Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Submission + - Implications of Facebook Places (computerworld.com)

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: Facebook Places' ability to peg your every location at the moment you're there could have some serious implications both socially and legally for us in the future. Mitch Betts offers a snippet of some of the conversations that may take place as a result of this new feature. 'Considering all the constituencies you have on Facebook — bosses, work colleagues, clergy, business contacts, family, friends and pseudo-friends — you'll have to think VERY carefully about which locations you reveal. A location that makes perfect sense to your closest friends might not look so good to others.'
Science

Submission + - Canon unveils 120-megapixel camera sensor (pcpro.co.uk)

Submitted by Barence
Barence writes: Canon claims to have developed a digital camera sensor with a staggering 120-megapixel resolution. The APS-H sensor — which is the same type that is used in Canon's professional EOS-1D cameras — boasts a ridiculous resolution of 13,280 x 9,184 pixels. The CMOS sensor is so densely packed with pixels that it can capture full HD video on just one-sixtieth of the total surface area. However, don't hold your breathe waiting for this baby to arrive in a camera. Canon unveiled a 50-megapixel sensor in 2007, but that's not made it any further than the labs to date.
Space

Submission + - Astronomers spot largest group of exoplanets (networkworld.com)

Submitted by coondoggie
coondoggie writes: Astronomers using the European Southern Observatory say they have spotted a solar system similar to ours containing seven planets as compared to our eight. The researchers also found evidence that the distances of the planets or exoplanets from their star follow a regular pattern similar to our solar system. The international team of astronomers made the discovery using used the HARPS spectrograph which is attached to ESO's 3.6-meter telescope at La Silla, Chile, during a six-year-long study of the Sun-like star labeled HD 10180, located 127 light-years away in the southern constellation of Hydrus.
Science

Submission + - Who Owns You? 20% Of Your Genes Are Patented (singularityhub.com) 1

Submitted by kkleiner
kkleiner writes: Here’s a disconcerting thought: for the past thirty years, genes have been patentable. And we’re not just talking genetically modified corn – your genes, pretty much as they exist in your body, can and have been patented. The US government reports over three million gene patent applications have been filed so far; over 40,000 patents are held on sections of the human genome, covering roughly 20% of our genes. Upset? You’re not alone.

Submission + - Hi-tech Rechargeable Batteries for Military

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Scientists reported progress today in using a common virus to develop improved materials for high-performance, rechargeable lithium-ion batteries that could be woven into clothing to power portable electronic devices. They discussed development of the new materials for the battery's cathode, or positive electrode, at the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS), being held here this week.
Image

Justice Department Seeks Ebonics Experts 487

Posted by samzenpus from the my-mama-no-raise-no-dummies-I-dug-her-rap dept.
In addition to helping decipher their Lil Wayne albums, the Justice Department is seeking Ebonics experts to help monitor, translate and transcribe wire tapped conversations. The DEA wants to fill nine full time positions. From the article: "A maximum of nine Ebonics experts will work with the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Atlanta field division, where the linguists, after obtaining a 'DEA Sensitive' security clearance, will help investigators decipher the results of 'telephonic monitoring of court ordered nonconsensual intercepts, consensual listening devices, and other media.'”

Submission + - IBM Breaks Double Digit Performance Barrier (cnn.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: ARMONK, N.Y., Aug. 17 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced today an IBM POWER7-based system with IBM DB2 database software and IBM System Storage broke all previous records and topped the 10 million transactions per minute mark using the industry standard TPC performance benchmark, easily besting all results previously achieved by competitors such as HP and Oracle.
Books

Submission + - Will Amazon Put Advertisements in eBooks? (wsj.com) 1

Submitted by destinyland
destinyland writes: A book editor at Houghton Mifflin argues ebook advertising is "coming soon to a book near you." Amazon has filed a patent for advertisements on the Kindle, and the book editor joins with a business professor in today's Wall Street Journal to make the case for advertisements in ebooks. Book sales haven't increased over the last decade, and profits are being squeezed even lower by ebooks. According to another industry analyst, Amazon is being pressured to make ebook sales more profitable for publishers, party because Apple offers them more lucrative terms in Apple's iBookstore. One technology blog notes that Amazon's preference seems to be keeping book prices low, and wonders whether consumers would accept advertising if it meant that new ebooks were then free? Meanwhile, Ralph Lauren has confused the issue even more by publishing a "shoppable" children's storybook online, prompting a fierce reaction from one blog: "I hope it's the last. Books are one of the last refuges in our world from the constant cry by advertisers to spend money and fill our lives with unnecessary things."
Security

Submission + - Critical Flaw Found in 40 Windows Apps (threatpost.com)

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: Metasploit’s HD Moore was in the midst of researching the recently patched LNK (Windows shortcut) vulnerability when he stumbled upon a serious problem that exposes more than 40 different Windows software programs to remote code execution attacks. Moore issued a brief warning about the issue via Twitter and linked to a critical bulletin from Acros, a Slovenian security research outfit, that references a remote code execution bug patched in Apple’s latest iTunes update.

According to the advisory, all a remote attacker has to do is plant a malicious DLL with a specific name on a network share and get the user to open a media file from this network location in iTunes — which should require minimal social engineering. “I ran across it working on the shortcut bug and about fell out of my chair,” Moore said in an interview. “It made the LNK exploit almost pointless.”
Security

Submission + - Better Security Through Sacrificing Maidens (infosecisland.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The thing about Pete Herzog's blog posts (guy who writes the OSSTMM) is that they make you uncomfortable but he might actually be right. Here he proposes to do away with some fundamentals in info security, like Risk, threat modeling, and reactive security because they are actually harming more than they're hurting.
Iphone

Submission + - Apple patents remotely disabling jailbroken phones (patentvest.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Apple today applied for Patent to allow remotely disabling "unathorized usage" of iphones. While the patent application covers using the camera to take pictures of the unauthorized user and using the gps to determine location, it also includes determining whether the phone has been jailbroken, and allows the carrier or any other "authorized" party to disable or restrict the functionality of the device. Are this hidden claims Apple's latest tool to thwart Jailbreaking?

Submission + - Are Cloud Datacenters Greener and Cleaner? (hpcinthecloud.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The newest data centers being run by the likes of Google or Microsoft are enormous and boast cost efficiencies 5-10X greater than traditional, “un-virtualized” enterprise data centers, which are also typically smaller in size. The efficiency benefits inherent in cloud data centers come in different forms when best practice design and technologies are implemented at both the facility and IT operation levels. Benefits include things like superior energy efficiency, higher availability, and better performance.

Submission + - NAND Flash Price Drop Should Kick-Start SSD Sales (computerworld.com)

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: The price of consumer-class NAND flash memory is expected to drop to $1 per gigabyte of capacity by the end of this year, representing a halving of the cost since the beginning of the year, according to a new forecast by iSuppli. The precipitous drop is expected to jump-start solid state drive sales, which began to take off in 2008 but then stuttered and stalled later that year due to an enormous jump in prices due to a NAND flash shortage. The drop in pricing is largely due to new technology which allows 3-bit-per cell versus the traditional 2-bit-per-cell multi-level cell (MLC) flash used on consumer-class products, such as laptops and tablets. In order to beat out HDDs, however, the price of SSDs must drop further the report states.
Iphone

Submission + - timmy woods (mobile-phones.com.pk)

Submitted by timmywoods700
timmywoods700 writes: It was only released a week ago, but already 1 million people have downloaded Microsoft’s new Windows Live Messenger software for the iPhone. This has got to make it one of, if not the, fastest moving software in the iPhone app store.

Slashdot Top Deals

BASIC is the Computer Science equivalent of `Scientific Creationism'.

Close