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Google

Submission + - The Android Gets its HyperCard

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Steve Jobs & Co. put the kibosh on easier cellphone development, but Google is giving it a shot. The NY Times reports that Google is bringing Android software development to the masses, offering a software tool starting Monday that's intended to make it easy for people to write applications for its Android phones. The free software, called Google App Inventor for Android, has been under development for a year. User testing has been done mainly in schools with groups that included sixth graders, high school girls, nursing students and university undergraduates who are not CS majors. The thinking behind the initiative, Google said, is that as cellphones increasingly become the computers that people rely on most, users should be able to make applications themselves. It's something Apple should be taking very seriously, advises TechCrunch.
Iphone

Submission + - Phantom Data Sent By Sleeping iPhones (thinq.co.uk)

Submitted by Stoobalou
Stoobalou writes: Now that just about every airtime provider is rethinking its mobile data plans, with most putting an end to unlimited contracts, it looks like iPhone users are paying more attention to their bills, and in particular how much data they are using.

A large number of users in the USA and here in the UK have discovered that their iPhones are apparently sending large chunks of data during the wee small hours using the 3G network.
Math

Submission + - First replicating creature spawned in simulator (newscientist.com)

Submitted by Calopteryx
Calopteryx writes: "This is arguably the single most impressive and important pattern ever devised," says a Game of Life enthusiast. New Scientist has a story on a self-replicating entity which inhabits the mathematical universe known as the Game of Life. The existence of Gemini could help us understand how life on Earth began, or inspire strategies to build tiny computers

Submission + - Impact on Jupiter Observed by Amateur Astronomers (spaceweather.com)

Submitted by Omomyid
Omomyid writes: Space Weather has the story of a bright impact observed on Jupiter, they also have video (WMV file) from one of the amateur sky watchers — pay attention, it goes by quick! From the article:

The nature of the impactor is presently unknown. It might have been an asteroid or a comet. In either case, a dark and cindery debris field is expected to develop around the impact point; that's what has happened in the aftermath of previous Jupiter impacts. Professional and amateur astronomers are encouraged to monitor Jupiter in the hours ahead, and stay tuned for updates.
Science

Submission + - "Argonaut" Octopus Sucks Air Into Shell as Ballast (discovermagazine.com)

Submitted by audiovideodisco
audiovideodisco writes: Even among octopuses, the Argonaut must be one of the coolest. It gets its nickname—"paper nautilus"—from the fragile shell the female assembles around herself after mating with the tiny male (whose tentacle/penis breaks off and remains in the female). For millennia, people have wondered what the shell was for; Aristotle thought the octopus used it as a boat and its tentacles as oars and sails.

Now scientists who managed to study Argonauts in the wild confirm a different hypothesis: that the octopus sucks air into its shell and uses it for ballast as it weaves its way through the ocean like a tiny submarine. The researchers' beautiful video and photographs show just how the Argonaut pulls off this trick. The regular (non-paper) nautilus also uses its shell for ballast, but the distant relationship between it and all octopuses suggests this is a case of convergent evolution.

Submission + - Don’t talk to aliens, warns Stephen Hawking (timesonline.co.uk)

Submitted by Megaport
Megaport writes: Promoting his new series on Discovery channel, Stephen Hawking has given an interview to the Times where "he has suggested that extraterrestrials are almost certain to exist but that instead of seeking them out, humanity should be doing all it that can to avoid any contact." He says, "If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn't turn out very well for the Native Americans."

Personally, I've always thought that the indigenous people of the world really had no chance to avoid contact here on such a small planet, but is hiding under our collective bed an option for humanity in the wider galaxy?
Iphone

Submission + - Android ported to iPhone (blogspot.com)

Submitted by anethema
anethema writes: iPhone hacker planetbeing, from the iPhone Dev Team has successfully ported the Android OS over to the iPhone. He is doing it on a first generation iPhone, but others may be possible. The port is pretty functional, with data, voice, and many apps working, although it is running a bit sluggish and buggy at the moment, since there appears to be much work left.

Any donations of time, money, or code I'm sure would be appreciated.

Submission + - UK scientists create three-person Franken-embryo (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Troll-Under-D'Bridge
Troll-Under-D'Bridge writes: The BBC reports that British scientists have manufactured embryos containing genetic material from a man and two women. Under the procedure developed by scientists from Newcastle University, the nuclei from a father's sperm and a mother's egg are transferred into a second woman's egg "from which the nucleus had been removed, but which retained its mitochondria". The research, which may "help mothers with rare genetic disorders have healthy children", used embryos left over from IVF treatment.
Security

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: How Do I Fight Russian Site Cloners? 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: I used to run a small web design service--the domain for which, I allowed to expire after years of non-use. A few weeks ago, I noticed that my old site was back online at the old domain. The site-cloners are now using my old email addresses to gain access to old third-party web services accounts (invoicing tools, etc.) and are fraudulently billing my clients for years of services. I've contacted the Russian site host, PayPal, and the invoicing service. What more can I do? Can I fight back?
Java

Submission + - Sun Pushes Emergency Java Patch (threatpost.com)

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: In a sudden about-face, Sun has rushed out a Java update to fix a drive-by download vulnerability that exposed Windows users to in-the-wild malware attacks.The patch comes less than a week after Sun told a Google researcher it did not consider the issue serious enough to warrant an out-of-cycle patch and less than a day after researchers spotted live exploits on a booby-trapped Web site. The flaw, which was also discovered independently by Ruben Santamarta, occurs because the Java-Plugin Browser is running “javaws.exe” without validating command-line parameters. Despite the absence of documentation, a researcher was about to figure out that Sun removed the code to run javaws.exe from the Java plugin. The about-face by Sun is another sign that some big vendors still struggle to understand the importance of working closely with white hat researchers to understand the implications of certain vulnerabilities. In this case, Google’s Tavis Ormandy was forced to use the full-disclosure weapon to force the vendor into a proper response.
Graphics

Submission + - How to build a Winscape (youtube.com)

Submitted by hoagaboom
hoagaboom writes: You take your plasma TVs, mix them with a healthy dose of OpenGL and a dash of Wii Remote. Bake for a year and enjoy something called a Winscape. Best served with RED Camera footage.
Sci-Fi

Submission + - Maybe the Aliens are Addicted to Computer Games

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "Geoffrey Miller has an interesting hypothesis in Seed Magazine that explains Fermi's Paradox — why 40 years of intensive searching for extraterrestrial intelligence have yielded nothing: no radio signals, no credible spacecraft sightings, no close encounters of any kind — all the aliens are busy playing computer games. The aliens "forget to send radio signals or colonize space because they’re too busy with runaway consumerism and virtual-reality narcissism," writes Miller. "They don’t need Sentinels to enslave them in a Matrix; they do it to themselves, just as we are doing today." Miller says the fundamental problem is that an evolved mind must pay attention to indirect cues of biological fitness, rather than tracking fitness itself and that although evolution favors brains that tend to maximize fitness (as measured by numbers of great-grandkids), no brain has capacity enough to do so under every possible circumstance. "The result is that we don’t seek reproductive success directly; we seek tasty foods that have tended to promote survival, and luscious mates who have tended to produce bright, healthy babies. The modern result? Fast food and pornography," writes Miller. "Once they turn inwards to chase their shiny pennies of pleasure, they lose the cosmic plot." Miller adds that most bright alien species probably go extinct gradually, allocating more time and resources to their pleasures, and less to their children until they eventually die out when the game behind all games—the Game of Life—says “Game Over; you are out of lives and you forgot to reproduce.”"
Medicine

Submission + - DNA cancer codes cracked by international effort (news.com.au) 1

Submitted by Enigma23
Enigma23 writes: As reported on news.com.au, scientists from the International Cancer Genome Consortium of 12 institutes around the world will today release the first DNA profiles of some of the most prevalent types of tumours. While the story asserts that "A new era of cancer treatment has dawned" I'm a bit more sceptical, given that gene therapy and immunotherapy are still very much in their infancy at the current time.
NASA

Submission + - NASA to rocket humanoid robot to space (networkworld.com)

Submitted by coondoggie
coondoggie writes: Perhaps taking a page from a Star Wars script, NASA said today it will send its newest humanoid robot known as Robonaut2 — or R2 — capable of using the same tools as humans letting them work closely with people into space onboard the space shuttle's final mission.
Enlightenment

Submission + - Where to start in DIY electronics? 5

Submitted by pyrosine
pyrosine writes: I've been thinking about this for a while and have had no idea where to start.
I have little or no previous experience in electronics — just what is covered in GCSE physics (wiring a plug and resistors — not much, I know).
The majority of my interest lies in the wireless communication side of the field — ie ham radios and CB — but I am also interested in how many things work, one example being speakers, simply to better understand it.
I would preferably like to start through some form of practical guide rather than learn the theory first but just what I would search for such a walkthrough deludes me.

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