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Music

Submission + - "Open Source Bach" project completed; score and recording now online (opengoldbergvariations.org) 1

Submitted by
rDouglass
rDouglass writes: "MuseScore, the open source music notation editor, and pianist Kimiko Ishizaka have released a new recording and digital edition of Bach's Goldberg Variations. The works are released under the Creative Commons Zero license to promote the broadest possible free use of the works. The score underwent two rounds of public peer review, drawing on processes normally applied to open source software. Furthermore, the demands of Bach's notational style drove significant advancements in the MuseScore open source project. The recording was made on a Bösendorfer 290 Imperial piano in the Teldex Studio of Berlin. Anne-Marie Sylvestre, a Canadian record producer, was inspired by the project and volunteered her time to edit and produce the recording. The project was funded by a successful Kickstarter campaign that was featured on Slashdot in March 2011."
Science

Submission + - Armed extremists targeting nuclear and nanotech workershttp://slashdot.org/ (nature.com)

Submitted by scibri
scibri writes: A loose coalition of eco-anarchist groups is increasingly launching violent attacks on scientists.

A group calling itself the Olga Cell of the Informal Anarchist Federation International Revolutionary Front has claimed responsibility for the non-fatal shooting of a nuclear-engineering executive on 7 May in Genoa. The same group sent a letter bomb to a Swiss pro-nuclear lobby group in 2011; attempted to bomb IBM’s nanotechnology laboratory in Switzerland in 2010; and has ties with a group responsible for at least four bomb attacks on nanotechnology facilities in Mexico.

Another branch of the group attacked railway signals in Bristol, UK, last week in an attempt to disrupt employees of nearby defence technology firms (no word on whether anyone noticed the difference between an anarchist attack and a normal Wednesday on the UK's railways).

A report by Swiss intelligence says such loosely affiliated groups are increasingly working together.
Transportation

Submission + - Convoy 2.0: Driverless Volvo Platoon Hits the Road

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: After seeing a caravan of state highway escort trucks accompanying a road work crew, the idea of follow-the-leader driverless vehicles may have crossed your mind. Covered earlier on Slashdot but pretty much lost in the buzz over the Google driverless car is Project Sartre (Safe Road Trains for the Environment), Europe's experiment with 'vehicle platooning,' which has successfully completed a 125 mile road test on a busy Spain motorway, in which three Volvos drove themselves by automatically following a truck in the presence of other, normal road users. The Register reports that on-board cameras, radar and laser tracking allow each vehicle to monitor the one in front, and wirelessly streamed data from the lead vehicle tells each car when to accelerate, break and turn. Time to start working on that screenplay for Convoy II?
Piracy

Submission + - Kim Dotcom Demands Access To Seized Property To Defend Himself (ibtimes.com)

Submitted by
redletterdave
redletterdave writes: "On Wednesday, Kim "Dotcom" Schmitz and his legal team visited the High Court in Auckland, New Zealand, to demand access to the data stored on his computers and hard drives that were confiscated during the police raid, and also requested a judicial review of the general legality of the search warrants police used to raid his mansion. Dotcom's lawyer, Paul Davison, argued that his client needs the data for a few reasons: To mount a "proper defense" case, to fight possibly being extradited to the U.S., and also to show that "excessive police action" was used during the raid. Dotcom could prove this in court because the entire raid was recorded by CCTV data, which is stored on Dotcom's confiscated computers. Even though the FBI demanded Dotcom turn over the passwords for Megaupload's encrypted data, he refuses to give up any passwords until he can regain access to his seized property."
Twitter

Submission + - Pakistan blocks Twitter (indiatimes.com)

Submitted by
Diggester
Diggester writes: "Pakistani authorities on Friday further widened the crackdown on websites with blasphemous contents by restricting access to popular social networking website Twitter.

Pakistani users were unable to log into Twitter after internet service providers blocked access to the site."
Privacy

Submission + - US Justice Dept Defends Right To Record Police (wired.com)

Submitted by
Fluffeh
Fluffeh writes: "In recent times, it seems that many Police Departments believe that recording them doing their work is an act of war with police officers destroying the tapes, phones or cameras while arresting the folks doing it, but in a surprising twist, the US Justice Department has sent letter (PDF) to attorneys for the Baltimore Police Department — who have been quite heavy handed in enforcing their "Don't record me bro!" mantra. The letter contains an awful lot of lawyer babble and lists many court cases and the like, although some sections are surprisingly clear "Policies should prohibit officers from destroying recording devices or cameras and deleting recordings or photographs under any circumstances. In addition to violating the First Amendment, police officers violate the core requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment procedural due process clause when they irrevocably deprived individuals of their recordings without first providing notice and an opportunity to object." There is a lot more and it certainly seems like a firm foothold in the right direction."
Government

Submission + - UK government staff caught snooping on citizen data (zdnet.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: More than 1,000 UK government staff have been caught snooping on citizen data — including criminal records, social security, and medical records.
Science

Submission + - MIT Study: Prolonged Low-level Radiation Damage Heals (mit.edu)

Submitted by JSBiff
JSBiff writes: A new study from MIT scientists suggests that the guidelines governments use to determine when to evacuate people following a nuclear accident may be too conservative.

The study, led by Bevin Engelward and Jacquelyn Yanch and published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, found that when mice were exposed to radiation doses about 400 times greater than background levels for five weeks, no DNA damage could be detected.
Canada

Submission + - Byron Sonne Cleared of Explosives Charges (thestar.com)

Submitted by davegravy
davegravy writes: Byron Sonne, the Toronto-based security consultant / chemistry hobbyist / geek who was arrested leading up to the Toronto G-20 for alleged plans to bomb the event, has been found not guilty of all charges.

Sonne was held in prison for 11 months without receiving bail and the ruling comes 2 years after his arrest. Sonne is considered by many in the Toronto security community as a champion of civil rights and a sharp critic of security theatre.
HP

Submission + - HP releases Power over Ethernet thin client (techworld.com.au) 1

Submitted by
angry tapir
angry tapir writes: "HP has unveiled an all-in-one thin client capable of being powered by an Ethernet cable. The t410 AiO supports the Type 1 Power over Ethernet (PoE) standard, which means it is capable of drawing its power from a network connection, although it can be powered by standard AC power. It uses an ARM-based processor and has an integrated 18.5-inch monitor, and it is capable of being used for virtual desktops through Windows RDP, VMware View and Citrix ICA."

Submission + - Happy 20th Birthday, GSM & SMS (guardian.co.uk)

Submitted by
udas
udas writes: "2/3rds of the world's pupluation, 4 billion people, use cell phones today, and *all* of them have access to SMS. Groupe Spécial Mobile (GSM), set up in 1982, created the GSM standard, leading to a unified, open, standard-based mobile network. SMS, upto 160 7-bit character messages sent over control channels (when they aren't busy), was part of the original GSM specification itself. The first GSM handests were approved for sale in May 1992. But it was not until 1996, when pay-as-you-go sim cards showed up, and the kids got their hands on it, did SMS gain popularity. Today tey are used for advertising, notifications, surveying, etc!"
Canada

Submission + - Low Oxygen Cellular Protein Synthesis Mechanism Discovered (ottawacitizen.com)

Submitted by _prime
_prime writes: Until recently the mechanism by which cells make proteins in low-oxygen environments has been unknown. As published in Nature this week, the discovery of the mechanism by an Ottawa-based team of researchers potentially means it could be "very easy to kill cancer cells" without harming normal cells because cancer cells leverage the same low-oxygen protein synthesis mechanism even in the presence of normal oxygen levels.
Earth

Submission + - Scientists Solve Mystery of Ireland's Moving Boulders

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "How has a 78-ton boulder traveled 130 meters inland from the sea since 1991? Live Science reports that geologists have puzzled for years over the mysterious boulders that litter the desolate coastline of Ireland's Aran Islands that somehow move on their own when no one is looking. The sizes of the boulders in the formations range "from merely impressive to mind-bogglingly stupendous," writes geoscientist Rónadh Cox. While some researchers contend that only a tsunami could push these stones, new research finds that plain old ocean waves, with the help of some strong storms, do the job with some boulders moving inland at an average rate of nearly 10 feet (3 meters) per decade with one rock moving 3.5 meters vertically and 69 meters horizontally in one year. The team compared modern high-altitude photos of the coastline to a set of meticulous maps from 1839 that identified the location of the boulders' ridges — nearly 100 years after the most recent tsunami to hit the region, which struck in 1755. The Aran cliffs rise nearly vertically out of the Atlantic, leaving very deep water close to the shore. As waves slam into the sheer cliff, that water is abruptly deflected back out toward the oncoming waves. This backflow may amplify subsequent waves resulting an occasional storm wave that is much larger than one would expect. "There's a tendency to attribute the movement of large objects to tsunami," says Cox. "We're saying hold the phone. Big boulders are getting moved by storm waves.""
Linux

Submission + - Linus wins the Millennium Technology Prize (zdnet.com)

Submitted by
udas
udas writes: "Also on Google Plus:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/101722761973350504830/posts/iDp7MpWdRJN
This is the world’s largest technology prize. It is rewarded ever two years for a technological innovation that significantly improves the quality of human life, today and in the future. This year, Linus Torvalds, Linux’s creator, and Dr. Shinya Yamanaka, maker of a new way to create stem cells without the use of embryonic stem cells, are both laureates for the 2012 Millennium Technology Prize.

This prize, which is determined by the Technology Academy of Finland, is one of the world’s largest such prizes with candidates sought from across the world and from all fields of technology. The two innovators will share over a million Euros. The final winner will be announced by the President of the Republic of Finland in a special ceremony on June 13, 2012."

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