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Submission + - Sniffmap : 80% of the Internet is captured by NSA and allies

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Sniffmap is a project to map the potential Internet mass interception performed by NSA and its allies. As stated in the fateful NSA document, many telecommunication links go through USA and its allies to connect to other countries. To create the dataset, it was detected each time an internet route between two IP addresses passes by an NSA controlled country and therefore can be considered as intercepted. Around 80% of the Internet is captured by NSA and allies.

Comment Fascinating! (Score -1, Troll) 19

by grub (#46112077) Attached to: First Global Map Outside the Solar System

The picture looks like 3 giant testicles. Do other distant brown dwarfs have the same 3 testicle look to them? Do creatures on other planets have 3 testicles, if they do indeed have testicles?

If other planetary life forms were divided in to two sexes, would one have 3 ovaries to compliment the others 3 testicles?

Testicles.

Submission + - Google's Motorola Adventure: Stinging Defeat, or Semi-Victory? (slashdot.org)

Submitted by Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster writes: Google had previously sold Motorola’s Home division for $2.4 billion. Combine that with yesterday’s $2.91 billion sale of Motorola’s remaining assets, subtract the $12.5 billion acquisition price for the company back in 2011, and Google’s little smartphone adventure cost it roughly $7.1 billion even before you start throwing in expenses related to actual production, marketing, and personnel. That’s a hefty chunk of change, but some analysts think the deal was ultimately a good one because it allowed Google to pick up patents, engineering talent, and insight into the mobile-device marketplace. It's debatable, however, whether those patents ultimately helped Android in the still-raging smartphone wars, and Google was slow to promote Motorola smartphones out of fear of irritating other Android manufacturers. At least Google can console itself with the thought that so many of its other acquisitions—including YouTube and DoubleClick—resulted in massive profits; but you can’t hit a home run every time you step up to bat.

Submission + - It's Not Memory Loss - Older Minds May Just Be Fuller of Information

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: Benedict Carey writes in the NYT that the idea that the brain slows with age is one of the strongest in all of psychology but a new paper suggests that older adults'; performance on cognitive tests reflects the predictable consequences of learning on information-processing, and not cognitive decline. A team of linguistic researchers from the University of Tübingen in Germany used advanced learning models to search enormous databases of words and phrases. Since educated older people generally know more words than younger people, simply by virtue of having been around longer, the experiment simulates what an older brain has to do to retrieve a word. When the researchers incorporated that difference into the models, the aging “deficits” largely disappeared. That is to say, the larger the library you have in your head, the longer it usually takes to find a particular word (or pair). “What shocked me, to be honest, is that for the first half of the time we were doing this project, I totally bought into the idea of age-related cognitive decline in healthy adults,” says lead author Michael Ramscar but the simulations “fit so well to human data that it slowly forced me to entertain this idea that I didn’t need to invoke decline at all.” The new report will very likely add to a growing skepticism about how steep age-related decline really is. Scientists who study thinking and memory often make a broad distinction between “fluid” and “crystallized” intelligence. The former includes short-term memory, like holding a phone number in mind, analytical reasoning, and the ability to tune out distractions, like ambient conversation. The latter is accumulated knowledge, vocabulary and expertise. “In essence, what Ramscar’s group is arguing is that an increase in crystallized intelligence can account for a decrease in fluid intelligence,” says Zach Hambrick, In the meantime the new digital-era challenge to “cognitive decline” can serve as a ready-made explanation for blank moments, whether senior or otherwise (PDF). "It’s not that you’re slow.," says Carey. "It’s that you know so much."

Submission + - Restore Net Neutrality petition (whitehouse.gov) 1

Submitted by TopSpin
TopSpin writes: A petition of the White House to "direct the FCC to Classify Internet Providers as 'Common Carriers'" and thereby enable FCC Net Neutrality rules to be created and enforced needs about 24,000 additional signatures to reach the threshold of 100,000. Should the goal be reached the Administration will issue an official statement on the matter. The petition deadline is February 14.

Submission + - T-Mobile Writes The Best Press Release You'll Ever See From A Phone Company (techdirt.com)

Submitted by Reverand Dave
Reverand Dave writes: At the beginning of January, AT&T directly began offering T-Mobile users $450 to switch. Apparently the company has realized that if it can't buy T-Mobile directly, it might as well just buy its customers. Now, most companies when targeted by a larger competitor in this manner might sort through a variety of responses, and I'm sure at some point, perhaps late at night under the influence of an extra alcoholic beverage or two, someone might suggest the following. But to actually go ahead with it... well... that's a bit bold. In short, T-Mobile flips the offer on its head, noting that since it only applies to T-Mobile users, AT&T users now have a "risk free" way to test out T-Mobile — and they throw in hilarious fake quotes from AT&T Mobility's CEO, Ralph de la Vega, mock the "death star" and a variety of other things you don't normally see in a telco press release — such as comparing de la Vega to Darth Vader.

Submission + - Antioxidants Could Increase Cancer Rates (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Many people take vitamins such as A, E, and C thinking that their antioxidant properties will ward off cancer. But some clinical trials have suggested that such antioxidants, which sop up DNA-damaging molecules called free radicals, have the opposite effect and raise cancer risk in certain people. Now, in a provocative study that raises unsettling questions about the widespread use of vitamin supplements, Swedish researchers have showed that moderate doses of two widely used antioxidants spur the growth of early lung tumors in mice.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: An open source PC music studio?

Submitted by enharmonix
enharmonix writes: I have a big decision to make. I am probably going to buy a laptop that I will primarily use for music. I would prefer an OEM distro so I don't need to install the OS myself (not that I mind), but I have no preference between open- and closed-source software as an end-user; I just care about the quality of the product. There are two applications that I absolutely must have: 1) a standard notation transcription program with quality auditioning (i.e., playback with quality sound fonts or something similar, better than your standard MIDI patches) that can also accept recorded audio in lieu of MIDI playback, and 2) a capable synthesizer (the more options, the better). If there's software out there that does both 1 and 2 in the same app, that's even better. I've played with some of Ubuntu's offerings for music a few years ago and some are very good, though not all of them are self-explanatory and the last time I checked, none of them really met my needs. I am not so worried about number 2 because I think I could pretty easily develop my own in .NET/Mono, which I think would be a fun project (which would be open source, of course). I am a Gnome fan so if I go with Linux, I will almost certainly go with standard Ubuntu over Kubuntu, but Gnome seems to rule out Rosegarden which was the best FOSS transcription software out there the last time I checked. The other solution I've thought of is to just shell out the $600 for Finale, which I'm more than willing to do, but I'm not so sure I want Windows 8 and I'm just not sure I can afford to go with a Mac on top of the $600 for Finale. I don't intend to put more than one OS on my laptop, either. Any slashdotters out there dabble in composing/recording, using MIDI, sound fonts, recorded audio, and/or synthesizers? What setup of hardware/OS/software works for you? Can FOSS music software compete with their pricier closed source competitors?

Submission + - NSA and GCHQ target 'leaky' phone apps to scoop user data (theguardian.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: New leaked NSA documents shed a new light on the agency's assault on the data controls of smartphone apps. Using app data permissions as a jumping off point, the documents show agency staffers building huge quantities of data, including "intercepting Google Maps queries made on smartphones, and using them to collect large volumes of location information." One slide lists capabilities for "hot mic" recording, high precision geotracking, and file retrieval which would reach any content stored locally on the phone, including text messages, emails and calendar entries. As the slide notes in a parenthetical aside, "if it's on the phone, we can get it.

Submission + - Amazon Delivery Drones and Predictive Shipping: Don't Believe the Hype (ibtimes.co.uk)

Submitted by DavidGilbert99
DavidGilbert99 writes: Amazon is seemingly cat nip to journalists. From flying drone to knowing what you are going to order before you even order it, stories related to Amazon have been carried in virtually all publications of note in the last two months — despite the stories themselves having very little news value. The reason for such widespread coverage, David Gilbert at IBTimes UK guesses, is the mythology which has been built up around Amazon and founder Jeff Bezos over the last two decades.

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