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Security

Adobe Finally Fixes Remote Launch 0-Day 82

Posted by kdawson from the stay-safe-out-there dept.
Trailrunner7 sends in this excerpt from Threatpost (Adobe announcement here): "Adobe today shipped a critical Reader/Acrobat patch to cover a total of 17 documented vulnerabilities that expose Windows, Mac, and Unix users to malicious hacker attacks. The update, which affects Adobe Reader/Acrobat 9.3.2 and earlier versions, includes a fix for the outstanding PDF '/Launch' functionality social engineering attack vector that was disclosed by researcher Didier Stevens. As previously reported, Didier created a proof-of-concept PDF file that executes an embedded executable without exploiting any security vulnerabilities. The PDF hack, when combined with clever social engineering techniques, could potentially allow code execution attacks if a user simply opens a rigged PDF file." Relatedly, Brian Krebs blogs about the downsides of Adobe's increasingly Byzantine update process.
Math

First Self-Replicating Creature Spawned In Conway's Game of Life 241

Posted by Soulskill from the emergent-gameplay dept.
Calopteryx writes "New Scientist has a story on a self-replicating entity which inhabits the mathematical universe known as the Game of Life. 'Dubbed Gemini, [Andrew Wade's] creature is made of two sets of identical structures, which sit at either end of the instruction tape. Each is a fraction of the size of the tape's length but, made up of two constructor arms and one "destructor," play a key role. Gemini's initial state contains three of these structures, plus a fourth that is incomplete. As the simulation progresses the incomplete structure begins to grow, while the structure at the start of the tape is demolished. The original Gemini continues to disassemble as the new one emerges, until after nearly 34 million generations, new life is born.'"
Open Source

Aquaria Goes Open Source 58

Posted by Soulskill from the come-on-in-the-water's-fine dept.
A post on the Wolfire blog yesterday announced that the source code for Aquaria has now been released. Aquaria, an action-adventure, underwater sidescroller from Bit Blot, was part of the Humble Indie Bundle, which was so successful that the developers of four games pledged to release them as open source. This marks the final release, following Lugaru, Gish, and Penumbra: Overture. The source code is available from a Mercurial repository.
Lord of the Rings

Lord of the Rings Online To Go Free-To-Play 138

Posted by Soulskill from the has-a-nice-one-ring-to-it dept.
darkwing_bmf sends word of Turbine's announcement that Lord of the Rings Online will become a free-to-play game this fall. 'The move is another validation of the free-to-play business model, where gamers can play for free and pay real money for virtual goods such as better weapons or decorative gear for their game characters. The business model has been popular in Asia but only recently took off in the US. This move shows the pressure is building on game publishers to shift to the new business model or face declining audiences.' According to a post on the official website, LotRO's micro-transaction system will be "very similar" to how Turbine's DDO store works, and current subscribers will maintain all of their privileges.
Linux Business

Penumbra: Overture Goes Open Source 74

Posted by Soulskill from the seeing-the-code-won't-dry-your-pants dept.
As promised when the Humble Indie Bundle hit $1 million in donations the other day, indie developer Frictional Games has released Penumbra: Overture's source code. "The code for Penumbra: Overture is a continuation of the one used for the tech demo + some addition for the not so long lived Robo Hatch project. It also contains some code from Unbirth, giving it quite some history." The release also includes the HPL1 engine. "This is engine that has powered all of the Penumbra games and it even includes the stuff used to create the 2D platformer Energetic. The engine code was started in December 2004 and was actively developed until early 2008." The repositories are available at github.
Space

Space Photos Taken From Shed Stun Astronomers 149

Posted by timothy from the love-the-gold-mylar dept.
krou writes "Amateur astronomer Peter Shah has stunned astronomers around the world with amazing photos of the universe taken from his garden shed. Shah spent £20,000 on the equipment, hooking up a telescope in his shed to his home computer, and the results are being compared to images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. 'Most men like to putter about in their garden shed,' said Shah, 'but mine is a bit more high tech than most. I have fitted it with a sliding roof so I can sit in comfort and look at the heavens. I have a very modest set up, but it just goes to show that a window to the universe is there for all of us – even with the smallest budgets. I had to be patient and take the images over a period of several months because the skies in Britain are often clouded over and you need clear conditions.' His images include the Monkey's head nebula, M33 Pinwheel Galaxy, Andromeda Galaxy and the Flaming Star Nebula, and are being put together for a book."

Comment Re:Put's the lie to their open source claims (Score 1) 284

by zetazentra (#29306687) Attached to: IBM's Supreme Court Brief Says That Patents Drive Free Software

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that is what I was doing.

I don't think what I meant came across:

You accuse people of the over-simplified viewpoint "good vs. evil" (of course, I agree that this is over-simplified), and you also just accused me of over-simplifying by using the word "hate." Yet you yourself resort to what is just as arguably an over-simplification: psychological egoism (the belief that humans are only motivated by self-interest). You present it as "reality," resorting to it in http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1357269&cid=29304575 ("We all fight for ourselves, and there is nothing strange about an organism doing this. By denying this you deny your very own existance and the chain of events which brought you here, from single cell organism to the child of your parents.") and in http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1357269&cid=29303997 ("In reality people are simply organisms looking for personal gain, and not only in monetary means. We are egoistic by nature, though we often keep a straight face, and when we think we aren't -- we still are."), and possibly others.

Claiming that ego is the only explanation for the full array of human behavior is just as hackneyed and over-simple (and naive and lazy?) as calling a corporation "evil," if you ask me. I hope you get what I'm saying.

I'm saying that dualism relies on the individual, and since individuals are vastly different so will the concept be. Thus the concept itself lack substance. Does this not make sense to you?

No problem there.

Comment Re:Put's the lie to their open source claims (Score 1) 284

by zetazentra (#29305053) Attached to: IBM's Supreme Court Brief Says That Patents Drive Free Software

We all fight for ourselves, and there is nothing strange about an organism doing this. By denying this you deny your very own existance [sic] and the chain of events which brought you here, from single cell organism to the child of your parents. Don't be naive, and don't try to paint the world black and white with this nonsensical dualism.

Don't try to paint the world black and white with this nonsensical psychological egoism. It's a theory open to argument, and has seen criticism from multiple fronts for hundreds of years.

Also, there's no need to call your opponents lazy or naive--that's just rude.

I'm simply explaining the difference between fiction and reality.

This is a joke, right? Someone who hates dualism just said that?

Comment Re:Digital switching or signal amplification? (Score 3, Informative) 174

by zetazentra (#26075487) Attached to: Graphene Transistors Clocked At 26GHz

I searched for "clock" in the paper on arxiv and got no results! The abstract there is more informative:

ABSTRACT
Top-gated graphene transistors operating at high frequencies (GHz) have been fabricated and their characteristics analyzed. The measured intrinsic current gain shows an ideal 1/f frequency dependence, indicating an FET-like behavior for graphene transistors. The cutoff frequency f_T is found to be proportional to the dc transconductance g_m of the device, consistent with the relation f_T=g_m/(2piC_G). The peak f_T increases with a reduced gate length, and f_T as high as 26 GHz is measured for a graphene transistor with a gate length of 150 nm. The work represents a significant step towards the realization of graphene-based electronics for high-frequency applications.
The Internet

In UK, Broadband Limits Confuse Nine In Ten Users 217

Posted by kdawson from the ninety-percent-of-everything dept.
Mark Jackson writes "ISPreview reports that 86% of UK broadband users don't understand the usage limits on their service, and nearly one million have reached or exceeded their ISPs limit in the last year. This is important because 56% of major providers are prepared to disconnect those who 'abuse' the service. However, it also shows how damaging bad marketing can be, with 6.2M people believing they have an 'unlimited' service with no restrictions. The UK Advertising Standards Authority is also blamed for making the problem worse by allowing providers to describe their services as unlimited even if there is a usage cap, as long as it is detailed in the small print. However, consumers are none the wiser with over 10 million broadband customers never reading their usage agreements and a further 1.8M not knowing whether they have read it or not. Unsurprisingly 7.5M do not even know their download limit, which is understandable when so few providers clarify it."

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