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Submission + - "Micro-Gig" sites undermining workers rights? (theatlantic.com)

Submitted by Mystakaphoros
Mystakaphoros writes: An article in The Atlantic examines the effects sites like TaskRabbit, Fiverr, and Rev.com are having on employment and freelancing. (I would add Amazon's Mechanical Turk to the list as well.) As the article mentions, "Work is being stripped down to the bone. It's as if we're eliminating the 'extraneous' parts of a worker's day--like lunch or bathroom breaks--and paying only for the minutes someone is actually in front of the computer or engaged in a task." How many Slashdotters have used these sites, either to hire or work? What's been your experience?

Submission + - Ocean Robots Upgraded After Logging 300,000 Miles (singularityhub.com) 1

Submitted by kkleiner
kkleiner writes: Liquid Robotics first generation of wave gliders have successfully navigated from the US to Australia, surviving numerous hurricanes. Now, the next generation of autonomous robots have been outfitted with thrusters that supplement the wave-energy harvesting technology that they use to move. They also are equipped with a weather station and sensors to collect even more data on the ocean. Currently, over 100 missions are in operation around the world.

Submission + - A Fourth Domain of Life? (economist.com)

Submitted by ecesar
ecesar writes: The Economist is reporting on a recent paper published in the Public Library of Science, which suggests there might be at least one other, previously hidden, domain of life (besides eukaryotes, bacteria and archaea). Using DNA sequence data generated directly from environmental samples, the authors found sequences not yet seen in any cultured organism.
Space

Submission + - Student Built Spacecraft Separate and Communicate (spaceref.com)

Submitted by
BJ_Covert_Action
BJ_Covert_Action writes: "Some students from the Cockrell School of Engineering in Austin, Texas have built, developed, launched, and operated two historical satellites. The FASTRAC satellites make up the first small-scale satellite system which is composed of two separate spacecraft that can communicate to each other. On March 22, the single FASTRAC satellite successfully separated into two smaller spacecraft that are currently operating and communicating with each other. While separation and communication has occurred between paired satellites before, this is the first time it has been done with such a small platform (the FASTRAC spacecraft weigh approximately 60 lbs.).

Furthermore, this is the first time a student designed and built space system has been comprised of two separate spacecraft that can interact with each other. One of the most impressive things about this mission is that it was done incredibly cheap at $250,000, which is far below the costs associated with traditional spacecraft."
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft buys 666,000 IP addresses (internetgovernance.org) 1

Submitted by
RabidMonkey
RabidMonkey writes: "Microsoft has managed to purchase 666,624 IP addresses from the bankrupt Canadian company Nortel for $7.5 million. This works out to $11.25/ip. An exact list of blocks isn't available yet. There has been a lot of discussion on NANOG about whether this allowed or not, and what the implications to the dwindling IPv4 pool may be. Is this the first of many such moves as IPv4 address space has run out? Will ARIN step in and block the sale/transfer? How long will such measures drag out the eventual necessity of IPv6?"
Apple

Submission + - How Mac OS X, 10 Today, Changed Apple's World (computerworld.com)

Submitted by
CWmike
CWmike writes: "Ten years ago today, Apple's first full public version of Mac OS X went on sale worldwide to a gleeful reception as thousands of Mac users attended special events at their local computer shops all across the planet. What we didn't know then was that Apple was preparing to open up its own chain of retail outlets, nor had we heard Steve Jobs use the phrase, "iPod". Windows was still a competitor, and Google was still a search engine. These were halcyon days, when being a Mac user meant belonging to the second team, writes Jonny Evans. We're looking at the eighth significant OS X release in the next few months, Lion, which should offer some elements of unification between the iOS and OS X. There's still some bugs to iron out though, particularly the problem with ACL's (Access Control Lists) inside the Finder. Hopefully departing ex-NeXT Mac OS chief, Bertrand Serlet, will be able to fix this before he leaves."
Apple

Submission + - Apple remove Samba from OS X 10.7 because of GPLv3 (appleinsider.com)

Submitted by recoiledsnake
recoiledsnake writes: The upcoming release of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Server will remove the formerly bundled open source Samba software and replace it with Apple's own tools for Windows file sharing and network directory services. In both Mac OS X Server and client editions, Samba enables Macs to share files with Windows clients on the network and access Windows file servers. It has also later allowed Mac OS X Server to work as an NT Domain Controller to manage network accounts and make roaming profiles and home directories available to Windows PC users. However, the Samba team has moved active development of the project to the more strict GPLv3 license, which prevents Apple from using the software commercially. Apple is now said to be recommending Active Directory to users who are still dependent upon the older NT Domain Controller network directory services. Apple has previously stopped contributing code to GCC and started looking at other options like LLVM because of GCC's switch to GPLv3.
Iphone

Submission + - iPhone Alarms - Non Functional Goods (pcmag.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: iPhone Alarms stopped working since Jan 1 2011, running iOS 4 specifically. apparently will fix its self by 3rd Jan 2011. work around is to set the alarm to repeat. My girlfriend wasn't impressed, sleeping in, and I wasn't either, having to race her to work!
Science

Submission + - Is Something Wrong with the Scientific Method? 6

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "Jonah Lehrer has an interesting article in the New Yorker reporting that all sorts of well-established, multiply confirmed findings in science have started to look increasingly uncertain as they cannot be replicated. This phenomenon doesn’t yet have an official name, but it’s occurring across a wide range of fields, from psychology to ecology and in the field of medicine, the phenomenon seems extremely widespread, affecting not only antipsychotics but also therapies ranging from cardiac stents to Vitamin E and antidepressants. “One of my mentors told me that my real mistake was trying to replicate my work," says researcher Jonathon Schooler. "He told me doing that was just setting myself up for disappointment.” For many scientists, the effect is especially troubling because of what it exposes about the scientific process. "If replication is what separates the rigor of science from the squishiness of pseudoscience, where do we put all these rigorously validated findings that can no longer be proved?" writes Lehrer. "Which results should we believe?" Francis Bacon, the early-modern philosopher and pioneer of the scientific method, once declared that experiments were essential, because they allowed us to “put nature to the question" but it now appears that nature often gives us different answers. According to John Ioannidis, author of “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False," the main problem is that too many researchers engage in what he calls “significance chasing,” or finding ways to interpret the data so that it passes the statistical test of significance—the ninety-five-per-cent boundary invented by Ronald Fisher. "The scientists are so eager to pass this magical test that they start playing around with the numbers, trying to find anything that seems worthy,”"
Security

Submission + - Huge security risks in PDF standard (h-online.com)

Submitted by crabel
crabel writes: At the 27. Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin security researcher Julia Wolf pointed out numerous, previously hardly known, security problems in connection with Adobe's PDF standard. For instance, a PDF can reportedly contain a database scanner that becomes active and scans a network when the document is printed on a network printer.
Transportation

Submission + - Man hits teenager on airplane for using iPhone (blorge.com) 1

Submitted by Charlotte Web
Charlotte Web writes: A 68-year-old man was arrested in Idaho after punching a teenager who refused to switch off their iPhone on an airplane. "The unnamed boy ignored the flight crew's request to switch off electronic devices and instead continued playing games and listening to music," after which, the teenager says, the man went "ballastic." After their scuffle, the 68-year-old man now faces a six month jail term or a $1,000 fine. But the iPhone-using teenager "did not require medical attention and did not face any police action."
Earth

Submission + - End the Ethanol Insanity

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: It's now conceivable, says BusinessWeek's Ed Wallace, that the myth of ethanol as the salvation for America's energy problem is coming to an end. Curiously, the alternative fuel may be done in by an unlikely collection of foes. Fervidly pro-ethanol in the last decade of his political career, former VP Al Gore reversed course in late November and apologized for supporting ethanol, which apparently was more about ingratiating himself to farmers. A week later, Energy Secretary Steven Chu piled on, saying: 'The future of transportation fuels shouldn't involve ethanol.' And in December, a group of small-engine manufacturers, automakers, and boat manufacturers filed suit in the U.S. Court of Appeals to vacate the EPA's October ruling that using a 15% blend of ethanol in fuel supplies would not harm 2007 and newer vehicles. Despite all of this, the newly-elected Congress has extended the 45 cent-per-gallon ethanol blending tax credit that was due to expire, a move that is expected to reduce revenue by $6.25 billion in 2011. 'The ethanol insanity,' longtime-critic Wallace laments, 'will continue until so many cars and motors are damaged by this fuel additive that the public outcry can no longer be ignored. Adding an expensive, harmful, useless filler to gasoline just to win farmers' gratitude is not remotely the same as having a legitimate national energy policy.'

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