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Surface Pro 3 Has 12" Screen, Intel Inside
Posted by News Fetcher on May 20 '14 at 09:15 AM

By timothy from Slashdot's touch-it department:
crookedvulture (1866146) writes "Microsoft unveiled its Surface Pro 3 tablet at a press event in New York this morning. The device has a larger 12" screen with a 2160x1440 display resolution and a novel 3:2 aspect ratio. Intel Core processors provide the horsepower, starting with the Core i3 in the base model and extending all the way up to Core i7 in pricier variants. The tablet is just 9.1 mm thick, which Microsoft claims is the thinnest ever for a Core-based device. Microsoft developed a new radial fan that's suppose to distribute airflow evenly inside the chassis without generating audible noise. The tablet weights 800 g, shaving 100 g off the Surface Pro 2, and it's supposed to have longer battery life, as well. Microsoft has also rolled out new keyboard accessories, a pressure-sensitive stylus, and a docking station that supports 4K video output. The Surface Pro 3 is scheduled to be available tomorrow with prices starting at $799." Update: 05/20 17:12 GMT by T : Mary Jo Foley points out at ZDNet that one thing not announced today is an ARM-powered Mini version.

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China Bans Government Purchases of Windows 8
Posted by News Fetcher on May 20 '14 at 09:15 AM

By timothy from Slashdot's everybody's-got-priorities department:
itwbennett (1594911) writes "Last week, China's Central Government Procurement Center posted a notice on new requirements for government tender, that included, among other things, the mysterious request that Windows 8 be excluded from the bidding process on computer purchases. The agency could not be reached Tuesday, but China's state-controlled Xinhua News Agency said that the government was forbidding the use of Windows 8 after Microsoft recently ended official support for Windows XP."

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Gun Rights Groups Say They Don't Oppose Smart Guns, Just Mandates
Posted by News Fetcher on May 20 '14 at 08:00 AM

By timothy from Slashdot's force-breeds-resistance department:
Lucas123 (935744) writes "When two gun stores attempted to sell the nation's first integrated smart gun, the iP1, gun advocacy groups were charged in media reports with organizing protests that lead to the stores pulling the guns from their shelves or reneging on their promise to sell them in the first place. But, the National Rifle Association and the National Shooting Sports Foundation say they do not oppose smart gun technology, which they call "authorized user recognition" firearms. "We do oppose any government mandate of this technology, however. The marketplace should decide," Mike Bazinet, a spokesman for the NSSA, wrote in an email reply to Computerworld. However, the argument for others goes that if stores begin selling smart guns, then legislators will draft laws requiring the technology."

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How the Emerging Science of Proteotronics Will Change Electronics
Posted by News Fetcher on May 20 '14 at 07:15 AM

By timothy from Slashdot's peanut-butter-in-your-chocolate department:
KentuckyFC (1144503) writes "The study of proteins has become one of the hottest topics in science in the last 20 years, and not just for biologists. Researchers have been measuring the electrical properties of proteins for some time, discovering that some of them act like switches in certain circumstances. That's potentially useful but without a robust theoretical model of how these properties arise, nobody has been able to incorporate proteins into real devices. Now electronics engineers have developed the first model that reliably describes the real electrical behaviour of proteins and how it changes when they bond to other molecules. It even predicts the behaviour in new situations. That should make it possible to use proteins in the same way as other electronic components such as transistors, diodes and so on. That's leading to an entirely new field of science called proteotronics in which proteins work seamlessly with other components in electronic devices. First up, an electronic nose based on the olfactory receptor OR-17, a protein found in rats, which behaves like an electronic switch when it detects the presence of aldehydes such as octanal."

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The 69 Words GM Employees Can Never Say
Posted by News Fetcher on May 20 '14 at 06:31 AM

By timothy from Slashdot's ok-and-you-can't-say-that-number-either department:
bizwriter (1064470) writes "General Motors put together its take on a George Carlin list of words you can't say. Engineering employees were shown 69 words and phrases that were not to be used in emails, presentations, or memos. They include: defect, defective, safety, safety related, dangerous, bad, and critical. You know, words that the average person, in the context of the millions of cars that GM has recalled, might understand as indicative of underlying problems at the company. Oh, terribly sorry, 'problem' was on the list as well."

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Google's Rogue Internet Balloon Test Spurred UFO Reports Nationwide
Posted by News Fetcher on May 20 '14 at 05:45 AM

By timothy from Slashdot's what's-the-frequency-richard department:
Jason Koebler (3528235) writes "The hardest thing about Google X's Project Loon hasn't been the engineering challenge of beaming high-speed internet down to the far-flung corners of the world: It's trying to control all those freaking balloons. Project lead Rich DeVaul just revealed the 'Falcon 11,' a 120-foot long transparent mylar balloon made in-house at the secret Google X lab that spurred UFO reports nationwide after the company lost track of it: 'We tracked the balloon by outsourcing to the internet UFO community, it drifted all the way across the country,' he said."

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Controversial TSA Nudie X-Ray Machines Sent To Prisons
Posted by News Fetcher on May 20 '14 at 05:00 AM

By timothy from Slashdot's at-last-a-proper-home department:
An anonymous reader writes "The controversial TSA backscatter X-ray machines are being sent to prisons. According to Federal times, 'The controversial airport screening machines that angered privacy advocates and members of Congress for its revealing images are finding new homes in state and local prisons across the country, according to the Transportation Security Administration.' 154 backscatter X-rays have already ended up in Iowa, Louisiana, and Virginia prisons. TSA is working to find homes for the remaining machines. Per the article: '"TSA and the vendor are working with other government agencies interested in receiving the units for their security mission needs and for use in a different environment," TSA spokesman Ross Feinstein said.'"

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XMPP Operators Begin Requiring Encryption, Google Still Not Allowing TLS
Posted by News Fetcher on May 20 '14 at 04:30 AM

By Unknown Lamer from Slashdot's google-talk-is-the-new-internet-explorer department:
Via El Reg comes news that major XMPP (formerly known as Jabber, likely the only widely used distributed instant messaging protocol other than IRC) operators have all begun requiring encryption for client-to-server and server-to-server connections. Quoting the Prosidy developers: "Last year Peter Saint-Andre laid out a plan for strengthening the security of the XMPP network. The manifesto, to date signed by over 70 XMPP service operators and software developers, offered a rallying point for those interested in ensuring the security of XMPP for its users. Today is the date that the manifesto gave for the final 'flip of the switch': as of today many XMPP services will begin refusing unencrypted connections. If you run an XMPP service, we encourage you to do the same. On the xmpp.org wiki you can find instructions for all the popular XMPP server software. While XMPP is an open distributed network, obviously no single entity can 'mandate' encryption for the whole network — but as a group we are moving in the right direction."

There is a handy tool to test your server. A result worth noting is Google's: they still do not support TLS for server-to-server connections, and their sudden dropping of TLS s2s connections a few years ago is likely the primary reason operators switched off mandatory TLS for s2s (I know that's why I did it). Although Google Hangouts offers no federation, GTalk still does, but it appears that the XMPP network-at-large will now cease to federate with Google voluntarily.

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Fusion Power By 2020? Researchers Say Yes and Turn To Crowdfunding.
Posted by News Fetcher on May 20 '14 at 01:30 AM

By Unknown Lamer from Slashdot's will-research-particle-physics-for-food department:
Luminary Crush (109477) writes "To date, the bulk of fusion research has been channelled towards a plasma containment and stabilization method. This is the approach used by ITER's tokamak reactor, the cost of which could exceed US$13.7 billion before it's online in the year 2027 (barring further delays). Researchers at LPP Fusion, in a project partially financed by NASA-JPL, are working in a different direction: focus fusion, which focuses the plasma in a very small area to produce fusion and an ion beam which could then be harnessed to produce electricity. It is small enough to fit in a shipping container, can double as a rocket engine, and would cost US$50 million to produce the working 5 MW prototype. To reach the next hurdle and demonstrate feasibility, LPP Fusion has started an Indiegogo campaign to raise $200K."

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Curiosity Rover May Have Brought Dozens of Microbes To Mars
Posted by News Fetcher on May 19 '14 at 11:16 PM

By Unknown Lamer from Slashdot's spreading-life-probably-just-as-interesting department:
bmahersciwriter (2955569) writes "Despite rigorous pre-flight cleaning, swabbing of the Curiosity Rover just prior to liftoff revealed some 377 strains of bacteria. 'In the lab, scientists exposed the microbes to desiccation, UV exposure, cold and pH extremes. Nearly 11% of the 377 strains survived more than one of these severe conditions. Thirty-one per cent of the resistant bacteria did not form tough, protective spore coats; the researchers suspect that they used other biochemical means of protection, such as metabolic changes.' While the risk of contaminating the red planet are unknown, knowing the types of strains that may have survived pre-flight cleaning may help rule out biological 'discoveries' if and when NASA carries out its plans to return a soil sample from Mars."

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Rising Sea Level Could Put East Coast Nuclear Plants At Risk
Posted by News Fetcher on May 19 '14 at 08:15 PM

By Unknown Lamer from Slashdot's coal-industry-will-stop-at-nothing department:
mdsolar (1045926) writes with news that global warming may make it more difficult to use modern power sources that rely upon being near large bodies of water for cooling. From the article: "During the 1970s and 1980s, when many nuclear reactors were first built, most operators estimated that seas would rise at a slow, constant rate. ... But the seas are now rising much faster than they did in the past ... Sea levels rose an average of 8 inches between 1880 and 2009, or about 0.06 inches per year. But in the last 20 years, sea levels have risen an average of 0.13 inches per year... NOAA) has laid out four different projections for estimated sea level rise by 2100. Even the agency's best-case scenario assumes that sea levels will rise at least 8.4 inches by the end of this century. NOAA's worst-case scenario, meanwhile, predicts that the oceans will rise nearly 7 feet in the next 86 years. But most nuclear power facilities were built well before scientists understood just how high sea levels might rise in the future. And for power plants, the most serious threat is likely to come from surges during storms. Higher sea levels mean that flooding will travel farther inland, creating potential hazards in areas that may have previously been considered safe."

The article has charts comparing the current elevation of various plants with their estimated elevations under the various NOAA sea level rise estimates.

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NASA's Plan To Block Light From Distant Stars To Find 'Earth 2.0'
Posted by News Fetcher on May 19 '14 at 06:30 PM

By Unknown Lamer from Slashdot's starshader-glides-in-front-of-a-star department:
Daniel_Stuckey (2647775) writes "Over the last five years, NASA's Kepler Space Telescope has found dozens of potentially habitable planets. The only problem is that we can't actually see them, because the glare from those planets' stars makes it impossible to image them directly. A new, audacious plan to completely block out the light from those stars, however, could change all of that. The plan calls for a satellite to be sent out several tens of thousands of miles from Earth. The satellite will unfold a huge, flower-shaped metal shade that will literally block the light of some far-out star to the point where a space telescope, which will directly communicate with Starshade, will be able to image whatever planets are orbiting it directly. It's called Starshade, and, given the name, it works exactly how you might expect it to. If you look directly at the sun, you're not going to be able to see anything in the sky around it. Hold up something between your eyes and the sun to block it, however, and you'll be able to see much better."

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The US Vs. Europe: Freedom of Expression Vs. Privacy
Posted by News Fetcher on May 19 '14 at 04:31 PM

By Unknown Lamer from Slashdot's dang-freedom-hating-europeans department:
First time accepted submitter GoddersUK (1262110) writes "Rory Cellan-Jones writes about the recent European Court judgement on the right to be forgotten in terms of US/EU cultural differences (and perhaps a bit of bitterness on the EU side at U.S. influence online): 'He tells me... ..."In the past if you were in Germany you were never worried that some encyclopedia website based in the United States was going to name you as a murderer after you got out of jail because that was inconceivable. Today that can happen, so the cultural gap that was always there about the regulation of speech is becoming more visible."... Europeans who have been told that the Internet is basically ungovernable — and if it does have guiding principles then they come from the land of the free — are expressing some satisfaction that court has refused to believe that.' And, certainly, it seems, here in the UK, that even MEPs keen on the principle don't really know how this ruling will work in practice or what the wider consequences will be. Video here."

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Spanish Conquest May Have Altered Peru's Shoreline
Posted by News Fetcher on May 19 '14 at 03:46 PM

By Unknown Lamer from Slashdot's accidental-retaining-wall department:
sciencehabit (1205606) writes "The Spanish conquest of the Inca had a profound effect on Peru's indigenous people, but a new study reveals that it also had an unexpected impact on the land itself. Before the Spaniards arrived, inhabitants of the arid northern Peruvian coast clad massive sand dune-like ridges with an accidental form of 'armor': millions of discarded mollusk shells, which protected the ridges from erosion for nearly 4700 years and produced a vast corrugated landscape that is visible from space. This incidental landscape protection came to a swift end, however, after diseases brought by Spanish colonists decimated the local population and after colonial officials resettled the survivors inland. Without humans to create the protective covering, newly formed beach ridges simply eroded and vanished."

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Water Cannons Used Against Peaceful Anti-TTIP Protestors: the Next ACTA Revolt?
Posted by News Fetcher on May 19 '14 at 03:15 PM

By Unknown Lamer from Slashdot's one-of-them-looked-at-me-weird department:
Glyn Moody (946055) writes "The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), potentially the world's biggest trade agreement, has been negotiated behind closed doors for nearly a year now. Apart from what we learn from a few official releases — and an increasing number of leaks — we still don't really know what is being agreed in the name of 800 million people in the U.S. and EU. When a peaceful anti-TTIP protest was held outside yet another closed-doors meeting in Belgium, the local police sent in the water cannons and arrested nearly 300 people in what seems an extreme over-reaction. Will TTIP turn into the next ACTA revolt?"

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Mysterious Disease May Be Carried by the Wind
Posted by News Fetcher on May 19 '14 at 02:31 PM

By samzenpus from Slashdot's blowing-in-the-wind department:
bmahersciwriter (2955569) writes "Kawasaki disease is a mysterious condition that results in alarming rashes, inflammation and sometimes early death. It sickens 12,000 children a year in Japan and is suspected to arrive there and elsewhere by the wind. Now, researchers have narrowed the source to croplands in northern China and offered some possible explanations as to its cause."

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The NSA Is Recording Every Cell Phone Call In the Bahamas
Posted by News Fetcher on May 19 '14 at 02:00 PM

By samzenpus from Slashdot's listen-up department:
Advocatus Diaboli (1627651) writes "The National Security Agency is secretly intercepting, recording, and archiving the audio of virtually every cell phone conversation on the island nation of the Bahamas. According to documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, the surveillance is part of a top-secret system – code-named SOMALGET – that was implemented without the knowledge or consent of the Bahamian government. Instead, the agency appears to have used access legally obtained in cooperation with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to open a backdoor to the country's cellular telephone network, enabling it to covertly record and store the 'full-take audio' of every mobile call made to, from and within the Bahamas – and to replay those calls for up to a month."

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Linux Sucks (Video)
Posted by News Fetcher on May 19 '14 at 01:30 PM

By Roblimo from Slashdot's to-learn-how-badly-linux-sucks,-you-need-to-use-it-for-at-least-five-years department:
How do we know Linux sucks? Because Bryan Lunduke says so. How did he become a Linux authority? By using Linux, of course. He has also written a kids Linux book, Linux for Hank, and a grown-up Linux book, Linux is Badass. But wait! That's not all! Bryan is also one of the people behind the infamous Bad Voltage podcast.

And now, for something slightly different: In moments of weakness, Bryan admits that maybe Linux suckage isn't total, and Linux may have a good point or two and maybe some of the suckage could be removed. Zounds! Is that possible? Watch our video chat with Bryan (and/or read the transcript) and see. Or watch the entire 44 minute speech he gave at the 2014 LinuxFest Northwest, which was the 5th (or maybe 6th) "Linux Sucks" speech he's given at LFNW. That makes this a tradition, not just a speech. So if you find yourself in or near Bellingham, Washington, in 2039 you might want to pop in and see if Bryan is still updating his "Linux Sucks" speech. He'll be the geezer hobbling to the front of the room with help from his AutoCane, a device sure to be developed between now and then -- which will no doubt run Linux. (Alternate video link)

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California Bill Would Safeguard Consumers' Rights To Criticize Firms Online
Posted by News Fetcher on May 19 '14 at 12:30 PM

By samzenpus from Slashdot's say-what-you-will department:
An anonymous reader writes in with news about a California bill that aims to protect online reviewers’ rights."The proposed law appears to take aim at online licensing agreements that consumers often enter into with companies when they click through the many boilerplate terms and conditions of various online services. Buried deep in the small print of a number of these contacts are provisions stating that consumers agree not to write negative reviews about the service provider. 'If merchants think that our First Amendment free speech rights need to be curtailed, they should say so upfront and in plain language,' Pérez explained of the impetus for his bill, as reported by the Times."

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As NASA Seeks Next Mission, Russia Holds the Trump Card
Posted by News Fetcher on May 19 '14 at 11:45 AM

By samzenpus from Slashdot's catbird-seat department:
Geoffrey.landis (926948) writes "After the space shuttle retired in 2011, Russia has hiked the price of a trip to the International Space Station, to $71 million per seat. Less well recognized is the disparity in station crews. Before the shuttle stopped flying, an equal number of American and Russian crew members lived on board. But afterwards the bear began squeezing. For every two NASA astronauts that have flown to the station, three Russians have gone. Eric Burger asks, how did it come to this?"

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