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Comment Re:Google's been walking a thin line recently (Score 1) 232

by miffo.swe (#31574226) Attached to: Google vs. China — Who's Got the Most To Lose?

Have you actually compared Google to your random US company? I think regardless who you compare them with they come out pretty decent.

Some people tend to put them to extremely higher standards than anyone else. Its not enough they are nice, they have to be some kind of techie Ghandies fused with Jesus and a couple of hundred saints.

Comment Re:Funny thing about "common-sense exceptions"... (Score 1) 139

by jdgeorge (#31572142) Attached to: Bill Would Require Public Information To Be Online

While "common sense" is terribly rare in government, "exceptions" are never in short supply.

"Common sense" is also terribly rare everywhere outside of government, and "exceptions" are extremely common in everyday life. The blame for this aspect of the proposed legislation in question lies not with the government as such, but the fact that there are people involved.
Space

Herschel Space Observatory Finds Precursors of Life In Orion 142

Posted by kdawson from the but-not-as-we-know-it dept.
ogre7299 recommends an announcement out of Caltech on a milestone for HIFI, the Herschel Space Observatory's Heterodyne Instrument for the Far Infrared. "The Herschel Space Observatory has revealed the chemical fingerprints of potential life-enabling organic molecules in the Orion Nebula, a nearby stellar nursery in our Milky Way galaxy. ... This detailed-spectrum, obtained with the Heterodyne Instrument for the Far Infrared (HIFI) — one of Herschel's three innovative instruments — demonstrates the gold mine of information that Herschel-HIFI will provide on how organic molecules form in space. The spectrum, one of the first to be obtained with HIFI since it returned to full health in January 2010 following technical difficulties, clearly demonstrates that the instrument is working well. ... [The HIFI instrument had previously been offline since] August 2009 when HIFI experienced an unexpected voltage spike in the electronic system, probably caused by a high-energy cosmic particle, resulting in the instrument shutting down. On 14 January 2010, HIFI was successfully switched back on using its spare electronics, with science observations commencing on 28 February."
Operating Systems

Which Linux For Non-Techie Windows Users? 766

Posted by Soulskill from the first-one's-free dept.
obarthelemy writes "Having at last gotten Linux to run satisfactorily on my own PCs, I'd now like to start transitioning friends and family from XP to Linux instead of Windows 7. The catch is that these guys don't understand or care much about computers, so the transition has to be as seamless and painless as possible. Actually, they won't care for new things; even the upcoming upgrade to Windows 7 would be a pain and a bother, which is a great opportunity for Linux. I'm not too concerned about software (most of them only need browser, IM, VLC, mail and a Powerpoint viewer for all those fascinating attachments). What I'm concerned about is OS look-and-feel and interface — system bar on the bottom with clock, trash, info on the right, menu on the left, menu items similar to those of Windows. Is it better to shoot for a very targeted distro? Which would you recommend? Are there themes/skins for mainstream distributions instead? I've been looking around the web, and it's hard to gauge which distros are well-done and reasonably active."
Earth

Gov't Proposes "National Climate Service" For the US 599

Posted by timothy from the overcast-with-a-chance-of-death dept.
Standing Bear writes "NPR reports that 140 years after the creation of the National Weather Service, the US government is proposing the creation of a similar service that will provide long-term projections of how climate will change. 'We are actually getting millions of requests a year already about: How should coastal cities plan for sea-level rise? How should various other agencies in the federal government or in state governments make plans for everything from roads to managing water supplies?' says NOAA Administrator Dr. Jane Lubchenco. 'And a lot of that is going to be changing as the climate changes.' Under the plan, the new NOAA Climate Service would incorporate some of the agency's existing laboratories and research programs, including the National Climatic Data Center, the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory and the National Weather Service's Historical Climate Network. Meanwhile, as plans for the new climate service shape up, NOAA launched a new Web site, climate.gov, designed to provide access to a wide range of climate information."
Businesses

Google To End Support For IE6 272

Posted by Soulskill from the enough-is-enough dept.
itwbennett writes "Google announced Friday that it will be phasing out support for Internet Explorer 6, more than two weeks after the attacks on Google's servers that targeted a vulnerability in IE6. In a blog post, Rajen Sheth, Google Apps senior product manager, said that support for IE6 in Google Docs and Google Sites will end March 1. At that point, IE6 users who try to access Docs or Sites may find that 'key functionality' won't work properly. Sheth suggested that customers upgrade their browsers to pretty much anything else."
Microsoft

Microsoft Game Software Preps Soldiers For Battle 44

Posted by Soulskill from the blue-screen-of-real-death dept.
coondoggie writes "Soldiers may go into battle better prepared to handle equipment and with a greater knowledge of their surroundings after an intellectual property licensing deal Monday between Microsoft and Lockheed Martin that will deepen the defense giant's access to visual simulation technology. The intellectual property agreement between the two focuses on Microsoft ESP, a games-based visual simulation software platform for the PC."
GUI

Simple, Free Web Remote PC Control? 454

Posted by timothy from the remote-viewing-the-cia-way dept.
MeatballCB writes "Hey folks. Being the 'technical' guy of the family, I often get calls from friends and family members when they're having PC issues. Most of these folks are not technical, so trying to troubleshoot problems over the phone can often be a challenge. Anyone know of a simple-to-use and (preferably) free service that would allow for remote viewing/control of their PCs? I know there's WebEx and GoToMyPC, but I hate to pay for something I'd use once every two months. I also know about VNC, but trying to walk someone through opening up ports on their router that thinks their Internet is broken when their homepage gets changed is not realistic. Anyone know of anything that would be easy to set up and use?"
Image

Could GPS Keep Tabs On Your Pets? 218

Posted by samzenpus from the lassie-tracking dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Google Latitude has already made headlines for allowing phone users to locate their friends, and there are countless other iPhone and Android phone apps already designed to transmit your location — but could pets be the next big thing in GPS tracking? A number of device manufacturers are marketing GPS technology as a futuristic tool for tracking your cat or dog, and even discovering exactly where they've been. These devices are sold under a number of names and brands, including Sportdog, LoCATor, RoamEO, Petcell, Zoombak and Pettrack."
Software

The Most Influential People In Open Source 189

Posted by Soulskill from the surprising-lack-of-beards dept.
mmaney writes "As part of its 2009 open source best practices research, MindTouch asked C and VP level open source executives who they thought are the most influential people in the industry today. The list is ranked by the effect these individuals have had on the open source industry. Over 50 votes from executives in Europe and North America were cast. There were a few surprises from outside of the open source industry. Steve Ballmer got a mention because of his negative remarks on the open source industry and its subsequent positive impact. Vivek Kundra was mentioned because of his contributions to the industry inside the US Federal Government. Notably absent, however, are any influential women." Relatedly, Matt Asay (who is also on the list) writes about the decreased need for open-source evangelism, noting that several people on the list are there "not because they're open-source cheerleaders, but because they have helped vendors and customers alike understand how to get the most from open-source investments."
Security

Submission + - Poor security of UK wifi hotspots

Submitted by Tasha26
Tasha26 writes: BBC's Watchdog programme has an interesting investigation of the appalling state of Wifi security at Hotspots such as those found at coffe shops, burger places or even on trains. The video report shows live hacking minus the how-to, obviously, but you can see bits of linux shells (@1m08) and what appears to be Wireshark as tools used. The hack involved taking control email accounts of unsuspecting people to (1) send bogus emails as identity theft (@1m43) and (2) hijack email session so the user wouldn't be able to log out (@3m43). The programme carried out tests on UK's top 3 hotspot providers (BT Openzone, The Cloud and T-Mobile) and all revealed the same flaw. So people, be warned!
Games

Submission + - OpenGL vs. Direct3D (tomshardware.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: I'm working for a gaming company that is creating simple games like slot and card games, we are also controlling the hardware to run these games. Until recently we used our own propriety game engine on Windows XP, and within couple of months manage to convert it to Direct3D. I'm now checking the alternative to switch to Linux and OpenGL. Reading the review at Tom's Hardware gives the impression that it is not such a good idea. I'd like to learn from the experience of other developers regarding driver's support, ease of development (C++) and other such factors.

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