Roberto123 - Slashdot User

Submission + - Ugly Truth of Space Junk (space.com) 2

Submitted by

fysdt

on Tuesday May 10, 2011 @03:35PM

fysdt writes: "Dealing with the decades of detritus from using outer space — human-made orbital debris — is a global concern, but some experts are now questioning the feasibility of the wide range of "solutions" sketched out to grapple with high-speed space litter.

What may be shaping up is an "abandon in place" posture for certain orbital altitudes — an outlook that flags the messy message resulting from countless bits of orbital refuse.

U.S. General William Shelton, commander of Air Force Space Command, underscored the worrisome issue of orbital debris during a presentation at the National Space Symposium on April 12, 2011.

In a recent conference here, Gen. William Shelton, commander of the U.S. Air Force Space Command, relayed his worries about rising amounts of human-made space junk."

Submission + - Facebook caught exposing millions of credentials (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by

fysdt

on Tuesday May 10, 2011 @03:28PM

fysdt writes: "Facebook has leaked photographs, profiles and other personal information for millions of its users because of a years-old bug that overrides individual privacy settings, researchers from Symantec said.

The flaw, which the researchers estimate has affected hundreds of thousands of applications, exposed user access tokens to advertisers and others. The tokens serve as a spare set of keys that Facebook apps use to perform certain actions on behalf of the user, such as posting messages to a Facebook wall or sending RSVP replies to invitations. For years, many apps that rely on an older form of user authentication turned over these keys to third parties, giving them the ability to access information users specifically designated as off limits."

Submission + - Sony Could Face Developer Exodus on PSN (industrygamers.com)

Submitted by donniebaseball23 on Tuesday May 10, 2011 @02:23PM

donniebaseball23 writes: As the PlayStation Network outage continues, developers continue to feel the economic pinch. There's been no word from Sony on whether they'll compensate companies who produce games for PSN, but Capcom has already said it's losing potentially "millions" from the downtime. Worse yet, developers who rely on PSN revenues may jump ship if they aren't compensated, warns Dylan Cuthbert, creator of popular PSN game PixelJunk. "I have a feeling they [Sony] are thinking about doing something or they will lose developers which of course is pretty bad for them," he told IndustryGamers.

Submission + - Digirati Wisdom To Help Save the Postal Service (washingtonpost.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 05, 2011 @04:11PM

An anonymous reader writes: Washington Post: Some of the folks responsible for developing and promoting e-mail, e-commerce and social media are banding together in an attempt to save the U.S. Postal Service, the institution arguably most threatened by the technological developments of the past few years. As mail volume continues to plummet and more Americans use the Internet to pay bills and keep in touch, Google executives, social media experts and some of the most passionate tech evangelists are planning to meet in Crystal City in mid-June to sort out how to save and remake the nation's mail delivery service. The conference, PostalVision 2020, is designed to bring together the people who understand what this technology has done, is doing and will do to digital commerce and communication in America. The conference is scheduled to hear from Vint Cerf, Google's chief internet evangelist, and Jeff Jarvis, who writes the popular BuzzMachine.com blog and is an associate professor and director of the interactive journalism program at the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism. He has written and blogged several times about whether or not the nation still needs a national mail delivery service.

Submission + - Red Hat CEO on patent trolls: Just pay them off (networkworld.com) 1

Submitted by

jbrodkin

on Thursday May 05, 2011 @01:45PM

jbrodkin writes: "With Red Hat on the verge of becoming the first billion-dollar company focused exclusively on open source software, it has attracted quite a bit of attention — from lawyers waving patents. And although Red Hat fights lawsuits when it deems it necessary, CEO Jim Whitehurst says it's often just better to pay the trolls to make them go away. "When it's so little money, at some point, bluntly, it's better to settle than fight these things out," Whitehurst said. Red Hat has been forced to pay out claims to the likes of FireStar Software and Acacia, and Whitehurst indicated Red Hat has paid off various other companies behind closed doors. "Some of them are [public] but we often seal them in settlement," he said."

Submission + - One-Way Sound Walls Proven Possible (discovery.com)

Submitted by disco_tracy on Thursday May 05, 2011 @01:23PM

disco_tracy writes: Imagine a room where a band is playing. Neighbors can't hear the music, but if someone outside the room is talking, the musicians can hear it. The concept — a kind of one-way mirror for sound — seems imaginary, but two Italian scientists recently pushed this kind of sound manipulating technology closer to reality.

Submission + - Creepy Stalking App Explained by Author (thinq.co.uk) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 30, 2011 @05:07PM

An anonymous reader writes: Creepy, a package described as a 'geolocation information aggregator,' is turning heads in privacy circles, but should people be worried? Yiannis Kakavas explains why he developed his scary stalking application.

Creepy is a software package for Linux or Windows — with a Mac OS X port in the works — that aims to gather public information on a targeted individual via social networking services in order to pinpoint their location. It's remarkably efficient at its job, even in its current early form, and certainly lives up to its name when you see it in use for the first time.

Submission + - Tesla Sues BBC's Top Gear For Libel (allcarselectric.com) 3

Submitted by thecarchik on Wednesday March 30, 2011 @03:42PM

thecarchik writes: About two years ago BBC's Top Gear aired a test drive of the then relatively new Tesla Roadster. In the particular episode, Tesla Roadsters are depicted as suffering several critical “breakdowns” during track driving. Host Jeremy Clarkson concludes the episode by saying that in the real world the Roadster "doesn’t seem to work"

Tesla claims that the breakdowns were staged, making most of Top Gear'(TM)s remarks about the Roadster untrue. Tesla also states that it can prove Top Gear’s tests were falsified due to the recordings of its cars’ onboard data-loggers.

What's Tesla asking for in the lawsuit? Tesla simply wants Top Gear to stop rebroadcasting the particular episode and to correct the record.

Submission + - Microsoft to FTC: Don’t tell us how long to (networkworld.com)

Submitted by

Roberto123

on Friday March 25, 2011 @02:10PM

Roberto123 writes: "In a public response to proposed federal regulations to protect users' privacy online, Microsoft said it is committed to "privacy by design" but thinks the Federal Trade Commission should use a regulatory light touch. Microsoft's record on privacy protection, however, is mixed."

Submission + - Mozilla Says It Erred on SSL Attack Disclosure (threatpost.com)

Submitted by Trailrunner7 on Friday March 25, 2011 @01:47PM

Trailrunner7 writes: Just days after news emerged of the attack on a registration authority in Europe tied to Comodo that caused the revocation of a number of fraudulent certificates from the major browsers, Mozilla officials have admitted that they made a mistake by not disclosing the details of the incident to its users earlier.
"In hindsight, while it was made in good faith, this was the wrong decision. We should have informed web users more quickly about the threat and the potential mitigations as well as their side-effects."

Submission + - US Contemplating taxing "Vehicle Miles Traveled" (thehill.com) 4

Submitted by dawgs72 on Friday March 25, 2011 @11:25AM

dawgs72 writes: This week the Congressional Budget Office released a report that taxing people based on how many miles they drive is a possible option for raising new revenues and that these taxes could be used to offset the costs of highway maintenance. The proposed tax would be enforced through the use of electronic metering devices installed on all vehicles. The mileage tax is being considered instead of an increase in the gas tax in order to tax hybrids, EVs, and conventional automobiles equally.

Journal Journal: ach mein gott !

Journal by countertrolling on Saturday March 19, 2011 @07:07PM

I'm beginning to believe we really are in a matrix.. It's stuck in a loop, with me trapped inside. It just threw me back 42 years in time, stopping at the 8 year mark on the way for a quick *review*

It's as freaky as any horror movie I have ever seen. It redefines reality.

Zombies are real !

Submission + - Apple Accepts "Gay Cure" App (theregister.co.uk) 2

Submitted by parallel_prankster on Saturday March 19, 2011 @06:11PM

parallel_prankster writes: Apple is under fire for approving a controversial created by a religious organization — Exodus International. The app seeks to help gay individuals become heterosexual. It received a "4" rating from Apple, which indicates the company considered the app to contain "no objectionable material". The new smartphone app was released last week and is now available through iTunes. Exodus International claims to be "the world's largest ministry to individuals and families impacted by homosexuality". A petition has been launched by Truth Wins Out, which describes itself as a non-profit organisation that fights anti-gay religious extremism on the change.org website, asking Steve Jobs to intervene to remove the app.

Submission + - Japan reluctant to disclose drone footage (suasnews.com)

Submitted by

garymortimer

on Saturday March 19, 2011 @04:47PM

garymortimer writes: "The footage taken from an RQ-4 Global Hawk drone was passed on to the Japanese government with permission for public release from the U.S. Air Force. U.S. military sources said that the decision to release the footage — or not — was up to the Japanese government."

Submission + - Oracle could reap $1 million for Sun.com domain (networkworld.com)

Submitted by joabj on Friday March 18, 2011 @04:51PM

joabj writes: Last week, Oracle announced that it is decommissioning the Sun.com site, which it acquired as part of the $7 billion purchase of Sun Microsystems. So what will Oracle do with the domain name, which is the 12th oldest .com site on the Internet? Domain brokers speculate Oracle could sell it for $1 million or more, if it chose to do so.

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