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Submission + - Google's own office blurred out on Street View (cnet.com)

Submitted by digitaldc
digitaldc writes: Sometimes, even those companies that are supposedly open turn out to operate under a cloud of deep, dark secrecy.

Google, it turns out, has become one of those--at least in Germany, and not of its own volition.

I am indebted to loyal reader Ingo Klein, who directed me to the news that Google's office at Dienerstrasse 12 in Munich seems to have enjoyed the attentions of the "German Street View Shroud."
Sci-Fi

Submission + - Antimatter Tests Could Lead to Starship Enterprise (pcmag.com)

Submitted by digitaldc
digitaldc writes: Scientists at CERN, the research facility that's home to the Large Hadron Collider, claim to have successfully created and stored antimatter in greater quantities and for longer times than ever before.

Researchers created 38 atoms of antihydrogen – more than ever has been produced at one time before and were able to keep the atoms stable enough to last one tenth of a second before they annihilated themselves (antimatter and matter destroy each other the moment they come into contact with each other). Since those first experiments, the team claims to have held antiatoms for even longer, though they weren't specific of the duration.

While scientists have been able to create particles of antimatter for decades, they had previously only been able to produce a few particles that would almost instantly destroy themselves.

"This is the first major step in a long journey," Michio Kaku, physicist and author of Physics of the Impossible, told PCMag. "Eventually, we may go to the stars."
Linux

Submission + - All you need is BASH? (linuxconfig.org)

Submitted by lagi
lagi writes: i was looking for a quick way to manage a CentOS dedicated web server's services, configs and other common tasks, so that my co-workers will have easier life while managing things like Apache Virtual Hosts config files. and control services (via SSH, not using any server management tool) ... i'm a LAMP freelancer developer, so the logical thing was writing a PHP CLI script that does some cool stuff, but then i remembered the days all i knew about Linux is that it's called "hurricane" and then "apollo" and that was c00l! (not as much as Slackware) and i also had this BASH script to fire my ISDN connection, always worked like magic. so i looked in google for some Bash Scripting Tutorials and found this one, it covers all basic topics as well as some advance onces too, all topics with examples and are very straightforward. so i ended up with a 30 minutes script that restarts services, and manage some apache config files in a git like syntax. so now that i have this great ref by my side, i would like to know what other common development and deployment tasks i can do with bash? or maybe i should get a server management software like webmin? looks a bit too heavy for my needs...
Privacy

EU Commission Says People Have a 'Right To Be Forgotten' Online 200

Posted by timothy from the pesky-data-retention-laws dept.
nk497 writes "The European Commission wants to strengthen data protection rules to give more power to consumers — including the right to be forgotten online. Legislation it's looking to push through next year will let consumers know when and how their data is being used, and force companies to delete it when asked. 'People should be able to give their informed consent to the processing of their personal data,' the commission said in a statement. 'They should have the "right to be forgotten" when their data is no longer needed or they want their data to be deleted.'"
Google

CDN Optimizing HTML On the Fly 121

Posted by timothy from the speed-is-good dept.
Caerdwyn writes "Cotendo, which is a content distribution network, has taken to altering HTML as it passes through their CDN to optimize web pages for faster rendering. This is essentially a repackaging of the Apache mod mod_pagespeed (from Google), with the critical difference being that the rewriting of HTML occurs inline rather than at the web server. We all know that well-written HTML can result in much better rendering of whatever your content is; the questions are 'Will this automatic rewriting cause other problems, i.e. browser quirks?' and 'Assuming that only the web pages of Cotendo's customers are altered, are there nonetheless potential legal troubles with someone rewriting HTML before delivery to a browser?'"
Biotech

Submission + - DNA-Less 'Red Rain' Cells Reproduce at 121 C (technologyreview.com)

Submitted by eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: A new paper up for prepublication from the controversial solid-state physicist Godfrey Louis claims that the cells Louis collected from a Keralan red rain incident divide and produce daughter cells at 121 degrees Celsius. While unusual, this is not unheard of as the paper recalls cells cultivated from hydrothermal vents are known to reproduce at 121 C as well. Of course, caution is exercised when dealing with the possible explanation surrounding the theory of panspermia but the MIT Technology Review says researchers 'examined the way these fluoresce when bombarded with light and say it is remarkably similar to various unexplained emission spectra seen in various parts of the galaxy. One such place is the Red Rectangle, a cloud of dust and gas around a young star in the Monocerous constellation.' Evidence of panspermia or merely proof that Earthly life is diverse and sometimes far above us?
Amiga

Submission + - The Amiga is back!? (engadget.com) 1

Submitted by AtlSickBoi
AtlSickBoi writes: Commodore USA has acquired the rights to sell computers under the Amiga brand with the plan to have the computers running AROS. I'm sure Davy Haynie is getting his camera ready for another documentary.

Submission + - Open data needs open source tools (oreilly.com)

Submitted by macslocum
macslocum writes: Nat Torkington begins sketching out an open data process that borrows liberally from open source tools: "An open data project would need a mailing list to collaborate on, IRC or equivalent to chat in real-time, and a bug-tracker to identify what needs work and ensure that the users' needs are being met. The official dataset of New Zealand school zones has errors but there's nobody to report them to, much less a way to submit a fix to a maintainer. Oh, and don't forget a way to acknowledge and credit contributors—think not just of credits.txt but also of the difference between patch submitter, committer, and project maintainer."

Submission + - Slashdot poll suggestion

Submitted by
vikingpower
vikingpower writes: "Precision of the most precise measuring device you ever used:
- picometers
- femtofarads
- microvolts
- attobreadcrumbs
- metric tons
- evacowboyneals
- what is this precision thing you are talking of ?
- I am in marketing, you insensitive clod !"
Data Storage

Japanese Scientists Develop Long-Life Flash Memory 188

Posted by kdawson from the degrades-gracefully-too dept.
schliz writes "Flash memory chips with a potential lifetime of hundreds of years have been developed by Japanese scientists. The new chips also work at lower voltages than conventional chips, according to the scientists from the University of Tokyo. They are said to be scaleable down to at least 10 nm; current Flash chips wouldn't be usable below 20 nm."
Mars

Mars Lander's Robot Arm Shuts Down To Save Itself 214

Posted by kdawson from the doctor-it-hurts-when-i-do-dat dept.
Cowards Anonymous passes along a PCWorld article that begins, "The robotic arm on the Mars Lander found itself in a tough position over the weekend. After receiving instructions for a movement that would have damaged its wrist, the robotic arm recognized the problem, tried to rectify it and then shut down before it could damage itself, according to Ray Arvidson, a co-investigator for the Mars Lander's robotic arm team and a professor at Washington University in St. Louis."
Patents

MSM Noticing That Patent Gridlock Stunts Innovation 233

Posted by kdawson from the we-could-have-told-you-and-did dept.
trichard tips a column on the editorial page at that most traditional of mainstream media, the Wall Street Journal, arguing the point (obvious to this community for a decade) that the US patent system costs more than the value it delivers. The columnist is L. Gordon Crovitz and here is an excerpt: "New drugs require great specificity to earn a patent, whereas patents are often granted to broad, thus vague, innovations in software, communications, and other technologies. Ironically, the aggregate value of these technology patents is then wiped out through litigation costs. Our patent system [is] a disincentive at a time when we expect software and other technology companies to be the growth engine of the economy. Imagine how much more productive our information-driven economy would be if the patent system lived up to the intention of the Founders, by encouraging progress instead of suppressing it."
Communications

Alternative Uses For an Old Satellite Dish? 552

Posted by kdawson from the birdbath-for-condors dept.
ya really writes "My family has one of those BUDs (Big Ugly Dishes) sitting in their back yard still. The other day they asked me if I would take it apart for them. Aside from simply recycling it, I was wondering if there are any alternatives for its use. It was one of the last made before DirectTV and Dish took over satellite broadcasting, and even has a digital receiver. I'd say it was made around 1996."
Privacy

Open Security Foundation To Maintain DataLossDB 34

Posted by kdawson from the breaches-r-us dept.
An anonymous reader points out an announcement up at Attrition.org, that going forward their Data Loss Database will be taken over and maintained by the Open Security Foundation. From the news release: "...OSF is pleased to announce that the DataLossDB (also known as the Data Loss Database — Open Source [DLDOS] currently run by Attrition.org) will be formally maintained as an ongoing project under the OSF umbrella organization as of July 15, 2008... The project's core mission is to track the loss or theft of personally identifying information not just from the United States, but across the world. As of June 4, 2008, DataLossDB contains information on over 1,000 breaches of personal identifying information covering over 330 million records. The... DataLossDB will be free for download and use in non-profit work and research. The new website launch builds off of the current data set and provides an extensive list of new features."

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