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Comment Re: Stick a fork in it (Score 5, Insightful) 157

Besides, the windows phone UI is ugly as hell. You basically have to be a Microsoft fan to actually want to use it.

I disagree. I wasn't a Microsoft fan when I switched to Windows Phone in late 2012 (hated Windows XP, skipped Vista, was forced to use 7). But the somewhat denser UI allowed me to break out of the tap in, tap in, tap in, back, back, back cycle that I was seemingly stuck in on iOS.

Plus I liked the tiles: resizable, repositionable, and they contained information.
Android

Army Special Operations Command Ditching Android For iPhone, Says Report (gizmodo.com) 254

Posted by msmash from the making-the-switch dept.
The United States Army's Special Operations Command is ditching its Android phones for the "faster" iPhone, according to a report. The source cited in the story says that Android phones were freezing unexpectedly, which was one of the reasons they decided to give the iPhone 6s a spin. Gizmodo adds: The smartphones allow members of the Special Operations Command to access rich information about the battlefield. There's also quickly accessible information, like a weapons and ammunitions guide. Other apps can help with high altitude jumps; another can detect radiation. While DARPA helped develop the program on Android due to the operating system's open platform, Apple's hardware is apparently superior enough to warrant the switch.
Bitcoin

Decoding the Enigma of Satoshi Nakamoto 61

Posted by samzenpus from the pay-no-attention-to-the-man-behind-the-ip-address dept.
HughPickens.com writes: For the past year Nathaniel Popper has been working on a book about the history of Bitcoin and writes in the NYT that it is hard to avoid being drawn in by the almost mystical riddle of Satoshi Nakamoto's identity. Popper has his own candidate for founder of Bitcoin, a reclusive American man of Hungarian descent named Nick Szabo. Szabo worked in a loosely organized group of digital privacy activists who over decades laid the foundation for Bitcoin and created many parts that later went into the virtual currency. Bitcoin was not a bolt out of the blue, as is sometimes assumed, but was instead built on the ideas of multiple people over several decades. Several experiments in digital cash circulated on the Cypherpunk lists in the 1990s. Adam Back, a British researcher, created an algorithm called hashcash that later became a central component of Bitcoin. Another, called b money, was designed by an intensely private computer engineer named Wei Dai.

It may be impossible to prove Satoshi's identity until the person or people behind Bitcoin's curtain decide to come forward and prove ownership of Satoshi's old electronic accounts and at this point, the creator's identity is no longer important to Bitcoin's future. Since Satoshi stopped contributing to the project in 2011, most of the open-source code has been rewritten by a group of programmers whose identities are known. According to Popper whoever it is, the real Satoshi Nakamoto has many good reasons for wanting to stay anonymous. Perhaps the most obvious is potential danger. Satoshi Nakamoto most likely collected nearly a million Bitcoins during the system's first year. Given that each Bitcoin is now worth about $240, the stash could be worth more than $200 million. That could make Satoshi a target. "With his modest clothes and unassuming manner, Mr. Szabo could be the kind of person who could have a fortune and not spend any of it," concludes Popper, "or even throw away the keys to the bank."
Government

New Zealand Spied On Nearly Two Dozen Pacific Countries 129

Posted by samzenpus from the keep-your-eyes-on-your-own-paper dept.
An anonymous reader writes New documents from Edward Snowden indicate New Zealand undertook "full take" interception of communications from Pacific nations and forwarded the data to the NSA. The data, collected by New Zealand's Government Communications Security Bureau, was then fed into the NSA's XKeyscore search engine to allow analysts to trawl for intelligence. The New Zealand link helped flesh out the NSA's ambitions to intercept communications globally.
Oracle

Oracle Sues 5 Oregon Officials For 'Improper Influence' 83

Posted by Soulskill from the software-versus-politics dept.
SpzToid writes: Following up on an earlier Slashdot story, the Oracle Corporation has filed a rather timely suit against five of former governor John Kitzhaber's staff for their "improper influence" in the decision to shutter the Cover Oregon healthcare website, while blaming Oracle to defuse the political consequences. Oracle argues the website was ready to go before the state decided to switch to the federal exchange in April.

"The work on the exchange was complete by February 2014, but going live with the website and providing a means for all Oregonians to sign up for health insurance coverage didn't match the former-Governor's re-election strategy to 'go after' Oracle," Oracle spokeswoman Deborah Hellinger said in a statement.

Kitzhaber resigned last week amid criminal probes into an influence-peddling scandal involving allegations that his fiancée used her position in his office for personal gain.
Data Storage

Sony Offers a "Premium Sound" SD Card For a Premium Price 213

Posted by timothy from the putting-hi-fi-jumpropes-to-shame dept.
nateman1352 (971364) writes "Don't you just hate all that noise your memory cards make? No? Then you probably aren't going to want to buy Sony's new $160 memory cards, which the company brags offers "Premium Sound" that generates less electrical noise when reading data." As long as it works well with my hi-fi ethernet cable.

Comment Re:Sigh! (Score 1) 173

by wasteofspace77 (#48210037) Attached to: Google Announces Inbox, a New Take On Email Organization

Your phone doesn't store local maps and it has a low grade GPS receiver. A dedicated GPS unit has the maps stored on it and has a better GPS receiver, so there is much less delay.

My phone has locally stored maps. At least for the places I am in. But I agree the GPS could be a bit faster. Or I guess I could drive a bit slower.

Medicine

Farmers Carry Multidrug-Resistant Staph For Weeks Into Local Communities 122

Posted by Soulskill from the part-of-the-farmhand-insurrection dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Fresh research out of the UNC Gillings and JHU Bloomberg schools of public health shows industrial farm workers are carrying livestock-associated, multidrug-resistant staph into local communities for weeks at a time. "Among the [22 people tested], 10 workers carried antibiotic-resistant strains of the bacteria in their noses for up to four days. Another six workers were intermittent carriers of the bacteria. The 10 workers found to carry the bacteria persistently had strains associated with livestock that were resistant to multiple drugs, and one also carried MRSA. Three more of the workers tested positive for strains of S. aureus that were not resistant to antibiotics. So in total, 86 percent of the workers in the study carried the S. aureus bacteria, compared with about one-third of the population at large, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention." This problem has grown since its last mention on Slashdot. Unfortunately, massive industrial lobbying continues to neuter government action.

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Karl's version of Parkinson's Law: Work expands to exceed the time alloted it.

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