59581343
submission
rjmarvin writes:
In a since-removed bug report on Launchpad, Ubuntu’s issue tracker, Canonical’s Matthew Paul Thomas stated that Ubuntu for Android is no longer in active development. In a statement http://sdt.bz/70157, Canonical stated that while the project is not completely dead, Canonical is currently focusing on pushing Ubuntu for Phones. The company is open to working with partners on Ubuntu for Android, but will not proceed with further U4A development unless they can form a partnership with an OEM partner to launch it.The Ubuntu for Android project http://www.ubuntu.com/phone/ub... was first announced http://news.slashdot.org/story... in early 2012.
59538105
submission
rjmarvin writes:
Docker announced today the formation of the Docker Governance Advisory Board http://sdt.bz/70147 . The board will function as a tool for feedback from the communities that use Docker, but will not have any actual control over the project itself .The idea is to model the Docker governance process after that of the Linux kernel, according to Docker SVP of product Scott Johnston. Three seats of the 15-member advisory board will go to the top Docker project contributors including project creator Solomon Hykes. As for the other seats, Johnson told SD Times that Google, IBM, Rackspace and Red Hat have all heavily invested their internal use of Docker. The Docker Governance Advisory Board members will be formally announced at the first Docker Conference, which takes place in San Francisco, June 9-10.
59500065
submission
rjmarvin writes:
Two MIT students have raised $500 million to turn the campus into a cryptocurrency ecoystem http://sdt.bz/70138 , giving each MIT undergrad $100 in Bitcoin (or about 0.22 Bitcoins) starting next Fall. The MIT Bitcoin Project http://bitcoin.mit.edu/announc... will make MIT the first physical location worldwide with widespread access to the digital currency. As of yet, there are no regulations governing how the students can use it.
59252495
submission
rjmarvin writes:
Nokia’s Chennai, India factory, its largest manufacturing center worldwide, will not be part of Microsoft’s Devices and Services acquisition http://sdt.bz/70118 set to close on Friday, due to an tax dispute in India. According to Reuters http://www.reuters.com/article... , Nokia will operate the factory under a service contract for Microsoft until the dispute is resolved. Before it transfers the factory to Microsoft, Nokia must agree to the conditions set by the Indian court. The final terms of the tax settlement have not yet been reached, but the initial tax bill levied by the Indian government http://sdt.bz/66468 , consisting of eight years of back taxes and penalties, was for $3.4 billion.
59144301
submission
rjmarvin writes:
Algoraves http://sdt.bz/70098, or algorithmic raves--an offshoot of a type of improvised algorithmic composition known as live coding--are a growing movement among both programmers and musicians. Over the past few years across western Europe and in places like Mexico, Australia, Japan and Canada, live-coded performances have given electronic artists and bands a way to break through the stand-around DJ culture of today’s electronic music in live, messy fashion. Live coders write code on the fly, often in a custom programming environment, projecting their screen for the audience to see and making them active, dancing participants in the performance.
59056467
submission
rjmarvin writes:
Heartbleed isn't real problem. The problem is how we currently view and deploy open-source and outsourced code http://sdt.bz/70095. We need to start reviewing open-source software the same way any organization would review an outsourced software build. You would think that an organization would never take freshly coded modules from a vendor and just throw them into an application without thoroughly testing their functional and structural quality. But it happens all the time, and it’s the main reason we didn’t catch Heartbleed until it was too late. This bug http://it.slashdot.org/story/1... has taught us that we can no longer trust that every line of code on the Web has been combed over and tested by the development community. No one else is going to ensure your software’s structural quality.
59050999
submission
rjmarvin writes:
Google’s ATAP (Advanced Technology and Projects) team has been working with NASA since the summer of 2013 to integrate the Project Tango 3D mapping technology http://tech.slashdot.org/story... into an autonomous robot that moves in zero gravity http://sdt.bz/70093. The ATAP team is working with NASA’s Ames Research Center to integrate a prototype of Project Tango onto NASA’s SPHERES robotic platform at the International Space Station, which could act as a robotic assistant for astronauts or perform independent maintenance tasks. The ATAP team officially announced yesterday https://plus.google.com/+Googl... that Project Tango is prepping for a launch into space this summer after a successful zero-gravity test flight at NASA’s Houston facility.
58912009
submission
rjmarvin writes:
Dutch developer Sander Veenhof, creator of a third-party augmented reality add-on for Google Glass, believes the most effective solution to combat privacy concerns is to turn Glass into a privacy radar http://sdt.bz/70073. Watch Your Privacy http://sndrv.com/watchyourpriv..., a browser add-on that works as part of the Layar https://www.layar.com/layers/p... augmented reality app for Google Glass, alerts the wearer to privacy threats by projecting green “safe” zones and red “unsafe” zones based on OpenStreetMap data of surveillance cameras and tracking technology in the vicinity.The app also registers real-time location data to identify any "Glassholes" watching you.
58581581
submission
rjmarvin writes:
Two Princeton computer science students have created an open source platform for developing voice-controlled applications http://sdt.bz/69042 that unlike other voice-control software like Siri or Cortana, are always on. Created by Shubhro Saha and Charlie Marsh, Jasper http://jasperproject.github.io... runs on Raspberry Pi hardware with Raspbian software, using a collection of open source libraries to make up a development platform for building voice-controlled applications. Marsh and Saha demonstrate https://www.youtube.com/watch?... Jasper's capability to perform Internet searches, update social media and control music players such as Spotify as just some of the modules developers could build using Jasper's Developer API.
58402003
submission
rjmarvin writes:
Researchers at the U.K.'s Lancaster University in the U.K. have reimagined the fundamental logic behind encryption, stumbling across a radically new way to encrypt data http://sdt.bz/69025 while creating software models to simulate how the human heart and lungs coordinate rhythms. The encryption method published in the American Physical Society journal http://journals.aps.org/prx/ab... and filed as a patent entitled "Encoding Data Using Dynamic System Coupling," transmits and receive multiple encrypted signals simultaneously, creating an unlimited number of possibilities for the shared encryption key and making it virtually impossible to decrypt using traditional methods. One of the researchers, Peter McClintock, called http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/new... the encryption scheme "nearly unbreakable."
58362701
submission
rjmarvin writes:
Today, Microsoft demonstrated numerous enhancements to the Azure cloud platform http://sdt.bz/69019 at Day 2 of the Build Developer Conference. Using Azure, developers can now construct back ends for their mobile apps using .NET or Node.js. Scott Guthrie, executive vice president of Microsoft’s cloud and enterprise group, said that Azure has added new notifications API, which allows a message sent to a hub to be passed along to potentially millions of connected devices.Azure also added support for Active Directory from mobile devices, as well as the ability to perform debugging locally and remotely and some new APIs for auto-scaling, testing and authentication.
58332309
submission
rjmarvin writes:
Mohammed Khalid Jamil, who ran the London-based SmartSupportGuys company, was sentenced in the U.K. to four months jail time and over $40,000 in fines for hiring Indian call center workers to impersonate Microsoft tech support workers http://sdt.bz/69014. The fraudsters posing as "Microsoft-certified" engineers gained access to customers' computers, installed malware and then tricked customers into paying for free software.he U.K. National Trading Standards Board eCrime unit called the decision a “landmark case,” http://www.tradingstandardsecr... and the first successful U.K. prosecution of someone involved in the Microsoft call scam. It's the first international action taken against Microsoft scammers since October 2012 when the U.S. Federal Trade Commission shut down and charged six tech support scams originating from Indian call centers. Since then, a new wave of fraudulent calls http://yro.slashdot.org/story/... has begun plaguing Microsoft customers in the U.S. and U.K.
58299091
submission
rjmarvin writes:
While companies like Google are advancing robotics and artificial intelligence by buying up every robotics startup in sight, an open source source robotics movement is working to develop a new generation of widespread, accessible robot technology http://sdt.bz/69002. The Poppy Project http://www.poppy-project.org/ is an open source humanoid platform consisting of an open source Python library and framework for creating custom-built robots, and 3D-printed modular hardware that together comprise a child-sized robot. Pierre-Yves Oudeyer, research director of the Bordeaux, France-based Flowers Laboratory https://flowers.inria.fr/ that created Poppy called Poppy "a platform that is providing Lego bricks for building animated structures, that would teach people how to use these technologies and then allow them to advance innovative products."
58124893
submission
rjmarvin writes:
When most people think of Microsoft, the first thing that comes to mind is Windows. The operating system has defined the company, and everything it's done, for decades. The OS has fallen into a familiar hit-and-miss cycle, from XP to Vista to Windows 7 and now Windows 8. The pattern leaves Windows 9 as the OS to right the ship, but will it http://sdt.bz/68955? The problems with Windows 8 and 8.1 are many and more between the Metro touch interface, the loss of the Start button and the general dissent between desktop and tablet users. If Satya Nadella wants Windows 9, expected in April 2015 http://winsupersite.com/window..., to be successful, Microsoft may have to pick a strategy and stick with it instead of its usual philosophy of trying to appease its broad customer base. Searching for the balance between making its touch and keyboard users happy could just serve to perpetuate the cycle, and Microsoft can't afford it.
58091299
submission
rjmarvin writes:
Researchers in the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory have developed a platform for building secure web applications and services that never decrypt or leak data http://sdt.bz/68972. MIT researcher Raluca Ada Popa, who previously worked on the Google and SAP-adopted CryptoDB, and her team have put a longstanding philosophy into practice: to never store unencrypted data on servers. They've redesigned the entire approach to securing online data by creating Mylar http://css.csail.mit.edu/mylar..., which builds and updates applications to keep data secure from server breaches with constant encryption during storage, only decrypting the data in the user's browser. Integrated with the open-source Meteor https://www.meteor.com/ framework, a Mylar prototype has already secured six application by changing only 35 lines of code.
