| Robot Snake Could Aid Search and Rescue Operations Apr 28th 2013, 23:29 mikejuk writes "The Carnegie Mellon University Biorobotics Lab demonstrates how the snakelike robots can aid search and rescue operations in collapsed buildings. The video appeared more or less at the same time as the current real disaster in Dhaka, Bangladesh where an 8-storey building collapsed, trapping some three thousand people. Bangladesh rescue teams, helped by members of the community, have so far worked with small tools and their bare hands to bring out survivors. Having a snake robot that could provide pictures from within the building would lead to speedier and more effective rescue operations." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     |  | Nearest Alien Planet Gets New Name Apr 28th 2013, 22:16 SchrodingerZ writes "The nearest planet outside our solar system has recently been named Albertus Alauda. Originally named Alpha Centauri Bb, the planet is the closest known planet not orbiting the Sun, being a mere 4.3 light years away. The name comes from Jay Lark, who won the naming contest held by Uwingu starting last month and ending on April 22. Lark remarks that the name comes from the Latin name of his late grandfather, stating, "My grandfather passed away after a lengthy and valiant battle with cancer; his name in Latin means noble or bright and to praise or extol." The competition for naming the planet came from Uwing, a company which used the buying of name proposals and votes to fund grants for future space exploration ventures. Albertus Alauda won the competition with 751 votes, followed by Rakhat with 684 votes, and Caleo, with 622 votes." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Experiment Will Determine Dinosaur's Skin Color Apr 28th 2013, 21:10 AchilleTalon writes "One of the only well preserved dinosaur skin samples ever found is being tested at the Canadian Light Source (CLS) synchrotron to determine skin color and to explain why the fossilized specimen remained intact after 70-million years. University of Regina physicist Mauricio Barbi said the hadrosaur, a duck-billed dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous period (100-65 million years ago), was found close to a river bed near Grand Prairie, Alberta." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Hiring Developers By Algorithm Apr 28th 2013, 20:07 Strudelkugel writes in with a story about how big data is being used to recruit workers. "When the e-mail came out of the blue last summer, offering a shot as a programmer at a San Francisco start-up, Jade Dominguez, 26, was living off credit card debt in a rental in South Pasadena, Calif., while he taught himself programming. He had been an average student in high school and hadn't bothered with college, but someone, somewhere out there in the cloud, thought that he might be brilliant, or at least a diamond in the rough. 'The traditional markers people use for hiring can be wrong, profoundly wrong,' says Vivienne Ming, the chief scientist at Gild since late last year. That someone was Luca Bonmassar. He had discovered Mr. Dominguez by using a technology that raises important questions about how people are recruited and hired, and whether great talent is being overlooked along the way." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Apple, nessun iPhone 5S in vista. La prossima "big thing" di Cupertino passa attraverso l'innovazione del software Apr 28th 2013, 19:17 La Worldwide Developer Conference è stata fissata tra il 10 e il 14 giugno. I biglietti sono andati a ruba in appena due minuti. Il prezzo non proprio amico: 1.599 dollari l’uno. Quest’anno, l’appuntamento con gli sviluppatori riveste un’importanza strategica fondamentale per il destino di Apple. Dopo i malumori dei giorni scorsi per i risultati deludenti della trimestrale e le voci (poi smentite) di un imminente rimpiazzo di Tim Cook alla guida della società, per Apple è il momento di guardare al prossimo futuro. A giugno non si prevedono grandi novità dal punto di vista dei gadget tecnologici. Forse un aggiornamento dei MacBook Pro. Nessuna rivoluzione di portata epica. Secondo le voci che circolano in queste ore non verrà presentato nessun nuovo iPhone. Bisognerà attendere settembre o ottobre per conoscere il successore dell’iPhone 5. Non sarà come da tradizione un dispositivo a metà strada tra la generazione precedente e quella successiva. Nessun iPhone 5S. In tanti ritengono che Apple voglia giocare la carta del tutto e per tutto con uno smartphone nuovo di zecca in grado di sbaragliare la concorrenza. Sarà presentato non prima del terzo trimestre del 2013.  Scott Forstall, padre di iOS. Ex Vice Senior President della divisione software di Apple. Allontanato dalla società a ottobre 2012 dopo le sue mancate scuse agli utenti per il flop dell’applicazione Mappe di Apple. La WWDC sarà come da tradizione incentrata sul software. E pare che proprio dal software Apple voglia ripartire con un nuovo percorso di innovazione che segni l’era post Jobs. iOS 7 e OS X 10.9 catalizzeranno l’attenzione della manifestazione. L’attesa è soprattutto rivolta alla nuova release di iOS. Dopo l’addio di Scott Forstall rimpiazzato da John Ive, ora a capo della progettazione del software e del design dei prodotti di Apple, in tanti si aspettano un cambio di visione lato software capace di segnare un nuovo standard nell’industria dei sistemi operativi in ambito mobile. E chissà se Apple saprà stupirci ancora una volta.  | | Canada Revenue Agency To Tax BitCoin Transactions Apr 28th 2013, 19:04 First time accepted submitter semilemon writes "The Canada Revenue Agency has started paying attention to BitCoin transactions, as it says users will have to pay tax on all transactions using the currency. From the article, "The CRA told the CBC there are two separate tax rules that apply to the electronic currency, depending on whether they are used as money to buy things or if they were merely bought and sold for speculative purposes. "Barter transaction rules apply where BitCoins are used to purchase goods or services," Canada Revenue Agency spokesman Philippe Brideau said in an email. In this situation, that means whatever you've received in exchange for your $1 worth of vegetables must be documented as a taxable gain of at least $1 somewhere. When it comes to trading BitCoins for profit, the tax man says there are tax implications there, too. "When BitCoins are bought or sold like a commodity, any resulting gains or losses could be income or capital for the taxpayer depending on the specific facts," ruled the CRA." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | EPA Report That Lowers Methane-Leak Estimates Further Divides Fracking Camps Apr 28th 2013, 18:00 gmfeier writes "The EPA has significantly lowered its estimate of how much methane leaks during natural gas production. This has major implications for the fracking debate, but puts the EPA at odds with NOAA. From the article: 'The scope of the EPA's revision was vast. In a mid-April report on greenhouse emissions, the agency now says that tighter pollution controls instituted by the industry resulted in an average annual decrease of 41.6 million metric tons of methane emissions from 1990 through 2010, or more than 850 million metric tons overall. That's about a 20 percent reduction from previous estimates. The agency converts the methane emissions into their equivalent in carbon dioxide, following standard scientific practice.'" Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Cyber Vulnerabilities Found In Navy's Newest Warship Apr 28th 2013, 16:55 An anonymous reader writes with some potentially troubling news about some security issues with the Navy's newest class of coastal warships."A Navy team of computer hacking experts found some deficiencies when assigned to try to penetrate the network of the USS Freedom, the lead vessel in the $37 billion Littoral Combat Ship program, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The Freedom arrived in Singapore last week for an eight-month stay, which its builder, Lockheed Martin Corp., hopes will stimulate Asian demand for the fast, agile and stealthy ships. 'We do these types of inspections across the fleet to find individual vulnerabilities, as well as fleet-wide trends,' said the official." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Sandia Labs Researcher Develops Fertilizer Without the Explosive Potential Apr 28th 2013, 15:51 cylonlover writes "Ammonium nitrate is a commonly used fertilizer, but when mixed with a fuel such as diesel, it makes a powerful explosive – as seen in last week's fertilizer plant explosion in Texas. But it's the deliberate use of the compound in improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and acts of terror such as the Oklahoma City bombing that gives rise to even greater cause for concern. This is why Kevin Fleming, an optical engineer at Sandia National Laboratories, developed a fertilizer alternative that isn't detonable and therefore can't be used in a bomb." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Google Releases Glass Kernel Source Code Apr 28th 2013, 14:49 hypnosec writes "Google has released the kernel source code of Google Glass publicly just a couple of days after the wearable gadget was rooted by Jay Freeman. Releasing the source code, Google has noted that the location is just temporary and it would be moving to a permanent location soon saying: 'This is unlikely to be the permanent home for the kernel source, it should be pushed into git next to all other android kernel source releases relatively soon'" Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | L'indignazione "una tantum" che governa i social network Apr 28th 2013, 14:06 Sono il primo che quando c’è da prendersela con la stampa italiana lo fa. Ma oggi, che leggo ovunque sui social network lo sfogo di tanti che si agitano perché i giornali stanno pubblicando le foto dell’attentatore e delle vittime della sparatoria di Roma marchiandole come “inumane”, un po’ me la prendo anche con voi. Facciamoci per un istante un piccolo esame di coscienza. Giusto per non cedere come sempre alla tentazione di rincorrere senza un minimo di spirito critico il trending topic del momento. Nessuno ha mai fiatato per le immagini scioccanti dell’11 settembre che da dodici anni a questa parte affollano la rete. Nessuno si è scandalizzato per la faccia spappolata del presunto Osama Bin Laden rimbalzata su tutte le televisioni del mondo poche ore dopo la sua eliminazione. Nessuno ha avuto un misero moto di pietà per le terribili foto delle vittime smembrate delle bombe della maratona di Boston che, un paio di settimane fa, affollavano le prime pagine di tutti i giornali online. Nessuno si è mai rivoltato per un miliardo di altri eventi di cronaca recente in cui la stampa ha sbattuto in prima pagina vittime e carnefici. Oggi assistere a queste blande lezioni di moralità nei confronti di certo giornalismo, solo perché ha osato pubblicare le foto di un uomo con la faccia premuta sul terreno dopo aver sparato a due militari, lo trovo fasullo e tardivo. Al di là della vicinanza umana che ciascuno, sulla base delle propria sensibilità può provare per le persone coinvolte in questa piccola tragedia italiana, non c’è molto da scandalizzarsi. E’ giornalismo. E’ informazione. Alle volte fa bene, alle volte fa meno bene. Oggi non c’è stato niente di così inumano. Per una volta la critica riserviamola a noi stessi. E di quanto ci piaccia scandalizzarci per poco, una tantum, seguendo l’argomento caldo del momento, dimenticandoci invece di tutto il resto che è così simile, così uguale a questa triste vicenda e di cui neanche ci accorgiamo.  | | Icelandic Pirate Party Wins 3 seats In Parliament Apr 28th 2013, 13:37 First time accepted submitter Thorhs writes "According to preliminary results (all votes counted, no official word yet) the Icelandic Pirate Party was able to secure 3 members of the national Parliament, the first PP to reach a national Parliament. Things were hairy election night, the PP lost all their MPs when they dropped below the 5% barrier 'needed' in the somewhat complex election system. Thankfully they managed to slip back up above, with 5.1% of the total votes. The old 'crash parties', the ones in charge before our epic financial crash, (Independent and Progressive parties) are the prime candidates to form a new government with just over 51% of the votes, getting 40 of 63 seats. RUV (Icelandic) has good coverage." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | iTunes Store Turns 10 Apr 28th 2013, 12:21 An anonymous reader writes "On April 28, 2003, Apple launched the iTunes Music Store. In their original press release, they called it 'revolutionary,' in typical PR fashion. As the service reaches its 10th anniversary, it seems they were actually correct. From The Verge: 'At launch, it was Mac-only and offered a relatively tiny catalog: 200,000 songs (it currently has 26 million). But it did have the support of the major record labels of the day: Universal, EMI, Warner, Sony, and BMG. The partnerships were key to helping Apple take control of music distribution — without the songs, the iPod was a nicely designed but empty box. ... Jobs certainly had his challenges. Vidich said he's the one who suggested that iTunes charge 99 cents per track and he remembers Jobs nearly hugged him. At the time, Sony Music execs wanted to charge more than $3 a track, according to Vidich. No doubt a $3 song price would have tied an anchor around iTunes' neck, stifling growth. 99 cents, on the other hand, was below the sub-$1 psychological barrier — and has continued to be an important price point for not only music but the wide swath of 99-cent iOS apps in the store. ... Apple bet that the majority of consumers wouldn't have an issue with its lock-in tactics, and it bet correctly.'" Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Mitigating Password Re-Use From the Other End Apr 28th 2013, 09:16 An anonymous reader writes "Jen Andre, software engineer and co-founder of Threat Stack, writes about the problem of password breaches in the wake of the LivingSocial hack. She notes that the problem here is longstanding — it's easy for LivingSocial to force password resets, but impossible to get users to create different passwords for each site they visit. We've tried education, and it's failed. Andre suggests a different approach: building out better auditing infrastructure. 'We, as an industry, need a standard for auditing that allows us to reliably track and record authentication events. Since authentication events are relatively similar across any application, I think this could be accomplished easily with a simple JSON-based common protocol and webhooks. ... [It] could even be a hosted service that learns based on my login behaviors and only alerts me when it thinks a login entry is suspicious— kind of how Gmail will alert if I am logging in from a strange location. Because these audit entries are stored on a third-party box, if a certain web application is compromised, it won't have access to alter its audit log history since it lives somewhere else.'" Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | $200 Intel Android Laptops Are Coming Apr 28th 2013, 06:12 symbolset writes "Outbound Intel CEO Paul Otellini created quite a stir when mentioning that touchscreen laptops would reach a $200 price point. CNET is now reporting in an interview with Intel chief product officer Dadi Perlmutter that these touchscreen laptops will run Android on Intel Atom processors at first. 'Whether Windows 8 PCs hit that price largely depends on Microsoft, he said. "We have a good technology that enables a very cost-effective price point," Perlmutter said. The price of Windows 8 laptops "depends on how Microsoft prices Windows 8. It may be a slightly higher price point." ... Perlmutter didn't specify what the Android notebooks will look like, but it's probable they'll be convertible-type devices. He also noted that he expects the PC market to pick up in the back half of the year and heading into 2014 as new devices become available." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | What's Holding Back 3-D Printing Apr 28th 2013, 03:07 An anonymous reader writes "An article at MIT's Technology Review makes the case that the complexity of the design tools behind 3-D printing are what's holding it back from widespread adoption. Many of the devices are indeed prohibitively expensive, but the inability for your average person — or even your average tech hobbyist — to pick it up and start experimenting is an even bigger obstacle. 'That means software innovation could be more important to 3-D printing than gradual improvements in the underlying technology for shaping objects. That technology is already 30 years old and is widely used in industry to create prototypes, molds, and, in some cases, parts for airplanes. ... Although additive manufacturing allows for designs that can't be made easily in any other way — such as complex shapes with internal cavities — so far, companies have mostly used 3-D printing to create prototypes or models of familiar products.'" Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | |
