Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror

Submission + - Hungary law requires photographers to ask permission to take pictures (theguardian.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Those planning a weekend break in Budapest take note. From 15 March anyone taking photographs in Hungary is technically breaking the law if someone wanders into shot, under a new civil code that outlaws taking pictures without the permission of everyone in the photograph. According to the justice ministry, people taking pictures should look out for those "who are not waving, or who are trying to hide or running out of shot".

Officials say expanding the law on consent to include the taking of photographs, in addition to their publication, merely codifies existing court practice. However, Hungary's photographers call the law vague and obstructive, saying it has left the country of Joseph Pulitzer and photography legend Robert Capa out of step with Europe.

Submission + - NASA-funded study: industrial civilisation headed for 'irreversible collapse?

Submitted by Snirt
Snirt writes: A new study sponsored by Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center has highlighted the prospect that global industrial civilization could collapse in coming decades due to unsustainable resource exploitation and increasingly unequal wealth distribution.

Noting that warnings of 'collapse' are often seen to be fringe or controversial, the study attempts to make sense of compelling historical data showing that "the process of rise-and-collapse is actually a recurrent cycle found throughout history." Cases of severe civilisational disruption due to "precipitous collapse — often lasting centuries — have been quite common."

Submission + - Federal Student Aid Requirements at For-Profit Colleges Overhauled

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The U.S. Department of Education has released a proposal for new regulations that would hold colleges that receive federal student aid accountable for the employment success of their graduates. The overhaul is prompted by the fact that students from for-profit colleges account for nearly 50% of all loan defaults yet only account for about 13% of the total higher education population. '[O]f the for-profit gainful employment programs the Department could analyze and which could be affected by [the proposed regulations], the majority--72%--produced graduates who on average earned less than high school dropouts.'

Submission + - Goodby, Google Voice (itworld.com)

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: The trouble with Google Voice is that the way we use phones has changed — and it hasn't kept up with the times: 'Fewer people have a mobile phone and a business line and a home line that might make One Number For All so. Text message costs (which are actually close to nothing) are almost always bundled into contract costs. Automatic voice transcription, while still a mean feat, is no longer such a magic trick,' writes Kevin Purdy in a blog post explaining why he's breaking up with Google Voice. The main problem is that, despite some very cool features, Google Voice doesn't play well with others — even apps in its own family. And it doesn't look as though that's going to get better anytime soon.

Submission + - Harsh wireless conditions? Send in the drone hot spot (networkworld.com)

Submitted by coondoggie
coondoggie writes: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has moved along a project it says would use hot-spot enabled drones to bring bring wireless communications to even the most distant and harsh environment. The project known as Fixed Wireless at a Distance is designed specifically to overcome the challenge inherent with cell communication in remote areas and this week the agency awarded L-3 $16.4 million to support the next iteration of the system.

Submission + - Elon Musk Addresses New Jersey's Tesla Store Ban (teslamotors.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: On Tuesday, we discussed news that New Jersey is trying to ban Tesla stores, which would force the company to sell through car dealerships instead. Now, Elon Musk has prepared a response: 'The reason that we did not choose to do this is that the auto dealers have a fundamental conflict of interest between promoting gasoline cars, which constitute virtually all of their revenue, and electric cars, which constitute virtually none. Moreover, it is much harder to sell a new technology car from a new company when people are so used to the old. Inevitably, they revert to selling what’s easy and it is game over for the new company. The evidence is clear: when has an American startup auto company ever succeeded by selling through auto dealers? The last successful American car company was Chrysler, which was founded almost a century ago, and even they went bankrupt a few years ago, along with General Motors. Since the founding of Chrysler, there have been dozens of failures, Tucker and DeLorean being simply the most well-known. In recent years, electric car startups, such as Fisker, Coda, and many others, attempted to use auto dealers and all failed.'

Submission + - Google and Microsoft Both Want To Stop Dual-Boot Windows/Android Devices (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The laptop has undergone many changes over the past decade. At various times, netbooks, ultrabooks, and Chromebooks have been en vogue. Over the past several months, we've seen signs of the next step in the laptop's evolution: Android/Windows dual-boot laptops. Several companies had already announced upcoming models, including Asus and its Transformer Book Duet TD300. However, neither Google nor Microsoft seem to want such an unholy marriage of operating systems, and they've both pressured Asus to kill off the dual-boot product lines. Asus has now complied. 'Google has little incentive to approve dual-OS models, since that could help Microsoft move into mobile devices where Android is dominant. ... Microsoft has its own reasons for not wanting to share space on computers with Google, particularly on business-oriented desktop and laptop PCs that could give the Internet giant an entry point into a Microsoft stronghold. Computer makers that make dual-OS machines risk jeopardizing a flow of marketing funds from Microsoft that are an important economic force in the low-margin PC business.'

Submission + - This Solar-Powered Toilet Torches Poop for Public Health (vice.com) 2

Submitted by Daniel_Stuckey
Daniel_Stuckey writes: The goal is to build a self-contained block of toilets, similar to Coca-Cola's community blocks, that can also provide clean water and power for phone charging—to essentially turn toilets into a community center.

"I think it's hard to make sanitation as sexy as a cell phone, but by integrating into the community and making it a hub, it can be something more popular," Linden said.

The toilet itself, called the Sol-Char, is a fascinating bit of engineering. In order to sanitize waste without the help of massive treatment facilities, Linden's team instead designed the toilet to scorch waste in a chamber heated by fiber optic cables that pipe in heat from solar collectors on the toilet's roof.

"A solar concentrator has all this light focused in on one centimeter. It'd be fine if we could bring everyone's fecal waste up to that one point, like burning it with a magnifying glass," Linden said. "But that's not practical, so we were thinking of other ways to concentrate that light."

Submission + - Target Ignored Signs of Data Breach (informationweek.com)

Submitted by puddingebola
puddingebola writes: Target ignored indications from it's threat-detection tools that malware had infected it's network. From the article, "Unusually for a retailer, Target was even running its own security operations center in Minneapolis, according to a report published Thursday by Bloomberg Businessweek. Among its security defenses, following a months-long testing period and May 2013 implementation, was software from attack-detection firm FireEye, which caught the initial November 30 infection of Target's payment system by malware. All told, up to five "malware.binary" alarms reportedly sounded, each graded at the top of FireEye's criticality scale, and which were seen by Target's information security teams first in Bangalore, and then Minneapolis." Unfortunately, it appears Target's security team failed to act on the threat indicators.

Submission + - Jolla Announces 1st Meego/Android-App Device Available Year End 2013

Submitted by x_IamSpartacus_x
x_IamSpartacus_x writes: Jolla, the Finnish company that continued Nokia’s work on the MeeGo mobile platform, announced details of its first smartphone on Monday. Availability for the Jolla device is expected by year end and can be pre-ordered now; the phone will be priced at no more than €399 (US $512.26).
The Jolla hardware looks similar to that of Nokia’s Lumia, with a clean, button-less front face that houses the 4.5-inch touchcscreen.The phone will use a dual-core processor and support 4G LTE in some regions. Internal storage tops out at 16 GB, but can be expanded via microSD card. The phone also includes an 8 megapixel rear camera with auto focus.
The phone is also “Android app compliant” which, in a move similar to that of BlackBerry, can help with available apps at launch.

Submission + - Symbian officially dead. (techcrunch.com) 1

Submitted by Snirt
Snirt writes: Symbian is now officially dead, Nokia confirmed today. In the company’s earnings announcement that came out a little while ago, Nokia confirmed that the 808 PureView, released last year, was the very last device that the company would make on the Symbian platform: “During our transition to Windows
Phone through 2012, we continued to ship devices based on Symbian,” the company wrote. “The Nokia 808 PureView, a device which showcases our imaging capabilities and which came to market in mid-2012, was the
last Symbian device from
Nokia."

Slashdot Top Deals

Somebody ought to cross ball point pens with coat hangers so that the pens will multiply instead of disappear.

Close