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Submission + - House committee passes bill banning in-flight phone calls (itworld.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: If these clowns passing this bill were flying home to see a dying parent I wonder if they would prefer voice over TEXTING?

I also find it amusing that since they fly in private planes they don't really care what the 'citizens' do.

This is beyond bizarre to me.

I'm BETTING you that the company that has MONEY invested in the phones you PAY TO USE on the plane in flight have PAID FOR this bill. Any takers?

Submission + - Congressman Defends Right to Privacy with New Legislation (townhall.com)

Submitted by RoccamOccam
RoccamOccam writes: Should the government be able to read your emails without a warrant? Representative Matt Salmon (R-AZ) tackled that question today at the Heritage Foundation’s first annual Conservative Policy Summit in Washington, DC.

'Privacy and transparency are the core of a republic. Today, that is reversed [...] “Mass spying did not protect us from the Boston bombing, the Times Square bombing, etc.'

Salmon is determined to stop the government’s secret snooping by leading the House version of the Electronics Communications Privacy Amendments Act, legislation that specifically targets a 1986 law declaring government had a right to search one’s emails without a warrant. Salmon’s legislation has been able to attract bipartisan support.

Submission + - FBI: $10,000 reward for info on anyone who points a laser at an aircraft (networkworld.com)

Submitted by coondoggie
coondoggie writes: Here's a good idea: The FBI today said it launched a targeted 60 day program that will offer up to a $10,000 for information leading to the arrest of anyone who intentionally aims a laser at an aircraft. The FBI said the laser pointing scourge continues to grow at an alarming rate. Since the FBI and the Federal Aviation Administration began tracking laser strikes in 2005, there has been ridiculous 1,000% increase in the number of laser pointing/aircraft incidents. Last year, 3,960 laser strikes against aircraft were reported-an average of almost 11 incidents per day.

Submission + - New Precambrian Fossil Bed Found (www.cbc.ca)

Submitted by jfbilodeau
jfbilodeau writes: Scientists recently located a new fossil site in B.C. and west of Calgary that is already yielding major new discoveries about early animal evolution. The Marble Canyon fossil beds were located in 2012 by a team of Canadian, U.S. and Swedish researchers in Kootenay National Park, about 40 kilometres from the 505-million-year-old Burgess Shale in Yoho National Park, which is considered one of the most important fossil fields in the world.

Submission + - How I Lost My Google Glass (and Regained Some Faith in Humanity) (slashdot.org)

Submitted by Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster writes: 'The winter weather made my hands numb. I was distracted, rushed, running late to a meeting. Put those two things together, and it’s a recipe for disaster,' Boonsri Dickinson writes in her account of how she lost her Google Glass unit. 'The cab had already gone two blocks before I realized my Google Glass was no longer in my hand. I asked the driver to swing back around to where he picked me up; I retraced my steps along the snowy street to my apartment, looking for my $1,500 device. No luck. Total panic.' The device featured photos, video, email, and other data that, in the wrong hands, could seriously upend her life. Fortunately, the person who found the Glass unit was a.) more interested in returning the device than wrecking her existence, and b.) engaged in quite a bit of digital detective work to track her down (with some help from Google). 'The device holds more than enough data to make me nervous about the possible voyeuristic invasion of my privacy, and the fear of the thought that the media connected to my Glass would possibly end up online, somewhere, cached forever in a Google search,' she concluded. But the saga also reset some of her faith in humanity.

Submission + - Finally, Debian chose systemd as default init systemd, bye bye upstart (muktware.com)

Submitted by sfcrazy
sfcrazy writes: Debian has chosen systemd as the default init system for its next release ending the long debate. Today Bdale Garbee has cast his vote to choose D as the winner, which already had majority votes. Announcing systemd as the default init system of Debian Bdale wrote: "Per 6.3.2, I use my casting vote to choose D as the winner". He further wrote. "We exercise our power to decide in cases of overlapping jurisdiction (6.1.2) by asserting that the default init system for Linux architectures in jessie should be systemd. Should the project pass a General Resolution before the release of “jessie” asserting a “position statement about issues of the day” on init systems, that position replaces the outcome of this vote and is adopted by the Technical Committee as its own decision."

Submission + - Tiny Motors Controlled Inside Human Cell (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by cold fjord
cold fjord writes: BBC reports, "For the first time, scientists have placed tiny motors inside living human cells and steered them magnetically. The advance represents another step towards molecular machines that can be used, for example, to release drugs into specific locations within the body. There is interest in the approach because it could enhance the benefits of drugs while minimising side effects. The rocket-shaped metal particles were propelled using ultrasound pulses. Materials scientist Prof Tom Mallouk, from Penn State University, and colleagues have published their research in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition. "As these nanomotors move around and bump into structures inside the cells, the live cells show internal mechanical responses that no one has seen before," said Prof Mallouk. "This research is a vivid demonstration that it may be possible to use synthetic nanomotors to study cell biology in new ways.""

Submission + - SteamOS beta gets update (muktware.com)

Submitted by sfcrazy
sfcrazy writes: Valve has updated SteamOS beta which brings better support for wireless cards. If you are running beta of SteamOS you will be getting these updates. Those who are using stable version may change to beta version to get advantage of these packages. The update adds additional packages to the repo to support gdb, NFS, and creating an alchemist chroot.

Submission + - Lithium-ion battery capacity doubled with new germanium nanowires (geek.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Existing lithium-ion batteries rely on graphite (although silicon is becoming more common now as it provides up to 20% higher capacity), and while it performs well, graphite limits the capacity of such batteries. So a research team at the University of Limerick, Ireland set about replacing graphite with a new element.

They ended up focusing on germanium, a gray-white metalloid that’s similar to tin and silicon. and restructured it using nanowires to create a porous material that remains stable during charging. In fact, not only is it stable, it also extends the life of any lithium-ion battery using it to over 1,000 cycles. Today’s batteries are typically rated at hundreds of cycles.

The end result? A new lithium-ion battery with double the capacity of existing batteries, a longer life, and as an added bonus it's highly scalable and cheap to manufacture.

Submission + - Red Hat Hires CentOS Developers

Submitted by rjmarvin
rjmarvin writes: Karanbir Singh and a handful of other CentOS developers are now full-time Red Hat employees, working in-house http://sdt.bz/content/article.... on the CentOS distribution with more transparent processes and methods. None of the CentOS developers will be working on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The CentOS project would become another distribution and community cared for by Red Hat, like Fedora, and Red Hat CTO Brian Stevens says the company is planning its future around OpenStack, not just Linux.

Submission + - A dedicated shell for Git commands

Submitted by CMULL
CMULL writes: Stop typing Git over and over again. Ruby on Rails development and consulting firm thoughtbot created an interactive shell dedicated to Git commands, gitish. The shell allows users to issue any Git commands instead of having to run Git commands in general-purpose shells like Zsh or Bash. One of the primary developers says there is a need for this shell because many early Unix utilities don't take sub-commands like Git.

Submission + - Oldest Known Star in the Universe Discovered (gizmag.com)

Submitted by Zothecula
Zothecula writes: A team of astronomers at The Australian National University (ANU) working on a five-year project to produce the first comprehensive digital survey of the southern sky has discovered the oldest known star in the Universe. Just a 6,000 light year astronomical hop, skip and jump from Earth, the ancient star formed shortly after the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago.

Submission + - Researchers Bring World Temperature Records to Google Earth (gizmag.com)

Submitted by Zothecula
Zothecula writes: Talking about the weather is a pastime as old as language, but climate researchers from the University of East Anglia (UEA) in the UK have just given people a whole lot more to talk about. As part of an ongoing effort to increase the accessibility and transparency of data on past climate and climate change, they've made one of the most widely used records of Earth's climate accessible through Google Earth.

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