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Comment Direct2/3D is part of the Windows SDK now (Score 2) 256

by shofmann (#42761913) Attached to: Microsoft Phases Out XNA and DirectX?

Direct2D and Direct3D are not being abandoned, they've been moved into the Windows 8 SDK along with other APIs that have replaced components of DirectX such as XAudio2. Microsoft is just retiring obsolete, deprecated, and unsupported APIs like DirectSound (replaced by XAudio2), DirectMusic, and DirectInput. More information is available at Where is the DirectX SDK?.
Google

Submission + - Google introduces Google Command Line Tool (blogspot.com)

Submitted by Lomegor
Lomegor writes: "Ever wanted to upload a folder full of photos to Picasa from a command prompt?" Google introduced today a new project, Google CL, that lets you do that and much more. It's a new command line tool for linux that acts as an interface with Google services; you can upload videos to youtube or maybe post a new blogpost in blogger in just one line.
Programming

Submission + - HTML5 vs. Flash: The Case for Flash (infoworld.com) 4

Submitted by
snydeq
snydeq writes: "InfoWorld's Peter Wayner offers 7 reasons why Web designers will remain loyal to Flash for rich Web content, despite 'seductive' new capabilities offered by HTML5. Sure, HTML5 aims to duplicate many of the features that were once the sole province of plug-ins (local disk storage, video display, better rendering, algorithmic drawing, and more) and has high-profile backers in Google and Apple, but as Wayner sees it, this fight is more about designers than it is about technocrats and programmers. And from its sub-pixel resolution, to its developer tools, to its 'write once, play everywhere' functionality, Flash has too much going for it to fall by the wayside. 'The real battle is in the hearts and eyes of the artists who are paid to create incredibly beautiful objects in the span of just a few hours. The designers will make the final determination. As long as Flash and its cousins Flex and Shockwave remain the simplest tools for producing drop-dead gorgeous Websites, they'll keep their place on the Internet.'"

Submission + - New 'Circuit Breaker' Imposed To Stop Market Crash (computerworld.com)

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: The SEC and national securities exchanges announced a new rule that would help curb market volatility and help to prevent "flash crashes" like the one that took place on May 6, when the Dow dropped almost 1,000 points in a half hour. That crash was blamed in part on automated trading systems, which process buy and sell orders in milliseconds. The new rule would pause trading on individual stocks that fluctuate up or down 10% in a five-minute period. "I believe that circuit breakers for individual securities across the exchanges would help to limit significant volatility," the SEC's chairman said. "They would also increase market transparency, bolster investor protection, and bring uniformity to decisions regarding trading halts in individual securities."
Biotech

Submission + - Colleague Comes Forward to Defend Anthrax Suspect

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "The NY Times reports that Henry S. Heine, a former Army microbiologist who worked for years with Bruce E. Ivins, whom the FBI has blamed for the anthrax letter attacks that killed five people in 2001, told a 16 member National Academy of Sciences panel that is reviewing the FBI’s scientific work on the investigation that he believes it is impossible that the deadly spores could have been produced undetected in Ivins’s laboratory, as the FBI asserts. Heine told the panel that producing the quantity of spores in the letters would have taken at least a year of intensive work using the equipment at the army lab, an effort that would not have escaped colleagues’ notice and that lab technicians who worked closely with Ivins have told him they saw no such work. Heine adds that, in addition, the biological containment measures where Ivins worked were inadequate to prevent the spores from floating out of the laboratory into animal cages and offices. “You’d have had dead animals or dead people." Asked why he is speaking out now, almost two years after Ivin's suicide, Heine says that Army officials had prohibited comment on the case, silencing him until he left the government laboratory and although Heine says he does not dispute that there was a genetic link between the spores in the letters and the anthrax in Ivins’s flask, Heine says samples from the flask were widely shared. “Whoever did this is still running around out there,” Heine says. “I truly believe that.”"

Submission + - Lightworks video editor to turn open source

Submitted by Art3x
Art3x writes: EditShare will release its video editor as open source this summer. Lightworks handles high-definition media, DPX, and RED, shares projects with Final Cut Pro and Avid, and was recently used by Academy-award-winning editor Thelma Schoonmaker on Shutter Island. Introduced in in 1989 and bought by EditShare last year, it 'has come from over one million hours of software development,' says EditShare's James Richings. But he says releasing the source will 'generate concepts and capabilities never seen before. I expect that the Lightworks Open Source initiative will transform not only the technology, but also the opinions on what a professional editing tool can achieve.'
Space

Submission + - Helium rain on Jupiter makes for strange days (networkworld.com)

Submitted by coondoggie
coondoggie writes: In the strange and mysterious world of Jupiter, scientists were looking for an explanation for why the massive orb's atmosphere contained little neon, a common gas found on many planets. Now researching say they have found solved the mystery: Helium rain. In the interior of Jupiter conditions are so strange that, according to predictions by University of California, Berkeley scientists, helium condenses into droplets and falls like rain. On Jupiter the scientists explain the only way neon could be removed from the upper atmosphere is to have it fall out with helium, since neon and helium mix easily, like alcohol and water.
The Internet

Submission + - Scientists Use LEDs to Broadcast Wireless Internet (inhabitat.com) 2

Submitted by MikeChino
MikeChino writes: A group of scientists from Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute have devised a way to encode a visible-frequency wireless signal in light emitted by plain old desklamps and other light fixtures. The team was able to achieve a record-setting data download rate of 230 megabits per second, and they expect to be able to double that speed in the near future. While the regular radio-frequency wi-fi most of us use currently is perfectly fine, it does have its flaws — it has a limited bandwidth that confines it to a certain spectrum and if you’ve ever had someone leech off of your connection, you know that it also leaks through walls. LED wireless signals would theoretically have none of these downsides.
Apple

Submission + - Apple's Master 'iKey' To Unlock All Your Doors 2

Submitted by
Pickens
Pickens writes: "The Telegraph reports that Apple is developing technology, already being nicknamed the "iKey", which will allow users to unlock their car, front door and gain access to their office with a single electronic device like the iPhone. Users would simply have to enter a pin code and wave the device over an electronic pad fitted beside a door to open it. "The device can communicate with an external device to open a lock. By way of example, the electronic device may be a model of an iPhone," says Apple's patent application. "The external device may be any suitable electronic device such as a portable media player, personal data assistant or electronic lock that may be used to access a door, car, house or other physical area." According to the patent, the iPhone would be used to unlock doors to buildings and cars by exploiting a technology known as Near Field Communication, which allows electronic devices to transmit information between each other when in proximity. "If true, it's a very big deal. As well as opening doors and unlocking your car, it could also turn your iPhone into an electronic wallet and ID card," says Leander Kahney, a consumer technology expert. "The trouble is that the technology hasn't gone completely mainstream. If Apple were to adopt the technology, they would likely set the standard, and that would drive widespread adoption as everyone scrambles to make their systems iPhone-friendly.""
Encryption

Submission + - 80% of cell phone encryption solutions insecure (mobilemag.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: An article appearing on Mobile Magazine writes about a blogger named Notrax has tested 15 various methods of secure encryption for mobile phones, out of those he found only 3 could not be cracked at some level.

"12 of them were “worthless”. It’s easy to take the software at face value when it “tells you” that the call is secured. But how does someone actually go about being sure that it is secured? Notrax did some digging and discovered he could break in to almost all of them in under 30 minutes."

Submission + - Antarctica needs a network engineer (itnews.com.au) 2

Submitted by littlekorea
littlekorea writes: It's a little underpaid, but network engineers with a fetish for very cold weather might be interested to know that the Australian Government's Antarctic Division is seeking network engineers to manage its telephony, satellite and radio comms in Antarctica. According to the job FAQ, summer temperatures aren't a lot colder than your average data centre. But winters of -30 degrees celsius (-22 Fahrenheit) might make the morning jog a little challenging.
NASA

Submission + - SPAM: NASA tests all-composite prototype spacecraft

Submitted by coondoggie
coondoggie writes: With an eye toward building safer, lighter and tougher spacecraft, NASA said today its prototype space crew module made up of composite materials handled tests simulating structural stresses of launch and atmospheric reentry. The idea behind NASA's Composite Crew Module (CCM) project is to test new structural materials for possible future NASA spacecraft. According to NASA, composite materials are being looked at because they are stiff and lightweight and can be formed into complex shapes that may be more structurally efficient. In space travel, where every additional pound of weight drives costs higher, any weight savings provides increased payload capacity and potentially reduces mission expense, NASA stated.

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