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Submission + - Google Earth Pro Now Available Free

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: Google has long offered a Pro version of Google Earth for $399 per year that includes some pretty cool extras not found in the free version. Now Rick Broida reports at Cnet that you can get Google Earth Pro absolutely free. All you have to do is download the installer, run it, then sign in using your e-mail address (as your username) and license code GEPFREE. Features include: Advanced measurements: Measure parking lots and land developments with polygon area measure, or determine affected radius with circle measure; High-resolution printing: Print images up to 4,800 x 3,200 pixel resolution; Exclusive pro data layers with Demographics and traffic count; Spreadsheet import: Ingest up to 2,500 addresses at a time, assigning place marks and style templates in bulk; and Movie-Maker: Export Windows Media and QuickTime HD movies, up to 1,920x1,080-pixel resolution. If you’ve ever been involved in a property dispute, you’ll know how acrimonious they can get. Google Earth Pro includes parcel data that definitively defines property boundaries. "Do you really need this? Probably not, as Pro was created with business/enterprise users in mind," writes Broida. "Let's be honest, [Google Earth Pro has] entertainment value that's virtually impossible to measure."

Submission + - The Man Squatting on Millions of Dollars Worth of Domain Names

Submitted by Jason Koebler
Jason Koebler writes: For the last 21 years, Gary Millin and his colleagues at World Accelerator have been slowly accumulating a veritable treasure trove of seemingly premium generic domain names. For instance, Millin owns, has sold, or has bartered away world.com, usa.com, doctor.com, lawyer.com, comic.com, email.com, cyberservices.com, and more than 1,000 other domain names that can be yours (including yours.com, which he owns), as long as you've got the startup idea to back it up. Millin doesn't sell domain names anymore, instead, he trades them to startups in exchange for a stake in the company.

Submission + - LibreOffice 4.2 with GPU mantle support is out (libreoffice.org) 4

Submitted by Billly Gates
Billly Gates writes: A basic summary of the new features are listed here. In catching up with MS Office the new LibreOffice 4.2 now has full Windows 7/8 integration including aero peak, thumbnails, jumplists, and recent documents all from the taskbar. In addition one weak area for LibreOffice has been enterprise network support and the lack of active directory tools. LibreOffice now has GPO and active directory support for system administrators to deploy and manage Libreoffice over corporate networks. Libreoffice also includes an expert configuration Window to assist power users and system administrators when deploying to hundreds of workstation at a time as well.

Also of particular interest is AMD/ATI is expecting to finally release Mantle in the next coming hours for games like Battlefield 4. Surprisingly LibreOffice also supports mantle as well according to the release notes. However you will need the 14.1 driver which is being compiled and uploaded at the time of this writing to utilize this feature. Mantle will accelerate lower end cpus by up to 300% in some tasks while having modest improvements for those with more recent powerful CPUs. A real niceties for those like myself on AMD phenom II's with the later 7000 series cards.

The only issue (some on slashdot may say benefit ) is the lack of a ribbon UI. However, for recent articles about governments considering openoffice this release addresses shortcomings with the new active directory and GPO support.

Feed Google News Sci Tech: SpaceShipTwo sets a new altitude record on Friday - ABQ Journal (google.com)

From feed by feedfeeder

Science World Report
SpaceShipTwo sets a new altitude record on Friday
ABQ Journal
ss2photo MOJAVE, Calif. – Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo reached an altitude of 71,000 feet – just beating out its previous record of 69,000 feet — on Friday in its first supersonic rocket-powered test of 2014. The flight above the Mojave Air and Space Port...
Virgin Galactic spaceship makes successful flightWRAL.com
Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo Completes Third Test FlightAuto World News

all 42 news articles

Submission + - Supreme Court to Hear Aereo Case (variety.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: The Supreme Court will hear broadcasters’ challenge to the legality of startup Aereo, in a case that may not only determine the future of digital streaming of station signals but of network television itself.

Without comment, the justices on Friday agreed to accept ABC Television Stations vs. Aereo, in which the television networks are seeking to halt the Barry Diller-backed venture, contending that its offering of streams of station signals in New York and other markets violates the public performance provisions of the Copyright Act. Justice Samuel Alito took no part in the consideration of the petition, the court said, without elaborating. Typically such recusals are for a potential conflict of interest, and Alito has previously said that his family owned stock in the Walt Disney Co.

Submission + - Ocean currents explain why Northern Hemisphere is soggier (washington.edu)

Submitted by vinces99
vinces99 writes: A quick glance at a world precipitation map shows that most tropical rain falls in the Northern Hemisphere. The Palmyra Atoll, at 6 degrees north, gets 175 inches of rain a year, while an equal distance on the opposite side of the equator gets only 45 inches. Scientists long believed that this was a quirk of the Earth’s geometry – that the ocean basins tilting diagonally while the planet spins pushed tropical rain bands north of the equator. But a new University of Washington study shows that the pattern arises from ocean currents originating from the poles, thousands of miles away. The findings, published Oct. 20 in Nature Geoscience, explain a fundamental feature of the planet’s climate, and show that icy waters affect seasonal rains that are crucial for growing crops in such places as Africa’s Sahel region and southern India.

Submission + - California Company Producing Carbon-Negative Energy Machines (cnet.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: All Power Labs in Berkeley, California has produced and sold over 500 machines that take in dense biomass and put out energy. What makes the machines special is that instead of releasing carbon back into the atmosphere, it's concentrated into a lump charcoal that makes excellent fertilizer. The energy is produced cheaply, too; many of the machines went to poor nations who normally pay much more per kilowatt. '[T]he PowerPallets are still relatively simple, at least as far as their users are concerned. For one, thing Price explained, much of the machine is made with plumbing fixtures that are the same everywhere in the world. That means they're easy to repair. At the same time, while researchers at the 50 or so institutions that have bought the machines are excited by opening up the computer control system and poking around inside, a guy running a corn mill in Uganda with a PowerPallet "will never need to open that door and never will," Price said.'

Submission + - Open Office/Libreoffice lose over 50% of their marketshare in organizations (neowin.net)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: LibreOffice and OpenOffice remain very popular for users of Linux with many using it on Macs and Windows based PCs as well at home. Organizations are still as addicted as as ever with MS office formats. In 2011 13% of organizations had OpenOffice variants installed on some computers. Today that number has dipped to 5% according to Forrester Research. It is unknown if organizations are leaving due to angry users who do not like change or because of office compatibility issues or MS offering better pricing? The poll included is over 100% as many organizations have multiple versions of offices installed. Also surprising Office 2003 is alive kicking and screaming as almost 1/3 of companies and governments still use it even though EOL for Office 2003 ends with XP on the same date! The good news is online cloud based platforms are gaining traction with Google Docs and Office 365 which are not so tied to Windows on the client. Are we too focused on old school PC install based office suites or should more effort be taken to online and cloud based replacements?

Submission + - Texas school board searching for another theory besides evolution (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: [Ars Technica] recently reviewed the documentary The Revisionaries, which chronicles the actions of the Texas state school board as it attempted to rewrite the science and history standards that had been prepared by experts in education and the relevant subjects. For biology, the board's revisions meant that textbook publishers were instructed to help teachers and students "analyze all sides of scientific information" about evolution. Given that ideas only reach the status of theory if they have overwhelming evidence supporting them, it isn't at all clear what "all sides" would involve.
Microsoft

Submission + - Windows 8 proving less popular than Vista (kitguru.net) 5

Submitted by NettiWelho
NettiWelho writes: Data from Net Applications shows that Windows 8 is less popular than Windows Vista, the operating system that proved unpopular with the enthusiast audience.

Windows 8 usage uptake has slipped behind Vista’s in the same point in its release. Windows 8 online usage share is around 1.6% of all Windows PC’s which is less than the 2.2% share that Windows Vista commanded at the same two month mark after release.

Net Applications monitor operating system usage by recording OS version for around 40,000 sites it monitors for clients.

The slowdown for Windows 8 adoption is a bad sign for Microsoft who experienced great success with the release of Windows 7.

Data was measured up to the 22nd of December, so there is still time by the end of the month for Windows 8 to claim a higher percentage of the user base.
China

Submission + - China Mafia-Style Hack Attack Drives California Firm to Brink (bloomberg.com)

Submitted by
concealment
concealment writes: "For three years, a group of hackers from China waged a relentless campaign of cyber harassment against Solid Oak Software Inc., Milburn’s family-owned, eight-person firm in Santa Barbara, California. The attack began less than two weeks after Milburn publicly accused China of appropriating his company’s parental filtering software, CYBERsitter, for a national Internet censoring project. And it ended shortly after he settled a $2.2 billion lawsuit against the Chinese government and a string of computer companies last April."
Windows

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: What video games keep you from using Linux? 7

Submitted by skade88
skade88 writes: Everyone knows content is king. Many of us use Windows or OSX at home instead of Linux because the games we love just are not available on Linux. With Steam moving forward for a Linux launch, I would like to hear from the Slashdot community on this topic. What are the game(s) you cannot live without? If they were available in Linux would you be happy to run Linux instead of Windows or OSX?
Science

Submission + - Fukushima Fish Still Radioactive (ieee.org)

Submitted by the_newsbeagle
the_newsbeagle writes: Bottom-dwelling fish that live near the wrecked Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant still show elevated radiation levels 19 months after the accident — and those radiation levels are not declining. Researcher Ken Buesseler says that indicates that the seafloor sediments are contaminated, and will remain so for decades.
Security

Submission + - Iran behind cyber attacks on U.S. banks (nbcnews.com)

Submitted by who_stole_my_kidneys
who_stole_my_kidneys writes: Evidence suggest the Iranian government is behind cyber attacks this week that have targeted the websites of JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America. The attack is described by one source, a former U.S. official familiar with the attacks, as being "significant and ongoing" and looking to cause "functional and significant damage." Also, one source suggested the attacks were in response to U.S. sanctions on Iranian banks.

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