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BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition Mon, 08 Feb 2010 23:09:49 GMT
Slashdot 
  • Google Shooting For Smartphone Universal Translator nikki4 writes to tell us that in giving some major improvement tweaks to its existing voice recognition tool for the Smartphone, Google is aiming for new translator software that will provide instant translation of foreign languages. "The company has already created an automatic system for translating text on computers, which is being honed by scanning millions of multi-lingual websites and documents. So far it covers 52 languages, adding Haitian Creole last week. Google also has a voice recognition system that enables phone users to conduct web searches by speaking commands into their phones rather than typing them in. Now it is working on combining the two technologies to produce software capable of understanding a caller’s voice and translating it into a synthetic equivalent in a foreign language."

    Read more of this story at Slashdot.


  • New Material Transforms Car Bodies Into Batteries MikeChino writes "As battery manufacturers race to produce more efficient lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, some scientists are looking to make the cars themselves a power source. Researchers are currently developing a new auto body material that can store and release electrical energy like a battery. Once perfected, scientists hope the substance will replace standard car bodies, making vehicles up to 15 percent lighter and significantly extending the range of electric vehicles."

    Read more of this story at Slashdot.


  • Verizon Blocking 4chan An anonymous reader writes "According to 4chan's owner and administrator 'moot,' Verizon has explicitly blocked all traffic on their network from boards.4chan.org, where all of 4chan's boards are located. Moot explains that only traffic to and from port 80 is being dropped and they were able to confirm that it was intentional. 4chan's downtime for Verizon users has been in effect for at least 72 hours since Saturday, February 7."

    Read more of this story at Slashdot.


  • A Reflection On Sun Executive Payouts For Failure With the Oracle/Sun merger finally completing at the end of January, one former Sun worker has taken the time to reflect a bit on the extravagant compensation and golden parachutes that the former executives at Sun are receiving for failing at their jobs. "I think it's fair to say that, for all the miscues that eventually led to its demise, the company created many products and technologies of value along the way, enough so that Oracle thought it was worth it to acquire them and try to keep them going. However, I think that it's equally fair to conclude that, after years of running losses, including about $2 billion in fiscal 2009, so that a buyout was necessary to avoid looming bankruptcy, Sun's executives did nothing to deserve lavish rewards, by any conceivable meaning of the word 'deserve.' But what actually happened is by now a familiar story. [...] And here's a prediction that I feel quite certain of: if, against expectations and my hopes, Ellison drops the ball and things start going south for Oracle, it's the employees who will suffer for it, and he'll be doing just fine."

    Read more of this story at Slashdot.


  • Turns Out You Actually Can Be Bored To Death A study conducted by researchers at University College London shows that boredom can kill you. The researchers found that people who reported feeling a great deal of boredom were 37 per cent more likely to have died by the end of the study. Martin Shipley, who co-wrote the report said, "The findings on heart disease show there was sufficient evidence to say there is a link with boredom."

    Read more of this story at Slashdot.


  • Cacti 0.8 Network Monitoring GJdeBoer writes "The book is aimed at people who are managing a network and would like to get insight into the performance of that network. It covers the installation and configuration of the Cacti application. In the preface the book states that it's not necessary to be a Linux Guru to use the book and that exactly is the case. The book builds up your knowledge about Cacti and the necessary steps to configure it for your network, and it teaches you about Net-SNMP and RRDTool, the building blocks of Cacti." Read on for the rest of GJdeBoer's review.

    Read more of this story at Slashdot.


  • What Are the Best Valentine's Day Stunts? With the oh-so-dreaded Hallmark holiday on the horizon we are flooded with tips and tricks (mostly designed to sell us things our mates cannot live without) of how to please/capture/sedate the ones we care for. One writer even suggests ways to capture the interest of a geeky girl. That said, what are some of the crazier romantically inspired, geeky V-day stunts or activities that you or someone you know has executed to terrible success or failure?

    Read more of this story at Slashdot.


  • SourceForge Removes Blanket Blocking Recently there was much gnashing of teeth as SourceForge (who shares a corporate overlord with Slashdot) started programmatically blocking users in certain countries to comply with US export restrictions. Thankfully they didn't let it end there and have found a way to put the power back in the hands of the users. "Beginning now, every project admin can click on Develop -> Project Admin -> Project Settings to find a new section called Export Control. By default, we've ticked the more restrictive setting. If you conclude that your project is *not* subject to export regulations, or any other related prohibitions, you may now tick the other check mark and click Update. After that, all users will be able to download your project files as they did before last month's change."

    Read more of this story at Slashdot.


  • Nexus One First Phone Linus Torvalds "Doesn't Hate" SpuriousLogic writes "Linus Torvalds, the inventor of the Linux kernel, has an absolute disdain for mobile phones. All of the ones he has purchased in the past, the man writes on his personal blog, ended up being 'mostly used for playing Galaga and Solitaire on long flights' even though they were naturally all phones run on open source operating systems. Things have changed now, he adds, now that he has caved and bought Google's Nexus One a couple of days ago."

    Read more of this story at Slashdot.


  • Zero-Day Vulnerabilities On the Market An anonymous reader writes "Zero-day vulnerabilities have become prized possessions to attackers and defenders alike. As the recent China-Google attack demonstrated, they are the basis on which most of the successful attacks are crafted these days. There is an underground market growing around these vulnerabilities, but there are also 'white markets' — set up by VeriSign, TippingPoint, Google — where they buy zero-day flaws and alert the companies so that they can patch their products before the vulnerabilities can be taken advantage of."

    Read more of this story at Slashdot.


  • Mozilla Puts Tiger Out To Pasture Barence writes "Mozilla is ready to exorcise support for Mac OS X 10.4 from Firefox's development code, closing the door on Apple's aging OS. The foundation stopped supporting 10.4, codenamed Tiger, in September 2009, but, according to Josh Aas, a Mozilla platform engineer, "we left much of the code required to support that platform in the tree in case we wanted to reverse that decision." We had come to a point where we need to make a final decision and either restore 10.4 support or remove this (large) amount of 10.4 specific code," he notes on the Mozilla developer planning forum."

    Read more of this story at Slashdot.


  • Shuttle Endeavour Blasts Off For Space Station Gwmaw writes "The space shuttle Endeavour bolted off its seaside launch pad on Monday on a voyage to install the last two main pieces of the International Space Station. The 4:14 a.m. EST (0914 GMT) blastoff from the Kennedy Space Center shattered the predawn tranquility with a deafening roar and a brilliant tower of flames that momentarily turned the dark Florida sky as bright as day." HD video of launch attached.

    Read more of this story at Slashdot.


  • Google Mystery Domain Reroutes 3% of Net Surfers An anonymous reader writes "A new Google domain — 1e400.net, a nod to the company's famously misspelled name — is now the net's 44th most visited site. Google says the domain is used to 'identify servers' on its internal network, hinting that reverse DNS plays a role. The domain was registered in September and launched in October, about the same time Google unveiled Spanner, a new addition to its backend infrastructure designed to shift loads automatically among its data centers."

    Read more of this story at Slashdot.


  • Push To End Online Gambling Ban Gains Steam The Washington Post updates a story we discussed last spring about a push in the Democratic-controlled congress to legalize some forms of Internet gambling in the US. "Partly bankrolled by offshore gambling companies, the campaign has already persuaded the Obama administration to delay enforcement of a 2006 law cracking down on Internet wagers. ... The federal government, which rarely prosecutes online gambling, would net billions of dollars in tax and licensing revenue if it were legalized, proponents say. ... The outlook on Capitol Hill, however, is uncertain given a slate of unfinished business... [and] nervousness among Democrats about November midterm challenges. ... [A politically conservative poker player said] 'There's a part of the party that always believes this isn't something people should do. But I think it behooves the party to be a little more broad-minded on this issue.'"

    Read more of this story at Slashdot.


  • 3D HDMI Specification Is Set Free An anonymous reader writes "The licenser of the HDMI specification has announced the intent to 'secure the application of 3D' by making the 3D portion of the HDMI 1.4 Specification available for public download, as well as extracts from the upcoming HDMI 1.4a. While the spec includes a 3D component, apparently not everyone has decided to sign up to adopt it. Given the developments happening in DisplayPort v1.2, the next year in displays looks like it will be an interesting one."

    Read more of this story at Slashdot.


CNN.com 
  • Jackson's doctor pleads not guilty to manslaughter Dr. Conrad Murray, personal physician to Michael Jackson, has pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter in connection with the pop star's death last summer.
  • Haitian may have lasted month in rubble A man pulled alive from the rubble of a building in Haiti's capital may have been trapped since the January 12 quake that leveled much of the city, doctors reported Monday.
  • Lawyer: Americans had Dominican OK A group of Americans accused of kidnapping 33 Haitian children had authorization from neighboring Dominican Republic to bring the kids across the border, a lawyer for the group said Monday.
  • Rep. John Murtha dead at 77 Rep. John Murtha died after gallbladder surgery complications, his office said. An ex-Marine who became an Iraq war critic, he was known as one of the "kings of pork."
  • Elizabeth Smart kidnapper pleads guilty A woman convicted in the 2002 kidnapping of Utah teenager Elizabeth Smart pleaded guilty in the attempted kidnapping of Smart's cousin a month later, court officials said Monday.
  • Ripples of Dubai killing spread A man was murdered in his Dubai hotel room by a hit squad that operated with European passports, police say. Sounds like the plot of a novel, but this is reality and the hunt is on for the killers of top Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.
  • Sri Lanka opposition leader arrested A former Sri Lankan general who ran against President Mahinda Rajapaksa in January has been arrested on charges of plotting to overthrow the country's government, authorities announced Monday night.
  • 3 shot during New Orleans celebration Three people were shot amid celebrations surrounding the New Orleans Saints' Super Bowl win, police said Monday.
  • Up to 20 more inches of snow for D.C. A second round of snow is heading toward Washington, D.C., and surrounding cities, where residents are still digging out after a record-setting blizzard.
  • Stop dementia with Mediterranean diet? Eating a diet rich in healthy fats and limiting dairy and meat could do more than keep your heart healthier. It could also help keep you thinking clearly.

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