Leraika - Slashdot User

Submission + - Officer Helps Save Driver in Runaway Prius (foxnews.com)

Submitted by suraj.sun on Tuesday March 09, 2010 @08:25AM

suraj.sun writes: A Prius driver calls 911 after accelerating to pass another vehicle on a California freeway and finding that he could not control his car.

A California highway police officer helped slow a runaway Toyota Prius from 94 mph to a safe stop on Monday after the car's accelerator became stuck on a freeway near San Diego, authorities said.

Prius driver James Sikes said that the incident Monday occurred just two weeks after he had taken the vehicle in to an El Cajon dealership for repairs after receiving a recall notice, but he was turned away.

"I gave them my recall notice and they handed it back and said I'm not on the recall list," Sikes said.

Fox News: http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2010/03/08/stuck-accelerator-reportedly-causes-toyota-speed-control-highway/

Submission + - The secret origin of Windows (technologizer.com)

Submitted by harrymcc on Tuesday March 09, 2010 @04:57AM

harrymcc writes: Windows has been so dominant for so long that it's easy to forget that Windows 1.0 was vaporware, mocked both outside and inside of Microsoft--and that its immediate successors were considered stopgaps until OS/2 was everywhere. Tandy Trower, the product manager who finally got Windows 1.0 out the door a quarter century ago has written a memoir of the experience. (He thought being assigned the much-maligned project was Microsoft's fiendish way of trying to get rid of him.) The story involves such still-signifcant figures as Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Ray Ozzie, and Nathan Myhrvold; Trower left Microsoft only in November of 2009 after 28 years with the company.

Submission + - Supreme Court to Rule on Anti-Gay Protests (washingtonpost.com)

Submitted by introspekt.i on Tuesday March 09, 2010 @03:18AM

introspekt.i writes: The Washington Post reports that the Supreme Court of the United States is taking on the case of Snyder v. Phelps. This will decide whether or not the anti-gay protests by Westboro Baptist Church (Phelps's church) is protected by the first amendment of the constitution. For those on all sides of the debate, most can probably agree that the methods employed by this set of people are completely unpalatable. Would it be going to far to rule the protests as something other than free speech? Where is the line drawn between freedom of expression and harassment?

Comment Huh. (Score 1) 98

by Leraika on Monday March 08, 2010 @04:49PM (#31405068) Attached to: US Eases Internet Export Rules To Iran, Sudan, Cuba

I wonder if this is a result over the attention the issue got when SourceForge had to temporarily disable access to those countries earlier this year?

Submission + - Man swallows flash drive; obstruction of justice? (thesmokinggun.com) 2

Submitted by langelgjm on Tuesday March 02, 2010 @05:52PM

langelgjm writes: In an incident that is ripe for puns, Florin Necula, a New York City man, swallowed a flash drive in an attempt to deny investigators access to its contents. The ploy worked — at least temporarily. After four days, Necula agreed to allow doctors to remove the drive. Necula is being charged with obstruction of justice; he and three others are suspects are believed to have installed ATM skimmers on several machines in an attempt to obtain bank account information. Should've used TrueCrypt.

Submission + - Terry Childs' Slow Road to Justice? (infoworld.com)

Submitted by

snydeq

on Tuesday March 02, 2010 @05:38PM

snydeq writes: "Deep End's Paul Venezia provides an update on the City of San Francisco's trial against IT admin Terry Childs, which — at eight weeks and counting — hasn't even seen the defense begin to present its case. The main spotlight thus far has been on the testimony of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. 'Many articles about this case have pounced on the fact that after Childs gave the passwords to the mayor, they couldn't immediately be used. Most of these pieces chalk this up to some kind of secondary infraction on Childs' part,' Venezia writes. 'Just because you give someone a password doesn't mean that person knows how to use it. Childs' security measures would have included access lists that blocked attempted logins from non-specified IP addresses or subnets. In short, it was nothing out of the ordinary if you know anything about network security.' But while the lack of technical expertise in the case is troubling, encouraging is the fact that the San Francisco Chronicle's 'breathless piece reporting on the mayor's testimony' drew comments 10-to-1 in Childs' favor, which may indicate that 'public opinion of this case has tilted in favor of the defense,' Venezia writes. Of course, 'if [the trial] drags into summer, Childs will have the dubious honor of being held in jail for two full years' This for a man who 'ultimately protected the [City's] network until the bitter end.'"

Journal Journal: SF Signal Meme: what book are you reading right now? 2

Journal by yellowstone on Tuesday March 02, 2010 @05:25PM

I just came across this (nearly month-old) post over at SF Signal. Instead of replying over there were no-one will see it, I thought I would post something here (where no-one will see it). Anyway...

What Book Are You Reading Now?
System of the World by Neal Stephenson.
Why did you choose it?

Submission + - IBM Teams with Rice University, Scripps Research

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 02, 2010 @04:45PM

An anonymous reader writes: The first is on the unveiling of one of the most powerful supercomputers. Scientists at the Texas Medical Center will use the POWER7 in collaboration with researchers to study cancer, AIDS and other complex diseases. Available video includes footage of Rice University, POWER7 systems and soundbites.

Here’s the link: www.thenewsmarket.com/sur

The second story is on a recent discovery paving the way for a new class of AIDS drugs. Utilizing computing power from 1.5 million devices networked through the World Community Grid, a team of researchers discovered two new compounds that prove the existence of new binding sites on HIV protease. Available video includes footage of IBM's World Community Grid announcement and soundbites. Here’s the link:

www.thenewsmarket.com/ibmworldcommunitygrid

Submission + - German supreme court cancels data retention (bundesverfassungsgericht.de)

Submitted by feufeu on Tuesday March 02, 2010 @12:36PM

feufeu writes: In a decision made public today the german supreme court has canceled with immediate effect the existing law that orders telecommunication providers (phone, mobile, internet) to keep records of for six months. These were not meant to include the content of the communication but when and between which parties the communication takes place, including access to web servers. In an earlier decision it was made clear that these information could only be accessed in a very limited scope of cases. The court has ruled that the existing records have to be deleted shortly. (URL links to the courts official publication in german)

Submission + - Roger Ebert Speaks Again Today with Voice Software (oprah.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 02, 2010 @12:30PM

An anonymous reader writes: By now you've probably read the heartwarming profile of Roger Ebert's cancer battle in the current issue of Esquire (along with its haunting photos). And you've probably read about the company, CereProc, that's using advanced text-to-speech software to recreate the voice that the beloved critic lost when he lost his jaw in surgery (not that that stopped his Tweeting). But now, after Ebert's initial impressions, we finally get to see it in this video from today's Oprah show. What do you think? From on-air excerpts: "It still needs improvement but at least it sounds like me," Ebert's computer said when it "spoke." "[I]n first grade, they said I talked too much. And now I still can."

Submission + - New 'Spear Phishing' Attacks Target IT Admins (infoworld.com)

Submitted by

snydeq

on Tuesday March 02, 2010 @11:23AM

snydeq writes: "A new breed of 'spear phishing' aimed at IT admins is gaining prevalence, with emails containing no obvious malicious links fooling even the savviest of users into opening up holes in their company's network defenses. The authentic-looking emails, which often include the admin's complete name or refer to a real project they are working on, are the product of tactical research or database hacks and appear as if having been sent by the company's hosting provider. 'In each case, the victim remembered getting a similar sort of email message when they first signed on with a service and, thus, thought the bogus message was legitimate — especially because their cloud/hosting providers keep bragging about all the new data centers they're continuing to bring online.' The phishing messages often include instructions for opening up mail servers to enable spam relaying, to disable their host-based firewalls, and to open up unprotected network shares. Certainly fodder for some bone-headed mistakes on the part of admins, the new attack 'makes the old days of hoax messages that caused users to delete legitimate operating system files seem relatively harmless.'"

Submission + - Scientists Develop Financial Turing Test (technologyreview.com)

Submitted by KentuckyFC on Friday February 26, 2010 @08:43AM

KentuckyFC writes: Various economists argue that the efficiency of a market ought to be clearly evident in the returns it produces. They say that the more efficient it is, the more random its returns will be and a perfect market should be completely random. That would appear to give the lie to the widespread belief that humans are unable to tell the difference between financial market returns and, say, a sequence of coin tosses. However, there is good evidence that financial markets are not random (although they do not appear to be predictable either). Now a group of scientists have developed a financial Turing test to find out whether humans can distinguish real financial data from the same data randomly rearranged. Anybody can take the test and the results indicate that humans are actually rather good at this kind of pattern recognition.

Submission + - Europe to block ACTA disconnection provisions (zdnet.co.uk)

Submitted by superglaze on Friday February 26, 2010 @08:09AM

superglaze writes: The European Commission is "not supporting and will not accept" any attempt to have Acta (the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) force countries to disconnect people for downloading copyrighted material, a spokesman for the new EU trade commissioner has said.

All the signs are that the new commission, which took office earlier this month, intends to take a hardline stance against US proposals for a filesharing-related disconnection system. 'Three strikes' is allowed in EU countries, but not mandated by the European government itself, and it looks like the new administration wants to keep it that way. From trade commssion spokesman John Clancy, quoted in ZDNet UK's article:

"[Acta] has never been about pursuing infringements by an individual who has a couple of pirated songs on their music player. For several years, the debate has been about what is 'commercial scale' [piracy]. EU legislation has left it to each country to define what a commercial scale is and this flexibility should be kept in Acta."

Submission + - Handley Gets to 6 Months for 'Obscene' Manga (animenewsnetwork.com)

Submitted by Vyse of Arcadia on Thursday February 25, 2010 @11:05AM

Vyse of Arcadia writes: Christopher Handley, the Iowa man on trial for possessing manga "drawings of children being sexually abused," was sentenced on Thursday to six months in prison. Following this sentence, Handley must serve three years of supervised release and five years of probation. Both of these terms will start upon his release from prison and will run concurrently. Handley also agreed to forfeit all seized materials, including his computer. During Handley's supervised release and probation, Handley must also "participate in a treatment program, to include psychological testing and a polygraph examination, as directed by the U. S. Probation Officer." According to earlier court documents, this last provision is "intended to provide [Handley] with diagnosis and treatment for sexually and/or gender identity or other mental health issues."

Submission + - Radio using internet to fight city noise pollution (examiner.com)

Submitted by JoshuaInNippon on Thursday February 25, 2010 @01:51AM

JoshuaInNippon writes: A group of thirteen major radio stations in Tokyo and Osaka, Japan are teaming up to stream their programming live on the internet at the same time as they are broadcasting it to the airwaves. While internet radio is certainly nothing new, the radio stations reasoning for teaming up and pursing this avenue is noteworthy. All the stations in the group are located within the two highly developed major Japanese cities, and they feel that there has been an increasing trend towards the deterioration of their radio signals due to city noise pollution. In order to combat this problem, and at the same time improve the overall public image of voice media, they will be offering the service for free to anyone without registration. And while the simulcast service may certainly help fix radio reception difficulties for those who live in the two cities, it will also be a wonderful bonus for all those who do not but still want to hear some Japanese tunes (beginning March 15th).

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