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Submission + - Big Media and Big Telcos getting nasty in landmark Australian law Case (delimiter.com.au)

Submitted by
Fluffeh
Fluffeh writes: "In Australia, we have the right to record TV and play it back at a later date, we also have the right to transcode from one format to another, so anyone with a media server can legally back up their entire DVD collection and watch it without all those annoying warning and unskippable content — as long as we don't break encryption (please stop laughing!). Optus, Australia's second largest Telco has been raising ire though with the new TV Now service they are offering and Big Media is having a hissy fit. They recently offered the service that does the recording on behalf of the customer. Seems a no brainer right? Let the customer do what they are allowed to legally do at home, but charge them for it. Everybody wins! Not according to Sports Broadcasters who made this statement when Optus said they would appeal their recent loss in an Australian Court to the highest court in the land: "They are a disgusting organisation who is acting reprehensibly again and now putting more uncertainty into sports and broadcast rights going forward I’m really disappointed and disgusted in the comments of their CEO overnight." Is this yet another case of Big Media clutching at an outdated business model, or should consumers be content with just doing their own work?"
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Submission + - General Motors: "Facebook Ads aren't Worth it" (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by
Fluffeh
Fluffeh writes: "General Motors spends around $40 million per year on maintaining a Facebook profile and around a quarter of that goes into paid advertising. However, in a statement, they just announced that "it's simply not working". That's a bit of bad news just prior to the Facebook IPO — and while Daniel Knapp tries to sweeten the news, he probably makes it even more bitter by commenting "Advertising on Facebook has long been funded by marketing budgets reserved for trying new things. But as online advertising investments in general are surging and starting to cannibalize spend on legacy media, advertisers are rightfully asking whether the money spend is justified because it has reached significant sums now.""
Math

Submission + - The Mathematics of Obesity

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "The NY Times reports that Carson C. Chow, an MIT trained mathematician and physicist, has taken a new look at America's obesity epidemic and found that a food glut is behind America’s weight problem with the national obesity rate jumping from 20 percent to over 30 percent since 1970. "Beginning in the 1970s, there was a change in national agricultural policy. Instead of the government paying farmers not to engage in full production, as was the practice, they were encouraged to grow as much food as they could," says Chow. "With such a huge food supply, food marketing got better and restaurants got cheaper. The low cost of food fueled the growth of the fast-food industry. If food were expensive, you couldn’t have fast food." Chow and mathematical physiologist, Kevin Hall created a math model of a human with hundreds of equations, boiled it down to one simple equation, and then plugged in all the variables — height, weight, food intake, exercise. The slimmed-down equation proved to be a useful platform for answering a host of questions. For example, the conventional wisdom of 3,500 calories less is what it takes to lose a pound of weight is wrong because the body changes as you lose. The fatter you get, the easier it is to gain weight so an extra 10 calories a day puts more weight onto an obese person than on a thinner one. Another finding: Huge variations in your daily food intake will not cause variations in weight, as long as your average food intake over a year is about the same. Unfortunately another finding is that weight change, up or down, takes a very, very long time. All diets work but the reaction time is really slow: on the order of a year. Chow has posted an interactive version of the model on the web where people can plug in their information and learn how much they’ll need to reduce their intake and increase their activity to lose. "There’s no magic bullet on this. You simply have to cut calories and be vigilant for the rest of your life.""
Hardware

Submission + - DDR4 May Replace Mobile Memory For Less (computerworld.com)

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: The upcoming shift from Double Data Rate 3 (DDR3) RAM to its successor, DDR4, will herald in a significant boost in both memory performance and capacity for data center hardware and consumer products alike. Because of greater density, 2X performance and lower cost, with the upcoming specification and products will for the first time mean DDR may be used in mobile devices instead of LPDDR. Today, mobile devices use low-power DDR (LPDDR) memory, the current iteration of which uses 1.2v of power. While the next generation of mobile memory, LPDDR3, will further reduce that power consumption (probably by 35% to 40%), it will also likely cost 40% more than DDR4 memory.
Microsoft

Submission + - Forbes Names Microsoft's Steve Ballmer names worst CEO

Submitted by _0x783czar
_0x783czar writes: Microsoft haters gleefully have latched on to the latest scoop that a Forbes columnist has named Steve Ballmer the worst CEO. It seems that the article has leveled some strong accusations of irresponsible and ineffective business practices; claiming that Microsoft has not progressed over the last 12 years of Ballmer's leadership.

http://www.bgr.com/2012/05/14/microsoft-steve-ballmer-worst-ceo/

(full disclosure: I'm not a Microsoft fan myself and tend to agree with this piece.)
Hardware

Submission + - An 8,000 Ton Giant Made the Jet Age Possible

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Tim Heffernan writes that when "The Fifty," as it’s known in company circles, broke down three years ago, there was talk of retiring it for good. Instead, Alcoa decided to overhaul their 50,000-ton, 6-story high forging press, now scheduled to resume service early this year. "What sets the Fifty apart is its extraordinary scale," writes Heffernan. "Its 14 major structural components, cast in ductile iron, weigh as much as 250 tons each; those yard-thick steel bolts are also 78 feet long; all told, the machine weighs 16 million pounds, and when activated its eight main hydraulic cylinders deliver up to 50,000 tons of compressive force." The Fifty could bench-press the battleship Iowa, with 860 tons to spare but it's the Fifty's amazing precision—its tolerances are measured in thousandths of an inch—that gives it such far-reaching utility. Every manned US military aircraft now flying uses parts forged by the Fifty as does every commercial aircraft made by Airbus and Boeing making the Jet Age possible. "On a plane, a pound of weight saved is a pound of thrust gained—or a pound of lift, or a pound of cargo," writes Heffernan. "Without the ultra-strong, ultra-light components that only forging can produce, they’d all be pushing much smaller envelopes." The now-forgotten Heavy Press Program (PDF), inaugurated in 1950 and completed in 1957, resulted in four presses (including the Fifty) and six extruders—giant toothpaste tubes squeezing out long, complex metal structures such as wing ribs and missile bodies. "Today, America lacks the ability to make anything like the Heavy Press Program machines," concludes Heffernan adding that "The Fifty" will be supplying bulkheads through 2034 for the Joint Strike Fighter. "Big machines are the product of big visions, and they make big visions real. How about a Heavy Fusion Program?""
The Military

Submission + - UK In Danger From Electromagnetic Bomb, Says Defence Secretary (techweekeurope.co.uk)

Submitted by
judgecorp
judgecorp writes: "Britain must build defences against an EMP bomb, the UK Secretary of Defence Phillip Hammond told a conference today. Electromagnetic Pulse devices mimic the result of a solar flare or a nuclear explosion in the atmosphere, creating a storm of electromagnetic radiation, which can break mobile networks and satellite systems. Any preparation for olar storms must also consider the possibility of deliberate electromagnetic events, warns Hammond."
Earth

Submission + - High School Students Take Global Warming to Court

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Katherine Ellison reports in the Atlantic that a group of high school students is suing the federal government in US District Court claiming the risks of climate change — dangerous storms, heat waves, rising sea levels, and food-supply disruptions — will threaten their generation absent a major turnabout in global energy policy. "I think a lot of young people realize that this is an urgent time, and that we're not going to solve this problem just by riding our bikes more," says 18-year-old Alec Loorz, one of the plaintiffs represented, pro bono, by the Burlingame, California, law firm of former US Republican congressman Paul "Pete" McCloskey. While skeptics may view the case as little more than a publicity stunt, its implications have been serious enough to attract the time and resources of major industry leaders. Last month, Judge Wilkins granted a motion to intervene in the case by the National Association of Manufacturers who says the plaintiffs lack standing because their injuries are too speculative and not likely to be reduced by the relief sought. "At issue is whether a small group of individuals and environmental organizations can dictate through private tort litigation the economic, energy, and environmental policies of the entire nation," wrote NAM spokesman Jeff Ostermeyer. The plaintiffs contend that they have standing to sue under the "public trust doctrine," a legal theory that in past years has helped protect waterways and wildlife. While the adults continue their argument, Loorz says kids his age are much more worried about climate change than many of their parents might imagine. "I used to play a lot of video games, and goof off, and get sent to the office at school," says Loonz. "But once I realized it was my generation that was going to be the first to really be affected by climate change, I made up my mind to do something about it.""
Science

Submission + - Scientists Plan $1 Billion Ghost Town

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Although a fully operation city with no people sounds like the setup for a dystopian sci-fi novel, the Boston Globe reports that the Center for Innovation, Testing and Evaluation will develop a $1 billion scientific ghost town near Hobbs, New Mexico to help researchers test everything from intelligent traffic systems and next-generation wireless networks to automated washing machines and self-flushing toilets on existing infrastructure without interfering in everyday life. Bob Brumley, senior managing director of Pegasus Holdings, says the town will be modeled after the real city of Rock Hill, South Carolina, complete with highways, houses and commercial buildings, old and new although unlike traditional cities, City Labs will start with its underground “backbone” infrastructure that will allow the lab to monitor activity throughout the 17-mile site. “The idea for The Center was born out of our own company’s challenges in trying to test new and emerging technologies beyond the confines of a sterile lab environment,” says Brumley. Since nobody lives in the Center's buildings, computerized systems will mimic human behavior such as turning thermostats up and down, switching lights off and on, or flushing toilets. The Center’s test facilities and supporting infrastructure may require as much as 20 square miles of open, unimproved land where the controlled environment will permit evaluation of the positive and negative impacts of smart grid applications and integration of renewable energies for residential, commercial and industrial sectors of the economy. Additional testing opportunities would include technologies emerging in intelligent traffic systems, next-generation wireless networks, smart grid cyber security and terrorism vulnerability. “It’s an amusement park for the scientists,” adds Brumley. "The only thing we won't be doing is destructive testing, blowing things up — I hope.""
Network

Submission + - Chinese physicists achieve quantum teleportation over 60 miles (extremetech.com)

Submitted by
MrSeb
MrSeb writes: "Chinese physicists are reporting that they’ve successfully teleported photonic qubits (quantum bits) over a distance of 97 kilometers (60mi). This means that quantum data has been transmitted from one point to another, without passing through the intervening space. Now, before you get too excited, we’re still a long, long way off Willy-Wonka-Mike-Teevee-style teleportation. It’s important to note that the Chinese researchers haven’t actually made a photon disappear and reappear 100 kilometers away; rather, they’ve used quantum entanglement to recreate the same qubit in a new location, with the same subatomic properties as the original qubit. The previous record for transmitting entangled qubits was 16 kilometers, performed by another Chinese team back in 2010 — and perhaps most excitingly, the researchers seem confident that their system will scale up from 100km to distances capable of reaching orbital satellites, at which point we'll actually be able to build a global quantum network for all of our cryptographic needs."

Comment Re:Is this news to anyone? (Score 1) 305

by chromaffin (#39683111) Attached to: Microsoft Counted As Key Linux Contributor

Microsoft has always been one of the best innovators about new technology. Against the popular belief on Slashdot, they have contributed a lot to computer technology, innovations, and of course, Linux too. Stop the hate and accept that Microsoft also has many technically knowledgeable persons who also contribute to Linux. When reading this hate about MS I can't but think that YOU are who is having problems with dealing with it.

this belief in slashdot is not due to the fact that many knowledgeable persons are working in MS, of course there are..or else MS would not have gathered the desktop market as it has today..this belief is for the attitude that is of general conception that MS has towards linux or open source..if you are paying for something its yours right..??? its your choice whatever u do with it..you wont like to be called a pirate for just lending your OS to your brother to use..would you like that?? i am speaking of this attitude here that MS has..
Privacy

Submission + - Have we lost our Privacy to the Internet? (guardian.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: An article in the Guardian, penned by Joss Wright and Tom Chatfield, discusses whether we — as in Internet users in general — are, or indeed are not, giving away way too much information about ourselves to large Corporations that profit handsomely from mining the info. The article talks about how contemporary internet companies — perhaps predictably — are run with a "privacy is dead" motto. It considers what implications having all your private data out on the internet — where it can be seen, searched, shared, retransmitted, perhaps archived forever without your consent — has for the "future of our society" (by which the authors presumably mean the society of the UK). The (rather long) article ends by mentioning that Gmail scans your email, that Facebook apps frequently send your private data right to the app developer, that iPhones are known to log your geographic location, and that some smartphone apps read your address book and messages, then dial home to transmit this info to the company that developed the app.
Transportation

Submission + - Did the Titanic Sink Due to an Optical Illusion?

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "According to new research by British historian Tim Maltin, records by several ships in the area where the Titanic sank show atmospheric conditions were ripe for super refraction, a bending of light that caused a false horizon that concealed the iceberg that sank the Titanic in a mirage layer preventing the Titanic’s lookouts from seeing the iceberg in time to avoid collision. According to the new theory, Titanic was sailing from Gulf Stream waters into the frigid Labrador Current, where the air column was cooling from the bottom up, creating a thermal inversion with layers of cold air below layers of warmer air creating a superior mirage. The theory also explains why the freighter Californian was unable to identify the Titanic on the moonless night because even though the Titanic sailed into the Californian’s view, it appeared too small to be the great ocean liner. The abnormally stratified air may also have disrupted signals sent by the Titanic by Morse Lamp to the California to no avail. This is not the first time atmospheric conditions have been postulated as a factor in the disaster that took 1,517 lives. An investigation in 1992 by the British government's Marine Accident Investigation Branch also suggested that super refraction may have played a role in the disaster (PDF See page 13), but that possibility went unexplored until Maltin mined weather records, survivors’ testimony and long-forgotten ships’ logs."
Encryption

Submission + - Anonymous, Decentralized and Uncensored File-Sharing is Booming (torrentfreak.com)

Submitted by PatPending
PatPending writes: FTA: "The RetroShare network allows people to create a private and encrypted file-sharing network. Users add friends by exchanging PGP certificates with people they trust. All the communication is encrypted using OpenSSL and files that are downloaded from strangers always go through a trusted friend.

In other words, it’s a true Darknet and virtually impossible to monitor by outsiders.

RetroShare founder DrBob told us that while the software has been around since 2006, all of a sudden there’s been a surge in downloads. “The interest in RetroShare has massively shot up over the last two months,” he said."

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It appears that PL/I (and its dialects) is, or will be, the most widely used higher level language for systems programming. -- J. Sammet

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