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Slashdot Daily Newsletter
In this issue:
* After 1 Year, Conficker Infects 7M Computers
* Android 2.0 — Competition Against the iPhone and the Rest
* Contest To Hack Brazilian Voting Machines
* Masten Qualifies For $1 Million Space Prize
* Disease May Prevent Manned Journey To Mars
* Why Computers Suck At Math
* Adobe Pushing For Flash and PDF In Open Government Initiative
* Journalists Looking For Government Money
* Moon-Excavation Robots Face Off
* Controlling Games and Apps Through Muscle Sensors
* Lawmakers Caught Again By File-Sharing Software
* What Happened To the Bay Bridge?
* A Clever New Approach To Desalination
* ICANN Might Pre-Register gTLDs To Placate Critics
* Zombies As American Zeitgeist Proxies
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| After 1 Year, Conficker Infects 7M Computers |
| from the happy-anniversary-now-run-an-antivirus dept. |
| posted by Soulskill on Friday October 30, @20:04 (Security) |
| https://it.slashdot.org/story/09/10/30/223238/After-1-Year-Conficker-Infects-7M-Computers |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
alphadogg writes "The Conficker worm has passed a dubious milestone. It
has now [0]infected more than 7 million computers, security experts
estimate. On Thursday, researchers at the volunteer-run Shadowserver
Foundation [1]logged computers from more than 7 million unique IP
addresses, all infected by the known variants of Conficker. They have
been able to keep track of Conficker infections by cracking the algorithm
the worm uses to look for instructions on the Internet and placing their
own 'sinkhole' servers on the Internet domains it is programmed to visit.
Conficker has several ways of receiving instructions, so the bad guys
have still been able to control PCs, but the sinkhole servers give
researchers a good idea how many machines are infected."
Discuss this story at:
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/10/30/223238
Links:
0. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/103009-after-one-year-conficker-infects.html
1. http://www.confickerworkinggroup.org/wiki/pmwiki.php/ANY/InfectionTracking#toc4
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Android 2.0 — Competition Against the iPhone and the Rest |
| from the just-stop-the-commercials dept. |
| posted by Soulskill on Friday October 30, @22:05 (Cellphones) |
| https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/09/10/30/2317244/Android-20-mdash-Competition-Against-the|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
GMGruman writes "Every few months, it seems, there is a new 'iPhone
killer.' Android 2.0, in the guise of the Motorola Droid, is the latest
such 'killer.' But [0]what will it really take to beat or match the
iPhone ([1]single page), and does Android or any other mobile OS have the
right stuff? There's a lot more to the answer than is usually discussed.
This article takes a look at the strengths that may allow Droid and
Android 2.0 to provide strong competition to devices like the iPhone and
the Blackberry, as well as the obstacles it continues to face that could
inhibit adoption."
Discuss this story at:
http://mobile.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/10/30/2317244
Links:
0. http://www.infoworld.com/d/mobilize/android-20-iphone-killer-last-985
1. http://www.infoworld.com/print/97985
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Contest To Hack Brazilian Voting Machines |
| from the hack-the-vote dept. |
| posted by Soulskill on Saturday October 31, @00:09 (Hardware Hacking) |
| https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/09/10/31/0120223/Contest-To-Hack-Brazilian-Voting-Machi|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
An anonymous reader writes "Brazilian elections went electronic many
years ago, with very fast results but a few complaints from losers, of
course. Next month, 10 teams that accepted the challenge [0]will have
access to hardware and software (Google translation; [1]original in
Portuguese) for the amount of time they requested (from one hour to four
days). Some will try to break the vote's secrecy and some will try to
throw in malicious code to change the entered votes without leaving
traces."
Discuss this story at:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/10/31/0120223
Links:
0. http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=hp&hl=en&js=y&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww1.folha.uol.com.br%2Ffolha%2Finformatica%2Fult124u645011.shtml&sl=pt&tl=en&history_state0=
1. http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/informatica/ult124u645011.shtml
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Masten Qualifies For $1 Million Space Prize |
| from the fly-me-to-the-moon dept. |
| posted by Soulskill on Saturday October 31, @02:10 (Space) |
| https://science.slashdot.org/story/09/10/31/0243215/Masten-Qualifies-For-1-Million-Space-Pr|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
RobGoldsmith writes "Masten Space Systems [0]successfully qualified for
first place in level two of the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge
Wednesday. Flying a brand new vehicle named XA-0.1E (nicknamed Xoie),
Masten demonstrated their ability to [1]build, debug and fly a vehicle on
a very short timeline. " Reader lessgravity points out a video of the
craft [2]completing its mission. Apparently, the team was given an extra
shot at the challenge on Friday after having trouble during their
scheduled attempts on Wednesday and Thursday, which [3]didn't please John
Carmack, founder of rival team Armadillo Aerospace.
Discuss this story at:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/10/31/0243215
Links:
0. http://spacefellowship.com/2009/10/30/masten-space-systems-qualifies-for-1-million-prize/
1. http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/10/30/2111070.aspx
2. http://rocketry.wordpress.com/2009/10/30/masten-space-systems-completes-level-2-of-llc/
3. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18087-controversy-erupts-over-mock-lunar-lander-contest.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Disease May Prevent Manned Journey To Mars |
| from the get-your-penicillan-to-mars dept. |
| posted by Soulskill on Saturday October 31, @05:14 (Mars) |
| https://science.slashdot.org/story/09/10/31/0510212/Disease-May-Prevent-Manned-Journey-To-M|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]Pickens writes "Science Daily News reports that human missions to Mars
and all other [1]long-term space flights might be compromised by disease,
first because space travel appears to weaken astronauts' immune systems;
and second, because it increases the virulence and growth of microbes.
'When people think of space travel, often the vast distances are what
come to mind first,' says Jean-Pol Frippiat from Nancy-University in
France, 'but even after we figure out a way to cover these distances in a
reasonable amount of time, we still need to figure out how astronauts are
going to overcome disease and sickness.' Frippiat says studies show that
immune systems of both people and animals in space flight conditions are
significantly weaker than their grounded counterparts and that common
pathogens such as Salmonella, E. coli and Staphylococcus [2]reproduce
more rapidly in space flight conditions, leading to increased risk of
contamination, colonization and serious infection."
Discuss this story at:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/10/31/0510212
Links:
0. http://hughpickens.com/
1. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091029141251.htm
2. http://mainsgate.com/articles/microgravity-boosts-microbe
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Why Computers Suck At Math |
| from the must-be-lit-majors dept. |
| posted by Soulskill on Saturday October 31, @08:16 (Math) |
| https://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/10/31/0525203/Why-Computers-Suck-At-Math |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
antdude writes "This TechRadar article explains [0]why computers suck at
math, and how simple calculations can be a matter of life and death, like
in the case of a Patriot defense system failing to take down a Scud
missile attack: 'The calculation of where to look for confirmation of an
incoming missile requires knowledge of the system time, which is stored
as the number of 0.1-second ticks since the system was started up.
Unfortunately, 0.1 seconds cannot be expressed accurately as a binary
number, so when it's shoehorned into a 24-bit register ��� as used in the
Patriot system ��� it's out by a tiny amount. But all these tiny amounts
add up. At the time of the missile attack, the system had been running
for about 100 hours, or 3,600,000 ticks to be more specific. Multiplying
this count by the tiny error led to a total error of 0.3433 seconds,
during which time the Scud missile would cover 687m. The radar looked in
the wrong place to receive a confirmation and saw no target. Accordingly
no missile was launched to intercept the incoming Scud ��� and 28 people
paid with their lives.'"
Discuss this story at:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/10/31/0525203
Links:
0. http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/why-computers-suck-at-maths-644771
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Adobe Pushing For Flash and PDF In Open Government Initiative |
| from the open-is-relative dept. |
| posted by Soulskill on Saturday October 31, @09:20 (Government) |
| https://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/10/31/128236/Adobe-Pushing-For-Flash-and-PDF-In-Open-Gove|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
angryrice tips news that Adobe seems to be [0]campaigning for the
inclusion of Flash and PDF in the Obama administration's efforts at
increasing government transparency and openness. A post from the Sunlight
Labs blog is [1]critical of Adobe's undertaking, in part since PDF is
often "non-parsable by software, unfindable by search engines, and
unreliable if text is extracted." They also say government's priority
should be to publish datasets and the APIs to interact with them, rather
than choosing how they're displayed in fancy graphs and charts.
Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/10/31/128236
Links:
0. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/10/adobe-pushes-flash-and-pdf-for-open-government-misses-irony.ars
1. http://sunlightlabs.com/blog/2009/adobe-bad-open-government/
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Journalists Looking For Government Money |
| from the bizarro-world dept. |
| posted by Soulskill on Saturday October 31, @10:21 (The Media) |
| https://news.slashdot.org/story/09/10/31/137221/Journalists-Looking-For-Government-Money |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
We've been following the ongoing struggles of the print media, watching
as some publications have died off and others have held to outdated
principles and decried the influence of the internet. A side effect of
this has been many journalists put out of work and many others fearful
that informed reporting is on its way out as well. Now, an editorial in
the Washington Post calls for [0]a solution journalists would likely have
scoffed at only a few years ago: federal subsidies. Robert W. McChesney
and John Nichols write, "What to do? Bailing out media conglomerates
would be morally and politically absurd. These firms have run journalism
into the ground. If they cannot make it, let them go. Wait for 'pay-wall'
technologies, billionaire philanthropists or unimagined business models
to generate enough news to meet the immense demands of a self-governing
society? There is no evidence that such a panacea is on the horizon. This
leaves one place to look for a solution: the government." They hasten to
add, "Did we just call for state-run media? Quite the opposite."
Discuss this story at:
http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/10/31/137221
Links:
0. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/22/AR2009102203960.html
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Moon-Excavation Robots Face Off |
| from the can-you-dig-it dept. |
| posted by Soulskill on Saturday October 31, @11:23 (Robotics) |
| https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/09/10/31/1321219/Moon-Excavation-Robots-Face-Off |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
avishere writes "Student teams [0]designed and built robotic
power-lifters to excavate simulated lunar soil (a.k.a. 'regolith')
earlier this month, with $750,000 in prizes up for grabs. Excavating
regolith, according to NASA, will be [1]an important part of any
construction projects or processing of natural resources on the Moon.
Interestingly, regolith is especially difficult to dig because its dust
particles want to stick together. The whole robotic system has to be
sturdy enough to scoop moon dirt and powerful enough to move through the
dust while still meeting the weight requirements. The winning excavator
from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts [2]lifted 1,103
pounds within the allotted time, and got a sweet $500,000 for their
troubles."
Discuss this story at:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/10/31/1321219
Links:
0. http://www.automationmag.com/200910302590/robotics/news/nasa-moon-excavation-robot-competition-digs-deep.html
1. http://www.nasa.gov/offices/ipp/innovation_incubator/centennial_challenges/regolith/index.html
2. http://www.nasa.gov/offices/ipp/innovation_incubator/centennial_challenges/cc_regolith_feature_first_prize.html
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Controlling Games and Apps Through Muscle Sensors |
| from the quick-somebody-patent-air-guitar-hero dept. |
| posted by Soulskill on Saturday October 31, @12:24 (Hardware Hacking) |
| https://games.slashdot.org/story/09/10/31/1428225/Controlling-Games-and-Apps-Through-Muscle|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
A team with members from Microsoft, the University of Toronto, and the
University of Washington have developed an interface that uses electrodes
to [0]monitor muscle signals and translate those into commands or button
presses, allowing a user to bypass a physical input device and even
control a game or application while their hands are full. The video
demonstration shows somebody playing Guitar Hero by making strumming
motions and tapping his fingers together, a jogger changing his music
without having to touch the device, and a man flexing a muscle to open
the trunk of his car while he carries objects in both hands. The
[1]academic paper (PDF) is available online.
Discuss this story at:
http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/10/31/1428225
Links:
0. http://www.livescience.com/technology/091029-ttr-muscle-sensing.html
1. http://dub.washington.edu/djangosite/media/papers/Saponas_EMG_UIST_2009.pdf
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Lawmakers Caught Again By File-Sharing Software |
| from the guns-don't-kill-people,-file-sharers-do dept. |
| posted by Soulskill on Saturday October 31, @13:28 (The Internet) |
| https://politics.slashdot.org/story/09/10/31/1547221/Lawmakers-Caught-Again-By-File-Sharing|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
An anonymous reader writes "A document, apparently a 'confidential House
ethics committee report,' [0]was recently leaked through file-sharing
software to the Washington Post. According to the article, 'The
committee's review of investigations became available on file-sharing
networks because of a junior staff member's use of the software while
working from home.' Of course, [1]P2P software is entirely at fault for
this incident. If you begin seeing more interest in DRM from Congress,
you now know why." Reader GranTuring points out that the RIAA took the
opportunity to [2]make a ridiculous statement of their own. They said,
"the disclosure was evidence of a need for controls on peer-to-peer
software to block the improper or illegal exchange of music."
Discuss this story at:
http://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/10/31/1547221
Links:
0. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/29/AR2009102904597.html?hpid=topnews
1. http://copyrightsandcampaigns.blogspot.com/2009/10/house-ethics-committee-staffer-used.html
2. http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9BLKSFO0&show_article=1
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| What Happened To the Bay Bridge? |
| from the span-in-the-works dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Saturday October 31, @14:36 (Transportation) |
| https://ask.slashdot.org/story/09/10/31/1620218/What-Happened-To-the-Bay-Bridge |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
farnsworth writes "Tony Alfrey has put together a fascinating page with
some history, analysis, and possible explanations for what [0]ultimately
went wrong with the [1]recent emergency repair of the San
Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. The bridge has been closed for days and is
not scheduled to open for days to come, hugely inconveniencing [2]more
than 250,000 people a day. His analysis touches on possibly poor welding,
a possibly flawed temporary fix, and the absence of a long-term fix or
adequate follow-up by Caltrans, the agency responsible for the bridge.
Slashdot is a great engineering community; what other insights do you
have on the bridge situation?"
Discuss this story at:
http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/10/31/1620218
Links:
0. http://www.sci-experiments.com/BrokenBridge/BrokenBridge.html
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_span_replacement_of_the_San_Francisco_%E2%80%93_Oakland_Bay_Bridge#October_2009_incident
2. http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/esc/tollbridge/SFOBB/Sfobbfacts.html
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| A Clever New Approach To Desalination |
| from the pass-the-salt dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Saturday October 31, @15:46 (Earth) |
| https://news.slashdot.org/story/09/10/31/1827241/A-Clever-New-Approach-To-Desalination |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
jbeaupre writes "The Economist reports on progress by a company called
Saltworks on [0]using saline gradients to do the heavy lifting of
desalination. In essence, Saltworks uses solar energy or waste heat to
concentrate sea water. They then use the ionic gradient between the
concentrated brine and two sea-water streams to pull ions from from a 3rd
sea-water stream. It appears to work with entropy by trading the reduced
entropy of the desalinated water against the increased entropy of
'mixing' the brine and the other sea-water streams. The article only
discusses Na and Cl, but even just removing these ions is a step in the
right direction."
Discuss this story at:
http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/10/31/1827241
Links:
0. http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14743791
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| ICANN Might Pre-Register gTLDs To Placate Critics |
| from the i-think-i-can dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Saturday October 31, @16:59 (The Internet) |
| https://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/10/31/1839231/ICANN-Might-Pre-Register-gTLDs-To-Placate-|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
judgecorp writes "ICANN is to be congratulated for succeeding in
[0]expanding the Internet beyond the Latin alphabet. However, the
organization is facing a harder task in extending the Internet's global
top-level domains (gTLDs) ��� its proposal to open up the gTLD space has
been [1] plagued by controversy and delays. INCANN faces struggles with
trademark owners and competing businesses ��� but even so it is being
criticised for acting slowly (as seen in [2]transcripts from the recent
meeting in Seoul). It now seems likely the body will have a
[3]pre-registration scheme to gauge demand and placate critics by getting
something moving on new gTLDs."
Discuss this story at:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/10/31/1839231
Links:
0. http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/10/30/1347216/ICANN-Approves-Non-Latin-ccTLDs
1. http://tech.slashdot.org/story/08/12/21/2217221/US-Government-Responds-Harshly-To-ICANN-gTLD-Plans
2. http://domainnamewire.com/wp-content/icann-transcript.txt
3. http://www.eweekeurope.co.uk/news/icann-could-pre-register-tlds-to-placate-critics-2292
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Zombies As American Zeitgeist Proxies |
| from the look-what-plan-9-started dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Saturday October 31, @18:09 (Movies) |
| https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/09/10/31/2052230/Zombies-As-American-Zeitgeist-Pro|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
blackbearnh writes "No doubt, there will be more than a few
brain-munching glassy-eyed zombies showing up on the typical doorstep
tonight, demanding brains, brains, brains, or at least some Milk Duds.
But according to this essay over on Forbes.com, zombies are more than
just the trendy monster on the block, [0]they are to Americans what
Godzilla is to Japanese: a personification of our fear of science and
technology. 'It seems you can't throw a half-eaten cerebrum these days
without hitting a posse of zombies brought to life by some kind of
biological mishap (28 Days Later, Resident Evil, Planet Terror,
Quarantine). Like Godzilla, zombies keep up with the times, always ready
to mirror whatever aspect of science and technology people feel most
uncertain about at the moment.'"
Discuss this story at:
http://entertainment.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/10/31/2052230
Links:
0. http://www.forbes.com/2009/10/29/oreilly-godzilla-science-technology-breakthroughs-zombies.html
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