| Library Journal Board Resigns On "Crisis of Conscience" After Swartz Death Mar 27th 2013, 23:57 c0lo writes "The editor-in-chief and entire editorial board of the Journal of Library Administration announced their resignation last week, citing 'a crisis of conscience about publishing in a journal that was not open access' in the days after the death of Aaron Swartz. The board had worked with publisher Taylor & Francis on an open-access compromise in the months since, which would allow the journal to release articles without paywall, but Taylor & Francis' final terms asked contributors to pay $2,995 for each open-access article. As more and more contributors began to object, the board ultimately found the terms unworkable. The journal's editor-in-chief said 'After much discussion, the only alternative presented by Taylor & Francis tied a less restrictive license to a $2995 per article fee to be paid by the author. As you know, this is not a viable licensing option for authors from the LIS community who are generally not conducting research under large grants.'" Read more of this story at Slashdot.     |  | One In Six Amazon S3 Storage Buckets Are Ripe For Data-Plundering Mar 27th 2013, 23:07 tsamsoniw writes "Using a combination of relatively low-tech techniques and tools, security researchers have discovered that they can access the contents of one in six Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) buckets whose owners had them set to Public instead of Private. All told, researchers discovered and explored nearly 2,000 public buckets, according to Rapid 7 Senior Security Consultant Will Vandevanter, from which they gathered a list of more than 126 billion files, many of which contained sensitive information such as source code and personal employee information. Researchers noted that S3 URLs are all predictable and public facing, which make it that much easier to find the buckets in the first place with a scripting tool." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Air Force Looking To Beef Up Spacecraft Network Security Mar 27th 2013, 22:21 coondoggie writes "How is spacecraft development — from the space parts supply chain to actual space operations — protected from those who would try to penetrate or disrupt the networks involved in that process? The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) has put out a call for research to understand that security scenario. They say, 'we are much less concerned about information on the broader themes of cyber-security but rather those that pertain to the mission of the spacecraft, the spacecraft as a platform, the systems that constitute the spacecraft, the computers and their software, the busses and networks within, and the elements that interface to the spacecraft.'" Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Wal-Mart To Join Amazon In Providing In-Store Locker Service Mar 27th 2013, 21:39 RougeFemme writes "Amazon has been placing lockers in brick-and-mortar retail stores, such as 7-Eleven, for pickup of online purchases. Walmart plans to pilot a similar program, presumably making it easier to pick up online purchases at Wal-Mart. 'Wal-Mart hopes its network of physical stores, which number about 4,000 in the United States, will give it an edge as consumers increasingly use smart phones while they shop. Wal-Mart has been testing the shipping of online orders from a small number of its physical stores for about two years. In 2013, the company plans to expand this program from about 25 stores currently to a total of roughly 50 stores. ... Two-thirds of the U.S. population live within five miles of a Wal-Mart store." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Ask Slashdot: Encrypted Digital Camera/Recording Devices? Mar 27th 2013, 20:58 Ransak writes "As we hear more and more about dashboard cameras catching unplanned events, I've thought of equipping my vehicles with them just in case that 'one in a billion' moment happens. But given the level of overreach law enforcement has shown, I'd only consider one if I could be assured that the data was secure from prying eyes (e.g., a camera that writes to encrypted SD memory). Are there any solutions for the niche market of the paranoid photographer/videographer?" Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Most IT Admins Have Considered Quitting Due To Stress Mar 27th 2013, 20:17 Orome1 writes "The number of IT professionals considering leaving their job due to workplace stress has jumped from 69% last year to 73%. One-third of those surveyed cited dealing with managers as their most stressful job requirement, particularly for IT staff in larger organizations. Handling end user support requests, budget squeeze and tight deadlines were also listed as the main causes of workplace stress for IT managers. Although users are not causing IT staff as much stress as they used to, it isn't stopping them from creating moments that make IT admins want to tear their hair out in frustration. Of great concern is the impact that work stress is having on health and relationships. While a total of 80% of participants revealed that their job had negatively impacted their personal life in some way, the survey discovered some significant personal impact: 18% have suffered stress-related health issues due to their work, and 28% have lost sleep due to work." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | AMD Reveals Radeon Sky Series For Cloud Gaming, Previews Radeon HD 7990 Mar 27th 2013, 19:55 MojoKid writes "AMD made a number of interesting announcements today at the Game Developers Conference, currently taking place in San Francisco. AMD revealed their 'Radeon Sky' series of graphics products targeted at cloud gaming and virtualized computing applications. The company also showed off the dual-GPU powered AMD Radeon HD 7990, and extended the 'Never Settle: Reloaded' gaming bundle program to include BioShock Infinite. AMD revealed three Radeon Sky Series cards, two based on the Tahiti GPU and another based on Pitcairn. The top of the line Radeon Sky 900 is powered by two Tahiti GPUs linked to 6GB of memory (3GB per GPU). The Sky 700 is powered by a single Tahiti GPU and the Sky 500 is based on Pitcairn. All of the cards are passively cooled and are designed for cloud gaming / computing servers. The upcoming high-end, consumer targeted Radeon HD 7990 was also previewed, but few details were given. Devon Nekechuk, Product Manager of AMD Graphics, did say the triple-fan setup was whisper quiet. We think it's safe to assume the card features 6GB of memory and clocks are in-line with current Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition cards." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | North Korea Halts 3G Internet Access After One Month Mar 27th 2013, 19:35 redletterdave writes "After just one month online, North Korea has pulled the plug on its only 3G data network, which was previously made available for tourists to access the Internet starting on Feb. 22. The North Korean government did not explain why its 3G network has been shut off, but given the raised level of international interest in the country's activities (the country is facing UN sanctions after its third nuclear test last month) and how it severed its final communication line with South Korea on Wednesday, the government likely had a change of heart about its loosening communication restrictions. That said, as with most things in North Korea, we may never know the real answer." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | 'Blue Waters' Supercomputer Lucky To Exist Mar 27th 2013, 19:16 Nerval's Lobster writes "One could argue that the University of Illinois' "Blue Waters" supercomputer, scheduled to officially open for business March 28, is lucky to be alive. The 11.6 petaflop supercomputer, commissioned by the University and the National Science Foundation (NSF), will rank in the upper echelon of the world's fastest machines—its compute power would place it third on the current list, just above Japan's K Computer. However, the system will not be submitted to the TOP500 list because of concerns with the way the list is calculated, officials said. University officials and the NSF are lucky to have a machine at all. That's due in part to IBM, which reportedly backed out of the contract when the company determined that it couldn't make a profit. The university then turned to Cray, which would have had to replace what was presumably a POWER or Xeon installation with the current mix of AMD CPUs and Nvidia GPU coprocessors. Allen Blatecky, director of NSF's Division of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure, told Fox that pulling the plug was a 'real possibility.' And Cray itself had to work to find the parts necessary for the supercomputer to begin at least trial operations in the fall of 2012." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Cold Spring Linked To Dramatic Sea Ice Loss Mar 27th 2013, 18:53 hrvatska writes "An article at Weather Underground reports that researchers have linked large snowstorms and cold spring weather across Britain and large parts of Europe and North America to the dramatic loss of Arctic sea ice. It is thought that the Arctic ice loss adds heat to the ocean and atmosphere, which shifts the position of the jet stream, allowing cold air from the Arctic to plunge much further south. Researchers expect that a warming Arctic ocean will drive more extreme weather in North America and Europe (abstract)." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | The Leap Motion Controller is Sort of Like a Super Kinect (Video) Mar 27th 2013, 18:12 What the Leap Motion product (they only have one right now) does is allow you to control your computer with gestures. We're not talking about just jumping around, but "painting" on the screen with your fingers (or even chopsticks) with fine enough control that Autodesk and other drawing-orientd software vendors are working to make applications compatible with the Leap Motion Controller. And game developers? You bet! Lots of them -- and this is for a device that's not even supposed to start shipping until May 13. But, says CEO Michael Buckwald, they already have "hundreds of thousands of pre-orders," so it looks like they are developing a large market for developers (over 12,000 are in the Leap Motion developer program -- out of 50,000 who applied) so it's possible that Leap Motion could become a pretty big deal. (You can see the Leap Motion Controller in action at the end of the video.) Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Supreme Court of Canada Rules That Text Messages Are Private Mar 27th 2013, 17:22 An anonymous reader writes "The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that text messages are private communication (Official Ruling) and therefore police are required to get a warrant to gain access to the text messages of private citizens. The CBC reports: '[Supreme Court Justice Rosalie Silberman] Abella said the only practical difference between text messaging and traditional voice communications is the transmission process. "This distinction should not take text messages outside the protection to which private communications are entitled," she wrote.'" Quite different from the attitude in the U.S. Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Document Freedom Day 2013 Celebrated In 30 Countries Mar 27th 2013, 16:40 jrepin writes "The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is running its annual Document Freedom Day campaign today to raise awareness of the importance of open standards. This year's Document Freedom Day involves over 50 groups from 30 countries and focuses on open standards in web-based streaming technologies, especially on increasing the awareness and usage of HTML5. This year's campaign is sponsored by Google and openSUSE. To celebrate the Document Freedom Day April has published a poster to explain to software users, the interest of opting for 'open formats' to exchange and store their files." Read more of this story at Slashdot.   | | Document Freedom Day 2013 Celebrated In 30 Countries Mar 27th 2013, 16:40 jrepin writes "The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is running its annual Document Freedom Day campaign today to raise awareness of the importance of open standards. This year's Document Freedom Day involves over 50 groups from 30 countries and focuses on open standards in web-based streaming technologies, especially on increasing the awareness and usage of HTML5. This year's campaign is sponsored by Google and openSUSE. To celebrate the Document Freedom Day April has published a poster to explain to software users, the interest of opting for 'open formats' to exchange and store their files." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Cosmic Microwave Background: Google Earth Style Mar 27th 2013, 16:30 iDuck writes "Damien George, of Cambridge University, has created a 3D visualization of the latest data from the Planck mission. Using WebGL, it lets you spin and zoom a 3D model of the Cosmic Microwave Background, and select different wavelength bands." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Ask Nathan Myhrvold What You Will, Live Q&A April 3 Mar 27th 2013, 16:04 He was the CTO at Microsoft, is an accomplished nature and wildlife photographer, and his cookbook Modernist Cuisine won a James Beard award, but Nathan Myhrvold is probably best known for being co-founder and CEO of Intellectual Ventures. In 2009 the company launched a prototyping and research laboratory called Intellectual Ventures Lab. The lab has hired many prominent scientists to work on a variety of inventions including safer nuclear reactor designs and vaccine research. Under Myhrvold's direction Intellectual Ventures has purchased 40,000 patents and applications and internally developed over 2000 inventions, but not without controversy. Nathan has agreed to take some time to answer your questions but please limit yourself to one question per post. As a bonus on Wed. April 3, Nathan will be doing a live Q&A from 12-12:30pm PDT. Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Oracle Releases SPARC T5 Servers; Too Late? Mar 27th 2013, 15:33 First time accepted submitter bobthesungeek76036 writes "On March 26th, Larry Ellison and always with fashionable haircut John Fowler announced the new line of SPARC servers from Oracle. Touted as the fastest microprocessor in the world, they put up some impressive SPEC numbers against much more expensive (and older) IBM hardware. Is the industry still interested in SPARC or is it too late for Larry to regain the server market that Sun Microsystems had many moons ago?" El Reg has a pretty good overview of the new hardware; the T5 certainly looks interesting for highly threaded work loads (there's some massive SMT going on with 16 threads per core), but with Intel dominating for single-threaded performance and ARM-based servers becoming available squeezing them for massive multi-threading, is there really any hope in Oracle's efforts to stay in the hardware game? Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Ask Slashdot: Enterprise Bitcoin Mining For Go-Green Initiatives? Mar 27th 2013, 14:55 Supp0rtLinux writes "Bitcoins are currently trading around $75. I work for a very large organization. We have a fairly large HPC that is usually about 50% idle, as well as about 18K desktops on 4 campuses connected with dark fiber. All stay on 24x7 for after-hours AV scans (weekly) and backups (2-3x a week). All are leases that refresh every 2 years so all have fairly good CPU & RAM specs. As part of a go-green initiative a proposal has come up to use all the PCs for bitcoin in our own mining group; sort of like SETI-at-home style, but with a real dollar value return to us. Additionally, we would setup a queue in our HPC that dedicates 30% to BC mining when in use and up to 99.5% when no other jobs are running. The thought is that all the PCs are on 24x7 anyway and consuming resources so why not allow them to be useful 24x7 as well and generate bitcoins which can then be sold to offset the electrical costs of the running equipment and/or possibly even make a little profit. The guy with the idea says its a no-lose situation as if the price of bitcoins drops to below a certain level and is no longer a financially viable option, we simply stop the mining process. I'm curious what the Slashdot community thinks of this? " Read on for a few more details. Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | I padri puttanieri e le filippiche di Beppe Grillo: il vecchio sapore stantio della "nuova" politica Mar 27th 2013, 14:24 Dal blog di Beppe Grillo: «Questo dicono i Padri Puttanieri, quelli che hanno sulle spalle la più grande rapina ai danni delle giovani generazioni. Questi padri che chiagnono e fottono sono i Bersani, i D’Alema, i Berlusconi, i Cicchitto, i Monti». La filippica sul "governo ladro" l'abbiamo ormai capita. Caro Beppe è inutile riproporcela ogni giorno sul tuo blog. Otto milioni di italiani hanno dato fiducia al Movimento 5 Stelle. Però sarebbe ora di cominciare a tirare fuori argomenti più interessanti e soprattutto, dopo mesi di tabula rasa e di “no” su ogni fronte, magari più costruttivi. Che oggi riscavi il solito discorso dei vari Bersani, D'Alema, Berlusconi, Cicchitto e Monti, etichettandoli come "padri puttanieri" che hanno curato i loro interessi e hanno portato alla rovina l'Italia, per quanto possa essere un ragionamento in parte empaticamente condivisibile da parte del tuo elettorato, alle lunghe non è poi così tanto diverso dallo scialbo qualunquismo imperante che ha reso la politica negli ultimi vent'anni meno che inconcludente. Non serve battere il chiodo sempre e solo sullo stesso punto, lamentandosi sempre e solo di quello che è stato, prendendosela sempre e solo con chi c'ha preceduto e rivendicando il "no" incondizionato a qualunque proposta come unica via d'azione. Non basterà il muro contro muro per far ripartire l'Italia. E non basteranno nemmeno quelle bufale di utopia teorica sulla "decrescita felice", spacciate come formula del benessere, a capovolgere le sorti di un Paese immobilizzato dalla crisi. Abbiamo bisogno di creare nuova ricchezza per competere nel mercato globale e tornare a far respirare la piccola e media impresa italiana. Leggere sul tuo blog che «la crescita è la causa della crisi, non la sua soluzione» fa venire i brividi anche ai più sprovveduti di noi. Dopo le chiacchiere e le urla in piazza un po' di realismo, caro Beppe, ci vuole. Altrimenti la "nuova" politica del Movimento 5 Stelle assume già il sapore fastidioso e stantio di quella "vecchia" ormai andata a male.  | | JMS and Wachowskis Teaming Up for New Netflix Funded Scifi Series Mar 27th 2013, 14:13 Via Engadget, comes a press release that might bring joy to fans of science fiction dismayed by years without any new scifi shows: "Continuing its quest to sate subscribers' appetites with a flow of original content, Netflix has announced a new original series, Sense8. Due in late 2014, it's being developed by the Wachowskis of The Matrix, V for Vendetta, Cloud Atlas and Speed Race fame, as well as J. Michael Straczynski, creator of Babylon 5. Details are thin, but the press release promises a gripping global tale of minds linked and souls hunted with a ten episode run for its first season." Hopefully it'll end up available on DVD eventually, for us poor GNU/Linux users who are not worthy enough for Netflix (or: to any Netflix engineers reading, make it work). Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Largest DDoS In History Reaches 300 Billion Bits Per Second Mar 27th 2013, 13:31 An anonymous reader writes "The NYT is reporting that the Largest DDoS in history reached 300 Gbps. The dispute started when the spam-fighting group Spamhaus added the Dutch company Cyberbunker to its blacklist, which is used by e-mail providers to weed out spam. Millions of ordinary Internet users have experienced delays in services like Netflix or could not reach a particular Web site for a short time. Dutch authorities and the police have made several attempts to enter the bunker by force but failed to do so. The attacks were first mentioned publicly last week by Cloudflare, an Internet security firm in Silicon Valley that was trying to defend against the attacks and as a result became a target." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Enlightenment Terminal Allows Video Playback, PDF Viewing Mar 27th 2013, 12:50 An anonymous reader writes "The E17 Enlightenment project has released a new version of its Terminology terminal emulator. With Terminology 0.3 comes several fancy features, including the ability to preview video files, images, and PDF files from within the terminal. There's new escape sequences, inline video playback, and other features to this terminal emulator that's only built on EFL and libc." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | When Traditional Solutions Fall Short: Navigation For Mega-Sites Mar 27th 2013, 12:40 For most websites, navigation is not particularly challenging. A primary navigation bar, supported by sub-navigation, is often enough. Typically, sub-navigation displays the parent, siblings and children of the current page. A persistent primary navigation bar shows top-level pages, allowing users to move between sections. However, there is one class of website for which this traditional form of navigation falls short. It is what I refer to as a “mega-site”. What Is A Mega-Site? A mega-site is typically owned by a large organization that encompasses a broad range of services or products. The organization also often supports a diverse user base. Organizations with mega-sites include institutions such as the BBC, companies with diverse portfolios such as Microsoft, government bodies, higher-education institutions and large charities that run many campaigns, such as the World Wildlife Fund. These websites: - are extremely large,
- are many levels deep,
- are made up of many micro-websites and subsections,
- cater to many audiences,
- have multiple entry points.
Websites of this size and complexity bring some unique navigational challenges. The Challenges Of Navigation On Mega-Sites At our company, we do a lot of work on mega-sites, and they can prove to be particularly challenging, especially when trying to use traditional navigation. Traditional Navigation Cannot Support Depth The deeper the website, the more that traditional navigation struggles. Navigation can comfortably accommodate three levels; beyond that, one of two things happens. Either the navigation expands to the point where more screen real estate is dedicated to navigation than to content (a problem made worse by the sheer number of pages on a mega-site), or higher pages in the information architecture no longer appear in the navigation. In the latter case, if the user is deep within the website, they will lose the context of where they are because they are not seeing where the current page fits in the website's structure. 
While traditional navigational approaches, combined with breadcrumbs, can scale to accommodate mega-sites, they do so at the cost of ever-increasing real estate. Larger version.
The latter problem can be partially mitigated by well-implemented breadcrumbs. However, this is not the only issue with traditional navigation. Traditional Navigation Cannot Support Multiple Entry Points Traditional navigation can confuse users who enter the website via a micro-site or subsection. Take a student who is considering attending a university for post-graduate studies. This person is probably more interested in a particular faculty or school than in the institution as a whole. They could, therefore, very well enter the website at that level, rather than at the university's home page. Another example would be a single mother wanting to know about child benefits. They are more likely to arrive on the benefits subsite than on the government's home page. In such situations, the user's focus is on their current context (i.e. post-graduate studies or child benefits). They are not immediately interested in the broader mega-site. Unfortunately, traditional primary and secondary navigation exposes the user to this broader context, whether they want it or not. 
Does a section labelled "Research" on a university's page refer to the entire university or just the school being viewed? What about when the same label appears twice but goes to two separate places? Larger version.
To make matters worse, the current context can actually alter the user's perception of the navigation items. For example, would our post-graduate student think that a link labelled "About us" is about the school in question or about the larger institution. In some extreme cases, you can even find the same navigation labels being used for both the current context and the broader institution (for example, information about the university and about the school might both be labelled "About us" on the same page). How, then, can we solve the navigation problems of mega-sites? Navigation Solutions As with all things, there is no perfect solution. However, there are solutions that are a step forward from navigation better suited to small websites. The first of these solutions is the most radical. Get Rid of Navigation Entirely I first heard of this approach in Russ Weakley's talk about doing away with traditional navigation back in 2006. It rejects the idea of imposing a navigational structure upon users, instead allowing them to find their own path through the website. This is achieved by making each Web page a standalone document and tagging it with appropriate meta data. Users can then find pages through a combination of search and navigating by tags. Pulling in links to related documents based on the meta data associated with each page would also be possible. This approach has several advantages: - It supports a website of limitless size.
- It is ideally suited to users who come to the website from a deep link.
- It allows for a much more dynamic relationship between pages and easily accommodates pages being added and removed.
Of course, it is not without its challenges. While individual sections of the website could still have a landing page (for example, section.acme.com), the business may well struggle with the idea of not having a specific website to manage. More importantly, this approach relies heavily on having well-tagged documents and powerful search functionality, both of which are hard to achieve with a mega-site. That said, it is an option, and one that shouldn't be quickly dismissed. Split the Website Into Smaller Micro-Sites Another approach is to break the mega-site into a number of smaller more manageable micro-sites. This is the approach adopted by the BBC. Instead of treating its Web presence as a single entity, the BBC has broken it down into subsites, such as news, sports, TV, radio and so on. Each website has its own navigation and thus avoids the problems associated with mega-sites. The way the BBC avoids a disjointed experience for users who move between micro-sites is to ensure consistency in top-level navigation and in the user interface. 
The BBC avoids being a mega-site by splitting its Web presence into a number of smaller websites, while maintaining consistency in navigation and design language. Larger version.
Although the BBC's micro-sites do vary in appearance, they make use of the same primary navigation, and also have a consistent design language for things like typography, layout and modules. This language, defined on the BBC's Global Experience Language (GEL) website, is consistent enough to ensure a stable user experience yet flexible enough to cater to different audiences and subject matter. It is a fine line to walk. Make each micro-site too different and users will become confused by changes in the UI. Make them too similar and users will be thrown off upon finding that the website does not have a single navigational structure. Use a Breadcrumb-Driven Approach A third solution is the one adopted by Gov.uk. It does away with dedicated areas for navigation, and instead uses the page's content to link to its children. It then uses breadcrumbs to help the user identify where they are within the navigational hierarchy and to move back up the tree when needed. 
Gov.uk relies almost exclusively on breadcrumbs for navigation. Larger version.
The approach has many advantages. For a start, it minimizes the space dedicated to navigation, while at the same time allowing for much more detailed descriptions of each child. In that sense, it is the simplest, cleanest and easiest to understand of the approaches. It also translates well to mobile devices, which account for 45% of Gov.uk's Web traffic. The prominent breadcrumbs make clear to the user where they are on the website, while in-page navigation to child pages makes the next step obvious. Most of all, the emphasis on content, rather than navigation, appeals to me the most. Unfortunately, it does have its downsides. By relying entirely on breadcrumbs and in-page links to children, the user has little context of their current position. They are unaware of the siblings of the current page and of the overall shape of the website (for example, they are unaware of the top-level sections). This is not a problem if the user is trying to complete a specific task and the website has catered to that task by bringing all content related to it in a single place. However, when a user is in general research mode or when the content related to the task is spread across multiple pages, this approach can prove frustrating. The frustration is caused by the breadcrumb navigation requiring the user to navigate up and down the website's structure. There is no way to enable jumping between sections. Fortunately, there is a hybrid approach, which uses breadcrumbs as the primary navigational tool, but augmented with more traditional navigation. My Preferred Solution My preferred solution is inspired by the navigational approach used by BBC Sports before GEL was introduced. Instead of running them horizontally, the BBC flipped the traditional breadcrumbs vertically. At the end of each breadcrumb list, the current page also showed its children. When you reached the bottom of the tree, the navigation would continue to display the siblings of the current page, instead of its children. 
The old BBC Sports website used vertical breadcrumbs as the primary navigation tool. When the user entered a section, such as football, all other sports (i.e. the siblings) would be removed, focusing the user on the subject at hand. Larger version.
This approach grouped all navigation together in a single place, gave the user a clear sense of their location and reduced the space dedicated to navigation. Yet, it still suffered from the problems of Gov.uk. When working on the University of Brighton, we proposed BBC Sports' approach, but added one important thing. We suggested keeping a consistent top-level navigation bar. While this adds more navigation to the page, it gives the user an instant overview of the structure of the website. This enables users who require information from multiple sections (say, a prospective student researching courses as well as accommodation) to jump quickly between those sections. In many cases, this is enough to create a simple yet powerful user experience. However, it does not address the need to be able to see the siblings of the current page. Showing Siblings While Using Breadcrumb Navigation So far, I have considered two possible solutions to this issue. One works on the assumption that siblings often have a relationship with each other; they are part of the same story, if you will. On that basis, the simple addition of "next" and "previous" buttons (such as you find on many blogs) might be enough of a solution. Users could then move between siblings with the single click of a button. An alternative approach would be to make each level of the breadcrumb navigation a flyout menu, thereby exposing the siblings of that level. This would enable the user to jump to any sibling on any level of the website and potentially do away with the need for a separate primary navigation bar. 
By adding flyout menus to the vertical breadcrumb navigation, you give users quick access to any sibling on any level of the website. Larger version.
This could work whether you use vertical breadcrumb navigation or traditional horizontal breadcrumbs. That said, I haven't tested this approach, and some will have concerns about touch devices. More Ideas Needed As you can see, the issue of navigation on mega-sites is a thorny one, and there does not seem to be a single obvious solution. One of the primary reasons for writing this post is to open a discussion on the subject and hopefully encourage the exploration of some alternative approaches. As a result, I would really appreciate your thoughts in the comments section and any examples of alternative navigational approaches you have found. (al)
© Paul Boag for Smashing Magazine, 2013. | | Mobile Phone Use Patterns Identify Individuals Better Than Fingerprints Mar 27th 2013, 12:12 chicksdaddy writes "Mobile phone use may be a more accurate identifier of individuals than even their own fingerprints, according to research published on the web site of the scientific journal Nature. Scientists at MIT and the Université catholique de Louvain in Belgium analyzed 15 months of mobility data for 1.5 million individuals who the same mobile carrier. Their analysis, 'Unique in the Crowd: the privacy bounds of human mobility' showed that data from just four, randomly chosen 'spatio-temporal points' (for example, mobile device pings to carrier antennas) was enough to uniquely identify 95% of the individuals, based on their pattern of movement. Even with just two randomly chosen points, the researchers say they could uniquely characterize around half of the 1.5 million mobile phone users. The research has profound implications for privacy, suggesting that the use of mobile devices makes it impossible to remain anonymous – even without the use of tracking software." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Prodotti e servizi in garanzia: l'inesistente tutela dei consumatori. Mar 27th 2013, 12:08 La storia l'ho raccontata nei mesi scorsi su Facebook. Ma vale la pena riproporla. A settembre ho comprato un Nexus 7, il tablet di Google prodotto da Asus. Lo scarto, l'accendo, comincio a utilizzarlo, mi accorgo subito che il lato sinistro dello schermo fa su e giù, non è ben fissato alla scocca di plastica. Telefono all'assistenza Asus. Mi spiegano che è un problema noto. Difetto di fabbrica. Chiedo che cosa devo fare. Loro, lapidari: «Entro otto giorni dall'acquisto deve farselo cambiare dal negozio dove l'ha acquistato. Se ce lo spedisce noi glielo rimandiamo indietro senza toccarlo perché non forniamo assistenza entro quel periodo». Mi pare un'assurdità ma faccio come dicono. Torno in negozio. Parlo col commesso. «Non possiamo sostituierglielo». Chiedo perché no. Lui: «ormai l'ha scartato, noi non possiamo fare niente, deve chiamare il supporto tecnico Asus». Che uno si domanda, ma come potevo sapere che era fallato senza "scartarlo"? Richiamo Asus. Mi confermano la loro prima versione. «Se lo deve far cambiare dal punto vendita». Stavolta però aggiungono con premura: «si sinceri che quando se ne fa dare uno nuovo non abbia lo stesso problema, ce ne sono parecchi in giro così». Torno in negozio. Inamovibili. Chiedo di parlare col direttore, come schiantarsi contro un muro. Minaccio di chiamare la Guardia di Finanza, i Carabinieri, i Marines, Perry Mason. Niente. Non me lo cambiano. «Deve rivolgersi ad Asus, ha capito?». Nel frattempo resto fuori dall'Italia per qualche giorno. Quando torno ad ottobre, inizio la trafila con l'assistenza ASUS per mandare il Nexus in assistenza. È un delirio. Ogni volta che chiamo ho la sfiga di parlare sempre con la stessa signora, italiano stentato, incazzatura cronica nei suoi modi di fare. Alla fine è lei che si lamenta con me. Dopo due settimane di nulla di fatto e guerriglie verbali al telefono, stremato, mi rassegno a tenermi il tablet così com'è. Passano due mesi. Il Nexus muore. Non si accende più. Emette scariche elettrostatiche e lo schermo resta nero. L'idea di richiamare l'assistenza mi fa salire la febbre. Ricomincio la trafila. Di nuovo il delirio. Allora cambio approccio. Parlo con un avvocato. Prepariamo una bella lettera. Spedita via fax ad Asus Italia. Minaccio azione legale e denuncia alle associazioni dei consumatori. Mi chiamano il giorno dopo. A distanza di una settimana un corriere viene a ritirare il Nexus. Siamo arrivati a dicembre, poco prima di Natale. Da settembre che lo avevo preso. Una vergogna. A gennaio il Nexus mi torna a casa. Si accende. Pare pure che abbiano sistemato il difetto dello schermo che fa su e giù. Dopo qualche ora di utilizzo il difetto dello schermo si ripresenta. Come prima, peggio di prima. Qualche giorno fa ho scritto sulla pagina Facebook di Asus Italia. Gli ho raccontato in breve la storia. Loro, praticoni: «clicca sull'icona a forma di salvagente che trovi sulla pagina e contatta l'assistenza». Rispondo, stavolta lapidario pure io. Gli dico solo che non è questione di "assistenza". Ma solo di totale mancanza di attenzione per il cliente. Parole buttate al vento. Non comprerò mai più mezzo prodotto Asus. Questa storia ve l'ho riproposta per discutere di quanto sia disastrosa da parte di certe aziende la gestione dei prodotti in "garanzia". Noi consumatori non abbiamo alcuna tutela. Il discorso vale anche per le aziende che erogano servizi e che dovrebbero garantire adeguati livelli di servizio a fronte di un canone periodico che il cliente paga per usufruirne. Sono anni che lamento a Telecom seri problemi di connessione con la mia linea ADSL. Niente. Pare che il problema sia irrisolvibile. Saranno venute a casa una ventina di squadre di tecnici. Una volta il problema "potrebbe" essere quello, un'altra volta "potrebbe" essere quell'altro o quell'altro ancora. Capisco che così mi fate parzialmente contento, perché almeno mi considerate, ma dal punto di vista aziendale immagino che smuovere di continuo la manutenzione senza venire a capo del problema sia più costoso che non risolverlo. O no? Sempre se l'attenzione ai costi sia in cima alla lista dei problemi delle aziende. La settimana scorsa un fulmine ha bruciato la scheda della mia stufa a pellet. Comprata a ottobre. Nuova di zecca. Chiamo il tecnico. Cambia la scheda. Lo ringrazio. Lo saluto. Rimane impalato sulla porta, non accenna ad andarsene. Parla: «sono 120 euro». Io: «ma scusi non è in garanzia?». Lui: «il componente della stufa sì, però la chiamata per l'intervento tecnico la deve pagare». Alla faccia della "garanzia".  | | Has Kickstarter Peaked? Mar 27th 2013, 09:19 Nerval's Lobster writes "Kickstarter has taken off in the past year, raising big money for a wide variety of projects. Look at some of their stats: in June 2012, only seven projects raised more than a million dollars apiece; in the past nine months, another 16 projects have passed that threshold. Since the site began operations in 2009, several of the 38,000 funded projects have broken out as superstars, including the Pebble Watch and a new gaming console. With all this competition, has crowdfunding gotten, well, too crowded? Is Kickstarter peaking? As the dollar amounts have grown, so has the potential for abuse. Hidden amidst all these success stories and multi-million dollar payouts are some sadder tales. The majority of the nearly 50,000 unfunded Kickstarter projects received less than 20 precent of their funding goals, with 11 percent never even getting a single pledge." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | USPS Discriminates Against 'Atheist' Merchandise Mar 27th 2013, 07:25 fish waffle writes "Suspecting that their strongly branded 'Atheist' products may be treated differently by more religiously-oriented postal regions, Kickstarter success Atheist Shoes conducted an experiment. They sent 178 packages to 89 people in different parts of the U.S., each person receiving one package prominently branded as 'Atheist' merchandise, and one not. The results: packages with the atheist label were nearly 10 times more likely to be 'lost,' and took on average 3 days longer to show up when they did. Control experiments were also done in Europe and Germany — it's definitely a USPS problem." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Cost comparison toolkit: Google Apps vs. Office 365 Mar 27th 2013, 07:00 Google Apps and Office 365 are the leading contenders in the arena of online productivity suites. Each offers an array of functions and it can be tricky scoping out the comparisons and contrasts. This side-by-side comparison details the costs of each. | | Washington's Exploding Manholes Explained? Mar 27th 2013, 06:18 sciencehabit writes "Researchers who mapped methane concentrations on the streets of the nation's capital found natural gas leaks everywhere, at concentrations of up to 50 times the normal background levels. The leaking gas wastes resources, enhances ozone production, and exacerbates global warming—not to mention powering the city's infamous exploding manholes. Most of the natural gas we burn for heat and on stovetops in the United States is methane, a simple carbon atom surrounded by four hydrogens. Carbon dioxide gets more press, but methane is the more powerful agent of global warming, 21 times more effective than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere. And methane levels are rising fast. Methane levels in the atmosphere were just 650 parts per billion a century ago, versus 1800 ppb today." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | New Employee Checklist and Default Access Policy Mar 20th 2013, 07:00 TechRepublic’s New Employee Checklist and Default Access Policy, and New Employee Orientation slides will provide IT departments with the materials they need for new hires. | |
