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Submission + - Sony Hires Former Homeland Security Employee As He (gamergaia.com)

Submitted by
jmobley6030
jmobley6030 writes: "Months after the great PlayStation network attack things are starting to get back to normal around the gaming world. While it doesn’t seem like another hack attempt will take place anytime soon Sony is fearful that it could happen again. Sony announced today via their corporate news feed that they have hired Philip R. Reitinger, a former Homeland security official, as Chief Information Security Officer at Sony."
Open Source

Submission + - Open source flight sim, FlightGear 2.4 (i-programmer.info)

Submitted by mikejuk
mikejuk writes: The latest version 2.4 of FlightGear has just been released and it has some significant improvements. Now it simulates weather so that you can ride the up draft from a range of hills and seek out thermals — but watch out for the simulated fog! For the future the implementation of an HLA interface means that you can build clusters of interacting simulators and perhaps even work with commercial flight simulators.
Sony

Submission + - Sony: Emotion-Reading Games Possible In Ten Years (gamergaia.com)

Submitted by Calidreth
Calidreth writes: At Gamescom last week two of Sony’s executives stated their belief that in merely ten years’ time, video games will have the ability to read more than just movement on the part of the player. Reading player emotions will be a key feature that is possible now and might be implemented into games in the future. Check out the news below.
Science

Submission + - World's Oldest Fossils Found on Australian Beach (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Researchers say they have discovered the fossils of 3.4-billion-year-old cells in between the cemented sand grains of an ancient beach in Western Australia , possibly the oldest fossils ever found. Chemical analyses of the minerals near the cells suggest the microorganisms depended on sulfur for fuel. Such a beach might have been life's first breeding ground, one author says.
The Internet

Submission + - Web Surfing At Work Can Boost Productivity (wsj.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Wall Street Journal reports on a study into productivity and efficiency in the workplace, which found that people who are given a break to surf the web return to their work with 'lower levels of mental exhaustion, boredom and higher levels of engagement.' Researchers tested against two other groups; one continued working, and one was given a break that did not involve web browsing. They concluded that 'browsing the Internet serves an important restorative function,' while dealing with personal email was 'particularly distracting.' In the end, the researchers recommended that employers loosen restrictions on employee web access.
Education

Submission + - More Stanford Computing Courses go free (i-programmer.info)

Submitted by mikejuk
mikejuk writes: Following on the recent Slashdot item on the availablity of a free Stanford AI course there is news that two other Stanford Computer Science courses are also joining in this "bold experiment in distributed education" in which students not only have access to lecture videos and other course materials but will actively participate by submitting assignments and getting regular feedback on their progress. The subjects are Machine Learning with Andrew Ng and Database with Jennifer Widom.
This open approach looks as if it might be a sucess with well over 100,000 prospective students signing up to the AI course alone.
Technology

Submission + - Hacker Steve Built Hand-Mounted Tacit Sonar Device (geektech.in)

Submitted by
GeekTech.in
GeekTech.in writes: "This innovations takes out the stick from a blind man’s hand. Steve has been working on the Tacit, a wrist mounted sonar device with haptic feedback, it’s like strapping a bat to your wrist to help you see. It makes use of two sonar ping sensors to measure the distance to the nearest obstacle, the relative distance to an object is then fed back to the user using two servos which apply pressure to the back of the wrist."
Google

Submission + - Google Launches Identity Verification Badge Scheme

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Let's play Jeopardy! A. Badges. Q. What were used to identify members of Google+ and prisoners in Nazi concentration camps? CNET reports that rather than backing down after complaints about its insistence that Google+ user accounts be opened under a real name, Google has upped the ante and will pin 'verification badges' on users in an effort to assure people that 'the person you're adding to a circle is really who they claim to be.' In a Friday night post, Google employee Wen-Ai Yu explained that the Google+ team is initially 'focused on verifying public figures, celebrities, and people who have been added to a large number of Circles, but we're working on expanding this to more folks.'
Businesses

Submission + - Verizon Employees End Strike, Head Back to Work (securityweek.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Verizon today announced that the approximately 45,000 wireline employees represented by the CWA and IBEW that have ben on strike will return to work beginning Monday night, August 22nd, without new collective bargaining agreements.

Since the strike began two weeks ago, Verizon has been battling criminal acts of sabotage against its network facilities and union picketers intimidating non-union replacement workers and illegally blocking garage and work center entrances. One union picketer even went as far as to instruct his young daughter to stand in front of a Verizon truck to illegally block it from coming back to a Verizon work center in New Jersey.

Verizon said the wireline employees now on strike would be working under the terms of the contracts that expired on Saturday, August 6th. The contracts will be extended with no specific deadline for achieving new collective bargaining agreements so that the parties can take the time required to resolve the critical issues, the company said.
IBM

Submission + - IBM Chief: All CEOs Reluctant to Invest in R&D

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: In his Centennial Conversation at the Computer History Museum, IBM CEO Sam Palmisano emphasized the importance of investing in R&D, even in a down economy. 'Shareholder expectations for higher returns don't diminish when the economy stutters,' said Sam. 'And yet, Tom Watson Sr. actually increased research investment during the Great Depression.' Palmisano added, 'I will tell you that my own instinctive reflex isn't to continue investing $6 billion a year during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. In that regard, I'm like all CEOs.' Yes, to paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen, Sam Palmisano is no Tom Watson. And while he didn't mention it in his speech, just days earlier, Palmisano exercised an option for 300,000 IBM shares at $97.59, which were immediately unloaded for more than $50 million at prices ranging from $178.72-$183.63 (IBM closed Friday at $157.54). Watson, by the way, famously refused to grant stock options to himself and other execs.
Cloud

Submission + - Changing Landscape of IT 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The IT industry is a lot different than it was 10 years ago, it underwent a huge boom in terms of labor and services requirements to keep up with the times. Now, we are entering a consolidation phase. The cloud makes it easier for companies to host e-mail, so now instead of organizations having their own exchange guy they will outsource it to the cloud, instead of having a bunch of network engineers they will deploy wireless and no longer need cabling and as much network engineering services. What do you think the long trend of this will be? What skills do you think will be useful in 10 years? Is IT going to put it's own out of work like we did with the post office and libraries?
Censorship

Submission + - Argentina Censors Millions Of Websites 3

Submitted by bs0d3
bs0d3 writes: A judge in Argentina ordered ISPs to block two websites--leakymails.com and leakymails.blogspot.com . According to google many isps have simply blocked the ip 216.239.32.2 instead of a targeted dns filter. Several million blogspot blogs are hosted at this ip.

Freedom of speech advocate Jillian York writes:

IP blocking is a blunt method of filtering content that can erase from view large swaths of innocuous sites by virtue of the fact that they are hosted on the same IP address as the site that was intended to be censored. One such example of overblocking by IP address can be found in India, where the IP blocking of a Hindu Unity website (blocked by an order from Mumbai police) resulted in the blocking of several other, unrelated sites. As Andrade points out, "There are other less restrictive technical procedures than the one used, which allow ISPs to comply with court orders fully, while affecting only the sites involved."

Submission + - 25,000 Danish hospital staff move to LibreOffice (www.osor.eu)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Almost all of the 25,000 workers at thirteen hospitals in the Copenhagen region will over the next year begin to use Libre Office, an open source suite of office productivity tools. The group of hospitals is phasing out a proprietary alternative, 'for long term strategic reasons', which at the same time saves the group some 40 million Kroner (about 5.3 million euro) worth of proprietary licences.
Wikipedia

Submission + - Wikipedia to censor images (wikimedia.org) 1

Submitted by KiloByte
KiloByte writes: To appease "morality" watchdogs, Wikipedia is contemplating introducing a censorship feature, where images are marked as containing sexual references, nudity, "mass graves", and so on. At least in the initial implementation, it is supposed to be "opt-in". However, with such precedents as UK censoring artistic nudity, Turkey censoring references to the Armenian genocide or China to the Tianenmen massacre (note that any sensitive photos like the Tank Man are already absent!), I find it quite hard to believe this feature won't be mandatory for groups of readers — be it thanks to an oppressive government, their ISP or school.

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