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King of Glory Lutheran Church
Do a presentation at NTLUG.
What is the Linux Installation Project?
Real companies using Linux!
Not just for business anymore.
Providing ready to run platforms on Linux
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- Debian: 2709-1: wireshark: Multiple vulnerabilities
LinuxSecurity.com: Multiple vulnerabilities were discovered in the dissectors for CAPWAP, GMR-1 BCCH, PPP, NBAP, RDP, HTTP, DCP ETSI and in the Ixia IxVeriWave file parser, which could result in denial of service or the execution of arbitrary code. [More...]
- Mandriva: 2013:175: owncloud
LinuxSecurity.com: Multiple vulnerabilities has been found and corrected in owncloud:Cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities in js/viewer.js insidethe files_videoviewer application via multiple unspecified vectors inall ownCloud versions prior to 5.0.7 and 4.5.12 allows authenticated[More...]
- Debian: 2708-1: fail2ban: denial of service
LinuxSecurity.com: Krzysztof Katowicz-Kowalewski discovered a vulnerability in fail2ban, a log monitoring and system which can act on attack by preventing hosts to connect to specified services using the local firewall. [More...]
- Mandriva: 2013:174: apache
LinuxSecurity.com: Multiple vulnerabilities has been found and corrected in apache:mod_rewrite.c in the mod_rewrite module in the Apache HTTP Server2.2.x before 2.2.25 writes data to a log file without sanitizingnon-printable characters, which might allow remote attackers to execute[More...]
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- A Brief History And Guide To Linux’s Touch Experience
The Linux community has been divided in recent years over how desktop environments should be used and designed. The open source community, sometimes accused of merely imitating proprietary operating systems rather than innovating, released several new user interfaces that were geared towards touch screens years before the recent touch-oriented release of Windows 8. These interfaces have met with mixed reactions as they were geared towards hardware that, frankly, most users simply did not have access to. There are many Linux touch-oriented desktop environments, but where is the hardware?
- Rekonq 2 – 2.2 Major Features Highlighted
The Rekonq web browser just took a major step forward, delivering all the missing features you may have wanted, and a great deal more. Instead of letting you waste your time hunting for these great features, I have listed them for convenience, with screenshots.
- Linux continues to rule supercomputers
If you want a really fast computer, then Linux is your operating system and Intel may be your chip manufacturer. The June 2013 TOP500 supercomputer list is in and 476 of the top 500 fastest supercomputers in the world run Linux.
- 7 essentials for defending against DDoS attacks
Go ahead and ask CSOs from the nation's largest banks about the myriad distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks they've experienced in recent months. They're not going to tell you anything. Security execs have never been comfortable talking about these attacks because they don't want to draw more attention to their companies. They worry that offering even the basic details of their defensive strategy will inspire attackers to find the holes.
- Hardware Hacks: Onion Pi, DesignSpark and Arduino control boards
The H's Hardware Hacks section collects stories about the wide range of uses of open source in the rapidly expanding area of open hardware. It's where you can find out about interesting projects, the re-purposing of devices and the creation of a new generation of deeply open systems. In this edition: turn a Raspberry Pi into a Tor anonymising proxy, RS Components introduces a site for open source hardware projects, two new boards to control Arduino projects from mobile devices, and an augmented reality backend for Drupal.
- Ubuntu phone OS has eight carriers signed on to boost development
Canonical said the first members of the group are Deutsche Telekom, Everything Everywhere, Korea Telecom, Telecom Italia, LG UPlus, Portugal Telecom, SK Telecom, and "the leading Spanish international carrier." We've asked Canonical to identify the Spanish carrier, although based on the description it may be Telefónica (also known as O2). With the exception of Deutsche Telekom, the owner of T-Mobile, the list doesn't include any major US carriers. Canonical said that "any national or multinational carrier" may join.
- How to read 2 files alternatively line by line
we will see several command methods with which we can read 2 files alternatively line by line, which means line #1 from file #1 then line #1 from file 2, then line #2 from file #1 then line #2 from file 2 ... and so on. This way of reading will produce a combined file output in which lines are alternated between the files.
- Linux Foundation Sponsors IT Training Scholarship
The French revolutionary Georges Danton famously said, "After bread, education is the people's first need." And while the French Revolution and the channel may not have much in common, there are few places in which this populist message resonates better than the open source ecosystem, where providing development and other skills to volunteer contributors is vital to long-term success—which is exactly what the Linux Foundation is doing starting this week with its 2013 Linux Training Scholarship Program.
- Bridge 2013.06 Screenshot Tour
Announcing Bridge Linux 2013.06. This update was mostly just a re-package, but there were a few changes still. Update overview: switched from Packer to Pacaur (don't worry, it's aliased in ~/.bashrc for a while); removed LXMed due to Java dependency; switched to official font packages, no more recompiling the AUR version.
- Ubuntu phone OS forms international Carrier Advisory Group
Eight carriers have joined the Ubuntu phone Carrier Advisory Group (CAG). CAG members will influence the Ubuntu Phone roadmap and participate as launch partners. The carrier group includes: Deutsche Telekom, Everything Everywhere, Korea Telecom, Telecom Italia, LG UPlus, Portugal Telecom, SK Telecom and the leading Spanish international carrier.
- In-Fighting Continues Over Mir On Non-Unity Ubuntu
For those looking for the latest drama in the Ubuntu Linux land, the fighting over whether KDE and GNOME should support the Mir Display Server to complement the in-development Wayland support continues to be hotly discussed.
- France and Germany launch open source collaboration
The Open Source Business Alliance (OSBA), a confederation of German open source providers and users, and its French counterpart, the Conseil National du Logiciel Libre (CNLL) have agreed on a wide-ranging collaboration. The two organisations want to better coordinate their campaigning at the European level and to collaborate with other European open source organisations.
- Webconverger 20 out now
The latest in the Webconverger line of internet kiosk distros is out now, with all important upgrades to its Linux core and web software
- No one was harmed in the making of this device
With the volcanic rise of the Android OS, smartphones are becoming predominantly open devices. Millions of people are happily walking around with Linux in their pockets and they don’t even know it. Nor should they have to; your average consumer will not choose a smartphone based on its open operating system. If sales are any indication, it’s no longer an uphill battle for open source on smartphones.
- German Parliament tells government to strictly limit patents on software
On Friday June 7, the German Parliament decided upon a joint motion to limit software patents (see English translation by BIKT). The Parliament urges the German Government to take steps to limit the granting of patents on computer programs. Software should exclusively be covered by copyright, and the rights of the copyright holders should not be devalued by third parties' software patents. The only exception where patents should be allowed are computer programs which replace a mechanical or electromagnetic component. In addition the Parliament made clear that governmental actions related to patents must never interfere with the legality of distributing Free Software.
- Cat-like robot runs like the wind, on Linux
Researchers at EPFL’s Biorobotics Laboratory (Biorob) announced a cat-like robot that is claimed to be the fastest quadruped robot under 30 kilograms. The Cheetah-cub Robot, which runs real-time Xenomai Linux on an x86-based RoBoard control board, mimics the biomechanics of a cat to increase the speed and stability of it quadroped legs, helping it achieve speeds of 1.42m/s.
- Trove of medical devices found to have password problems
Up to 300 various medical devices from 40 vendors have been identified as vulnerable to a hard-coded password issue and two government agencies are working to get the word out and protect against exploits. The Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team (ICS-CERT) at the Department of Homeland Security, and the Food and Drug Administration are warning that the vulnerability could allow attackers to change critical settings and modify firmware.
- Customized Ubuntu OS for kiosks and digital signs
Logic Supply has signed a deal with RapidRollout to offer the latter’s custom Linux appliance platforms on embedded computers aimed at non-desktop applications such as interactive kiosks and digital signage. RapidRollout is a lightweight, customized version of Ubuntu enhanced with features like remote management tools and easy-to-use configuration and set-up utilities, says the company.
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- Webcam Captures Volcano Explosion And Shockwave In A Time-Lapse Video
Yesterday, Mexico's Popocatépetl volcano experienced a powerful explosion as the top “popped off” to relieve the pressure within. A webcam pointed at the peak was able to capture the whole thing, and the video above shows what the explosion and resulting shockwave look like in time-lapse.
- Michael Hastings Dead At 33
Michael Hastings, the fearless journalist whose reporting brought down the career of General Stanley McChrystal, has died in a car accident in Los Angeles. He was 33.
- Ambien: Dream Medicine Or Total Nightmare?
New reports link the sleep medication to a spate of E.R. visits for hallucinations, agitation, and sleep-walking, among other complaints. But it also helps a lot of people. What's to know?
- Congressman Rescues Choking Congressman
A Texas congressman who was choking on a piece of popcorn is thanking a fellow Republican from Arizona and a House staffer who is also a doctor for stepping in to help.
- The Four Times NSA Surveillance Programs Stopped An Attack
Since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the government’s surveillance programs have helped thwart a terrorist attack in over 50 instances, according to Gen. Keith Alexander, director of the National Security Agency. The intelligence community has decided to disclose four of these cases.
- LinkedIn Has A Stalker Problem
For victims of sexual harassment, assault, and domestic violence, looking for work means exposing themselves to their assailants. And LinkedIn offers no protections.
- Don Draper Was Raped
Mad Men's non-consensual encounter on between a young, frightened Dick Whitman and a prostitute didn't generate as much chatter as its gender-reversed scenario might have. Why?
- How Much Cheaper Airbnb Is Than Hotels In U.S. Cities
Is it actually less expensive to stay at an Airbnb than a hotel? Can you rent an entire apartment for less than the cost of a hotel? We suspected that Airbnb rentals are less expensive than hotels, but are they really?
- The 10 Ways That Men Text Women
In general, men don’t know how to text. We’re slow learners. Even though we’re a full decade into the Texting Revolution, our tiny missives are sometimes rude, sometimes girly, and always confusing.
- First Impressions Of OS X Mavericks
Mavericks is the first OS X release since Snow Leopard that doesn't constantly make you stop, consider a new feature that has just made your life worse in some incomprensible way, and then hope very hard that this is a bug, because it cannot possibly be an intended feature, because the world is, at a rest, a basically good place where people (like software engineers) do not deliberately inflict things like Launchpad on good, hardworking people.
- Who Is The Richest Supreme Court Justice?
If you said Justice Sonia Sotomayor, that wouldn’t be a bad guess. She has earned millions of dollars in royalties from her bestselling book, but she’s still far from the richest member of the Court.
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- NVIDIA To License Its GPU Tech
An anonymous reader writes "Today in a blog post, NVIDIA's General Counsel, David Shannon, announced that the company will begin licensing its GPU cores and patent portfolio to device makers. '[I]t's not practical to build silicon or systems to address every part of the expanding market. Adopting a new business approach will allow us to address the universe of devices.' He cites the 'explosion of Android devices' as one of the prime reasons for this decision. 'This opportunity simply didn't exist several years ago because there was really just one computing device – the PC. But the swirling universe of new computing devices provides new opportunities to license our GPU core or visual computing portfolio.' Shannon points out that NVIDIA did something similar with the CPU core used in the PlayStation 3, which was licensed to Sony. But mobile seems to be the big opportunity now: 'We'll start by licensing the GPU core based on the NVIDIA Kepler architecture, the world's most advanced, most efficient GPU. Its DX11, OpenGL 4.3, and GPGPU capabilities, along with vastly superior performance and efficiency, create a new class of licensable GPU cores. Through our efforts designing Tegra into mobile devices, we've gained valuable experience designing for the smallest power envelopes. As a result, Kepler can operate in a half-watt power envelope, making it scalable from smartphones to supercomputers.'"
- MySQL Man Pages Silently Relicensed Away From GPL
An anonymous reader writes "The MariaDB blog is reporting a small change to the license covering the man pages to MySQL. Until recently, the governing license was GPLv2. Now the license reads, 'This software and related documentation are provided under a license agreement containing restrictions on use and disclosure and are protected by intellectual property laws. Except as expressly permitted in your license agreement or allowed by law, you may not use, copy, reproduce, translate, broadcast, modify, license, transmit, distribute, exhibit, perform, publish, or display any part, in any form, or by any means. Reverse engineering, disassembly, or decompilation of this software, unless required by law for interoperability, is prohibited.'"
- Verizon Accused of Intentionally Slowing Netflix Video Streaming
colinneagle writes "A recent GigaOm report discusses Verizon's 'peering' practices, which involves the exchange of traffic between two bandwidth providers. When peering with bandwidth provider Cogent starts to reach capacity, Verizon reportedly isn't adding any ports to meet the demand, Cogent CEO Dave Schaffer told GigaOm. 'They are allowing the peer connections to degrade,' Schaffer said. 'Today some of the ports are at 100 percent capacity.' Why would Verizon intentionally disrupt Netflix video streaming for its customers? One possible reason is that Verizon owns a 50% stake in Redbox, the video rental service that contributed to the demise of Blockbuster (and more recently, a direct competitor to Netflix in online streaming). If anything threatens the future of Redbox, whose business model requires customers to visit its vending machines to rent and return DVDs, it's Netflix's instant streaming service, which delivers the same content directly to their screens."
- Oculus Rift Raises Another $16 Million
Craefter writes "It seems that the Oculus Rift virtual-reality headset caught the attention of investors after its showing at E3 this year. Spark Capital and Matrix Partners were able to push $16 million at Oculus VR in the hopes that the product will live up to the hype. The HD unit looks a bit more slick than the ski-goggles-with-a-tablet-glued-to-it prototype, but the device would look even more appealing if the next-gen consoles would commit to supporting it. (We all know how well the PS3's 'wave-stick' did as an afterthought.) That said, major titles like the 9-year-old Half-Life 2 and the 6-year-old Team Fortress 2 are getting full support for the device. Hopefully some developers are looking into support for the Oculus Rift as a launch feature, rather than an addition years after the fact. IA bit like the EAX standard from Soundblaster. That worked out well too."
- KWin Maintainer: Fanboys and Trolls Are the Cancer Killing Free Software
An anonymous reader writes "Martin Gräßlin, maintainer of the KWin window manager, writes an informative blog post about his experiences with the less favorable pockets of the Free Software community. Quoting: 'Years ago I had a clear political opinion. I was a civil-rights activist. I appreciated freedom and anything limiting freedom was a problem to me. Freedom of speech was one of the most important rights for me. I thought that democracy has to be able to survive radical or insulting opinions. In a democracy any opinion should have a right even if it's against democracy. I had been a member of the lawsuit against data preservation in Germany. I supported the German Pirate Party during the last election campaign because of a new censorship law. That I became a KDE developer is clearly linked to the fact that it is a free software community. But over the last years my opinion changed. Nowadays I think that not every opinion needs to be tolerated. I find it completely acceptable to censor certain comments and encourage others to censor, too. What was able to change my opinion in such a radical way? After all I still consider civil rights as extremely important. The answer is simple: Fanboys and trolls.'"
- Google Files First Amendment Challenge Against FISA Gag Order
The Washington Post reports that Google has filed a motion challenging the gag orders preventing it from disclosing information about the data requests it receives from government agencies. The motion cites the free speech protections of the First Amendment. "FISA court data requests typically are known only to small numbers of a company’s employees. Discussing the requests openly, either within or beyond the walls of an involved company, can violate federal law." From the filing (PDF): "On June 6, 2013, The Guardian newspaper published a story mischaracterizing the scope and nature of Google's receipt of and compliance with foreign intelligence surveillance requests. ... In light of the intense public interest generated by The Guardian's and Post's erroneous articles, and others that have followed them, Google seeks to increase its transparency with users and the public regarding its receipt of national security requests, if any. ... Google's reputation and business has been harmed by the false or misleading reports in the media, and Google's users are concerned by the allegation. Google must respond to such claims with more than generalities. ... In particular, Google seeks a declaratory judgment that Google as a right under the First Amendment to publish ... two aggregate unclassified numbers: (1) the total number of FISA requests it receives, if any; and (2) the total number of users or accounts encompassed within such requests."
- Microsoft To Start Dumping Surface RT To Schools For $199
onyxruby writes "In a move that will remind many of Apple in the '80s, Microsoft is going to start dumping Surface RT computers to educational institutions. In an effort to try to gain mindshare for their struggling Surface RT platform, Microsoft is giving away 10,000 Surface RTs to teachers through the International Society for Technology in Education. They're also preparing to offer $199 Surface RTs to K12 and higher education institutions. The strategy of flooding the educational market was quite successful for Apple. Unfortunately for Microsoft, today's computers require management and the Surface RT presents significant management challenges in terms of the inability to join the computer to a domain or available management tools."
- With an Eye Toward Disaster, NYC Debuts Solar Charging Stations
Nerval's Lobster writes "When hurricane Sandy pummeled New York City last fall, it left a sizable percentage of the metropolis without electricity. Residents had trouble keeping their phones and tablets charged, and often walked across whole neighborhoods to reach zones with power. Come the next disaster, at least a few citizens could communicate a little easier thanks to 25 solar-powered charging stations going up around the city. The stations—known as 'Street Charge' — are the result of a partnership between AT&T, Brooklyn design studio Pensa, and portable solar-power maker Goal Zero (with approval by the city's Parks Department). The first unit will deploy in Brooklyn's Fort Green Park on June 18, followed in short order by others in Union Square, Central Park, the Rockaways, and other locations. Each station incorporates lithium-ion batteries in addition to solar panels; charging a phone to full capacity could take as long as two hours, but the time necessary for a partial charge is much shorter. But a couple of charging stations also won't help very much if half the city is without power: In order to help mitigate the effects of the next hurricane, New York City major Michael Bloomberg has put forward a $20 billion plan for seawalls, levees, and dozens of other improvements. 'Sandy exposed weaknesses in the city's telecommunications infrastructure — including the location of critical facilities in areas that are susceptible to flooding,' reads one section of the plan's accompanying report. The city will harden the system 'by increasing the accountability of telecommunications providers to invest in resiliency and by using new regulatory authority to enable rapid recovery after extreme weather events.'"
- 2013 U.S. Wireless Network Tests: AT&T Fastest, Verizon Most Reliable
adeelarshad82 writes "For the fourth year running, PCMag sent drivers out on U.S. roads to test the nation's Fastest Mobile Networks. Using eight identical Samsung phones, the drivers tested out eight separate networks for four major carriers across 30 cities evenly spread across six regions. Using Sensorly's 2013 software, a broad suite of tests were conducted every three minutes: a 'ping' to test network latency, multi-threaded HTTP upload and download tests including separate 'time to first byte' measures, a 4MB single-threaded file download, a 2MB single-threaded file upload, the download of a 1MB Web page with 70 elements, and 100kbps and 500kbps UDP streams designed to simulate streaming media. Nearly 90,000 data cycles later, the data not only revealed the fastest networks (AT&T) and the most consistent (Verizon), but also other interesting points. The tests recorded the fastest download speed (66.11 Mbits/sec) in New Orleans and the best average in Austin (27.25 Mbits/sec), both for AT&T's LTE network. The tests also found T-Mobile's HSPA network to have the worst Average-Time-To-First-Byte, even when compared with AT&T HSPA network. Also according to the tests, Sprint's LTE network didn't even come close to competing with other LTE networks, to the point that in some cities its LTE network speed averaged less than T-Mobile's HSPA network speed."
- How Ubiquitous Autonomous Cars Could Affect Society (Video)
We talked with Peter Wayner about autonomous cars on June 5. He had a lot to say on this topic, to the point where we seem to be doing a whole series of interviews with him because autonomous cars might have a lot of unanticipated effects on our lives and our economy. Heck, Peter has enough to say about driverless cars to fill a book, Future Ride, which we hope he finishes editing soon because we (Tim and Robin) want to read it. While that book is brewing, watch for some thoughts on how autonomous cars (and delivery vans) might affect us in the near future.
- First Particle Comprising Four Quarks Discovered
ananyo writes "Physicists have resurrected a particle that may have existed in the first hot moments after the Big Bang. Arcanely called Zc(3900), it is the first confirmed particle made of four quarks, the building blocks of much of the Universe's matter (abstract one, abstract two). Until now, observed particles made of quarks have contained only three quarks (such as protons and neutrons) or two quarks (such as the pions and kaons found in cosmic rays)."
- Jon 'Maddog' Hall On Project Cauã: a Server In Every Highrise
Qedward writes with an excerpt at TechWorld about a new project from Jon "Maddog" Hall, which is about to launch in Brazil: "The vision of Project Cauã is to promote more efficient computing following the thin client/server model, while creating up to two million privately-funded high-tech jobs in Brazil, and another three to four million in the rest of Latin America. Hall explained that Sao Paolo in Brazil is the second largest city in the Western Hemisphere and has about twelve times the population density of New York City. As a result, there are a lot of people living and working in very tall buildings. Project Cauã will aim to put a server system in the basement of all of these tall buildings and thin clients throughout the building, so that residents and businesses can run all of their data and applications remotely."
- HFT Nothing To Worry About (at Least In Australia)
angry tapir writes "Although software-driven high-frequency trading has got a pretty bad rap (being blamed for the so-called 'Flash Crash' in 2012 for example) Australia's chief financial regulator ASIC says that, in Australia at least, it's not cause for concern. After an in-depth study of HFT in Australian markets, ASIC decided to hold off on previously considered regulatory changes (such as implementing a 'pause' for some small trades)."
- Shapeshifting: Proposal For a New Periodic Table of the Elements
First time accepted submitter ramorim writes "In honor of the Chemist Day, celebrated in Brazil on this day June 18, 2013, I publish a proposal for a new Periodic Table of Elements (Original, in Portugese) in a modular spiral-hexagonal model, with continuity and connectivity for all constituent units of the matter. This proposal indeed permits to extrapolate the hypothetical elements of the G-block and H-block in the same model."
- NASA Selects 8 New Astronaut Trainees, Including 4 Women
illiteratehack writes "NASA has selected a 39-year-old chief technology officer to become a trainee astronaut. Josh Cassada is the current chief technology officer and co-founder of Quantum Opus, a firm that specialises in photonics. Cassada is one of eight individuals selected by NASA from 6,100 applicants for astronaut training, though what their future mission may be has yet to be revealed." Of the astronaut trainees selected, four of them are women — a new record.
- UK Town of Ipswich Remodelled As Zelda Level
cyclomedia writes "Switch Fringe is a relatively new not-for-profit annual music and arts festival in the UK town of Ipswich, and this year's program features a full page map of the town with details about each venue. Unlike most other maps this one is in the form of a Zelda level. This is in part due to this year's theme 'Re-imagining Ipswich,' that PixelH8 is coming out of semi-retirement to play a gig during the proceedings and possibly due to the fact that the map's designer — The Decibel Kid — spent too much time playing Zelda on a Gameboy Color during the first Web bubble."
- BitCoin Mining, Other Virtual Activity Taxable Under US Law
chicksdaddy writes "Beware you barons of BitCoin – you World of Warcraft one-percenters: the long arm of the Internal Revenue Service may soon be reaching into your treasure hoard to extract Uncle Sam's fair share of your virtual wealth. A new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on virtual economies finds that many types of transactions in virtual economies – including Bitcoin mining and virtual transactions that result in real-world profit – are likely taxable under current U.S. law, but that the IRS does a poor job of tracking such business activity and informing buyers and sellers of their duty to pay taxes on virtual earnings. The report, 'Virtual Economies and Currencies: Additional IRS Guidance Could Reduce Tax Compliance Risks' found that the growing use of virtual currencies like BitCoin and virtual game currencies warrants the U.S.'s tax collection agency to mitigate the risks. Those include efforts to educate taxpayers and the publication of basic tax reporting requirements for transactions using virtual currencies, The Security Ledger reports."
- ITIF Senior Fellow Claims "America's Broadband Networks Lead the World"
McGruber writes "In an Op-Ed published in The NY Times, Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF.org) Senior Fellow Richard Bennett claims that 'America's broadband networks lead the world by many measures, and they are improving at a more rapid rate than networks in most developed countries.' Mr. Bennett also says, 'the most critical issue facing American broadband has nothing to do with the quality of our networks; it is our relatively low rates of subscribership.'"
- UnGrounded: British Airways Attempts to Bottle Some Startup Spirit
theodp writes "Bill Gates already called dibbs on polio, so British Airways had to settle for tackling the 'global misalignment of talent' problem, putting '100 of the most forward-thinking founders, CEOs, venture capitalists, and Silicon Valley game-changers' on a flight from San Francisco to London to 'innovate and collaborate to find an effective solution to this growing global challenge.' UnGroundedThinking.com showcases the winning concepts, which include Advisher (an online community to help foster women in STEM), INIT ('nutritional labels' to disclose products' 'STEM ingredients'), DGTL (rewards young women with fashionable clothes for completing coding challenges), Beacons in a Backpack (solar powered backpacks pre-loaded with videos, multimedia content, and game-powered educational tools that also serve as mobile hotspots for rural/remote areas), Tech21 (STEM education program aimed at 21-years-and-older post-college grads in the workforce), Certify.me (allows STEM talent from across the globe to audition for potential employers via standardized-quality assessments), and STEAM Truck (a mobile dance lab where STEM art installations teach kids that science is fun and valuable). 'This has the feel of Southby [SXSW],' gushed a Google Ventures general partner. "It's a serendipitous occasion. It's about time we presented engineers to kids as role models — not just firefighters, cops, doctors, detectives. Who knows? Maybe The Internship changes that.'"
- TiVo Series 5 Coming This Fall
WebGangsta writes "The rumor mill continues to grow closer and closer to reality, as The Verge is reporting the upcoming SERIES 5 TiVo will have 6 tuners, support OTA recording (an old TiVo feature being brought back), storage beyond the 2TB limit, and more. While some would say that TiVo today is nothing more than a Patent Holder (albeit a successful one), there's still a market for a cable box that doubles as a streaming player. Is hardware the future of TiVo, or should they go and just license their software to all? And don't get us started on those 'TiVo Buying Hulu' or 'Apple/Google buying TiVo' rumors... that's a different story for a different day."
- How To Block the NSA From Your Friends List
Atticus Rex writes "The fact that our social networking services are so centralized is a big part of why they fall so easily to government surveillance. It only takes a handful of amoral Zuckerbergs to hand over hundreds of millions of people's data to PRISM. That's why this Slate article makes the case for a mass migration to decentralized, free software social networks, which are much more robust to spying and interference. On top of that, these systems respect your freedom as a software user (or developer), and they're less likely to pepper you with obnoxious advertisements." On a related note, identi.ca is ditching their Twitter clone platform for pump.io which promises an experience closer to the Facebook news feed. Unfortunately, adoption seems slow since Facebook, Google, et al have an interest in preventing interoperability and it can be lonely on the distributed social network.
- Have We Hit Peak HFT?
CowboyRobot writes "There was a time when people wanted the fastest networks so that they could trade at lightning speeds. They deployed the smartest formulas at trading venues where no one could know who was asking for that big block of stocks on the other end of the deal. It was a wild time and people made a lot of money along with some very unwise decisions. Wall Street seems to be acting out the lyrics to a Don Henley song. The party's over, the hangover is raging and no one really knows what happened the night before. The number of shares traded via high-frequency trading are down and politicians want to roll out a tax to serve as a speed bump. Iowa Senator Tom Harkin and Oregon Representative Peter DeFazio want a .03 percent tax on nearly every trade in nearly every market in the U.S. Some are wondering if microsecond dealings are poised to fade away. As the founder of HFT firm Tower Research Capital Mark Gorton puts it, 'The easy money's gone. We're doing more things better than ever before and making less money doing it.'"
- Intel Announces New Enterprise Xeons, More Powerful Xeon Phi Cards
MojoKid writes "Intel announced a set of new enterprise products today aimed at furthering its strengths in the TOP500 supercomputing market. As of today, the Chinese Tiahne-2 supercomputer (aka Milky Way 2) is now the fastest supercomputer on the planet at roughly ~54PFLOPs. Intel is putting its own major push behind heterogeneous computing with the Tianhe-2. Each node contains two Ivy Bridge sockets and three Xeon Phi cards. Each node, therefore, contains 422.4GFLOP/s in Ivy Bridge performance — but 3.43TFLOPs/s worth of Xeon Phi. In addition, we'll see new Xeons based on this technology later this year, in the 22nm E5-2600 V2 family, with up to 12 cores. The new chips will be built on Ivy Bridge technology and will offer up to 12 cores / 24 threads. The new Xeons, however, aren't really the interesting part of the story. Today, Intel is adding cards to the current Xeon Phi lineup — the 7120P, 3120P, 3120A, and 5120D. The 3120P and 3120A are the same card — the 'P' is passively cooled, while the "A" integrates a fan. Both of these solutions have 57 CPUs and 6GB of RAM. Intel states that they offer ~1TFLOP of performance, which puts them on par with the 5110P that launched last year, but with slightly less memory and presumably a lower price point. At the top of the line, Intel is introducing the 7120P and 7120X — the 7120P comes with an integrated heat spreader, the 7120X doesn't. Clock speeds are higher on this card, it has 61 cores instead of 60, 16GB of GDDR5, and 352GBps of memory bandwidth. Customers who need lots of cores and not much RAM can opt for one of the cheaper 3100 cards, while the 7100 family allows for much greater data sets."
- Google Enables VP9 Video Codec In Chromium
An anonymous reader writes "Last month, Google revealed that it was planning to finish defining its VP9 video codec on June 17 (today), after which it will start using the next-generation compression technology in Chrome and on YouTube. The company is wasting no time: it has already enabled the free video compression standard by default in the latest Chromium build."
- Scores of Vulnerable SAP Deployments Uncovered
mask.of.sanity writes "Hundreds of organizations have been detected running dangerously vulnerable versions of SAP that were more than seven years old and thousands more have placed their critical data at risk by exposing SAP applications to the public Internet. The new research found the SAP services were inadvertently made accessible thanks to a common misconception that SAP systems were not publicly-facing and remotely-accessible. The SAP services contained dangerous vulnerabilities which were since patched by the vendor but had not been applied."
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- Spear phish your boss to win more security cash
Websense CSO recommends fake attacks on suits to open their wallets
Despite weekly news of successful and nasty online attacks damaging organisations of every stripe, executive types remain blasé about security and don't pay it enough attention, says Jason Clark, chief security officer at Websense, who recommends fighting back by phishing CEOs and board members.…
- Six nations ask Google for answers on Glass privacy
Canada, Oz, NZ, Mexico, Switzerland and Israel send 'Dear Larry' letter
36 Privacy Commissioners from around the world have written to Google to ask, in the polite-but-firm language of international diplomacy, for some details about Google Glass.…
- Huawei muses on Nokia's future
“Open minded” about acquisition
Growing its smartphone shipments by 94 percent from Q1 2012 to Q1 2013 might not be enough to satisfy Huawei: it's reportedly floated the idea of acquiring Nokia.…
- House bill: 'Hey NASA, that asteroid retrieval plan? Fuggedaboutit'
Republican-led committee also swings budget axe at climate science
If the Republican-led House Subcommittee on Space has its way, NASA's proposed asteroid-retrieval mission will be killed, the agency's budget will be capped for the next two years at about 5 per cent less than last year's, and NASA's Earth observation efforts will be cut back.…
- Foreign keys, JavaScript support on deck for MySQL Cluster update
All this and faster performance, too
Following more than 12 months of development and preview releases, Oracle has announced general availability of MySQL Cluster 7.3, bringing a number of important new features and enhancements to the open source clustering add-on for the MySQL database.…
- Icahn doubles down on Dell offer with $14 per share buyback scheme
Confirms he's now Dell's largest private investor – short of Big Mike, that is
With exactly a month to go before the special meeting of Dell shareholders that could decide the company's fate, investor Carl Icahn has increased the pressure for a better deal for shareholders – chiefly himself.…
- Google mounts legal challenge to surveillance gag orders
Argues free speech trumps security secrecy
Google has filed a legal petition "respectfully requesting" the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) release it from a gag order, and allow the company to tell users how often the NSA comes calling for data.…
- It's time to suck the marrow from the NBN debate
The Reg has a plan to ensure Australia knows what its billions will buy
Australia has, for the past decade, enjoyed a vivid but not-always productive debate on appropriate broadband infrastructure for the nation. The Reg wants to set that to rights.…
- Canonical unveils Carrier Advisory Group for Ubuntu phones
Eight possible launch partners already signed on
Canonical, the company behind the Ubuntu Linux distribution, has announced the formation of a Carrier Advisory Group (CAG) to help advocate for the open source OS as a smartphone platform.…
- Soylent days and soylent nights
Food 2.0 fails the post-pub nosh test
Green beans, chilli con carne, fresh mackerel, olives, zucchini, pork belly stuffed with chilli and garlic – these are some of the things we've been thinking of during our self-imposed Soylent diet. Clearly, we're not the right market for the stuff.…
- GE partners with Amazon for 'industrial internet'
Proprietary cloud for the internet of things, with help from Accenture and Pivotal
GE has announced a cloud-based analytics platform for net-connected devices as the manufacturing giant tries to forge a set of technologies for what it terms "the industrial internet".…
- Ex-HTC execs launch UK-based smartphone maker Kazam
Startup threatens to 'disrupt status quo' this year
As struggling smartphone maker HTC continues to reel from what looks like a mass exodus of executives, two former HTC execs have announced that they are forming their own smartphone company with the goal of "disrupting the status quo."…
- Nvidia stretches CUDA coding to ARM chips
OpenACC is building up momentum as Chipzilla ignores it
ISC 2013 Nvidia's new CUDA 5.5 release aims to overcome the inherent mathematical suckiness of the ARM architecture by unleashing the powers of GPUs working in conjunction with those popular low-power chips – and not just ones from Nvidia.…
- Apple's screw-up leaves tethered iPhones easily crackable
24 seconds from pickup to pwned
iPhones being used as Wi-Fi hotspots are open to attack because of lax security protocols in the automatic password generation system Apple has in place, according to new research from the University of Erlangen in Germany.…
- Huawei unwraps Ascend P6: World's slimmest smartphone
Don't mention the info war
Huawei's latest handset ticks all the right boxes, and is only 6mm thick, but surrounded by headlines about government intrusion, the timing of the launch could've been a lot better for a company that was being accused of government spying well before PRISM made it fashionable.…
- UK telcos chuck another £1m at online child abuse watchdog
Web enforcers IWF gain power to seek and destroy illegal content
Britain's largest ISPs have agreed to contribute a further £1m to the Internet Watch Foundation, following a meeting with Culture Secretary Maria Miller about child sex abuse images and videos found online.…
- CLOUD TO SUCK UP ALL YOUR CASH: Govts around world slash IT spending
Survey: Bring your own device, because we sure as hell won't buy you one
Governments around the world have made plans to cut their IT spending, according to a study, although apparently they're still really keen on the "cloud" and have also shown some interest in "Big Data".…
- HPC server sales spike: Buyers get chops around juicy cheap flops
Big Data-supercomputing mash up, coprocessors included
ISC 2013 The plain vanilla server racket may have struggled in the first quarter, but sales of machinery aimed at high performance computing workloads -both traditional simulation workloads and new-fangled "Big Data" jobs - bucked the downward trends in the first quarter, according to the latest research from IDC.…
- Latest NASA ASTRONAUT class is HALF FEMALE
Newbie 'nauts include lady Marine fighter pilot, male doctor
NASA has picked four women and four men for its latest batch of trainee astronauts - and that's the highest percentage of female space rookies ever selected for one class.…
- O2 averts strike action over mass Capita outsourcing deal
Details of new agreement not yet released
The Communication Workers' Union has called off its strike ballot, scheduled to close today, following a last-minute deal with O2 and outsourcing giant Capita, the details of which haven't been released.…
- Drug gang hacks into Belgian seaport, cops seize TONNE of smack
9 nabbed after shipping container system used to transport heroin, cocaine
Police in the Netherlands and Belgium have seized a tonne of cocaine, a tonne of heroin and a suitcase stuffed with €1.3m after uncovering a massive drug smuggling operation that used hackers to break into the systems of shipping companies.…
- Spin doctors brazenly fiddle with tiny bits in front of the neighbours
Quantum computer address bus just nanometres wide
The University of New South Wales, working with Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, is celebrating what it hopes will be another step towards large-scale quantum computing: a technique that can address single electron qubits separated by mere nanometres.…
- Shrinking iPads, Ultrabooks will lead to disk boost: WD boss
As EMC, Netapp become the meat in a cloudy enterprise sandwich
WD showed a slide at its annual summit earlier this month that described the current computing market as "very chaotic". That would be a highly relative description, given the storage giant had booked the summit into Istanbul just as a sit-in at a park in the Turkish city had escalated into a three-day battle between protesters and riot police, with satellite skirmishes in other towns and cities across the country.…
- G-Cloud overlord McDonagh gets CBE nod from Queen
How long have you worked here? What do you do? Have a medal
Former G-Cloud supremo Denise McDonagh was handed a CBE in Her Maj's birthday honours list at the weekend for services to the IT services industry.…
- Samsung Galaxy Note 8: Proof the pen is mightier?
Sammy’s iPad Mini killer has a stylus to stab other rivals too
Review Bewildering. That’s the best word to describe Samsung’s small tablet range. Since the second half of 2010, the Galaxy Tab, Galaxy Tab 8.9, Galaxy Tab 2 7.0, Tab 7.0 Plus and Tab 7.7 blurred one into the other, much to the confusion of the average customer and me.…
- SAP users slack, slow and backward on security
Some systems unpatched since 2005, says researcher
Cross-site scripting, failure to check credentials, directory traversal and SQL injection make up more than three-quarters of vulnerabilities in SAP environments, according to a presentation by ERPScan's Alexander Polyakov to RSAConference Asia Pacific 2013.…
- Global tax data exchange plan floated to recoup cash
OECD outlines plan for automatic exchange of data if IT can agree on formats, crypto
The world's getting serious about multinational tax avoidance, with with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) today delivering a report (PDF) titled “A step change in tax transparency: Delivering a standardised,secure and cost effective model of bilateral automatic exchange for the multilateral context” to the G8 summit.…
- PowerCloud launches new kit, partner program
WiFi upstart pitching cloudy management
WiFi upstart PowerCloud Systems (PCS) wants to give hotspots a dose of multiple personality, to make WiFi fit better in the world of multi-tenant networks.…
- AMD lifts the veil on Opteron, ARM chip plans for 2014
Not much action going on in 2013, though
AMD has unfolded its server-chip roadmap for next year, and the road ahead appears to be a sensible motorway with no hair-rasing hairpin turns or unexpected switchbacks – although there is one bright shiny new vehicle on the road.…
- Samsung plans LTE Advanced version of Galaxy S4
1Gbps download capability could stiffen drooping S4 sales forecasts
Samsung is looking to shake off some poor recent sales forecasts for its flagship Galaxy S4 smartphone with the launch of an LTE Advanced version in South Korea this month, promising data transfer speeds up to double those of the current 4G handset.…
- Internet fraud still stings suckers
Australians twice as gullible as Americans
Australians fell prey to online scams to the tune of around $AUD93.5 million in 2012, and reported nearly 84,000 “scam-related contacts” to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).…
- Oracle's Ellison outlines plans for Hawaiian Electriclarryland
Solar-sourced eau d'Oracle the key to island revival
When legendary Texan alt.rock ensemble Butthole Surfers recorded their (NSFW) 1996 opus Electriclarryland they almost certainly did not imagine a billionaire named Larry would one day buy a Hawaiian island and decide to revive its economy with solar-powered desalination plants and battery-powered cars.…
- Australian unis to test quantum-comms-over-fibre
Tests to see if entangled photons can survive real-world networks
The University of New South Wales, one of the world's leaders in quantum computing research, will get the chance to put its work to the test in Australia's capital city, Canberra.…
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