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Submission + - 'Badges' Earned Online Pose Challenge to Tradition (chronicle.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Educational badges, which seem like a playful riff on Boy Scout skill patches, pose an existential crisis for colleges and universities. If students can collect credentials from MITx and Khan Academy and other free Web sites, why go to a campus?
Space

Submission + - DARPA Chooses Leader for 100-Year Starship Project

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "With Nasa scaling back its manned space programs, the idea of a manned trip to the stars may sound audacious, but the 100 Year Starship (100YSS) study is an effort seeded by DARPA to develop a viable and sustainable model for persistent, long-term, private-sector investment into the myriad of disciplines needed to make long-distance space travel practicable and feasible. The goal is not to have the government fund the actual building of spacecraft destined for the stars, but rather to create a foundation that can last 100 years in order to help foster the research needed for interstellar travel. Now DARPA has provided $500,000 in seed money to help jumpstart the effort and chosen Mae Jemison, the first African-American woman to go into space, to lead 100YSS. Jemison, who is also a physician and engineer, left NASA in 1993 after a six-year stint in which she served as science mission specialist aboard space shuttle Endeavour, becoming the first black woman to fly in space. Since leaving the space agency, she has been involved in education and outreach efforts and technology development. Rounding out her resume, Jemison also served as a medical aofficer for the Peace Corps in Sierra Leone and Liberia, is a professionally trained dancer, speaks Russian, Swahili and Japanese, and was the first real astronaut to make a cameo in an episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation." Jemison won the contract with her proposal titled "An Inclusive Audacious Journey Transforms Life Here on Earth & Beyond.""
IT

Submission + - IT salaries edge up back to 2008 levels (infoworld.com) 1

Submitted by
tsamsoniw
tsamsoniw writes: "A soon-to-be released salary survey finds that the average salary for IT professionals in the U.S. is $78,299, putting overall compensation back at January 2008 levels. More heartening: Midsize and large companies are both aiming to hire more IT pros. The midsize are seeking IT executives (such as VPs of information services and technical services), as well as programmers, database specialists, systems analysts, and voice/wireless communication pros. Enterprises are moving IT and data center operations back in-house, which means greater demand for data center managers and supervisors."
Cloud

Submission + - FTC Asked To Probe Facebook Over Timeline Privacy

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) is unhappy with the way Facebook launched its new Timeline profile. Last month, the privacy organization complained Facebook went too far because it started rolling out the redesign without asking users first. EPIC then followed up with a four-page letter (PDF) to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) asking it to investigate the new feature to insure that it meets with the terms of a November 29th FTC-Facebook settlement. Facebook denies these claims, saying that the Timeline launch has nothing to do with its users' privacy.
Politics

Submission + - Pirate Party UK - Looking forward to 2012. (pirateparty.org.uk)

Submitted by
Ajehals
Ajehals writes: "The UK Pirate Party new years message suggests a new sense of direction for the party, with a focus on policy and politics beyond what was seen as the party's norm, single issue position of copyright reform. Hoping to learn from and emulate the German Pirate Party's success in Berlin, Partly Leader Loz Kay is looking back over 2011 and to the future."
Google

Submission + - French court frowns on Google autocomplete, issues (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Lexx Greatrex
Lexx Greatrex writes: Google had been sued by insurance company Lyonnaise de Garantie, which was offended by search results including the word "escroc," meaning crook, according to a story posted Tuesday by the Courthouse News Service. "Google had argued that it was not liable since the word, added under Google Suggest, was the result of an automatic algorithm and did not come from human thought," the article states. "A Paris court ruled against Google, however, pointing out that the search engine ignored requests to remove the offending word... In addition to the fine, Google must also remove the term from searches associated with Lyonnaise de Garantie."
Security

Submission + - TSA Interested In Purchasing Dosimeters (gsnmagazine.com) 1

Submitted by OverTheGeicoE
OverTheGeicoE writes: TSA recently announced that it is looking for vendors of 'radiation measurement devices'. According to the agency's Request for Information, these devices 'will assist the TSA in determining if the Transportation Security Officers (TSO) at selected federalized airports are exposed to ionizing radiation above minimum detectable levels, and whether any measured radiation doses approach or exceed the threshold where personnel dosimetry monitoring is required by DHS/TSA policy.' A TSA spokeman claims that their RFI 'did not reflect any heightened concern by the agency about radiation levels that might be excessive or pose a risk to either TSA screeners or members of the traveling public.' Concern outside the agency, however, has always been high. TSA has long been criticized for its apparent lack of understanding of radiological safety, even for its own employees. There has been speculation of a cancer cluster, possibly caused by poor safety practices in baggage screening.
The Courts

Submission + - Lost In BYOD's Uncharted Legal Waters (infoworld.com)

Submitted by
snydeq
snydeq writes: "As companies increasingly enable employees to bring their own devices into business environments, significant legal questions remain regarding the data consumed and created on these employee-owned technologies. 'Strictly speaking, employees have no privacy rights for what's transmitted on company equipment, but employers don't necessarily have access rights to what's transmitted on employees' own devices, such as smartphones, tablets, and home PCs. Also unclear are the rights for information that moves between personal and corporate devices, such as between one employee who uses her own Android and an employee who uses the corporate-issued iPhone. ... This confusion extends to trade secrets and other confidential data, as well as to e-discovery. When employees store company data on their personal devices, that could invalidate the trade secrets, as they've left the employer's control. Given that email clients such as Outlook and Apple Mail store local copies (again, on smartphones, tablets, and home PCs) of server-based email, theoretically many companies' trade secrets are no longer secret.'"

Submission + - Grassley Stands by Threat to Hold Up FCC Nominees (foxnews.com)

Submitted by
K7DAN
K7DAN writes: "Sen. Charles Grassley is standing by his threat to place a hold on two nominees to the Federal Communications Commission over concerns about a controversial new wireless network the agency has allowed to move forward.
The Iowa Republican this week accused the FCC of refusing to comply with his requests for information on its discussions with Virginia company LightSquared regarding its next-generation national wireless network.
Some fear the network would hinder the effectiveness of high-precision GPS systems — used by the military, farmers and others. Grassley also raised questions about the involvement of Harbinger, the hedge fund behind the project and founded by Democratic donor Philip Falcone.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/12/03/grassley-stands-by-threat-to-hold-up-fcc-nominees-over-wireless-network/?test=latestnews#ixzz1fbUYpuJi"

Feed Google News Sci Tech: Google Tests Ice Cream Sandwich Update on Employees - PC Magazine (google.com)

From feed by feedfeeder

SlashGear
Google Tests Ice Cream Sandwich Update on Employees
PC Magazine
Ready for a little Ice Cream Sandwich – that's Android 4.0 – for your smartphone? Keep waiting, although you can now complement your patience with a little bit of hope. New reports from company employees indicate that Google has started ...
Google tests Android update on employees' Nexus SCNET
Google Said to be Testing Android 4.O on Samsung Nexus SPCWorld (blog)
Galaxy Nexus volume update: Are you fixed?SlashGear
Android Police-InformationWeek-msnbc.com
all 134 news articles

China

Submission + - China Telecom Pledged to Stop Monopolistic Practic (xinhuanet.com)

Submitted by hackingbear
hackingbear writes: Within a few weeks after the anti-monopoly probe initiated by the National Development and Reform Commission, China's two telecommunications giants, China Telecom and China Unicom, announced Friday they will substantially raise their broadband speeds while further lowering broadband costs by 35% over the next five years. They also acknowledge the existence of monopolistic practices in reply to this investigation which is the first of its kind against major Chinese state-owned enterprises. Being state-owned companies, their profits are supposedly belonging to the nation, but they also become the "golden rice bowls" for their management, employees, and their supervising departments and officials. Luckily, inter-department politics can bring in some level of check and balance in a strange way.
NASA

Submission + - Lightning-made Waves in Earth's Atmosphere Leak In (nasa.gov)

Submitted by
TheNextCorner
TheNextCorner writes: "At any given moment about 2,000 thunderstorms roll over Earth, producing some 50 flashes of lightning every second. Each lightning burst creates electromagnetic waves that begin to circle around Earth captured between Earth's surface and a boundary about 60 miles up. Some of the waves – if they have just the right wavelength – combine, increasing in strength, to create a repeating atmospheric heartbeat known as Schumann resonance....

NASA's Vector Electric Field Instrument (VEFI) aboard the U.S. Air Force's Communications/Navigation Outage Forecast System (C/NOFS) satellite has detected Schumann resonance from space. This comes as a surprise, since current models of Schumann resonance predict these waves should be caged at lower altitude, between the ground and a layer of Earth's atmosphere called the ionosphere."
Medicine

Submission + - Alternative medice attemps to chill critics (discovermagazine.com)

Submitted by Asmodae
Asmodae writes: Taking a page from Babs is one Stanislaw Burzynski. He runs an alternative cancer treatment called "antineoplaston therapy" and charges thousands of dollars for the privilege. From the article: Dr. Steve Novella, who certainly is an expert both in medicine and the misuses thereof, has some choice words about Burzynski and his ideas. So does David Calquhoun, a British pharmacologist. So does — at great length and detail — Dr. David Gorski, and so does the website Quackometer (and again here as well) and so does the Cancer Research UK Science blog.

This well debunked therapy has been blogged about by a high-schooler named Rhys Morgan, in a critical fashion and has received letters threatening to sue from Burzynski's clinic. As have a few other critics.
Security

Submission + - Behind the Government's Rules of Cyber War (securityweek.com)

Submitted by wiredmikey
wiredmikey writes: The evolution of cyber-attacks has challenged the way military and intelligence professionals define the rules of war. Deciding when malware becomes a weapon of war that warrants a response in the physical world – for example, a missile – has become a necessary part of the discussion of military doctrine.

The Pentagon recently outlined its working definition of what constitutes cyber-war and when subsequent military strikes against physical targets may be justified as result.

The main issue is attribution of cyber attacks. The Department of Defense is working to develop new ways to trace the physical source of an attack and the capability to identify an attacker using behavior-based algorithms. “..if a country is going to fire a missile at someone, it better be sure it has the right target,” said one expert.

A widely held misconception in the U.S. government is our offensive capabilities provide defensive advantage by identifying attacker toolkits and methods in foreign networks prior to them hitting our networks.

So when do malware and cyber attacks become a weapon or act of war that warrant a real-world military response?
Patents

Submission + - EU - Software Ideas Can't be Copyrighted (reuters.com)

Submitted by
bhagwad
bhagwad writes: "The EU continues to ooze common sense as a court insists that software functions themselves cannot be copyrighted. Drawing a box or moving cursor are examples. To quote: "If it were accepted that a functionality of a computer program can be protected as such, that would amount to making it possible to monopolize ideas, to the detriment of technological progress and industrial development,""

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