jdschulteis - Slashdot User

Comment Re:Fanboy attack (Score 1) 387

by jdschulteis on Tuesday April 02, 2013 @07:09PM (#43343165) Attached to: Alan Kay Says iPad Betrays Xerox PARC Vision

Amazingly, most of what people would want to write and share could be done via a web server and an HTML5-based Scheme interpreter. Kay likes Scheme, right?

I don't know what he thinks about Scheme but Alan Kay probably does like Smalltalk.

Submission + - Dell Confirms and Details Rival Bids from Blackstone and Icahn (ibtimes.co.uk)

Submitted by

DavidGilbert99

on Monday March 25, 2013 @09:01AM

DavidGilbert99 writes: "Dell has confirmed it has received "two alternative acquisition proposals" from billionaire investor Carl Icahn and the world's largest equity firm Blackstone. These bids rival the $24.4bn offer made by co-founder Michael Dell and equity firm Silver Lake last month, who want to take the company private.
Dell also confirmed details of the two offers, with both exceeding Michael Dell's original offer of $13.65 per share, with Blackstone offering $14.25 and Icahn offering $15 per share."

Submission + - Maybe don't install that groovy pirated Android keyboard (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by

iComp

on Monday March 25, 2013 @07:50AM

iComp writes: "A mobile software developer has turned an popular third party Android mobile keyboard called SwiftKey into a counterfeit package loaded with a trojan as a warning about the perils of using pirated or cracked apps from back-street app stores.

Georgie Casey, who runs a popular Android app-development blog in Ireland, created a modified (backdoored) version of SwiftKey using a tool called apktool combined with basic knowledge of Java and Android. The end result was a backdoored app called Keylogger SwiftKey APK, which Casey made available from his website (along with explicit warnings that it was to be used by interested parties and only to validate the problem).

"Apktool isn't keylogging software, it's an Android app dissassembler," Casey told El Reg.

"You dissassemble a Swiftkey keyboard, code your keylogger code that sends keylogs to my server, re-assemble with Apktool and now you've a keylogger. You still have to convince people to install it though.""

Submission + - Major Find by Japanese Scientists May Threaten Chinese Rare Earth Hegemony (telegraph.co.uk)

Submitted by cold fjord on Monday March 25, 2013 @07:41AM

cold fjord writes: It looks like deep sea exploration may pay off big time as Japanese scientists have located rich deposits of rare earth elements on the sea floor in Japanese Exclusive Economic Zone waters, following up on their find two years ago of huge deposits of rare earths in mid-Pacific waters. The cumulative effect of these finds could significantly weaken Chinese control of 90% of the world supply of rare earth metals, which the Chinese have been using to flex their muscles. The concentration of rare earth metals in the Japanese find is astonishing: up to 6,500 ppm, versus 500-1,000 ppm for Chinese mines. The newly identified deposits are just 2-4 meters below sea floor which could make for relatively easy mining compared to the 10+ meters they were expecting... if they can get there. The fact that the deposits are 5,700 meters deep means there is just one or two little problems to resolve : "A seabed oil field has been developed overseas at a depth of 3,000 meters. . . But the development of seabed resources at depths of more than 5,000 meters has no precedent, either at home or abroad. There remains a mountain of technological challenges, including how to withstand water pressure and ocean currents and how to process the mining products in the ocean, sources said."

Submission + - Planck telescope maps light of the big bang scattered across the universe (guardian.co.uk)

Submitted by alancronin on Thursday March 21, 2013 @12:38PM

alancronin writes: The most detailed map ever made of the oldest light to shine through the universe has been released by scientists at the European Space Agency (ESA). The map reveals tiny variations in the "cosmic microwave background" or CMB – the faint glow of radiation that is left over from the earliest light to illuminate the cosmos. These primordial photons are all around us, and account for 1% of the "snow" that could be seen on untuned television sets. Scientists compiled the map from more than 15 months of observations by the ESA's Planck telescope. The map improves on data gathered by two previous Nasa missions called Cobe and WMAP. The director-general of Europe's space agency, Jean-Jacques Dordain, described the new map as "a giant leap in understanding the origins of the universe".

Submission + - Plants that can grow lifesaving drugs are here - but GM laws outlaw development (pharmaceutical-technology.com)

Submitted by

Dimetrodon

on Thursday March 21, 2013 @12:34PM

Dimetrodon writes: "Growing medicines in open fields could slash the cost of drug production and make life-saving vaccines easily available to people in the developing world. But current regulations mean it can't happen on a large scale."

Submission + - "SpaceBass" gets kickstater (kickstarter.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 21, 2013 @12:20PM

An anonymous reader writes: Electronic DJing guitar with android/ios integration gets kickstarter.

Submission + - Weapons Experts Raise Doubts About Israel's Antimissile System (nytimes.com)

Submitted by Lasrick on Thursday March 21, 2013 @10:12AM

Lasrick writes: The NYTimes has the inevitable article about the data that now shows the Iron Dome missile defense system really didn't work as claimed during Israel's skirmish in Gaza back in November. MIT's Ted Postol, one of the world's top experts in the area, thinks it can't be more than 10-20 percent! An article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists back in December predicted as much, with more of a scientific explanation of why it couldn't really work as claimed: http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/op-eds/iron-dome-behind-the-hoopla-familiar-story-of-missile-defense-hype

Submission + - Are 3-D Printed Guns Really Legal? (itworld.com) 1

Submitted by

jfruh

on Thursday March 21, 2013 @10:04AM

jfruh writes: "Defense Distributed, a U.S. nonprofit that aims to make plans for guns available owners of 3-D printers, recently received a federal firearms license from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobocco and Firearms. That license doesn't cover semi-automatic weapons and machine guns, though — and there are questions about whether the legislation that defines that license really apply to the act of giving someone 3-D printing patterns. Experts on all sides of the issue seemd to agree that no clarification of the law would happen until a high-profile crime involving a 3-D printed weapon was committed."

Submission + - Making your own phone is easier than you might think (newscientist.com)

Submitted by

Big Hairy Ian

on Thursday March 21, 2013 @10:04AM

Big Hairy Ian writes: "Our reporter builds a handcrafted cellphone using widely available parts and online instructions

SUDDENLY, my phone rings. It chirps out a tinny version of what sounds like the Christmas carol Angels We Have Heard on High. I am giddy with amazement.

On the fifth floor of the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts, David Mellis has just plugged in the mobile phone I spent all afternoon soldering together. That's right: I just built a cellphone. By hand.

Mellis is a graduate student in the High-Low Tech lab, a group of engineering evangelists trying to bring technology know-how to people who perhaps thought it was out of reach. In 2005, he helped found Arduino, a company that makes easy-to-program microprocessors and sells them on simple circuit boards. The idea is to help people make electronic products without needing a degree in computer science.

They're popular among hobbyists, hackers and the sort of people who end up working at the Media Lab but they're hardly mainstream. Mellis wondered if he could take the idea further."

Submission + - Texas bill criminalizes enforcement of Obama's gun laws (examiner.com)

Submitted by Examiner News on Thursday February 21, 2013 @02:18PM

Examiner News writes: Rep. Steve Toth, a Houston-area Republican, has introduced a new bill in the Texas Legislature that would disallow state and local police from enforcing new gun control measures passed by the federal government. House Bill No. 1076 pertains to "certain firearms, firearm accessories and firearm ammunition within the State of Texas [and provides] an exemption from federal regulation and providing penalties."

Submission + - DRM Lawsuit Filed By Independent Bookstores Against Amazon, 'Big Six' Publishers (huffingtonpost.com)

Submitted by

concealment

on Thursday February 21, 2013 @02:06PM

concealment writes: "Three independent bookstores are taking Amazon and the so-called Big Six publishers (Random House, Penguin, Hachette, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster and Macmillan) to court in an attempt to level the playing field for book retailers. If successful, the lawsuit could completely change how ebooks are sold.

The class-action complaint, filed in New York on Feb 15., claims that by entering into confidential agreements with the Big Six publishers, who control approximately 60 percent of print book revenue in the U.S., Amazon has created a monopoly in the marketplace that is designed to control prices and destroy independent booksellers."

Submission + - Iran Centrifuge Magnet Story Technically Questionable (thebulletin.org)

Submitted by Lasrick on Thursday February 21, 2013 @01:56PM

Lasrick writes: Yousaf Butt, who deconstructed the AP's unsourced graph that alleged nuclear activity in Iran, has a story just posted that takes down the recently reported issue of Iran's alleged attempts to buy 100,000 magnets for its centrifuges (reported in the Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/iranian-buying-spree-raises-concerns-about-major-expansion-of-nuclear-capacity/2013/02/13/2090805c-7537-11e2-8f84-3e4b513b1a13_story.html).

Submission + - Scientists develop a way to extract energy from coal without burning it (foxnews.mobi)

Submitted by Time_Ngler on Thursday February 21, 2013 @01:08PM

Time_Ngler writes: Scientists have developed a new method to utilize the power from coal, by having it chemically react with iron-oxide pellets. Working over a span of 10 years with a budget of $15 million, barring any unforeseen problems, the new process should be ready to go into commercial production within the next 5 years. The reaction does not produce carbon dioxide and leaves water and coal ash as its byproducts. Furthermore, the iron used in the reaction can be recycled.

Submission + - Google versus the Amicus Briefs (groklaw.net)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 21, 2013 @12:57PM

An anonymous reader writes: Yesterday there were numerous amicus briefs filed all on the same day and all in support of Oracle against Google in Oracle's appeal at the Federal Circuit. None of the briefs are posted publicly yet, but they should be available soon.

Microsoft has filed one, together with EMC Corporation, and NetApp, Inc. Scott McNealy has filed one with Brian Sutphin. Can McNealy be a witness for Oracle at trial, which he was [PDF], and also file an amicus brief? Well, he has. The Picture Archive Council of America, Inc. has filed one with the Graphic Artists Guild. Also there's one from the BSA. And finally Eugene Spafford, Zhi Ding, and Lee A. Hollaar have filed an amicus in support of Oracle. Hollaar seems to file a lot of amicus briefs.

So why do these entities and individuals care about this Java API case, do you suppose?

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