max8061 - Slashdot User

Submission + - Motorola Marketed The Moto E 2015 On Promise Of Updates, Stops After 219 Days (androidpolice.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 02, 2015 @05:07PM

An anonymous reader writes: Over the past few years, Motorola has emerged as one of the best manufacturers for low-to-mid-range Android phones. Unlike many other major manufacturers, they keep their version of Android close to stock in order to keep OS updates flowing more easily. When they began marketing the Moto E 2015, updates were one of the features they trumpeted the loudest. But after publishing a list of devices that will continue to get updates, Android Police found that Moto E to be conspicuously absent. The phone launched in February, a mere 219 days ago. According to an official Motorola marketing video from launch day, "...we won't forget about you, and we'll make sure your Moto E stays up to date after you buy it."

Submission + - Amazon to cease sale of Apple TV and Chromecast (betanews.com)

Submitted by Mark Wilson on Thursday October 01, 2015 @02:47PM

Mark Wilson writes: As of 29 October, shoppers will no longer be able to buy Apple TV or Chromecast devices from Amazon. Citing compatibility issues with Prime Video, Amazon emailed marketplace sellers to inform them it is not accepting new listings for the two media devices, and any existing listings will be removed at the end of October.

The move indicates not only the importance Amazon places on its streaming Prime Video service, but also that it views Apple and Google as serious rivals. The two companies have yet to respond to the news, but it is unlikely to be well-received.

Submission + - 30 years a sysadmin (itworld.com)

Submitted by itwbennett on Thursday October 01, 2015 @11:51AM

itwbennett writes: Sandra Henry-Stocker’s love affair with Unix started in the early 1980s when she 'was quickly enamored of the command line and how much [she] could get done using pipes and commands like grep.’ Back then, she was working on a Zilog minicomputer, a system, she recalls, that was 'about this size of a dorm refrigerator’. Over the intervening years, a lot has changed, not just about the technology, but about the job itself. 'We might be ‘just' doing systems administration, but that role has moved heavily into managing security, controlling access to a wide range of resources, analyzing network traffic, scrutinizing log files, and fixing the chinks on our cyber armor,’ writes Henry-Stocker. What hasn’t changed? Systems administration remains a largely thankless role with little room for career advancement, albeit one that she is quick to note is ‘seldom boring’ and ‘reasonably' well-paid.

Submission + - Carly Fiorina: I Supplied HP Servers for NSA Snooping

Submitted by Motherfucking Shit on Tuesday September 29, 2015 @02:09PM

Motherfucking Shit writes: According to an article at Motherboard, shortly after 9/11, NSA director Michael Hayden requested extra computing power and Carly Fiorina, then CEO of HP, responded by re-routing truckloads of servers to the agency. Fiorina acknowledged providing the servers to the NSA during an interview with Michael Isikoff in which she defended warrantless surveillance (as well as waterboarding) and framed her collaboration with the NSA in patriotic terms. Fiorina’s compliance with Hayden’s request for HP servers is but one episode in a long-running and close relationship between the GOP presidential hopeful and US intelligence agencies.

Submission + - Test Pilot Admits the F-35 Can't Dogfight (medium.com)

Submitted by schwit1 on Tuesday June 30, 2015 @01:09PM

schwit1 writes: A test pilot has some very, very bad news about the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The pricey new stealth jet can't turn or climb fast enough to hit an enemy plane during a dogfight or to dodge the enemy's own gunfire, the pilot reported following a day of mock air battles back in January.

And to add insult to injury, the JSF flier discovered he couldn't even comfortably move his head inside the radar-evading jet's cramped cockpit. "The helmet was too large for the space inside the canopy to adequately see behind the aircraft." That allowed the F-16 to sneak up on him.

The test pilot's report is the latest evidence of fundamental problems with the design of the F-35 — which, at a total program cost of more than a trillion dollars, is history's most expensive weapon.

Your tax dollars at work.

Submission + - Stanford breakthrough could make better chips cheaper (computerworld.com.au)

Submitted by angry tapir on Tuesday March 24, 2015 @07:52PM

angry tapir writes: Researchers at Stanford University have come up with a new way to make chips and solar panels using gallium arsenide, a semiconductor that beats silicon in several important areas but is typically too expensive for widespread use.

Submission + - Jupiter destroyed 'super-Earths' in our early solar system (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit on Tuesday March 24, 2015 @12:02PM

sciencehabit writes: If Jupiter and Saturn hadn’t formed where they did—and at the sizes they did—as the disk of dust and gas around our sun coalesced, then our solar system would be a very different and possibly more hostile place, new research suggests. Computer models reveal that in the solar system’s first 3 million years or so, gravitational interactions with Jupiter, Saturn, and the gas in the protoplanetary disk would have driven super-Earth–sized planets closer to the sun and into increasingly elliptical orbits. In such paths, a cascade of collisions would have blasted any orbs present there into ever smaller bits, which in turn would have been slowed by the interplanetary equivalent of atmospheric drag and eventually plunged into the sun. As Jupiter retreated from its closest approach to the sun, it left behind the mostly rocky remnants that later coalesced into our solar system’s inner planets, including Earth.

Submission + - Swedish Authorities Offer To Question Assange in London (theguardian.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 13, 2015 @08:36AM

An anonymous reader writes: Since 2012, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been holed up inside Ecuador's embassy in London trying to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he faces sexual assault investigation. Now, after the case has been stalled for years, Swedish prosecutors are now arranging to come to London and question Assange within the embassy. According to his lawyer, Assange welcomes this, but Sweden still needs to be granted permission from both the UK and Ecuador. "Assange’s lawyers, who are appealing against his arrest warrant in Sweden’s highest court, have complained bitterly about the prosecutor’s refusal to travel to London to speak to him – an essential step under Swedish jurisprudence to establish whether Assange can be formally charged. [Lead investigator Marianne] Ny’s refusal, they say, has condemned Assange to severe limitations on his freedom that are disproportionate to the accusations against him." Ny has also requested a DNA sample from Assange.

Submission + - Samsung Smart TVs forcing ads into video streaming apps (cnet.com) 1

Submitted by mpicpp on Wednesday February 11, 2015 @12:14AM

mpicpp writes: Just days after its TV voice recognition software came under fire for invading privacy, Samsung users are reporting unwanted Pepsi ads appearing while they watch their Smart TVs.

Reports are emerging that Samsung smart TVs have begun inserting short advertisements directly into video streaming apps, with no influence from the third-party app providers.

The news comes just days after Samsung made headlines for another incursion into user's lounge rooms, when it was revealed that its TV voice recognition software is capable of capturing personal information and transmitting it to third parties. The issue was discovered in the fine print of Samsung's voice recognition privacy policy, but the company says it has since changed the policy to "better explain what actually occurs" during this voice capture process.

The latest complaints directed at the South Korean electronics giant relate to a Pepsi advertisement that has reportedly started to appear during content streamed through Smart TV apps from personal media libraries and video streaming services.

The issue has been reported on the Plex streaming service — a brand of media player that allows users to stream their own video from a personal library or hard drive and push it to a smart TV.

One Plex user took to the company's customer forum to complain about the constant intrusion of ads on his Samsung TV.

"I have recently upgraded my Plex Media Server to version 0.9.1101 and every 10-15 minutes whilst watching content on my Samsung TV I get a Pepsi advertisement showing!" user Mike wrote. "At first I thought I was seeing things but no it repeats. Sometimes I can get out of it and go back to my media, others it hangs the app and the TV restarts."

Submission + - Woman suffers significant weight gain after fecal transplant (foxnews.com)

Submitted by Beeftopia on Friday February 06, 2015 @10:22PM

Beeftopia writes: In a case reported in the journal Open Forum Infectious Diseases, a woman suffering from a drug-resistant intestinal infection gained 36 pounds after receiving a fecal transplant from her overweight daughter. Previous mouse studies have shown thin mice gain weight after ingesting fecal bacteria from obese mice. The woman previously was not overweight. After the procedure, despite a medically supervised liquid protein diet and exercise regimen, the woman remained obese. Her doctor said, "She came back about a year later and complained of tremendous weight gain... She felt like a switch flipped in her body, to this day she continues to have problems... as a result I'm very careful with all our donors don't use obese people."

Submission + - Sony plan to pull out of MPAA revealed (nytimes.com)

Submitted by Earthquake Retrofit on Thursday February 05, 2015 @06:30PM

Earthquake Retrofit writes: The New York Times is reporting: "... Sony Pictures chairman Michael Lynton last month told industry colleagues of a plan to withdraw from the movie trade organization, according to people who have been briefed on the discussions. He cited the organization's slow response and lack of public support in the aftermath of the attack on Sony and its film “The Interview,” as well as longstanding concerns about the cost and efficacy of the group."

Submission + - Study predicts 9% drop in salaries of new CS grads this year (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by Jim_Austin on Tuesday February 03, 2015 @04:00PM

Jim_Austin writes: The first report on the class of 2015 from the respected National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), which conducts surveys of employers’ hiring intentions throughout the year, projects a 9% drop in the salaries of new computer science bachelor's degree graduates, from $67,300 in 2014 to $61,287 this year.

Submission + - FDA finds herbal supplements at GNC, Walmart don't contain what they claim

Submitted by MikeChino on Tuesday February 03, 2015 @01:26PM

MikeChino writes: The New York State Attorney General's Office is demanding that GNC, Walmart, Walgreens, and Target remove store brand herbal supplements from their shelves after the pills were found to be packed with a strange array of fraudulent—and in some cases hazardous—ingredients. Popular supplements such as ginseng, valerian root, and St. John's wort sold under store brand names at the four major retailers were found to contain powdered rice, asparagus, and even houseplants, while being completely void of any of the ingredients on the label.

Submission + - HealthCare.gov Sends Personal Data to Dozens of Tracking Websites (eff.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 20, 2015 @10:02PM

An anonymous reader writes: From the AP: that healthcare.gov–the flagship site of the Affordable Care Act, is quietly sending personal health information to a number of third party websites. The information being sent includes one's zip code, income level, smoking status, pregnancy status and more.

Submission + - Being Colder May Be Good For Your Health (theatlantic.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 29, 2014 @07:31PM

An anonymous reader writes: If you live in a developed nation, you're probably pretty warm throughout most of the day. Enclosed spaces, thick clothing, and heating devices do a good job to keep the cold away. But this hasn't been the case for most of human history. Even in warmer climates, humans often had to deal with chilly nights and tough winters. That's where our metabolic system evolved, and now people are doing research to figure out if that's a better natural state for maintaining our health. One recent study found that "when people cool their bedrooms from 75 degrees to 66 degrees, they gain brown fat, the metabolically active fat that burns calories to generate heat." Another showed that "even after controlling for diet, lifestyle, and other factors, people who live in warmer parts of Spain are more likely to be obese than people who live in the cooler parts." The article talks about people letting their house temperatures drop into the 50s and wearing ice vests during the day, all in the name of further research.

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