Slashdot Mirror

sfcrazy writes "Debian now has concrete plans to bring GNU Hurd to the larger community. GNU Hurd is expected to be released with the release of Debian 7.0 Wheezy towards the end of 2012 or beginning of 2013. Debian maintainer Samuel Thibault has already produced a Debian GNU/Hurd CD Set with a graphic installer which is available to download."

destinyland writes "Some time in the next 10 weeks, Amazon will release a new Android tablet device, which will compete directly with Apple's iPad, according to the Wall Street Journal. Amazon hopes to leverage the digital content they've already made available online — digital video, music, and ebooks, as well as their new app store for Android devices. The device will ship without a built-in camera, prompting one tablet watcher to report that 'it feels like Amazon is trying to strip it down and bring it in at the lowest cost possible.' Amazon will also release two new versions of the Kindle — one with a touch screen, and one at a lower price." Now if only they'd make it a proper e-reader by including a Pixel Qi (or similar) daylight-readable screen, I'd be sold.

oxide7 writes "Netflix provoked an unprecedented outpouring of backlash across the Internet as the company unveiled plans to raise prices on its movie-rental services. The company said it would raise the Internet-plus-DVDs-in-the-mail plan from $9.99 per month to $15.98 per month late Tuesday sparking protests and rage across the subscriber base. Netflix brushed off the criticism however. 'We knew there would be some people who would be upset,' company spokesman Steve Swasey said. 'To most people, it's a latte or two,' he added."

astroengine writes "This could be considered 'strike two' for the deeply troubled James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Last week, the House Commerce, Justice, and Science Appropriations Subcommittee made the recommendation that the advanced infrared space telescope be cancelled. On Wednesday, the full House Science, Space and Technology Committee has approved the subcommittee's plan. The project may not be dead yet — the 2012 budget still has to be voted on my the House and Senate — but it sure is looking grim for 'Hubble's replacement.'"

zacharye writes with this excerpt from BGR: "Research In Motion is in the midst of a major transition in every sense of the word. Publicly, the company is portraying a very defensive image — one that is very dismissive, as if RIM is profitable and class-leading, and the media is out of line to criticize its business, as are investors. Internally, however, there's a different story to be told. It's a story filled with attitude, cockiness, heated arguments among the executive team and Co-CEOs, and paranoia. ... The three-year roadmap for RIM products focused on refining the technology in phones had already been released, rather than looking at where to add major new componentry or trying to identify or even shape future trends. 'One of the main reasons RIM missed the mark with the browser was because they were always proud of how little data usage a user would use,' a former executive said. 'There was no three-year plan at RIM.'"

donniebaseball23 writes "Weeks ago, rumors were that Electronic Arts had stepped up to the plate to buy mobile/casual gaming publisher PopCap, developer of titles such as Bejeweled and Plants vs Zombies. Today, EA has confirmed that it has purchased PopCap for a final sum of $650 million and $100 million in shares of EA common stock. There's also the possibility for up to $550 million in earn-outs for hitting 2013 financial milestones. That would bring the price to a whopping $1.3 billion. 'We picked EA because they have recast their culture around making great digital games,' said David Roberts, CEO of PopCap. 'By working with EA, we'll scale our games and services to deliver more social, mobile, casual fun to an even bigger, global audience.'" More broadly, EA's plan for PopCap is: "don't break it."

schwit1 writes with this snippet from CNet: "Law enforcement representatives are planning to endorse a proposed federal law that would require Internet service providers to store logs about their customers for 18 months. ... Michael Brown, sheriff in Bedford County, Va., and a board member and executive committee member of the National Sheriffs' Association, is planning to argue that a new law is necessary because Internet providers do not store customer records long enough. 'The limited data retention time and lack of uniformity among retention from company to company significantly hinders law enforcement's ability to identify predators when they come across child pornography,' according to a copy of Brown's remarks. Any stored logs could, however, be used to prosecute any type of crime."

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.

micsaund writes "While Netflix has continued to drop fees and still maintain a good services, today, they take three steps in the other direction by doubling the cost of the plan you probably already have: 'So for instance, our current $9.99 a month membership for unlimited streaming and unlimited DVDs will be split into 2 distinct plans ... Unlimited Streaming (no DVDs) for $7.99 a month ... Unlimited DVDs, 1 out at-a-time (no streaming), for $7.99 a month. ... The price for getting both of these plans will be $15.98 a month ($7.99 + $7.99).' Now, if they could get everything available on streaming, this would be fine, but how many times have you needed to get a physical disc for that oddball movie, or had a movie in your instant queue that magically disappears due to some behind-the-scenes contract expiration or whatever?"

nonprofiteer writes "Banks plan to compete with Groupon and LivingSocial by targeting coupons and deals at credit card holders based on their shopping habits. They found a way to do it without violating financial privacy laws: 'They're "selling" shopping habits the same way Facebook "sells" personal data about its users: in-network. It's a clever privacy work-around. Just as Facebook allows advertisers to specifically target certain kinds of users based on their profile information (without actually providing that profile information to the advertisers), banks plan to allow advertisers to send deals and coupons to their customers based on what they've bought before. That way, no user data actually leaves the network — instead, deals just enter the network. Each time a customer cashes in on one of those deals, the bank gets a commission.'"

DMandPenfold writes "Police are questioning whether a change in News International's email retention policy was part of an effort to conceal widespread phone hacking by the News of the World, a scandal which is threatening Rupert Murdoch's planned takeover of BSkyB. The trawl for emails and the questioning of changes in News International's email retention policy has important implications for IT security and corporate governance professionals, and is likely to see organizations examining their own policies and reminding their staff on acceptable usage and best practice for email."

CWmike writes "It's true that IT systems have become essential to business operations, but the successful functioning of the IT department shouldn't rest on any one person's shoulders. All told, vacations serve as mini tests to prove if a department can function when key players are away. That's the theory, anyway. In reality, IT departments sometimes flunk. The results can either be comical or turn out to be a serious wake-up call to organizations that need a better Plan B. To prime your mental pump before your own vacation, Computerworld compiled anecdotes about good vacations gone bad."

theodp writes "In his new book, Car Guys vs. Bean Counters: The Battle for the Soul of American Business, legendary car-guy Bob Lutz says to get the U.S. economy growing again, we need to fire the MBAs and let engineers run the show. The auto industry, writes TIME's Rana Foroohar, is actually a terrific proxy for a trend toward short-term, myopically balance-sheet-driven management that has infected American business. In the first half of the 20th century, industrial giants like Ford, GE, AT&T and others used new technologies to create the best possible products and services with the idea that if you build it better, the customers will come. But by the late '70s, if-you-can-measure-it-you-can-manage-it MBAs were flourishing, and engineers were relegated to the geek back rooms. 'Shoemakers should be run by shoe guys,' argues Lutz, 'and software firms by software guys.' Learning that China plans to open 40 new graduate schools of business in the next few years, Lutz quipped, 'That's the best news I've heard in years.'"

Jeremiah Cornelius writes "According to a report by the Associated Press, protesters have been stopped in their tracks after Facebook aided Israel in cracking down on the group of activists from the UK, France, and Belgium who planned their event using the popular social networking site. Facebook allowed government agents to track the activists activities and then create a black-list of people who participated in the planning of the protests. The black-listed group was then forwarded to airlines with instructions to prevent the activists from boarding air flights to Israel. Over 200 activists were prevented from flying after being added to the airlines terrorism watch list, according the the AP report. Was Julian Assange correct, when he warned that Facebook was a giant, 'appalling spy machine'?"

An anonymous reader writes "I've decided that the internet is no longer a positive influence on my life, and am interested in canceling my service. In the interest of not forgoing all digital conveniences, I plan to set up a small intranet, hosting a few resources that I think I'd like to have access to on a regular basis (e.g. a text dump of Wikipedia). I'll also still have access to the internet at my office, and have easy access to public Wi-Fi at libraries and coffee shops. My questions are thus: Does anybody have any experience living without the internet? What major nuisances did you encounter? What resources should I put on my intranet? Is there anything I'm overlooking?"

superglaze writes "Alarmed by rumours of the UK telecoms regulator Ofcom considering a shut-down of FM radio in order to give more spectrum over to broadband, ZDNet UK's Rupert Goodwins has proposed another idea: the reuse of the mostly disused 'Band I' and the creation of a new, national open mesh network — a plan that could bring internet connectivity to everyone at very low cost."

crackspackle writes "The Atacama desert region, a vast expanse of land stretching 600 miles along the Pacific coast of South America from Peru to Chile, is known as the driest region on earth, receiving only .04 inches (1mm) of rain per year. Many weather stations located in the region have no recorded precipitation during their existence. Sterile from the lack of rainfall, sparsely inhabited, and virtually free from electromagnetic interference, the desert hosts several major astronomical observatories. This other-worldly location is also popular among sci-fi film makers, and is a prominent test site for NASA's planned Mars mission. This week, the Atacama received 32 inches of snow, stranding motorists along the Pan-American highway and other roads, prompting numerous rescues. Footage of the snow is available on the BBC."

fysdt sends this quote from an AFP report: "The German parliament sealed plans Friday to phase out nuclear energy by 2022, making the country the first major industrial power to take the step in the wake of the disaster at Japan's Fukushima plant. The nuclear exit scheme cleared its final hurdle in the Bundesrat upper house, which represents the 16 regional states, after the legislation passed the Bundestag lower house with an overwhelming majority last week. Germany's seven oldest reactors were already switched off after Japan's massive March 11 earthquake and tsunami knocked out cooling systems at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, causing reactors to overheat and radiation to leak. A further reactor has been shut for years because of technical problems."

Space Shuttle Atlantis has just launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. STS-135 marks the final flight for the shuttle program, 30 years after Columbia touched the sky during STS-1. The mission summary (PDF) outlines STS-135's crew and event timeline. NASA's launch blog has been following the countdown all morning, and our own CmdrTaco has been tweeting live from on-site. NASA TV is also being streamed live. Meteorological reports for the launch looked doubtful at first, but a gap in the bad weather at just the right time allowed everything to proceed as planned. Atlantis successfully reached its preliminary orbit in what a NASA official called a "flawless" launch.

dkd903 writes "Google plans to rebrand its photo-sharing platform Picasa and the blogging platform Blogger and will re-introduce them as Google Photos and Google Blogs. All this forms part of a massive feature addition to Google's new social network, Google+."