StantonSmith - Slashdot User

Submission + - Trans-Pacific Partnership Enables Harsh Penalties For Filesharing (eff.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 13, 2015 @06:57PM

An anonymous reader writes: The EFF went through a recently leak of the secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, an international agreement in development that among other things would impose new intellectual property laws on much of the developed world. The EFF highlights one section in particular, which focuses on the punishments for copyright infringement. The document doesn't set specific sentences, but it actively encourages high monetary penalties and jail terms. Its authors reason that these penalties will be a deterrent to future infringement. "The TPP's copyright provisions even require countries to enable judges to unilaterally order the seizure, destruction, or forfeiture of anything that can be 'traceable to infringing activity,' has been used in the 'creation of pirated copyright goods,' or is 'documentary evidence relevant to the alleged offense.' Under such obligations, law enforcement could become ever more empowered to seize laptops, servers, or even domain names."

Submission + - Domo Arigato, Teacher Roboto 1

Submitted by theodp on Saturday July 10, 2010 @11:54PM

theodp writes: If you're a math, CS, or engineering grad, odds are you've seen your share of robot-like teaching, but never delivered by an actual robot. But that's starting to change. Computer scientists are developing robots with social components that can engage people and teach them simple skills, including household tasks, vocabulary, elementary imitation and taking turns. Several countries have been testing teaching machines in classrooms. At USCD, researchers have had their robot Bandit interact with children with autism. And South Korea is 'hiring' hundreds of robots as teacher aides and classroom playmates and is experimenting with robots that would teach English.

Submission + - The Creativity Crisis (newsweek.com)

Submitted by on Saturday July 10, 2010 @09:54PM

An anonymous reader writes: For the first time, research shows that American creativity is declining.

Like intelligence tests, Torrance’s test—a 90-minute series of discrete tasks, administered by a psychologist—has been taken by millions worldwide in 50 languages. Yet there is one crucial difference between IQ and CQ scores. With intelligence, there is a phenomenon called the Flynn effect—each generation, scores go up about 10 points. Enriched environments are making kids smarter. With creativity, a reverse trend has just been identified and is being reported for the first time here: American creativity scores are falling.

Kyung Hee Kim at the College of William & Mary discovered this in May, after analyzing almost 300,000 Torrance scores of children and adults. Kim found creativity scores had been steadily rising, just like IQ scores, until 1990. Since then, creativity scores have consistently inched downward. “It’s very clear, and the decrease is very significant,” Kim says. It is the scores of younger children in America—from kindergarten through sixth grade—for whom the decline is “most serious.”

Submission + - The Hobby of Energy Secretary Steven Chu (msn.com)

Submitted by quanminoan on Saturday July 10, 2010 @04:25PM

quanminoan writes: Nobel Laureate and United States Secretary of Energy Steven Chu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Chu) has continued to publish even while in office. While previous research topics include gravitational redshift (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v463/n7283/full/nature08776.html), Chu has coauthored a paper entitled "Subnanometre single-molecule localization registration and distance measurements" which discusses a way to optically image objects as small as 0.5 nm — a large step down from the previous limit of 10 nm. Chu does this in his free time, claiming "I just consider it my equivalent of ... vegging out in front of the TV".

Submission + - Rampant hacking of Apple accounts (thenextweb.com)

Submitted by quickOnTheUptake on Tuesday July 06, 2010 @01:20AM

quickOnTheUptake writes: Over the last 24 hrs. rumors of rampant hacking of Apples accounts have been coming out. From TNW:

On Sunday we reported details of how one specific app developer had managed to hack iTunes users accounts and use them to purchase his own apps – making it to the top of the iTunes charts.
As the story has developed, the problem has grown far more serious than initially thought a" not just that one particular developer and his apps — the Apple App store is filled with App Farms being used to steal.

Submission + - Merry merry copyright king of the bush is he... (abc.net.au) 2

Submitted by neonsignal on Monday July 05, 2010 @11:39PM

neonsignal writes: Iconic Australian band Men at Work have been ordered to pay royalties for an instrumental riff in their song "Down Under". The notes were sampled from a well-known children's song "Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree", written in 1934 for a Girl Guide's Jamboree. The Justice found the claims of the copyright owner Larrikin to be excessive, but ordered the payment of royalties and a percentage of future profits. Let's hope the primary schools are up to date with their ARIA license fees!

Submission + - UK to repeal Laws of Thermodynamics? (hmg.gov.uk)

Submitted by mostxlnt on Monday July 05, 2010 @04:51PM

mostxlnt writes: The new Tory UK government has launched a website asking its subjects which laws they'd most like repealed. There are three discussion threads up for repeal of the Second, Third and even all Laws of Dynamics. "Without the Third Law of Thermodynamics, it would be possible to build machines that would last forever and provide an endless source of cheap eneregy. thus solving both potential crises in energy supply as well as solving the greenhouse gas problem in one stepp.. simples...eh?" says one commenter.

Submission + - HSBC Bank Sends Activated Debit Cards Through Mail (knowzy.com)

Submitted by Knowzy on Monday July 05, 2010 @04:42PM

Knowzy writes: At least two divisions at HSBC Bank apparently failed card issuing 101 and are mailing out debit cards pre-activated. As debit cards, fraudulent transactions come directly out of a victim's checking account. A similar report from 2004 suggests this issue is longstanding and widespread. When confronted with the evidence, HSBC would not commit to fixing this issue, preferring instead to offer vague statements like, "Through our systems and analytics, we focus on the greatest and most active threats in an effort to avoid negatively impacting customer experience."

Submission + - Google to Add Pay to Cover a Tax for Gays (nytimes.com)

Submitted by GrApHiX42 on Wednesday June 30, 2010 @09:53PM

GrApHiX42 writes: Starting on Thursday, Google is going to increase the salaries of gay and lesbian employees whose partners receive domestic partner health benefits, largely to compensate them for an extra tax they must pay that heterosexual married couples do not. Google is not the first company to make up for the extra tax. At least a few large employers already do. But benefits experts say Google’s move could inspire its Silicon Valley competitors to follow suit, because they compete for the same talent....Read More

Submission + - Futurama's New New York built in Lego (wired.co.uk)

Submitted by Lanxon on Monday June 28, 2010 @01:24PM

Lanxon writes: We've seen some impressive Lego creations (sniper rifles, printers, full-size houses...), and Matt De Lanoy's Futurama diorama is a worthy addition. For starters, it's huge. It measures 1.5m by 2.1m, and it's been in construction for about two years. Almost every part of the city is represented, including Planet Express, its ship, the Robot Arms Apartments where Bender and Fry live, Momcorp HQ, the Head museum, Elzar's fine cuisine, Applied Cryogenics, the sewers where the mutants live, the Madison Cube Garden (which lights up at night!) and more.

Submission + - The "King of all computer mice" finally ships (warmouse.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 28, 2010 @03:53AM

An anonymous reader writes: The much-anticipated, much-mocked 18-button joystick mouse from WarMouse is now shipping. The press release features an impressive set of user quotes from game designer Chris Taylor, new SFWA president John Scalzi, and a doctor who runs a medical software company. Crazy or not, it's obviously more than just a gaming mouse.

Khan Academy Delivers 100,000 Lectures Daily 213

Posted by kdawson on Monday June 28, 2010 @12:23AM from the soup-to-nuts-to-linear-algebra dept.

eldavojohn writes "Working from the comfort of his home, Salman Khan has made available more than 1,500 mini-lectures to educate the world. Subjects range from math and physics to finance, biology, and current economics. Kahn Academy amounts to little more than a YouTube channel and one very devoted man. He is trying to provide education in the way he wished he had been taught. With more than 100,000 video views a day, the man is making a difference for many students. In his FAQ he explains how he knows he is being effective. What will probably ensure his popularity (and provide a legacy surpassing that of most highly paid educators) is that everything is licensed under Creative Commons 3.0. He only needs his time, a $200 Camtasia Recorder, an $80 Wacom Bamboo Tablet, and a free copy of SmoothDraw3. While the lecturing may not be quite up to the Feynman level, it's a great augmenter for advanced learners, and a lifeline for those without much access to learning resources."

Submission + - How to find Wifi interference? 4

Submitted by Nicros on Sunday June 27, 2010 @10:27PM

Nicros writes: So I am experiencing a somewhat bizarre thing. Almost every evening, between 8:30 and 10- my wifi seems to just die. This, in itself, could be explained by a crappy wifi source or some hardware failure, except that I know both of my neighbors are experiencing the SAME loss of signal at the same time! While the wifi is down, the lan is just fine, and any plugged into cat5 can access the internet just fine. It is only the wifi portion of our routers that we cant access.

So a couple things come to mind- is it possible that some other neighbor arrives at home and is the type that turns on their router from 8:30-10? And that there is something that is hosing our wifi? Or what other possible causes may there be?

I have tried looking around for software to help identify the source of interference, but either they are ridiculously expensive for a home user or my card (intel link 1000 BGN) isnt supported (like by netstumbler).

Anyone have any suggestions on how I can track this down?

Thanks!

Chase Bank May Drop Support of Chrome, Opera 398

Posted by kdawson on Sunday June 27, 2010 @05:24PM from the chasing-last-century's-technology dept.

mwandaw writes "Banking giant JPMorgan Chase may drop support of some popular browsers because they do not 'all offer the minimum levels of security that we require while others may not perform well with our site.' After July 18 you may not be able to access the website with a browser that they do not support. The list of browsers they currently support seems outdated: Internet Explorer 6.0 and higher, Firefox 2.0 and higher, and Safari 3.0 and higher (for Macs only). With usage of IE6 plummeting and concerns about its security well known, the inclusion of that browser seems suspect. On the other extreme, rising star Chrome appears to be left out, too. What does Google think of that?"

Submission + - Kahn Academy Delivers 70,000 Lectures Daily (physorg.com)

Submitted by eldavojohn on Sunday June 27, 2010 @03:40PM

eldavojohn writes: Over fifteen hundred mini-lectures have made available by Salman Khan to educate the world right from the comfort of his own home. Kahn Academy amounts to little more than a YouTube channel and one very very devoted man trying to provide education the way he wanted it. With 70,000 video views a day, the man is definitely making a measurable difference for many students young and old. In his FAQ he explains how he knows he is being effective. What will probably ensure his popularity (and provide a legacy surpassing that of the highest paid educators) is that everything is licensed under Creative Commons 3.0 and his only requirements are his time, a $200 Camtasia Recorder, an $80 Wacom Bamboo Tablet and a free copy of SmoothDraw3. While it may not be Feynman quality lecturing, it's a great augmenting resource for learners who can clench their fists and thank KAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHN!

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