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Medicine

Submission + - Dental X-Rays Linked To Common Brain Tumor (ibtimes.com)

redletterdave writes: "A new study suggests people who had certain kinds of dental X-rays in the past may be at an increased risk for meningioma, the most commonly diagnosed brain tumor in the U.S. Dr. Elizabeth Klaus, the study's lead author and a professor at the Yale School of Medicine, discovered that dental X-rays are the most common source of exposure to ionizing radiation — which has been linked to meningiomas in the past — and that those diagnosed with meningiomas were more than twice as likely as a comparison group to report ever having had bitewing images taken. And regardless of the age when the bitewings were taken, those who had them yearly or more frequently were at between 40 percent and 90 percent higher risk at all ages to be diagnosed with a brain tumor."
Hardware Hacking

Stephen Fry and DVD Jon Back USB Sniffer Project 126

An anonymous reader writes "bushing and pytey of the iPhone DevTeam and Team Twiizers have created a Kickstarter project to fund the build of an open-source/open-hardware high-speed USB protocol analyzer. The board features a high-speed USB 2.0 sniffer that will help with the reverse engineering of proprietary USB hardware. The project has gained the backing of two high-profile individuals: Jon Lech Johansen (DVD Jon), and actor and comedian Stephen Fry."
AMD

Submission + - AMD finally unveils Barcelona chip

Justin Oblehelm writes: AMD has finally unveiled its first set of quad-core processors, three months after its original launch datedue to its "complicated" design. Barcelona comes in three categories: high-performance, standard-performance and energy-efficient server models, but only the standard (up to 2.0 GHz) and energy-efficient (up to 1.9 GHz) categories will be available at launch. The high-performance Opterons, together with higher frequencies of the standard and energy-efficient chips, are expected in the out in the fourth quarter of this year. But it's far from clear that this is the product that will help right AMD's ship.
Security

Submission + - DHS acknowledges own computer break-ins (yahoo.com)

WrongSizeGlass writes: Yahoo is reporting about the computer security nightmare going on at the Department of Homeland Security. Senior DHS officials admitted to Congress that over a two year period there were 800 hacker break-ins, virus outbreaks and in one instance, hacker tools for stealing passwords and other files were found on two internal Homeland Security computer systems. I guess it's true what they say ... a mechanic's car is always the last to get fixed.
Sun Microsystems

Submission + - ZFS on Linux: It's alive! (linuxworld.com)

lymeca writes: LinuxWorld reports that Sun Microsystem's ZFS filesystem has been converted from its incanartion in OpenSolaris to a module capable of running in the Linux user-space filsystem project, FUSE. Because of the license incompatibilities with the Linux kernel, it has not yet been integrated for distribution within the kernel itself. This project, called ZFS on FUSE, aims to enable GNU/Linux users to use ZFS as a process in userspace, bypassing the legal barrier inherent in having the filesystem coded into the Linux kernel itself. Booting from a ZFS partition has been confirmed to work. The performance currently clocks in at about half as fast as XFS, but with all the success the NTFS-3g project has had creating a high performance FUSE implementation of the NTFS filesystem, there's hope that performance tweaking could yield a practical elimination of barriers for GNU/Linux users to make use of all that ZFS has to offer.
Programming

Submission + - Joining an existing Open Source Project

Tathagata writes: I have been using GNU/Linux for quite sometime now. Though I'm from Computer Science background, getting into a project that really involves you into programming was not possible, as people(read teachers) run away, if you utter the word "linux". Being least bothered about mentoring an exciting project, they would suggest you to get settled with visual basic, .NET, — and would prefer a 24 hour solution when it comes to programming.(I'm a student in my final year, from a West Bengal, India). So my programming endeavours have remained limited to writing few lines of C/C++, Java. For last few days I've been googling, and trying to read how to join an existing open source project, and avoid reinventing the wheel by starting yet another. I read people suggesting to start by submitting patches, fixing bugs, becoming package maintainer — but most are overloaded with jargon like upstream/downstream, nightly builds, etc. Added to that how does joining the mailing list, or irc channel help when you don't even understand their slangs, forget about the tech discussion? Distributed/centralised scm, track, bugzilla, launchpad, with sourceforge or freshmeat laden with an unlimited number of projects regarding everything you have ever come across — it quite an overwhelming world to step in. Could you suggest a road map, links to essential tools or a few projects, for people like me, who would want to improve their skills by contributing FOSS?
It's funny.  Laugh.

Submission + - At W3C : Public barred from 'public' conference (com.com)

xk0der writes: "The author: Declan McCullagh writes..
The World Wide Web Consortium, which purports to be an "open forum" for standards discussion, doesn't exactly live up to its own claims.
...
Danny Weitzner, one of the W3C's policy directors and event co-chair, repeatedly claimed in a followup telephone conversation that, by "public," the W3C actually means "closed to the public." Weitzner was the person who personally barred my colleague from entering the conference.
...
Read the full story Here"

Technology (Apple)

iPhone Gets Better Battery, Scratch Resistant Glass 527

Dekortage writes "Prior to its much-hyped launch on June 29, Apple has announced upgrades to its battery life (almost 40% more than originally announced) and scratch resistance (using "optical quality glass" rather than plastics). The announcement also includes a comparison chart pitting the iPhone against smartphones from Nokia, Samsung, Palm, and Blackberry."
Movies

Michael Moore's New Film Leaked To BitTorrent 1088

Jared writes "Michael Moore was afraid the Feds might sieze his new documentary Sicko, a scathing indictment of the US health-care system, because part of it was filmed in Cuba despite the US embargo. So he stashed a copy of the film in Canada just to be safe. He might as well not have bothered — the film has shown up on BitTorrent and P2P networks everywhere. So it's safe now."
Digital

Submission + - Cars of the Future (wired.com)

Lux writes: "Where will the car of the future come from?
NASA, MIT's Media Lab or Silicon Valley, where the sizzling, battery-powered Tesla Roadster debuted last summer. New technology that promises to revolutionize the automobile as we know it is emerging from research institutions and startups — and these innovations won't set you back $100,000 like a Tesla will... One experiment involves small electric motors located in the wheels of the CityCar, a tiny, nimble and practically silent vehicle with wheels that turn 360 degrees, enabling it to slip neatly into tight urban parking spaces. Others are looking to revolutionize the automobile's engine, not replace it."

Security

Submission + - Red Hat Linux gets top government security rating

zakeria writes: "Red Hat Linux has received a new level of security certification that should make the software more appealing to some government agencies. Earlier this month IBM was able to achieve EAL4 Augmented with ALC_FLR.3 certification for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, putting it on a par with Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Trusted Solaris operating system, said Dan Frye, vice president of open systems with IBM."
Books

Submission + - A book full of real-world applications of CSS (nateklaiber.com)

nateklaiber writes: "The Art and Science of CSS was a quick read (208 pages) and packed full of valuable code examples. Unlike other CSS books that teach you the specifics of CSS with vague examples (not vague in a bad way), this book teaches you specific examples and gives you extra resources. This book is somewhat of a cookbook of commonly used CSS methods. Each author brings their unique writing style to the table, and each chapter focuses on a specific aspect of design and its CSS and styling methods.

Chapter 1 starts with Headings. The author of this chapter gives a brief introduction to hierarchy and branding, and how you can achieve more control with your look and typography. As typography is discussed, he moves on to talk about image replacement and the many techniques available to us today. There is no perfect solution when it comes to image replacement, but the author does a great job of showing current methods, their advantages, and their disadvantages (including an in-depth section on sIFR).

Chapter 2 is all about Images. The author starts by showing you how to create a basic but aesthetically pleasing image gallery. The task at hand is to create the enlarged version, the thumbnail page, and the galleries page while keeping the markup lean and semantic. Each of these are put together very nicely with flair not usually seen in off the shelf image galleries. The author also discusses how to create images (in context) with captions, including a nice use of transparent PNGs. The authors creative use of captions give you options outside of the box (both semantically and philosophically) of normal captions that are seen all around the web.

Chapter 3 shows us that backgrounds dont have to be boring. This is a very simple chapter that discusses backgrounds of the past (repeating pictures, large pictures, etc), and then looks forward to the present in getting creative with your backgrounds. He uses a case study as an example, and it shows specifics of positioning and layering.

Chapter 4 jumps into Navigation. Different types of navigations are discussed (vertical, horizontal, tabbed, variable width, etc) and shown with specific examples. The author shows how to take from each of those to create advanced navigation systems using images and your semantic markup. I think that from this chapter a user could create an advanced navigation simply because the foundation is set pretty solid before he gets to the advanced section. This chapter goes hand-in-hand with chapter 1 when talking about image replacement.

Chapter 5 discusses the dreaded (sometimes feared) Forms. Forms come in all shapes and sizes and it is up to us to build them accordingly with the user in mind. The styling in this chapter spruces up what is a rather mundane form while giving you great flexibility and hooks to extend yourself. The author discusses the several different layout types (top aligned label, left aligned label, right aligned label) and shows how to enhance each. If you work with forms often, this chapter will help you whip up a clean interface for the task.

Chapter 6 is everybodys favorite chapter Rounded Corners. The author gives you an arsenal of tools (and knowledge) to attack the task of adding rounded corners. He discusses the different methods (horizontal stretching, vertical stretching, and full flexibility) and shows you how to achieve each keeping in mind the task of keeping the markup minimal and meaningful. We also get a brief glimpse into what CSS3 will have to offer us with multiple backgrounds per element.

Chapter 7 closes out the book with Tables. Tables still have a strong place in web development and the author shows you how to use tables properly (with semantic markup) and then how to give them a little visual jump-start and interaction. The markup presented here helps you give clear meaning to your tables as well as building with accessibility in mind (which is always important with tables, specifically). We round off the chapter looking at some interaction enhancements via Javascript that we can use with our tables (sorting, striping, and hovering).

Overall I found this book to be an excellent read. It was short and to the point, and gives the reader a great starting point (as well as inspiration). The book itself is well designed. My only qualms with the book is that the code examples are listed in full in many places, which gives less room for content related to the chapters. As I said in the beginning, this was a fairly quick read but well worth it. I would say that this is for an intermediate CSS developer, as specific CSS is not discussed in great detail but given to you as a way to achieve a specific design task. If you are familiar with CSS and need a quick way to achieve the tasks listed above, then this book is perfect for you."

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