SoylentNews

gewg_ writes:

It appears that, like the German city of Munich, the Swiss Canton of Geneva has been very measured in its migration to FOSS.

In 2003, the tax office of the canton passed out CDs which contained the Mozilla online suite, OpenOffice.org, and a tax application, GE Tax 2002.

In 2008, they made the commitment that all their public schools' 9000 computers would have Windows (dual-boot) removed, leaving Ubuntu Linux.

While they have reached a significant milestone, it appears they did not complete the system-wide conversion before the XP end of life and they will still be running that obsolete OS on a number of computers.

All primary and secondary public schools in the Swiss Canton of Geneva are switching to using Ubuntu GNU/Linux for the PCs used by teachers and students. The switch has been completed by all of the 170 primary public schools, and the migration of the canton's 20 secondary schools is planned for the next school year. Ubuntu GNU/Linux offers powerful services to the teachers, is easier to maintain, faster, safer and more stable than the decade-old proprietary operating system it is replacing, the canton's school IT department concludes, based on several four-year long pilots.

Making it easier to service the canton's schools' PC needs was one the main reasons for 'Service ecoles-medias' (SEM), part of Geneva's IT department, to switch the schools to Ubuntu, as the proprietary system is no longer being maintained.

cafebabe writes:

ScienceDaily reports that:

Many patients with advanced stages of cancer, AIDS, tuberculosis, and other diseases die from a condition called cachexia, which is characterized as a "wasting" syndrome that causes extreme thinness with muscle weakness. Cachexia is the direct cause of roughly 20% of deaths in cancer patients. While boosting food intake doesn't help, and no effective therapies are available, new research in the Cell Press journal Cell Metabolism points to a promising strategy that may stimulate weight gain and muscle strength.

The research relates to a process that has been gaining considerable attention as a way to combat obesity: the browning of white fat. While white fat normally stores calories, brown fat burns them and generates heat in the process. Therefore, efforts to turn white fat into brown fat may help people lose weight.

Erwin Wagner, of the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre in Madrid, and his colleagues found that in mice and patients with cancer-associated cachexia, white fat undergoes significant changes and turns into calorie-burning brown fat. The transformation leads to increased energy consumption and organ wasting.

lhsi writes:

Researchers have looked into driver discomfort caused by energy efficient lights, to improve driver safety:

The researchers found that the interaction between the LED luminance and the solid angle, which can be characterized by the amount of light hitting an observer's eyes (known as vertical luminescence) was the most significant factor affecting discomfort glare. To minimize discomfort, they recommend minimizing both the amount of light hitting at the eyes and the luminescence contrast between the streetlights and the background, which can be accomplished through good optical design of the LED light unit and careful placement of each streetlight.

Full text (open access)

gewg_ writes:

The Center for American Progress reports

While the politics of fracking has taken hold of election-year energy discussions in Colorado, the wind power industry is quietly surging. On Friday Vesta Wind Systems announced it was hiring 800 new workers, part of plans to fill 1,500 jobs this year in Colorado, after receiving orders for 370 turbines over the last few weeks. The jobs will be full-time, high-skilled jobs primarily in the manufacturing of blades and towers.

"We have received U.S. orders of 740 MW in the last month alone, so our North American factories are very busy, as are factories overseas," Vestas spokesman Adam Serchuk told ThinkProgress. "As far as I can see this will be the case at least through the end of 2015."

At the end of June, Vestas, the world's biggest wind turbine manufacturer with its U.S. headquarters in Portland, Oregon, announced orders for 450 megawatts worth of wind turbines for two U.S. wind farms. Totaling 225 machines, the farms will be in New Mexico and Kansas and scheduled for completion by the end of 2015. In early July the company received another order for 166 megawatts of wind turbines for a Minnesota wind farm. There was also one more order for 124 megawatts for a wind farm in North Dakota.
[...]
Vestas has four factories in Colorado and will employ 2,800 people in the state by the end of the year.

Anonymous Coward writes:

The Register reports that separate sources - possibly all originating from one source - report that TAILS 1.1, due for release tomorrow, contains zero-day vulnerabilities:

"We're happy to see that TAILS 1.1 is being released tomorrow. Our multiple RCE/de-anonymization zero-days are still effective." -via @ExodusIntel: https://twitter.com/ExodusIntel

"Exploit Dealer: Snowden's Favourite OS Tails Has Zero-Day Vulnerabilities Lurking Inside" - Thomas Brewster | Security | 7/21/2014 @ 2:14PM

"The flaws work on the latest version of Tails and allow for the ability to exploit a targeted user, both for de-anonymisation and remote code execution," said Loc Nguyen a researcher at Exodus. Remote code execution means a hacker can do almost anything they want to the victim's system, such as installing malware or siphoning off files.

"Considering that the purpose of Tails is to provide a secure non-attributable platform for communications, users are verifiably at-risk due to these flaws. For the Tails platform, privacy is contingent on maintaining anonymity and ensuring their actions and communications are not attributable. Thus, any violation of those foundational pillars should be considering highly critical," added Nguyen. This affects every user of Tails, who should all "diversify security platforms so as not to put all your eggs in one basket", he added.

All users, including Snowden, should be wary of using Tails with a false sense of security, though it's still more likely to protect anonymity than Windows. Exodus sells to private and public businesses hoping to use the findings for either offensive or defensive means. Those unconcerned about governments targeting their systems might not be concerned about the Tails zero-days. Others will likely be anxious one of their trusted tools to avoid government hackers contains vulnerabilities that could be exploited to spy on any user of the OS."

Exodus have promised not to sell their findings but say that they will work with the TAILS team - but that is how they make their money so I'm not sure how much faith one should put in that remark. They also claim that they will publish the vulnerabilities in their blog next week.

Geezer writes:

The Huffington Post is running a story that provides a bit of comic relief from today's mundane news. Creationist Ken Ham, who recently debated Bill Nye the Science Guy over the origins of the universe, is calling for an end to the search for extraterrestrial life because aliens probably don't exist—and if they do, they're going to Hell anyway. In this story, we learn that aliens, if they exist, are doomed to Hell where not even Jesus can save them. Spock would find this to be illogical.

cafebabe writes:

World Observer has a series of pictures which concisely show some tricks to make you look like a seasoned camper. Many of the tricks reduce the weight of things to carry, such as making your own single-serving soaps and toothpastes. Other tricks make camping more enjoyable or have everyday utility. Unfortunately, one suggestion is somewhat dubious.

Some of the hacks are more trouble than they are worth, but there were a few good ones on that page, and some may make fun projects with the kids.

Any SN readers campers?

Bytram writes:

New research from the University of Chicago suggests that where people look at you suggests whether they are interested in love or in lust.

Soul singer Betty Everett once proclaimed, “If you want to know if he loves you so, it’s in his kiss.” But a new study by University of Chicago researchers suggests the difference between love and lust might be in the eyes after all.

Specifically, where your date looks at you could indicate whether love or lust is in the cards. The new study found that eye patterns concentrate on a stranger’s face if the viewer sees that person as a potential partner in romantic love, but the viewer gazes more at the other person’s body if he or she is feeling sexual desire. That automatic judgment can occur in as little as half a second, producing different gaze patterns.

Male and female students from the University of Geneva viewed a series of black-and-white photographs of persons they had never met. In part one of the study, participants viewed photos of young, adult heterosexual couples who were looking at or interacting with each other. In part two, participants viewed photographs of attractive individuals of the opposite sex who were looking directly at the camera/viewer. None of the photos contained nudity or erotic images.

People tended to visually fixate on the face, especially when they said an image elicited a feeling of romantic love. However, with images that evoked sexual desire, the subjects’ eyes moved from the face to fixate on the rest of the body. The effect was found for male and female participants.

lhsi writes:

When Google released the Chromecast, a cheap dongle to stream content to a TV, only a handful of apps were listed as compatible by the Chromecast site. Now, the site has been updated and lists many more apps, and also includes a search functionality.

lhsi writes:

Researchers have found a causal link between maternal nicotine use during pregnancy and a child having ADHD (Full text). The new study also hints-but doesn't prove-that nicotine-replacement products used during pregnancy, such as patches and gum, could pose the same risk to children.

In this large cohort of children followed up to 8 to 14 years of age, we found that both maternal and paternal smoking during pregnancy were associated with an elevated risk for ADHD, based on hospital diagnosis, medication, and hyperactivity/inattention scores. The association was consistently stronger for maternal smoking than for paternal smoking and was also found for mother's use of nicotine replacement during pregnancy. These results suggest a causal effect of smoking (and nicotine) during fetal life or other factors related to maternal nicotine dependance. The findings for paternal smoking could reflect an effect of passive smoking but may also be a result of social or genetic confounding

gewg_ writes with news of a story that appeared in TechDirt last Friday:

There's probably no better way to announce that the broadband service you're providing is inadequate than the mayor of a town feeling compelled to write a letter to tourists, apologizing in advance for the lousy connection (or the complete lack of one).

Blogger Ewan Grantham came across the following letter in his hotel room in Tusayan, AZ (right outside the Grand Canyon).

Dear Tusayan Guest-

As a guest in one of our wonderful Tusayan hotels, we know that like our residents, you have expectations in today's technology age of being able to easily and consistently access the internet highway during your stay in our community. Again, like our residents, we understand your frustration with the inconsistent strength of the broadband signal, or even total lack of an ability to connect. It is an issue that we have to deal with on a daily basis due to a lack of sufficient signal from our primary service broadband provider, CenturyLink. What bandwidth we have coming into the entire community has been severely over-subscribed (sold to too many users for the small signal strength available) and thus the poor quality of connectivity in our community. The situation is NOT due to a lack of effort or desire to provide you a quality service by the hotel where you are staying. It is due the lack of availability of broad bandwidth from CenturyLink.

The Town itself has been working for many months to try and resolve this situation by working with several entities to bring in a consistent and reliable service to meet not only our residents needs, but to also provide the level of service that we feel our guests and visitors to the Grand Canyon deserve. Hopefully we will be able meet those needs in the near future. Please understand that the issue is beyond our control as a whole community and not just this individual business and bear with us and we work to join the internet highway with quality services.

In the meantime, enjoy the reason you have come to our community, the Grand Canyon in all its magical and powerful beauty. We very much appreciate you choosing to stay in Tusayan and hope that you will also enjoy our great rooms, food & beverage services and the wonderful people and staff that call Tusayan their home.

Respectfully,

Greg Bryan
Mayor
Town of Tusayan

cafebabe writes:

In a move worthy of Mike Judge's Silicon Valley, the Daily Mail reports that a startup company has picked an unfortunate logo. In summary:

• Logo unveiled to derision earlier this week
• Thousands took to Twitter to point out it looked like a vagina
• Firm is 'working cooperatively to address this issue' with tech firm Automation Anywhere which has similar logo

One commentator has a Not Safe For Work explanation for what the marketers were thinking.

sl4shd0rk writes:

Ars Technica published an article on Monday Undocumented iOS functions allow monitoring of personal data, expert says that should give pause to any owner of an iOS device.

Apple has endowed iPhones with undocumented functions that allow unauthorized people in privileged positions to wirelessly connect and harvest pictures, text messages, and other sensitive data without entering a password or PIN, a forensic scientist warned over the weekend.

Jonathan Zdziarski, an iOS jailbreaker and forensic expert, told attendees of the Hope X conference that he can't be sure Apple engineers enabled the mechanisms with the intention of accommodating surveillance by the National Security Agency and law enforcement groups.

Slides of Zdziarski's talk, titled Identifying Back Doors, Attack Points, and Surveillance Mechanisms in iOS Devices are here. (pdf)

"Its sole purposes is to dish out data, bypass backup encryption, and give you almost the same amount of personal data you get from a backup on the phone, in some cases even more," he said. "We really need someone at Apple to step up and explain why this is here. There's no logical reason why it should be there on 600 million devices"

AnonTechie writes:

A new kind of tracking tool, canvas fingerprinting, is being used to follow visitors to thousands of top websites, from WhiteHouse.gov to YouPorn [Editor's note: YouPorn claim to have removed this now].

First documented in a forthcoming paper by researchers at Princeton University and KU Leuven University in Belgium, this type of tracking, called canvas fingerprinting, works by instructing the visitor's Web browser to draw a hidden image. Because each computer draws the image slightly differently, the images can be used to assign each user's device a number that uniquely identifies it.

Like other tracking tools, canvas fingerprints are used to build profiles of users based on the websites they visit - profiles that shape which ads, news articles, or other types of content are displayed to them.

The researchers found canvas fingerprinting computer code, primarily written by a company called AddThis, on 5 percent of the top 100,000 websites. Most of the code was on websites that use AddThis' social media sharing tools. Other fingerprinters include the German digital marketer Ligatus and the Canadian dating site PlentyOfFish. A list of all the websites on which researchers found the code is available.

crutchy writes:

"NASA has awarded a two-year contract to Hensel Phelps Construction Co. of Orlando to build a new multi-story headquarters building at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The maximum value of this firm fixed-price contract is $64,823,000, including base work and five awarded options. The contract award begins Thursday.

The new headquarters building is the cornerstone for Kennedy's central campus consolidation. The campus construction will enable demolition of approximately 900,000 square feet of buildings and supporting infrastructure in what is known as the Kennedy Industrial Area, while rebuilding only about 450,000 square feet. Kennedy will save an estimated $400 million during the next 40 years because of the 50 percent reduction in square footage and the lower operation and maintenance costs associated with the new energy-efficient facilities."

http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/july/nasa-awards-construction-contract-at-kennedy-space-center/

cafebabe writes:

The BBC reports that:

A French judge has ruled against a blogger because her scathing restaurant review was too prominent in Google search results. The judge ordered that the post's title be amended and told the blogger Caroline Doudet to pay damages.

Ms Doudet said the decision made it a crime to be highly ranked on search engines. The restaurant owners said the article's prominence was unfairly hurting their business. Ms Doudet was sued by the owner of Il Giardino restaurant in the Aquitaine region of southwestern France after she wrote a blogpost entitled "the place to avoid in Cap-Ferret: Il Giardino".

According to court documents, the review appeared fourth in the results of a Google search for the restaurant. The judge decided that the blog's title should be changed, so that the phrase: "the place to avoid" was less prominent in the results. The judge sitting in Bordeaux also pointed out that the harm to the restaurant was exacerbated by the fact that Ms Doudet's fashion and literature blog "Cultur'elle" had around 3,000 followers, indicating she thought it was a significant number.

"This decision creates a new crime of 'being too highly ranked [on a search engine]', or of having too great an influence'," Ms Doudet told the BBC. "What is perverse, is that we look for bloggers who are influential, but only if they are nice about people," she added.

The judge told Ms Doudet to amend the title of the blog and to pay Euros 1,500 ($2,000; £1,200) in damages to the restaurant, as well as Euros 1,000 to cover the complainant's costs.

crutchy writes:

Edward Snowden has called on supporters at the HOPE hacking conference to develop easy-to-use technologies to subvert government surveillance programs.

Mr Snowden, who addressed conference attendees on Saturday via video link from Moscow, said he intends to devote much of his time to promoting such technologies, including ones that allow people to communicate anonymously and encrypt their messages.

"You in this room, right now, have both the means and the capability to improve the future by encoding our rights into programs and protocols by which we rely every day," he told the New York City conference, known as Hackers on Planet Earth, or HOPE. "That is what a lot of my future work is going to be involved in."