| Should the US Really Limit Chinese-Government Influenced IT Systems? Apr 3rd 2013, 23:58 coondoggie writes "New federal restrictions now preclude four U.S. agencies from buying information-technology (IT) systems from manufacturers 'owned, directed or subsidized by the People's Republic of China' due to national-security concerns. But is this a smart tactic? It's clear that some in the U.S. government, including the House Intelligence Committee — which issued a scathing report last fall that called Huawei and ZTE a threat to national security — and the Treasury Department's Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. are also working in other ways behind the scenes to keep technology made by China-based manufacturers out of U.S. commercial networks as well." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     |  | Mining Companies Borrow From Gamers' Physics Engines Apr 3rd 2013, 23:10 littlekorea writes "Mining companies are developing new systems for automating blasting of iron ore using the same open source physics engines adapted for games such as Grand Theft Auto IV and Red Dead Redemption. The same engine that determines 3D collision detection and soft body/rigid body dynamics in gaming will be applied to building 3D blast movement models — which will predict where blasted materials will land and distinguish between ore and waste. Predictive blast fragmentation models used in the past have typically been either numerical or empirical, [mining engineer Alan Cocker] said. Numerical models such as discrete element method, he noted, are onerous to configure and demanding of resources — both computing and human — and are generally not appropriate for operational use at mines. 'The problem with empirical models, by contrast, is that they tend to operate at a scale too coarse to give results useful for optimizations,' he added, noting typical Kuz-Ram-based fragmentation models (PDF) (widely used to estimate fragmentation from blasting) assume homogeneous geology (the same type of materials) throughout a blast." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | WA State Bill Would Allow Bosses To Seek Facebook Passwords Apr 3rd 2013, 22:30 An anonymous reader writes "A bill amendment proposed Tuesday could allow employers to ask for a worker's Facebook or other social media password during company investigations. The provision was proposed for a bill that safeguards social network passwords of workers and job applicants. The measure bars employers from asking for social media credentials during job interviews. The amendment says that an employer conducting an investigation may require or demand access to a personal account if an employee or prospective employee has allegations of work-place misconduct or giving away an employer's proprietary information. The amendment would require an investigation to ensure compliance with applicable laws or regulatory requirements." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Blink! Google Is Forking WebKit Apr 3rd 2013, 21:49 Carewolf writes "In a blog post titled Blink: A rendering engine for the Chromium project, Google has announced that Chromium (the open source backend for Chrome) will be switching to Blink, a new WebKit-based web rendering engine. Quoting: 'Chromium uses a different multi-process architecture than other WebKit-based browsers, and supporting multiple architectures over the years has led to increasing complexity for both the WebKit and Chromium projects. This has slowed down the collective pace of innovation... This was not an easy decision. We know that the introduction of a new rendering engine can have significant implications for the web. Nevertheless, we believe that having multiple rendering engines—similar to having multiple browsers—will spur innovation and over time improve the health of the entire open web ecosystem. ... In the short term, Blink will bring little change for web developers. The bulk of the initial work will focus on internal architectural improvements and a simplification of the codebase. For example, we anticipate that we’ll be able to remove 7 build systems and delete more than 7,000 files—comprising more than 4.5 million lines—right off the bat. Over the long term a healthier codebase leads to more stability and fewer bugs.'" Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | SkyDrive 3.0: Microsoft Gave Up Fighting Apple's 30% Cut Apr 3rd 2013, 21:08 An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft on Wednesday released SkyDrive 3.0 for iOS out of the blue. Last time the app was in the news, Apple was stopping Microsoft from pushing out an update in the App Store because the company doesn't pay a 30 percent cut of the subscription revenue it generates. Now we've learned how Microsoft managed to update its iOS app today. 'We worked with Apple to create a solution that benefited our mutual customers,' a Microsoft spokesperson told TNW. 'The SkyDrive app for iOS is slightly different than other SkyDrive apps in that people interested in buying additional storage will do so via the web versus in the app.' Does this set a precedent for an iOS version of Microsoft Office?" Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | New Seagate Hybrid Drives Hampered By Slow Mechanical Guts Apr 3rd 2013, 20:47 crookedvulture writes "Seagate announced its third-generation hybrid drives last month, revealing a full family of notebook and desktop drives that combine mechanical platters with solid-state storage. These so-called SSHDs are Seagate's first to be capable of caching write requests in addition to reads, and the mobile variants are already selling online. Unfortunately, a closer look at the Laptop Thin SSHD reveals some problems with Seagate's new design. While the integrated flash cache reduces OS and application load times by 30-45%, overall performance appears to be held back by its 5,400-RPM mechanical component. Seagate's last-gen Momentus XT hybrid spins its platters at 7,200-RPM, and it's faster than the new SSHD in a wide range of tests. The upcoming desktop SSHDs will also have 7,200-RPM spindle speeds, so they may prove more appealing than the mobile models." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Dark Matter Found? $2 Billion Orbital Experiment Detects Hints Apr 3rd 2013, 20:27 astroengine writes "A $2 billion particle detector attached to the International Space Station has detected the potential signature of dark matter annihilation in the Cosmos, scientists have announced today. The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) was attached to the space station in May 2011 by space shuttle Endeavour — the second-to last shuttle mission to the orbital outpost. Since then, the AMS has been detecting electrons and positrons (the electron's anti-particle) originating from deep space and assessing their energies. By doing a tally of electrons and positrons, physicists hope the AMS will help to answer one of the most enduring mysteries in science: Does dark matter exist? And today, it looks like the answer is a cautious, yet exciting, affirmative." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | How to Get Conjurer James Randi to Give You $1 Million (Video) Apr 3rd 2013, 19:45 This is the second of our two-part interview (part one ran yesterday) with Conjurer and Investigator (his words) James Randi, whose organization, the James Randi Education Foundation, has a long-standing offer: prove you have paranormal abilities and they'll give you $1 Million. They say they've recently made this award easier than ever to win. Note that, lower bar or no, Randi claims the last time a conjurer's illusion fooled him was many years ago, when he was very young. It was one done by the famous Chan Canasta -- and Randi claims that in the end he figured it out, anyway. So forget the $1 Million, relax, and enjoy James Randi. He's a great raconteur, so we can all be jealous of interviewer Rob Rozeboom (samzenpus) for having made this great video even as we enjoy watching it. Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Nathan Myhrvold Live Q&A Apr 3rd 2013, 18:59 Last week we announced that co-founder and CEO of Intellectual Ventures, Nathan Myhrvold, had agreed to do a live Q&A. Earlier today we posted a few of his answers, but now's your chance to hear it directly from him. Mr. Myhrvold will be answering your questions below until 12:30 PDT. Please keep it to one question per post so everyone gets a chance. Update: 04/03 19:41 GMT by S : 12:30pm PDT has come and gone, and Mr. Myhrvold has to move on. Thanks for the answers! Here's a link to his user page if you'd just like to read his responses. Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Disney Closes LucasArts Apr 3rd 2013, 18:29 An anonymous reader sends news that Disney is closing LucasArts. The game studio has been around since 1982, and brought us classics such as Labyrinth, The Secret of Monkey Island, X-Wing, TIE Fighter, and Star Wars: Battlefront. They also published Star Wars: Galaxies, Knights of the Old Republic, and Star Wars: The Old Republic. The company held a meeting today informing employees of the layoffs. "In some ways, the news is not a surprise. LucasArts had seemed directionless in recent years. The company's core business of games based on the Star Wars license have been largely disappointing in both quality and sales. While the company had some success with games like Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and the Battlefront series, both of those franchises seemed to have died on the vine. The cancellation of Star Wars Battlefront III was particularly ugly, which led to nasty public fingerpointing between LucasArts and developer Free Radical. ... LucasArt's other big franchise, Indiana Jones, has failed to make much of a dent in games in recent years, with the exception of Traveller's Tales LEGO Indiana Jones series that, once again, was not developed by LucasArts. Meanwhile, series like Uncharted and Tomb Raider, which are both heavily influenced by the Indiana Jones films, have thrived." If only they hadn't abandoned the X-Wing series of games. I would have bought a new one of those in a heartbeat. Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Mozilla and Samsung Collaborating to Bring New Browser Engine to Android Apr 3rd 2013, 17:59 An anonymous reader writes with this bit from The Next Web: "Mozilla and Samsung on Wednesday announced a new partnership to build a 'next generation' web browser engine called Servo. The ultimate goal is to bring the technology to Android and ARM, though the two companies have not shared a timeframe for a possible launch. With the help of Samsung, Mozilla is bringing both the Rust programming language as well as Servo to Android and ARM. Samsung's contribution so far has been an ARM backend to Rust as well as the build infrastructure necessary to cross-compile to Android. In fact, the code is available now on GitHub, as is the source for Rust and Servo." For those unfamiliar, Rust is Mozilla's new safe systems programming language (kind of like BitC), and Servo is their general project to write a brand new engine using Rust. Rust has an interesting memory model that eliminates much difficulty in reasoning about threaded programs. If you know what you're doing, they claim you can cross compile the code for Android, but no functionality guarantees have been made. Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Foxconn, voci di nuovi suicidi: luci e ombre sul gigante cinese della tecnologia Apr 3rd 2013, 17:51 L'immagine dello stabilimento Foxconn di Langfang è una delle più tristemente note del gigante dell'elettronica cinese che assembla molti prodotti di elettronica di consumo per Apple, Samsung, HP, Microsoft, Dell e Sony. La foto mostra la zona dei dormitori. Un anonimo palazzone grigio dove alloggiano in condizioni igieniche precarie centinaia di dipendenti. Sulle pareti esterne tra il primo e il secondo piano sono state fissate delle reti salvavita. Tra il 2010 e il 2012, secondo le fonti ufficiali, almeno 22 dipendenti si sono tolti la vita per le inumane condizioni lavorative. Diciannove di loro si sono lanciati nel vuoto dal tetto dei dormitori. Il caso che fece più clamore fu quello di Sun Dan-yong, 25 anni. Il 16 luglio 2009 si lanciò dalla finestra del suo appartamento dopo aver smarrito il prototipo dell'iPhone 4 che aveva in consegna. Prima di morire aveva confidato agli amici che la sicurezza Foxconn lo aveva picchiato e aveva perquisito il suo appartamento. L'ultimo episodio risale al 29 marzo scorso, appena una settimana fa. Secondo alcune fonti cinesi, una donna avrebbe tentato il suicidio lanciandosi dal tetto dello stabilimento Foxconn di Shenzhen. La donna sarebbe sopravvissuta all’impatto. Con lei c’erano altri tre lavoratori che avrebbero minacciato di lanciarsi nel vuoto. «Ci sono stati dei disordini. Nessuno è rimasto ferito». In una nota ufficiale, Foxconn ha negato l’accaduto: «possiamo confermare che il 29 marzo scorso tre nostri lavoratori presso lo stabilimento di Shenzhen sono stati coinvolti in un’agitazione interna contro la scelta della società di offrire loro un’opportunità di ricollocamento a seguito dello spostamento della produzione presso un altro impianto». Secondo la nota, nessuno sarebbe rimasto ferito. «Tutte le altre voci che affermano il contrario sono totalmente false». La vicenda ancora poco chiara ha riacceso le polemiche sulle condizioni al limite della schiavitù denunciate in passato presso gli stabilimenti del gigante cinese e riapre l’annosa questione sulla corresponsabilità delle aziende che utilizzano Foxconn per assemblare gli ultimi gadget tecnologici sfruttando i ridottissimi costi della manodopera. Alcuni mesi fa un giornalista dell’agenzia cinese di notizie Shanghai Evening Post era riuscito a infiltrarsi presso lo stabilimento di Tai Yuan dove viene assembla l’iPhone. Avevo riportato l’agghiacciante resoconto di quell’esperienza su questo post.  | | Nathan Myhrvold Answers Your Questions, Live Q&A Today At 12 P.M. Pacific Apr 3rd 2013, 17:20 Last week you had a chance to ask co-founder and CEO of Intellectual Ventures, Nathan Myhrvold, questions before his live Q&A. Below you'll find his answers to a few of the highest rated. Make sure you come back today from 12-12:30pm PDT (3-3:30pm ET, 19:00-19:30 GMT) to ask him whatever you like in real time. We'll have a new story for your questions at that time. Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | HP Not Giving Up On Autonomy Apr 3rd 2013, 16:41 Nerval's Lobster writes "After defeating a shareholder insurrection that largely stemmed from how it handled the Autonomy acquisition, Hewlett-Packard is trying to resuscitate the fortunes of that troubled analytics-software unit. In an interview, Robert Youngjohns, General Manager of the Autonomy division for HP, conceded that the controversy surrounding the acquisition and its aftermath has proven a significant distraction for the company. ... HP's ambitious turnaround plan involves focusing Autonomy technology, which can help find the right data in huge datasets, on areas such as Web content management and information governance. But it's a big question whether HP can overcome all the negative publicity swirling around Autonomy, widely seen as a poor acquisition: Back in November 2012, HP accused Autonomy's management team of using 'accounting improprieties, misrepresentations and disclosure failures to inflate the underlying financial metrics of the company.' It alerted the SEC's Enforcement Division and the United Kingdom's Serious Fraud Office (Autonomy is based in the U.K.), and announced it would take an $8.8 billion write-down on Autonomy's value. That sort of thing could make Autonomy a tough sell to companies still trying to figure out if they even need so-called 'Big Data' tools." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | GNOME2 Fork MATE Desktop 1.6 Released Apr 3rd 2013, 16:00 An anonymous reader writes "Excerpts from the announcement: 'This release is a giant step forward from the 1.4 release. In this release, we have replaced many deprecated packages and libraries with new technologies available in GLib. We have also added a lot of new features (...) MATE 1.6 is the result of 8 months of intense development and contains 1800 contributions by 39 people, and more than 150 translators.' See the release notes for a list of changes and new features." They've unforked a number of old GNOME 2 libraries, relying instead of technology from GLib/Gtk+ 3 and other projects where it makes sense. None of the new features really stand out on their own, but it looks like there are dozens of small improvements that should make the desktop experience more pleasant. Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | California Law Would Require Companies To Disclose All Consumer Data Collected Apr 3rd 2013, 15:22 Trailrunner7 writes "California, which set the standard for data breach notifications nationwide, is again seeking to set a precedent by becoming the first state in the nation to require companies upon request disclose to California consumers the data they've collected and to whom it was shared during the past year. ... The 'Right to Know Act of 2013,' AB 1291 was amended this week to boost its chances of success after being introduced in February by state Assembly member Bonnie Lowenthal. ... It applies to companies that are both on- and off- line Privacy advocacy groups such as the EFF wrote Tuesday that the bill could set a precedent for other states, much as California's 2002 Breach Notification Act requiring California data breach victims be notified was later replicated by almost all U.S. states." That's not all: you'd be able to request a copy of all the data they've stored about you too. Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | EdX Online Classroom Code Going Open Source, Uniting With Stanford Apr 3rd 2013, 14:55 The edX project today announced that they are joining forces with Stanford and releasing the source to edX on June 1st. As part of the platform going Free, Stanford will be integrating features from their Open Source Class2Go project. From Stanford: "Mitchell said that Stanford's Class2Go platform development team has been in contact with the edX team for a number of months, and that much code is already synchronized so that the collaboration between the two platforms will be a smooth one. The advantage will then be 'a larger team building one strong open source platform, rather than two competing open source platforms, which we think will be more desirable for universities around the world,' Mitchell added." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Samoa Air Rolling Out "Pay As You Weigh" Fares Apr 3rd 2013, 14:14 cylonlover writes "Thrifty Samoans looking to take a trip may want to shed a few pounds before booking a flight with Samoan Air after the airline announced the implementation of a 'pay as you weigh' system. Unlike some other airlines that have courted controversy by forcing some obese passengers to purchase two seats, Samoa's national carrier will charge passengers based on their weight." They have a demo fare calculator for the curious. Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Iain Banks: Extremely Ill With Cancer Apr 3rd 2013, 13:53 The_Other_Kelly writes "News that will shock and sadden the many fans of Iain (M.) Banks. He is suffering from gall bladder cancer, and things do not look good: 'The bottom line, now, I'm afraid, is that as a late stage gall bladder cancer patient, I'm expected to live for "several months" and it's extremely unlikely I'll live beyond a year.' His books, both normal and science fiction, are world view warping Excessions, and my heart goes out to him and his. I am shocked and saddened. Thank you, Iain." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | The War Z Taken Offline Following Hack Apr 3rd 2013, 13:33 An anonymous reader writes with this tidbit from Net Security: "Players of The War Z, a first-person zombie survival game, have been notified of a breach of the developer's forum and game databases and the theft of user data contained in them. 'The data accessed included email addresses used to log-in to the forum, forum passwords which we encrypt, email addresses used to log-in to the game, encrypted game passwords as well as in-game character names and the IP addresses from which players log-in to the forum and to the game,' the developer explained ...There is no mention of what encryption algorithm they use to encrypt the passwords, nor whether they are 'salted,' so their advice to users about immediately changing the passwords they used for the forum and the account is more than fitting." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Freebie: The Collective Legal Guide For Designers (Contract Samples) Apr 3rd 2013, 13:06 Rule number one for designers of all kinds: use a contract. Sometimes, this is easier said than done. Should I use a service agreement? A retainer? A licensing contract? With the help of Docracy, we collected the experience of many designers to provide a wide range of starting points for less experienced creative professionals, and to start a permanent free legal resource for the community. Below you’ll find a collection of legal documents curated by our fantastic community. We are looking for your feedback and contribution to grow this collection. Suggest more items or add the contract you use for your own work. You might also want to have a look at our already published set of 10 basic agreements for designers. Important notice: free sample documents and commentary are never a substitute to legal advice. Because every situation can be different, only a lawyer can answer your legal questions and assist you with a contract. The contracts below are useful examples, but they are sourced from a community of people and come without any guarantee, so treat them as general information. Smashing Magazine and the respective contributors of the documents disclaim all liability in connection to the use of these documents. What Document Should I Sign With My Client? If you created an icon set: If you are building a responsive website: If you are starting a graphic design project: If you're doing a small project with design and code: If you're doing a BIG project with design and code: If you're doing UX work: If you're creating an infographic: If a third party wants to use your work: If you're redesigning a website: If you're hiring a developer/designer to work on a project: If you're hired as a freelance developer: If you're making a mobile application: If things go wrong: Other helpful documents: I Want To Add My Own Document  add yours
Eager to share your own experiences on documents? Please leave a comment, question or suggestion. Also, we’d love to include more documents in this article! Feel free to add yours! We’ll look at all documents which we receive and add the best ones to this guide! Extra: Free “Legal Guide” Icon Set You like the icons in this guide? Alvaro Casanova, designer for Docracy.com, offers you to download the set for free (retina and standard). Credits of image on front page: storebukkebruse. (vf) (ea)
© Veronica Picciafuoco for Smashing Magazine, 2013. | | Lo stato delle startup in Italia: analisi del primo trimestre 2013 Apr 3rd 2013, 10:54 Di startup su questo blog ne ho parlato spesso. Dalla vicenda del Rapporto Restart Italia fino ai dubbi su quanto possano davvero essere il motore per far ripartire il Paese. Non vi nascondo il mio scetticismo più che totale sulla questione. Magari mi sbaglio. Ma l'impressione che ho spesso avuto in passato è che l'argomento startup sia stato utilizzato come un grande spot di natura politica che, all'alto pratico, ha scarse possibilità di portare benefici che non siano solo marginali al sistema produttivo del nostro Paese. Da Corrado Passera a Matteo Renzi. Ci si sono buttati in parecchi. Tra settembre e ottobre dello scorso anno non si parlava nient'altro che di "startup", startup e startup ovunque. Non so se ve ne siete accorti, sulla questione è calato il silenzio ormai da un bel pezzo. Chissà perché. Dopo l'approvazione e l'entrata in vigore del Decreto Sviluppo è il caso di fare un piccolo bilancio di natura meramente numerica su quanto il "fenomeno" startup abbia attecchito nel nostro Paese. Dando uno sguardo ai dati di dettaglio riportati nel report di InfoCamere è possibile tracciare un quadro di sintesi piuttosto chiaro. Nel primo trimestre del 2013 sono state iscritte al registro delle imprese 453 startup geograficamente distribuite in prevalenza nel territorio del centro-nord Italia. La provincia più attiva è quella di Torino con 53 startup registrate, segue Milano con 31 poi Padova e Roma con 24. Di seguito una tabella riepilogativa delle province con più di 5 startup registrate presso il registro delle imprese. - Torino: 53 (11,7%)
- Milano: 31 (6,8%)
- Padova: 24 (5,3%)
- Roma: 24 (5,3%)
- Trento: 23 (5,1%)
- Bologna: 17 (3,7%)
- Genova: 16 (3,5%)
- Verona: 14 (3,1%)
- Pisa: 13 (2,9%)
- Trieste: 12 (2,6%)
- Trevisto: 12 (2,6%)
- Brescia: 11 (2,4%)
- Lecce: 10 (2,2%)
- Ancona: 9 (2%) | - Pavia: 9 (2%)
- Reggio Emilia: 9 (2%)
- Bergamo: 8 (1,8%)
- Siena: 8 (1,8%)
- Venezia: 7 (1,5%)
- Gorzia: 6 (1,32%)
- Modena: 6 (1,32%)
- Pesaro: 6 (1,32%)
- Como: 5 (1,1%)
- Novara: 5 (1,1%)
- Palermo: 5 (1,1%)
- Parma: 5 (1,1%)
- Varese: 5 (1,1%) | Il settore di attività prevalente è quello dei Servizi con 325 imprese totali pari al 72% delle startup registrate. Segue il settore Industria e Artigianato con 90 imprese (19,7%), il Commercio con 11 imprese (2,5%), Turismo con 3 imprese (0,6%), Agricoltura e Pesca con una sola impresa registrata (0,2%). Nei dati riportati nella sezione speciale del registro delle imprese manca la specifica del settore per 23 startup pari al 5% del totale. Per quanto riguarda la natura giuridica delle startup iscritte: - 394 (87,3%) SR (Società a Responsabilità Limitata Semplificata)
- 23 (5%) SU
- 13 (2,8%) RS (Società a Responsabilità Limitata a Capitale Ridotto)
- 11 (2,4%) SP
- 8 (1,7%) SC
- 4 (0,8%) RR Per ora i numeri sono modesti. Troppo modesti per scacciare il dubbio che le startup, così come ha tanto amato ripetere fino a qualche mese fa il Ministro dello Sviluppo Economico Corrado Passera, riescano a far ripartire l'economia del Paese.  | |
