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Submission + - Prisoners Freed After Cops Struggle With New Records Software (itworld.com)

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: Police in Dallas are scrambling after difficulties using a new records management system caused more than 20 jail inmates, including a number of people charged with violent crimes, to be set free. The prisoners were able to get out of jail because police officers struggling to learn the new system didn't file cases on them within three days, as required by law.
Programming

Submission + - The Programmers Go Coding Two-by-Two, Hurrah? 1

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: The Wall Street Journal reports that pair programming is all the rage at tech darlings Facebook and Square. Its advocates speak in glowing terms of the power of pair programming, saying paired coders can catch costly software errors and are less likely to waste time surfing the Web. 'The communication becomes so deep that you don't even use behind anymore,' says Facebook programmer Kent Beck. 'You just grunt and point.' Such reverent tones prompted Atlassian to poke a little fun at the practice with Spooning, an instructional video in which a burly engineer sits on a colleague's lap, wraps his arms around his partner's waist and types along with him hand over hand.
Mars

Submission + - Meet the Very First Rover to Land on Mars (ieee.org)

Submitted by toygeek
toygeek writes: Before Curiosity, before Opportunity, before Spirit, and before Sojourner, the very first robot to land on Mars was this little guy, way back in December of 1971. Called PrOP-M, the rover was part of the Soviet Union's Mars-3 mission, which had the potential to deploy the first ever mobile scientific instruments onto the Martian surface. Article also contains Russian video on early rovers.
Security

Submission + - Time machines, computer memory, and brute force attacks against smartcards (ieee.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: IEEE Spectrum reports on a method that exploits the decaying contents of unpowered computer memory to create an hourglass-like "time machine" that rate limits brute force attacks against contactless smartcards and RFIDs. The paper takes an odd twist on the "cold boot" attack reported four years ago at USENIX Security. Not quite as cool as a hot tub time machine though. https://spqr.cs.umass.edu/papers/rahmati-usenix12.pdf
Games

Submission + - GameStop Wants To Sell Secondhand Digital Download Video Games (hothardware.com)

Submitted by
MojoKid
MojoKid writes: "GameStop makes a killing selling used videogames, but what happens to that business model when digital distribution platforms run physical media out of town? That's not anything to worry about today, tomorrow, next week, or even next year, but at some point, GameStop will have to deal with the direction the games industry is headed, and it may already have a solution. GameStop CEO Paul Raines recently brought up the possibility of reselling used digital downloads."

Submission + - Amazon To Offer Ad-Supported Kindle (amazon.com)

Submitted by awyeah
awyeah writes: Amazon will soon be offering a discounted, ad-supported wifi Kindle called "Kindle with Special Offers." The price will be $114, a $25 discount from the $139 wifi-only device. Note that the advertisements will not appear during reading, only on the screen saver and home page. Will that be enough of a discount to get readers to purchase an ad-supported device?
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft TouchStudio Uses Phone to Program Phone

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Over the weekend, Microsoft released the beta of TouchStudio, a free Windows Phone app that allows one to write programs for a phone on the very same phone, no computer required. According to the Microsoft Research project page, the work-in-progress TouchStudio aims to bring 'the excitement of the first programmable personal computers to the phone.' Among the code examples provided is a four-liner that scans a phone's music collection for songs less than three minutes long and produces a fairly slick, clickable playlist complete with track info and artwork. Easier than iPhone SDK programming, no?
User Journal

Journal Journal: Self Assembly of Charges

Journal by mburns

Consider a superluminal center of dilation (a center of a sequence of blue partitions in my descriptive scheme) that crosses paths with a subluminal center of dilation (red). In that plane, there is a resemblance to the Kaluza-Klein charge. With sufficient interaction, such as in a Kaluza-Klein dimension, These centers will carry out a push me pull you interaction so that the subluminal center is accelerated to near light speed, and the superluminal slowed to near light speed. This is a resul
Education

Future Game Coders - Online Education or College? 143

Posted by Cliff from the a-fork-in-the-road dept.
An anonymous reader asks: "My cousin is about to graduate high school and wants to enter the game industry. I told him to get a day job (possibly as QA in a game studio) and get an online degree like DeVry's Game and Simulation Programming degree or The Art Institute of Pittsburgh's Game Art & Design degree. I have a BS and an MS in Computer Science, and I've only found what I learned mildly useful for my game programming hobby. Should he suck it up and get a 4-year degree, or is taking online courses focused on game development the way to go? Has anybody gotten one of these degrees and done well for themselves?"
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - John McCain's MySpace Page "Pranked"

Submitted by
(EB)nickm
(EB)nickm writes: "Looks as though a staffer didn't read the fine print of the "credit" clause when selecting a template for presidential hopeful John McCain's MySpace page. In retaliation, the template author and CEO of Newsvine, Mike Davidson, changed the template's main image to contain the following message:

Today I announce that I have reversed my position and come out in full support of gay marriage...particularly marriage between two passionate females.
Original story and screen capture at TechCrunch."
Music

Submission + - RIAA Backs Down After Receiving Stern Letter

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "In SONY BMG v. Merchant, in California, the defendant's lawyer wrote the RIAA a rather stern letter recounting how weak the RIAA's evidence is, referring to the deposition of the RIAA's expert witness (see Slashdot commentary), and threatening a malicious prosecution lawsuit. The very same day the RIAA put its tail between its legs and dropped the case, filing a Notice of Voluntary Dismissal. About an hour earlier NYCL had termed the letter a "model letter"; maybe he was right."

Comment Let 1st world users sponsor them (Score 3, Interesting) 253

by guard952 (#14572560) Attached to: U.N. Lends Backing to the $100 Laptop
Seriously, sell these $100 laptops over here for $200. Every laptop purchased also buys one for a poor child on the other side of the economy scale. I'm sure $200 is about right for the "my first computer" age group. Or those who want a cheap lappy for email or aspiring authors. Also sell a solar panel as an accessory and all the greenies would go for it too!

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