f1vlad - Slashdot User

Submission + - Oculus VR co-founder, 33, killed by speeding car (cnet.com) 1

Submitted by ccguy on Saturday June 01, 2013 @04:11AM

ccguy writes: Oculus Rift co-founder and lead engineer Andrew Reisse was hit in Santa Ana, where he was a resident, by a speeding car being pursued by police.

Submission + - Switzerland tops IPv6 adoption charts as US lags behind at fourth place (paritynews.com)

Submitted by hypnosec on Saturday June 01, 2013 @02:32AM

hypnosec writes: According to recent statistics Switzerland has aced the IPv6 adoption charts by leapfrogging Romania, which topped the charts for nearly a year. According to Google Switzerland’s adoption stands at 10.11 percent – the highest for any country. Romania on the other hand has an adoption rate of 9.02 percent followed by France at 5.08 percent. Switzerland took the top position near the end of May and the primary reason seems to be Swisscom and its drive to adopt the next IP version. US stands at fourth place with just 2.76 percent adoption.

Funding Open Source By Donations: Lighting the Path 56

Posted by timothy on Saturday June 01, 2013 @02:31AM from the getting-things-done dept.

New submitter BryanLunduke writes "One week ago I Open Sourced my — previously commercial — software (GPL) and comic books (creative commons). I am now documenting my journey to fully fund their continued development with the first week's results of funding via donations. I am publishing this information here to give others the facts they need to help decide if they can afford to do something similar."

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: What is the future of old copper pair technology? (wikipedia.org) 5

Submitted by p00kiethebear on Saturday June 01, 2013 @01:51AM

p00kiethebear writes: My father works for a large corporation that licenses ISDN lines (among a plethora of other services) including T1 and T3 technology. Surprisingly there are still large companies that use fifty year old T1 technology to handle their voice and data use. My father's 30 year career has been almost exclusively in helpdesk / troubleshooting T1 / ISDN technology and both him and myself are worried about the future. Cable modems and DSL have replaced ISDN in most cases and it's now an archaic solution reserved for voice actors, tech support-terminal workers, large companies that need voice and video conferencing as well as data and private users too far from the loop for DSL or Cable. My dad is still 15 years from retirement. Is twisted copper going the way of the dodo or is it here to stay for the foreseeable future?

Submission + - Will your video game collection appreciate over time? (terapeak.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 01, 2013 @01:01AM

An anonymous reader writes: Pundits tell us that the world of console video gaming is in dire straits, but recent collections of console video games have sold on eBay for tens of thousands of dollars. There are still a lot of video game disks and cartridges out there, but is it worth your effort to try to complete your collection and sell it on eBay? If you're a potential buyer for a massive collection of video games, are they likely to appreciate over time, or is this a really bad investment? Market research company Terapeak runs some numbers and suggests that it depends on your goals, the size and quality of your collection, and the console you're focused on.

Memory Gaffe Leaves Aussie Bank Accounts Open To Theft 69

Posted by timothy on Friday May 31, 2013 @11:50PM from the willie-sutton-down-under dept.

mask.of.sanity writes "A researcher has found flaws in the way major Australian banks handle customer login credentials which could allow the details to be siphoned off by malware. He built proof of concept malware to pull unencrypted passwords, account numbers and access credentials from volatile memory of popular web browsers every two hours."

Submission + - Why no email option to share Slashdot Articles? 3

Submitted by lxrocks on Friday May 31, 2013 @10:28PM

lxrocks writes: The first thing I do every morning, is fire up the Slashdot app on my Iphone. There is always an article I would like to share with my colleagues or friends — yet the only options I have are social media — WHERE THE HELL IS THE MAIL option. How difficult would it be to put that in. I stopped using Facebook about 2 years ago when I got really creeped out by just how much attention they paid me. Facebook is evil and I only wish for them to fail and go bust. I don't use any Social Media — so I can't share Slashdot articles from the iphone app. That really SUCKS!

So come on Slashdot put the 'share via email' option in.

Submission + - Results of funding Open Source by donations (lunduke.com)

Submitted by BryanLunduke on Friday May 31, 2013 @09:27PM

BryanLunduke writes: One week ago I Open Sourced my, previously commercial, software (GPL) and comic books (creative commons). I am now documenting my journey to fully fund their continued development with the first weeks results of funding via donations. I am publishing this information here to give others the facts they need to help decide if they can afford to do something similar.

Submission + - Oklahoma City has a data center built to withstand winds up to 310 MPH (computerworld.com)

Submitted by dcblogs on Friday May 31, 2013 @09:22PM

dcblogs writes: The area around and to the southwest of Oklahoma City, where more tornadoes were disclosed details, "has perhaps the greatest frequency of tornadoes in the U.S.," said John Snow, a professor of meteorology at the University of Oklahoma. About 95% of all tornadoes are below EF3 intensity, and only 0.1% achieve EF5, which is what hit Moore earlier this month. To build a data center capable of surviving an EF3, Perimeter Technology in Oklahoma City surrounded the raised floor portion of the data center with 8.5-in. concrete, reinforced walls. The data center is in the middle of the building, and around it are offices protected by another 8.5-in. exterior wall. But there's another data center in Oklahoma City that may be able survive 310 MPH winds. The company, Devon Energy, isn't talking about its data center or even confirm that it has one capable of handling these winds. But a contractor has disclosed details.

Bug In Samsung S3 Grabs Too Many Images, Ups Data Use 99

Posted by timothy on Friday May 31, 2013 @09:14PM from the my-t-shirt-size-is-sx-s-m-l-xl-and-xxxxl-simultaneously dept.

First time accepted submitter Emmanuel Cecchet writes "Researchers of the BenchLab project at UMass Amherst have discovered a bug in the browser of the Samsung S3. If you browse a Web page that has multiple versions of the same image (for mobile, tablet, desktop, etc...) like most Wikipedia pages for example, instead of downloading one image at the right resolution, the phone will download all versions of it. A page that should be less than 100K becomes multiple MB! It looks like a bug in the implementation of the srcset HTML tag, but all the details are in the paper to be presented at the IWQoS conference next week. So far Samsung didn't acknowledge the problem though it seems to affect all S3 phones. You'd better have an unlimited data plan if you browse Wikipedia on an S3!"

TSA Finishes Removing "Virtual Nude" X-Ray Devices From US Airports 172

Posted by timothy on Friday May 31, 2013 @07:53PM from the now-that-you're-fully-desensitized dept.

dsinc writes "The Transportation Security Administration announced it has finished removing from all airports the X-ray technology that produced graphic and controversial images of passengers passing through security screening checkpoints. The machines, which the TSA first deployed in 2008, provoked public outrage as the technology, better able than traditional X-rays to detect hidden contraband, also created images that appeared as if they were 'virtual nudes.' Critics called this an invasion of privacy and questioned whether the scanning devices truly lacked the ability to save the images, as the TSA claimed."

4K Computer Monitors Are Coming (But Still Pricey) 286

Posted by timothy on Friday May 31, 2013 @07:12PM from the if-by-consumer-you-mean-anaestheologist dept.

First time accepted submitter jay age writes "When TV makers started pushing 4K screens on unsuspecting public, that just recently upgraded to 1080p, many had doubted what value will they bring consumers. Fair thought — 1080p is, at screen sizes and viewing distances commonly found in homes, good enough. However, PC users such as me have looked at this development with great hope. TV screens must have something to do with market being littered with monitors having puny 1080p resolution. What if 4K TVs will push PC makers to offer 4K screens too, wouldn't that be great? Well, they are coming. ASUS has just announced one!" You could hook a computer up to one of the available 4K displays, but will generally be paying a lot more for the privilege; this one is "only" about $5,000, according to ExtremeTech.

Submission + - TSA eliminates all invasive X-ray machines

Submitted by dsinc on Friday May 31, 2013 @06:48PM

dsinc writes: The Transportation Security Administration announced it has finished removing from all airports the X-ray technology that produced graphic and controversial images of passengers passing through security screening checkpoints.
The machines, which the TSA first deployed in 2008, provoked public outrage as the technology, better able than traditional X-rays to detect hidden contraband, also created images that appeared as if they were "virtual nudes." Critics called this an invasion of privacy and questioned whether the scanning devices truly lacked the ability to save the images, as the TSA claimed.

Avatars Help Schizophrenics Gain Control of Voices In Their Heads 138

Posted by Soulskill on Friday May 31, 2013 @06:33PM from the teaches-the-voices-to-argue-on-the-internet-instead dept.

Zothecula writes "Imagine if there was a voice in your head that regularly threatened to harm you or your loved ones, or that even ordered you to do so yourself. Awful as that would be, such auditory hallucinations are one of the most common symptoms of schizophrenia, with approximately one in four sufferers continuing to experience them even after taking anti-psychotic drugs. Fortunately, scientists have recently helped some schizophrenics gain control of their condition, by turning those voices into interactive avatars."

DRM: How Book Publishers Failed To Learn From the Music Industry 212

Posted by Soulskill on Friday May 31, 2013 @05:52PM from the give-the-people-what-they-want dept.

Presto Vivace writes "In a blog post, danps explains how the music industry initially thought that the Internet meant that people wanted their music for free. In 2003 Apple persuaded the industry to use an online music store with DRM. But DRM just does not work for consumers, so by 2011 online music stores were DRM-free. Sadly, the book industry has not learned these lessons. And there are larger lessons for the gadget industry: 'The tech industry right now is churning out lots of different devices, operating systems and form factors in an attempt to get the One True Gadget — the thing you'll take with you everywhere and use for everything. That's a lovely aspiration, but I don't see it happening. What I see instead is people wanting to only carry around one thing at a time, and rotating through several: Smart phone for everyday use, tablet for the beach, laptop for the road, etc. If you can't get the book you paid for on each of those devices, it's a pain. As a reader I want to be able to put a book on everything as soon as I buy it so I always have a local (non-Internet dependent) copy — no matter which thing I run out of the house with.'"

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