Slashdot Mirror

An anonymous reader writes "Hemisphere Games analyzes the sales numbers for their Linux port of Osmos and ask themselves, 'Is it worth porting games to Linux?' The short, simple answer is 'yes.' Breakdown and details in the post." A few other interesting details: the port took them about two man-months of work, the day they released for Linux was their single best sales day ever, and they got a surprising amount of interest from Russia and Eastern Europe. Their data only reflects sales through their website, and they make the point that "the lack of a strong Linux portal makes it a much less 'competitive' OS for commercial development." Hopefully someday the rumored Steam Linux client will help to solve that.

Reader SheeEttin reminds us that back in October, the Supreme Court accepted a case testing whether or not petition signers' names could be kept anonymous. (The premise was that the act of signing a petition is covered by free speech, and thus signers are entitled to anonymity, especially to protect them from harassment.) Now the Court has issued its ruling: signatures are part of the public record. "By a strong majority Thursday, the Supreme Court issued a setback for opponents of gay marriage who wanted to keep their identities secret. The justices favored transparency over privacy in a case testing whether signing a petition is a public act. The case began with a bill that the Washington state legislature passed in 2009, expanding the state's domestic partnership law. The new referendum was known as 'everything but marriage' for the enhanced rights it gave same-sex couples. People who opposed the bill gathered 120,000 signatures for a ballot measure asking voters to repeal it. That measure eventually reached Washington voters, who upheld 'everything but marriage.' Those who signed the repeal petition feared that they would be harassed if their names became public, so they went to court challenging Washington's Public Records Act. They argued that signing a petition is speech that is protected from disclosure. But in Thursday's 8-1 ruling, the Supreme Court disagreed. 'Such disclosure does not, as a general matter, violate the first amendment,' Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court."

KentuckyFC writes "In 2007, a Dutch school teacher named Hanny van Arkel discovered a huge blob of green-glowing gas while combing though images to classify galaxies. Hanny's Voorwerp (meaning Hanny's object in Dutch) is astounding because astronomers have never seen anything like it. Although galactic in scale, it is clearly not a galaxy because it does not contain any stars. That raises an obvious question: what is causing the gas to glow? Now a new survey of the region of sky seems to have solved the problem. The Voorwerp lies close to a spiral galaxy which astronomers now say hides a massive black hole at its center. The infall of matter into the black hole generates a cone of radiation emitted in a specific direction. The great cloud of gas that is Hanny's Voorwerp just happens to be in the firing line, ionizing the gas and causing it to glow green. That lays to rest an earlier theory that the cloud was reflecting an echo of light from a short galactic flare up that occurred 10,000 years ago. It also explains why Voorwerps are so rare: these radiation cones are highly directional so only occasionally do unlucky gas clouds get caught in the crossfire."

itwbennett writes "Google disclosed in a blog post on Thursday that it remotely removed two applications from Android phones that ran contrary to the terms of the Android Market. From the post: 'Recently, we became aware of two free applications built by a security researcher for research purposes. These applications intentionally misrepresented their purpose in order to encourage user downloads, but they were not designed to be used maliciously, and did not have permission to access private data — or system resources beyond permission.INTERNET. As the applications were practically useless, most users uninstalled the applications shortly after downloading them. After the researcher voluntarily removed these applications from Android Market, we decided, per the Android Market Terms of Service, to exercise our remote application removal feature on the remaining installed copies to complete the cleanup.' The blog post comes a day after security vendor SMobile Systems published a report saying that 20% of Android apps provide access to sensitive information." Update: 06/25 16:44 GMT by S : Clarified last sentence, which incorrectly suggested that 20% of Android apps were malicious. According to the report (PDF, which we discussed recently), "a majority of these applications were developed with the best of intentions and the user data will likely not be compromised.

Hanji writes "We have discussed here before the potential effects of and protections against cosmic ray radiation, but for the average computer user, it's an obscure threat that doesn't affect them in any real way. Well, here's a blog post that describes a strange segfault and, after extensive debugging, traces it down to a single bit flip, probably caused by a stray cosmic ray. Lots of helpful descriptions of Linux debugging techniques in this one, and a pretty clear demonstration that this can be a real problem. I know I'm never buying a desktop without ECC RAM ever again!" The author acknowledges that it might not have been a cosmic ray-based error, but the troubleshooting steps are interesting no matter what the cause.

Hanji writes "We have discussed here before the potential effects of and protections against cosmic ray radiation, but for the average computer user, it's an obscure threat that doesn't affect them in any real way. Well, here's a blog post that describes a strange segfault and, after extensive debugging, traces it down to a single bit flip, probably caused by a stray cosmic ray. Lots of helpful descriptions of Linux debugging techniques in this one, and a pretty clear demonstration that this can be a real problem. I know I'm never buying a desktop without ECC RAM ever again!" The author acknowledges that it might not have been a cosmic ray-based error, but the troubleshooting steps are interesting no matter what the cause.

Vigile writes "Microsoft unveiled a new Xbox 360 S console at E3 this month, and without delay the new machine has been dissected and tested. The most dramatic change is the move to a single-chip CPU/GPU hybrid processor that is apparently being built on the 45nm process technology from GlobalFoundries, AMD's spun-off production facilities. With the inclusion of the new processor, the Xbox 360 S uses much less power (about 30-40%) compared to previous generation machines, and also turns out to be much quieter as a result of a single, larger fan. This article has photographic evidence of the teardown, with comparisons between this Valhalla platform and the older Falcon system, along with videos of the reconstruction process and noise comparisons." The new console also takes measures to protect itself from overheating, so RRoDs shouldn't be a problem with this revision.

recoiledsnake writes "Apple is suing HTC again over patent infringement. Apple is adding two new patents to the 20 included in the earlier case while adding additional details to two patents included previously. Although Android is not mentioned in any of the court documents, many of the patent infringement complaints refer to the software rather than the hardware that HTC manufactures, leading to speculation that Google is the real target, especially considering that Android sales are surpassing the iPhone's. With HTC countersuing Apple, Microsoft siding with HTC over Android, and Apple trying to stop import of Nokia phones, it seems like Apple has set off a patent Armageddon in the mobile space."

recoiledsnake writes "Apple is suing HTC again over patent infringement. Apple is adding two new patents to the 20 included in the earlier case while adding additional details to two patents included previously. Although Android is not mentioned in any of the court documents, many of the patent infringement complaints refer to the software rather than the hardware that HTC manufactures, leading to speculation that Google is the real target, especially considering that Android sales are surpassing the iPhone's. With HTC countersuing Apple, Microsoft siding with HTC over Android, and Apple trying to stop import of Nokia phones, it seems like Apple has set off a patent Armageddon in the mobile space."

recoiledsnake writes "Apple is suing HTC again over patent infringement. Apple is adding two new patents to the 20 included in the earlier case while adding additional details to two patents included previously. Although Android is not mentioned in any of the court documents, many of the patent infringement complaints refer to the software rather than the hardware that HTC manufactures, leading to speculation that Google is the real target, especially considering that Android sales are surpassing the iPhone's. With HTC countersuing Apple, Microsoft siding with HTC over Android, and Apple trying to stop import of Nokia phones, it seems like Apple has set off a patent Armageddon in the mobile space."

recoiledsnake writes "Apple is suing HTC again over patent infringement. Apple is adding two new patents to the 20 included in the earlier case while adding additional details to two patents included previously. Although Android is not mentioned in any of the court documents, many of the patent infringement complaints refer to the software rather than the hardware that HTC manufactures, leading to speculation that Google is the real target, especially considering that Android sales are surpassing the iPhone's. With HTC countersuing Apple, Microsoft siding with HTC over Android, and Apple trying to stop import of Nokia phones, it seems like Apple has set off a patent Armageddon in the mobile space."

eldavojohn writes "While the United States deals with oil on its southern shores, China faces hundreds of square kilometers of algal blooms headed toward its shores. One large 200 sq km blob is about 13 kilometers (eight miles) away from Jiaonan in Shandong province. In 2008, China employed 10,000 people to clean a similar algal bloom in order to keep its nearby shore pristine for the Olympics. China has had several case studies (PDF) done of its algal blooms, which many attribute to nutrient pollution in lakes and shores. An Alaskan blob also amounted to an algal bloom, while West Coast red tide algal blooms are making wild shellfish deadly to consume."

eldavojohn writes "It's an old case, but there was an interesting development today when a judge ruled that YouTube is protected from Viacom by the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA, since YouTube helps rights owners manage their rights online and works cooperatively with entities like Viacom. Google's calling it a victory, but I'm not sure if Viacom will take this without a fight."

dango0 writes "SketchUp 7.1 for Architectural Visualization – Beginner's Guide is a detailed guide that will figuratively take you by the hand and teach you how to make stunning photorealistic and artistic visuals of your projects with free software and free resources that you can find all over the Internet." Read on for the rest of Dan's review. SketchUp 7.1 for Architectural Visualization: Beginner's Guide author Robin de Jongh pages 113 publisher Packt rating 5 reviewer Dan Farcas ISBN 1847199461 summary Create stunning photo-realistic and artistic visuals of your SketchUp models Robin de Jongh is a consulting engineer and designer who has successfully used SketchUp for multi-million-pound new developments, and a whole bunch of smaller projects, from steel staircases to new product prototypes. He previously ran an architectural and product visualization company. Robin holds a degree in Computer Aided Product Design and is a professional engineer registered with the Institution of Engineering Designers in the UK. He writes a blog about SketchUp for design professionals.

Frankly, when I saw that the book has 400+ pages, I thought "this thing is full of fluff and will bore me to death." But to my pleasant surprise I found a lot of descriptive pictures, and that's exactly what a visual-based guy like me understands best. So, without further ado, I'll make a brief presentation of the chapters that will enlighten your path to fast, easy and breathtaking presentations of your projects:

Chapter 1 – Quick Start Tutorial

This chapter is a fast forward for those impatient to get to the realistic sketchup scenes. Here you'll find out how to model the scene, fix the lights, add textures, background, and make a quick render in Kerkythea.

Chapter 2 – Plug in and Gear Up

You will find that with a couple of free plugins and some other software you can turn SketchUp into a fully functional 3D modeling, visualization and animation suite similar to . let's say 3D Max!!! (well the truth is this part made my jaw drop)

Chapter 3 – Composing the scene (free sample available)

This chapter will teach you how to make modeling a less hard work by setting your scene prior to starting work. Here you'll use CAD plans, site images or even Google Earth to build the optimized scene for quick rendering or animation. (I know you will love this part of the book, so I got a sample of this chapter from the publisher for you guys – See it Here)

Chapter 4 – Modelling for Visualization

The pro modeling methods you can learn here will save you both the time, and the hassle of working with large polygon counts that can slow down your PC considerably, and at the same time will show you how to make those photo real renderings we all love in a blink of an eye.

Chapter 5 – Applying Textures and Materials for Photo-Real Rendering

Since the world evolved really fast lately, we have at our disposal a lot of free online image resources, professional digital cameras, and so a really effective way of bringing the "model" to life. The tutorials you'll discover in this chapter will show you some unique photo and material handling tools to create surreal, mega easily textured scenes.

Chapter 6 – Entourage the SketchUp Way

Now you have a scene, with modeled buildings and applied textures, and the next step you wanna take is to make it shine with some Entourage, like cars, furniture, and of course trees and bushes and other nice things. In this chapter you'll learn how to find the best libraries, and also to create your own (that you can give to others, for FREE or CASH).

Chapter 7 – Non Photo Real with SketchUp

Some other free software that you will learn how to use is GIMP, a powerful photo editing photo suite, that can simulate sketchy pencil and watercolor styles. And yeah, almost forgot about this, you will learn the AWESOME "Dennis Technique".

Chapter 8 – Photo-realistic rendering

Some in depth presentation and step by step introduction into Kerkythea, the amazing free rendering software, with proven best settings for test renders and final outdoor and indoor scenes. This chapter amazed me, because it covers everything you need to know about getting professional photo-realistic renders out of a simple SketchUp model.

Chapter 9 – Important Compositing and After Effects in GIMP

We all know that the rendering process isn't the end of the line, because there's lots of subtle but important after effects you can apply to make the image even more effective. This particular chapter covers how to add reflections without rendering, creating depth of field effects from a depth render, adjusting levels for realistic daylight scenes, compositing real and rendered images.

Chapter 10 – Walkthroughs and Flyovers

Here you will find tutorials that will show you how to create storyboards, set up cameras and paths in SketchUp with extra plugin functionality, export test animations and final renders. Photo real animations are then composited to make a simple showreel.

Chapter 11 – Presenting Visuals in LayOut

This final chapter I really enjoyed since I like to play with layouts. The layout module is bundled as part of SketchUp Pro and is introduced in this final chapter for those who wish to explore the free trial before committing to Pro. You will learn how to bring together SketchUp models and artistic or rendered output into a screen presentation or printed portfolio, adding borders, text and dimensions.

I'm an architect, and I've worked with paid software before, but I gotta tell you, the free applications are most of the time way better than the paid ones, for the simple fact that they're made by passionate people who upgrade and tweak things all the time. If you want to learn how to use free software that delivers results time after time, please check out this book. I guarantee you won't throw your money away; the price for this book is way too low for the knowledge it shares and the results you can achieve.

You can purchase SketchUp 7.1 for Architectural Visualization: Beginner's Guide from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

dango0 writes "SketchUp 7.1 for Architectural Visualization – Beginner's Guide is a detailed guide that will figuratively take you by the hand and teach you how to make stunning photorealistic and artistic visuals of your projects with free software and free resources that you can find all over the Internet." Read on for the rest of Dan's review. SketchUp 7.1 for Architectural Visualization: Beginner's Guide author Robin de Jongh pages 113 publisher Packt rating 5 reviewer Dan Farcas ISBN 1847199461 summary Create stunning photo-realistic and artistic visuals of your SketchUp models Robin de Jongh is a consulting engineer and designer who has successfully used SketchUp for multi-million-pound new developments, and a whole bunch of smaller projects, from steel staircases to new product prototypes. He previously ran an architectural and product visualization company. Robin holds a degree in Computer Aided Product Design and is a professional engineer registered with the Institution of Engineering Designers in the UK. He writes a blog about SketchUp for design professionals.

Frankly, when I saw that the book has 400+ pages, I thought "this thing is full of fluff and will bore me to death." But to my pleasant surprise I found a lot of descriptive pictures, and that's exactly what a visual-based guy like me understands best. So, without further ado, I'll make a brief presentation of the chapters that will enlighten your path to fast, easy and breathtaking presentations of your projects:

Chapter 1 – Quick Start Tutorial

This chapter is a fast forward for those impatient to get to the realistic sketchup scenes. Here you'll find out how to model the scene, fix the lights, add textures, background, and make a quick render in Kerkythea.

Chapter 2 – Plug in and Gear Up

You will find that with a couple of free plugins and some other software you can turn SketchUp into a fully functional 3D modeling, visualization and animation suite similar to . let's say 3D Max!!! (well the truth is this part made my jaw drop)

Chapter 3 – Composing the scene (free sample available)

This chapter will teach you how to make modeling a less hard work by setting your scene prior to starting work. Here you'll use CAD plans, site images or even Google Earth to build the optimized scene for quick rendering or animation. (I know you will love this part of the book, so I got a sample of this chapter from the publisher for you guys – See it Here)

Chapter 4 – Modelling for Visualization

The pro modeling methods you can learn here will save you both the time, and the hassle of working with large polygon counts that can slow down your PC considerably, and at the same time will show you how to make those photo real renderings we all love in a blink of an eye.

Chapter 5 – Applying Textures and Materials for Photo-Real Rendering

Since the world evolved really fast lately, we have at our disposal a lot of free online image resources, professional digital cameras, and so a really effective way of bringing the "model" to life. The tutorials you'll discover in this chapter will show you some unique photo and material handling tools to create surreal, mega easily textured scenes.

Chapter 6 – Entourage the SketchUp Way

Now you have a scene, with modeled buildings and applied textures, and the next step you wanna take is to make it shine with some Entourage, like cars, furniture, and of course trees and bushes and other nice things. In this chapter you'll learn how to find the best libraries, and also to create your own (that you can give to others, for FREE or CASH).

Chapter 7 – Non Photo Real with SketchUp

Some other free software that you will learn how to use is GIMP, a powerful photo editing photo suite, that can simulate sketchy pencil and watercolor styles. And yeah, almost forgot about this, you will learn the AWESOME "Dennis Technique".

Chapter 8 – Photo-realistic rendering

Some in depth presentation and step by step introduction into Kerkythea, the amazing free rendering software, with proven best settings for test renders and final outdoor and indoor scenes. This chapter amazed me, because it covers everything you need to know about getting professional photo-realistic renders out of a simple SketchUp model.

Chapter 9 – Important Compositing and After Effects in GIMP

We all know that the rendering process isn't the end of the line, because there's lots of subtle but important after effects you can apply to make the image even more effective. This particular chapter covers how to add reflections without rendering, creating depth of field effects from a depth render, adjusting levels for realistic daylight scenes, compositing real and rendered images.

Chapter 10 – Walkthroughs and Flyovers

Here you will find tutorials that will show you how to create storyboards, set up cameras and paths in SketchUp with extra plugin functionality, export test animations and final renders. Photo real animations are then composited to make a simple showreel.

Chapter 11 – Presenting Visuals in LayOut

This final chapter I really enjoyed since I like to play with layouts. The layout module is bundled as part of SketchUp Pro and is introduced in this final chapter for those who wish to explore the free trial before committing to Pro. You will learn how to bring together SketchUp models and artistic or rendered output into a screen presentation or printed portfolio, adding borders, text and dimensions.

I'm an architect, and I've worked with paid software before, but I gotta tell you, the free applications are most of the time way better than the paid ones, for the simple fact that they're made by passionate people who upgrade and tweak things all the time. If you want to learn how to use free software that delivers results time after time, please check out this book. I guarantee you won't throw your money away; the price for this book is way too low for the knowledge it shares and the results you can achieve.

You can purchase SketchUp 7.1 for Architectural Visualization: Beginner's Guide from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Peter Wayner looks beyond the codec and plug-in wars to examine nine areas where HTML5 will have a significant impact on Web development. From enabling more interactive graphics, to tapping local file storage, to geolocation, HTML5 is rife with rich capabilities — and may even improve our ability to secure applications delivered via the Web, Wayner writes. But the most important impact of HTML5 will be its ability to simplify Web development itself: 'HTML5 offers one language (JavaScript), one data model (XML and DOM), and one set of layout rules (CSS) to bind text, audio, video, and graphics. The challenge of making something beautiful is still immense, but it's simpler to work with a unified standard.'"

On the heels of Apple's intention to collect and sell detailed location data comes word that Juniper is putting together technology that will allow any ISP to present you to advertisers by your Zip+4. An anonymous reader sends this snip from Wired: "Your Internet service provider knows where you live, and soon, it will have a way to sell your zip code to advertisers so they can target ads by neighborhood. If your local pizza joint wants to find you, they will have a new way to do that. National advertisers will be able to market directly to neighborhoods with like characteristics across the whole country using demographic data they've been gathering for decades. ... Juniper Networks, which sells routers to ISPs, plans to start selling them add-on technology from digital marketer Feeva that affixes a tag inside the HTTP header, consisting of each user's 'zip+4' — a nine-digit zipcode that offers more accuracy than five-digit codes. Juniper hopes to sell the software to ISPs starting this summer, having announced a partnership with Feeva earlier this year."

Nintendo has tried to block homebrew during firmware updates in the past, often unsuccessfully. Now, as it rolls out version 4.3 of the Wii System Menu, stopping homebrew modifications once again seems to be its primary goal. From Nintendo's support site: "Because unauthorized channels or firmware may impair game play or the Wii console, updating to Wii Menu version 4.3 will check for and automatically remove such unauthorized files." Since it's hard to bill that as an upgrade, they vaguely add, "In addition, there are some behind the scenes enhancements that do not affect any prominently-used features or menus but will improve system performance."

Nintendo has tried to block homebrew during firmware updates in the past, often unsuccessfully. Now, as it rolls out version 4.3 of the Wii System Menu, stopping homebrew modifications once again seems to be its primary goal. From Nintendo's support site: "Because unauthorized channels or firmware may impair game play or the Wii console, updating to Wii Menu version 4.3 will check for and automatically remove such unauthorized files." Since it's hard to bill that as an upgrade, they vaguely add, "In addition, there are some behind the scenes enhancements that do not affect any prominently-used features or menus but will improve system performance."

Stoobalou writes "UK game developers have just been dealt a financial blow by Chancellor George Osborne in his first budget, which sees the coalition government scrapping the video game tax relief plans promised by Labour. In his speech today, Osborne simply said the 'planned tax relief for the video games industry will be cancelled.' According to the government's budget report, the cancellation of video game tax relief will save the government £40 million in the 2011-2012 financial year, and a further £50 million in each subsequent year."

An anonymous reader writes "After the demise of Loki Software, Linux Game Publishing sprouted up in its place, and for the past nine years has ported a number of games to Linux. But LGP may now be sharing the same fate as Loki. Linux Game Publishing hasn't updated its blog or news pages in months, has stopped responding to e-mails, and its only active ports are games they began work on in 2002/2003."

GovTechGuy writes "On Tuesday the White House made a show of rolling out an expansive new strategy to combat online piracy and counterfeit goods, to the delight of industry groups. The plan emphasizes targeting foreign websites that host pirated software and movies and increasing the number of investigations and prosecutions by the FBI, FTC, and Justice Department. Here is the complete plan, introduced by the new 'copyright czar,' Victoria Espinel."

CWmike writes "With Monday's iOS 4 upgrade, Apple patched a record 65 vulnerabilities in the iPhone, more than half of them critical. However, the first-generation iPhone and iPod Touch, as well as the much newer iPad, may have been left vulnerable to some or all of the 65 bugs. iOS 4 cannot be installed on 2007's iPhone and iPod Touch, and the upgrade is not slated to reach iPad owners until this fall. The bug count is a record for the iPhone, surpassing the previous high mark of 46 vulnerabilities patched last summer with iPhone OS 3.0. Formerly known as iPhone OS 4, iOS 4 included 35 bugs, or 54% of the total, that were tagged with the phrase 'arbitrary code execution.' It's unclear how many, if any, of the vulnerabilities affect Apple's iPad. The media tablet runs an interim version of the operating system, dubbed iPhone 3.2, that followed the February iPhone 3.1.3 security update. It's possible that some of the bugs patched Monday were fixed by Apple before it launched the iPad in early April. But according to the Common Vulnerabilities & Exposures database, it's likely that many of the flaws fixed on Monday still exist in 3.2."

eldavojohn writes "For those under eighteen who play video games in China, life just got a little harder. Not only is gold farming illegal, but starting August 1, virtual currency platform makers are expected to put in safeties that prohibit underage players from using virtual currencies — because doing such a thing might promote 'unwholesome' behavior. The new regulations explicitly 'forbid content advocating pornography, cults, superstitions, gambling, and violence in all online games.' The business papers are picking it up as a number of stocks from companies like Tencent Holdings — which is heavily based in virtual currency in China — fell about 5%, though the company said that the ban on minors will not affect it."

eldavojohn writes "Media darling Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, has been told by his lawyers to avoid the United States on the grounds that the US military would like to ask him a few questions about his source of the Collateral Murder video. Assange claims to be holding yet more video (of a US attack on a village that allegedly killed 140 civilians in May of 2009), as well as a quarter million sensitive cables relating to the current foreign war operations from the US State Department. Assange surfaced for the cameras in Brussels while speaking about the need for the freedom of information. Can he build a high enough profile to protect himself from danger?"

eldavojohn writes "Media darling Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, has been told by his lawyers to avoid the United States on the grounds that the US military would like to ask him a few questions about his source of the Collateral Murder video. Assange claims to be holding yet more video (of a US attack on a village that allegedly killed 140 civilians in May of 2009), as well as a quarter million sensitive cables relating to the current foreign war operations from the US State Department. Assange surfaced for the cameras in Brussels while speaking about the need for the freedom of information. Can he build a high enough profile to protect himself from danger?"

Farhood sends in this snip from the LA Times: "In an updated version of its privacy policy, the company added a paragraph noting that once users agree, Apple and unspecified 'partners and licensees' may collect and store user location data. When users attempt to download apps or media from the iTunes store, they are prompted to agree to the new terms and conditions. Until they agree, they cannot download anything through the store. The company says the data is anonymous and does not personally identify users. Analysts have shown, however, that large, specific data sets can be used to identify people based on behavior patterns." Mashable and The Consumerist have picked up on this collection and sharing of "precise location data, including the real-time geographic location of your Apple computer or device."

An anonymous reader in the UK writes "Over the past several weeks we've discussed the rolling out of Google SSL search. Now an obstacle to the rollout has arisen, much to the frustration of school students and teachers alike. Content filter vendors have decided to block all Google SSL traffic — which also blocks access to Google Apps for Education. Google is working to appease these vendors. The questions at the heart of this situation are: Does a company (school, government) have a right to restrict SSL traffic so it can snoop your data, or does an individual have a right to encrypted Internet facilities? And, is the search data you create your data, or is it your employer's (school's)? IANAL but blocking SSL search seems at odds with the UK Data Protection Act, because some local governments here may be using the very same filtering service for their employees. It would also seem to go against the spirit of FIPS in the US (though I appreciate that federal standards are separate from schools in the States)."

CWmike writes "As many as 30 states could join an investigation into Google's collection of personal information from unprotected wireless networks, Connecticut attorney general Richard Blumenthal announced today. Google's response was similar to what it said earlier this month: 'It was a mistake for us to include code in our software that collected payload data, but we believe we didn't break any US laws. We're working with the relevant authorities to answer their questions and concerns.' Google already faces investigations by privacy authorities in several European countries, including the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Spain and Italy. In the US, Google faces multiple civil lawsuits, and the company has been asked for more information from several congressmen as a preliminary step to a legislative hearing. Google has asked that the lawsuits be consolidated and moved to a California federal court's jurisdiction."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "There has been another odd development in the Jammie Thomas-Rassett case. You may recall that after the judge reduced the RIAA's verdict from $1.92 million to $54,000 on the grounds that $54,000 was the maximum amount a jury could reasonably award, the RIAA opted for a third trial instead of allowing judgment to be entered. Its reasoning in making that call has never been clear, since there seemed little point in spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a trial which could produce no more than a judgment for $54,000 or less. Apparently the court thinks taxpayers' money could be better spent, and has appointed a 'Special Master' to bring about 'meaningful settlement discussions,' with the Master's $400-per-hour fee to be paid by the RIAA. One commentator suggests the RIAA should at this juncture just say, 'Thanks Jammie, we've had all we can get out of you and caused you enough grief — pay us $1 and we'll forget about it.' Actually doing that would be a lot less costly and more reasonable that what they appear to have in mind."

eldavojohn writes "Three pilot projects have been completed for the 1000 Genomes Project and as a result, the pilot data has been released. This makes the data of nearly 700 people available for analysis via FTP (Americas mirror, European mirror). Dr. Eric D. Green of the National Human Genome Research Institute said, 'The 1000 Genomes project has a simple goal: peer more deeply into the genetic variations of the human genome to understand the genetic contribution to common human diseases. I am excited about the progress being made on this resource for use by scientists around the world and look forward to seeing what we learn from the next stage of the project.' There's not a whole lot of information on their site about this data, but the repositories have many readme files explaining the data layout."

terrywallwork writes "A few days ago I received an email from Packt Publishing informing me of their new Blender 2.49 Scripting book. I was very interested in reading this book as there are very few Blender books that cover the scripting aspect of Blender 2.49 and Python. So I navigated my way to the packt publishing website and ordered myself the ebook version. They were having a special at the time and I ended up getting a full color ebook for less than £9. If nothing else the price is extremely impressive." Read on for the rest of terrywallwork's review. Blender 2.49 Scripting author Michel J. Anders pages 292 publisher Packt Publishing rating 7.5/10 reviewer terrywallwork ISBN 1849510407 summary This book is for users comfortable with Blender as a modeling and rendering tool who want to expand their skills to include Blender scripting The author is Michel Anders, known as varkenvarken on Blender Artists forum. He is an extremely talented Blender Python scripter and has written many very useful scripts for Blender. Knowing who is behind this book explains a lot about the way this books is constructed.

The teaching approach taken, is to present a series of tasks that need to be achieved and then present sections of scripts that demonstrate the most important concepts and Blender Python code, to allow the tasks to be carried out.

At the beginning of the book a basic explanation of some of the terms and concepts are gone over and a few very simple Blender python commands are demonstrated to do the equivalent of a Blender Hello World script. This beginning part of the book is the only part that really can be classed as beginner level, everything after this has a much steeper learning curve.

Many of the scripts written by Michel are very technically advanced scripts, the same also holds true for this book. Most of the scripts and techniques described within require a very good level of understanding. I debated with myself as to weather it is an Intermediate/Advanced level book, but one thing is certain, if you are a beginning Blender user and your Python knowledge is beginner level, you will struggle to get much from Michel's latest work. I think that to get anything out of this material a very good understanding of Python, Blender and Mathematics (especially vector math and 3D related mathematics) will be required.

Assuming you have the requisite knowledge all the bases of using Blender through Python scripting are covered, for example, setting up materials, ipo manipulation, texture setting, texture nodes and so on. But again very simple things are not covered. To me it seems that it is assumed that you will just read the Blender Python API docs for the very simple things such as how to do rotations and scaling on objects, deleting and adding vertices, etc. You will have to be prepared to get a lot of information from the scripts supplied rather than be spoon fed information.

So if you are very knowledgeable with Blender and Python you will likely find that this book is very handy as it covers ways of scripting and leveraging Blender Python scripting to do some very clever things. I do think it would have been very helpful to have a less steep learning curve but that's a matter of my personal taste.

I am not a Python expert and so this has probably affected my ability to properly appreciate this book, that said I can see that a lot of time and effort has gone into putting this book together, especially given thw fact the Python scripting books for Blender are so few and far between.

It probably hasn't escape most Blender users notice that Blender 2.5 is now currently in Alpha state and it uses completely different scripting model, so stuff learned in this book unfortunately won't transfer to Blender 2.5, as it uses Python 3 and has a completely different API structure.

This book would of been much more relevant if it have been released a year or 2 earlier. Still if you're used Blender 2.49 and need an advanced Blender scripting book, you now have one to read.

I really hope Michel does a Blender 2.6 version when it comes out, and maybe makes it slightly more targeted at beginners and experts, so my head doesn't hurt quite so much.

You can purchase Blender 2.49 Scripting from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

terrywallwork writes "A few days ago I received an email from Packt Publishing informing me of their new Blender 2.49 Scripting book. I was very interested in reading this book as there are very few Blender books that cover the scripting aspect of Blender 2.49 and Python. So I navigated my way to the packt publishing website and ordered myself the ebook version. They were having a special at the time and I ended up getting a full color ebook for less than £9. If nothing else the price is extremely impressive." Read on for the rest of terrywallwork's review. Blender 2.49 Scripting author Michel J. Anders pages 292 publisher Packt Publishing rating 7.5/10 reviewer terrywallwork ISBN 1849510407 summary This book is for users comfortable with Blender as a modeling and rendering tool who want to expand their skills to include Blender scripting The author is Michel Anders, known as varkenvarken on Blender Artists forum. He is an extremely talented Blender Python scripter and has written many very useful scripts for Blender. Knowing who is behind this book explains a lot about the way this books is constructed.

The teaching approach taken, is to present a series of tasks that need to be achieved and then present sections of scripts that demonstrate the most important concepts and Blender Python code, to allow the tasks to be carried out.

At the beginning of the book a basic explanation of some of the terms and concepts are gone over and a few very simple Blender python commands are demonstrated to do the equivalent of a Blender Hello World script. This beginning part of the book is the only part that really can be classed as beginner level, everything after this has a much steeper learning curve.

Many of the scripts written by Michel are very technically advanced scripts, the same also holds true for this book. Most of the scripts and techniques described within require a very good level of understanding. I debated with myself as to weather it is an Intermediate/Advanced level book, but one thing is certain, if you are a beginning Blender user and your Python knowledge is beginner level, you will struggle to get much from Michel's latest work. I think that to get anything out of this material a very good understanding of Python, Blender and Mathematics (especially vector math and 3D related mathematics) will be required.

Assuming you have the requisite knowledge all the bases of using Blender through Python scripting are covered, for example, setting up materials, ipo manipulation, texture setting, texture nodes and so on. But again very simple things are not covered. To me it seems that it is assumed that you will just read the Blender Python API docs for the very simple things such as how to do rotations and scaling on objects, deleting and adding vertices, etc. You will have to be prepared to get a lot of information from the scripts supplied rather than be spoon fed information.

So if you are very knowledgeable with Blender and Python you will likely find that this book is very handy as it covers ways of scripting and leveraging Blender Python scripting to do some very clever things. I do think it would have been very helpful to have a less steep learning curve but that's a matter of my personal taste.

I am not a Python expert and so this has probably affected my ability to properly appreciate this book, that said I can see that a lot of time and effort has gone into putting this book together, especially given thw fact the Python scripting books for Blender are so few and far between.

It probably hasn't escape most Blender users notice that Blender 2.5 is now currently in Alpha state and it uses completely different scripting model, so stuff learned in this book unfortunately won't transfer to Blender 2.5, as it uses Python 3 and has a completely different API structure.

This book would of been much more relevant if it have been released a year or 2 earlier. Still if you're used Blender 2.49 and need an advanced Blender scripting book, you now have one to read.

I really hope Michel does a Blender 2.6 version when it comes out, and maybe makes it slightly more targeted at beginners and experts, so my head doesn't hurt quite so much.

You can purchase Blender 2.49 Scripting from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

A few days ago we noted how Ukraine is driving out its software freelancers with the threat of onerous taxation. Now comes news that another former Soviet republic, Georgia, will become a tax-free zone for IT companies. It might be the Google translation, but it seems that officials there are somewhat worried about how to categorize the IT segment: "[T]he main difficulty ... is to determine which organization is the IT company, and what is not: 'While from a formal point of view it is impossible to distinguish between software developers from the oil.'"

FyreWyr writes "In 2008 we discussed Swype, which allows a mobile (phone, e.g.) user to draw a path over a virtual keyboard to enter words, rather than requiring precise tapping to accomplish the input. Using this software, a Swype intern (Franklin Page) beat the Guinness record by about 6 WPM for the Guinness-standard phrase: The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human. (Unfortunately the video at that link is marked private.) TechCrunch reports that Swype is presently in open beta, and will be available for 'a couple of days,' supporting English, Spanish, and Italian entry. Finally, while the deadline has apparently passed, I was able to retrieve the Android beta for testing a few minutes ago. I'm posting it here for the benefit of Android-enabled Slashdot readers."

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Motherboard.tv: "As debate over the future of spaceflight rages on — and as the axe all but falls on NASA's mission back to the moon and beyond — the successful launch of SpaceX's Falcon 9 two weeks ago proved at least one of the virtues of the private option: it's a heckuva lot cheaper than government-funded rides to space. In fact, the whole system was built for less than the cost of the service tower that was to be used for NASA's proposed future spaceflight vehicle (yup, the service tower is finished, but the rocket isn't, and the whole program may well be canceled anyway)." CEO Elon Musk spoke recently about some of the ways SpaceX finds to cut costs in the construction of their rockets.

BusinessWeek reports that Verizon may be preparing to follow AT&T's example by eliminating unlimited data plans later this year. Quoting: "'We will probably need to change the design of our pricing where it will not be totally unlimited, flat rate,' John Killian, chief financial officer of Verizon Communications Inc., the wireless unit’s parent, said in an interview at Bloomberg’s headquarters in New York today. The company anticipates 'explosions in data traffic' over wireless networks as new phones on 4G networks incorporate data-heavy applications, such as video downloads, he said. Verizon is working to keep its network running smoothly as more of its customers switch to smartphones that connect to the Internet. ... 'The more bandwidth that you make available, the faster it will be consumed,' said Craig Moffett, analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. in New York. 'From Verizon’s perspective, the last thing you want is for another generation of consumers to be conditioned to the idea that data is always going to be uncapped.'"

m94mni writes "The European Parliament wants to monitor your Internet searches for child porn offenders, as previously reported. The declaration was adopted yesterday, and in an interview with the Swedish news outlet Europaportalen.se, the Italian MEP behind the declaration, Tiziano Motti, shares his views on the Internet and anonymity. In essence, Motti wants to completely eliminate anonymity on the Internet. 'Each upload of text, images, or video clips must be traceable by the authorities', says Motti. This is in line with the secretive UN initiative Q6/17, revealed two years ago." The doublespeak here seems to go beyond the imprecision of automated translation.

An anonymous reader writes "Last week, news that Costa Rica was shutting down a large stem cell clinic sparked a debate here on Slashdot about whether patients should be allowed to take the risks that come with untested treatments. Now comes news of what can happen when patients go looking for a shortcut. A patient suffering from an autoimmune disease that was destroying her kidneys went to a Bangkok clinic, where doctors injected her own adult stem cells into her kidneys. Now she's dead, and a postmortem revealed that the sites of injection had weird growths — 'tangled mixtures of blood vessels and bone marrow cells.' Researchers say the treatment almost certainly killed her."

Binary Boy writes "Bradley Manning, the US Army private arrested recently by the Pentagon for providing classified documents — including the widely seen Apache helicopter video — may have been duped by wannabe hacker Adrian Lamo, according to Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com. Lamo told Manning he could provide protection under both journalist shield laws, and the clergy-lay confidentiality tradition, and instead immediately turned him in to authorities in an act of apparent shameless self-promotion." The article also goes into Wired's role in the whole situation, the strange, sometimes sensationalist media coverage, and the odd similarity between this case and proposed scenarios in a US Intelligence report from earlier this year aimed at undermining Wikileaks.

Binary Boy writes "Bradley Manning, the US Army private arrested recently by the Pentagon for providing classified documents — including the widely seen Apache helicopter video — may have been duped by wannabe hacker Adrian Lamo, according to Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com. Lamo told Manning he could provide protection under both journalist shield laws, and the clergy-lay confidentiality tradition, and instead immediately turned him in to authorities in an act of apparent shameless self-promotion." The article also goes into Wired's role in the whole situation, the strange, sometimes sensationalist media coverage, and the odd similarity between this case and proposed scenarios in a US Intelligence report from earlier this year aimed at undermining Wikileaks.

Binary Boy writes "Bradley Manning, the US Army private arrested recently by the Pentagon for providing classified documents — including the widely seen Apache helicopter video — may have been duped by wannabe hacker Adrian Lamo, according to Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com. Lamo told Manning he could provide protection under both journalist shield laws, and the clergy-lay confidentiality tradition, and instead immediately turned him in to authorities in an act of apparent shameless self-promotion." The article also goes into Wired's role in the whole situation, the strange, sometimes sensationalist media coverage, and the odd similarity between this case and proposed scenarios in a US Intelligence report from earlier this year aimed at undermining Wikileaks.

Gooseygoose writes "The Pentagon revealed recently that Afghanistan has as much as $1 trillion in mineral wealth, a potential game changer in the ongoing conflict there. Many news outlets have picked up this story, some simply repeating the official talking points, while others raise serious concerns. Is this 'discovery' just hype, or will it truly alter the landscape of the Afghan war? Perhaps more importantly, can this mineral wealth (whether real or illusory) pave the way to a peaceful and prosperous Afghanistan, or is it more likely to drive geopolitical feedback loops that plunge the region further into turmoil?" Relatedly, Marc Ambinder wrote a few days ago in the Atlantic that the US had knowledge of vast mineral deposits in Afghanistan several years ago, giving the recent announcement the appearance of a PR campaign.

snydeq writes "The French National Commission on Computing and Liberty has found passwords and email messages among the Street View Wi-Fi data Google intercepted, InfoWorld reports. The data protection authority has been investigating Google's recording of traffic carried over unencrypted Wi-Fi networks. Google has said it collected only 'fragments' of personal web traffic as it passed by because its Wi-Fi equipment automatically changes channels five times a second. With Wi-Fi networks operating at up to 54Mbps, however, those 'fragments' may have been more than that. 'We can already state that [...] Google did indeed record email access passwords [and] extracts of the content of email messages,' CNIL said."

religious freak writes "IBM has created and made the question answering algorithm, Watson, available online. Watson has competed in and won a majority of (mock) matches against humans in Jeopardy. Watson does not connect to the Internet to answer his questions, but rather seeks answers using many different algorithms then employs a ranking algorithm to choose the best answer." We mentioned Watson last year as well.

religious freak writes "IBM has created and made the question answering algorithm, Watson, available online. Watson has competed in and won a majority of (mock) matches against humans in Jeopardy. Watson does not connect to the Internet to answer his questions, but rather seeks answers using many different algorithms then employs a ranking algorithm to choose the best answer." We mentioned Watson last year as well.

betterunixthanunix writes "Another lawsuit has been filed against LimeWire, this time by the National Music Publishers Association. They claim that LimeWire also damaged them, and seek $150,000 per infringement, putting the maximum possible damages in the hundreds of millions of dollars. LimeWire seems to have become the latest music industry punching bag. 'David Israelite, chief executive of the publishers' association, said his organization had decided to bring the complaint because most publishers were not represented in the record company lawsuit and they were now confident that they had a winning case. ... LimeWire, which says it is trying to start a new paid subscription model, said in a statement on Wednesday that it welcomed the publishers to the table. '"

FleaPlus writes "Following up on the successful first launch of their Falcon 9 rocket, SpaceX has signed a $492M deal for launching several dozen satellites for the Iridium NEXT constellation, the biggest commercial launch deal ever (teleconference notes). This is a needed boost for the US launch industry, which has dwindled to a fraction of the international market due to problematic ITAR arms regulations and high costs. SpaceX's next launch is scheduled for later this summer, carrying the first full version of the Dragon reusable capsule, which will run tests in orbit and then splash down off the California coast."

Rumors of a Fallout MMO have been swirling for years, made all the more credible by hints from the legal battle between Bethesda and Interplay over licensing for the franchise. Now, Interplay has quietly created a teaser website for Fallout Online, offering beta sign-ups. Quoting Massively: "Currently, there isn't much there, just a brief glimpse at a workshop desk with various Fallout references to the Master, Brahmin, and Nuka-Cola before a form obscures the screen. ... It looks legit, too: Interplay is promoting Fallout Online from their main website, and the new teaser site is indeed registered to Interplay Entertainment Corp."

eldavojohn writes "The proposed rules shielding journalists harbored in Iceland are now official. It appears that sites like Wikileaks and Cryptome could have a friendlier home base. For those familiar with the Icelandic tongue, the voting results and legalese. Some of the details can be found at www.immi.is."