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Government

Submission + - Interview: "Face" of Anonymous Quits (computerworld.com)

Submitted by
CWmike
CWmike writes: "Barrett Brown, an author and writer for Vanity Fair, The Huffington Post, and True/Slant, has been a media-friendly public face for the group Anonymous. But Brown is quitting Anonymous and turning his focus to his brainchild Project PM, which has multifaceted goals, including 'to best utilize information technology along with our collective knowledge base to better the world in every aspect possible.' Last year Brown went from a journalist reporting on Anonymous's activities to being an informal spokesperson for the group. He gave interviews and wrote press releases, but maintained that he was not a leader as the group Anonymous was leaderless. Yet there were other members of Anonymous who accused Brown of giving too much attention to the group and of hogging the spotlight. There was also talk of Anonymous members being worried about having their identities exposed, worried about Brown's focus on government wrongdoing. Upon learning that Brown was quitting Anonymous, 'Security is Sexy' blogger Darlene Storm interviewed him upcoming projects and reports he has planned stemming from HBGary e-mails."
Iphone

Submission + - iPhone Explosion: 5M iOS Games Downloaded Per Day (industrygamers.com)

Submitted by donniebaseball23
donniebaseball23 writes: iPhone gaming has certainly accelerated in the last year or so, and iOS in general has seen a boost from iPod Touch and iPad as well. The numbers are impressive, as new research from Newzoo and Distimo (an App Store analytics firm) shows that games now represent the largest single App-category on Apple App Stores, and account for half of the downloads of both free and paid Apps. Newzoo said that more than five million games were downloaded per day in the U.S. and six major European territories combined during March 2011. There are 63 million iOS gamers in these countries who downloaded an average of 2.5 games per month.
Media

Submission + - Netflix signed Deal with Mirimax (macdailynews.com)

Submitted by ShadowFoxx
ShadowFoxx writes: Netflix, Inc. and Miramax on Monday announced a multi-year agreement under which Netflix members in the U.S. will be able to instantly watch motion pictures from the Miramax film library. It is the first time Miramax titles have become available through a digital subscription service.

Beginning in June, Netflix members in the U.S. will be able to instantly watch several hundred Miramax movies, with dozens of titles being added on a rotating basis. The movies can be watched on multiple platforms, including TV, tablet, computer and mobile phones. Financial terms of the deal are not being disclosed.
Japan

Submission + - Satellite Sees Atmospheric Warming Before Quake (technologyreview.com)

Submitted by cybrpnk2
cybrpnk2 writes: From Tech Review's arXiv Blog: "Dimitar Ouzounov at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland and a few buddies present the data from the Great Tohoku earthquake which devastated Japan on 11 March. Their results, although preliminary, are eye-opening. They say that before the M9 earthquake, the total electron content of the ionosphere increased dramatically over the epicentre, reaching a maximum three days before the quake struck. At the same time, satellite observations showed a big increase in infrared emissions from above the epicentre, which peaked in the hours before the quake. In other words, the atmosphere was heating up."
NASA

Submission + - Search for spacelife takes aim at specific planets (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "In the past the SETI@Home group has blasted radio waves throughout a wide swath of space looking to perhaps serendipitously come across alien communications. But a new University of California, Berkeley project will aim the world's largest radio telescope at 86 planetary systems recently discovered by NASA's super-space telescope Kepler in an effort to detects signs of extraterrestrial communications."
The Courts

Submission + - Supreme Court Approves Warrantless Home Invasions (usatoday.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The U.S. Supreme Court has made it significantly easier for police to force their way into a home without a warrant. On Monday, the court, by an 8-1 vote, upheld the warrantless search of an apartment ... police pursuing a drug suspect banged on the door of an apartment where they thought they smelled marijuana. After loudly identifying themselves, police heard movement inside, and suspecting that evidence was being destroyed, kicked in the door ... they found Hollis Deshaun King, smoking marijuana. Police also found cocaine ... King was not the suspect police had been looking for, but the drug evidence in the apartment was more than enough to charge him with multiple crimes. King was sentenced to 11 years in prison ... 'Occupants who choose not to stand on their constitutional rights but instead elect to attempt to destroy evidence have only themselves to blame for the warrantless exigent-circumstances search that may ensue,' wrote [Justice] Alito.
Android

Submission + - Android Data Leak (cnet.co.uk)

Submitted by arnodf
arnodf writes: FTA:
Nearly all Android smart phones running a version of the operating system prior to 2.3.4 are potentially "leaking" sensitive data, according to researchers at the University of Ulm. Here's what you need to know to stay safe and keep your information to yourself.

Certain Android applications, including ones officially bundled with the OS such as Calendar, Contacts and Picasa, send certain data, including authentication tokens (a form of password used to identify a user), in a clear rather than encrypted format.

Worse still, these tokens have a long life (up to 14 days) and aren't attached to the phone from which they originated. This means hackers could steal a legitimate user's credentials and use them elsewhere on a different handset.
PlayStation (Games)

Submission + - PlayStation Network password reset hit by exploit (gamepron.com)

Submitted by dotarray
dotarray writes: Sony just can’t win. As the company tries to roll out the new and improved PlayStation Network after nearly a month of downtime, it’s been shown that the password reset system suffers from a nasty exploit.

An attacker simply needs your PSN account email and your date of birth to change your password and access your account – and, you guessed it, that information was compromised in last month’s attack on the data centre.
Games

Submission + - 10 Unreleased Video Game Consoles

Submitted by adeelarshad82
adeelarshad82 writes: It's been almost four decades now since the first video game console, the Magnavox Odyssey, made waves in electronic entertainment. With such a long and varied history of video game systems behind us, it should be no surprise that more than a few consoles were planned but never made it to market. Even though concepts like Odyssey 3, Phantom and others were marketable, unfortunately they never made it into production.
Security

Submission + - DHS chief: What we learned from Stuxnet (computerworld.com.au)

Submitted by
angry tapir
angry tapir writes: "If there's a lesson to be learned from last year's Stuxnet worm, it's that the private sector needs to be able to respond quickly to cyber-emergencies, according to the head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. When Stuxnet hit, the U.S. Deparment of Homeland security was sent scrambling to analyze the threat. Systems had to be flown in from Germany to the federal government's Idaho National Laboratory. In short order the worm was decoded, but for some time, many companies that owned Siemens equipment were left wondering what, if any measures, they should take to protect themselves from the new worm."
Android

Submission + - Re-think the four hardware buttons on Android (tumblr.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Previously people have discussed about the button layout varies on different phones. Let’s take one step back here, do we really need four hardware buttons?
Science

Submission + - Neutrons could test Newton's gravity and string th (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by NotSanguine
NotSanguine writes: A pioneering technique using subatomic particles known as neutrons could give microscopic hints of extra dimensions or even dark matter, researchers say.

The idea rests on probing any minuscule variations in gravity as it acts on slow-moving neutrons in a tiny cavity.

A Nature Physics report outlines how neutrons were made to hop from one gravitational quantum state to another.
Japan

Submission + - TEPCO Unveils Plan To Deal With Fuksuhima Crisis (ibtimes.com)

Submitted by RedEaredSlider
RedEaredSlider writes: Tokyo Electric Power Co. unveiled its plan for dealing with the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.

TEPCO said the radiation levels should drop over the next three months. It will take about six months for the reactors to achieve "cold shutdown" in which the temperature of the water inside the reactor is less than 100 degrees Celsius (212 F).

The current plan for cooling the reactors will mean injecting nitrogen into the reactor pressure vessel. All four damaged reactors experienced hydrogen explosions when water, heated by nuclear fuel, turned to steam and reacted with the zirconium alloy cladding of the fuel rods. Hydrogen, when exposed to oxygen, combusts. Nitrogen is an inert gas, so TEPCO hopes that it will prevent further explosions.
Editorial

Submission + - Gamers Don't Know Their Own Consoles (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by deadmantyping
deadmantyping writes: Ars Technica reports on a survey of 6,260 responses which indicates that only 40 percent of PS3 owners knew that their console included Bluray. Apparently a large portion of gamers aren't aware of the non-gaming capabilities of their systems. Ars speculates that this might help explain Nintendo's apparent dominance in the console market since their introduction of the Wii.

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