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News

Submission + - The Queen sets a code-breaking challenge (i-programmer.info)

mikejuk writes: Queen Elizabeth II has made her first ever visit to Bletchley Park, the home of the UK's World War II code-breaking efforts and now a museum. To mark the occasion The Queen has issued a code cracking challenge of her own "The Agent X Code Book Challenge" aimed at getting children interested in cryptography. Perhaps a royal programming or general technology challenge is next....
Businesses

Submission + - A Tale of Two Countries 1

theodp writes: Over at TechCrunch, Jon Bischke is troubled by the growing divide between Silicon Valley and unemployed America. While people who spend most of their days within a few blocks of tech start-up epicenters are enjoying a boom/bubble, the number of unemployed now eclipses 14 million nationwide, labor under-utilization is 16.2%, and the mean duration of unemployment has spiked to 40 weeks. 'Which bring us to an important question,' writes Bischke. 'Should Silicon Valley (and other tech clusters throughout the country) care? After all, as long as people in Nebraska or the Central Valley of California have enough money to buy virtual tractors to tend their crops in Farmville, should the tech community be worried about whether those same people are getting paid to do work in the real world? Is what’s best for Silicon Valley also good for America?'
Social Networks

Submission + - Banned From Google+, Anonymous Creates Anonplus

An anonymous reader writes: Google has reportedly banned a handful of Anonymous members from Google+ (it's not exactly clear how many accounts were shut down). The hacktivist group likened Google's actions to the stories of activists being banned from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, as well as governments blocking various websites using Internet censorship tools. As a result, Anonymous has decided to create its own social network: Anonplus.
Education

Submission + - How Education Is Changing Thanks To Khan Academy (wired.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Wired reports on how freely-available lectures from Khan Academy are affecting both teaching methods and learning methods in classrooms across the country. From the article: 'Initially, Thordarson thought Khan Academy would merely be a helpful supplement to her normal instruction. But it quickly become far more than that. She's now on her way to "flipping" the way her class works. This involves replacing some of her lectures with Khan's videos, which students can watch at home. Then, in class, they focus on working problem sets. The idea is to invert the normal rhythms of school, so that lectures are viewed on the kids' own time and homework is done at school. It sounds weird, Thordarson admits, but this flipping makes sense when you think about it. It's when they're doing homework that students are really grappling with a subject and are most likely to need someone to talk to. And now Thordarson can tell just when this grappling occurs: Khan Academy provides teachers with a dashboard application that lets her see the instant a student gets stuck. "I'm able to give specific, pinpointed help when needed, she says. The result is that Thordarson's students move at their own pace. Those who are struggling get surgically targeted guidance, while advanced kids like Carpenter rocket far ahead; once they're answering questions without making mistakes, Khan's site automatically recommends new topics to move on to.'
Crime

Submission + - CSI smartphone (pcpro.co.uk)

Barence writes: "Your smartphone could place you at the scene of a crime, destroy an alibi or maybe even provide one – which is why one of the first things police now do at the scene of a crime is take away a suspect’s cellphone. PC Pro's examination of smartphone forensics reveals how even wiping incriminating data from iPhones isn't enough to get criminals off the hook. "If you’re looking at your email messages and you rotate the phone, there’s a snapshot of that message," said Phil Ridley, a mobile phone analyst with CCL-Forensics.

And what people leave on their phones is horrific. "We were contacted by police who couldn’t get a video to work on a handset – it turned out to be a bloke beheading someone in his garage," claimed another forensics expert."

Science

Submission + - US revamps sci-tech standard-setting efforts (networkworld.com)

coondoggie writes: The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has been given new marching orders: expand work with the private sector to develop standards for a range of key technologies such as cloud computing, emergency communications and tracking, green manufacturing and high performance green building construction. NIST could also see its core science and technology budget double by 2017. NIST has also cut the number of labs it runs to 6 from 10. NIST labs now include, engineering, physical measurement, information technology, material measurement, the Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology and the NIST Center for Neutron Research.
Idle

Submission + - Girl quits job on dry erase board, emails entire o (gizmodo.com) 4

suraj.sun writes: Girl quits her job on dry erase board, emails entire office (33 Photos)

Young woman has job. Boss calls young woman "hot piece of ass." Young woman quits, uses dry erase board to fire back by emailing these photos to the entire office. Boss, it seems, loved playing FarmVille during work hours too much.

Gizmodo: http://gizmodo.com/5609415/hot-piece-of-ass-busts-boss-for-farmville-obsession

the Chive: http://thechive.com/2010/08/10/girl-quits-her-job-on-dry-erase-board-emails-entire-office-33-photos/

Privacy

Submission + - Researchers: Browser Private Modes Not So Private (computerworld.com)

CWmike writes: Browsing in 'private mode" isn't as private as users think, reports Gregg Keizer. 'There are some traces left behind [by all browsers] that could reveal some of the sites that you've been to,' said researcher Collin Jackson. He, along with three colleagues, will present their findings on Tuesday at the Usenix Security Symposium in D.C. IE, Firefox and Safari, for instance, leave traces of SSL encryption keys even when run in private mode, while IE and Safari on Windows preserve self-signed SSL certificates in a 'vault' file that could be read by others to track the browser's path. Firefox also retains evidence of some certificates. Private mode has also been billed as a way for users to hide themselves from the prying eyes of sites that try to track habits and histories. Jackson said most users see that as the biggest attraction to private mode. 'Some browsers do a better job of protecting you from other types of scenarios, such as Web site tracking,' Jackson said. 'Safari is very much more willing to reveal you to Web sites than the others.'
Data Storage

Submission + - New Toshiba Drives Wipe Data When Turned Off (computerworld.com)

CWmike writes: Toshiba on Tuesday introduced a new hard drive feature that can wipe out data after the storage devices are powered down. The Wipe feature in Toshiba's SED (Self-Encrypting Drives) will allow for deletion of secure data prior to disposing or repurposing hard drives, Toshiba said. The technology invalidates a hard-drive security key when a system's power supply is turned off. The new Wipe capability will go into future versions of the SED drives, for which no timeframe was given. Beyond use in PCs, Toshiba wants to put this feature on storage devices in copiers and printers.
Software

Submission + - OpenBSD 4.7 released (ww)

An anonymous reader writes: The release of OpenBSD 4.7 was announced today. Included in this release are support for more wireless cards, the loongson platform, pf improvements, many midlayer filesystem improvements including a new dynamic buffer cache, dynamic VFS name cache rewrite and NFS client stability fixes, routing daemon improvements including the new MPLS label distribution protocol daemon (ldpd) and over 5,800 packages. Please help support the project by ordering your copy today!
Robotics

iRobot Introduces Morphing Blob Robot 177

Aristos Mazer sends word of research out of iRobot on a "chembot," or morphing blob robot, that looks like dough and moves by shifting its sides from solid-like to liquid-like states. This will allow it, in theory and after lots of refinement, to pass through cracks by squeezing. iRobot calls the new technique "jamming." The research project was funded by DARPA. The video clearly shows the early stage the work is in, but when you think about it the possibilities are a little unsettling.
Upgrades

Kernel 2.6.31 To Speed Up Linux Desktop 360

Dan Jones writes "As the Linux community looks forward to another kernel release, the kernel hackers have been working on improving the memory management so that the X desktop responsiveness is doubled under high memory pressure. The result is an improved desktop experience. Benchmarks on memory-tight desktops show clock time and major faults reduced by 50 per cent, and pswpin numbers (memory reads from disk) are reduced to about one-third. Another improvement coming with 2.6.31 is kernel mode-setting support for ATI Radeon graphics cards, enabling faster user switching and a more seamless startup experience. Peripheral developments that will also improve the Linux desktop experience include support for the new USB 3.0 specification and a new Firewire stack. Even minor Linux releases have heaps of new features these days!"
Microsoft

Microsoft Poland Photoshops Black Guy To White One 964

wanted writes "If you look at Microsoft's Poland business solutions Web site, you will probably not notice anything odd about the main picture. However, when you compare it with the original English version, you can see that someone decided that showing black people in Poland is probably not going to be convincing to business. They just Photoshopped the head of a white guy in for the black one, in an amateurish way, leaving his hand unchanged. (Here's a mirror in case something should happen to the original.)" We noted a few months back that the city of Toronto had done something similar.
XBox (Games)

Xbox 360 Failure Rate Is 54.2% 607

Colonel Korn writes "The Seattle PI Blog is reporting that a soon to be published Game Informer survey finally shows the failure rate of XBOX 360s: 54%! The survey also shows the rates of failure for the PS3 (11%) and Wii (7%). Impressively, only 4% of respondents said they wouldn't buy a new 360 because of hardware failures."

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