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Submission + - First build of Windows 9 shows start menu return but with Modern tiles (neowin.net)

Submitted by Billly Gates
Billly Gates writes: A leaked alpha of Windows 9 has been brewing on the internet. Today a screenshot shows what MS showed us at BUILD which includes a start menu with additional tiny tiles for things like people, calendar, pc settings, and news etc. What the screenshot does show is it is much bigger than Windows7 taking 1/3 of the screen similar to the Start Screen which will show more apps (frequently used desktop apps) in addition to other features. Is this a shift for MS to fix Windows 8? Or do some of us who are really still used to XP and Windows 7 won't allow anything modern in it? Also what is unknown is the return of AERO, and how will Cortana fit voice control fit in?

Submission + - Walter Munk's Astonishing Wave-Tracking Experiment

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: His name is Walter Munk, now in his 90s and a professor emeritus at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California. About 60 years ago, he was anchored off Guadalupe Island, on Mexico's west coast, watching swells come in, and using an equation that he and others had devised to plot a wave's trajectory backward in time, he plotted the probable origins of those swells. But the answer he got was so startling, so over-the-top improbable, that he thought, 'No, there must be something wrong.' His equations said that the swells hitting beaches In Mexico began some 9,000 miles away — somewhere in the southern reaches of the Indian Ocean, near Antarctica. 'Could it be?' he wrote in an autobiographical sketch. Could a storm half way across the world produce a patch of moving water that traveled from near the South Pole, up past Australia, then past New Zealand, then across the vast expanse of the Pacific, arriving still intact – at a beach off Mexico? He decided to find out for himself. That is why, in 1957, Walter Munk designed a global, real life, wave-watching experiment.

Submission + - Public To Vote On Names For Exoplanets

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In response to the increased interest by the public in astronomy, the International Astronomical Union (IAU), the world authority that names objects in space, is giving the public a chance to name up to 30 planets from a pre-selected group of 305 exoplanets. "Before you get excited about naming HAT-P-7b after your first pet goldfish, it's worth taking a look at the restrictions the IAU places on its minor planet names. The 16 characters or less must be 'pronounceable (in as many languages as possible)' and non-offensive in any language or culture. The names of living persons are verboten, pet names are 'discouraged,' and you can't use a name that is commercial or has political, military, or religious connotations." The proposed names can be submitted by astronomy clubs and non-profit organisations interested in astronomy and votes will be cast by the public from across the world.

Submission + - DRM to be used in Renault Electric Cars (eff.org)

Submitted by __aaelyr464
__aaelyr464 writes: Cup holder? Check. Steering wheel? Check. DRM...for your battery? The new Renault Zoe comes with a "feature" that absolutely nobody wants. Instead of selling consumers a complete car that they can use, repair, and upgrade as they see fit, Renault has opted to lock purchasers into a rental contract with a battery manufacturer and enforce that contract with digital rights management (DRM) restrictions that can remotely prevent the battery from charging at all. This coming on the heels of the recent Trans-Pacific Partnership IP Rights Chapter leak certainly makes you wonder how much of that device (car?) you really own. Perhaps Merriam-Webster can simply change the definition of ownership.

Submission + - The Mysterious Malware that Jumps Airgaps

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: Dan Goodwin writes at Ars Technica about a rootkit that seems straight out of a science-fiction thriller. According to security consultant Dragos Ruiu one day his MacBook Air, on which he had just installed a fresh copy of OS X, spontaneously updated the firmware that helps it boot. Stranger still, when Ruiu then tried to boot the machine off a CD ROM, it refused and he also found that the machine could delete data and undo configuration changes with no prompting. Next a computer running the Open BSD operating system also began to modify its settings and delete its data without explanation or prompting and further investigation showed that multiple variants of Windows and Linux were also affected. But the story gets stranger still. Ruiu began observing encrypted data packets being sent to and from an infected laptop that had no obvious network connection with—but was in close proximity to—another badBIOS-infected computer. The packets were transmitted even when the laptop had its Wi-Fi and Bluetooth cards removed. Ruiu also disconnected the machine's power cord so it ran only on battery to rule out the possibility it was receiving signals over the electrical connection. Even then, forensic tools showed the packets continued to flow over the airgapped machine. Then, when Ruiu removed internal speaker and microphone connected to the airgapped machine, the packets suddenly stopped. With the speakers and mic intact, Ruiu said, the isolated computer seemed to be using the high-frequency connection to maintain the integrity of the badBIOS infection as he worked to dismantle software components the malware relied on. It's too early to say with confidence that what Ruiu has been observing is a USB-transmitted rootkit that can burrow into a computer's lowest levels and use it as a jumping off point to infect a variety of operating systems with malware that can't be detected. It's even harder to know for sure that infected systems are using high-frequency sounds to communicate with isolated machines. But after almost two weeks of online discussion, no one has been able to rule out these troubling scenarios, either. "It looks like the state of the art in intrusion stuff is a lot more advanced than we assumed it was," says Ruiu. "The take-away from this is a lot of our forensic procedures are weak when faced with challenges like this. A lot of companies have to take a lot more care when they use forensic data if they're faced with sophisticated attackers."
The Courts

Submission + - Twitter Sued $50M For Refusing To Identify Anti-Semitic Users (ibtimes.com) 1

Submitted by
redletterdave
redletterdave writes: "After a French civil court ruled on Jan. 24 that Twitter must identify anyone who broke France's hate speech laws, Twitter has since refused to identify the users behind a handful of hateful and anti-Semitic messages, resulting in a $50 million lawsuit. Twitter argues it only needs to comply with US laws and is thus protected by the full scope of the First Amendment and its free speech privileges, but France believes its Internet users should be subject to the country's tighter laws against racist and hateful forms of expression."
Privacy

Submission + - Tracking the Web Trackers (itworld.com)

Submitted by
itwbennett
itwbennett writes: "Do you know what data the 1300+ tracking companies have on you? Privacy blogger Dan Tynan didn't until he had had enough of being stalked by grandpa-friendly Jitterbug phone ads. Tracking company BlueKai and its partners had compiled 471 separate pieces of data on him. Some surprisingly accurate, some not (hence the Jitterbug ad). But what's worse is that opting out of tracking is surprisingly hard. On the Network Advertising Initiative Opt Out Page you can ask the 98 member companies listed there to stop tracking you and on Evidon's Global Opt Out page you can give some 200 more the boot — but that's only about 300 companies out of 1300. And even if they all comply with your opt-out request, it doesn't mean that they'll stop collecting data on you, only that they'll stop serving you targeted ads."
Intel

Submission + - Intel's Pentium chip turns 20 today (v3.co.uk)

Submitted by girlmad
girlmad writes: Intel's Pentium processor was launched 20 years ago today, a move that led to the firm becoming the dominant supplier of computer chips across the globe. This article has some original iComp benchmark scores, rating the 66MHz Pentium at a heady 565, compared with 297 for the 66MHz 486DX2, which was the fastest chip available prior to the Pentium launch.
Security

Submission + - Twitter, Microsoft, LinkedIn, Yahoo open to hijacking (scmagazine.com.au)

Submitted by mask.of.sanity
mask.of.sanity writes: Twitter, Linkedin, Yahoo! and Hotmail accounts are open to hijacking thanks to a flaw that allows cookies to be stolen and reused.
Attackers need to intercept cookies while the user is logged into the service because the cookies expire on log-out ( except LinkedIn which keeps cookies for three months). The server will still consider them valid.
For the Twitter attack, you need to grab the auth_token string and insert it into your local Twitter cookies. Reload Twitter, and you'll be logged in as your target (video here). Not even password changes will kick you out.

Comment Re:Honestly (Score 1) 436

by __aaelyr464 (#41477147) Attached to: Even Windows 8 Users Prefer Windows 7

Which is really sad, because (when the drivers worked properly) the cards I've had from them in the past were great. The X-Fi on Windows 7 really was good, and did give a noticable improvement over the on-board audio on my mobo. But you are quite right: they are certainly driving me away and I'm fairly sure I will not even bother putting the X-Fi back in my computer now.

Although I suppose one (good?) thing Creative did was show me what the new (friendlier!) blue screen in Windows 8 looks like: http://i.imgur.com/lk57d.png

Comment Honestly (Score 1) 436

by __aaelyr464 (#41476677) Attached to: Even Windows 8 Users Prefer Windows 7

I've been using Windows 8 since it was released on MSDN/TechNet on three computers (two desktop machines and an ultrabook). I'm getting used to it, and actually starting to like the interface.

My biggest gripes:
- driver/software support for my Samsung Series 9 for Windows 8 is currently non-existant (all h/w installed fine, touchpad is a bit flaky though) - driver support from Creative for my SB XFi is pretty pathetic, and buggy

Otherwise, it seems to run smoother and overall feels more polished. Yes, I know this is /. and I'm speaking positively about Windows 8--so I clearly must be a paid Microsoft shill or out of my mind. Honestly however, I think a lot of people are making noise and whining about a product just to say "hey look at me!" more than anything. Of course, I'm speaking entirely from a consumer standpoint. I can see some of the UI changes (notably the removal of the start menu) to be a problem for enterprise users. I can't speak to the changes/improvements/etc. for enterprise management and such (re: 'portable windows' on USB?)
Entertainment

Submission + - Game of Thrones: Bush's Head Gets a Makeover (inquisitr.com)

Submitted by __aaelyr464
__aaelyr464 writes: After apologizing for using a likeness of former President George W. Bush's head in the season finale of the first season of "Game of Thrones", HBO has digitally altered the offending scene. From the commentary: "The last head on the left is George Bush. George Bush’s head appears in a couple of beheading scenes. It’s not a choice, it’s not a political statement. We just had to use whatever head we had around."

After releasing an formal apology, HBO proceeded to yank the episode off all digital platforms, as well as halt distribution of the Season 1 box sets. The episode is now back with an altered head; more hair, less chin. Show creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss later clarified, "We use a lot of prosthetic body parts on the show: heads, arms, etc. We can't afford to have these all made from scratch, especially in scenes where we need a lot of them, so we rent them in bulk. After the scene was already shot, someone pointed out that one of the heads looked like George W. Bush."

Submission + - The Physics of the Knuckleball 1

Submitted by snoop.daub
snoop.daub writes: R.A. Dickey, pitcher for the New York Mets, has been in the news this week after two dominant pitching performances in a row, holding opponents to one hit in each of the games for the first time since Dave Stieb did it in 1988. He has taken over as the league's only knuckleball pitcher after Tim Wakefield retired last season. But just what is it about the knuckleball that makes it hard to hit? Conventional wisdom has it that the lack of spin on the knuckleball causes it to move in completely unpredictable ways, even changing directions in mid-flight. In the last few years, there has been a lot of good science done to understand baseball pitch trajectories, and a few months ago Prof. Alan M. Nathan showed that knuckleballs aren't really so different from other pitches. It turns out that the same 9-parameter equation that can be used to describe other pitch trajectories applies just as well to the knuckleball. The difference appears to be that, like in a chaotic system, knuckleballs depend sensitively on the initial conditions, so that small changes can cause randomly different forces at the start of the pitch which determine the resultant trajectory. Much of this and similar work depends on the Pitchf/x tool, which has recorded the complete trajectory, spin angle and spin rate of every MLB pitch since 2007! Baseball really does have the best sports stats geeks.

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