Eric Smalley - Slashdot User

Submission + - Ruling Upholds Gene Patent in Cancer Test (nytimes.com)

Submitted by diewlasing on Friday July 29, 2011 @10:35PM

diewlasing writes: In a closely watched case, a federal appeals court ruled on Friday that genes can be patented, overturning a lower court decision that had shocked the biotechnology industry.

Submission + - Internet Explorer Users Are Kinda Stupid 2

Submitted by

Hugh Pickens writes

on Friday July 29, 2011 @09:16PM

Hugh Pickens writes writes: "PC World reports that AptiQuant, a "psychometric consulting" firm that provides hiring exams for businesses, gave online IQ tests to more than 100,000 people and found that if you use Internet Explorer, your IQ might be below average. Visitors arrived at the site either through organic searches or through advertisements on other sites, and Aptiquant made a note of which browser each test taker was using. On average, Internet Explorer users fared the worst, with IE6 users at the bottom of the pile with an average IQ of about 82 and IE8 users performing slightly better at about 94 while Firefox, Chrome and Safari fell in the middle with little difference between them at about 110. IE with Chrome Frame and Camino landed on top, along with Opera, whose users scored the highest with an IQ of about 128, "The study showed a substantial relationship between an individual's cognitive ability and their choice of web browser," AptiQuant concluded. "From the test results, it is a clear indication that individuals on the lower side of the IQ scale tend to resist a change/upgrade of their browsers." Interestingly enough AptiQuant provided data from a similar 2006 study showing that Internet Explorer users performed well with average IQs about of about 102 (PDF). "I wouldn't take [the tests] too seriously," writes Jared Newman. "They are, after all, comprised only of people who feel compelled to take IQ tests. But if you ever want to argue that Internet Explorer 6 users are too stupid to upgrade, at least now you've got some empirical evidence.""

Submission + - Volkswagen Temporary Auto Pilot goes live in demo (everythingnew.net)

Submitted by

hasanabbas1987

on Friday July 29, 2011 @07:38PM

hasanabbas1987 writes: "A month back we told you about the Temporary Auto Pilot system in cars in development by Volkswagen, now they have taken it to the next level and demonstrated it in real time. The new Volkswagen Passat was selected for the demonstration and the car was equpped with a radar system, laser scanner, cameras, ultrasonic sensors and an “electronic horizon”, giving the car a sense of its location on the road."

Submission + - Cornell software fingers fake online reviews (cnet.com)

Submitted by

Eric Smalley

on Tuesday July 26, 2011 @05:29PM

Eric Smalley writes: "If you're like most people, you give yourself high ratings when it comes to figuring out when someone's trying to con you. Problem is, most people aren't actually good at it — at least as far as detecting fake positive consumer reviews. Fortunately, technology is poised to make up for this all-too-human failing. Cornell University researchers have developed software that they say can detect fake reviews."

Submission + - Phishing scam targets Google AdWords users (infoworld.com)

Submitted by

tsamsoniw

on Tuesday July 26, 2011 @04:16PM

tsamsoniw writes: "Google AdWords customers are being targeted by a newly reported phishing scam. Users receive a message telling them their AdWords campaigns may be stopped and pointing them to a phishing site that looks just like the AdWords login page. The page is designed to pilfer your Google login name and password. Those credentials are particularly valuable to scammers because they can also provide access to a user's other Google services, such as Gmail, Google Docs, and the like. Sophos recommends that users protect themselves by signed up for two-step verification."

Submission + - 90,000+ Web Pages Compromised Via iFrame Injection (net-security.org)

Submitted by Orome1 on Tuesday July 26, 2011 @03:42PM

Orome1 writes: Researchers from security firm Armorize have uncovered a massive iFrame injection attack that has compromised 90,000+ Web pages belonging mostly to e-commerce sites. The injected iFrame points to the willysy.com domain and through a series of redirections and JavaScript loadings of additional iFrames takes the user to a page one the arhyv.ru domain where a number of exploits try to take advantage of a handful of vulnerabilities in the user's browser.

Submission + - Can the NSA Track Your Phone's Location? (itworld.com)

Submitted by

itwbennett

on Tuesday July 26, 2011 @03:12PM

itwbennett writes: "Responding to questions from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence yesterday, Matthew Olsen, the NSA's general counsel, said that the NSA 'may', under 'certain circumstances' have the authority to track U.S. citizens by intercepting location data from cell phones, but it's 'very complicated.' 'There's no need to panic, or start shopping for aluminum-foil headwear,' says blogger Kevin Fogarty, but clearly the NSA has been thinking about it enough 'that the agency's chief lawyer was able to speak intelligently about it off the cuff while interviewing for a different job.'"

Submission + - Robot gets rid of landmines -- by crushing them (discovery.com) 1

Submitted by derGoldstein on Tuesday July 26, 2011 @02:40PM

derGoldstein writes: Discovery has an article about a robot that gets rid of landmines, not by using sensors to pinpoint their location, but by rotating a giant cylinder covered in tungsten hammers to smash them and blow them up: "An operator commands this beast from a safe distance using a remote control unit. The hull of the robot is made up of hardened steel plates in a "V" shape to help limit any damage from antitank mines and unexploded shells of sizes up to 3 inches, and the D-3 has been able to successfully ingest mines containing as much as 17.6 pounds of explosive, which is nothing to sneeze at.". A video of the beast in action can be found here.

Submission + - New Soyuz Launch Facility Gets Equator Boost (pbs.org) 1

Submitted by tcd004 on Tuesday July 26, 2011 @02:33PM

tcd004 writes: Russian and French teams are currently hard at work in French Guiana on the northern coast of South America, building the first Soyuz launch facility in the Western Hemisphere. Soyuz rockets normally carry 3,500 pound payloads into orbit, but from the French Guiana spaceport, the rocket will have an added benefit of being near the equator where the Earth's spin extremely fast. This extra boost allows it to deliver a 6,600 pound payload into orbit. The first launches are scheduled for October.

Submission + - Cast-off gadgets peek into new owners' lives (cnet.com)

Submitted by

Eric Smalley

on Monday July 25, 2011 @10:55AM

Eric Smalley writes: "For the project, dubbed Backtalk, researchers sent refurbished Netbooks to developing countries via nonprofit organizations. They set up the computers to record location and pictures, and send the data home to MIT--with their new owners' consent... The MIT team used the data to build visual narratives about the computers' new lives."

Submission + - Geeky volunteer work? 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 25, 2011 @10:53AM

An anonymous reader writes: I plan to be in-between jobs for 1-2 months later this year and use part of this time to do some volunteer work in Africa. My naive question: what to do and where to go? Is it possible to make good use of the skill-set of a typical geek? Any interesting projects worth supporting on-site?

Submission + - Is the Master's Degree the New Bachelor's?

Submitted by

Hugh Pickens writes

on Monday July 25, 2011 @10:50AM

Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Laura Pappano writes that the master's degree, once derided as the consolation prize for failing to finish a Ph.D. or just a way to kill time waiting out economic downturns, is now the fastest-growing degree with 657,000 awarded in 2009, more than double the level in the 1980's. Today nearly 2 in 25 people age 25 and over have a master’s, about the same proportion that had a bachelor’s or higher in 1960. “Several years ago it became very clear to us that master’s education was moving very rapidly to become the entry degree in many professions,” says Debra W. Stewart, president of the Council of Graduate Schools. “There is definitely some devaluing of the college degree going on,” adds Eric A. Hanushek, an education economist at the Hoover Institution, and that gives the master’s extra signaling power. “We are going deeper into the pool of high school graduates for college attendance,” making a bachelor’s no longer an adequate screening measure of achievement for employers. But some wonder if a master's is worth the extra effort? "In some fields, such as business or engineering, a graduate degree typically boosted income by more than enough to justify the cost," says Liz Pulliam Weston. "In others — the liberal arts and social sciences, in particular — master’s degrees didn’t appear to produce much if any earnings advantage.""

Submission + - Official Facebook iPad App Leaked[How To Tutorial] (gizmocrazed.com)

Submitted by

Mightee

on Monday July 25, 2011 @10:34AM

Mightee writes: "In the recent Facebook iPhone app update (version 3.4.4), it has been discovered that it contains a hidden code for the Facebook iPad app, which is expected to be released soon.(There is no official iPad app for Facebook released till now)

To make the app work and also to get rid of the web-only Facebook experience on your iPad before the official release, here is what you have to do:"

Submission + - What will graphene give us? (itpro.co.uk)

Submitted by

twoheadedboy

on Monday July 25, 2011 @10:28AM

twoheadedboy writes: "With a silicon replacement needed, graphene looks like the most likely candidate. New research has suggested its capabilities are better than first thought, with the velocity of electrons in the material three times what was originally believed. So what is graphene and what will its benefits be in processors and in other technologies like touchscreen devices? We spoke to Daniel Elias, a University of Manchester researcher heavily involved in the graphene study, who is a tad excited about the material."

Submission + - Japanese Man Arrested for Storing Malware (net-security.org)

Submitted by Orome1 on Monday July 25, 2011 @10:24AM

Orome1 writes: 38-year-old Yasuhiro Kawaguchi is the first person in Japan to get arrested for storing malware on his computer after the upper house’s Judicial Affairs Committee has confirmed the new anti-malware law passed by the Japanese parliament. The law considers the creation, distribution and storage of malware a crime punishable with up to three years in prison and a fine that could reach the sum of 500,000 yen ($6,200).

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