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United Kingdom

Submission + - Cameron Threatens To Shut Down UK Social Networks (thinq.co.uk)

Submitted by Stoobalou
Stoobalou writes: In a move worthy of China's communist regime, UK PM David Cameron wants to shut down social networks whenever civil unrest rears its head in Britain's towns and cities.

Speaking in the House of Commons, Cameron said, "Everyone watching these horrific actions will be struck by how they were, organised via social media.

"Free flow of information can be used for good. But it can also be used for ill. So we are working with the police, the intelligence services and industry to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality."
Technology

Submission + - Fake Names On Social Networks: A Fake Problem (discovery.com)

Submitted by disco_tracy
disco_tracy writes: The leading social networks demand that members use their real names, and they're not afraid to evict violators. Many Facebook users have quietly complied, despite the problems that rule creates for political dissidents, stalking survivors and others. Much of this discussion has centered around people in physical or financial danger of having their identities revealed. But there are broader reasons for social networks to stop pushing real-name policies.
Graphics

Portable, Super-high-resolution 3-D Imaging 31

Posted by CmdrTaco from the good-day-sunshine dept.
An anonymous reader writes "At SIGGRAPH 2011, a team of researchers from MIT presented a clever method for measuring microscopic surface structure using a rubber sensor, a camera, and a set of lights. This technology could have applications to industrial inspection, dermatology, and even forensic ballistics."
Encryption

Feds' Radios Have Significant Security Flaws 84

Posted by samzenpus from the listening-to-the-listeners dept.
OverTheGeicoE writes "The Wall Street Journal has a story describing how the portable radios used by many federal law enforcement agents have major security flaws that allow for easy eavesdropping and jamming. Details are in a new study being released today (PDF). The authors of the study were able to intercept hundreds of hours of sensitive traffic inadvertently sent without encryption over the past two years. They also describe how a texting toy targeted at teenage girls can be modified to jam transmissions from the affected radios, either encrypted or not."
Iphone

Gizmodo Off the Hook In iPhone 4 Investigation 145

Posted by samzenpus from the no-harm-no-foul dept.
An anonymous reader writes "When Gizmodo ran photos of Apple's iPhone 4 months before Apple even officially acknowledged it existed, the blogosphere exploded with excitement. But when details leaked explaining how Gizmodo came to find itself in possession of a pre-release iPhone 4, that excitement quickly turned into indignation, and for some, anger. Now, Gimzodo and Gizmodo editor Jason Chen have been let off the hook by the San Mateo DA's office."
Education

Google Pulls Plug On Programming For the Masses 236

Posted by CmdrTaco from the hacking-is-cancelled dept.
theodp writes "Google has decided to pull the plug on Android App Inventor, which was once touted as a game-changer for introductory computer science. In an odd post, Google encourages folks to 'Get Started!' with the very product it's announcing will be discontinued as a Google product. The move leaves CS Prof David Wolber baffled. ' In the case of App Inventor,' writes Wolber, 'the decision affects more than just your typical early adopter techie. It hurts kids and schools, and outfits like Iridescent, who use App Inventor in their Technovation after-school programs for high school girls, and Youth Radio's Mobile Action Lab, which teaches app building to kids in Oakland California. You've hurt professors and K-12 educators who have developed new courses and curricula with App Inventor at the core. You've hurt universities who have redesigned their programs.' Wolber adds: 'Even looking at it from Google's perspective, I find the decision puzzling. App Inventor was a public relations dream. Democratizing app building, empowering kids, women, and underrepresented groups — this is good press for a company continually in the news for anti-trust and other far less appealing issues. And the cost-benefit of the cut was negligible-believe it or not, App Inventor was a small team of just 5+ employees! The Math doesn't make sense.'"
Cloud

Old Arguments May Cost Linux the Desktop 591

Posted by CmdrTaco from the water-under-the-bridge dept.
itwbennett writes "The old Linux arguments that pit one tool against another — Evolution vs. Thunderbird, LibreOffice vs. OpenOffice, and GNOME3 vs. Unity vs. KDE vs. everything else — may cost Linux its shot at the desktop, opines blogger Brian Proffitt. 'We can compare LibreOffice to OpenOffice.org to Office till the cows come home,' says Proffitt. 'But what happens when Google Docs gets truly robust enough for business and high-end document production? Or Prezi gets enough mindshare to start an upwards trajectory of user numbers?' It should be the case that increasing reliance on cloud software will make it easier for businesses to choose Linux, but for that to happen, Linux communities need to stop fighting the old fights, says Proffitt."
NASA

Submission + - NASA taps7 commercial firms for suborbital flights (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "NASA this week picked seven commercial space companies to fly a manner of experiments on their suborbital aircraft. According to NASA the companies will split $10 million and get a two-year contract that will let NASA set up a pool of reusable suborbital systems that could help it test applications in everything from astrobiology to measuring the impact of a solar storm."
Android

Wireless Charging On the Droid Bionic? 81

Posted by CmdrTaco from the stop-gnawing-on-cables dept.
mahiskali writes "New documents pertaining to the ever-hyped and much-delayed Motorola Droid Bionic have surfaced on the FCC website. Perusing through the documents, I noticed a very interesting feature: an inductive charging coil (click 'Internal Photos'), built into the battery door housing. It seems Motorola may have some tricks up its sleeve yet--but will it be enough to beat out the competition (read: Samsung Galaxy S2, iPhone 5)?"
Cellphones

4G and CDMA Reportedly Hacked At DEFCON 139

Posted by CmdrTaco from the hack-and-slash dept.
An anonymous reader writes "At the DEFCON 19 hacking conference it seems that a full man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack was successfully launched against all 4G and CDMA transmissions in and around the venue, the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas. This MITM attack enabled hackers to gain permanent kernel-level root access in some Android and PC devices using a rootkit, and non-persistent user space access in others. In both cases, whoever launched this attack on CDMA and 4G devices was able to steal data and monitor conversations. For now the only evidence that such an attack occurred is a Full Disclosure mailing list post, but in the next few hours and days, depending on the response from cellular carriers, we should know whether it's real or not."
The Military

DARPA Set To Blast Falcon Mach 20 Test Flight 201

Posted by CmdrTaco from the are-we-there-yet dept.
coondoggie writes "The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is taking to the sky again, this time to run what it says will be the second and final test of its hypersonic Falcon aircraft, which is capable of hitting speeds up to Mach 20, or about 13,000MPH. The Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 is scheduled to launch Wednesday between 7:00am — 1:00 pm PDT from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., aboard an Air Force Minotaur IV rocket. The rocket delivers the Falcon to a starting point high in the atmosphere, where its engine ignite, and, if all goes well, it will blast through the air for about a half hour, DARPA says."
Patents

Patent Troll Lawyer Sanctioned Over Extortion Tactics 147

Posted by CmdrTaco from the slap-that-wrist dept.
An anonymous reader writes "For all the stories of patent trolls and copyright trolls, there haven't been too many stories of either being sanctioned for abusive or extortion-like practices... until now. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (one level below the Supreme Court) has approved over $600,000 in sanctions against a lawyer for a patent troll, saying that filing over a hundred lawsuits, each of which was followed up almost immediately with offers to settle at fees much cheaper than it would cost to fight, has the 'indicia of extortion.' Now if only judges started doing that more often."

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