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Florida science teacher suspended for signal-jamming students’ cell phones

A Florida high school teacher was suspended without pay for five days Tuesday for deploying a signal jammer in his science class to block students from using their mobile phones. Science teacher Dean Liptak. Superintendent Kurt Browning said in a Pasco County School Board reprimand letter (PDF) to instructor Dean Liptak that he exercised “poor judgement” and “posed a serious risk to critical safety communications as well as the possibility of preventing others from making 9-1-1 calls.” Liptak was accused of jamming mobile devices from his Fivay High School classroom between March 31 and April 2. Verizon discovered the blockage on the cell tower located on campus. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Florida science teacher suspended for signal-jamming students’ cell phones

Yes, you’ll be able to do clean installs of the free Windows 10 upgrade

Windows 10 will be offered as a free upgrade to most Windows 7 and 8 users for one year after its July 29 launch. This has led, inevitably, to a number of questions about what happens to those who want or need to reinstall their operating system. Microsoft’s Gabe Aul has provided some much-needed clarification on this issue. On Twitter he confirmed that once upgraded , Windows 10 users will be able to perform clean installs of the operating system at any time, even after the one-year free period has ended. Users won’t be required to install Windows 7 or 8 and then re-upgrade, and they won’t need the Windows 7 or 8 product key , with Aul confirming that clean installs from an ISO will be possible. There’s still some uncertainty about Microsoft’s promise to provide free updates to the operating system for the “supported lifetime” of the hardware it’s installed on, especially in regard to the impact that hardware upgrades will have on this. This question has always been a little awkward for Windows licenses; a newly built machine clearly needs a new license (which won’t be free ), but an old machine upgraded piece by piece to be a new machine will probably be able to keep its free license, especially if the upgrades are staggered so that the product activation threshold is never hit. What does this mean for the “supported lifetime”? Is it extended indefinitely? Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Yes, you’ll be able to do clean installs of the free Windows 10 upgrade

Windows will make it easier to remote-control Linux PCs

In case there was any doubt that Microsoft’s war against Linux is ( mostly ) over , the company just offered another olive branch. The company has revealed that its PowerShell team is working on support for the Secure Shell protocol and shell sessions (aka SSH) to make it easier for Windows- and Linux-based PCs to connect to and remotely control each other. While SSH has been an option in the Windows world, Microsoft’s Angel Calvo says there have been “limited implementations” so far — this would simplify things and give you “tight integration” with Windows that wasn’t feasible before. It’s too early to tell when the feature will be available, but it’s at least in the cards. The move isn’t completely surprising. As Calvo notes, the “changes in leadership and culture” in Redmond made this possible. CEO Satya Nadella is interested in spreading Microsoft’s services (such as Azure ) to every platform that can use them, rather than insisting on Windows-only solutions like his predecessors. SSH support should make it easier to integrate Microsoft’s technology into environments where Linux has a solid foothold, whether it’s a data center or your home network. [Image credit: AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit] Filed under: Software , Microsoft Comments Via: Phoronix Source: MSDN Blogs

Nobody Knows Why Giant Piles of Worms Mysteriously Lined Up in Texas

After floods hit Denison, Texas last week, park rangers were mystified to find stringy clumps dotting the rain-soaked streets in inexplicably organized lines. It was no pasta-based apres -flood prank. It was just piles of living, squiggling worms. Read more…

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Nobody Knows Why Giant Piles of Worms Mysteriously Lined Up in Texas

Intel’s Cheap Windows PC TV Dongle Is About To Get Way Better

Cramming a full Windows PC inside of a cheap, $150 HDMI dongle sounds like a great idea—but Intel’s first attempt really fell flat. The Intel Compute Stick was underpowered, frustrating, and failed to live up to the hype. It wasn’t good enough to be a do-everything PC that fits in your pocket. No sweat: a leaked Intel roadmap shows how it’s going to get a lot better. Read more…

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Intel’s Cheap Windows PC TV Dongle Is About To Get Way Better

AMD’s latest chips bring gaming and video chops to mainstream laptops

With AMD’s new sixth-generation A-series processors, laptops in the $400 to $700 range could soon become far more capable. Formerly code-named “Carizzo, ” the new chips offer twice the gaming performance of Intel’s Core i7, thanks to discrete Radeon graphics. They’re the first mainstream processors with hardware decoding for H.265/HEVC video, the successor to the current H.264 standard which includes far better compression and support for 4K resolutions. And they’ll also pack in up to 12 compute cores (four CPU and eight GPU), which basically means they’ll be able to handle whatever you throw at them. Why focus on mainstream laptops? AMD notes that it’s the largest segment of the PC market by revenue and volume sold, so it makes sense for a company that’s traditionally focused on value to show it some love. AMD’s basically gunning hard for the gaming and media crowd with its sixth-generation chips. Naturally, they include its dual graphics technology, which can summon the power of Radeon R7 graphics along their built-in graphics for a 42 percent jump in frame rates. They also combine game performance with hardware video encoding, which should make for much smoother game streams on Twitch. Battery-wise, AMD says the new chips will last twice as long as their predecessors, even when watching video or gaming. While it all sounds good on paper, AMD will face some stiff competition from Intel’s new Broadwell-H chips, which were announced yesterday. Those chips also double graphics performance and boost overall media performance. Intel’s chips seem pretty expensive though, ranging from $244 to $623, and while we don’t know the pricing of AMD’s new wares yet, they’re usually cheaper than Intel. So there’s a good chance AMD can keep up the value fight. We’ll find out for sure once the new chips hit the market. AMD says computers featuring the sixth-gen A-series will start shipping in June, while Intel expects its chips to hit computers within two months. Filed under: Gaming , Laptops , AMD Comments

Senate passes USA Freedom Act (update: signed by Obama)

For the first time since the 9/11 attacks, both houses of Congress have agreed to limit the government’s domestic surveillance powers. Earlier today, the Senate voted 67 to 32 and passed the USA Freedom Act , echoing the House’s vote in May. The bill is designed to counter the Patriot Act’s controversial section 215 — the bit that enabled the NSA to collect phone records en masse, request “roving wiretaps” and seize business files — just one day after the provision officially expired. Update : According to several press reports , tonight President Obama signed it into law. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) had been lobbying hard to maintain the Patriot Act, even after the House passed the Freedom Act with broad bipartisan support. He then had to endure fellow Kentucky Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky) filibustering a reauthorization vote last week to ensure that the Patriot Act would expire before it could be reauthorized. What’s more, the Senate today also voted down McConnell’s three amendments for the Freedom Act. These provisions would have all but gutted the new legislation. They’d have required companies to inform the government six months heads-up if they want to keep call data for less than the requisite 18 months, delaying the Freedom Act’s implementation by six months and granting the secretive FISA courts full control over its own proceedings. The USA Freedom Act says that the FISA court can’t sign off on a general warrant like that: the govt has to ask for *specific* information. – Danny O’B (@mala) June 2, 2015 It should be noted however, that the passage of the Freedom Act will temporarily restart the Patriot’s phone data collection apparatus that expired on Sunday for at least six months while the NSA wraps up the program. The EFF and ACLU both have hailed the decision as a partial victory for privacy. Per an ACLU statement: The passage of the USA Freedom Act is a milestone. This is the most important surveillance reform bill since 1978, and its passage is an indication that Americans are no longer willing to give the intelligence agencies a blank check. It’s a testament to the significance of the Snowden disclosures and also to the hard work of many principled legislators on both sides of the aisle. Still, no one should mistake this bill for comprehensive reform. The bill leaves many of the government’s most intrusive and overbroad surveillance powers untouched, and it makes only very modest adjustments to disclosure and transparency requirements. The USA Freedom Act bill now goes to the White House for President Obama’s signature. He has been rumbling for the past few weeks about the need to extend the Patriot Act. However he’s already said he would and it’s hard to imagine that he’d risk going against such a widely supported bill and potentially face an embarrassing veto override vote heading into his final year in office. So, for now at least, American’s phone records appear to be safer from the Feds’ prying eyes. [Image Credit: Getty Images] Filed under: Internet Comments Source: US Senate

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Senate passes USA Freedom Act (update: signed by Obama)

Comcast issuing $5 credits after Internet outage caused by DNS failure

Comcast customers on the West Coast will be able to get $5 credits due to a multihour Internet outage that happened Monday night. Though Internet service providers might offer refunds to customers who call and complain, they aren’t generally in the habit of proactively issuing refunds after outages. But Comcast, the country’s largest cable and broadband company, has been trying to improve its reputation for awful customer service . “We are directly reaching out to those who reported problems last night to offer our apologies and a credit for lost service,” Comcast Senior VP Mark Muehl wrote in a blog post yesterday. The credit will be $5, USA Today reported . Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Comcast issuing $5 credits after Internet outage caused by DNS failure

Could remnants of the earliest life be preserved in volcanic glass?

You might consider volcanic activity an efficient way of destroying living tissues, but volcanic glasses are often used to study early life. Certain microbial corrosion textures in volcanic glass and in Cenozoic seafloor basalts have been interpreted as evidence of a deep biosphere, dating back to the earliest periods of life on Earth. Similarly, textures found in volcanic glass from the Barberton Greenstone Belt in South Africa and the Pilbara Craton in Australia also suggest the presence of a deep oceanic biosphere on Earth as early as 3.35 billion years ago. But a group of researchers had challenged the idea that these traces resulted from biological activity. Now, in a strong response, another group has defended the interpretation. We seem to have a genuine scientific controversy on our hands. Is this life? Volcanic glass from Cenozoic seafloor volcanics sometimes contain what are called “biotextures.” These typically take on two major forms, either microscopic spherical cavities or tubules that extend into the volcanic glass. Biogenicity, substances produced by life processes, is the most widely accepted explanation for these features. These textures can provide us with valuable information about the types of microorganisms that existed long ago, and shed light on biological processes and how those processes may have evolved over time. Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Could remnants of the earliest life be preserved in volcanic glass?

Investors host startups in their unused homes in return for equity

Add / Remove Nourishing and growing a startup requires a few essentials: funding, a committed team, and the time and space to work. Concentrating on that last factor is matchmaking service Cribb — a platform which enables a network of investors and celebrities to offer promising startups the use of their vacant homes for free, in return for equity. Billed as an Airbnb for startups, Cribb helps startups seek out inspiring locations for 3-6 month long semesters. To begin, startups register their interest on the site and fill in a application. Cribb reviews each company, and those who pass the screening process are introduced to homeowners who match their needs and interests. The homeowner then decides if they want to accommodate the startup in return for five percent of their business. Cribb also offers entrepreneurial resources and support to all participating startups to help them accelerate towards the next level of funding. What other resources could wealthy investors make available to startups? Website: www.cribb.co Contact: hello@cribb.co

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Investors host startups in their unused homes in return for equity

Ken May

Author: kenmay