CmdrTaco - Slashdot User

Ancient and Modern People Followed Same Mathematical Rule To Build Cities 81

Posted by samzenpus on Monday February 23, 2015 @12:46PM from the using-the-same-template dept.

An anonymous reader writes with news of a study that shows similarities in how cities are built throughout time. "A study of archeological data from ancient Mexican settlements reveals remarkable similarities between pre-Colombian cities and modern ones, lending support to the idea that urban spaces are shaped by universal social behaviors. Sure, each city has its own local quirks, architecture, language and cuisine. But recently, some theoretical scientists have started to find there are universal laws that shape all urban spaces. And a new study suggests the same mathematical rules might apply to ancient settlements, too. Using archaeological data from the ruins of Tenochtitlan and thousands of other sites around it in Mexico, researchers found that private houses and public monuments were built in predictable ways."

NSA, GHCQ Implicated In SIM Encryption Hack 155

Posted by samzenpus on Monday February 23, 2015 @12:01PM from the protect-ya-neck dept.

First time accepted submitter BlacKSacrificE writes Australian carriers are bracing for a mass recall after it was revealed that a Dutch SIM card manufacturer Gemalto was penetrated by the GCHQ and the NSA in an alleged theft of encryption keys, allowing unfettered access to voice and text communications. The incident is suspected to have happened in 2010 and 2011 and seems to be a result of social engineering against employees, and was revealed by yet another Snowden document. Telstra, Vodafone and Optus have all stated they are waiting for further information from Gemalto before deciding a course of action. Gemalto said in a press release that they "cannot at this early stage verify the findings of the publication" and are continuing internal investigations, but considering Gemalto provides around 2 billion SIM cards to some 450 carriers across the globe (all of which use the same GSM encryption standard) the impact and fallout for Gemalto, and the affected carriers, could be huge.

Submission + - Ancient and Modern People Followed Same Mathematical Rule to Build Cities

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 23, 2015 @11:20AM

An anonymous reader writes: A study of archeological data from ancient Mexican settlements reveals remarkable similarities between pre-Colombian cities and modern ones, lending support to the idea that urban spaces are shaped by universal social behaviors. Sure, each city has its own local quirks, architecture, language and cuisine. But recently, some theoretical scientists have started to find there are universal laws that shape all urban spaces. And a new study suggests the same mathematical rules might apply to ancient settlements, too. Using archaeological data from the ruins of Tenochtitlan and thousands of other sites around it in Mexico, researchers found that private houses and public monuments were built in predictable ways.

Pandora Pays Artists $0.001 Per Stream, Thinks This Is "Very Fair" 305

Posted by samzenpus on Monday February 23, 2015 @11:17AM from the getting-your-cut dept.

journovampire writes with this story about how much artists make on Spotify. "Pandora founder Tim Westergren has claimed that the company is paying out 'very fair' sums to artists, despite its per-stream royalty weighing in at just one sixth of Spotify's. The digital personalized radio platform has previously gone on-record as saying that it pays music rights-holders approximately $0.0014 for each play of their tracks: Westergren blogged in 2013 that Pandora pays ‘around $1,370 for a million spins’. That’s around 80% smaller than Spotify’s per-stream payout, which officially stands somewhere between $0.006 and $0.0084."

Apple To Invest $2B Building Green Data Centers In Ireland and Denmark 82

Posted by samzenpus on Monday February 23, 2015 @10:32AM from the going-green dept.

stephendavion writes Amid deeper investigations into how Apple may be using its operations in Ireland as a means for tax avoidance on tens of billions of dollars in profit, the iPhone maker has announced that it will spend nearly $2 billion (€1.7 billion) to develop two new 100% renewable energy data centers in Europe. The centers — which will use wind power and other green fuel sources — will be located in Athenry, Ireland, and Viborg, Denmark. Apple said that they will power services such as apps in the App Store, Siri and iMessage. Both locations will run on 100 percent renewable energy and Apple said they will have the 'lowest environmental impact' of its data centers thus far. It will also be following in the footsteps of companies like Facebook, which has also built sustainable data center operations out in Europe.

The History of Sex.com, the Most Contested Domain On the Internet 72

Posted by samzenpus on Monday February 23, 2015 @09:48AM from the what's-in-a-name dept.

sarahnaomi writes On its face, sex.com looks like a no-frills Pinterest for porn, but behind the site lies an ongoing grudge match between the man who invented online dating and a con artist who stole the crown jewel of the internet out from under him. The history of the domain is well documented, with two books and dozens of articles written on the subject. It was first registered in 1994 by Gary Kremen, the entrepreneur who founded Match.com and was savvy enough to buy up several generic domains, including jobs.com and housing.com, in the early days of the internet.

A123 Sues Apple For Poaching Employees 196

Posted by samzenpus on Friday February 20, 2015 @09:07AM from the don't-take-the-law-into-your-own-hands-you-take-them-to-court dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Electric-car battery maker A123 Systems is suing Apple in federal court for allegedly poaching five employees to help it develop a competing battery business. The suit accuses the workers, including A123's former chief technology officer, of breaking noncompete and nonsolicit agreements. "It appears that Apple, with the assistance of defendant Ijaz, is systematically hiring away A123’s high-tech PhD and engineering employees, thereby effectively shutting down various projects/programs at A123," according to the lawsuit. The news adds some credibility to rumors that Apple is getting into the automotive market. "

How Machine Learning Ate Microsoft 96

Posted by samzenpus on Friday February 20, 2015 @06:32AM from the doing-it-smarter dept.

snydeq writes Yesterday's announcement of Azure Machine Learning offers the latest sign of Microsoft's deep machine learning expertise — now available to developers everywhere, InfoWorld reports. "Machine learning has infiltrated Microsoft products from Bing to Office to Windows 8 to Xbox games. Its flashiest vehicle may be the futuristic Skype Translator, which handles two-way voice conversations in different languages. Now, with machine learning available on the Azure cloud, developers can build learning capabilities into their own applications: recommendations, sentiment analysis, fraud detection, fault prediction, and more. The idea of the new Azure offering is to democratize machine learning, so you no longer need to hire someone with a doctorate to use a machine learning algorithm."

Scotland's Police Lose Data Because of Programmer's Error 108

Posted by samzenpus on Friday February 20, 2015 @04:01AM from the who's-to-blame dept.

Anne Thwacks writes Assistant Chief Constable Wayne Mawson told the [Scottish Police Authority] committee that a total of 20,086 records had been lost because a computer programmer pressed the wrong button between May and July last year. He added: "....they had been properly put on the system by the officers as a result of stopping and searching people, but we lost the outcome of it as a computer programming error. We have been working really hard to recover that data. I have personally overseen the sending out of several thousand emails to officers and follow-up audits. We have been working hard with HMICS to oversee everything that we do, to make sure it is done properly and I am pleased to say that the vast majority of that data, those results, are now back on the system."

Samsung Takes On Apple Pay By Acquiring Mobile Wallet Startup LoopPay 62

Posted by samzenpus on Friday February 20, 2015 @01:27AM from the circle-of-business dept.

An anonymous reader writes Samsung is buying major Apple Pay and Google Wallet competitor LoopPay. "Our goal has always been to build the smartest, most secure, user-friendly mobile wallet experience, and we are delighted to welcome LoopPay to take us closer to this goal," JK Shin, Samsung co-CEO and head of the company's mobile business, said in a press release. "What's a real differentiator is this uses technology that's in stores today," David Eun, executive vice president of Samsung's global innovation center, said in an interview. "We don't have to wait for a point in the future where there are a lot more [NFC-enabled] terminals."

When It Comes To Spy Gear, Many Police Ignore Public Records Laws 78

Posted by timothy on Thursday February 19, 2015 @11:00PM from the muck-rocks! dept.

v3rgEz writes What should take precedence: State public records laws, or contractual agreements between local police, the FBI, and the privately owned Harris Corporation? That's the question being played out across the country, as agencies are strongly divided on releasing much information, if any, on how they're using Stingray technology to collect and monitor phone metadata without judicial oversight.

Does Open Data Have a Dark Side? 65

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday February 19, 2015 @08:24PM from the the-good-and-the-bad dept.

itwbennett writes A Forbes article last month explored some of the potentially darker sides of open data — from creating a new kind of digital divide to making an argument in favor of privatizing certain government services. But how real are these downsides of open data? The World Wide Web Foundation's Open Data Program Manager Jose Alonso is unconcerned, telling ITworld's Phil Johnson via email that the WWWF "believes there is no substantial evidence yet that the availability of Open Data leads to the marketization of public services or public spending cuts." But Ben Wellington, a professor in the City & Regional Planning program at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York and author of the popular blog I Quant NY, takes a more cautious stance, acknowledging that there are some real concerns that may call for regulation. But, at least for now, "there's a lot more innovation and positive things coming out than these corner cases," says Wellington.

AT&T Patents System To "Fast-Lane" File-Sharing Traffic 112

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday February 19, 2015 @07:40PM from the greased-lightning dept.

An anonymous reader writes Telecom giant AT&T has been awarded a patent for speeding up BitTorrent and other peer-to-peer traffic, and reducing the impact that these transactions have on the speed of its network. Unauthorized file-sharing generates thousands of petabytes of downloads every month, sparking considerable concern among the ISP community due to its detrimental effect on network speeds. AT&T and its Intellectual Property team has targeted the issue in a positive manner, and has appealed for the new patent to create a 'fast lane' for BitTorrent and other file-sharing traffic. As well as developing systems around the caching of local files, the ISP has proposed analyzing BitTorrent traffic to connect high-impact clients to peers who use fewer resources.

Could Fossils of Ancient Life From Earth Reside On the Moon? 88

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday February 19, 2015 @09:06AM from the how'd-this-get-here dept.

MarkWhittington writes Does the moon contain fossils of billions of years old organisms from Earth? That theory has been laid out in recent research at the Imperial College of London, reported in a story in Air and Space Magazine by Dr. Paul Spudis, a lunar and planetary geologist. The implications for science and future lunar exploration are profound. Scientists have known for decades that planets and moons in the Solar System exchange material due to impacts. A large meteor smashes into a planet, Mars for example, and blasts material into space. That material eventually finds itself landing on another planet, Earth in this case. Mars rocks have been discovered on Earth since the 1980s. Other rocks from the moon and, it is surmised, Mercury have also been found, blasted into space billions of years ago to eventually find themselves on Earth.

Google Faces Anti-Trust Probe In Russia Over Android 149

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday February 19, 2015 @06:31AM from the taking-a-good-look dept.

First time accepted submitter Mark Wilson writes Google has a new battle on its hands, this time in the form of a potential anti-trust probe in Russia. Yandex, the internet company behind the eponymous Russian search engine, has filed a complaint to the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS). Yandex claims that the US search giant is abusing its position by bundling Google services with Android. It claims that users are forced into using the Google ecosystem including Google Search, and that it is difficult to install competing services on smartphones and tablets. There are distinct echoes of the antitrust lawsuits Microsoft has faced for its bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows.

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