| Video Tour of the International Space Station Dec 15th 2012, 23:23 SternisheFan writes with an excerpt from Bad Astronomer Phil Plait, writing at Slate: "Before she came back to Earth in a ball of fire surrounding her Russian re-entry capsule, astronaut Sunita Williams took time out of her packing for the trip home to give a nickel tour of the International Space Station. ... I know the video's long, but if you have the time I do suggest watching the whole thing. I have very mixed feelings about the space station; it cost a lot of money, and in my opinion it hasn't lived up to the scientific potential NASA promised when it was being designed. But watching this video reminded me of the good that's come out of it: There is science being done there; we're learning how to design and build hardware for long-term space travel; we're learning just how to live in space (and NASA just announced it will be sending humans into space for an entire year, an unprecedented experiment); and we're finding new ways for nations and individuals to cooperate in space." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     |  | Engadget Experiences the Solidoodle 3 3D Printer Dec 15th 2012, 21:18 Engadget reports that former MakerBot employee Sam Cervantes has brought to market — or at least to Engadget headquarters in prototype form — a working, cheap(ish) 3D printer from his own company Solidoodle. Originally, the new Solidoodle 3 printer was announced at $500; the price has crept up to $800, but that still sounds like a bargain in the world of home fabrication. Unlike the current MakerBot, it has no built-in card slot, so a computer connection is required for the length of a build. Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | UK Students Protest Biometric Scanner Move Dec 15th 2012, 20:16 Presto Vivace writes that the UK's Newcastle University is instituting a finger-print based attendance system. From the linked article: "University students may have to scan their fingerprints in future — to prove they are not bunking off lectures. ... Newcastle Free Education Network has organised protests against the plans, claiming the scanners would 'turn universities into border checkpoints' and 'reduce university to the attendance of lectures alone.'" The system is supposed to bring the university "in line with the UK Border Agency (UKBA) and clamp down on illegal immigrants." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Ask Slashdot: Setting Up a Summer Camp Tech Center? Dec 15th 2012, 19:20 First time accepted submitter michaelknauf writes "I'm running a large summer camp that's primarily concerned with performing arts: music, dance, circus, magic, theater, art, and I want to add some more tech into the program. We already do some iOS game design with Stencyl. We also have an extensive model railroad and remote control car program and a pretty big computer lab (about 100 Apple machines). Our program provides all materials as part of tuition, so I've stayed away from robotics as a matter of cost, but I'd love to buy a 3D printer and do classes with that and the Arduino is cheap enough to make some small electronics projects sensible... where do I find the sort of people who could teach such a program as a summer gig? What projects make sense without spending too much cash on a per project basis but would be cool fun for kids and would teach them?" Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | University of Chicago Receives Mystery Indiana Jones Package Dec 15th 2012, 18:10 First time accepted submitter VanGarrett writes "Someone at the University of Chicago went through a lot of trouble to baffle a few people, with an old timey package addressed to Indiana Jones. From the article: 'The package contained an incredibly detailed replica of "University of Chicago Professor" Abner Ravenwood's journal from Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. It looks only sort of like this one, but almost exactly like this one, so much so that we thought it might have been the one that was for sale on Ebay had we not seen some telling inconsistencies in cover color and "Ex Libris" page (and distinct lack of sword). The book itself is a bit dusty, and the cover is teal fabric with a red velvet spine, with weathered inserts and many postcards/pictures of Marion Ravenwood (and some cool old replica money) included. It's clear that it is mostly, but not completely handmade, as although the included paper is weathered all of the "handwriting" and calligraphy lacks the telltale pressure marks of actual handwriting.'" Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Spinal Fluid Chemical Levels Linked To Suicidal Behavior Dec 15th 2012, 17:25 An anonymous reader writes "For the first time, researchers have found that a chemical in the brain called glutamate is linked to suicidal behavior. While previous research and drugs have targeted serotonin to fight severe depression, this study shows that more attention should be paid to this chemical." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Marijuana Prosecution Not a High Priority, Says Obama Dec 15th 2012, 17:16 Hugh Pickens writes "VOA reports that President Obama says it does not make sense for federal authorities to seek prosecution of recreational marijuana users in states where such use is legal. 'As it is, you know, the federal government has a lot to do when it comes to criminal prosecutions,' said Obama during a television interview with ABC's Barbara Walters . 'It does not make sense from a prioritization point of view for us to focus on recreational drug users in a state that has already said that, under state law, that's legal.' When asked if he supported legalizing marijuana, the president said he was not endorsing that. 'I wouldn't go that far, but what I think is that, at this point, Washington and Colorado, you've seen the voters speak on this issue.'" Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | UK Internet Porn Blocking Rejected Dec 15th 2012, 16:12 Gordonjcp writes "The BBC are reporting that the proposed automatic blocking of porn websites by UK ISPs has been rejected by the government. Only 35% of the parents who responded to a survey on filtering wanted an automatic block. The report (PDF), drawn from over 3500 responses, found that 80% of all those who responded were in favour of no filtering of any kind." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | South Carolina Shows How Not To Do Security Dec 15th 2012, 15:16 CowboyRobot writes "Earlier this year, the state's Department of Revenue was storing 3.3 million bank account numbers, as well as 3.8 million tax returns containing Social Security numbers for 1.9 million children and other dependents, in an unencrypted format. After a state employee clicked on a malicious email link, an attacker was able to obtain copies of those records. It's easy to blame the breach on 'Russian hackers' but who is really to blame? 'The state's leadership, from the governor on down, failed to take information security seriously or to correctly gauge the financial risk involved. As a result, taxpayers will pay extra to clean up the mess. Beyond the $800,000 that the state will spend — and should have already spent — to improve its information security systems, $500,000 will go to the data breach investigation, $740,000 to notify consumers and businesses, $250,000 for legal and PR help, and $12 million for identity theft monitoring services.'" Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Ray Kurzweil Joins Google As Director of Engineering Dec 15th 2012, 14:26 dgharmon points out with news at CNET and on Ray Kurzweil's own site that Kurzweil will join Google as Director of Engineering. Specifically, "he will be joining Google to work on new projects involving machine learning and language processing," which sounds to me like another way to say "quickening the singularity." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | California Sues Delta Air Lines Over Mobile Privacy Dec 15th 2012, 13:24 New submitter mrheckman writes "California is suing Delta Air Lines for violation of California's on-line privacy law. Delta failed to 'conspicuously post a privacy policy within their mobile app that informs users of what personally identifiable information is being collected and what will be done with it' after a 30-day notice. Delta's app collects 'substantial personally identifiable information such as a user's full name, telephone number, email address, frequent flyer account number and pin code, photographs, and geo-location.' Why is it we still can't control what permissions an app has on our phones? It's absurd and disturbing that an app for checking flights and baggage demands all of those permissions." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Chinese Moon Probe Flies By Asteroid Toutatis Dec 15th 2012, 12:20 hackingbear writes "Chinese moon probe Chang'e-2 made a flyby of the near-earth asteroid Toutatis on December 13 at 16:30:09 Beijing Time (08:30"09 GMT), the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND) announced today. The flyby was the first time an unmanned spacecraft launched from Earth has taken such a close viewing of the asteroid, named after a Celtic god, making China the fourth country after the U.S., the EU and Japan to be able to examine an asteroid by spacecraft. Chang'e-2 came as close as 3.2 km from Toutatis, which is about 7 million km away from the Earth, and took pictures of the asteroid at a relative velocity of 10.73 km per second, the SASTIND said in a statement. Chang'e-2, originally designated as the backup of Chang'e-1, left its lunar orbit for an extended mission to the Earth-Sun L2 Lagrangian point on June 9, 2011, after finishing its lunar objectives, and then again began its mission to Toutatis this year. 'The success of the extended missions also embodies that China now possesses spacecraft capable of interplanetary flight,' said Wu Weiren, chief designer of China's lunar probe program." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | First Photos and Video of Raspberry Pi Model A Dec 15th 2012, 06:49 coop0030 writes "The first photos and videos of the Model A production samples are now available. The Raspberry Pi Model A is the newest low-cost computer from the Raspberry Pi Foundation. Compared to the popular Model B, the Model A forgoes the Ethernet Controller, has 256MB of RAM, and has a single USB port. A benefit of the missing Ethernet controller is that power consumption is reduced. This allowed them to reach their goals of a low-cost $25 computer. The release date is for sometime early in 2013." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Official Doc Reveals Oracle's Cloud Rules Dec 15th 2012, 03:57 itwbennett writes "In an official document that is both 'confidential' and publicly available on Oracle's website, the company lays out its cloud policies. Most of the policies follow industry standards, but then there are a few that should give customers pause. Like the one that allows Oracle to turn off access to accounts in the event of a dispute or account violation." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Denial-of-Service Attack Found In Btrfs File-System Dec 15th 2012, 01:24 An anonymous reader writes "It's been found that the Btrfs file-system is vulnerable to a Hash-DOS attack, a denial-of-service attack caused by hash collisions within the file-system. Two DOS attack vectors were uncovered by Pascal Junod that he described as causing astonishing and unexpected success. It's hoped that the security vulnerability will be fixed for the next Linux kernel release." The article points out that these exploits require local access. Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Google Nixes Some Calendar Features and Other Software Offerings Dec 15th 2012, 00:02 An anonymous reader writes "Google on Friday announced it is shutting down a slew of features and services as part of its winter cleaning. Google Calendar will be losing a few features, Google Sync will be axed (on the consumer side), as will Google Calendar Sync, SyncML, the Issue Tracker Data API, and the Punchd app." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Will Tablets Kill Off e-Readers? Dec 14th 2012, 21:34 Nerval's Lobster writes "Are e-readers doomed? A research note earlier this week from IHS iSuppli suggested that, after years of solid growth, the e-book reader market was 'on an alarmingly precipitous decline' thanks to the rise of tablets. The firm suggested that e-reader sales had declined from 23.2 million units in 2011 to 14.9 million this year — around 36 percent, in other words. The note blames tablets: 'Single-task devices like the ebook are being replaced without remorse in the lives of consumers by their multifunction equivalents, in this case by media tablets.' Even Amazon and Barnes & Noble, the reigning champs of the e-reader marketplace, have increasingly embraced full-color tablets as the best medium for selling their digital products. Backed by enormous cloud-based libraries that offer far more than just e-books, these devices are altogether more versatile than grayscale e-readers, provided their users want to do more than just read plain text." Read more of this story at Slashdot.   | | Remote Access Policy Sep 17th 2012, 07:00 TechRepublic's Remote Access Policy describes the organization's guidelines and processes for requesting, obtaining, using, and terminating remote access to networks, systems, and data. | |
