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Comment Re:The problem is half truths (Score 1) 601

This entire hairball can be summed up, by one statement: "government should not be dictating, how to price labor." Socialism and control (yes, even semi-controlled) markets inevitably FAIL to achieve the desired objective. However, that's never stopped a progressive from trying again and again and again... of course, expecting a different result.

Submission + - Microsoft Is Hustling Us With "White Spaces" (wired.com)

rgh02 writes: Microsoft recently announced their plan to deploy unused television airwaves to solve the digital divide in America. And while the media painted this effort as a noble one, at Backchannel, Susan Crawford reveals the truth: “Microsoft's plans aren't really about consumer internet access, don't actually focus on rural areas, and aren't targeted at the US—except for political purposes.” So what is Microsoft really up to? This deep dive into Microsoft’s plan for "white spaces" tells the story newspapers missed and what the internet giant is really after.

Submission + - SPAM: Robot cracks open safe live on Def Con's stage

schwit1 writes: Using a cheap robot, a team of hackers has cracked open a leading-brand combination safe, live on stage in Las Vegas.

The team from SparkFun Electronics was able to open a SentrySafe safe in around 30 minutes.

The robot is able to reduce the number of possible combinations from one million to just 1,000, before quickly and automatically trying the remaining combinations until it breaks in.

Link to Original Source

Submission + - Petition Asks Adobe to Open-Source Flash for the Sake of Internet History (bleepingcomputer.com)

An anonymous reader writes: A petition is asking Adobe to release Flash into the hands of the open-source community. Finnish developer Juha Lindstedt started the petition a day after Adobe announced plans to end Flash support by the end of 2020. "Flash is an important piece of Internet history and killing Flash means future generations can't access the past," Lindstedt explains in the petition's opening paragraph. "Games, experiments and websites would be forgotten."

The developer wants Adobe to open-source Flash or parts of its technology so the open-source community could take on the job of supporting a minimal version of the Flash plugin or at least create a tool to accurately convert old SWF and FLA files to modern HTML5, canvas data, or WebAssembly code. Lindstedt is asking users to sign the petition by starring the project on GitHub. At the time of writing, the petition has garnered over 3,000 stars.

Submission + - Microbe new to science found in self-fermented beer (sciencemag.org)

sciencehabit writes: In May 2014, a group of scientists took a field trip to a small brewery in an old warehouse in Seattle, Washington--and came away with a microbe scientists have never seen before. In so-called wild bear, the team identified a yeast belonging to the genus Pichia, which turned out to be a hybrid of a known species called P. membranifaciens and another Pichia species completely new to science. Other Pichia species are known to spoil a beer, but the new hybrid seems to smell better. The finding means brewers and scientists may be one step closer to unveiling the alchemy of spontaneous fermentation.

Submission + - Linux Kernel 4.14 Will Be an LTS Release

prisoninmate writes: Development of the Linux 4.14 kernel series did not even start, as the version that's being developed these days is Linux 4.12, which should be promoted to stable early next month, but Softpedia reports that renowned Linux kernel maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman announced earlier this morning that the upcoming Linux 4.14 kernel series will be an LTS (Long Term Support) branch. The developer promises to support the Linux 4.14 kernel series for at least two years after its release in November 2017, probably until November 2019.

Submission + - 'build', auto-configuration in 1000 lines of makefile

descubes writes: Most open-source projects use tools such as autoconf and automake. For C and C++ projects, build is a make-based alternative that offers auto-configuration, build logs, colorization, testing and install targets, in about 1000 lines of makefile. A sample makefile looks like this:

BUILD=./
SOURCES=hello.cpp
PRODUCTS=hello.exe
CONFIG= <stdio.h> <iostream> clearenv libm
TESTS=product
include $(BUILD)rules.mk

Submission + - Amazon refreshes Fire 7 and Fire HD 8 tablets (betanews.com)

BrianFagioli writes: Amazon's tablets have needed a refresh for a while now, and today it happens. The company announces two newly updated models — the Fire 7 ($49) and the Fire HD 8 ($79). They both feature Alexa support, of course, and are designed for a quality experience with all types of media, such as movies, music, and books. The 7-inch has a 1024 x 600 resolution, while the 8-inch variant has 1280 x 800. Best of all, they are extremely affordable.

At these insanely low prices, you might expect anemic performance, but both come with a respectable Quad-core 1.3 GHz processor. The Fire 7 has 1GB of RAM, while the HD 8 has 1.5GB. Regardless of which model you select, you will also get both front and rear cameras. The low cost might make you think they will be cheaply made, but Amazon claims they are more durable than Apple's newest iPad.

Submission + - HPE Unveils The Machine, a Single-Memory Computer Capable of Addressing 160 TB (venturebeat.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced what it is calling a big breakthrough — creating a prototype of a computer with a single bank of memory that can process enormous amounts of information. The computer, known as The Machine, is a custom-built device made for the era of big data. HPE said it has created the world’s largest single-memory computer. The R&D program is the largest in the history of HPE, the former enterprise division of HP that split apart from the consumer-focused division. If the project works, it could be transformative for society. But it is no small effort, as it could require a whole new kind of software. The prototype unveiled today contains 160 terabytes (TB) of memory, capable of simultaneously working with the data held in every book in the Library of Congress five times over — or approximately 160 million books. It has never been possible to hold and manipulate whole data sets of this size in a single-memory system, and this is just a glimpse of the immense potential of Memory-Driven Computing, HPE said. Based on the current prototype, HPE expects the architecture could easily scale to an exabyte-scale single-memory system and, beyond that, to a nearly limitless pool of memory — 4,096 yottabytes. For context, that is 250,000 times the entire digital universe today.

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