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Slashdot Daily Newsletter

In this issue:
* US Military Eyes the Glow of Fireflies
* Google Caffeine Drops MapReduce, Adds "Colossus"
* Hacker Teaches iPhone Forensics To Police
* £32k a Day For Birmingham Council Website
* Child Abuse Verdict Held Back By MS Word Glitch
* India's $35 7-Inch Android Tablet to Hit in January
* Microsoft Complaints Help Russian Gov't Pursue Political Opposition Groups
* Gartner Predicts Android Most Popular Mobile OS By 2014
* Orchestra To Turn Copyright-Free Classical Scores Into Copyright-Free Music
* Acer Dual-Screen, Multitouch Laptop Leaks Out
* Salesforce Uses Chatter To Monitor Employees
* Defending Self In a Case of On-Line Identity Theft?
* Geocentrists Convene To Discuss How Galileo Was Wrong
* IE9 Team Says "Our GPU Acceleration Is Better Than Yours"
* Burglary Ring Used Facebook Places To Find Targets
* Is DIY Algae Farming the Future?
* September Is Cyborg Month

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| US Military Eyes the Glow of Fireflies |
| from the get-some-glowing dept. |
| posted by samzenpus on Saturday September 11, @21:48 (The Military) |
| https://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/09/12/005228/US-Military-Eyes-the-Glow-of-Fireflies |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

GarryFre writes "According to the AP: 'Someday, the secrets of fireflies
or glowing sea plankton could save an American soldier in battle, a Navy
SEAL on a dive, or a military pilot landing after a mission. That's the
hope behind a growing field of [0]military-sponsored research into
bioluminescence, a phenomenon that's under the microscope in laboratories
around the country. This phenomenon is noteworthy because this produces
light without wasting energy because it does not generate any heat. A
possible military use of bio-luminescence would be creating biodegradable
landing zone markers that helicopters can spot even as wind from their
rotors kicks up dirt.'"

Discuss this story at:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10/09/12/005228

Links:
0. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100911/ap_on_re_us/us_fireflies_military_research

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Google Caffeine Drops MapReduce, Adds "Colossus" |
| from the time-to-upgrade dept. |
| posted by samzenpus on Saturday September 11, @23:43 (Google) |
| https://developers.slashdot.org/story/10/09/12/0155259/Google-Caffeine-Drops-MapReduce-Adds|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

An anonymous reader writes "With its new Caffeine search indexing system,
Google has [0]moved away from its MapReduce distributed number crunching
platform in favor of a setup that mirrors database programming. The index
is stored in Google's BigTable distributed database, and Caffeine allows
for incremental changes to the database itself. The system also uses an
update the Google File System codenamed 'Colossus.'"

Discuss this story at:
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10/09/12/0155259

Links:
0. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/09/09/google_caffeine_explained/

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Hacker Teaches iPhone Forensics To Police |
| from the strange-bedfellows dept. |
| posted by samzenpus on Sunday September 12, @00:09 (Crime) |
| https://apple.slashdot.org/story/10/09/12/0152254/Hacker-Teaches-iPhone-Forensics-To-Police|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

[0]Ponca City, We love you writes "The Mercury News reports that former
hacker Jonathan Zdziarski has been tapped by law-enforcement agencies
nationwide to teach them just [1]how much information is stored in
iPhones - and how to get it. 'These devices are people's companions
today,' says Zdziarski. 'They're not mobile phones anymore. They organize
people's lives. And if you're doing something criminal, something about
it is probably going to go through that phone.' For example, every time
an iPhone user closes out of the built-in mapping application, the phone
snaps a screenshot and stores it. Savvy law-enforcement agents armed with
search warrants can use those snapshots to see if a suspect is lying
about whereabouts during a crime."

Discuss this story at:
http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10/09/12/0152254

Links:
0. http://poncacityweloveyou.com/
1. http://www.siliconvalley.com/ci_15986753?nclick_check=1

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| £32k a Day For Birmingham Council Website |
| from the you're-doing-it-wrong dept. |
| posted by samzenpus on Sunday September 12, @02:16 (Government) |
| https://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/09/12/0243240/pound32k-a-Day-For-Birmingham-Council-Websi|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

An anonymous reader writes "Birmingham Wired have uncovered that
Birmingham City Council spend on average [0]£32,000 a day maintaining a
council website that has cost the tax-payer over £48 million to date,
while councils nationwide prepare to say goodbye to 26,000 jobs due to
budget deficits. Capita, a London based outsourcing company, states on
their website: 'To date we've invested £48.4m in a combination of staff
training, network upgrades, server replacements, hardware and software —
and we continue to drive efficiency through innovation.'"

Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10/09/12/0243240

Links:
0. http://www.ukwirednews.com/news.php/89458-32-000-a-day-for-council-website-as-26-000-face-job-cuts

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Child Abuse Verdict Held Back By MS Word Glitch |
| from the messy-verdict dept. |
| posted by samzenpus on Sunday September 12, @05:17 (Microsoft) |
| https://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/09/12/0217248/Child-Abuse-Verdict-Held-Back-By-MS-Word-Gl|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

An anonymous reader writes "Last week several defendants including one
high-profile TV presenter were sentenced in Portugal in what has been
known as [0]the Casa Pia scandal. The judges delivered on September 3 a
summary of the 2000-page verdict, which would be disclosed in full only
three days later. The disclosure of the full verdict has been postponed
from September 8 to a yet-to-be-announced date, allegedly because the
full document was written in several MS Word files which, when merged
together, retained '[1]computer related annotations which should not be
present in any legal document.' (Google translated article.) Microsoft
specialists were called in to help the judges sort out the 'text
formatting glitch,' while the defendants and their lawyers eagerly wait
to access the full text of the verdict."

Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10/09/12/0217248

Links:
0. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100903/wl_afp/portugalchildabusetrial
1. http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=pt&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.publico.pt%2FSociedade%2Fespecialistas-da-microsoft-ajudam-juiza-a-formatar-acordao-da-casa-pia_1455283

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| India's $35 7-Inch Android Tablet to Hit in January |
| from the little-machine-little-price dept. |
| posted by samzenpus on Sunday September 12, @07:57 (Education) |
| https://linux.slashdot.org/story/10/09/12/0344218/Indias-35-7-Inch-Android-Tablet-to-Hit-in|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

indogiree writes "Engadget reports that India has just awarded [0]the
manufacturing contract to HCL Technologies. The first shipment will
supposedly only contain the 7-inch model and is set to arrive on January
10. It's unclear if the $35 price has stuck or whether India's been
successful in plans to eventually drive the price down to $10 with the
help of large orders and government subsidies. HCL Technologies plans to
initially produce 100,000 units. Among the key features of this
India-based tablet include 2GB of RAM, web-conferencing, PDF reader
unzip, WiFi, camera and USB connectivity."

Discuss this story at:
http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10/09/12/0344218

Links:
0. http://www.tomshardware.com/news/india-android-tablet-35-indiapad,11255.html

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Microsoft Complaints Help Russian Gov't Pursue Political Opposition Groups |
| from the honestly-now dept. |
| posted by timothy on Sunday September 12, @09:04 (Government) |
| https://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/09/12/131247/Microsoft-Complaints-Help-Russian-Govt-Pursu|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

asaz989 writes "The New York Times reports that Russia selectively
[0]pursues software piracy complaints from Microsoft in order to suppress
the opposition — confiscating computers for evidence, searching offices,
and the like. Microsoft lawyers usually back the authorities in such
cases, even when cases such as that of the environmentalist group Baikal
Waves, which went out of its way to buy licenses to prevent police
harassment and nevertheless had its offices raided, and its computers
confiscated. Microsoft participated in this legal process. Published
alongside this story, under the same byline, is a related piece on the
collusion of Microsoft lawyers with corrupt Russian police in extorting
money from the targets of software piracy investigations. In a responding
press release, the company states, 'Microsoft antipiracy efforts are
designed to honor both [antipiracy concerns and human rights], but we are
open to feedback on what we can do to improve in that regard.'"

Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10/09/12/131247

Links:
0. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/world/europe/12raids.html?_r=4&ref=global-home&pagewanted=all

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Gartner Predicts Android Most Popular Mobile OS By 2014 |
| from the four-years-out dept. |
| posted by timothy on Sunday September 12, @10:02 (Google) |
| https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/10/09/12/1346245/Gartner-Predicts-Android-Most-Popular-Mo|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

[0]mikesd81 writes "According to Gartner research firm, Google's Android
smartphone operating system will in a single year have leapfrogged
competitors like Apple's iPhone, Research in Motion's Blackberry and
Microsoft Windows phones in global popularity, and [1]will challenge
Nokia to become the world's most popular mobile OS by 2014. Gartner says
that the explosive growth of Android will give it 17.7% of world wide
sales by the end of 2010. ... Analysts also say there are number of
things that could derail Android's growth, including [2]Oracle's lawsuit
over Java patents."

Discuss this story at:
http://mobile.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10/09/12/1346245

Links:
0. mailto:mikesd1@veCOBOLrizon.netminuslanguage
1. http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_16044567?nclick_check=1&forced=true
2. http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/08/13/0255205/Oracle-Sues-Google-For-Infringing-Java-Patents?from=rss

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Orchestra To Turn Copyright-Free Classical Scores Into Copyright-Free Music |
| from the going-the-extra-stanza dept. |
| posted by timothy on Sunday September 12, @10:53 (Music) |
| https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/10/09/12/1350202/Orchestra-To-Turn-Copyright-Free-|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

destinyland writes "An online music site has [0]raised over $13,000 to
hire a full orchestra to record royalty-free classical music. ('"Although
the actual symphonies are long out of copyright, there is [1]separate
protection for every individual performance by an orchestra," notes one
technology site.') MusOpen has reached their fundraising goal for both
the orchestra and a recording facility, and will now record the complete
symphonies of Beethoven, Brahms, Sibelius and Tchaikovsky. And because
their fundraising deadline doesn't end until Tuesday, they've promised to
add additional recordings for every additional $1,000 raised."

Discuss this story at:
http://entertainment.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10/09/12/1350202

Links:
0. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/Musopen/record-and-release-free-music-without-copyrights
1. http://tech.blorge.com/Structure:%20/2010/09/06/online-appeal-sets-classical-music-free/

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Acer Dual-Screen, Multitouch Laptop Leaks Out |
| from the mind-the-smudges dept. |
| posted by timothy on Sunday September 12, @11:56 (Displays) |
| https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/10/09/12/1421201/Acer-Dual-Screen-Multitouch-Laptop-Lea|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

An anonymous reader writes "A 15" laptop from Acer that is currently in
production [0]features dual-multitouch displays, one for the main display
and one as the keyboard/mouse. It has a 2.67GHz Intel Core i5 processor
and runs Windows 7. No release date or pricing information yet as this
unit is still heavily in production/testing phases." Replacing a keyboard
with a touchscreen sounds like a mixed blessing to me, but not everyone
agrees. Witness the (great big) [1]Kno dual-touchscreen e-reader, and the
[2]Toshiba Libretto W100 dual-screen mini-laptop, now shipping in Japan.

Discuss this story at:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10/09/12/1421201

Links:
0. http://www.techreviewsource.com/blog/?p=781
1. http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/10/06/04/020234/slashdot.sourceforge.net
2. http://liliputing.com/2010/08/toshiba-libretto-w100-dual-screen-mini-laptop-unboxed-video.html

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Salesforce Uses Chatter To Monitor Employees |
| from the eavesdropping-on-their-own-eaves dept. |
| posted by timothy on Sunday September 12, @13:00 (Privacy) |
| https://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/09/12/1540230/Salesforce-Uses-Chatter-To-Monitor-Employee|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

storagedude writes "At the [0]launch of Chatter Mobile this week,
Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff said he has been using the Facebook-like
business service to [1]monitor employee communications and identify a
'secret network' of employees who are influential in driving the
business. Asked if employees felt like they were being spied on by Big
Brother, Benioff replied, 'There are certain things appropriate in a
business environment. We're not talking about a tea party, we're talking
about how to get things fixed.' With 20,000 companies already using the
three-month-old service, it is no doubt being put to similar use
elsewhere. While Salesforce's use of Chatter to monitor employees
[2]appears to be legal, the issue underscores just how much social
networks can be mined for information — even for things they weren't
intended for."

Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10/09/12/1540230

Links:
0. http://www.ecrmguide.com/article.php/3902611
1. http://www.zdnet.co.uk/blogs/security-bullet-in-10000166/benioff-monitors-worker-communications-10018601/
2. http://www.ecrmguide.com/article.php/3903086

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Defending Self In a Case of On-Line Identity Theft? |
| from the show-them-a-video-of-your-entire-life dept. |
| posted by timothy on Sunday September 12, @14:04 (Businesses) |
| https://ask.slashdot.org/story/10/09/12/1718250/Defending-Self-In-a-Case-of-On-Line-Identit|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

SoccerDad41 writes "I am a systems administrator for an Indiana-based
bricks-n-clicks retailer currently suspended because an unscrupulous
typosquatter stole my name and registration information for his/her
fraudulent domain registration. My company hired a third party service to
protect their trademark by identifying and terminating infringing web
sites. The third party identified a domain name, performed a WhoIs lookup
& issued a complaint in compliance within ICANN's rules. This was
presumably all reported back to our Legal department and it was noticed
that the name on the domain registration matched mine. I have a locally
uncommon ethnic last name so an immediate connection to me was made &
although I protested my absolute innocence in the matter, I have been
suspended on grounds of violating non-compete policies pending proof that
it isn't me. The fraudulent domain registration was made with a different
registrar (let's call them Registrar B) than the one my company uses
(let's call them Registrar A). The public parts of the registration
information at Registrar B match pretty exactly those of my legitimate
domain registrations at Registrar A, including Registrar A's mailing
address and phone number. The only things left out in the mailing address
are the reference to a domain name and ATTN: Registrar A. Of course the
anonymized email address differs as well. Surely I'm not the first in the
Slashdot community to find myself in this situation. I'd like to avoid
incurring the cost of a lawyer but I am intent on maintaining my good
name and continued employment. What are my rights and responsibilities in
this matter? What is my best course of action? How did you resolve this
issue? How can I prove it's not me?"

Discuss this story at:
http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10/09/12/1718250

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Geocentrists Convene To Discuss How Galileo Was Wrong |
| from the when-did-britain-pull-ahead dept. |
| posted by timothy on Sunday September 12, @15:09 (Earth) |
| https://news.slashdot.org/story/10/09/12/1855237/Geocentrists-Convene-To-Discuss-How-Galile|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

rollcall writes "'[0]Galileo Was Wrong' is an inaugural conference to
discuss the 'detailed and comprehensive treatment of the scientific
evidence supporting Geocentrism, the academic belief that the Earth is
immobile in the center of the universe.' The geocentrists argue that
'Scientific evidence available to us within the last 100 years that was
not available during Galileo's confrontation shows that the [Catholic]
Church's position on the immobility of the Earth is not only
scientifically supportable, but it is the most stable model of the
universe and the one which best answers all the evidence we see in the
cosmos.' I, like many of you, am scratching my head wondering how people
still think this way. Unfortunately, there is still a significant
minority of [1]Western people who believe that the Earth is the center of
the universe: 18% of Americans, 16% of Germans, and 19% of Britons." I
hope there is live blogging from the conference.

Discuss this story at:
http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10/09/12/1855237

Links:
0. http://www.galileowaswrong.com/galileowaswrong/
1. http://www.gallup.com/poll/3742/new-poll-gauges-americans-general-knowledge-levels.aspx

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| IE9 Team Says "Our GPU Acceleration Is Better Than Yours" |
| from the them's-renderin'-words dept. |
| posted by timothy on Sunday September 12, @16:20 (Firefox) |
| https://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/09/12/2018229/IE9-Team-Says-Our-GPU-Acceleration-Is-Bett|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

An anonymous reader writes "Over on the IE blog Microsoft's Ted Johnson
writes, 'With IE9, developers have a [0]fully-hardware accelerated
display pipeline that runs from their markup to the screen. Based on
their blog posts, the hardware-accelerated implementations of other
browsers generally accelerate one phase or the other, but not yet both.
Delivering full hardware acceleration, on by default, is an architectural
undertaking. When there is a desire to run across multiple platforms,
developers introduce abstraction layers and inevitably make tradeoffs
which ultimately impact performance and reduce the ability of a browser
to achieve 'native' performance. Getting the full value of the GPU is
extremely challenging and writing to intermediate layers and libraries
instead of an operating system's native support makes it even harder.
Windows' DirectX long legacy of powering of the most intensive 3D games
has made DirectX the highest performance GPU-based rendering system
available.' Some Mozillians hit back in the comments to the IE Blog post
and others have written [1]blog posts of [2]their own. PC Mag's Michael
Muchmore seems to conclude that IE9 and Firefox 4 are [3]more or less the
same (despite the title of his article) while Chrome currently lags
behind."

Discuss this story at:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10/09/12/2018229

Links:
0. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2010/09/10/the-architecture-of-full-hardware-acceleration-of-all-web-page-content.aspx
1. http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/roc/archives/2010/09/full_hardware_a.html
2. http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/2010/09/wrong_wrong_wrong.html
3. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2368987,00.asp

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Burglary Ring Used Facebook Places To Find Targets |
| from the my-younger-cousins-like-this-and-3-other-pages dept. |
| posted by timothy on Sunday September 12, @17:21 (Crime) |
| https://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/09/12/217214/Burglary-Ring-Used-Facebook-Places-To-Find-T|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Kilrah_il writes "A burglary ring was caught in Nashua, NH due to the
vigilance of an off-duty police officer. The group is credited with 50
acts of burglaries, the [0]targets chosen because they posted their
absence from home on the Internet. '"Be careful of what you post on these
social networking sites," said Capt. Ron Dickerson. "We know for a fact
that some of these players, some of these criminals, were looking on
these sites and identifying their targets through these social networking
sites."' Well, I guess the [1]prophecies came true."

Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10/09/12/217214

Links:
0. http://www.wmur.com/r/24943582/detail.html
1. http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?cid=33299706&sid=1758872&tid=88

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Is DIY Algae Farming the Future? |
| from the for-fun-and-food-and-friendship dept. |
| posted by timothy on Sunday September 12, @18:30 (Biotech) |
| https://science.slashdot.org/story/10/09/12/2213217/Is-DIY-Algae-Farming-the-Future |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

hex0D points to this "interview with Aaron Baum explaining why [0]people
growing algae at home for food can help the environment and their health,
and what he's doing to facilitate this. 'We'd like to create an
international network of people growing all kinds of algae in their homes
in a small community scale, sharing information, doing it all in an open
source way. We'd be like the Linux of algae – do-it-yourself with
low-cost materials and shared information.' And one of the low-cost
materials is your household urine."

Discuss this story at:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10/09/12/2213217

Links:
0. http://shareable.net/blog/is-algae-the-shareable-answer-to-food-energy-crises

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| September Is Cyborg Month |
| from the please-participate-in-the-form-of-a-bot dept. |
| posted by timothy on Sunday September 12, @19:50 (Media) |
| https://news.slashdot.org/story/10/09/12/2312224/September-Is-Cyborg-Month |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Snowmit writes "In May 1960, Manfred E. Clynes and Nathan S. Kline
presented a paper called 'Drugs, Space, and Cybernetics.' The proceedings
of the symposium were published in 1961, but, before that, an excerpt of
Clynes & Kline's paper appeared in the September issue of Astronautics
magazine (issue 13), entitled [0]Cyborgs and Space [PDF]. Aside from a
mention in the New York Times, that's is the first time the word appears
in print. This month is the 50th anniversary of that article. To
commemorate, a group of writers and artists have gotten together to
create [1]50 Post About Cyborgs. Over the course of the month, there will
be essays, fiction, links to great older material, comics, and even a
song. We're going to talk about Daleks, IEDs, Renaissance memory palaces,
chess computers, prosthetic imagination, Videodrome, mutants, sports, and
maybe the Bible. To kick things off, Kevin Kelly wrote this essay arguing
that [2]we've been cyborgs all along."

Discuss this story at:
http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10/09/12/2312224

Links:
0. http://web.mit.edu/digitalapollo/Documents/Chapter1/cyborgs.pdf
1. http://50cyborgs.tumblr.com/
2. http://quietbabylon.com/2010/domesticated-cyborgs-kevin-kelly/

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