Tag: open source

Amnesty International Seeks Explanation For ‘Absolutely Shocking’ Surveillance

Mark Wilson writes: A court recently revealed via email that the UK government had been spying on Amnesty International. GCHQ had put Amnesty under surveillance — despite this having previously been denied — and now the human rights organization wants answers. In a letter to the UK Prime Minister David Cameron, Amnesty International asks for an explanation for the surveillance. The Investigatory Powers Tribunal’s (IPT) email made it clear that GCHQ had been intercepting, accessing and storing communications, something that Amnesty International’s Secretary General, Salil Shetty believes ‘makes it vividly clear that mass surveillance has gone too far’. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Amnesty International Seeks Explanation For ‘Absolutely Shocking’ Surveillance

SpaceX Rocket Failure Cost NASA $110 Million

An anonymous reader writes: On June 28th, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket exploded just over two minutes into its attempt to reach the International Space Station. It was a contracted mission from NASA to resupply the astronauts living there. Today, NASA associate administrator William Gerstenmaier said the price tag to taxpayers for that failed launch is $110 million. SpaceX is leading the investigation into the cause of the failure, and NASA officials faced tough questions about whether private companies should be allowed to direct investigations into their own failed launches. A similar inquiry is underway at Orbital ATK. NASA inspector general Paul Martin said his office is looking into the matter. Gerstenmaier added that NASA is thinking about making these companies take out insurance policies that would cover the cost to taxpayers in the event of another failure. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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SpaceX Rocket Failure Cost NASA $110 Million

Adblock Plus Reduces University’s Network Traffic By 25 Percent

Mickeycaskill writes: Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada claims it cut 25% of its network traffic (40% of video traffic) by deploying Adblock Plus across its internal network. The study tested the ability of the Adblock Plus browser extension (PDF) in reducing IP traffic when installed in a large enterprise network environment, and found that huge amounts of data transfer were saved by blocking web-based advertisements and video trailers. The experiment was carried out over a period of six weeks. Disclaimer: the study was funded by Adblock Plus. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Adblock Plus Reduces University’s Network Traffic By 25 Percent

Samsung Releases First 2TB Consumer SSD For Laptops

Lucas123 writes: Samsung has released what it is calling the world’s first 2.5-in consumer-grade, multi-terabyte SSD, and it’s issuing the new drive a 10-year warranty. With up to 2TB of capacity, the new 850 Pro and 850 EVO SSDs double the maximum capacity of their predecessors. As with the previous 840 Pro and EVO models, Samsung used its 3D V-NAND technology, which stacks 32 layers of NAND atop one another in a microscopic skyscraper. Additionally, the drives take advantage of multi-level cell (MLC) and triple-level cell (TLC) (2- and 3-bit per cell) technology for even greater density. The 850 Pro, Samsung said, can manage up to 550MBps sequential read and 520MBps sequential write rates and up to 100, 000 random I/Os per second (IOPS). The 850 EVO SSD has slightly lower performance with 540MBps and 520MBps sequential read/write rates and up to 90, 000 random IOPS. The SSDs will range in capacity from 120GB to 2TB and in price from $99 to $999. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Samsung Releases First 2TB Consumer SSD For Laptops

Lawsuit Filed Over Domain Name Registered 16 Years Before Plaintiff’s Use

HughPickens.com writes: Cybersquatting is registering, selling or using a domain name with the intent of profiting from the goodwill of someone else’s trademark. It generally refers to the practice of buying up domain names that use the names of existing businesses with the intent to sell the names for a profit to those businesses. Now Andrew Allmann writes at Domain Name Wire that New York company Office Space Solutions, Inc. has filed a cybersquatting lawsuit against Jason Kneen over the domain name WorkBetter.com that Kneen registered in 1999 although Office Space Solutions didn’t use the term “Work Better” in commerce until 2015. “Workbetter.com is virtually identical to, and/or confusingly similar to the WORK BETTER Service Mark, which was distinctive at the time that the Defendant renewed and/or updated the registration of workbetter.com, ” says the lawsuit. But according to an Office Space Solutions’ filing with the USPTO, it didn’t use the term “Work Better” in commerce until 2015. Office Space Solutions is making the argument that the domain name was renewed in bad faith. According to Kneen, Office Space previously tried to purchase the domain name from him and after it failed to acquire the domain name, is now trying to take it via a lawsuit. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Lawsuit Filed Over Domain Name Registered 16 Years Before Plaintiff’s Use

Malwarebytes Offers Pirates Its Premium Antimalware Product For Free

An anonymous reader writes: If you have a cracked or pirated version of Malwarebytes Anti-Malware (MBAM) product the company has debuted an Amnesty program for you. Venturebeat reports: “If you pirated Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, purchased a counterfeit version of the software, or are having problems with your key in general, the company is offering a free replacement key.” CEO Marcin Kleczynski explained the program and his statement reads in part: “When I started Malwarebytes, I absolutely had no idea how successful we would be today. I am extremely grateful for all of the support from everyone and how fast we’ve grown. That being said, I picked a very insecure license key algorithm and as such, generating a pirated key was, and is, very simple. The problem with pirated keys is that they may collide with a legitimate key just by the sheer numbers. For example, Larry may generate a pirated key that matches the exact key that I already bought. Yes, this is silly, and yes, this is literally the first thing a professional software company thinks of when building license key generation, but when you think you’re building a product for just a few people you don’t hash out these details. Now we’ve grown up, and we’ve got a new licensing system that we’ve rolled out in stages. The only problem is that we have millions of users that we’ve sold keys to, or a reseller has sold keys to, or we’ve given out keys to without keeping track. It is a mess, and you as a consumer have every right to be upset. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Malwarebytes Offers Pirates Its Premium Antimalware Product For Free

iPhone 6S New Feature: Force Touch

New submitter WarJolt writes: Apple is adding Force Touch to their iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus. I’m not sure if Force Touch enough to convince an Android user like myself to switch, but there are definitely some interesting possibilities for app developers. A challenge for App developers will be to make apps compatible with both Force Touch iPhones and non-force touch iPhones. (Here’s the Bloomberg report Forbes draws from.) Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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iPhone 6S New Feature: Force Touch

AMD’s Project Quantum Gaming PC Contains Intel CPU

nateman1352 links to an article at Tom’s Hardware which makes the interesting point that chip-maker AMD will offer Intel — rather than AMD — CPUs in their upcoming high-end gaming PC. (High-end for being based on integrated components, at least.) From the article: Recently, AMD showed off its plans for its Fiji based graphics products, among which was Project Quantum – a small form factor PC that packs not one, but two Fiji graphics processors. Since the announcement, KitGuru picked up on something, noticing that the system packs an Intel Core i7-4790K “Devil’s Canyon” CPU. We hardly need to point out that it is rather intriguing to see AMD use its largest competitor’s CPU in its own product, when AMD is a CPU maker itself. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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AMD’s Project Quantum Gaming PC Contains Intel CPU

How Etak Built a Car Navigation System In 1985

harrymcc writes: Thirty years ago, a startup called Etak released the Navigator, an in-car navigation system. It provided turn-by-turn driving directions despite the fact that GPS did not exist, and stored its maps–which Etak had to create itself–on cassette tapes. And some of its data and technologies are still in use in today’s navigation apps. Over at Fast Company, Benj Edwards tells this amazing story. I remember reading about (and lusting over) this system back then, in the much-missed DAK catalog. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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How Etak Built a Car Navigation System In 1985

New Manufacturing Technique Halves Cost of Lithium-Ion Batteries

An anonymous reader writes: Experts in materials science at MIT have developed a new process for creating lithium-ion batteries that will drop the associated production costs by half. The researchers say fundamental battery construction techniques have been refined over the past two decades, but not re-thought. “The new battery design is a hybrid between flow batteries and conventional solid ones: In this version, while the electrode material does not flow, it is composed of a similar semisolid, colloidal suspension of particles. Chiang and Carter refer to this as a ‘semisolid battery.’ This approach greatly simplifies manufacturing, and also makes batteries that are flexible and resistant to damage, says Chiang. … Instead of the standard method of applying liquid coatings to a roll of backing material, and then having to wait for that material to dry before it can move to the next manufacturing step, the new process keeps the electrode material in a liquid state and requires no drying stage at all. Using fewer, thicker electrodes, the system reduces the conventional battery architecture’s number of distinct layers, as well as the amount of nonfunctional material in the structure, by 80 percent.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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New Manufacturing Technique Halves Cost of Lithium-Ion Batteries