Slashdot Mirror

An anonymous reader writes "The Missouri State Teachers Association (MSTA) has managed to secure another win in its battle against a new law regarding social networking with students. A repeal of the recently passed law has unanimously passed the Missouri state Senate."

An anonymous reader writes "Facebook may be testing a translation feature that could overcome the language barrier many users experience on the social network. If a comment posted on a Page is in a language that is different than the one your Facebook account is set to, a Translate button may show up just below it beside the existing Like button. Clicking on the button will translate the comment to your account language. After translation, an Original button appears instead, and if you click that it will revert the comment to the original version (and presumably offer the Translation button again)."

With his first accepted Slashdot submission, Zandamesh sends this excerpt from ZDNet: "On earth, nuclear reactors are under attack because of concerns over damage caused by natural disasters. In space, however, nuclear technology may get a new lease on life. Plans for the first nuclear power plant for the production of electricity to be used by manned or unmanned bases on the Moon, Mars and other planets have been unveiled at the 242nd National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society. 'The reactor itself may be about 1 ½ feet wide by 2 ½ feet high, about the size of a carry-on suitcase. There are no cooling towers. ... The team is scheduled to build a technology demonstration unit in 2012."

An anonymous reader writes "Following the announcement about its major privacy revamp this week, Facebook has announced it is killing two of its products. The company has axed Facebook Places, although it is still adding new location features at the same time. In addition, the social network has has axed Facebook Deals, although Check-in Deals will still be available."

An anonymous reader writes "Following the announcement about its major privacy revamp this week, Facebook has announced it is killing two of its products. The company has axed Facebook Places, although it is still adding new location features at the same time. In addition, the social network has has axed Facebook Deals, although Check-in Deals will still be available."

An anonymous reader writes "Ticketmaster has added Facebook integration to its interactive seat maps. The new feature allows you to share your live event plans by tagging yourself into your seat, and thus allowing your Facebook friends to see where you are sitting. If you have already purchased tickets for an event, you can also tag yourself at a later date."

An anonymous reader writes "State Governor Jay Nixon recently signed Senate Bill 54, making it illegal for students and teachers to be friends online as of later this month. Now, a Missouri teachers group is fighting the state's new law that prohibits them from being Facebook friends with their students by filing a lawsuit. From the article: 'The Missouri State Teachers Association (MSTA) filed a lawsuit on Friday, challenging a new law. MSTA is specifically asking the Circuit Court of Cole County to determine the constitutionality of the law’s social media portion.'"

An anonymous reader writes "In addition to the 12 arrests from last week, a judge has sentenced 20-year-old Jordan Blackshaw and 22-year-old Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan to four years in prison for their failed attempts to use Facebook to incite riots in the UK. The judge said he hoped the sentences would act as a deterrent. The two men were convicted for using Facebook to encourage violent disorder in their hometowns in northwest England."

An anonymous reader writes "Last week, Facebook said it found the original 'authentic contract' between Mark Zuckerberg and Paul Ceglia, a man who claims he owns half of the company according to a 2003 contract. Now, Ceglia says the original 'authentic contract' Facebook claims to have found is really just a Photoshopped image the company planted on his computer."

An anonymous reader writes "Yahoo has partnered with Facebook to test the iconic social experiment known as 'six degrees of separation' (everyone is on average approximately six steps away from any other person on Earth). The goal of the Small World Experiment is to determine the social path length between two strangers by tapping into the world's largest social network and its 750 million users, each of whom have an average of 130 friends." Looks like a fun project, but not quite as useful as knowing how close you are to Kevin Bacon.

An anonymous reader writes "The Egyptian Military Prosecution has charged 26-year-old activist and blogger Asmaa Mahfouz for allegedly defaming the country's ruling generals and calling for armed operations against the military and the judiciary. Mahfouz, a prominent activist, was accused of using Facebook to call for the assassinations of Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) members and certain judges."

An anonymous reader writes "Scotland Yard vowed to track down and arrest protesters who posted 'really inflammatory, inaccurate' messages on Facebook, but it didn't stop at just two people. While two teenagers were arrested earlier this week in connection with messages posted on Facebook allegedly encouraging people to start rioting, 10 more have now joined them."

An anonymous reader writes "Scotland Yard vowed to track down and arrest protesters who posted 'really inflammatory, inaccurate' messages on Facebook, but it didn't stop at just two people. While two teenagers were arrested earlier this week in connection with messages posted on Facebook allegedly encouraging people to start rioting, 10 more have now joined them."

An anonymous reader writes "Facebook has added a new type of story to its News Feed today: if more than one of your friends post about the same topic, and it has a Page on the social network, the posts will be grouped under a Posted About story, even if your friends don't explicitly tag the Page. It turns out Facebook is using natural language processing on status updates as well as the headlines of posted links to figure out if a topic mentioned has a corresponding Page, and then searches to see if your other friends have done so as well."

An anonymous reader writes "Facebook says it has found the proof that shows Paul Ceglia, a man that claims he owns half of the company over a 2003 contract, is a fraud. Facebook says it has found the original 'authentic contract' between Zuckerberg and Ceglia."

mikejuk writes "Programmers have had to put up with Microsoft dithering over Office development for a long while. The macro language VBA has been on its way out ever since .NET was introduced and yet it is still the only macro language available. Now it looks as if Microsoft plan to put JavaScript and HTML5 into Office 15. And how do we know this? By reading job ads to discover what projects Microsoft is hiring for."

An anonymous reader writes "Teachers can be friendly with their students, but they can't be their friends, at least when it comes to social networks such as Facebook. State Governor Jay Nixon has signed Senate Bill 54, which goes into effect on August 28, 2011 in the state of Missouri. In other words, later this month it will be illegal for students and teachers to be friends online."

sfcrazy writes "Now, Microsoft is coining yet another term to further confuse users — 'Open Surface.' Senior Director for Open Source Communities at Microsoft, Gianugo Rabellino, said at Oscon 2011 that customers don't care about the underlying platform as long as the APIs, protocols and standards for the cloud are open. That's when he threw the term 'open surface.'" This seems to have more than a grain of truth to it — after all, programmers have been creating open-source software with closed-source programming languages for many years, and I'm certainly more impressed by Google's willingness to let me export my data than I am turned off by the fact that they use a mix of open and closed source software to run the Google circus.

An anonymous reader writes "ZDNet writes: 'If you believe Oracle's patent lawsuits against Google for its use of Java in Android, Google has stolen not just patented ideas but directly copied Java code. In short, Google is a red-handed thief and should pay Oracle over a billion in damages. There's just one little problem with this portrayal of Google as an intellectual property (IP) bandit. When Android first came out, Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz, then Java's owner, greeted the news with 'heartfelt congratulations.' Whoops.'"

ideonexus writes "Reports of Google+ deleting user accounts are all over, including Limor Fried — AKA Lady Ada / Adafruit Industries (recently featured in Wired Magazine) and former Google employee Kirrily 'Skud' Robert for violating Google's identity ToS. Other users are finding themselves locked out of their accounts without an explanation of how they violated the ToS. The worst part for these individuals is that a lock-out of Google+ includes being locked out of all Google services, including email, calendar, and documents."

theodp writes "ZDNet reports that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's office issued a fact sheet during her visit to India confirming that the U.S. and India will be working together to develop an open source version of the Data.gov project, which was launched in 2009 by off-to-Harvard Federal CIO Vivek Kundra to serve as a central repository of data collected by the US government. The Hindu Business Line notes that Clinton was also pressed to exempt Indian techies in the States on H-1B or L1 visas from U.S. social security taxes, an exemption that, if granted, could reportedly result in savings of at least a billion dollars for the country's software industry."

An anonymous reader submitted a story about Start G+, a really sweet Chrome plug-in that I've been using for several days to blend Facebook and Twitter into my Google+ Page. It's worth a look. It's a bit buggy, but if it lets you close a tab or two, it's worth it. FTA: "Computer programmer Zane Claes has created Start G+, a Google Chrome extension that adds useful features to the Google+ social network. It lets you easily import your photos from Facebook, as well as post to Facebook and Twitter within Google+. In short, it's designed to make the process of transitioning from Facebook to Google+ as smooth as possible."

Several readers submitted stories about Google+ today. CWMike writes in with an article about the lack of developer APIs from Computerworld "Currently, external developers don't have any Google+ APIs or tools to tinker with. A Google spokeswoman said, 'We definitely plan to involve developers and publishers in the Google+ project, but we don't have specific details to share just yet. Please stay tuned.' The spokeswoman declined to say specifically if Google+ will be compatible with the company's OpenSocial set of common APIs for social networking applications." Anita Khanna writes "Facebook is trying real hard to block users migrating to google+. Although the recently announced Google+ social platform is still in private beta, it has generated enough excitement to have Facebook making some preemptive measures. Shortly after the announcement, Facebook made a peculiar change to their TOS that resulted in the ban of popular Chrome extension Facebook Friend Exporter. Over the weekend, another personal data migration tool, Open-Xchange, has also been deactivated." Finally, an anonymous reader notes that Google is requiring real names for profiles, and may have already suspended some users for using aliases.

ndogg writes "The open source Python projects Pantyshot and Upskirt have caused quite a stir within the Python community, and catalyzed the leaving of one of their developers (a woman whose native language is not English.) The original developer, Frank Smit, has renamed Pantyshot to Misaka, but that too has suspect etymology, as Violet Blue points out."

An anonymous reader writes "Wild Facebook parties tend to occur when a Facebook Event invitation to a typical small gathering is mistakenly posted publicly, and then goes viral. This results in injuries and arrests as hundreds or even thousands show up for a party meant for a handful of people. A recent wave of these out-of-control Facebook parties has left German officials and politicians trying to figure how to deal with the trend."

An anonymous reader writes "As rumored and anticipated, Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg today announced video calling, powered by Skype. The company also revealed other chat improvements, including an option to see the friends you message most and group chat, and confirmed that it now has 750 million users."

littlekorea writes "The online music services of Apple and Google are likely to be challenged by a Sydney-based company that has been granted three new patents around file hashing and deduplication. The patents are being managed by Kevin Bermeister, of Altnet/Kazaa fame, who believes that the technology behind P2P music services has been commercialized by the music industry without license." In semi-related patent troll news, Google is being sued over using interactive panoramic images in Streetview. Because QuickTime VR didn't exist years before the patent was filed.

itwbennett writes "Last week, Microsoft warned that under the Patriot Act the company may be compelled to hand over European customers' data on its new cloud service to U.S. authorities — and also to keep the data transfer secret. This, of course, runs counter to the European Data Protection Directive, which states that organizations must inform users when they disclose personal information. 'Microsoft can already transfer E.U. data to the U.S. under the Safe Harbor agreement. But legal experts have warned that this agreement is hardly worth the paper it's written on,' writes IDG News Service's Jennifer Baker. 'There are seven principles of Safe Harbor, including reasonable data security, and clearly defined and effective enforcement. However all this is nullified if the Patriot Act is invoked.'"

An anonymous reader writes "Facebook has blocked access to Friend Exporter, a Google Chrome application that helps users import their Facebook contacts into Google's new social network — Google Plus. " Meanwhile, reader dkd903 points out that Google has been busy removing Twitter from real time search, due to a contract expiry with Twitter."

An anonymous reader writes "Over the weekend, Hulu rolled out Facebook Connect integration. Almost immediately after launch, Hulu had to pull the feature as the company discovered a technical issue affecting a limited number of users. More specifically, some users weren't seeing their own Hulu account information upon login, but someone else's."

ISoldat53 writes "Gordon Frazer, managing director of Microsoft UK said that the Patriot Act allows government access to data in its cloud services even in Europe. Though he said that 'customers would be informed wherever possible,' he could not provide a guarantee that they would be informed if a gagging order, injunction or U.S. National Security Letter permits it."

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft took its cloud suite Office 365 out of beta today and the opinion mongers are in overdrive. Is Office 365 missing features, is it too complex, or should it be taken seriously? And how does it stack up against Google Apps?"

An anonymous reader writes "Facebook's longest legal saga, which has lasted seven years so far, looked like it was finally closed, but that was just a false alarm. In a filing earlier this week with the federal court in San Francisco, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's former Harvard classmates Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss, who accuse him of stealing their idea for the social network, decided not to seek US Supreme Court review of the $65 million settlement made in 2008. Everyone thought this meant they had finally given up. It turns out that the twins have decided to keep fighting after all, just with a different lawsuit."

An anonymous reader writes "Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's former Harvard classmates Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss, who accuse him of stealing their idea for the social network, have decided not to appeal to the Supreme Court. In a filing today with the federal court in San Francisco, the duo said that after 'careful consideration,' they decided not to seek Supreme Court review of the $65 million settlement."

An anonymous reader writes with news that Nokia has unveiled its first MeeGo-powered smartphone, the N9. "[T]he smartphone doesn't have any buttons on the front, with only the volume controls and a lock button located on the right side of the device. ... The performance of the prototype device felt very snappy, and it looks almost ready for retail. As a MeeGo device, the N9 will be running apps based on the Qt platform." The Washington Post calls it "the platform that could have been," referring to Nokia's decision to make the transition to Windows Phone for future devices. Others are impressed with the device, but see it as either a dead end or just another distraction to Nokia's long-term plans.

An anonymous reader writes "Iceland is finally overhauling its constitution, and it has turned to the Internet to get input from citizens. More specifically, the 25-member council drafting the new constitution is reaching out to its citizens through Facebook. Two thirds of Iceland's population (approximately 320,000) is on Facebook, so the constitutional council's weekly meetings are broadcast live not only on the council's website, but on the social network as well. 'It is possible to register through other means, but most of the discussion takes place via Facebook,' said Berghildur Bernhardsdottir, spokeswoman for the constitutional review project."

FizzaNawaz writes "On Monday, the Obama administration is preparing announce the next steps that the US will take to build its 21st century electric grid, and IT is expected to play a big part in the plans. The White House is hosting a 90-minute media event called 'Building the 21st Century Electric Grid' and is releasing a new report on what it will take for lawmakers and the private sector to come together to solve this aspect of the energy challenge."

StrongGlad writes with a story at ZDNet describing how it's getting easier to use GPU processing against passwords once considered quite strong. "Take a cheap GPU (like the Radeon HD 5770) and the free GPU-powered password busting tool called 'ighashgpu' and you have yourself a lean, mean password busting machine. How lean and mean? Working against NTLM login passwords, a password of 'fjR8n' can be broken on the CPU in 24 seconds, at a rate of 9.8 million password guesses per second. On the GPU, it takes less than a second at a rate of 3.3 billion passwords per second. Increase the password to 6 characters (pYDbL6), and the CPU takes 1 hour 30 minutes versus only four seconds on the GPU. Go further to 7 characters (fh0GH5h), and the CPU would grind along for 4 days, versus a frankly worrying 17 minutes 30 seconds for the GPU."

An anonymous reader writes "In France, radio and television news anchors are no longer allowed to say the words 'Facebook' and 'Twitter' on air, unless the terms are specifically part of a news story. The ban stems from a decree issued by the French government on March 27, 1992, which forbids the promotion of commercial enterprises on news programs."

Dominare writes with this bit from ZDnet: "'A confidential internal Apple document tells the company's front-line support people how to handle customers who call about malware infections: Don't confirm or deny that an infection exists, and whatever you do, don't try to remove it.' So basically, now that Macs have their own equivalent to XP Antivirus the best you can hope for is to be pointed at the store where you can buy something that may or may not fix your problem ... nice."

dotwhynot writes "According to ZDNet, the volume of in-the-wild malware reports on discussions.apple.com is truly exceptional. With the launch of the first malware DIY kit for OS X earlier this month, and now this, has the malware industry threat finally caught up with the growth of Apple, and what do Mac users need to do?"

dotwhynot writes "According to ZDNet, the volume of in-the-wild malware reports on discussions.apple.com is truly exceptional. With the launch of the first malware DIY kit for OS X earlier this month, and now this, has the malware industry threat finally caught up with the growth of Apple, and what do Mac users need to do?"

An anonymous reader writes "Remember when we learned that Facebook had resumed talks with Skype? Well, it turns out that Facebook is considering buying Skype outright. 'Skype is reportedly talking to Facebook about some sort of deal. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been involved in internal discussions about buying Skype, while Facebook also reached out to the Luxembourg-based company about forming a joint venture.'"

ZerXes writes "It seems that APNIC has just released the last block of IPv4 addresses and are now completely out, a lot faster then expected. Even though APNIC received 3 /8 blocks in February the high growth of mobile devices made the addresses run out even before the summer. 'From this day onwards, IPv6 is mandatory for building new Internet networks and services,' says APNIC Director General Paul Wilson."

An anonymous reader writes "A Chicago computer teacher at Overton Elementary School is accused of showing poor judgment for posting photos of student Ukailya Loftonon on her Facebook page, leading to the child being mocked for her hairdo on picture day. Lucinda Williams says her daughter saw a picture of a model wearing Jolly Ranchers at the end of her braids (the candies were attached with elastic bands) in a hair salon magazine and begged her mother to give her the hairstyle." I hope the people of Walmart never find out about People of Walmart. The justice system will grind to a halt.

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from ZDNet: "Larry Klayman, the founder of Judicial Watch and Freedom Watch, has filed a lawsuit against Facebook and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg for their role in furthering a 'radical' Facebook Page called 'Third Palestinian Intifada,' which openly advocated another uprising against the citizens of Israel. The complaint reserves the right to be amended into a class action suit and prays for compensatory and punitive damages in excess of $1 billion. ... As a quick refresher, Facebook originally said it would not remove the page but would monitor it instead. The company later pulled the page after discussions degraded into violence and hatred."

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from ZDNet: "Larry Klayman, the founder of Judicial Watch and Freedom Watch, has filed a lawsuit against Facebook and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg for their role in furthering a 'radical' Facebook Page called 'Third Palestinian Intifada,' which openly advocated another uprising against the citizens of Israel. The complaint reserves the right to be amended into a class action suit and prays for compensatory and punitive damages in excess of $1 billion. ... As a quick refresher, Facebook originally said it would not remove the page but would monitor it instead. The company later pulled the page after discussions degraded into violence and hatred."

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from ZDNet: "Larry Klayman, the founder of Judicial Watch and Freedom Watch, has filed a lawsuit against Facebook and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg for their role in furthering a 'radical' Facebook Page called 'Third Palestinian Intifada,' which openly advocated another uprising against the citizens of Israel. The complaint reserves the right to be amended into a class action suit and prays for compensatory and punitive damages in excess of $1 billion. ... As a quick refresher, Facebook originally said it would not remove the page but would monitor it instead. The company later pulled the page after discussions degraded into violence and hatred."

Yesterday we noted that Firefox 4 is out in the wild. Since then, the popular browser has been downloaded 6 million times, double the numbers reported for MSIE9. Now the development team is talking about a new development process and what to expect for FF 5 and 6. And unsurprisingly, naysayers proclaim that IE will survive, while Firefox will die.

Krystalo writes "Facebook has agreed to acquire Snaptu, an Israeli startup that makes Java-based feature phone apps, for an estimated $70 million. The acquisition, for which neither company would reveal financial details, is expected to close within a few weeks. Earlier this year, Facebook worked with the mobile development firm to build a feature phone app that is accessible free of data charges in various overseas markets. The company says the Facebook for Feature Phones app currently works on more than 2,500 devices."