Come join us in Columbus Ohio for the Ohio LinuxFest - 40 Years of UNIX
celebration. There on September 26, Dr Doug McIlroy, the genius behind C
and UNIX, will keynote. From netbooks to telephones, from high performance
clusters to the very webserver that thinkgeek.com uses: Linux is everywhere.
Be part of history. Free registration is on our website.
http://p.sf.net/sfu/ohiolinux
======================================================================
Slashdot Daily Newsletter
In this issue:
* Microsoft Interns Still Feel the Love
* eBay Denies New Design Is Broken, Blames Users
* Surprise Discovery In Earth's Upper Atmosphere
* Trust an Insurance Company's "Drive-Cam?"
* Armadillo Aerospace Claims Level 2 Lunar Lander Prize
* Boston City Government Discovers Email Retention
* Google Groups Used To Control Botnets
* Ford's New Radar Technology Based On Open Source
* Incorporating Human Behavior Into Wall Street Mathematical Models
* Students Take Pictures From Space On $150 Budget
* Initial WebGL Support Lands In WebKit
* IBM Policy Switches From MS Office To OO.o
* IE8 Beats Other Browsers In Laptop Battery Life
* Is City-Wide Wi-Fi a Dead Idea?
* New York Times Site Pop-Up Says Your Computer Is Infected
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Microsoft Interns Still Feel the Love |
| from the next-generation dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Saturday September 12, @20:10 (Businesses) |
| https://slashdot.org/story/09/09/12/2244244/Microsoft-Interns-Still-Feel-the-Love |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]theodp writes "Despite layoffs and a blip in earnings, the Chicago
Trib reports that [1]Microsoft's summer interns still enjoy the VIP
treatment. Although there were 20% fewer of them this year than last,
still 85% of the interns are offered full-time jobs. In addition to being
paid $4,600-$6,000 a month, a housing stipend, and relocation costs for
the summer, the 600 or so Microsoft apprentices enjoyed other perks ���
such as a police escort to speed their way to a private museum party
where they screened the most recent Harry Potter movie and were given a
free Xbox 360. 'You feel like royalty to be escorted by police,' said
[2]Joriz De Guzman, an intern working toward his MBA at Wharton. BTW,
before he got mixed up with those MBA-types, De Guzman earned some fame
as [3]the Doogie Howser of computer science."
Discuss this story at:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/09/12/2244244
Links:
0. mailto:theodp@aol.com
1. http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-tc-biz-interns-0910-0911-sep11,0,5024451.story
2. http://2009.whartonbiztech.com/team.php#joriz_guzman
3. http://news.csusb.edu/story_full.asp?articleID=1824
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| eBay Denies New Design Is Broken, Blames Users |
| from the just-test-the-darn-thing dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Saturday September 12, @22:44 (Businesses) |
| https://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/09/13/0057254/eBay-Denies-New-Design-Is-Broken-Blames-Us|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]krick-zero writes "eBay recently rolled out a [1]new page design. Many
eBay sellers are reporting issues with [2]missing description text,
resulting in lost sales. Buyers are reporting the [3]same intermittent
issue, on multiple platforms, with multiple browsers. After complaining
to eBay customer service, one user got this response: 'I have reviewed
several of your listings using my computer and had several of my
coworkers view your listings as well and we are seeing the complete
listings. Many times when buyers are not able to see the whole
description or just bits and pieces it is due to browser issues they are
having. A lot of times if they simply clear out their cache and cookies
or change browsers (i.e. change from Internet explorer to Firefox or vice
versa) they no longer have this problem.'"
Discuss this story at:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/09/13/0057254
Links:
0. mailto:krick@3feetunder.com
1. http://forums.ebay.com/db1/topic/Auction-Listings/Test-Of-A/1000750126?start=2835
2. http://forums.ebay.com/db2/topic/Technical-Issues/Cant-See-Item/510123611
3. http://forums.ebay.com/db2/topic/Seller-Central/Hello-Sellers-Some/520143595
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Surprise Discovery In Earth's Upper Atmosphere |
| from the nothing-is-as-simple-as-it-first-looks dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Sunday September 13, @01:17 (Earth) |
| https://science.slashdot.org/story/09/09/12/239208/Surprise-Discovery-In-Earths-Upper-Atmos|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
elyons sends word out of UCLA of a completely unexpected discovery in the
physics of the Sun-Earth interaction ��� a [0]previously unknown basic mode
of energy transfer from the solar wind to the Earth's magnetosphere.
"'It's like something else is heating the atmosphere besides the sun.
This discovery is like finding it got hotter when the sun went down,'
said Larry Lyons, UCLA professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences. 'We
all have thought for our entire careers ��� I learned it as a graduate
student ��� that this energy transfer rate is primarily controlled by the
direction of the interplanetary magnetic field. The closer to
southward-pointing the magnetic field is, the stronger the energy
transfer rate is, and the stronger the magnetic field is in that
direction. [It turns out that] if it is both southward and big, the
energy transfer rate is even bigger.'" The researchers have two papers on
the discovery coming out in the Journal of Geophysical Research.
Discuss this story at:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/09/12/239208
Links:
0. http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/scientists-discover-surprise-in-101025.aspx
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Trust an Insurance Company's "Drive-Cam?" |
| from the no-voyeurs-here dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Sunday September 13, @04:44 (Privacy) |
| https://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/09/13/0045257/Trust-an-Insurance-Companys-Drive-Cam |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
ramen99 writes "Our new car insurance company offered us discounts for
our teenage driver if we agree to install a 'drive-cam' that [0]records
driving habits and wirelessly transmits video footage to a 'neutral
driving coach' for evaluation and comment. While this might be great to
monitor a new teen driver, it will also monitor other adult drivers. The
insurance company claims that they would never use any information
obtained to consider changes in insurance rates, but that really sounds
unbelievable. Would you give up your privacy to save some dough?
Installation is free, and the camera mounts just under the rear-view
mirror. Something seems fishy about this..." Especially when, according
to a British insurance firm, [1]computer engineers are most likely to
crash (sent in by [2]antdude).
Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/09/13/0045257
Links:
0. http://www.teensafedriver.com/
1. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/6147361/Computer-engineers-most-likely-to-crash.html
2. mailto:ant@zimage.com
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Armadillo Aerospace Claims Level 2 Lunar Lander Prize |
| from the putting-it-down-easy dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Sunday September 13, @08:12 (Moon) |
| https://science.slashdot.org/story/09/09/13/1052246/Armadillo-Aerospace-Claims-Level-2-Luna|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]Dagondanum writes "Armadillo Aerospace has [1] officially won the 2009
Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge Level 2, on a rainy day at Caddo
Mills, Texas. Reports came in from various locations during the day and
spectators posted videos and images using social networking tools such as
Twitter. The Level 2 prize requires the rocket to fly for 180 seconds
before landing precisely on a simulated lunar surface constructed with
craters and boulders. The minimum flight times are calculated so that the
Level 2 mission closely simulates the power needed to perform a real
descent from lunar orbit down to the surface of the Moon. First place is
a prize of $1 million while second is $500,000."
Discuss this story at:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/09/13/1052246
Links:
0. mailto:hahahalol@hotmail.com
1. http://spacefellowship.com/2009/09/13/armadillo-aerospace-claim-level-2-ngllc-prize/comment-page-1/
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Boston City Government Discovers Email Retention |
| from the hey-those-stacks-of-emails-take-up-a-lot-of-space dept. |
| posted by Soulskill on Sunday September 13, @09:27 (Government) |
| https://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/09/13/1151226/Boston-City-Government-Discovers-Email-Rete|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
An anonymous reader writes "The Boston Globe, covering a battle to unseat
the 16-year incumbent mayor, has found out that the city has no email
retention policy. A city official who receives hundreds of emails a day
was [0]found to have only 18 emails in his mailbox. The city has enabled
journaling on its Exchange server in response. The Globe also notes that
they had to curtail requests for emails under the Open Records law
because for each mailbox, 'City officials estimated they would charge
$5,000 for six months worth of email.'"
Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/09/13/1151226
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Google Groups Used To Control Botnets |
| from the easier-than-by-carrier-pigeon-in-most-cases dept. |
| posted by Soulskill on Sunday September 13, @10:41 (Security) |
| https://it.slashdot.org/story/09/09/13/1356201/Google-Groups-Used-To-Control-Botnets |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]oDDmON oUT writes "'Maintaining a reliable command and control (C&C)
structure is a priority for back door Trojan writers. ... Symantec has
observed an interesting variation on this concept in the wild. A back
door Trojan that we are calling Trojan.Grups has been [1]using the Google
Groups newsgroups to distribute commands,' writes Symantec employee Gavin
O Gorman. He goes on to state that 'the Trojan itself is quite simple. It
is distributed as a DLL,' and while the decrypted commands indicate it is
used 'for reconnaissance and targeted attacks,' he does go on record as
saying, 'It's worth noting that Google Groups is not at fault here;
rather, it is a neutral party. The authors of this threat have chosen
Google Groups simply for its bevy of features and versatility.'"
Discuss this story at:
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/09/13/1356201
Links:
0. mailto:oddmonout@arcticmail.com
1. http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/google-groups-trojan
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Ford's New Radar Technology Based On Open Source |
| from the all-hands-prepare-for-ramming-speed dept. |
| posted by Soulskill on Sunday September 13, @11:58 (Transportation) |
| https://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/09/13/1545256/Fords-New-Radar-Technology-Based-On-Open-S|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]zakkie writes "Ford is releasing new safety-enhancing radar equipment
for its 2010 Taurus sedan. The radar itself is based on F22 fighter
radar, but interestingly, it's claimed that [1]the software is built from
open source. What that may mean, in the vague, waffling context of the
article, is unclear, but it's interesting simply because they've gone to
the effort of stating it in those words. Clearly, 'open source' is being
thought of outside the IT world as a good thing, and that surely is
itself a good thing. The purpose of the radar device is to help 'avoid
crashes by sounding an alarm and flashing red lights when the driver gets
too close to another car.'"
Discuss this story at:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/09/13/1545256
Links:
0. mailto:zak@mighty.co.za
1. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8249530.stm
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Incorporating Human Behavior Into Wall Street Mathematical Models |
| from the fear-and-greed dept. |
| posted by Soulskill on Sunday September 13, @13:17 (Math) |
| https://science.slashdot.org/story/09/09/13/1626257/Incorporating-Human-Behavior-Into-Wall-|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
After watching the stock market struggle for the past year, financial
experts from Wall Street and academia are putting more effort into
[0]bringing behavioral modeling into their complex financial calculations.
"The risk models proved myopic, they say, because they were too
simple-minded. They focused mainly on figures like the expected returns
and the default risk of financial instruments. What they didn't
sufficiently take into account was human behavior, specifically the
potential for widespread panic." Analysts are looking at research from
other fields to supplement the hard mathematics of risk assessment.
"Financial markets, like online communities, are social networks.
Researchers are looking at whether the mechanisms and models being
developed to explore collective behavior on the Web can be applied to
financial markets." Another avenue they're exploring is how we react to
the spread of disease. Jon M. Kleinberg, a computer scientist at Cornell,
said, "The hope is to take this understanding of contagion and use it as
a perspective on how rapid changes of behavior can spread through complex
networks at work in financial markets."
Discuss this story at:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/09/13/1626257
Links:
0. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/business/13unboxed.html?ref=technology
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Students Take Pictures From Space On $150 Budget |
| from the i-can-see-my-house-from-here dept. |
| posted by Soulskill on Sunday September 13, @14:31 (Education) |
| https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/09/09/13/1712216/Students-Take-Pictures-From-Space-On-1|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
An anonymous reader writes "Two MIT students have [0]successfully
photographed the earth from space on a strikingly low budget of $148.
Perhaps more significantly, they managed to accomplish this feat using
[1]components available off-the-shelf to the average layperson, opening
the door for a new generation of amateur space enthusiasts. The pair plan
to launch again soon and hope that their achievements will inspire
teachers and students to pursue similar endeavors."
Discuss this story at:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/09/13/1712216
Links:
0. http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-328198
1. http://space.1337arts.com/hardware
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Initial WebGL Support Lands In WebKit |
| from the now-in-redundant-solid-stereo dept. |
| posted by timothy on Sunday September 13, @15:33 (GUI) |
| https://games.slashdot.org/story/09/09/13/1820230/Initial-WebGL-Support-Lands-In-WebKit |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]appleprophet writes "WebGL is an [1]upcoming standard from the
[2]Khronos Group, the same standards body behind OpenCL and OpenGL ES. It
defines the use of OpenGL in websites using the standard canvas element.
In other words, websites will be able to render hardware accelerated, 3D
graphics natively inside of a web page. In the last week, WebKit, the
rendering engine behind Safari and Google Chrome, has [3]added initial
support for WebGL, which means it probably won't be too long before Macs
and iPhones everywhere get OpenGL web apps. This could have big
implications for gaming. HTML5 has steadily been encroaching on desktop
applications' territory, but I don't think many people expected
browser-based, hardware-accelerated graphics this soon."
Discuss this story at:
http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/09/13/1820230
Links:
0. mailto:jeff@wolfire.com
1. http://www.khronos.org/news/press/releases/khronos-webgl-initiative-hardware-accelerated-3d-graphics-internet/
2. http://www.khronos.org/
3. http://blog.wolfire.com/2009/09/preview-of-webkits-webgl-canvas3d/
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| IBM Policy Switches From MS Office To OO.o |
| from the let's-see-some-school-districts-do-the-same dept. |
| posted by timothy on Sunday September 13, @16:39 (Businesses) |
| https://slashdot.org/story/09/09/13/205253/IBM-Policy-Switches-From-MS-Office-To-OOo |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]eldavojohn writes "It's frequent that we hear of a country or city or
company switching from Windows to Linux, but it's rare that we hear of
[1]one third of a million employees being told to use Lotus Symphony
(IBM's OO.o variant) over MS Office, and also to use the Open Document
Format when saving files. The change has been mandated to take place in
the next 10 days. Of course, they are doing this to illustrate that they
actually offer [2]a full-fledged alternative to Microsoft. With [3]i4i
stirring stuff up against MS Office and [4]absolving OO.o from
litigation, are we on the verge of a potential break from Microsoft's
dominant document suite? Hopefully IBM supports OO.o past [5]Sun's
acquisition by Oracle instead of concentrating on Lotus Symphony."
Discuss this story at:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/09/13/205253
Links:
0. mailto:my/.username@@@gmail.com
1. http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/News/IBM-Throws-Out-Microsoft-Office
2. http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/171879/ibm_describes_symphony_family_options.html
3. http://slashdot.org/story/09/08/12/1129230/US-Court-Tells-Microsoft-To
4. http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/08/18/190227&tid=473
5. http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/28/1639201&tid=165
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| IE8 Beats Other Browsers In Laptop Battery Life |
| from the not-without-windows-it-doesn't dept. |
| posted by timothy on Sunday September 13, @17:44 (Internet Explorer) |
| https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/09/09/13/2130233/IE8-Beats-Other-Browsers-In-Laptop-Bat|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]WARM3CH writes "AnandTech tested a laptop with an AMD CPU, a laptop
with an Intel CPU, and a netbook to compare battery life while running
Internet Explorer 8, Opera 10, Firefox 3.5, Safari 4, and Chrome. They
tested on simple web pages and flash-infested ones. [1]IE8 had the best
battery life on both laptops (followed by FF + AdBlock), and Safari had
the worst battery life. On the netbook, Chrome was slightly ahead of IE8.
The report concludes: 'Overall, Internet Explorer and Firefox + AdBlock
consistently place near the top, with Chrome following closely behind.
Opera 10 Beta 3 didn't do as well as Opera 9.6.4, and in a couple quick
tests, it doesn't appear that the final release of Opera 10 changes the
situation at all. Opera in general ��� version 9 or 10 ��� looks like it
doesn't do as well as the other major browsers. Safari is at the back, by
a large margin, on all three test notebooks. We suspect that Safari 4
does better under OS X, however, so the poor Windows result probably
won't matter to most Safari users.'"
Discuss this story at:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/09/13/2130233
Links:
0. mailto:warm3ch@technologist.com
1. http://anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=3636
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Is City-Wide Wi-Fi a Dead Idea? |
| from the sledgehammer-ready dept. |
| posted by timothy on Sunday September 13, @18:50 (Government) |
| https://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/09/13/2248254/Is-City-Wide-Wi-Fi-a-Dead-Idea |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
An anonymous reader writes "Remember all those projects to [0]cover
cities with Wi-Fi? The BBC wants to know [1]what happened to them. When
it comes to underground wireless data access, there are obvious issues
regarding implementing a wireless infrastructure in [2]underground
stations and tunnels, but above ground the BBC suggests that it may be
other advancements, such as Wimax, that have made Wi-Fi a less attractive
solution. PCMag, on the other hand, suggests that [3]public Wi-Fi isn't
dead at all and will make a comeback due to the increasing popularity of
Wi-Fi-enabled smartphones. So, will city-wide Wi-Fi make a real comeback,
or have other technologies, such as Wimax or 4G, killed the concept for
good?"
Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/09/13/2248254
Links:
0. http://www.forbes.com/feeds/afx/2006/04/06/afx2653226.html
1. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2009/08/whatever_happened_to_public_wi.html
2. http://recombu.com/news/london-undergound-why-no-wi-fi_M11089.html
3. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2351893,00.asp
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| New York Times Site Pop-Up Says Your Computer Is Infected |
| from the if-you're-reading-this-you-have-a-virus dept. |
| posted by timothy on Sunday September 13, @19:59 (Security) |
| https://news.slashdot.org/story/09/09/13/2346229/New-York-Times-Site-Pop-Up-Says-Your-Compu|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]Zott writes "Apparently, 'some readers' of the New York Times site are
getting a bit more with their news: an apparently syndicated adware popup
with a [1]faux virus scan of the user's computer indicating they are
infected, and a link to go download a fix now. It's entertaining when a
Mac user gets it, but clearly downloading an .exe file isn't a good way
to keep your computer clean ..." Update: 09/14 03:20 GMT by [2]T :
[3]Troy encountered this malware, "and [4]did basic forensics. Summary:
iframe ad then series of HTML/JS redirects, ending at a fake virus
scanner page with a "Scan" link (made to look like a dialog box button)
that downloaded malware." Nice explanation!
Discuss this story at:
http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/09/13/2346229
Links:
0. mailto:KMP@KMPeterson.COM
1. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/business/media/13note.html?_r=1
2. http://www.monkey.org/~timothy/
3. http://troy.yort.com/
4. http://troy.yort.com/anatomy-of-a-malware-ad-on-nytimes-com
Copyright 1997-2009 SourceForge, Inc.. All rights reserved.
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