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Submission + - Big Investors want Microsoft to Ditch Surface, Xbox, and Bing (washingtonpost.com)

Submitted by GuitarNeophyte
GuitarNeophyte writes: It's the morning after Satya Nadella's first day as Microsoft's CEO. Now that the confetti has cleared, Nadella faces tough choices about the path forward for the company. Two influential Microsoft shareholders have been pushing the Redmond software giant to abandon what they view as non-essential product lines so that Microsoft can focus on its core strength: selling enterprise software to businesses. Ballmer envisioned Microsoft as a "device and services" company and reorganized the company last year to better execute that vision. But now Ballmer is out â" though still on the board â" and with a new CEO come fresh questions about the fate of consumer tech at Microsoft. Some investors have suggested that Microsoft spin off its money-losing consumer products and focus solely on the enterprise. Even the Xbox deserves to go, Paul Ghaffari, the wealth manager for Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, said last year.

Submission + - World's largest DDoS strikes US, Europe (itnews.com.au)

Submitted by mask.of.sanity
mask.of.sanity writes: CloudFlare has been hit by what appears to be the world's largest denial of service attack, in an assault that exploits an emerging and frightening threat vector. The Network Time Protocol Reflection attack exploits a timing mechanism that underpins a way the internet works to greatly amplify the power of what would otherwise be a small and ineffective assault. CloudFlare said the attack tipped 400Gbps, 100Gbps larger than the previous record DDoS attack which used DNS reflective amplification.

Submission + - When & how we discovered the Earth was round.

Submitted by StartsWithABang
StartsWithABang writes: Forget going to space and seeing its roundness, forget Magellan and his circumnavigation of the globe. Forget even Christopher Columbus, even though you wouldn't be alone if you were taught that in school. Contrary to popular belief, this question wasn’t settled in the 1400s or 1500s, but more than 2,000 years ago, in the ancient world! And what’s perhaps most amazing? It was done using nothing more than the Sun, and it measured the size of the Earth, too. An amazing historical-and-scientific read, along with one more reason that Columbus should be mostly forgotten, "His estimates, that he used to convince others that one could sail from Europe directly to India (were the Americas non-existent), were absurdly small! Had the Americas not existed, Columbus and his crew surely would have starved before reaching Asia!"

Submission + - IBM employees caught editing Wikipedia (wikipediocracy.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Corporate employees editing Wikipedia articles about themselves or their employers sometimes commit major violations of Wikipedia's "bright line" against paid editing, devised by Jimbo Wales himself, to prevent "COI" editing. (Consider the recent flap over the firm Wiki-PR's activities, for example.) Yet the Wikipediocracy website, run by critics of Wikipedia management, has just published an article about IBM employees editing Wikipedia articles. Not only is such editing apparently commonplace, it's being badly done as well. And most bizarrely, one of the IBM employees is a Wikipedia administrator, who is married to another Wikipedia administrator. She works on the Watson project, which uses online databases to build its AI system....including the full text of Wikipedia.

Submission + - MIT Scientists Report Cold Fusion Success with "NANOR" Device (e-catworld.com) 2

Submitted by Paul Fernhout
Paul Fernhout writes: E-Cat World reports: "[A video] has been posted on Youtube by someone called ‘AlienScientist’ who attended (and filmed) the recent MIT Cold Fusion seminar and reports about what he has learned. He does a very nice job of summarizing the key points from the seminar, pointing out that Peter Hagelstein and Mitchell Swartz mention such things as how the cold fusion reactions can be enhanced by subjecting the cold fusion cell to an external magnetic heat and shining a laser on the cathodes. He also mentions that they say cracking in the metal and rapid gas loading can cause the deuterium to leak out, thus negatively affecting the amount of excess heat produced. The video also includes pointed criticism of the way the scientific community dealt with Pons and Fleischmann 25 years ago, and laments the lost opportunities that could have been realized if more care had been taken in trying to replicate the effect back then. The takeaway quote from the video (I think) is: “This is quite possibly the beginning of the largest technological breakthrough that our generation will witness.” "

Submission + - Hackers penetrate top medical device makers .. (sfgate.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Hackers have penetrated the computer networks of the country's top medical device makers, The Chronicle has learned.

The attacks struck Medtronic, the world's largest medical device maker, Boston Scientific and St. Jude Medical sometime during the first half of 2013 and might have lasted as long as several months, according to a source close to the companies.

Submission + - Installing OpenSource VLC Media Player Voids Your Dell Laptop Warranty

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: VLC is incapable of increasing the actual power past 100%, all that is being done is the waveform is being modified to be louder within the allowed constraints. But, that didn't stop Dell from denying warranty service for speaker damage if the popular VLC Media Player is installed on a Dell laptop. Also we got a report that service was denied because a KMPlayer was installed on a laptop. The warranty remains valid on the other parts of the laptop. VLC player developer denied the issue with VLC and further claimed the the player cannot be used to damage speakers. How can I convince Dell to replace my laptop speaker which is still in warranty? Or class action is only my option?

Submission + - Could Volcanoes Power the World? (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Still searing from the formation of the solar system, the core of Earth is a nuclear reactor generating heat from the breakdown of radioactive elements like uranium, thorium, and potassium. Scientists have been harnessing that heat for decades by drilling deep wells to power turbines. But now researchers have been able to tap into even greater energy by drilling into volcanoes and exploiting the heat of molten rock. If current geothermal wells are replaced with the new technology, it could provide 30% more power than current renewable energy sources.

Comment Re: beta.slashdot.org (Score 0) 144

by hcs_$reboot (#46184683) Attached to: NBC News Confuses the World About Cyber-Security
I didn't say these beta posts are bad. I said Fix it! because it is annoying - whatever the solution is: improve || remove beta. /. is a very particular site with no equivalence. Some people want to create a new site, why not. But, as we say, you know what you have, you don't know what you'll get. So, I'd prefer to go for a mediation-solution, where everyone agrees on a strategy to have slashdot back on rails.

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