Tag: linkedin

Apache OpenOffice Reaches 100 Million Downloads. Now What?

We’re thankfully long past the days when an emailed Word document was useless without a copy of Microsoft Word, and that’s in large part thanks to the success of the OpenOffice family of word processors. “Family, ” because the OpenOffice name has been attached to several branches of a codebase that’s gone through some serious evolution over the years, starting from its roots in closed-source StarOffice, acquired and open-sourced by Sun to become OpenOffice.org. The same software has led (via some hamfisted moves by Oracle after its acquisition of Sun) to the also-excellent LibreOffice. OpenOffice.org’s direct descendant is Apache OpenOffice, and an anonymous reader writes with this excellent news from that project: “The Apache Software Foundation (ASF), the all-volunteer developers, stewards, and incubators of more than 170 Open Source projects and initiatives, announced today that Apache OpenOffice has been downloaded 100 million times. Over 100 million downloads, over 750 extensions, over 2, 800 templates. But what does the community at Apache need to do to get the next 100 million?” If you want to play along, you can get the latest version of OpenOffice from SourceForge (Slashdot’s corporate cousin). I wonder how many government offices — the U.S. Federal government has long been Microsoft’s biggest customer — couldn’t get along just fine with an open source word processor, even considering all the proprietary-format documents they’re stuck with for now. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Apache OpenOffice Reaches 100 Million Downloads. Now What?

Amazon’s Smartphone Gets Its First Spy Shots Along With Rumored Specs

 Amazon’s smartphone leaks are starting to pile up quickly, and today our own report about some of its 3D features and Android-based FIreOS operating system was followed quickly by an extensive report about the phone’s supposed specs, complete with pics of the gadget housed in a case designed to keep its final look a secret. The pics and specs come from BGR, which reports that Amazon is… Read More

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Amazon’s Smartphone Gets Its First Spy Shots Along With Rumored Specs

US Takes Out Gang That Used Zeus Malware To Steal Millions

coondoggie (973519) writes “The US Department of Justice charged nine members of a group that used Zeus malware to infect thousands of business computers and illegally siphon-off millions of dollars into over-seas bank accounts. The DoJ said an indictment was unsealed in connection with the arraignment this week at the federal courthouse in Lincoln, Neb., of two Ukrainian nationals, Yuriy Konovalenko, 31, and Yevhen Kulibaba, 36. Konovalenko and Kulibaba were recently extradited from the United Kingdom.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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US Takes Out Gang That Used Zeus Malware To Steal Millions

Stung By File-Encrypting Malware, Researchers Fight Back

itwbennett (1594911) writes “When Jose Vildoza’s father became the victim of ransomware, he launched his own investigation. Diving into CryptoDefense’s code, he found its developers had made a crucial mistake: CryptoDefense used Microsoft’s Data Protection API (application programming interface), a tool in the Windows operating system to encrypt a user’s data, which stored a copy of the encryption keys on the affected computer. Vildoza and researcher, Fabian Wosar of the Austrian security company Emsisoft, collaborated on a utility called the Emsisoft Decrypter that could recover the encrypted keys. In mid-March Vildoza had launched a blog chronicling his investigation, purposely not revealing the mistake CryptoDefense’s authors had made. But Symantec then published a blog post on March 31 detailing the error.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Stung By File-Encrypting Malware, Researchers Fight Back

New French Law Prohibits After-Hours Work Emails

Hugh Pickens DOT Com (2995471) writes “Lucy Mangan reports at The Guardian that a new labor agreement in France means that employees must ignore their bosses’ work emails once they are out of the office and relaxing at home – even on their smartphones. Under the deal, which affects a million employees in the technology and consultancy sectors (including the French arms of Google, Facebook, and Deloitte), employees will also have to resist the temptation to look at work-related material on their computers or smartphones – or any other kind of malevolent intrusion into the time they have been nationally mandated to spend on whatever the French call la dolce vita. “We must also measure digital working time, ” says Michel De La Force, chairman of the General Confederation of Managers. “We can admit extra work in exceptional circumstances but we must always come back to what is normal, which is to unplug, to stop being permanently at work.” However critics say it will impose further red tape on French businesses, which already face some of the world’s tightest labor laws.” (Continues) Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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New French Law Prohibits After-Hours Work Emails

Intel and SGI Test Full-Immersion Cooling For Servers

itwbennett (1594911) writes “Intel and SGI have built a proof-of-concept supercomputer that’s kept cool using a fluid developed by 3M called Novec that is already used in fire suppression systems. The technology, which could replace fans and eliminate the need to use tons of municipal water to cool data centers, has the potential to slash data-center energy bills by more than 90 percent, said Michael Patterson, senior power and thermal architect at Intel. But there are several challenges, including the need to design new motherboards and servers.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Intel and SGI Test Full-Immersion Cooling For Servers

Yahoo DMARC Implementation Breaks Most Mailing Lists

pdclarry writes: “On April 8, Yahoo implemented a new DMARC policy that essentially bars any Yahoo user from accessing mailing lists hosted anywhere except on Yahoo and Google. While Yahoo is the initiator, it also affects Comcast, AT&T, Rogers, SBCGlobal, and several other ISPs. Internet Engineering Council expert John R. Levine, a specialist in email infrastructure and spam filtering, said, ‘Yahoo breaks every mailing list in the world including the IETF’s’ on the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) list. DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance) is a two-year-old proposed standard previously discussed on Slashdot that is intended to curb email abuse, including spoofing and phishing. Unfortunately, as implemented by Yahoo, it claims most mailing list users as collateral damage. Messages posted to mailing lists (including listserv, mailman, majordomo, etc) by Yahoo subscribers are blocked when the list forwards them to other Yahoo (and other participating ISPs) subscribers. List members not using Yahoo or its partners are not affected and will receive posts from Yahoo users. Posts from non-Yahoo users are delivered to Yahoo members. So essentially those suffering the most are Yahoo’s (and Comcast’s, and AT&T’s, etc) own customers. The Hacker News has details about why DMARC has this effect on mailing lists. Their best proposed solution is to ban Yahoo email users from mailing lists and encourage them to switch to other ISPs. Unfortunately, it isn’t just Yahoo, although they are getting the most attention.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Yahoo DMARC Implementation Breaks Most Mailing Lists

Navy Debuts New Railgun That Launches Shells at Mach 7

Jeremiah Cornelius writes: “The U.S. Navy’s new railgun technology, developed by General Atomics, uses the Lorentz force in a type of linear, electric motor to hurl a 23-pound projectile at speeds exceeding Mach 7 — in excess of 5, 000 mph. The weapon has a range of 100 miles and doesn’t require explosive warheads. ‘The electromagnetic railgun represents an incredible new offensive capability for the U.S. Navy, ‘ says Rear Adm. Bryant Fuller, the Navy’s chief engineer. ‘This capability will allow us to effectively counter a wide range of threats at a relatively low cost, while keeping our ships and sailors safer by removing the need to carry as many high-explosive weapons.’ Sea trials begin aboard an experimental Navy catamaran, the USNS Millinocket, in 2016.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Navy Debuts New Railgun That Launches Shells at Mach 7

The Risk And Rush Of Supporting A Crowdfunding Project

 Last week, a small crowdfunded project called the Healbe GoBe made news, as backers and journalists questioned the company’s claims that it could measure caloric intake using a wearable device. While the claims do sound wild at best, the company is sticking to its story — and Indiegogo is sticking by the project. Read More

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The Risk And Rush Of Supporting A Crowdfunding Project

Navy Creates Fuel From Seawater

New submitter lashicd sends news that the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory has announced a successful proof-of-concept demonstration of converting seawater to liquid hydrocarbon fuel. They used seawater to provide fuel for a small replica plan running a two-stroke internal combustion engine. “Using an innovative and proprietary NRL electrolytic cation exchange module (E-CEM), both dissolved and bound CO2 are removed from seawater at 92 percent efficiency by re-equilibrating carbonate and bicarbonate to CO2 and simultaneously producing H2. The gases are then converted to liquid hydrocarbons by a metal catalyst in a reactor system. … NRL has made significant advances in the development of a gas-to-liquids (GTL) synthesis process to convert CO2 and H2 from seawater to a fuel-like fraction of C9-C16 molecules. In the first patented step, an iron-based catalyst has been developed that can achieve CO2 conversion levels up to 60 percent and decrease unwanted methane production in favor of longer-chain unsaturated hydrocarbons (olefins). These value-added hydrocarbons from this process serve as building blocks for the production of industrial chemicals and designer fuels.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Navy Creates Fuel From Seawater