fysdt - Slashdot User

Submission + - Germany: Facebook's Facial Recognition is illegal (gizmodo.com)

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fysdt

on Wednesday August 03, 2011 @02:13PM

fysdt writes: "Although we think it's generally a pretty nifty feature, valid concerns over the misuse of Facebook's auto-recognition tagging have lead Germany to ban it entirely. That's right—Facebook in its current state is now illegal. Deep Scheiße, Zuckerberg.

The German government—which possesses perhaps the world's most adamant privacy laws as a result of postwar abuse—considers The Book's facial recognition a violation of "the right to anonymity," The Atlantic reports."

Submission + - Governments,IOC and UN hit by massive cyber attack (bbc.co.uk)

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fysdt

on Wednesday August 03, 2011 @08:54AM

fysdt writes: "IT security firm McAfee claims to have uncovered one of the largest ever series of cyber attacks.

It lists 72 different organisations that were targeted over five years, including the International Olympic Committee, the UN and security firms.

McAfee will not say who it thinks is responsible, but there is speculation that China may be behind the attacks.

Beijing has always denied any state involvement in cyber-attacks, calling such accusations "groundless"."

Submission + - IMF Chief Calls on US to Raise Borrowing Limit (go.com)

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fysdt

on Sunday July 10, 2011 @10:01AM

fysdt writes: "The International Monetary Fund's new chief foresees "real nasty consequences" for the U.S. and global economies if the U.S. fails to raise its borrowing limit.

Christine Lagarde, the first woman to head the lending institution, said in an interview broadcast Sunday that it would cause interest rates to rise and stock markets to fall. That would threaten an important IMF goal, which is preserving stability in the world economy, she said.

The U.S. borrowing limit is $14.3 trillion. Obama administration officials say the U.S. would begin to default without an agreement by Aug. 2.

Lagarde, who took over as managing director July 5, also addressed the fallout stemming from the sexual assault charges filed against her predecessor, Dominique Strauss-Kahn."

Submission + - German parliament backs nuclear exit by 2022 (physorg.com)

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fysdt

on Friday July 08, 2011 @10:28AM

fysdt writes: "The German parliament sealed plans Friday to phase out nuclear energy by 2022, making the country the first major industrial power to take the step in the wake of the disaster at Japan's Fukushima plant.

The nuclear exit scheme cleared its final hurdle in the Bundesrat upper house, which represents the 16 regional states, after the legislation passed the Bundestag lower house with an overwhelming majority last week.

Germany's seven oldest reactors were already switched off after Japan's massive March 11 earthquake and tsunami knocked out cooling systems at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, causing reactors to overheat and radiation to leak.

A further reactor has been shut for years because of technical problems."

Submission + - Google Boots Transdroid From Android Market (torrentfreak.com)

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fysdt

on Sunday June 26, 2011 @04:37PM

fysdt writes: "Google has pulled one of the most popular torrent download managers from the Android Market because of policy violations. Before Google booted the application, Transdroid had been available for two years and amassed 400,000 users during that time. Thus far Google hasn’t specified what the exact nature of Transdoid’s violations are, but it’s not unlikely that they relate to copyright infringement.

For many Android users Transdroid is the perfect remote access app for managing their BitTorrent clients on the go. The app allows users to start and stop torrents, search torrent files and even use the barcode scanner to find matching torrent files.

Transdroid offered both a free and a paid version of the app, and judging from the 400,000 downloads people seemed to appreciate it. However, as of this week, Google decided that Transdroid is no longer eligible to be placed in the Android Market."

Submission + - Opera Founder Jon S. von Tetzchner Resigns (techcrunch.com)

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fysdt

on Friday June 24, 2011 @12:45PM

fysdt writes: "Opera founder Jon S. von Tetzchner has resigned from the company.

In an email to Opera employees, von Tetzchner said that “It has become clear that The Board, Management and I do not share the same values and we do not have the same opinions on how to keep evolving Opera. As a result I have come to an agreement with the Board to end my time at Opera. I feel the Board and Management is more quarterly focused than me.”"

Submission + - Bakebot Robot Makes Cookies, Saves Grandma a Job (pcworld.com)

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fysdt

on Monday June 13, 2011 @01:20PM

fysdt writes: "Cookies are a pretty awesome treat, but sometimes making them from scratch can be a bit of a chore. Fortunately, there is now a robot created to specifically create cookies--although it probably isn't good enough to replace human kitchen staff or grandma just yet.

Created by MIT Lab student Mario Bollini, the PR2 Bakebot loves nothing more than to bake up a batch of cookies from scratch. Bakebot loves it that much, it even gets to wear a fetching protective gown. The robot's left hand holds onto the mixing bowl, while its right hand does the hard work, mixing ingredients with a rubber spatula. Its head contains a laser scanner and sensor camera used to determine what each ingredients is and how much mixing and stirring it needs to do."

Submission + - ATM repairman accused of faking cash (gawker.com)

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fysdt

on Friday May 27, 2011 @08:12AM

fysdt writes: "An ATM repairman was nabbed in Phoenix on charges of having stolen about $200,000 in ATM funds from San Francisco-area branches of Bank of America. His method was almost brilliant in its sheer stupidity: He pocketed the cash, and replaced it in the machines with "counterfeit or photocopied $20 bills.""

Submission + - Modern Warfare 3 details leak (digitaltrends.com)

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fysdt

on Friday May 13, 2011 @05:19PM

fysdt writes: "Details on the next Call of Duty game, Modern Warfare 3, have not just leaked onto the internet, they have flooded. Among other details, a November 8 release date was released.

According to the a report coming from Kotaku, what was just a month ago among the best kept secrets of the gaming industry—details on the next Call of Duty game—has just become anything but."

Submission + - Apple Patents Keyboard That Knows What You'll Type (time.com)

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fysdt

on Thursday May 12, 2011 @11:55AM

fysdt writes: "Another day, another patent, this one from Apple for a very curious sort of keyboard that might be easier to type on because it'll know in advance which keys your fingertips want to hit.
No, not a device built by Emmett "Doc" Brown (as far as we know, anyway), or pulled back through time in a TARDIS—just a very special type of board with tiny inbuilt tactile sensors capable of detecting what your spider-formation fingers are about to tap before they actually do."

Submission + - Nuclear meltdown at Fukushima plant (telegraph.co.uk)

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fysdt

on Thursday May 12, 2011 @09:15AM

fysdt writes: "Engineers from the Tokyo Electric Power company (Tepco) entered the No.1 reactor at the end of last week for the first time and saw the top five feet or so of the core's 13ft-long fuel rods had been exposed to the air and melted down.

Previously, Tepco believed that the core of the reactor was submerged in enough water to keep it stable and that only 55 per cent of the core had been damaged."

Submission + - Ugly Truth of Space Junk (space.com) 2

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fysdt

on Tuesday May 10, 2011 @03:35PM

fysdt writes: "Dealing with the decades of detritus from using outer space — human-made orbital debris — is a global concern, but some experts are now questioning the feasibility of the wide range of "solutions" sketched out to grapple with high-speed space litter.

What may be shaping up is an "abandon in place" posture for certain orbital altitudes — an outlook that flags the messy message resulting from countless bits of orbital refuse.

U.S. General William Shelton, commander of Air Force Space Command, underscored the worrisome issue of orbital debris during a presentation at the National Space Symposium on April 12, 2011.

In a recent conference here, Gen. William Shelton, commander of the U.S. Air Force Space Command, relayed his worries about rising amounts of human-made space junk."

Submission + - Facebook caught exposing millions of credentials (theregister.co.uk)

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fysdt

on Tuesday May 10, 2011 @03:28PM

fysdt writes: "Facebook has leaked photographs, profiles and other personal information for millions of its users because of a years-old bug that overrides individual privacy settings, researchers from Symantec said.

The flaw, which the researchers estimate has affected hundreds of thousands of applications, exposed user access tokens to advertisers and others. The tokens serve as a spare set of keys that Facebook apps use to perform certain actions on behalf of the user, such as posting messages to a Facebook wall or sending RSVP replies to invitations. For years, many apps that rely on an older form of user authentication turned over these keys to third parties, giving them the ability to access information users specifically designated as off limits."

Submission + - Google launching music service without labels (reuters.com)

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fysdt

on Tuesday May 10, 2011 @11:35AM

fysdt writes: "Google Inc is set to launch an online music locker service to allow users to store and access their songs wherever they are, similar to one launched by Amazon.com Inc in March.

And like the Amazon Cloud Drive player, Google music service is being introduced on Tuesday without any prior licensing deals with major music labels, following months of fruitless negotiations."

Submission + - Battle Brews Over FBI's Warrantless GPS Tracking (wired.com)

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fysdt

on Monday May 09, 2011 @07:17AM

fysdt writes: "The FBI's use of GPS vehicle tracking devices is becoming a contentious privacy issue in the courts, with the Obama administration seeking Supreme Court approval for its use of the devices without a warrant, and a federal civil rights lawsuit targeting the Justice Department for tracking the movements of an Arab-American student. In the midst of this legal controversy, Threat Level decided to take a look at the inside of one of the devices, with the help of the teardown artists at iFixit."

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