Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
Android

Submission + - PlayStation 3 Controller on Android Devices (rootedsystem.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: You can now use the PS3 Sixaxis Controller on android phones and devices. This requires your phone to be rooted however it is incompatible with most HTC devices and some newer Samsung devices due to the need of specific Bluetooth protocol. It can sync four controllers at once with buttons completely configurable.
Censorship

Submission + - Writer Finds 8 Ways to Circumvent PROTECT-IP Act (zeropaid.com)

Submitted by Dangerous_Minds
Dangerous_Minds writes: One of the things that the PROTECT-IP act is said to do is make DNS servers censor websites that have been accused of copyright infringement. Drew Wilson of ZeroPaid decided to look in to how many ways he could come up with that would circumvent such censorship. He found 8 ways to circumvent such censorship. The article includes pro's and cons and links to guides on how to carry out these methods. The methods are using a VPN service, using your HOSTs file, using TOR, using freely available DNS lookup tools, changing your DNS server to a non-US server, using command prompt, using Foxy Proxy, and using MAFIAAFire. If anything, the list raises serious doubts that the PROTECT IP Act will even put a dent on copyright infringement online.
Space

Submission + - Anti-Matter Belt Discovered Around Earth (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by hydrofix
hydrofix writes: A thin band of antiprotons enveloping the Earth has been spotted for the first time. The find, described in Astrophysical Journal Letters [arXiv], confirms theoretical work that predicted the Earth's magnetic field could trap antimatter. The antiprotons were spotted by the Pamela satellite launched in 2006 to study the nature of high-energy particles from the Sun and cosmic rays. Aside from confirming theoretical work that had long predicted the existence of these antimatter bands, the particles could also prove to be a novel fuel source for future spacecraft — an idea explored in a report for Nasa's Institute for Advanced Concepts.
Education

Submission + - Computers Grade Essay Tests Better Than Profs (chronicle.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Robot essay graders could be the answer to grade inflation. New software being tested turns over the task of grading to computers — this article has an interactive demo of the software. One professor says the computer is far more fair than human graders, who get tired and become inconsistent, or play favorites.
Security

Submission + - DARPA Funds Hacking Projects to Fight Cyberthreats

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Fahmida Y. Rashid reports that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency will fund new cyber-security proposals under the new Cyber-Fast Track project intended to cut red tape for hackers to apply for funding for projects that would help the Defense Department secure computer networks, says Peiter Zatko, a hacker known as Mudge who was one of the seven L0pht members who testified before a Senate committee in 1998 that they could bring down the Internet in 30 minutes and is now a program manager for the agency's information innovation office. Anything that could help the military will be considered, including bug-hunting exercises, commodity high-end computing and open software tools and projects with the potential to "reduce attack surface areas, reverse current asymmetries" are of particular interest. Under the Cyber-Fast Track initiative, DARPA will fund between 20 to 100 projects annually. Open to anybody, researchers can pitch DARPA with ideas and have a project approved and funded within 14 days of the application. Developers will retain intellectual property rights while DARPA will operate under government use rights. "It's time to start funding hacker spaces, labs and boutique security companies to make it easier to compete with large government contractors.""
Education

Submission + - Drop out and innovate (timeshighereducation.co.uk) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The San Francisco-based founder of PayPal and co-founder of Facebook is offering two-year fellowships of up to $100,000 (£63,800) to 20 entrepreneurs or teams of entrepreneurs aged under 20 in a worldwide competition that closes this week.

With the money, the recipients are expected to drop out of university — Thiel calls it "stopping out" — and work full time on their ideas.

"Some of the world's most transformational technologies were created by people who stopped out of school because they had ideas that couldn't wait until graduation," Thiel says. "This fellowship will encourage the most brilliant and promising young people not to wait on their ideas either."

Thiel says the huge cost of higher education, and the resulting burden of debt, makes students less willing to take risks. "And we think you're going to have to take a lot of risks to build the next generation of companies."

But his plan also clearly challenges the ability of conventional universities to foster innovation. "I do think there are a lot of things people learn in school," Thiel says wryly. "I don't think they learn anything much about entrepreneurship."

Submission + - Postal Trucks to Become Sensor Platforms? (nytimes.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The U.S. Postal Service may face insolvency by 2011 (it lost $8.5 billion last year). An op-ed piece in today's New York Times proposes an interesting business idea for the Postal Service: use postal trucks as a giant fleet of mobile sensor platforms. (Think Google Streetview on steroids.) The trucks could be outfitted with a variety of sensors (security, environmental, RF ...) and paid for by businesses. The article's author addresses some of the obvious privacy concerns that arise.

Comment Re:Vlad...Would Regulators...? Well, YES..... (Score 1) 119

by darkPHi3er (#24175863) Attached to: Yahoo Rejects Another Bid From Microsoft, Icahn

"Would regulators let the two biggest webmail providers combine?"

YES, they would.

WHY? because neither MS nor Yahoo! make any real money off of webmail (sans ads, a tiny fraction of their expenditures on the services)

All free email from either company amounts to commercially is a HUGE CASH DRAIN and either/both would probably be GLAD to dump it, if the Regulators got some bad Acid and objected.

AND, there are a GOOGLE-PLEX (get it?) of other companies more than willing to step in and provide free email.

NO FINANCIAL IMPACT TO CONSUMERS, NO REGULATORS INTERFERENCE...

"Let two major IM networks combine?"

SEE ABOVE, but MORE SO....there are SO MANY COMPETING IM services around available immediately.

and IM has NO DIRECT FINANCIAL IMPACT ON THE CONSUMER MARKETPLACE (as "IM GIANT" AOL's DYING Balance Sheet will be glad to testify)

"Allow MS to buy out a promising competitor to Exchange?"

By promising competitor, you mean what 2,3 or 4% of the marketplace?

other than off-platform PC-based competitors like *NIX, the only competitor on the Windows platform to Exchange Server is.....the Next Generation of Exchange Server

Take a look at Blue's acquisition of Lotus Development, and its impact both on Domino and Notes, that should resolve that question nicely.

"Allow two major portal sites to combine?"

When did, by marketshare standards, NOT financial nor advertising outlay or marketing expenses, MS' search efforts become "major"? And was there some "Internet Antitrust Act", that make FREE services subject to government antitrust jurisdiction, i missed?

BTW, if not for default OS installations and PUSH upgrading, the current marketshare of MS' Search efforts would be next-to-invisible, instead of hardly visible and largely irrelevant. Which is WHY they want Y!

ALSO, in many peoples' opinions, it would be huge mistake for MS to acquire Y! and then submerge the partially damaged Yahoo! search INTO MS' DOA search system.

IF MS is half as smart as they tell everyone they are, they would operate Yahoo! at a distance and keep pouring $$$$$ and talent into Yahoo! brand. And try to bring Y! back from the brink where it is right now.

If they just think that they can combine the two companies search efforts, rebrand it as MS-Yahoo! or Yahoo!-MS, and then VOILA', they will have a Google-Killer...

WELLLL, you can combine a duck and a turkey, but you won't get a pony, let alone a racehorse...
Space

Submission + - Good News, Everybody

Submitted by iminplaya
iminplaya writes: Ulysses is not dead yet."
"ESA issued a statement in February saying that, as Ulysses' radioisotope thermoelectric generators were running out of power, the spacecraft would likely die some time this year. The actual death blow to the spacecraft was likely to be the freezing of hydrazine fuel in a cold spot in a fuel line. Mission controllers found creative ways to prevent the freezing, but the solution was not a long-term one, and ESA had a ceremonial send-off and wrap-up of the mission in mid-June, announcing that the spacecraft would be shut down on July 1. However, it now appears that announcement was premature. ESA issued a statement on July 3 titled "Ulysses hanging on valiantly." And on Wednesday, the following email was sent by Ulysses mission operations manager Nigel Angold to the Ulysses community, indicating that Ulysses' voyage could actually continue for some time.
Announcements

Journal Journal: Can't Find a Parking Spot? Check Smartphone

Journal by KGIII
From the New York Times comes this tasty bit of idiocy that takes tech too far.

San Francisco is preparing to undertake the nation's most ambitious trial of a wireless sensor network that will announce which parking spaces are free at any moment.
User Journal

Journal Journal: How to dress for a coding interview 24

Journal by tomhudson

Show some confidence - don't wear a suit to the interview. What you wear sends a message as to what your core competencies are. A suit says "Sales," not "Development".
The Almighty Buck

Journal Journal: Freddie macs taxpayers, whips them on the Fannie? 3

Journal by CauseWithoutARebel

At this very moment, Freddie Mac is down more than 48% on the week, and Fannie May is down over 46%.

If you're an American taxpayer, and that doesn't scare the ever-loving hell out of you, you have no idea where your money goes each April.
Security

Package Managers As Achilles Heel 263

Posted by timothy from the dip-your-computer-in-the-styx dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers from the University of Arizona have released a study that takes a look at the security of ten popular package managers. They were able to show all ten were vulnerable to attacks from a mirror or man-in-the-middle that allow an attacker to (along with other things) crash the system or obtain root access. Furthermore, the researchers created a fictitious administrator and company name and were able to lease a server and get it listed as an official mirror for all the distributions they tried (Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, CentOS, and OpenSUSE). This raised the question: What keeps you up at night, the thought of attacks on your package manager or previously discussed and patched vulnerability in DNS?" justin samuel (one of the Arizona researchers) also points out a synopsis on CERT's blog.

Slashdot Top Deals

Some people claim that the UNIX learning curve is steep, but at least you only have to climb it once.

Close