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Submission + - Microsoft Telling Users to Uninstall Bad Patch (threatpost.com)

Submitted by msm1267
msm1267 writes: Microsoft announced last night that it has stopped pushing a security update originally released on Patch Tuesday because the fix is causing some PCs to blue screen. Microsoft recommends users uninstall the patch, which is also causing compatibility with some endpoint security software.
MS13-036 was part of this week’s Patch Tuesday update. It addressed three vulnerabilities in the Windows Kernel-Mode Driver, which if exploited could allow an attacker to elevate their privileges on a compromised machine.
Users began reporting issues earlier this week with some systems failing to recover from restarts, or applications failing to load, after the patch was installed.

Submission + - Organic pollutants poison the roof of the world (nature.com)

Submitted by ananyo
ananyo writes: Toxic chemicals are accumulating in the ecosystems of the Himalayas and the Tibetan plateau, researchers warn in the first comprehensive study to assess levels of organic pollutants in that part of the world. Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are carbon-based compounds that are resistant to break-down. Some originate from the burning of fuel or the processing of electronic waste, and others are widely used as pesticides or herbicides or in the manufacture of solvents, plastics and pharmaceuticals. Some POPs, such as the pesticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) and the herbicide Agent Orange, can cause diseases such as cancers, neurological disorders, reproductive dysfunction and birth defects. The researchers found large amounts of POPs (including DDT) in various components of the ecosystems such as soil, grass, trees and fish in the Himalayas and in the Tibetan plateau, especially at the highest elevations.

Submission + - Is Windows 8 really blame for PC sales slump? (pcpro.co.uk)

Submitted by nk497
nk497 writes: The latest PC sales stats don't make for positive reading — especially for Microsoft, with Windows 8 taking much of the blame for struggling desktop and laptop sales. But can a single OS really be blamed for taking out an entire market. Analysts suggests it's much more complicated than that: a new version of Windows doesn't actually boost the market, but the confusion around the Metro screen and a lack of affordable touch devices hasn't helped — nor has competition from tablets. While Windows 8 must accept some of the blame for the continuing PC slump, but even if it was a barnstorming OS, would it have made a difference? "Let’s face it," said one analyst. "PCs had their run, and it lasted close to 20 years... Interest among consumers is shifting to other types of device."

Submission + - Nintendo To Cancel Weather, News, And Other Wii Built-In Apps in June (theverge.com) 1

Submitted by damn_registrars
damn_registrars writes: Nintendo of Japan has announced that at the end of June it will be canceling the services of several of the channels that are built in to the original Wii, including the Weather, News, Everybody Votes, and Mii Contest. This will also effect the WiiConnect24 services, though should not effect the Wii shopping channel.

Submission + - UK Gov to Investigate 'Aggressive' In-app Purchases (paritynews.com)

Submitted by hypnosec
hypnosec writes: The UK Government will be examining whether free to download apps are putting unfair pressure on kids to pay up for additional content within the game through in-app purchases. Office of Fair Trading (OFT), UK, will be carrying out the investigation of games that include ‘commercially aggressive’ in-app purchases after a number of cases have been reported whereby parents have incurred huge bills after their kids have spent huge amounts on in-app purchases.

Submission + - Rhombus Tech 2nd revision A10 EOMA68 Card working samples (rhombus-tech.net)

Submitted by lkcl
lkcl writes: Rhombus Tech and QiMod have working samples of the first EOMA-68 CPU Card, featuring 1GByte of RAM, an A10 processor and stand-alone (USB-OTG-powered with HDMI output) operation. Upgrades will include the new Dual-Core ARM Cortex A7, the pin-compatible A20. This is the first CPU Card in the EOMA-68 range: there are others in the pipeline (A31, iMX6, jz4760 and a recent discovery of the Realtek RTD1186 is also being investigated).

The first product in the EOMA-68 family, also nearing a critical phase in its development, will be the KDE Flying Squirrel, a 7in user-upgradeable tablet featuring the KDE Plasma Active Operating System. Laptops, Desktops, Games Consoles, user-upgradeable LCD Monitors and other products are to follow. And every CPU that goes into the products will be pre-vetted for full GPL compliance, with software releases even before the product goes out the door. That's what we've promised to do: to provide Free Software Developers with the opportunity to be involved with mass-volume product development every step of the way. We're also on the look-out for an FSF-Endorseable processor which also meets mass-volume criteria which is proving... challenging.

Submission + - Mystery meteorite may not be from Mercury after all (npr.org)

Submitted by gbrumfiel
gbrumfiel writes: A strange green meteorite found in Morocco caused a stir in the press earlier this month, when scientists reported that it might be the first chunk of Mercury ever found here on earth. But scientists who've been puzzling over the stone since then say the accumulating evidence may point in a different direction. The 4.56-billion-year-old rock might have come from the asteroid belt located between Mars and Jupiter. If true, then it would provide clues about the origin of the solar system as a whole instead of the origin of the innermost planet.

Submission + - Is Tech City beginning to look like a true Silicon Valley rival? (instituteofopinion.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: It was always going to be difficult for the UK to emulate Silicon Valley, but time has passed and you’d have hoped that progress has been made towards meeting that goal. The government has continued to push Tech City and with news breaking that Yahoo has acquired London based Nick D’Aloisio’s app, Summly, for around $30 million, many have seen this as a sign that the city can rival Silicon Valley as a centre for tech and innovation. However, this could in fact be a sign that the country has even further to go than we expected, with London right to be excited, but remaining the old-fashioned bicycle to the Valley’s state-of-the-art driverless cars

Submission + - Seattle Dance Clubs Fundraise to Pay Microsoft's Tax Bill (jeffreifman.com)

Submitted by reifman
reifman writes: After granting Microsoft amnesty on its $1.5 billion Nevada tax dodge ($100 million in annual savings for the company), state tax collectors are aggressively targeting Seattle dance clubs and night clubs over an obscure 'opportunity to dance' tax. The 'Opportunity to Dance' is not in any law. It is only the Department of Revenue's interpretation of the law in its rules. Auditors search the Internet to find out whether people dance at specific clubs. One clubowner reports an auditor told him: 'You have the opportunity to dance, and we verified it by 8 or 10 different references on Yelp.' The Century Ballroom, a popular dance club, is holding ongoing fundraisers to offset its $250,000 in back taxes.

Comment Re:Still going (Score 1) 488

by flirno (#41990709) Attached to: The Empire In Decline?

This applies to kitchens as an analogy. Do you want to prepare a Thanksgiving dinner in a kitchen with a little 3x3 counter in it or do you want a kitchen lined with a lot of counter space? With more space you can actively work on more things faster. Period.

Comment Re:Still going (Score 1) 488

by flirno (#41990685) Attached to: The Empire In Decline?

Nah office monitors work like real life desk real estate.

If you don't have the extra space you adjust by flip flopping through windows/piles of papers/folders and basically micromanaging the layout. It has a time and cognitive cost to do all that paging through crap to find what you want.

If you do have the extra space you make use of it more or less unconsciously/automatically. You will notice when it is gone however when you want it or notice you are spending more time fudging around flipping between things when you try to get work done.

If you do have the extra desk space/extra desktop monitors then you are able to spread things out more, support more stacks or smaller stacks and buffer information you want to be visible longer. It cuts down on visual search time and cognitive cost of searching because things are split (think sorting algorithms, same idea in a binary or similar search in that you already have multiple buckets when you start your search cutting down how much initial work you have to do to find something). 2d desktop spread allow you to your mapping memory more naturally.

It is not just pile X on monitor A and pile Y on monitor B but upper right corner of A has pile X but pile Y is in lower right corner of monitor B. All this is made easy because the human brain automates it without you having to think it through. It is leveraging the human brain ability to buffer information spatially.

This will be even greater with 3D desktops whenever that happens. The future for high bandwidth computer use is not even more restrictive 2d layouts (or in the case with metro 2d mapped to 1d -- ugh), but 3d desktops layouts. Currently we just do a 3d mapped/flattened into 2d but I would like to see a full 3d environment some day for desktop/tier 1 object organization.

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