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KDE

Submission + - Beyond "KDE vs. GNOME" (earthweb.com) 1

Submitted by
jammag
jammag writes: "Setting aside the now tired debate about whether KDE or GNOME is the "better" Linux desktop, Bruce Byfield compares their contrasting development approaches and concludes that KDE is moving far ahead. "In the short term, GNOME's gradualism seems sensible. But, in the long-term, it could very well mean continuing to be dragged down by support for legacy sub-systems. It means being reduced to an imitator rather than innovator." In contrast, "you could say that KDE has done what's necessary and ripped the bandage off the scab. In the short term, the result has been a lot of screaming, but, in the long-term, it has done what was necessary to thrive." If the phrase 'no pain, no gain,' applies to development, KDE is leaving the staid GNOME in the dust."
First Person Shooters (Games)

Submission + - Vision Improves with Violent Video Games

Submitted by
Ponca City, We love you
Ponca City, We love you writes: "According to a new study, people who played fighting games on their PCs became up to a 58 percent better at perceiving fine contrast differences, an important aspect of eyesight. The breakthrough is significant because it was previously thought that the ability to notice even very small changes in shades of grey against a uniform background, called the contrast sensitivity function (CSF), could not be improved. The ability to discern slight differences in shades of gray, or contrast sensitivity, is the primary limiting factor in how well one sees, says Daphne Bavelier, a professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester. "If you are driving at dusk with light fog it could make the difference between seeing the car in front of you or not seeing it," says Bavelier. Volunteers in the study played intensively for 50 hours over nine weeks with either Unreal Tournament 2004 and Call of Duty 2, and the results were compared with another group who played "The Sims 2," which is richly visual, but does not require as much visual-motor coordination. The new finding suggests action video games can be used as training devices as a useful complement to eye-correction techniques since it may teach the brain's visual cortex to make better use of the information it receives. "Normally, improving contrast sensitivity means getting glasses or eye surgery--somehow changing the optics of the eye," says Bavelier. "But we've found that action video games train the brain to process the existing visual information more efficiently, and the improvements last for months after game play stopped.""
The Courts

Submission + - Pirate Bay comes to Facebook (mashable.com)

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "According to a report I just read in Mashable, Pirate Bay is coming to Facebook. Writer Ben Parr says that The Pirate Bay site now includes links under torrents to 'Share on Facebook'. Once posted to a profile, the Facebook member's friends can click the link on Facebook to begin the download right away, provided he or she already has a torrenting client installed. I just hope people do not use this feature to download copyrighted materials which are not authorized to be downloaded, or at least not materials copyrighted to litigation-happy RIAA Big 4 record labels. No doubt, if their song files were downloaded through this method, the record companies would sit back for awhile, derive profit from the promotional excitement generated for their dying industry, and then — armed with Facebook's data — sue the pants off all the hapless Facebook users who fell for it."
Government

Submission + - UK Campaign to report suspicious avtivity (police.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Don't rely on others. If you suspect it report it.

The Metropolitan Police have started a campaign asking for the public to report any suspicious behaviour to the Anti-Terrorist Hotline. Posters including text such as "A bomb won't go off here because weeks before a shopper reported someone studying the CCTV cameras." have gone up around the city.

The campaign has become nation wide however, with the introduction of a radio advert carrying the same message.

"As part of the national campaign there will also be national press and national commercial radio advertising, large outdoor posters and advertising on the rears of buses. To ensure the campaign reaches minority communities, there will also be advertising in minority media press titles."
Enlightenment

Submission + - Researchers identify brain activity related to pha (examiner.com)

Submitted by mmmscience
mmmscience writes: http://www.examiner.com/x-1242-Science-News-Examiner~y2009m3d29-Researchers-identify-brain-activity-related-to-phantom-limbs Researchers in Switzerland think they had identified the regions of the brain responsible for creating phantom limbs and the senses that go along with them. Scientists studied a stroke victim who claimed that the phantom limb of her now-paralyzed left arm could do a number of things a normal limb could do, including "scratch an itch on her head, with an actual sense of relief."
Security

Submission + - Google Voice fixes security flaw, almost (voxilla.com)

Submitted by
gardel
gardel writes: "Google appears to have fixed a significant security hole in its two-week-old Voice calling service though some vulnerabilities remain. Until about 7pm PDT Tuesday, an unauthorized party could use a SIP device to spoof a phone number attached to a Google Voice account to call the Google Voice number, giviing the spoofer access to greetings and voicemail, and the ability to make outbound calls, including expensive international calls. Though spoofing via SIP is no longer possible, continued existence of some vulnerability was still apparent Tuesday night. Voxilla was able to set the caller ID of a PBX extension to a mobile number attached to Google Voice account and call in, using a business VoIP trunk, to gain access. (Note: posted by a Voxilla editor)"
Security

Submission + - Questionable Study Praises IE8 Malware Protection

Submitted by nandemoari
nandemoari writes: A recent study conducted by NSS Labs revealed that of the six most-used browsers, Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) RC1 is "head and shoulders" above Firefox, Safari and Chrome in its ability to detect and block socially-engineered malware. The actual results of the NSS study are as follows: IE8 (RC1) was able to detect malware 69% of the time, followed by Firefox v.3.07 at 30%, Safari v.3 at 24%, Chrome v.1.0.154 at 16% and Opera v.9.84 at 5%. Those who continue to use the previous Microsoft browser will be saddened to learn that IE7 was only able to detect malware 4% of the time. Analysts are raising some concern over the validity of NSS Labs, after it was revealed that the study was funded in part by Microsoft. NSS admitted that Microsoft did fund a significant portion of the study, but stated that their labs remain an independent entity unto themselves and the funding does not make the results any less factual.
Portables

Submission + - usb finger prothesis with handy linux

Submitted by jperl
jperl writes: In his blog Jerry Jalava, a software engineer describes his new finger he needed after having had an motorcycle accident. The new finger prothesis has an usb stick inside with built in linux. So the developer has important programs always within reach. For the next version of his finger he already has plans to integrate an RFID chip.
Media (Apple)

Submission + - iTunes Gift Card System might not have been hacked

Submitted by jperl
jperl writes: In "Clever Hack, or Carders-at-Work?" Joe Stewart, Senior Security Researcher at SecureWorks reasons why the itunes gift card key system might not have been hacked. According to him it's much more likely that stolen credit cards are used to buy the gift cards. Credit card numbers could be bought at black market and used then. Since there might be the same activation procedure for online gift cards, as there is for offline bought cards, this possibility is much more likely.

See the blog entry at: http://www.secureworks.com/research/blog/

Comment hm (Score 2, Interesting) 88

by jperl (#27136465) Attached to: Cheap Scanners Can "Fingerprint" Paper
"A drug company like Pfizer, for example, could take fingerprints of their labels when they are shipped, and this data could be verified later by a government or company representative in order to spot fakes."

In times people consciously order fake viagra or fake diet pills this might not help.

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