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Open source data-processing language Flink, after just nine months' incubation with the Apache Software Foundation, has been elevated to top-level status, joining other ASF projects like OpenOffice and CloudStack. An anonymous reader writes The data-processing engine, which offers APIs in Java and Scala as well as specialized APIs for graph processing, is presented as an alternative to Hadoop's MapReduce component with its own runtime. Yet the system still provides access to Hadoop's distributed file system and YARN resource manager. The open-source community around Flink has steadily grown since the project's inception at the Technical University of Berlin in 2009. Now at version 0.7.0, Flink lists more than 70 contributors and sponsors, including representatives from Hortonworks, Spotify and Data Artisans (a German startup devoted primarily to the development of Flink). (For more about ASF incubation, and what the Foundation's stewardship means, see our interview from last summer with ASF executive VP Rich Bowen.)

Open source data-processing language Flink, after just nine months' incubation with the Apache Software Foundation, has been elevated to top-level status, joining other ASF projects like OpenOffice and CloudStack. An anonymous reader writes The data-processing engine, which offers APIs in Java and Scala as well as specialized APIs for graph processing, is presented as an alternative to Hadoop's MapReduce component with its own runtime. Yet the system still provides access to Hadoop's distributed file system and YARN resource manager. The open-source community around Flink has steadily grown since the project's inception at the Technical University of Berlin in 2009. Now at version 0.7.0, Flink lists more than 70 contributors and sponsors, including representatives from Hortonworks, Spotify and Data Artisans (a German startup devoted primarily to the development of Flink). (For more about ASF incubation, and what the Foundation's stewardship means, see our interview from last summer with ASF executive VP Rich Bowen.)

'The EnOcean technology is an energy harvesting wireless technology used primarily in building automation systems; but is also applied to other applications in industry, transportation, logistics and smart homes,' says Wikipedia. There's also a Siemans spinoff company called EnOcean, and today's video is an interview with its president, Jim O'Callaghan. But EnOcean technology is the real star here. The idea is that energy-efficient sensors can be powered by energy harvesting, i.e. drawing energy from their surroundings, including such low-level sources as light, temperature changes, and pressure, which can be the pressure of your finger on a switch or even changes in barometric pressure. The EnOcean Alliance has a professionally-produced video that describes their technology and notes that self-powered wireless sensors not only save energy but save miles of wire between sensor nodes and controllers, which means it's possible to install more sensors sensing more parameters than in the past. (Alternate Video Link)

An anonymous reader writes Last month, Google took the bold steps to release the details of a security vulnerability ahead of Microsoft. Microsoft responded and said that there was a patch in works which was set to be released two days after Google went live with the details. Microsoft accuses Google for refusing to wait an extra 48 hours so that the patch would have been released along with the details of the exploit. Now, let's see what is happening on the Google side of software development. Recently, an exploit has been uncovered in the WebView component of Android 4.3 — estimated to cover roughly 60% of Android install base — and Google is saying that they will not patch the flaw. Google's only reasoning seems to be that they are not fixing vulnerabilities in 4.3 (introduced in June 2012) anymore, as they have moved focus to newer releases. It would appear that over 930 million Android phones in use are out of official Google security patch support.

An anonymous reader writes Canada's copyright notice fiasco, with false and misleading notices being sent to thousands of Internet users, has attracted growing attention with the government promising to address the issue. This morning, Michael Geist posts internal government documents that show that the government was aware of these risks before launching the system, but did nothing about it. The documents show that the government decided to forge ahead with the system without any regulations, despite repeated warnings that additional rules on the scope of the notices was needed.

M-Saunders writes: As covered previously on Slashdot, Linux Voice crowdfunded its way to success in late 2013, showing how a small team can make things happen with a different business model (giving profits and content back to the community). Now, a few months after the magazine made issue 1 freely available, they've released issue 2 under the Creative Commons for everyone to share and modify. If you've ever fancied making your own Raspberry Pi-powered arcade machine, there's a full guide in the second issue.

M-Saunders writes: As covered previously on Slashdot, Linux Voice crowdfunded its way to success in late 2013, showing how a small team can make things happen with a different business model (giving profits and content back to the community). Now, a few months after the magazine made issue 1 freely available, they've released issue 2 under the Creative Commons for everyone to share and modify. If you've ever fancied making your own Raspberry Pi-powered arcade machine, there's a full guide in the second issue.

Lasrick writes: Michael Mann writes about the ad hominem attacks on scientists, especially climate scientists, that have become much more frequent over the last few decades. Mann should know: his work as a postdoc on the famed "hockey stick" graph led him to be vilified by Fox News and in the Wall Street Journal. Wealthy interests such as the Scaife Foundation and Koch Industries pressured Penn State University to fire him (they didn't). Right-wing elected officials attempted to have Mann's personal records and emails (and those of other climate scientists) subpoenaed and tried to have the "hockey stick" discredited in the media, despite the fact that the National Academy of Sciences reaffirmed the work, and that subsequent reports of the IPCC and the most recent peerreviewed research corroborates it.

Even worse, Mann and his family were targets of death threats. Despite (or perhaps because of) the well-funded and ubiquitous attacks, Mann believes that flat-out climate change denialism is losing favor with the public, and he lays out how and why scientists should engage and not retreat to their labs to conduct research far from the public eye. "We scientists must hold ourselves to a higher standard than the deniers-for-hire. We must be honest as we convey the threat posed by climate change to the public. But we must also be effective. The stakes are simply too great for us to fail to communicate the risks of inaction. The good news is that scientists have truth on their side, and truth will ultimately win out."

MojoKid writes: Intel's strategically timed CES 2015 launch of their new 5th Gen Core Series processors for notebooks was met with a reasonably warm reception, though it's always difficult to rise above the noise of CES chatter. Performance claims for Intel's new chip promise major gains in graphics and more modest increases in standard compute applications. However, the biggest bet Intel placed on the new Broadwell-U architecture is performance-per-watt throughput and battery life in premium notebook products that are now in production with major OEM partners. A few manufacturers were early out of the gate with new Core i5 5XXX series-based machines, however, none of the major players caught the same kind of buzz that Dell received, with the introduction of their new XPS 13 Ultrabook with its near bezel-less 13-inch WQHD (3200X1800) display. As expected, the Core i5-5200U in this machine offered performance gains of anywhere from 10 to 20 percent, in round numbers, depending on the benchmark. In gaming and graphics testing is where the new 5200U chip took the largest lead over the previous gen Core i5-4200U CPU, which is one of the most common processors found in typical ultrabook style 13-inch machines.

jones_supa writes: Dave Jones from Red Hat has written a wrap-up of the strange bug that has made some machines running Linux to freeze. (Previous discussion.) Right down to his final week at Red Hat before Dave gave all his hardware back, Linus Torvalds managed to reproduce similar symptoms, by scribbling directly to the HPET timer. He came up with a hack that at least made the kernel survive for him. When Dave tried the same patch, the machine ran for three days before he interrupted it, which was a promising result. The question remains, what was scribbling over the HPET in his case? The only two plausible scenarios Dave could think of were that Trinity generated 0xFED000F0 as a random address and passed that to a syscall which wrote to it, or a hardware bug. That's where the story ends for now. Linus' hacky workaround didn't get committed, but him and John Stultz continue to back and forth on hardening the clock management code in the face of screwed up hardware, so maybe soon we'll see something real get committed on that area.

Camille van Gestel and co-founder Maurits Groen started solar-centric manufacturer WakaWaka with an explicit aim other than making money, though he's certainly not opposed to making some along the way. So it's not a non-profit, but van Gestel calls WakaWaka, which was named in a roundabout way after the Shakira song, a "purpose-driven company," with that purpose being -- no exaggeration needed -- to cast light on the world. They're doing just that, with the aid of recycled materials, low-power LEDs, and efficient solar cells. As a result, one of the portable light products that the group has created has become one of the most valued possessions among people displaced by the war in Syria, and more are lighting up villages in Haiti and elsewhere. I talked with Van Gestel at this year's CES, where the company's picked up a pair of CES Innovation Awards, and he has some advice for people who'd like to turn their technical skills to philanthropic endeavors, especially ones that involve hardware or technical infrastructure. Some of it can be summed up as "Spread the wealth, but don't do it for free." Between ongoing feedback gathered from users, a buy-one-give-one style distribution system, and requiring participation by recipients, he says WakaWaka has been able to reach people with their solar lighting products in a way that's much more valuable than just dumping hardware on them, and along the way has gotten a lot of feedback from the buyers whose purchases subsidize the company's non-profit activities. (Alternate Video Link.)

As reported by The Daily Beast, news on the ongoing terror attack (or attacks) in Paris. Chérif and Saïd Kouachi, who are accused of slaughtering 12 in an attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine, have been cornered by hundreds of security officials close to Charles de Gaulle Airport, north of Paris. Officials say they believe the heavily armed brothers are holding one hostage. Twenty miles south, in the east of the city, at least one gunman is believed to have taken six hostages at a Jewish store. Police suspect that the third gunman is the same man who shot and killed a policewoman on Thursday morning before escaping in a bulletproof vest. Update: 01/09 17:44 GMT by T : And now all three of the gunmen involved in today's hostage taking are dead. Watch this space for updates. Update: 01/09 17:15 GMT by T : CNN's story features a stream of updates (and an autoplaying video ad to beware), as does The Telegraph. Latest news is that brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi have been killed by police, but it's unclear whether the same is true of the third hostage-taker.

An anonymous reader writes HTTP/2 is back in the spotlight again. After drawing significant ire over a proposal for officially sanctioned snooping, the IETF is drawing criticism for plowing ahead with its plans for HTTP/2 on an unrealistically short schedule and with an insufficiently clear charter. A few days ago the IETF announced Last Call for comments on the HTTP/2 protocol.

Poul-Henning Kamp writes, "Some will expect a major update to the world's most popular protocol to be a technical masterpiece and textbook example for future students of protocol design. Some will expect that a protocol designed during the Snowden revelations will improve their privacy. Others will more cynically suspect the opposite. There may be a general assumption of 'faster.' Many will probably also assume it is 'greener.' And some of us are jaded enough to see the "2.0" and mutter 'Uh-oh, Second Systems Syndrome.' The cheat sheet answers are: no, no, probably not, maybe, no and yes."

"Given this rather mediocre grade-sheet, you may be wondering why HTTP/2.0 is even being considered as a standard in the first place. The Answer is Politics. Google came up with the SPDY protocol, and since they have their own browser, they could play around as they choose to, optimizing the protocol for their particular needs. SPDY was a very good prototype which showed clearly that there was potential for improvement in a new version of the HTTP protocol. Kudos to Google for that. But SPDY also started to smell a lot like a 'walled garden'."

"The IETF, obviously fearing irrelevance, hastily 'discovered' that the HTTP/1.1 protocol needed an update, and tasked a working group with preparing it on an unrealistically short schedule. This ruled out any basis for the new HTTP/2.0 other than the SPDY protocol. With only the most hideous of SPDY's warts removed, and all other attempts at improvement rejected as 'not in scope,' 'too late,' or 'no consensus,' the IETF can now claim relevance and victory by conceding practically every principle ever held dear in return for the privilege of rubber-stamping Google's initiative."

An anonymous reader writes with news that the head of MI5 is asking for more snooping powers following the attack at Charlie Hebdo. "The head of MI5, Andrew Parker, has called for new powers to help fight Islamist extremism, warning of a dangerous imbalance between increasing numbers of terrorist plots against the UK and a drop in the capabilities of intelligence services to snoop on communications. Parker described the Paris attack as "a terrible reminder of the intentions of those who wish us harm" and said he had spoken to his French counterparts to offer help. Speaking to an invited audience at MI5 headquarters, he said the threat level to Britain had worsened and Islamist extremist groups in Syria and Iraq were directly trying to orchestrate attacks on the UK. An attack on the UK was "highly likely" and MI5 could not give a guarantee it would be able to stop it, he said."

An anonymous reader writes Canada's new copyright notice-and-notice system has been in place for less than a week, but rights holders are already exploiting a loophole to send demands for payment citing false legal information. Earlier this week, a Canadian ISP forwarded to Michael Geist a sample notice it received from Rightscorp on behalf of BMG. The notice falsely warns that the recipient could be liable for up to $150,000 per infringement when the reality is that Canadian law caps liability for non-commercial infringement at $5,000 for all infringements. The notice also warns that the user's Internet service could be suspended, yet there is no such provision under Canadian law. In a nutshell, Rightscorp and BMG are using the notice-and-notice system to require ISPs to send threats and misstatements of Canadian law in an effort to extract payments based on unproven infringement allegations.

merbs writes The scientists had whipped themselves into a frenzy. Gathered in a stuffy conference room in the bowels of a hotel in Berlin, scores of respected climate researchers were arguing about a one-page document that had tentatively been christened the "Berlin Declaration." It proposed ground rules for conducting experiments to explore how we might artificially cool the Earth—planet hacking, basically. This is the story of scientists' first major international meeting to tackle geoengineering. It’s most commonly called geoengineering. Think Bond-villain-caliber schemes but with better intentions. It’s a highly controversial field that studies ideas like launching high-flying jets to dust the skies with sulfur in order to block out a small fraction of the solar rays entering the atmosphere, or sending a fleet of drones across the ocean to spray seawater into clouds to make them brighter and thus reflect more sunlight. Those are two of the most discussed proposals for using technology to chill the planet and combat climate change, and each would ostensibly cost a few billion dollars a year—peanuts in the scheme of the global economy. We’re about to see the dawn of the first real-world experiments designed to test ideas like these, but first, the scientists wanted to agree on a code of ethics—how to move forward without alarming the public or breaking any laws.

New submitter wmofr writes: Major U.S. and British publications refused to publish related satirical cartoons, at least those about the "prophet", after the terrorist attack in Charlie Hebdo's office, which had 12 people killed. An editor of the Independent said:"But the fact is as an editor you have got to balance principle with pragmatism, and I felt yesterday evening a few different conflicting principles: I felt a duty to readers; a duty to the dead; I felt a duty to journalism – and I also felt a duty to my staff. I think it would have been too much of a risk to unilaterally decide in Britain to be the only newspaper that went ahead and published so in a sense it is true one has self-censored in a way I feel very uncomfortable with. It's an incredibly difficult decision to make." But still many media organizations bravely publishing those cartoons, declining self-censorship. Charlie Hebdo's surviving staff say the magazine will publish again next week, saying, "stupidity will not win." Meanwhile, cartoonists around the world have published strips in response to the attack. The Onion has a poignant take as well. With regard to the attackers, one suspect turned himself in to police, and the other two remain at large.

An anonymous reader writes "The FBI launched a PR counterattack against skeptics of the assertion by the US government that North Korean hackers were responsible for anonymous threats received by Sony before its scheduled premiere of the film The Interview. Sony initially cancelled the Christmas day release, but later relented after receiving extensive criticism. In a speech at a New York City cybersecurity conference hosted by Fordham University, FBI Director James Comey said that while the attackers concealed their identify by using proxy servers, on occasion they "got sloppy" and made direct connections, exposing their true IP addresses; these indicated a North Korea origin. Comey also mentioned additional corroborative evidence, including patterns matching those seen in previous attacks known to have come from North Korea, but was guarded on details. Also at the Fordham conference, US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper mentioned recently meeting the Kim Yong Chol, the North Korean general in charge of cyberwarfare. Clapper emphasized Kim's belligerence and lack of a sense of humor, implying that an advance screening of "The Interview" would likely have enraged and provoked the North Korean brass."

Bruce Perens writes Chris Testa KB2BMH taught a class on gate-array programming the SmartFusion chip, a Linux system and programmable gate-array on a single chip, using MyHDL, the Python Hardware Design Language to implement a software-defined radio transceiver. Watch all 4 sessions: 1, 2, 3, 4. And get the slides and code. Chris's Whitebox hardware design implementing an FCC-legal 50-1000 MHz software-defined transceiver in Open Hardware and Open Source, will be available in a few months. Here's an Overview of Whitebox and HT of the Future. Slashdot readers funded this video and videos of the entire TAPR conference. Thanks!"

DavidGilbert99 writes A gun that lets novices make mile-long shots likes experts and which allows the owner to stream live video to show what the gun is aiming at to anyone, anywhere around the world is being showcased at CES. From the article: "Previously the longest range TrackingPoint’s weapons could accurately hit was about 1,200 yards with the company’s XM1 bolt-action rifle; the 'Mile Maker' adds 600 effective yards onto the range of the XM1 by using different rounds, a longer barrel, and most importantly, updated software in the computerized tracking scope. Aside from the 'Mile Maker,' TrackingPoint also announced that it will be expanding its weapons’ audio and visual capabilities—rather than streaming videos directly over local Wi-Fi or recording and uploading things after the fact to YouTube or Facebook, TrackingPoint firearms will gain the ability to live-stream the scope’s picture to remote users using TrackingPoint’s smartphone app. Later in 2015, the company will be shifting its lineup somewhat, removing all of the XS-class weapons from its catalog and replacing them with two, new lighter-frame options. The two, new bolt-action options will be chambered in .308 and .300 Winchester Magnum and will use the smaller scope from TrackingPoint’s AR platform. Finally, the company will also begin selling a smaller 'varmint gun' chambered in .260 Remington.

itwbennett writes: After a weekend hack forced the Bitcoin exchange Bitstamp to shut down, Bitstamp has revealed that $5 million worth of bitcoin was stolen during the attack. And that's not all the bad news for Bitcoin this week: Canadian Bitcoin exchange Vault of Satoshi announced it is is no longer accepting new deposits and will close Feb. 5. But in this case the operators are pursuing new business opportunities, saying in a post that the shutdown "has absolutely nothing to do with insolvency, stolen funds, or any other unfortunate scenario."

This is something Timothy Lord ran across a few months ago at a Maker Faire near Atlanta: The DuinoKit. Think of it as a fancier (and pricier) version of the venerable Radio Shack Electronic Learning Labs and you won't be far off. Plus, as the name DuinoKit implies, it's based on an Arduino, which means that right off the bat it packs a lot more learning punch than the Radio Shack kit. DuinoKit was financed by a KickStarter campaign that asked for $19,500 and raised $57,478 from 250 backers. And for those of you who worry about being called nerds because you're carrying a DuinoKit around, you can relax. It comes in a 'Secret Agent Carrying Case.' Really. Read their What is the DuinoKit? Web page carefully and you'll see. (Alternate Video Link)

hcs_$reboot writes: On June 30 this year, the day will last a tad longer — one second longer, to be precise — as a leap second is to be added to clocks worldwide. The time UTC will go from 23:59:59 to 23:59:60 in order to cope with Earth's rotation slowing down a bit. So, what do you intend to do during that extra second added to that day? Well, you may want to fix your systems. The last time a leap second was added, in 2012, a number of websites, Java and even Linux experienced some troubles. Leap seconds can be disruptive to precision systems used for navigation and communication. Is there a better way of dealing with the need for leap seconds?

eldavojohn writes There have been suspicions that fracking has caused minor earthquakes in Ohio but last year seismic data recorded by the Earthscope Transportable Array was analyzed by the Seismological Society of America using template matching and has resulted in a new publication and press release making the statement that Hilcorp Energy's fracking in Poland Township in March of 2014 "did not create a new fault, rather it activated one that we didn't know about prior to the seismic activity." The earthquakes occurred in the Precambrian basement and lead the researchers to posit that further unknown faults may be activated by fracking. The press release ends with urging for "close cooperation among government, industry and the scientific community as hydraulic fracturing operations expand in areas where there's the potential for unknown pre-existing faults."

An anonymous reader writes that Toyota will share almost 6,000 hydrogen fuel cell patents. "Hoping to speed development of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, Toyota said Monday that it would offer thousands of patents on related technologies to rival automakers, for free. The announcement, made at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, echoes a similar move by electric car maker Tesla in 2014, when Chief Executive Elon Musk made Tesla patents available to all, hoping to spur innovation in the electric vehicle world (and, perhaps, to draw publicity.) Toyota has similar goals for the fuel-cell car market. 'At Toyota, we believe that when good ideas are shared, great things can happen,' Bob Carter, senior vice president at Toyota, said before the announcement. 'The first generation hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, launched between 2015 and 2020, will be critical, requiring a concerted effort and unconventional collaboration.'"

An anonymous reader writes With only 29 seconds in the countdown, SpaceX had to abort the launch due to a last-minute problem with actuator drift, affecting the motors that control the second stage's rocket thrust. "SpaceX had to scrub Tuesday's attempt to launch a Falcon 9 rocket to the International Space Station and make a historic rocket landing. The landing experiment would have involved putting the first stage of the two-stage rocket on a floating platform in the Atlantic Ocean, about 200 miles off the coast of Florida. Such a feat has never been done before. A successful maneuver would have marked a significant step toward making rockets more reusable and driving down the cost of spaceflight."

An anonymous reader writes: The Walkman is one of the most recognizable pieces of technology from the 1980s. Unfortunately for Sony, it didn't survive the switch to digital, and they discontinued it in 2010. Last year, they quietly reintroduced the Walkman brand as a "high-resolution audio player," supporting lossless codecs and better audio-related hardware. At $300, it seemed a bit pricey. But now, at the Consumer Electronics Show, Sony has loudly introduced its high-end digital Walkman, and somehow decided to price it at an astronomical $1,200.

What will all that money get you? 128GB of onboard storage and a microSD slot to go with it. There's a large touchscreen, and the device runs Android — but it uses version 4.2 Jelly Bean, which came out in 2012. It also supports Bluetooth and NFC. Sony claims the device has 33 hours of battery life when playing FLAC files, and 60 hours when playing MP3s. They appear to be targeting audiophiles — their press release includes phrasing about how pedestrian MP3 encoding will "compromise the purity of the original signal."

HughPickens.com writes "The cost of getting to orbit is exorbitant, because the rocket, with its multimillion-dollar engines, ends up as trash in the ocean after one launching, something Elon Musk likens to throwing away a 747 jet after a single transcontinental flight. That's why tomorrow morning at 620 am his company hopes to upend the economics of space travel in a daring plan by attempting to land the first stage of a Falcon 9 rocket intact on a floating platform, 300 feet long and 170 feet wide in the Atlantic Ocean. SpaceX has attempted similar maneuvers on three earlier Falcon 9 flights, and on the second and third attempts, the rocket slowed to a hover before splashing into the water. "We've been able to soft-land the rocket booster in the ocean twice so far," says Musk. "Unfortunately, it sort of sat there for several seconds, then tipped over and exploded. It's quite difficult to reuse at that point."

After the booster falls away and the second stage continues pushing the payload to orbit, its engines will reignite to turn it around and guide it to a spot about 200 miles east of Jacksonville, Florida. Musk puts the chances of success at 50 percent or less but over the dozen or so flights scheduled for this year, "I think it's quite likely, 80 to 90 percent likely, that one of those flights will be able to land and refly." SpaceX will offer its own launch webcast on the company's website beginning at 6 a.m. If SpaceX's gamble succeeds, the company plans to reuse the rocket stage on a later flight. "Reusability is the critical breakthrough needed in rocketry to take things to the next level." SpaceX announced the plan in December.

An anonymous reader writes "Alexander Stepanov studied mathematics at Moscow State University and has been programming since 1972. His work on foundations of programming has been supported by GE, Brooklyn Polytechnic, AT&T, HP, SGI, and, since 2002, Adobe. In 1995 he received the Dr. Dobb's Journal Excellence in Programming Award for the design of the C++ Standard Template Library. Currently, he is the Senior Principal Engineer at A9.com. Daniel E. Rose is a programmer and research scientist who has held management positions at Apple, AltaVista, Xigo, Yahoo, and is the Chief Scientist for Search at A9.com. His research focuses on all aspects of search technology, ranging from low-level algorithms for index compression to human-computer interaction issues in web search. Rose led the team at Apple that created desktop search for the Macintosh. In addition to working together, the pair have recently written a book, From Mathematics to Generic Programming. Alexander and Daniel have agreed to answer any questions you may have about their book, their work, or programming in general. As usual, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one per post."

Zothecula writes The speed that drones can be deployed makes them ideal for delivering items when time is of the essence. The Ambulance Drone and Defikopter, for example, are used for transporting defibrillators to those in need. Now, Project Ryptide plans to use drones to deliver life-rings to swimmers in distress. From the article: "The project, which is at pre-production prototype stage, was conceived by Bill Piedra, a part-time teacher at the King Low Heywood Thomas (KLHT) school in Stamford, Connecticut. Piedra began working on the design in January 2014 and then began developing it further with students at KLHT in September 2014. 'Ryptide was designed so that anyone can be a lifeguard,' Piedra tells Gizmag. 'We had the casual user in mind when we designed the basic model; someone that might take their drone to the beach, boating, a lake, or even ice skating. It could be useful in the case of someone falling through the ice while skating, for example.'"

First time accepted submitter Kubla Kahhhn! writes Recently, the WSJ posted a controversial piece "Science Increasingly Makes a Case for God", written by non-scientist Eric Metaxas. Noted astrophysicist Lawrence Krauss wrote a simple and clear retort in a letter to the editor, which the WSJ declined to publish, but Richard Dawkins did.

Dangerous_Minds writes "The other day, Slashdot linked to a TorrentFreak story saying that Netflix was cracking down on VPN users. But PCMag has a story that quotes a Netflix spokesperson saying that there was no change in their policy on VPNs. Freezenet also did some digging around and found very few reports saying there were VPN access issues and even more reports from users say that their VPN solution is working for the time being."

theodp writes "Instead of improving the instructional practices of teachers," laments Chicago public school Principal Michael Beyer, "we are throwing vast sums of money and time at software and digital solutions that are largely untested, unproven and highly questionable." Ed-Tech vendors' so-called "weapons of mass instruction," argues Beyer, may show "gains" on the high-stakes tests because they mimic the targeted test format, but the learning gains don't necessarily transfer to the real world, or last much longer than the end of the school year. But technology in the classroom is not going away, as one commenter notes. So, what to do? Well, since U.S. CTO Megan Smith is looking for bigger technological fish to fry than weaning the White House off floppy disks, why not give her a crack at Ed-Tech, including a healthy budget and some Lab Schools where she could have educators and technologists brainstorm-and-prototype to separate the Ed-Tech wheat from the chaff without undue vendor influence and short-term test score pressure?

An anonymous reader notes that Sony is offering deals to make up for the downtime over Christmas. "PlayStation Network gamers didn't have such a happy holiday thanks to the reported handiwork of some hackers, so Sony is hoping to appease users of its online gaming service with promises of deals and discounts. For Playstation Plus subscribers, Sony is offering a 5-day membership extension, and for all members, a 10 percent discount at the PlayStation store, according to a blog post published Thursday. The PlayStation Network is Sony's online service for its PlayStation game console. Both PSN and Microsoft's online gaming service, Xbox Live, were intermittently offline beginning on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Xbox Live came back online first, with PSN following Saturday night."

theodp writes: "If 95% of great programmers aren't in the U.S.," Matt Mullenweg advises in How Paul Graham Is Wrong (a rejoinder to Graham's Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In), "and an even higher percentage not in the Bay Area, set up your company to take advantage of that fact as a strength, not a weakness. Use WordPress and P2, use Slack, use G+ Hangouts, use Skype, use any of the amazing technology that allows us to collaborate as effectively online as previous generations of company did offline. Let people live someplace remarkable instead of paying $2,800 a month for a mediocre one bedroom rental in San Francisco. Or don't, and let companies like Automattic and Github hire the best and brightest and let them live and work wherever they like." Microsoft and Google — which hawk the very tools to facilitate remote work that Mullenweg cites — have shuttered remote offices filled with top talent even as they cry the talent sky is falling. So, is "being stubborn on keeping a company culture that requires people to be physically co-located," as Mullenweg puts it, a big part of tech's 'talent shortage' problem?" Chris Pepper also recently posted another reasoned rebuttal to Graham's post.

An anonymous reader writes: Along with the open-source AMD Linux driver having a great 2014, the AMD Catalyst proprietary driver for Linux has also improved a lot. Beyond the open-source Radeon Gallium3D driver closing in on Catalyst, the latest Phoronix end-of-year tests show the AMD Catalyst Linux driver is beating Catalyst on Windows for some OpenGL benchmarks. The proprietary driver tests were done with the new Catalyst "OMEGA" driver. Is AMD beginning to lead real Linux driver innovations or is OpenGL on Windows just struggling?

itwbennett writes Nearly all of the roughly $370 million in bitcoin that disappeared in the February 2014 collapse of Mt. Gox probably vanished due to fraudulent transactions, with only 1 percent taken by yet-to-be-identified hackers, according to a report in Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper, citing sources close to a Tokyo police probe. The disclosure follows months of investigations by police and others into the tangled mess surrounding the disappearance of the 650,000 bit coins.

An anonymous reader writes Coming on the heels of the UK arrest of Vinnie Omari, Yle reports that Finnish police have interviewed "Ryan", the Finland-based hacker reportedly responsible for hacking the PlayStation and Xbox networks on Christmas day, but have not arrested him — contrary to reports in the international media (such as Washington Post). Lizard Squad had tweeted that the Finland-based hacker had been detained. Chief Inspector Tero Muurman of Keskusrikospoliisi (Finnish National Bureau of Investigation) confirmed Yle that reports of "Ryan" having been detained were wide of the mark. He had been interviewed at the start of the week, but then released. Finnish police are continuing their probe and co-operating closely with the FBI.

An anonymous reader writes Coming on the heels of the UK arrest of Vinnie Omari, Yle reports that Finnish police have interviewed "Ryan", the Finland-based hacker reportedly responsible for hacking the PlayStation and Xbox networks on Christmas day, but have not arrested him — contrary to reports in the international media (such as Washington Post). Lizard Squad had tweeted that the Finland-based hacker had been detained. Chief Inspector Tero Muurman of Keskusrikospoliisi (Finnish National Bureau of Investigation) confirmed Yle that reports of "Ryan" having been detained were wide of the mark. He had been interviewed at the start of the week, but then released. Finnish police are continuing their probe and co-operating closely with the FBI.

Dangerous_Minds writes Last week, Sony threatened legal action against users spreading information obtained through the e-mails that were leaked as a result of the Sony hack. Sony has begun carrying through with those threats. Twitter, after resisting demands that a user account be suspended for publishing leaked e-mails, has received a DMCA notice saying that the e-mails are, weirdly enough, copyrighted.

theodp writes Silicon sultans are the new robber barons, writes The Economist, adding that "they have been diversifying into businesses that have little to do with computers, while egotistically proclaiming that they alone can solve mankind's problems, from aging to space travel." Over at Slate, NYU journalism prof Charles Seife is less-than impressed with The Billionaires' Space Club. "It's an old trick," begins Seife. "Multimillionaires regularly try to spin acts of crass ego gratification as selfless philanthropy, no matter how obviously self-serving. They jump out of balloons at the edge of the atmosphere, take submarines to the bottom of the ocean, or shoot endangered animals on safari, all in the name of science and exploration. The more recent trend is billionaires making fleets of rocket ships for private space exploration. What makes this one different is that the public actually seems to buy the farce." Seife goes on to argue that "neither [Elon] Musk's nor [Richard] Branson's goals really seem to break new ground, despite all the talk of exploration."

theodp writes Silicon sultans are the new robber barons, writes The Economist, adding that "they have been diversifying into businesses that have little to do with computers, while egotistically proclaiming that they alone can solve mankind's problems, from aging to space travel." Over at Slate, NYU journalism prof Charles Seife is less-than impressed with The Billionaires' Space Club. "It's an old trick," begins Seife. "Multimillionaires regularly try to spin acts of crass ego gratification as selfless philanthropy, no matter how obviously self-serving. They jump out of balloons at the edge of the atmosphere, take submarines to the bottom of the ocean, or shoot endangered animals on safari, all in the name of science and exploration. The more recent trend is billionaires making fleets of rocket ships for private space exploration. What makes this one different is that the public actually seems to buy the farce." Seife goes on to argue that "neither [Elon] Musk's nor [Richard] Branson's goals really seem to break new ground, despite all the talk of exploration."

An anonymous reader sends word that the U.S. Army may adjust some of its training practices and rules in order to attract the best "cyber warriors" available. "New U.S. Army cyber warriors could be spared the rigors of combat training to help the Pentagon attract badly needed recruits from the ponytail wearing Google generation, a top American general has suggested. Lt Gen Brown, commander of the US Army Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, said: 'We need to give serious consideration to how the US Army could combine the technical expertise of the "Google" generation with its more traditional military skills. In order to gain an intellectual advantage over adversaries in cyberspace, we will need to tap into a talent pool that may not fit the stereotypical soldier profile. Our goal is to recruit the best talent possible.'" This is not the first time there has been talk about loosening requirements to fill these roles.

An anonymous reader writes: Peter Diamandis, creator of the X-PRIZE Foundation, has a thoughtful piece on how technology is wearing away at the barriers between nationalities. He asks, "[W]hat really defines your nationality these days? Is it where you were live? Where you work? The language you speak? The currency you use?" Diamandis then proceeds to point out the following facts: Working remotely is now widespread, and will only become moreso once telepresence robots become ubiquitous. Translation services, both for written and spoken language are approaching sci-fi-level capabilities. The rise of cryptocurrencies is providing a method for people worldwide to move away from national currencies. He argues that in the coming decades, these technologies will mature and begin to make the concept of nationality much less important than it is today. Do you agree?

An anonymous reader writes: Have you enjoyed reading the constant flow of news about how red light cameras are failing? They've been installed under the shadow of corruption, they don't increase safety, and major cities are dropping them. Well, the good news is that red-light cameras are on the decline in the U.S. The bad news is that speeding cameras are on the rise. From the article: "The number of U.S. communities using red-light cameras has fallen 13 percent, to 469, since the end of 2012, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a nonprofit scientific and educational organization funded by the insurance industry. That includes the 24 towns in New Jersey that participated in a pilot program that ended this month with no pending legislation to revive it. Meanwhile, the institute estimates that 137 communities use speed cameras, up from 115 at the end of 2011."

An anonymous reader writes: Have you enjoyed reading the constant flow of news about how red light cameras are failing? They've been installed under the shadow of corruption, they don't increase safety, and major cities are dropping them. Well, the good news is that red-light cameras are on the decline in the U.S. The bad news is that speeding cameras are on the rise. From the article: "The number of U.S. communities using red-light cameras has fallen 13 percent, to 469, since the end of 2012, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a nonprofit scientific and educational organization funded by the insurance industry. That includes the 24 towns in New Jersey that participated in a pilot program that ended this month with no pending legislation to revive it. Meanwhile, the institute estimates that 137 communities use speed cameras, up from 115 at the end of 2011."

An anonymous reader writes: Have you enjoyed reading the constant flow of news about how red light cameras are failing? They've been installed under the shadow of corruption, they don't increase safety, and major cities are dropping them. Well, the good news is that red-light cameras are on the decline in the U.S. The bad news is that speeding cameras are on the rise. From the article: "The number of U.S. communities using red-light cameras has fallen 13 percent, to 469, since the end of 2012, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a nonprofit scientific and educational organization funded by the insurance industry. That includes the 24 towns in New Jersey that participated in a pilot program that ended this month with no pending legislation to revive it. Meanwhile, the institute estimates that 137 communities use speed cameras, up from 115 at the end of 2011."

It's been a long time since Slashdot has awarded the Beanies -- nearly 15 years, in fact. But there's no time like the present, especially since tomorrow edges on the new year, and in early 2015 we'd like to offer a Beanie once again, to recognize and honor your favorite person, people (or project; keep reading) of the past year. Rather than a fine-grained list of categories like in 2000, though, this time around we're keeping it simple: we can always complicate things later, if warranted. So, please nominate below whoever you think most deserves kudos for the last twelve months. Is it ...

• Edward Snowden, for the impact his leaks (though they began in 2013) have continued to make? (Or William Binney, for similar reasons?)
• Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzay, who fought a difficult battle for children's right to an education?
• Telescope popularizer John Dobson, who died earlier this year at the age of 98, after bringing space a little more down to earth for many thousands of people?
• May-Britt Moser, her husband Edvard Moser, and John O'Keefe for their discoveries about how the brain navigates through the world?
• Eben Upton, whose little educational hardware project has bloomed into millions and millions of cheap, hackable Linux computers?
• How about Maryam Mirazkhani, the first woman to become a Fields medalist?
• Theo de Raadt, who stepped in with replacement project LibreSSL soon after cracks appeared in OpenSSL, and who's been helming the OpenBSD project since 1995?
• The ESA team that landed a probe on a comet, or the ISRO engineers who managed to send a probe to Mars on a shoestring budget?
• Anita Sarkeesian, for helping draw attention to undue harassment faced by women in the video game world?
• Someone relatively quiet or obscure who's nonetheless made the world better through some kind of interesting innovation or contribution?

Read on below to see how you can take part, and then nominate your favorite in the comments below.

A few guidelines to make this work:

• Please use the title of your post well; in the form "Name: Description of why they're deserving." (Example: "Harold Ramis: Goodbye, and thanks for all the laughs.") That way, your title can help organize the discussion, and will be easy to scan for. (That's how we'll look to credit the first one to suggest a candidate, as well.)
• Speaking of which: please scan the other suggestions first; if you find there one you'd like to argue for or against, better to do it there, rather than start a new thread.
• Please name an actual person, or a specific group of people, so we can send your choice -- or a representative, as appropriate -- some kind of token (to wit, a beanie). But be as creative as you want: the names listed above are just starting points.
• Explain why your choice deserves to be lauded, with links and words; underrated heroes are welcome. If there's a relevant Slashdot story to link to, so much the better, but it's no requirement. Make it clear why your favorite deserves recognition for 2014, even if it's for contributions that started longer ago. Feel free to nominate yourself, but the same guidelines apply.
• Accentuate the positive. We figure beanies sent to Keith Alexander, John Brennan, or Kim Jong Un won't get worn very often. Maybe there can be some anti-Beanies down the road, but for now, name the good guys, of whatever variety.
• You need not be logged in to take part -- anonymous entries are welcome. However, because of comment thresholds, among other reasons, logged in comments may carry more weight.

We'll winnow down the suggestions below into a short list for further consideration -- and perhaps toss in a few more options to boot -- and aim to come up with a deserving new Beanie recipient (possibly more than one) before the first new moon of 2015.

Submit away.

It's been a long time since Slashdot has awarded the Beanies -- nearly 15 years, in fact. But there's no time like the present, especially since tomorrow edges on the new year, and in early 2015 we'd like to offer a Beanie once again, to recognize and honor your favorite person, people (or project; keep reading) of the past year. Rather than a fine-grained list of categories like in 2000, though, this time around we're keeping it simple: we can always complicate things later, if warranted. So, please nominate below whoever you think most deserves kudos for the last twelve months. Is it ...

• Edward Snowden, for the impact his leaks (though they began in 2013) have continued to make? (Or William Binney, for similar reasons?)
• Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzay, who fought a difficult battle for children's right to an education?
• Telescope popularizer John Dobson, who died earlier this year at the age of 98, after bringing space a little more down to earth for many thousands of people?
• May-Britt Moser, her husband Edvard Moser, and John O'Keefe for their discoveries about how the brain navigates through the world?
• Eben Upton, whose little educational hardware project has bloomed into millions and millions of cheap, hackable Linux computers?
• How about Maryam Mirazkhani, the first woman to become a Fields medalist?
• Theo de Raadt, who stepped in with replacement project LibreSSL soon after cracks appeared in OpenSSL, and who's been helming the OpenBSD project since 1995?
• The ESA team that landed a probe on a comet, or the ISRO engineers who managed to send a probe to Mars on a shoestring budget?
• Anita Sarkeesian, for helping draw attention to undue harassment faced by women in the video game world?
• Someone relatively quiet or obscure who's nonetheless made the world better through some kind of interesting innovation or contribution?

Read on below to see how you can take part, and then nominate your favorite in the comments below.

A few guidelines to make this work:

• Please use the title of your post well; in the form "Name: Description of why they're deserving." (Example: "Harold Ramis: Goodbye, and thanks for all the laughs.") That way, your title can help organize the discussion, and will be easy to scan for. (That's how we'll look to credit the first one to suggest a candidate, as well.)
• Speaking of which: please scan the other suggestions first; if you find there one you'd like to argue for or against, better to do it there, rather than start a new thread.
• Please name an actual person, or a specific group of people, so we can send your choice -- or a representative, as appropriate -- some kind of token (to wit, a beanie). But be as creative as you want: the names listed above are just starting points.
• Explain why your choice deserves to be lauded, with links and words; underrated heroes are welcome. If there's a relevant Slashdot story to link to, so much the better, but it's no requirement. Make it clear why your favorite deserves recognition for 2014, even if it's for contributions that started longer ago. Feel free to nominate yourself, but the same guidelines apply.
• Accentuate the positive. We figure beanies sent to Keith Alexander, John Brennan, or Kim Jong Un won't get worn very often. Maybe there can be some anti-Beanies down the road, but for now, name the good guys, of whatever variety.
• You need not be logged in to take part -- anonymous entries are welcome. However, because of comment thresholds, among other reasons, logged in comments may carry more weight.

We'll winnow down the suggestions below into a short list for further consideration -- and perhaps toss in a few more options to boot -- and aim to come up with a deserving new Beanie recipient (possibly more than one) before the first new moon of 2015.

Submit away.

It's been a long time since Slashdot has awarded the Beanies -- nearly 15 years, in fact. But there's no time like the present, especially since tomorrow edges on the new year, and in early 2015 we'd like to offer a Beanie once again, to recognize and honor your favorite person, people (or project; keep reading) of the past year. Rather than a fine-grained list of categories like in 2000, though, this time around we're keeping it simple: we can always complicate things later, if warranted. So, please nominate below whoever you think most deserves kudos for the last twelve months. Is it ...

• Edward Snowden, for the impact his leaks (though they began in 2013) have continued to make? (Or William Binney, for similar reasons?)
• Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzay, who fought a difficult battle for children's right to an education?
• Telescope popularizer John Dobson, who died earlier this year at the age of 98, after bringing space a little more down to earth for many thousands of people?
• May-Britt Moser, her husband Edvard Moser, and John O'Keefe for their discoveries about how the brain navigates through the world?
• Eben Upton, whose little educational hardware project has bloomed into millions and millions of cheap, hackable Linux computers?
• How about Maryam Mirazkhani, the first woman to become a Fields medalist?
• Theo de Raadt, who stepped in with replacement project LibreSSL soon after cracks appeared in OpenSSL, and who's been helming the OpenBSD project since 1995?
• The ESA team that landed a probe on a comet, or the ISRO engineers who managed to send a probe to Mars on a shoestring budget?
• Anita Sarkeesian, for helping draw attention to undue harassment faced by women in the video game world?
• Someone relatively quiet or obscure who's nonetheless made the world better through some kind of interesting innovation or contribution?

Read on below to see how you can take part, and then nominate your favorite in the comments below.

A few guidelines to make this work:

• Please use the title of your post well; in the form "Name: Description of why they're deserving." (Example: "Harold Ramis: Goodbye, and thanks for all the laughs.") That way, your title can help organize the discussion, and will be easy to scan for. (That's how we'll look to credit the first one to suggest a candidate, as well.)
• Speaking of which: please scan the other suggestions first; if you find there one you'd like to argue for or against, better to do it there, rather than start a new thread.
• Please name an actual person, or a specific group of people, so we can send your choice -- or a representative, as appropriate -- some kind of token (to wit, a beanie). But be as creative as you want: the names listed above are just starting points.
• Explain why your choice deserves to be lauded, with links and words; underrated heroes are welcome. If there's a relevant Slashdot story to link to, so much the better, but it's no requirement. Make it clear why your favorite deserves recognition for 2014, even if it's for contributions that started longer ago. Feel free to nominate yourself, but the same guidelines apply.
• Accentuate the positive. We figure beanies sent to Keith Alexander, John Brennan, or Kim Jong Un won't get worn very often. Maybe there can be some anti-Beanies down the road, but for now, name the good guys, of whatever variety.
• You need not be logged in to take part -- anonymous entries are welcome. However, because of comment thresholds, among other reasons, logged in comments may carry more weight.

We'll winnow down the suggestions below into a short list for further consideration -- and perhaps toss in a few more options to boot -- and aim to come up with a deserving new Beanie recipient (possibly more than one) before the first new moon of 2015.

Submit away.