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Education

Submission + - The most epic scavenger hunt returns

Submitted by gotfork
gotfork writes: The world's largest scavenger hunt, covered in previous years on Slashdot, is now taking place at the University of Chicago. The competition is fierce: in 1999 one team build a working breeder reactor in the quad, but only won second place. Items on this year's list include your appendix in a jar (210), a disappearing spoon made of metal (105), a chromatic typewriter (216), an xyloexplosive (33) and a weaponized Xerox machine (83). Check out the full list here (PDF). Not bad for the school where "where fun comes to die".
Networking

Submission + - Why Your Wi-Fi Is Too Slow, And How To Fix It (itworld.com)

Submitted by
jfruh
jfruh writes: "There was a time when Wi-Fi, particularly 802.11n, was so much faster than most people's Internet connections that it didn't seem worth the bother to troubleshoot connections that weren't as fast as the spec promised. But with more and more people connected via high-speed broadband and using their internal networks to stream high-definition video, many are finding subpar Wi-Fi networks to be a bottleneck. Here's a list of possible solutions that will help you squeeze all the speed you can out of your current Wi-Fi setup (and yes, "overcome the laws of physics" is on the list)."
Encryption

Submission + - Buyer's Guide to Full Disk Encryption (esecurityplanet.com)

Submitted by
kongshem
kongshem writes: "Hardly a week goes by without news of a security breach stemming from the loss or theft of a storage medium containing confidential yet unencrypted data. Here's one recent example: http://www.esecurityplanet.com/network-security/california-dccs-suffers-security-breach.html

It begs the question: Why don't more organizations encrypt their hard drives and other storage media? It's compatively painless to do so, as this article explains:

http://www.esecurityplanet.com/mobile-security/buyers-guide-to-full-disk-encryption.html"
Technology

Submission + - Kindle Fire takes over 50% of Android tablet market (examiner.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: From the article:
"ComScore released new data today suggesting that the Amazon Kindle Fire currently holds 50% market share of the Android tablet market. The official mark is sitting at 54.4% total share for the device. The other devices figures were: The Galaxy Tab series: 15.4%, Xoom: 7.0%, Transformer: 6.3%, Toshiba AT100: 5.7%, and the Acer Picasso: 4.3%. The Kindle Fire's market share increased by about 15% in February, while the only tablet to gain any ground at all was the Asus Transformer, which increased by only 0.1%."
Mars

Submission + - BOLD plan to find Mars life for cheap (tech-stew.com)

Submitted by
techfun89
techfun89 writes: "There is a BOLD new plan for detecting signs of microbial life on Mars. The nickname is BOLD, which stands for Biological Oxidant and Life Detection Initiative, would be a follow-up to the 1976 Mars Viking life-detection experiments.

"We have much better technology that we could use," says BOLD lead scientist Dirk Schulze-Makuch, with Washington State University. He elaborates, "Our idea is to make a relatively cheap mission and go more directly to characterize and solve the big question about the soil properties on Mars and life detection."

To help figure out the life-detection mystery, Schulze-Makuch and his colleagues would fly a set of six pyramid-shaped probes that would crash land, pointy end down, so they embed themselves four to eight inches into the soil. One of the instruments includes a sensor that can detect a single molecule of DNA or other nucleotide."
The Internet

Submission + - Nordic Countries Dominate in Internet Penetration (graphoftheweek.org)

Submitted by
dezert1
dezert1 writes: "Old habits die hard for the Vikings, apparently. From Erik the Red founding the first Norse settlement in Greenland to his son Leif discovering the Americas five hundred years before Columbus, these people tend to be quite ambitious. In the present day, they are leading the world in internet penetration with around 90% of their population online."
Intel

Submission + - Intel acquires Cray Inc. (patexia.com) 1

Submitted by
ericjones12398
ericjones12398 writes: "Intel recently acquires supercomputing leader Cray Inc. to acquire certain assets related to its high-performance computing (HPC) interconnect program. This acquisition indicates an Intel's increasing interest in supercomputing and overcoming the exaflop barrier."
Biotech

Submission + - Unintended Consequences of the Prometheus Decision (patentlyo.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In the case Mayo v. Prometheus recently covered on Slashdot, the Supreme Court ruled that patents 'based on laws of nature' are not valid. In a scathing 5 part series San Francisco IP Lawyer Robert R. Sachs attacks both the reasoning and the prose of the Supreme Court opinion. As evidence of the decision's potency, several patents have already been invalidated by the Prometheus decision in the month since it came out. For my personal take, I am a graduate student doing biomedical research. After finding a new compound allowing early diagnosis of a disease where the only diagnostic test is symptomatic, I was advised by our legal counsel not to attempt patenting the compound until further court rulings clarify Prometheus. As a result, my compound may never see publication. At the very least my publication will be delayed significantly. It seems that if Prometheus is applied broadly, the only way to profit off of these sort of discoveries will be through trade secrets: a major step backwards for scientific progress.
Science

Submission + - MIT Researchers Find a Way to Make Glass that's Anti-fogging, Self-cleaning and (scienceworldreport.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: One of the most instantly recognizable features of glass is the way it reflects light. But a new way of creating surface textures on glass, developed by researchers at MIT, virtually eliminates reflections, producing glass that is almost unrecognizable because of its absence of glare — and whose surface causes water droplets to bounce right off, like tiny rubber balls.
Government

Submission + - CISPA Bill Obliterates Privacy Laws with Blank Check of Privacy Invasion (hothardware.com)

Submitted by
MojoKid
MojoKid writes: "At present, the government's ability to share data on its citizens is fairly restricted, insomuch as the various agencies must demonstrate cause and need. This has created a somewhat byzantine network of guidelines and laws that must be followed — a morass of red tape that CISPA is intended to cut through. One of the bill's key passages is a provision that gives private companies the right to share cybersecurity data with each other and with the government "notwithstanding any other provision of law." The problem with this sort of blank check clause is that, even if the people who write the law have only good intentions, it provides substantial legal cover to others who might not. Further, the core problem with most of the proposed amendments to the bill thus far isn't that they don't provide necessary protections, it's that they seek to bind the length of time the government can keep the data it gathers, or the sorts of people it can't collect data on, rather than protecting citizens as a whole. One proposed amendment, for example, would make it illegal to monitor protestors — but not other groups. It's not hard to see how those seeking to abuse the law could find a workaround — a "protestor" is just a quick arrest away from being considered a "possible criminal risk.""
EU

Submission + - Drone drops GPS, navigation by vision alone. (suasnews.com)

Submitted by
garymortimer
garymortimer writes: "This technology, developed in the Autonomous Systems Laboratory at ETH Zurich, has two weighty advantages compared with GPS-based flying robots. First, it works both in the open air and in enclosed spaces. The second is that the flying robots can navigate where GPS fails; for example, due to the density of buildings. The camera-based technology allows for a more accurate positioning of the aircraft than is possible with GPS, explains the project coordinator, Davide Scaramuzza. Depending on the environment, GPS errors can be as great as 70 metres — much too imprecise when several flying robots are in close proximity to each other in the air."
Ubuntu

Submission + - Codename, Theming Update Announced for Ubuntu 12.10 (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by
benfrog
benfrog writes: "In a blog post, Mark Shuttleworth announced some changes for Ubuntu 12.10 (due in October), including the code name (Quantal Quetzal--no, really) and a theme update. Some other more meaningful announcements include a focus on the cloud in the server version and the lack of a transition from Upstart to systemd."

Submission + - Cold fusion experiment replicated in Italian university (leopoldopirelli.it) 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Slashdot readers are familiar with the alleged cold fusion reactor developed by Italian inventor Andrea Rossi in recent months. While none of the demonstrations performed by Rossi have really managed to convince the international scientific community, the Leopoldo Pirelli university in Italy has announced it has developed a LENR reactor design all of their own, and plans to freely publish all details of the experiment in the upcoming day, as well as proposing to lend their prototype to scientists interested in validating their results. Several companies have also said they have developed LENR reactors of their own, and provide far more details on the process than Andrea Rossi did. What do Slashdot readers think ? is LENR/Cold fusion a scam or the next energy breakthrough ? and if it is real, what would be the implications for society and the world in general ?

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