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Submission + - OASIS Approves OData 4.0 Standards for an Open, Programmable Web

Submitted by Dilettant
Dilettant writes: The baby is born — again. After a good year++ of work the OASIS members approved Version 4 of the OData standards, which now also feature the long requested compact JSON as primary format. OData helps "simplifying data sharing across disparate applications in enterprise, cloud, and mobile devices" through interfacing data sources via a REST like interface. Announcement at: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.oasis-open.org%2Fnew...

Submission + - Big Bang's Smoking Gun Found (discovery.com) 1

Submitted by astroengine
astroengine writes: For the first time, scientists have found direct evidence of the expansion of the universe, a previously theoretical event that took place a fraction of a second after the Big Bang explosion nearly 14 billion years ago. The clue is encoded in the primordial cosmic microwave background radiation that continues to spread through space to this day. Scientists found and measured a key polarization, or orientation, of the microwaves caused by gravitational waves, which are miniature ripples in the fabric of space. Gravitational waves, proposed by Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity nearly 100 years ago but never before proven, are believed to have originated in the Big Bang explosion and then been amplified by the universe’s inflation. “Detecting this signal is one of the most important goals in cosmology today,” lead researcher John Kovac, with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said in a statement.

Submission + - KDE Releases Frameworks 5 Tech Preview (kde.org)

Submitted by KDE Community
KDE Community writes: The KDE Community is proud to announce a Tech Preview of KDE Frameworks 5. Frameworks 5 is the result of almost three years of work to plan, modularize, review and port the set of libraries previously known as KDElibs or KDE Platform 4 into a set of Qt Addons with well-defined dependencies and abilities, ready for Qt 5. This gives the Qt ecosystem a powerful set of drop-in libraries providing additional functionality for a wide variety of tasks and platforms, based on over 15 years of KDE experience in building applications. Today, all the Frameworks are available in Tech Preview mode; a final release is planned for the first half of 2014. Some Tech Preview addons (notably KArchive and Threadweaver) are more mature than others at this time.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: How to Protect Your Passwords from Amnesia.

Submitted by Phopojijo
Phopojijo writes: So, you can encrypt your password library using a client-side manager or encrypted file container. You could practice your password every day, keep no written record, and do everything else right. You then go in for a serious operation or get in a terrible accident and, when you wake up, suffer severe memory loss. Slashdot readers, what do you consider an acceptable trade-off between proper security and preventing a data-loss catastrophe? I will leave some details and assumptions up to interpretation (budget, whether you have friends or co-workers to rely on, whether your solution will defend against the Government, chance of success, and so forth). For instance, would you split your master password in pieces and pay an attourney to contact you with a piece of it in case of emergency? Would you get a safe deposit box? Some biometric device? Leave the password with your husband, wife, or significant other? What can Slashdot come up with?

Submission + - EU Copyright Reform: Your input is needed! (copywrongs.eu)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The European Commission has finally (as of last month) opened its public consultation on copyright reform. This is the first time the general public can influence EU copyright policy since fifteen years back, and it is likely at least as much time will pass until next time. In order to help you fill out the (enlish-only, legalese-heavy) questionnaire, some friendly hackers spent some time during the 30c3 to put together a site to help you. Anyone, EU citizen or not, organisation or company, is invited to respond (deadline fifth of February). Pirate MEP Amelia Andersdotter has a more in-depth look at the consultation.

Submission + - Google Chrome Is Getting Automatic Blocking Of Malicious Downloads

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Google today announced Chrome is getting an automatic download blocking feature for malware. Google has already added the new functionality to the latest build of Chrome Canary. All versions of Chrome will soon automatically block downloads and let you know in a message at the bottom of your screen. You will be able to “Dismiss” the message, although it’s not clear if you will be able to stop or revert the block.

Submission + - Syria Completes Destruction of Chemical Weapon producing Equipments

Submitted by rtoz
rtoz writes: Chemical weapons watchdog OPCW has declared that Syria has completed the Destruction Activities to Render Inoperable Chemical Weapons Production Facilities and Mixing/Filling Plants. This operation has been completed just one day before the deadline (1 November 2013) set by the OPCW Executive Council. The Joint OPCW-UN Mission has inspected 21 of the 23 sites declared by Syria, and 39 of the 41 facilities located at those sites. The two remaining sites were not visited due to safety and security concerns. But Syria declared those sites as abandoned and that the chemical weapons programme items they contained were moved to other declared sites, which were inspected.

Comment Misleading title (Score 1) 121

by Down_in_the_Park (#43567277) Attached to: 'Master Gene' Makes Mouse Brain Look More Human
It wasn't a mutation they talk about in this paper but rather a gene that is different expressed in mice and Human. This little difference leads to remarkable different brain size. It is a big step towards understanding why our brain has this huge cortex (which is folded) and it is this cortex where all our higher brain functions are located, Math, language, etc. Of course a big brain is not necessary more intelligent than a smaller brain, but given the right input while its develops it is far superior to every other brain. For prove see history...

Comment Re:What about OpenWRT? :) (Score 1) 197

by Down_in_the_Park (#43182347) Attached to: Backdoor Found In TP-Link Routers
Yeah great, first thing to do when you get a new router. But you do realize that you are on slashdot and neither my father nor my kids or any of my friends know slashdot or would dare to flash a new router... In other words 99% of the population do know everything about facebook and angry birds, but nothing about router systems, security, backdoors or anything closely related that isn't an icon they can click or touch...

Comment Re:One small problem (Score 2) 368

by Down_in_the_Park (#42979065) Attached to: NASA's Basement Nuclear Reactor
The AC Josephson effect (Wikipedia) With a fixed voltage across the junctions, the phase will vary linearly with time and the current will be an AC current with amplitude and frequency . The complete expression for the current drive becomes .... This means a Josephson junction can act as a perfect voltage-to-frequency converter. So if you can apply 30 V to a Josephson junction you would get 14 THz...

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