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Science

Submission + - US experiment hints at 'multiple God particles' (bbc.co.uk) 1

Submitted by krou
krou writes: Recent results from the Dzero experiment at the Tevatron particle accelerator suggest that those looking for a single Higgs boson particle should, in fact, be looking for five particles, and the data gathered may point to new laws beyond the Standard Model. 'The DZero results showed much more significant "asymmetry" of matter and anti-matter — beyond what could be explained by the Standard Model. Bogdan Dobrescu, Adam Martin and Patrick J Fox from Fermilab say this large asymmetry effect can be accounted for by the existence of multiple Higgs bosons. They say the data point to five Higgs bosons with similar masses but different electric charges. Three would have a neutral charge and one each would have a negative and positive electric charge. This is known as the two-Higgs doublet model.'
Censorship

Submission + - China Explains Internet Situation in Whitepaper (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: In a new whitepaper, China has declared the Internet to be 'the crystallization of human wisdom' and officially issued what appears to be a a defense of its policies on web censorship while at the same time making contradicting statements like "Chinese citizens fully enjoy freedom of speech on the Internet" and (in the same paper) "Laws and regulations clearly prohibit the spread of information that contains content subverting state power, undermining national unity [or] infringing upon national honour and interests." The paper also claims some interesting — if not humorous — superlatives like "China is one of the countries suffering most from hacking." On the positive side, this thirty one page document might be offered as an operating guide for businesses like Google looking to understand exactly what the law is surrounding the Internet in China. Clearly contradictions arise when one reads this text but it's a rare glimpse of transparency in China's regulations.
Hardware

Submission + - BIOS Will Be Dead In Three Years (thinq.co.uk) 2

Submitted by Stoobalou
Stoobalou writes: MSI says that it's planning a big shift towards UEFI at the end of 2010, possibly spelling the end of the BIOS as we know it.

It's the one major part of the computer that's still reminiscent of the PC's primordial, text-based beginnings, but the familiarly-clunky BIOS could soon be on its deathbed, according to MSI. The motherboard maker says it's now making a big shift towards point and click UEFI systems, and it's all going to kick off at the end of this year.

Speaking to Thinq, a spokesperson for the company in Taiwan who wished to remain anonymous said that "MSI will start to phase in UEFI starting from the end of this year, and we expect it will be widely adopted after three years."
Censorship

Submission + - Turkey has imposed an indefinite ban on Google

Submitted by oxide7
oxide7 writes: Turkey’s Telecommunications Presidency said it has banned access to many of Google IP addresses without assigning clear reasons. The statement did not confirm if the ban is temporary or permanent. Google’s translation and document sharing sites have also been banned indefinitely along with YouTube and Facebook in the country. Other services such as AppEngine, FeedBurner, Analytics etc have also been reportedly banned.
Medicine

Submission + - Germany's Artificial Cornea Restores Sight (singularityhub.com)

Submitted by kkleiner
kkleiner writes: A German lead team of researchers have developed a new version of an opthalmological polymer which the eye will bond to and still allow to function properly. The new polymer could help restore sight to thousands waiting for corneal transplants around the world. The artificial cornea has passed clinical trials and is ready to see expanded use in patients this year.
Security

Submission + - Botnets Using Ubiquity as Security (threatpost.com)

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: As major botnet operators have moved from top-down C&C infrastructures, like those employed throughout the 1990s and most of the last decade, to more flexible peer-to-peer designs, they also have found it much easier to keep their networks up and running once they're discovered. When an attacker at just one, or at most, two, C&C servers doling out commands to compromised machines, evading detection and keeping the command server online were vitally important. But that's all changed now. With many botnet operators maintaining dozens or sometimes hundreds of C&C servers around the world at any one time, the effect of taking a handful of them offline is negligible, experts say, making takedown operations increasingly complicated and time-consuming.

It's security through ubiquity.

Security researchers say this change, which has been occurring gradually in the last couple of years, has made life much more difficult for them. While it's a simpler task to find a C&C server when it's one of a hundred or so, taking the server offline if much less effective than it used to be. Researchers in recent months have identified and cleaned hundreds of domains being used by the Gumblar botnet, but that's had little effect on the botnet's overall operation.

Submission + - Why cyberwarfare is just fiction (blogspot.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In response to calls by Russia and the UN for a "cyberwarfare arms limitation treat", this article explains

"Cyberwar" and "cyberweapons" are fiction. The conflicts between nation states in cyberspace are nothing like warfare, and the tools hackers use are nothing like weapons. Putting "cyber" in front a something is just way for people to grasp technical concepts, the analogies quickly break down, and are useless when taken too far (such as a "cyber disarmament treaty").
Apple

Submission + - How to Get Rejected From the App Store (infoworld.com)

Submitted by
snydeq
snydeq writes: "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister catalogs 12 sure-fire ways to get your app rejected from Apple's notoriously fickle App Store. From executing interpreted code, to using Apple's APIs without permission, to designing your UI, each transgression has been abstracted from real-life rejections — for the most part because Apple seems to be making up the rules as it goes along. 'It'd be nice for Apple to make conditions for rejection clear,' McAllister writes. 'Apple has been tinkering with the language of its iPhone SDK license agreement lately, but that hasn't done much to clarify the rules — unless you're Adobe. For everyone else, the App Store's requirements seem as vague and capricious as ever.'"

Submission + - EFF:Quash Subpoena in Mass Filesharing Suit (blogspot.com)

Submitted by NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: In the new mass filesharing suit brought in Washington DC on behalf of a filmmaker, Achte/Neunte v Does 1-2094, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Citizen, and two ACLU organizations have filed an amicus curiae brief supporting a motion by Time Warner to quash the subpoena. The brief (PDF) further argues that the case be dismissed against all but one 'John Doe', and that in any subsequent lawsuits, the plaintiffs be required to establish a jurisdictional basis for bringing the action in that court, that they be enjoined not to engage in improper joinder, and that they be required to establish to some extent the merits of their claim. EFF commented: 'We've long been concerned that some attorneys would attempt to create a business by cutting corners in mass copyright lawsuits against fans, shaking settlements out of people who aren't in a position to raise legitimate defenses and becoming a category of 'copyright trolls' to rival those seen in patent law'.

Submission + - Part-Human, Part-Machine Transistor Devised (discovery.com)

Submitted by asukasoryu
asukasoryu writes: Man and machine can now be linked more intimately than ever, according to a new article in the journal ACS Nano Letters. Scientists have embedded a nano-sized transistor inside a cell-like membrane and powered it using the cell's own fuel.
To create the implanted circuit, the UC scientists combined a carbon nanotube transitor, lipid bilayer coating, ion pump and ATP. The ion pump changes the electrical charge inside the cell, which then changes the electrical charge going through the transistor, which the scientists could measure and monitor.
AMD

Submission + - AMD’s Fusion Combines The CPU And GPU (gizmag.com)

Submitted by ElectricSteve
ElectricSteve writes: At Computex 2010 AMD gave the first public demonstration of its Fusion processor that combines the Central Processing Unit (CPU) and Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) on a single chip. The AMD Fusion family of Accelerated Processing Units (APUs) not only adds another acronym to the computer lexicon, but ushers is what AMD says is a significant shift in processor architecture and capabilities. Many of the improvements stem from eliminating the chip-to-chip linkage that adds latency to memory operations and consumes power — moving electrons across a chip takes less energy than moving these same electrons between two chips. The co-location of all key elements on one chip also allows a holistic approach to power management of the APU. Various parts of the chip can be powered up or down depending on workloads.
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft man: my job is to destroy IE6 (pcpro.co.uk) 2

Submitted by Barence
Barence writes: The man in charge of Internet Explorer has told PC Pro that he's been tasked with destroying IE6. Internet Explorer 6 continues to be the most used browser version in the world at the ripe old age of nine. IE6's position as the default browser in Windows XP means many companies still cling to the browser. "Part of my job is to get IE6 share down to zero as soon as possible," said Ryan Gavin, head of the Internet Explorer business group. Microsoft has also been giving further previews of Internet Explorer 9, with demonstrations showing two 720p HD videos running simultaneously on a netbook, thanks to IE9's GPU-accelerated graphics.
Games

Submission + - Blizzard Boss Says DRM Is A Waste Of Time (thinq.co.uk) 2

Submitted by Stoobalou
Stoobalou writes: Blizzard founder, Frank Pearce reckons that fighting piracy with DRM is a losing battle.

His company — which is responsible for the biggest videogame of all time, the worryingly-addictive online fantasy role player World of Warcraft — is to release Starcraft 2 on July 27th and Pearce has told Videogamer that the title won't be hobbled with the kind of crazy copy protection schemes which have made Ubisoft very unpopular in gaming circles of late.

Starcraft 2 will require a single online activation using the company's Battle.net servers, after which players will be allowed to play the single-player game to their hearts' content, without being forced to have a persistent Internet connection.

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