Tag: security

George R. R. Martin’s "The Winds of Winter" Wiill Not Be Published In 2015

Dave Knott (2917251) writes George R.R. Martin’s “The WInds Of Winter”, the fifth book of his bestselling fantasy saga “A Song Of Ice And Fire” (known to television fans as “Game Of Thrones”) will not be published in 2015. Jane Johnson at HarperCollins has confirmed that it is not in this year’s schedule. “I have no information on likely delivery, ” she said. “These are increasingly complex books and require immense amounts of concentration to write. Fans really ought to appreciate that the length of these monsters is equivalent to two or three novels by other writers.”Instead, readers will have to comfort themselves with a collection, illustrated by Gary Gianni, of three previously anthologised novellas set in the world of Westeros. “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” takes place nearly a century before the bloody events of the A Song of Ice and Fire series. Out in October, it is a compilation of the first three official prequel novellas to the series, The Hedge Knight, The Sworn Sword and The Mystery Knight, never before collected. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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George R. R. Martin’s "The Winds of Winter" Wiill Not Be Published In 2015

Drug Dealers Are Using Nokia Dumbphones To Stay Ahead Of "The Feds"

According to a story from the UK edition of Vice (a story which, I hasten to add, relies on a source named ‘K2’ and should therefore be taken with the requisite gallon of salt), drug dealers in the fair city of Birmingham have turned to dumphones in an attempt to evade the police. Read more…

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Drug Dealers Are Using Nokia Dumbphones To Stay Ahead Of "The Feds"

FCC Officially Approves Change In the Definition of Broadband

halfEvilTech writes As part of its 2015 Broadband Progress Report, the Federal Communications Commission has voted to change the definition of broadband by raising the minimum download speeds needed from 4Mbps to 25Mbps, and the minimum upload speed from 1Mbps to 3Mbps, which effectively triples the number of US households without broadband access. Currently, 6.3 percent of US households don’t have access to broadband under the previous 4Mpbs/1Mbps threshold, while another 13.1 percent don’t have access to broadband under the new 25Mbps downstream threshold. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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FCC Officially Approves Change In the Definition of Broadband

Scientists Discover How To Track Natural Errors In DNA Replication

BarbaraHudson writes Researchers figured out how to label and keep track of new pieces of DNA, and learned to follow the enzyme responsible for copying those pieces. Their research focused on enzymes called polymerases. These enzymes create small regions in DNA that act as scaffolds for the copied DNA. Scientists assumed that the body deletes the scaffolds containing errors, or mutations, and the standard computer models supported this theory. However, the actual research showed that about 1.5 percent of those erroneous scaffolds are left over, trapped within the DNA. After running models, scientists now believe they can track how DNA replicates and find the most likely areas where these scaffolds with errors turn up. The erroneous scaffolds usually appear close to genetic switches, those regions that turn on when genes activate. The mutations damage the switch, which results in genetic disease, as well as increasing the likelihood of cancer. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Scientists Discover How To Track Natural Errors In DNA Replication

New Linux Bug Could Cause "a Lot of Collateral Damage on the Internet"

Linux users around the world are scrambling to update their operating systems, as a new flaw known as GHOST has been shown to have the potential to cause “a lot of collateral damage on the Internet.” Read more…

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New Linux Bug Could Cause "a Lot of Collateral Damage on the Internet"

Google Handed Stacks of WikiLeaks Email Straight to the FBI in 2012

WikiLeaks is demanding explanations, after it’s come to light that Google gave the FBI emails and digital data belonging to three WikiLeaks staff members when warrants were served in March 2012. Read more…

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Google Handed Stacks of WikiLeaks Email Straight to the FBI in 2012

Dish Network Violated Do-Not-Call 57 Million Times

lightbox32 writes Dish Network has been found guilty of violating the Do Not Call list on 57 million separate occasions. They were also found liable for abandoning or causing telemarketers to abandon nearly 50 million outbound telephone calls, in violation of the abandoned-call provision of the Federal Trade Commission’s Telemarketing Sales Rule. Penalties for infringing on the Do Not Call list can be up to a whopping $16, 000 for each outbound call. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Dish Network Violated Do-Not-Call 57 Million Times

At Oxford, a Battery That’s Lasted 175 Years — So Far

sarahnaomi writes There sits, in the Clarendon Laboratory at Oxford University, a bell that has been ringing, nonstop, for at least 175 years. It’s powered by a single battery that was installed in 1840. Researchers would love to know what the battery is made of, but they are afraid that opening the bell would ruin an experiment to see how long it will last. The bell’s clapper oscillates back and forth constantly and quickly, meaning the Oxford Electric Bell, as it’s called, has rung roughly 10 billion times, according to the university. It’s made of what’s called a “dry pile, ” which is one of the first electric batteries. Dry piles were invented by a guy named Giuseppe Zamboni (no relation to the ice resurfacing company) in the early 1800s. They use alternating discs of silver, zinc, sulfur, and other materials to generate low currents of electricity. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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At Oxford, a Battery That’s Lasted 175 Years — So Far

Linus Fixes Kernel Regression Breaking Witcher 2

jones_supa writes There has been quite a debate around the Linux version of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings and the fact that it wasn’t really a port. A special kind of wrapper was used to make the Windows version of the game run on Linux systems, similar to Wine. The performance on Linux systems took a hit and users felt betrayed because they thought that they would get a native port. However, after the game stopped launching properly at some point, the reason was actually found to be a Linux regression. Linus quickly took care of the issue on an unofficial Witcher 2 issue tracker on GitHub: “It looks like LDT_empty is buggy on 64-bit kernels. I suspect that the behavior was inconsistent before the tightening change and that it’s now broken as a result. I’ll write a patch. Serves me right for not digging all the way down the mess of macros.” This one goes to the bin “don’t break userspace”. Linus also reminds of QA: “And maybe this is an excuse for somebody in the x86 maintainer team to try a few games on steam. They *are* likely good tests of odd behavior..” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Linus Fixes Kernel Regression Breaking Witcher 2

WhatsApp vs. WhatsApp Plus Fight Gets Ugly For Users

BarbaraHudson writes WhatsApp is locking out users for 24 hours who use WhatsApp Plus to access the service. The company claims they brought in the temporary ban to make users aware that they are not using the correct version and their privacy could be comprised using the unofficial WhatsApp Plus. “Starting today, we are taking aggressive action against unauthorized apps and alerting the people who use them.” Is this a more aggressive rerun of “This site best viewed with Internet Explorer”? Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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WhatsApp vs. WhatsApp Plus Fight Gets Ugly For Users