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Technology

Submission + - The Raspberry Pi Turns One (paritynews.com)

Submitted by hypnosec
hypnosec writes: The Raspberry Pi turned one yesterday and marking the occasion the credit card-sized computer's main distributor Farnell element14 announced the month of March as the Raspberry Pi month. The company also baked a cake on the occasion. Raspberry PI was first launched on 29 February 2012 in the UK and it was received with a huge amount of enthusiasm by students and researchers alike. The Pi has had quite an eventful year with researchers building a Raspberry Pi cluster; release of an official turbo mode patch; 512 MB RAM upgrade; launch of Pi Store; sales of over a million units; and release of Minecraft Pocket Edition.
Google

Submission + - Could Google Glass Ruin Your Eyesight? (ieee.org)

Submitted by fluxgate
fluxgate writes: Steve Mann (who you might know for his having pioneered wearable computing as a grad student at MIT back in the 1990s) writes in IEEE Spectrum magazine about his decades of experience with computerized eyeware. His article warns that Google Glass hasn't been properly engineered to avoid creating disorientating effects and significant eyestrain. While it's hard to imagine that Google has missed something fundamental here, Mann convincingly describes why Google Glass users might experience serious problems. Full disclosure: I'm an editor at IEEE Spectrum.
Announcements

Submission + - Wikimedia To Move Its Servers To Ashburn, Virginia (wikimedia.org)

Submitted by hydrofix
hydrofix writes: The Wikimedia Foundation is preparing for the transition its main technical operations to a new data center in Ashburn, Virginia, USA. This is intended to improve the technical performance and reliability of all Wikimedia sites, including Wikipedia. The current target windows for the migration are January 22nd, 23rd and 24th, 2013, from 17:00 to 01:00 UTC. Since 2004, Wikimedia sites have been hosted in the main data center in Tampa, Florida. In 2009, the Wikimedia Foundation’s Technical Operations team started to look for other locations with better network connectivity and more clement weather. Located in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, Ashburn offers faster and more reliable connectivity than Tampa, and usually fewer hurricanes.
Security

Submission + - Laptop fingerprint reader destroys 'entire security model of Windows accounts' (networkworld.com)

Submitted by colinneagle
colinneagle writes: If your password management system is to use your "fingerprint as your master password," and if your laptop uses UPEK software, then you'll not be happy to know your Windows password is not secure and instead is easily crackable. In fact, "UPEK's implementation is nothing but a big, glowing security hole compromising (and effectively destroying) the entire security model of Windows accounts."

On the Elcomsoft blog about "advanced password cracking insight," Olga Koksharova had bad news for people who thought they were more secure by using biometrics, a UPEK fingerprint reader, instead of relying on a password. UPEK stores Windows account passwords in the registry "almost in plain text, barely scrambled but not encrypted." It's not just a few that are susceptible to hacking. "All laptops equipped with UPEK fingerprint readers and running UPEK Protector Suite are susceptible. If you ever registered your fingerprints with UPEK Protector Suite for accelerated Windows login and typed your account password there, you are at risk."
Ubuntu

Submission + - Ubuntu 12.04 LTS out - Unity gets a second chance (aboutlinux.info)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: So how does Ubuntu Precise Pangolin (12.04) fare ? I will say exceptionally well. Unity is not the same ugly duckling it was made out to be. In Ubuntu 12.04, it has transformed into a beautiful swan. As Ubuntu 12.04 is a long term release, the Ubuntu team has pulled all stops to make sure the user experience is positive.

Ubuntu 12.04 aka Precise Pangolin is definitely worthy of running on your machine.
Security

Submission + - A Week After Apple's Fix, Flashback Still Infects Half A Million Macs (forbes.com)

Submitted by Sparrowvsrevolution
Sparrowvsrevolution writes: Security firm Dr. Web released new statistics Friday showing that the process of eliminating Flashback from Macs is proceeding far slower than expected: On Friday the security firm, which first spotted the Mac botnet earlier this month, released new data showing that 610,000 active infected machines were counted Wednesday and 566,000 were counted Thursday. That's a slim decrease from the peak of 650,000 to 700,000 machines infected with the malware when Apple released its cleanup tool for the trojan late last week.

Earlier in the week, Symantec reported that only 140,000 machines remained infected, but admitted Friday that an error in its measurement caused it to underestimate the remaining infections, and it now agrees with Dr. Web's much more pessimistic numbers.

Comment A site for nerds... but is it made by nerds? (Score 1) 410

by gbl08ma (#39609475) Attached to: Slashdot Coming Attractions

I may not be a very old Slashdot user as you can tell from my ID, but from what I can tell, since I joined the "updates" to this site have been disgusting. I'm not even going to comment about the lack of proper Unicode support, or the semi-broken moderation system, or the misuse of the "report as inappropriate". I'm not going to comment for the use of JavaScript and AJAX where it's not needed, either - these are subjects that have been discussed a lot over since a lot of time ago, and in my opinion it has been given a lot of time to fix them already.

Now about Slashdot TV - what a joke (I really though it was an April Fool). Slashdot had its uniqueness because it used to focus on discussing things. If we want to discuss videos, there are already appropriate services for that - YouTube, etc. Slashdot used to be a place for discussing text, and that seems to be gone. It's an hassle to browse through comments on limited-resource devices (like old PDAs and even more recent Android devices and iDevices). And the mobile version of the website seems to be broken; support for the classic mode of Slashdot seems to be unsupported too, however, I don't use it, so I can't tell. Looks like you no longer want people to read and discuss, but instead, you want people to watch videos, while seeing a video ad every minute. So glad I use an ad-blocker combined with IP blacklisting.
I didn't watch many videos in their entirety from Slashdot TV (couldn't keep wasting my time and seeing more ads), but many people say the videos are not very interesting, and I got to agree.

More and more stories look like advertisements - the "slashvertisements" everyone talks about. I complain not only about these "slashvertisements", but also about the scope of the stories, which seem to be more banal every day that passes by - I mean, not nerd-focused at all. Not to talk about the fact that when the stories get to the home page, they are no longer news 75% of the times.

TL;DR
I feel Slashdot is turning on the back of its userbase. Slashdot's now a website that has bugs to be fixed for ages, and seems to desperately try to mimic Reddit/Endagadget/whatever and only cares about AJAX freshness and topics that bring only pageviews and flamebait discussions (i.e. "Apple"). And while it seems to exaggeratedly use JavaScript and "new web technologies" in one side, pretending to be very "nerdish", simultaneously launches a video-streaming website that uses a deprecated plug-in software for playing the videos, instead of using an open standard.

This is a website which supposedly has news for nerds, but is this a website run by real nerds?
Networking

Submission + - The 'Cable Guy' Now a Network Specialist

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Amy Chozick reports that cable guys, long depicted as slovenly cranks who dodged growling dogs and tracked mud on the living room carpet, often have backgrounds in engineering and computer science and certifications in network engineering. “Back in my day, you called the phone company, we hooked it up, gave you a phone book and left,” says Paul Holloway, a 30-year employee of Verizon, which offers phone, Internet, television and home monitoring services through its FiOS fiber optic network. “These days people are connecting iPhones, Xboxes and 17 other devices in the home.” The surge in high-tech offerings comes at a critical time for cable companies in an increasingly saturated Internet-based market where growth must come from all the extras like high-speed Internet service, home security, digital recording devices and other high-tech upgrades. “They should really change the name to Time Warner Internet,” says Quirino Madia, a supervisor for Time Warner Cable. “Nine out of 10 times, that’s all people care about.” Image upgrade is part of the strategy with a new dress code at some companies calling for button-down dress shirts and slacks but despite their enhanced stature and additional responsibilities, technicians haven’t benefited much financially. The median hourly income in 2010 for telecommunications equipment installers and repairers was $55,600 annually, up only 0.4 percent from 2008."
Google

Submission + - Did Microsoft make Google pay triple rate to Mozil (mozillazine.org)

Submitted by SharkLaser
SharkLaser writes: Last week it was announced that Google has renewed their search deal with Mozilla. The amount of which Google paid to Mozilla was surprising: $300 million per year, despite the sligtly falling market share of Firefox. Many took this as charity and for the purpose of advancing web. Now sources in the bidding process have revealed that Google's main rival in the bid was Microsoft's Bing, along with Yahoo. This bidding war was costly to Google, which is now paying 300% of what they used to, just to be Firefox's default search provider. Mozilla veteran Asa Dotzler is also giving insight to the deal between Google and Mozilla. "Google started out as a search company. But that's not what they are today. Google's primary business is advertising. Google brought in $9.7B in revenues in Q3'11. 96% of that revenue was from ad sales. Not all traffic to Google ads is 'organic' though. To help drive ad sales, Google pays for traffic to their ads. They paid out $2.21 billion, or 24% of their ad revenues in 'Traffic Acquisition Costs'. That money goes to revenue shares with their AdSense partners and to 'distribution partners' — presumably browser makers, PC OEMs, and mobile OEMs and operators.". Google also pays shareware and freeware distributors to bundle Chrome and Google toolbar with their programs and games.
Google

Submission + - Why We Agonize Over Buying $1 Apps 1

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: When it comes to explaining decision making and behavioral economics, Dan Ariely is the man. In his latest blog post, Ariely tackles the irrationality of app buying, explaining why the thought of paying even $1 for an app turns into an agonizing decision for those perfectly willing to spend $4 on coffee, or $500 on devices that they arguably don't really need. Had Apple created a really low minimum price for apps — say $0.15 — instead of offering free apps on day one, Ariely suggests, we would be anchored to the idea that apps should cost something. 'Then paying more (maybe even $2) for an app would be a simpler step,' he concludes, 'maybe one that we could take as easily as paying $4 for a latte.'
Medicine

Submission + - How Doctors Die 6

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Dr. Ken Murray, a Clinical Assistant Professor of Family Medicine at USC, writes that doctors don’t die like the rest of us. What’s unusual about doctors is not how much treatment they get when faced with death themselves, but how little. For all the time they spend fending off the deaths of others, they tend to be fairly serene when faced with death themselves because they know exactly what is going to happen, they know the choices, and they generally have access to any sort of medical care they could want. "Almost all medical professionals have seen what we call “futile care” being performed on people," writes Murray. "What it buys is misery we would not inflict on a terrorist. I cannot count the number of times fellow physicians have told me, in words that vary only slightly, 'Promise me if you find me like this that you’ll kill me.'" Feeding into the problem are unrealistic expectations of what doctors can accomplish. Many people think of CPR as a reliable lifesaver when, in fact, the results are usually poor. If a patient suffers from severe illness, old age, or a terminal disease, the odds of a good outcome from CPR are infinitesimal, while the odds of suffering are overwhelming. "If there is a state of the art of end-of-life care, it is this: death with dignity. As for me, my physician has my choices," says Murray. "They were easy to make, as they are for most physicians. There will be no heroics, and I will go gentle into that good night.""
HP

Submission + - HP TouchPad Go: $99? (ibtimes.com)

Submitted by
redletterdave
redletterdave writes: "The HP Touchpad Go, which is a smaller version of the company's signature TouchPad, may go on sale for $99 like its predecessor. The tablet features a 1023 x 768 resolution display, runs on webOS, and alsohas a removable cover with soft-touch coating to minimize fingerprints on the 7-inch screen. HP's new tablet also comes with a removable battery, 32GB of storage, a 3G radio, a five-megapixel camera and LED flash.HP designed the TouchPad Go around the same time as the larger model, but it failed to reach production stages when the company decided to kill off all devices running on the doomed webOS. If the tablet indeed sells for $99, it would be the cheapest tablet in the world besides the Aakash tablet, which was released by the Indian government for $35."

Submission + - OpenMoko's FreeRunner rises from the ashes

Submitted by ChristW
ChristW writes: Remember OpenMoko's first free and open source phones, the GTA-01 and GTA-02 (also called FreeRunner)? There is a new project called Phoenux. The German company Golden Delicous is building a new main board (called GTA-04) for the GTA01/02 case.

The new hardware features:
- DM3730 (800 MHz)
- GTM601W UMTS (HSPA)
(and lots more)
Firefox

Submission + - Chrome Becomes World's No. 2 Browser (ibtimes.com) 1

Submitted by
redletterdave
redletterdave writes: "Google Chrome has eclipsed Mozilla's Firefox browser as the world's second most popular Web browser and now only trailsMicrosoft's Internet Explorer,according to StatCounter.Chrome's worldwide market share is pegged at about 25.7 percent, while Firefox's market share is estimated to be roughly 25.2 percent. Internet Explorer still clearly dominates the market with 40.6 percent of the global share. Similar to the way Safari gets a boost from the iPhone and iPad, Chrome can reach even more people if it became available on Android devices, which sources say is "very likely.""

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Economists state their GNP growth projections to the nearest tenth of a percentage point to prove they have a sense of humor. -- Edgar R. Fiedler

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