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Asteroids, Meteors, or the Russians Are Coming? | 408 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Thing1? That's a Python object, isn't it? ...nt
Authored by: Ian Al on Friday, February 15 2013 @ 11:38 AM EST
.

---
Regards
Ian Al
Software Patents: It's the disclosed functions in the patent, stupid!

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

PERL and Python
Authored by: mcinsand on Friday, February 15 2013 @ 11:52 AM EST
The strangest thing (thing1 or thing2) to me is that I seem know more PERL, but
I seem to be able do more with Python.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Good report on oral argument in CLS Bank v. Alice
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, February 15 2013 @ 12:04 PM EST

En Banc Argument at Federal Circuit Shows Continuing Split on Computer Claim Eligibility

Perceptive and detailed report and commentary on the February 8 oral argument before the en banc Federal Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of CLS Bank v. Alice Corp., on the patent eligibility of computer-related claims.

Paul E. "Marbux" Merrell, J.D.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Asteroids, Meteors, or the Russians Are Coming?
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, February 15 2013 @ 03:16 PM EST
CNN reports on the meteor at Chelyabinsk, which if you read the proper technical sources had nothing to do with Asteroid 2012 DA14. That hasn't stopped many Russians from confusing the two.br>

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Trumped up prosecutorial charges
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, February 15 2013 @ 06:28 PM EST

Help Desk!

RAS

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Steam for Linux Now Available
Authored by: squib on Friday, February 15 2013 @ 06:44 PM EST
Feb 14, 2013. “Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as
Counter-Strike and Team Fortress) and leading technologies (such as Steam and
Source), today announced the release of its Steam for Linux client. In
celebration of the release, over 50 Linux titles are now 50-75% off until
Thursday, February 21st at 10 AM PST.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Another way to Hack a Smartphone
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, February 15 2013 @ 07:47 PM EST
Modern smartphones are equipped with a plethora of sensors that enable a wide range of interactions, but some of these sensors can be employed as a side channel to surreptitiously learn about user in- put. In this paper, we show that the accelerometer sensor can also be employed as a high-bandwidth side channel; particularly, we demonstrate how to use the accelerometer sensor to learn user tap- and gesture-based input as required to unlock smartphones using a PIN/password or Android’s graphical password pattern.
Practicality of Accelerometer Side Channels on Smartphones PDF

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Farmer’s Supreme Court Challenge Puts Monsanto Patents at Risk
Authored by: Ribbit on Saturday, February 16 2013 @ 05:05 AM EST
Farmer’s Supreme Court Challenge Puts Monsanto Patents at Risk

Looks interesting...

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

BBC Click - DIY Tech using Open Source
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, February 16 2013 @ 07:13 AM EST
A nice, encouraging introduction for anyone wanting to join the (re)new(ed) maker movement (first half of the show - if you can access BBC programmes) using mainly Open Source hardware/software.
BBC iPlayer - Click: 16/02/2013

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Stop buying products made in Arizona.
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, February 16 2013 @ 08:43 AM EST
Clicky for HB 2485 bill The legislation would create a special "privilege" for health and safety reports and audits that companies do of their own products and practices. That means these reports could be kept confidential not only from people who file suit, but also from government regulators. Proponents of HB 2485 contend the measure actually will result in safer products because it will encourage companies to take a closer look at what they make and how they make it without fear that what they discover will end up being used against them in court.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Stingray - FBI Files Unlock History Behind Clandestine Cellphone Tracking Tool
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, February 16 2013 @ 10:46 AM EST
A fresh trove of FBI files on cell tracking, some marked “secret,” was published this week by the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

They shed light on how, far from being a “new” tool used by the authorities to track down targets, Stingray-style technology has been in the hands of the feds since about 1995 (at least). During that time, local and state law enforcement agencies have also been able to borrow the spy equipment in “exceptional circumstances,” thanks to an order approved by former FBI Director Louis Freeh.

EPIC, a civil liberties group, obtained the documents through ongoing Freedom of Information Act litigation that it is pursuing in order to get the feds to hand over some 25,000 pages of documents that relate to Stingray tools, about 6,000 of which are classified.

Ryan Gallagher, Slate

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Gangster Bankers: Too Big to Jail - Taibbi
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, February 16 2013 @ 07:35 PM EST
How HSBC hooked up with drug traffickers and terrorists. And got away with it - Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone
5 Outrageous Revelations from Matt Taibbi's Takedown on HSBC's Drug Money Laundering

1. By HSBC’s December settlement, the bank had already received two cease-and-desist letters.
2. HSBC covered its tracks when helping oppressive regimes avoid sanctions
3. HSBC ran offshore branches designed specifically for money laundering
4. HSBC did direct business with “the worst trafficking organizations imaginable.”
5. An entire HSBC department was tasked with quickly clearing suspicious behavior

Steven Hsieh, AlterNet

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Many people still believe Samsung succeeded by aping Apple. In a country like India? Think again
Authored by: SilverWave on Sunday, February 17 2013 @ 09:08 AM EST
But many people still believe Samsung succeeded by aping Apple. In a country like India where Apple’s share in smartphone market is less than 5%? Think again

---
RMS: The 4 Freedoms
0 run the program for any purpose
1 study the source code and change it
2 make copies and distribute them
3 publish modified versions

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Stupid, Stupid xBox!!
Authored by: SilverWave on Sunday, February 17 2013 @ 09:19 AM EST
Stupid, Stupid xBox!!

---
RMS: The 4 Freedoms
0 run the program for any purpose
1 study the source code and change it
2 make copies and distribute them
3 publish modified versions

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Microsoft is killing itself
Authored by: SilverWave on Sunday, February 17 2013 @ 09:52 AM EST
Microsoft is killing itself
The interesting bit here is that if you bought a decent computer in 2004 or 2005, it will probably handle Windows 8 just fine. Over the years, the hardware has become incredibly powerful. But Microsoft has not moved to take advantage of this hardware. When you set the hardware threshold too low, it is difficult to add features that can make a consumer go wow and nudge him to upgrade to a new computer. Instead, Microsoft has relied on faux user interface changes like Aero to push consumers to update. I call it failure of imagination.

People have stopped buying or upgrading personal computers because they don’t see any value in it. They have stopped upgrading the OS because it is essentially same. The core software stinks because it brings nothing new to the table. Story is same with Windows 8, which may have some cosmetic changes but doesn’t bring anything spectacular to the game. No wonder, people are barely noticing it.

---
RMS: The 4 Freedoms
0 run the program for any purpose
1 study the source code and change it
2 make copies and distribute them
3 publish modified versions

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Has Apple already outsourced too much?
Authored by: SilverWave on Sunday, February 17 2013 @ 10:16 AM EST
Has Apple already outsourced too much?
So, what’s Apple got to do? In so much as it is able to trust its suppliers of key components not to become competitors, it can continue to use them. But where it can’t, or where those suppliers have already become competitors, it has only one sensible choice — replace them. It has two choices here: the first (and obvious one) is with another supplier. But that risks the same thing happening all over again — Apple nursing another supplier into a competitor. The second choice: for components and services that are critical to maintaining competitive advantage in the markets which Apple plays, Apple needs to build the components themselves.

---
RMS: The 4 Freedoms
0 run the program for any purpose
1 study the source code and change it
2 make copies and distribute them
3 publish modified versions

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Washington Post fires inefficient mobile team ..
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, February 17 2013 @ 12:51 PM EST
"We’re told those given pink slips include Beth Jacobs, General Manager of Mobile, and Ken Dodelin, Director of Mobile Products. Sources say the entire Mobile Product Management and IT Project Management staffs have been eliminated." link

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

LibreOffice: cleaning & re-factoring a giant code-base or why re-writing it would be even worse
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, February 17 2013 @ 03:35 PM EST
A series of stories about how we’ve tackled the huge challenges of updating an old code-base and giving it a bright future and the impact of large-scale code-change in that process on quality and features in 4.0.

Come and hear how we’ve built an international team of developers to tackle the problems of resurrecting a poorly-understood, gigantic code-base extensively commented in German, with no unit tests, a tangled build infrastructure, and twenty-five years of un-paid technical debt.

Hear some stories of where we’ve come from - some comedy architectural disasters, and where we want to move to. Find out how you can get involved in that process. See the bug metrics, how we track our progress, regression counts, and the tooling we use to encourage participation and adapt the code. Does paying technical debt by significant, risky re-factoring pay? come and see the bug metrics.

See how we’ve innovated on top of this base with new features, new platforms and hear about some of the goodness in LibreOffice 4.0.

https://fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/challenges_libreoffice/

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Yahoo, Telecom, Spam, Trojan, Password, Thingy
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, February 18 2013 @ 12:23 AM EST
Bizarre story not yet on mainstream security blogs.
The two principals are known for their incompetence,
and reluctance to tell the truth.

What's   going   on here?

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

  • Just Yahoo - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, February 19 2013 @ 12:33 PM EST
Microsoft Publishes Linux Driver
Authored by: IMANAL_TOO on Monday, February 18 2013 @ 12:53 AM EST
www.phoro nix.com/scan.php%3f page=news_item&px=MTMwMzg
"Microsoft' s Linux kernel contributions continue... This
time around they have published a synthetic frame-buffer
driver. [...] This Microsoft Synthetic Video Driver is
currently under a "request for comments" state but it's
possible if the review goes well it could be potentially
merged for the forthcoming Linux 3.9 kernel development
cycle otherwise Linux 3.10."
The Pope, the Chebarkul meteorite, and now this.


---
______
IMANAL


.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

New XKCD
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, February 18 2013 @ 08:45 AM EST

XKCD

Wayne
http://madhatter.ca< /br>

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Holmes scholar files suit to put Sherlock unambiguously into the public domain
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, February 18 2013 @ 09:43 AM EST
A civil action was filed today in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois against the Arthur Conan Doyle Estate by Sherlock Holmes scholar Leslie S. Klinger.

Klinger seeks to have the Court determine that the characters of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John H. Watson are no longer protected by federal copyright laws and that writers, filmmakers, and others are free to create new stories about Holmes, Watson, and others of their circle without paying license fees to the current owners of the remaining copyrights.

Klinger says that the litigation came about because he and Laurie R. King, best-selling author of the “Mary Russell” series of mysteries that also feature Sherlock Holmes, were co-editing a new book called “In the Company of Sherlock Holmes.” This collection of stories by major mystery/sci-fi/fantasy authors inspired by the Holmes tales, is to be published by Pegasus Books.

“The Conan Doyle Estate contacted our publisher,” says Klinger, “and implied that if the Estate wasn’t paid a license fee, they’d convince the major distributors not to sell the book. Our publisher was, understandably, concerned, and told us that the book couldn’t come out unless this was resolved.

Free Sherlock!

h/t Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing & Scott Monty, The Baker Street Blog

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

MS BS in IE 10
Authored by: designerfx on Monday, February 18 2013 @ 11:00 AM EST
On windows 2012 server installs if you load IE it encourages
you to "Try the Bing Challenge" at the top - as in, use bing
instead of google.

Yep, they're that desperate.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

  • MS BS in IE 10 - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, February 18 2013 @ 01:09 PM EST
  • MS BS in IE 10 - Authored by: OpenSourceFTW on Monday, February 18 2013 @ 03:17 PM EST
  • MS BS in IE 10 - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, February 18 2013 @ 08:18 PM EST
  • Sounds right - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, February 19 2013 @ 12:42 PM EST
Could Dodd-Frank be unconstitutional?
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, February 18 2013 @ 02:52 PM EST
The suit claims that major parts of Dodd-Frank violate the Constitution’s separation of powers, including the new Consumer Finance Protection Bureau; a new council with the discretion to determine which non-bank financial firms are “too big to fail” and subject to additional regulation; and the government’s new “Orderly Liquidation Authority” to force failing financial companies to dissolve “with little or no advance warning,” according to the lawsuit.

Alabama, Georgia, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Texas, and West Virginia have now joined Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Michigan in the lawsuit.

Their attorneys general argue that the OLA, in particular, violates states’ property rights because of the investments that states have made in financial firms that could be dissolved by the federal government.

Suzy Khimm, The Washington Post

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Samsung is just Cooler than Apple
Authored by: MDT on Monday, February 18 2013 @ 04:26 PM EST
Ok, the fact that major news sites are starting to tout Samsung over Apple just tells all sorts of tales about where Apple's corporate head is right now.

CNN Article

---
MDT

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Obama's Secret Legal Technology for Drones (cartoon)
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, February 18 2013 @ 08:16 PM EST

Obama's Secret Legal Technology for Drones [cartoon on boing boing].

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Gates Foundation Dodges Another Questions
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, February 19 2013 @ 02:59 AM EST
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/docarchive
The Silent Epidemic 12 Feb 13, Duration: 24 mins
Drowning is the cause of a quarter of a million child fatalities every year. Mark Whitaker reports from Bangladesh and Vietnam.
We've had a lot of work to do in terms of convincing the international public health community that drowning is an issue. The medical system is geared towards what happens in hospitals... [audio at 18.41]
...
We would have liked to ask the Gates Foundation why it has been such a struggle. They are the biggest private donor in global health, and the one that others tend to follow. However they declined our invitation to take part in this program. [audio at 21.19]
I guess the profit in teaching kids to swim is too little, too slow.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Illinois - The Internet Posting Removal Act [proposed]
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, February 19 2013 @ 09:14 AM EST
Summary

Creates the Internet Posting Removal Act. Provides that a web site administrator shall, upon request, remove any posted comments posted by an anonymous poster unless the anonymous poster agrees to attach his or her name to the post and confirms that his or her IP address, legal name, and home address are accurate.

Effective 90 days after becoming law.

http://legiscan.com/IL/bill/SB1614

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Groklaw - that cool place where technology and law get to know each other
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, February 19 2013 @ 09:55 AM EST
The Feds don’t know what to make of Audi’s new LED headlamps

Audi built a better automotive lighting system, known as the matrix beam LED headlamps. Matrix LEDs promise better, more precise lighting for the driver, less blinding light to dazzle oncoming cars, and a kind of mid-beams for roads with only a little traffic. The Matrix lighting technology is ready to go on the 2013 Audi A8 big luxury sedan, but don’t hold your breath if you live in the US — when Audi asked the National Highway Transportation Administration for a ruling, the NHTSA demurred, unsure how to fit the square peg of a variable-output, matrix headlamp array into the round hole they call low and high beams.

Bill Howard, ExtremeTech

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

How to affordably own your office software
Authored by: JamesK on Tuesday, February 19 2013 @ 11:40 AM EST
Dump Microsoft Office, with its new licensing restrictions, and get LibreOffice instead.

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The following program contains immature subject matter.
Viewer discretion is advised.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Microsoft loses yet another fanboy
Authored by: JamesK on Tuesday, February 19 2013 @ 12:12 PM EST
Another one bytes the dust as Microsoft (and its ugly licensing practices) pushes a long-time fan away. Jack Wallen looks at what’s in store for Microsoft.

---
The following program contains immature subject matter.
Viewer discretion is advised.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Apache OpenOffice Valued at $21M Per Day
Authored by: JamesK on Tuesday, February 19 2013 @ 12:15 PM EST
The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) announced that Apache OpenOffice has a value of $21 million a day.

---
The following program contains immature subject matter.
Viewer discretion is advised.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

  • Huh? - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, February 19 2013 @ 05:34 PM EST
    • Huh? - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, February 19 2013 @ 06:53 PM EST
  • Apache OpenOffice Valued at $21M Per Day - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, February 19 2013 @ 10:28 PM EST
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