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An Anonymous Coward writes:

Bloomberg reports:

Activist hedge fund Elliott Management Corp. is fighting Dialog Semiconductor Plc's planned $4.6 billion purchase of Atmel Corp., calling the acquisition too expensive and too great a risk ahead of a shareholder vote this month. Elliott, in a letter to shareholders Monday, urged investors to vote against the deal, which it said will destroy Dialog's value. The hedge fund said it controls 2.9 percent of the voting rights of the Reading, England-based chipmaker.

Consider how many tech industry companies Elliott has hounded; I could post a hyperlink avalanche, but I'll just link to The Register's tag for Elliott Management [Note the link had to be run through a shortnener to un-screw up some mangling] and say that EMC, Emulex, NetApp, Riverbed, Brocade, and many others have had a portion of stock purchased by Elliott, only to then see a nastygram regarding "shareholder value". In that context, I don't know who to root for here: Dialog, for having a chance to quash Elliott's modus operandi as an Icahn-esque activist hedge fund, or Elliott, for preventing potential harm to the Arduino program.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Hydrophilic zeolites have almost ideal properties for use in thermal storage systems. They store the heat with hardly any losses, are environmentally friendly and cost-effective. The BINE-Projektinfo brochure "Thermal storage systems brought into shape" (07/2015) presents an optimised manufacturing process for a zeolite thermal storage system. It impresses with its greater energy density, power density and cycle resistance.

Material is manufactured without binders and can be formed into any shape

Like a sponge, microporous zeolites store water vapour within their large internal surface areas. This releases heat. Conversely, water is released again when heat is added. Energy losses only ever occur during charging and discharging, but in between, this thermochemical storage system manages to operate without any losses.
...
In addition, the new type of zeolite can now be formed into all kinds of complex geometric structures. In future this will make it easier to manufacture thermal storage systems precisely tailored to different application areas.

HVAC (Heating, Ventilating, Air Conditioning) is the biggest energy cost in a home. This material might lead to forms of heat pumps for homes that can't use traditional Ground-Source Heat Pumps.

Original Submission

"gewg_" writes:

Deutsche Welle reports

Ten people died when a high-speed train on a test track near Strasbourg derailed near the German border and crashed into a canal near a bridge. Rescue teams were quickly on the scene.

There were 60 technicians on board the high speed TGV train on [November 14] when it crashed near Eckwersheim, leaving 10 people dead. Local authorities said the train appeared to have "derailed because of excessive speed".

The train derailed and caught fire at about 6:15 p.m. local time according to local press reports. The wreckage fell into a canal.

The crash happened on the second section of the Paris to Strasbourg high-speed TGV line, which is due to open in April 2016.

[...] A witness said she saw the train catch fire and then overturn. It may have struck the bridge before the fire started.

Original Submission

n1 writes:

Tom Secker at SpyCulture.com reports:

In the wake of the scandal over the CIA giving classified information to the makers of Zero Dark Thirty the Agency's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) carried out an audit into their involvement in the entertainment industry. The report heavily criticises the CIA's entertainment liaison office (ELO) for terrible record keeping and a very casual culture. What emerges from this report is that the ELO care more about being secretive concerning their own activities than they care about protecting the secrets of other departments within the CIA.

[...] The OIG looked at 8 productions out of these 22, though details of the 8 are redacted, save to say there were 2 of each type of project (books, films etc.). They found that in 3 cases the ELO had no records whatsoever of their involvement and engagement in the project. The other 5 provided 'only limited' records. Apparently the OPA has now implemented a new database system that will make it easy to search for records of recent projects they have supported. And also means that their FOIA office will have to stop pulling this 'what, who, me?' bullshit with requesters like myself.

When it came to whether the OPA/ELO were behaving in keeping with their own regulations the OIG found that:

We were unable to determine whether entertainment industry requests for support were handled in a consistent and fair manner. OPA does not maintain records of entertainment industry requests for briefings, interviews, and visits that are denied by CIA. As such, it was not possible to assess decisions to deny CIA support for compliance with AR[redacted]. Regarding those entertainment industry requests that were supported by CIA, there was not sufficient documentation to assess the decision and the nature and extent of the support for compliance with AR[redacted].

[...] This is demonstrated aptly by the question of how Mark Boal ended up at a high-level ceremony mixing with senior CIA officers and members of SEAL Team Six. The OIG's report into that specific issue concluded that they couldn't establish who invited Boal, or whether Leon Panetta knew he would be there and thus was guilty of allowing a Hollywood screenwriter to access classified information. The OIG cannot answer these basic questions, let alone the more interesting question of why the OPA/ELO wanted Boal to be there and whether this was some kind of initiation or reward for rewriting his film to suit their agenda. The excuse given was that he was there to 'absorb the emotion of the event', which could mean anything.

The article has much more detail, and all the source documents available to download.

[Editor's Note: The article is not currently working for unknown reasons, but is still available via google cache. ]

[Editor's Note: The article should be working now. ]

Original Submission

"gewg_" writes:

Network World reports

Finally, a bit of good news on the college costs front: A study out of Brigham Young University finds that free open [knowledge] textbooks do the job pretty darn well.

The study of nearly 17,000 students at 9 colleges found that open [knowledge] textbooks (or open educational resources--OERs in academic lingo) found that students learn the same amount or more from the free books across many subjects. (Here's a sampling of the sorts of texts available, via a University of Minnesota site.)

What's more, 85% of students and instructors said open textbooks were actually better than the commercial ones. The research focused its results based on measurements such as course completion, final grade, final grade of C- or higher, enrollment intensity, and enrollment intensity in the following semester.

[...] [Besides cost, another] beauty of the open textbooks is that instructors can customize them with fresh content via open licenses.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

The Register reported on a disclosure by Florida-based systems integrator iPower Technologies that some samples of the Martel Frontline Camera with GPS were found to have transferred the Win32/Conficker.B worm to the host system when the camera is plugged into the host's USB port. iPower posted a YouTube video demonstrating the infection, noting that the successful attack vector was the autorun.inf file on the USB storage device recognized by Windows when connected to the host. The Register's Shaun Nichols says in his report, "iPower says it tried to contact the California-based electronics supplier with its findings but have yet to receive any response. El Reg similarly tried to contact Martel, and though we were unable to get comment we can confirm the company's on-hold music to be relatively pleasant and inoffensive."

Note that the computer being used is Windows XP, which is the operating system still being used by most police forces across the world, including the London Metropolitan Police's 35,000+ computers, and the Oakland Police Department is using a Windows XP computer to store license plates, until the 80 GB hard disk ran out of space.

Original Submission

Anonymous Coward writes:

Background

Tiny engineering company, doing a mix of consulting and contract jobs, and sometimes providing custom software tools. Customers are typically large companies with managers who are willing to pay for specialized expertise that their staff lacks. Normally we deliver either a report (and no code), or we deliver compiled code and retain ownership of our work.

Problem

A new customer wants us to develop custom algorithms and code them. The customer wants to own or license the source for their internal use (not for resale). From the customer's perspective, this makes a lot of sense. With source they can continue development using our code as a working example--so we will also be teaching their less-experienced employees (and of course those employees may well leave and become competitors to us in the future). What might take us a couple of months would probably take their young employees a year or more, if they don't fail outright.

In the limiting case, we can offer to "work for hire" which has specific legal meaning in USA, equivalent to being covered by a traditional employee contract where the employer owns all the creative output of the employee, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_for_hire

A middle option is an exclusive--we don't do identical work for others. We can also quote non-exclusive which in this context means that once we have created the algorithms & code we could then license it to others (perhaps with some limitations to avoid competitors to our customer).

The Question

Is about setting the price(s) -- the more ownership they have, the higher price they expect to pay. But what are the multipliers? Compared to our normal projects where we keep the source, what is the premium for licensing the source to the customer?

If they want us to "work-for-hire", is that worth double what we would charge them if we retained ownership and could resell the code to a few others?

Legal

If possible, I would like to negotiate this contract without lawyers on either side. The customer is a large company, with internal legal staff (who have not reared their heads yet)...and we are tiny with none. Any pointers along these lines most welcome.

A footnote on our Market: Unlike shrink-wrapped software or apps, this software has a very limited market. Based on past experience, we might expect to license a few extra copies of this work over a several year period. Even at a very low (or free) price point, there just aren't that many people interested in this problem--except the few cases where it is critical to their corporate process.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Pakistani attorney and author Rafia Zakaria wrote an op-ed in Al Jazeera America about the Islamic extremists' war on fun, including sports, music, even dining in a fine restaurant. Zakaria points out that this apparent obsession predates the existence of ISIS by several decades (at least); he suspects this is a big reason why the attackers chose Paris, renowned worldwide for its brilliant culture and joie de vivre.

Zakaria experienced this aspect of terror firsthand. A high school friend had just passed a big exam, and was out celebrating with his family at a restaurant in Karachi, Pakistan, when terrorists struck.

Al Jazeera America provides a separate analysis warning that military action alone cannot defeat ISIS (aka ISIL), which of course is not a "nation" in the traditional sense, but more of a guerilla outfit like Al Qaeda, that opportunistically seized a stronghold in chaotic regions of Syria and Iraq. The piece's author, political scientist Rami G. Khouri, recommends that both the West and Muslim nations of the Middle East spend more resources on addressing economic and political problems facing impoverished youths who are potentially attracted by the ISIS' recruiting pitch:

Original Submission

Knowledge Troll writes:

The United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has published on their blog a clarification on their previous request for comments regarding modifications by end users of the firmware inside WiFi routers.

In short: the FCC does not intend to force device manufacturers to intentionally disable updates or modifications to the operating system. They do maintain that changes to the radio device firmware must be controlled to enforce spectrum requirements. The exact details have also been made available as a PDF. As a seasoned IT professional, open source community member, and amateur radio operator I'm glad to see the FCC issue this clarification and I personally think the compromise is sound and reasonable. The FCC publications can tell you why this is important so here is some info on what is likely to happen.

Heads up: the majority of manufacturers will probably lock the entire router down including the operating system because this will be the least cost mechanism available. It is quite likely that the average consumer WiFi routers will not meet the needs of high technology individuals but it also does not mean that these needs cannot be met at all. Some manufacturers will create routers without arbitrary restrictions on the operating system, and it is still possible to construct a modular WiFi solution using distinct components such as dedicated access points. This will certainly cost more but it is the reality of being an outlier in consumer markets.

In the interest of full disclosure: I am impacted because the proposed regulations don't protect ham radio operators in the 2.4GHz part of the spectrum, where there is overlap in usage with consumer (part 15) WiFi gear. I'm also impacted because I enjoy cheap hardware as much as the next person.

Original Submission

HughPickens.com writes:

T-Mobile said last week that it would let customers watch as many movies as they wanted on services like Netflix and HBO as well as all other kinds of video, without having it count against their monthly data plans. But the New York Times editorializes that there are real concerns about whether such promotions could give telecommunications companies the ability to influence what services people use on the Internet, benefiting some businesses and hurting others. Earlier this year, the FCC adopted net neutrality rules to make sure that companies like T-Mobile, Verizon, and Comcast did not seek to push users toward some types of Internet services or content — like video — and not others. The rules, which telecom companies are trying to overturn in court, forbid phone and cable companies from accepting money from Internet businesses like Amazon to deliver their videos to customers ahead of data from other companies. The rules, however, do not explicitly prevent telecom companies from coming up with “zero rating” plans like the one T-Mobile announced that treat, or rate, some content as free.

"Everybody likes free stuff, but the problem with such plans is that they allow phone and cable companies to steer their users to certain types of content. As a result, customers are less likely to visit websites that are not part of the free package." T-Mobile has said that its zero-rating plan, called Binge On, is good for consumers and for Internet businesses because it does not charge companies to be part of its free service. "Binge On is certainly better than plans in which websites pay telecom companies to be included," concludes The New York Times. "But it is not yet clear whether these free plans will inappropriately distort how consumers use the Internet."

Original Submission

"exec" writes:

Einstein was wrong about at least one thing: There are, in fact, 'spooky actions at a distance,' as now proven by researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Einstein used that term to refer to quantum mechanics, which describes the curious behavior of the smallest particles of matter and light. He was referring, specifically, to entanglement, the idea that two physically separated particles can have correlated properties, with values that are uncertain until they are measured. Einstein was dubious, and until now, researchers have been unable to support it with near-total confidence.

As described in a paper posted online and submitted to Physical Review Letters (PRL), researchers from NIST and several other institutions created pairs of identical light particles, or photons, and sent them to two different locations to be measured. Researchers showed the measured results not only were correlated, but also--by eliminating all other known options--that these correlations cannot be caused by the locally controlled, "realistic" universe Einstein thought we lived in. This implies a different explanation such as entanglement.

-- submitted from IRC

[Editors Note: For those of us with a lack of understanding of quantum physics, this article from Wikipedia may help for at least this topic.]

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

MongoDB is perhaps the most-widely-mocked piece of software out there right now.

While some of the mockery is out-of-date or rooted in misunderstandings, much of it is well-deserved, and it's difficult to disagree that much of MongoDB's engineering is incredibly simplistic, inefficient, and immature compared to more-established databases like PostgreSQL or MySQL.
...
In this post, however, I want to focus on something different: I want to explore some design decisions that I believe MongoDB got right, especially compared to SQL databases, its main competitors.

Implementations evolve and improve with time, but interfaces last nearly forever. In each of the cases I explore, I contend that MongoDB legitimately out-innovated SQL databases, potentially positioning it – in a few years, once the implementation matures – as a superior database for a wide range of use cases.

More after the break...

Phoenix666 writes:

CAIDA's expanding network of Archipelago monitors has delivered the organisation's latest Internet maps.

The August 2015 Internet Topology Data Kit, announced at the end of last week, is a tool for 'net researchers to try and untangle the dizzying maze of routes that deliver our data.

CAIDA used 94 Ark monitors in 36 countries for IPv4 data collection, and 26 monitors in 15 countries for IPv6.

The data collection underlies important analysis work by CAIDA and others – for example, the researcher group hosted at the University of California, accurately predicted an increasing number of "black hole" routing events.

Original Submission

"exec" writes:

Companies that use a standard edition of Oracle's database software should be aware that a rapidly approaching deadline could mean increased licensing costs.

Oracle will stop selling its Database Standard Edition (SE) and Standard Edition 1 (SE1) products on Dec. 1, meaning customers who use those products will be "frozen in scalability," because they won't be able to buy new licenses or upgrade to new SE or SE1 releases, said Eliot Arlo Colon, senior vice president and Oracle practice leader with Miro Consulting.

The Standard Editions have been viable choices for companies seeking a lower-cost alternative to Oracle's Enterprise Edition, Colon wrote in a report Thursday, but "Oracle is now changing the rules around Standard Edition licensing."

Those rules now put companies on track to migrate and upgrade to Standard Edition 2 or to the Oracle Database Enterprise Edition. Standard Edition 2 comes with greater limitations than SE or SE1, and it's also "highly likely" that migrating to SE2 will require new hardware, he said.

Companies "will be forced to upgrade to SE2 or EE if they go beyond their license quantity owned or if they utilize the latest release," Colon said via e-mail.

-- submitted from IRC

Original Submission

"gewg_" writes:

Coreboot is an Open Source firmware alternative to proprietary stuff that contains e.g. Secure Boot or binary blobs or malware pre-installed by a whitebox vendor.

Phoronix reports

Coreboot developers are taking to their Git tree and dropping support for old motherboards and chipsets.

Yesterday saw the removal in Git of many Tyan motherboards as well as some from IWILL and Newisys and IBM.

Per the recent mailing list discussion, they are starting to remove code for obsolete/end-of-life motherboards and chipsets. Generally this is coming down to getting rid of hardware older than ten years or code that's not being maintained, such as the VIA code with VIA Technologies no longer appearing involved with Coreboot.

Of course, thanks to Git, if you have a stake in any of the removed hardware you can always go back and fetch the older code.

Coreboot developers are also looking at ways to figure out what Coreboot code is actually still being used versus dormant motherboard ports.

Original Submission