted by
ScuttleMonkey
ScuttleMonkey writes: "Today, back in 1902 Henry Haven Windsor published the first issue of Popular Mechanics, helping to propel geeks of future generations with straightforward explanations of scientific and mechanical advances. "The magazine has reported both the brilliant and ridiculous ideas of its times, depending on the writer, scientist or editor. It once published an article about a Philadelphia physician who supposedly used X-rays to turn blacks into whites: probably not a great editorial decision. Betting on blimps over planes for so long might not have been advisable, and hyping excessive consumption during the birth of the environmental movement in the 1960s also rates a demerit. But beyond those probable transgressions, Popular Mechanics paved the way for the people’s incursion into science’s once-exclusive domain. Its longevity argues that science and its sometimes inscrutable possibility have raw mass appeal — even if the subject is cars with steering wheels in the back seat or self-diagnosing appliances.""
Hardware

Submission + - New "Wet Computer" to Mimic Neurons in the Brain (kadshjkasdf.net)

Submitted by
ScuttleMonkey
ScuttleMonkey writes: "A new type of "wet computer" that mimics the actions of neurons in the brain is slated to be built thanks to a 1.8m-euro EU emerging technologies program. The goal of the project is to explore new computing environments rather than to build a computer that surpasses current performance of conventional computers. "The group's approach hinges on two critical ideas. First, individual "cells" are surrounded by a wall made up of so-called lipids that spontaneously encapsulate the liquid innards of the cell. Recent work has shown that when two such lipid layers encounter each other as the cells come into contact, a protein can form a passage between them, allowing chemical signalling molecules to pass. Second, the cells' interiors will play host to what is known as a Belousov-Zhabotinsky or B-Z chemical reaction. Simply put, reactions of this type can be initiated by changing the concentration of the element bromine by a certain threshold amount.""

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