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Submission + - Creative Commons Launches Version 4.0 Of Its Licenses (plagiarismtoday.com)

Submitted by revealingheart
revealingheart writes: Creative Commons has launched new versions of their flexible copyright licenses, after 2 years of input. Changes include waiving database and moral rights where possible, adjustments to attribution requirements, and licenses are now designed to work internationally by default.

Comment LibXUL on Win32 approaching 4GB memory limit (Score 5, Informative) 127

by revealingheart (#43733489) Attached to: How Maintainable Is the Firefox Codebase?

According to recent comments (continued on the next day's thread), the win32 compiler that Mozilla use is approaching the 4GB limit, after which LibXUL (which Firefox depends upon) will no longer compile.

It's currently at 3.5GB, and at the current rate, will reach the limit in approximately 6 months: Chart of memory usage of LibXUL during last 90 days

While I think that Servo will produce a more decentralised design than Gecko and XUL, the memory limit will be reached well before that. With Windows XP support ending next year, Mozilla should consider migrating to x64 as soon as reasonably possible, keeping x32, but focusing on stripping large and extraneous code above new features.
Media

Submission + - Users abandon ship if online video quality is not up to snuff, says study (umass.edu)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The first large scientific study of how people respond to poor video quality on the Internet paints a picture of ever rising user expectations and the willingness to abandon ship if those expectations are not met.

Some nuggets...
1) Users are willing to wait for no more than 2 seconds for a video to start playing, with each additional second adding 6% to the abandonment rate.
2) Users with good broadband connectivity expect faster video load times and are even more impatient than ones on mobile devices.
3) Users who experience video freezing watch fewer minutes of the video than someone who does not experience freezing. A 1% freezing causes 5% less minutes watched.
4) Users who experience failures when they try to play videos are less likely to return to the same website in the future.

BIG data analyzed (260+ million minutes of video) and some cool new data analysis techniques used.
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft Issues Workaround For IE 0-Day (net-security.org)

Submitted by
Orome1
Orome1 writes: "Microsoft has issued a security advisory with advice on how to patch a Internet Explorer zero-day vulnerability recently spotted being exploited in the wild by attackers that might be the same ones that are behind the Nitro attacks. News that there is a previously unknown Internet Explorer vulnerability that is actively being misused in the wild by attackers that are believed to be the same ones that are behind the Nitro attacks has reverberated all over the Internet yesterday."
Privacy

Submission + - Sir Tim Berners-Lee accuses UK government of "Draconian Internet Snooping" (telegraph.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: According to British daily The Telegraph, Sir Tim Berners-Lee has warned that plans to monitor individuals' use of the internet would result in Britain losing its reputation as an upholder of web freedom. The plans, by Home Secretary Theresa May, would force British ISPs and other service providers to keep records of every phone call, email and website visit in Britain. Sir Tim has told the Times: "In Britain, like in the US, there has been a series of Bills that would give government very strong powers to, for example, collect data. I am worried about that." Sir Tim has also warned that the UK may wind up slipping down the list of countries with the most Internet freedom, if the proposed data-snooping laws pass parliament. The draft bill extends the type of data that internet service providers must store for at least 12 months. Providers would also be required to keep details of a much wider set of data, including use of social network sites, webmail and voice calls over the internet.
Censorship

Submission + - The Algorithmic Copyright Cops: Streaming Video's Robotic Overlords (wired.com)

Submitted by thomst
thomst writes: Geeta Dayal of Wired's Threat Level blog posts an interesting report about bot-mediated automatic takedowns of streaming video. He mentions the interruption of Michelle Obama's speech at the DNC, and the blocking of NASA's coverage of Mars rover Curiosity's landing by a Scripps News Service bot, but the story really drills down on the abrupt disappearance of the Hugo Award's live stream of Neil Gaiman's acceptance speech for his Doctor Who script. (Apparently the trigger was a brief clip from the Doctor Who episode itself, despite the fact that it was clearly a case of fair use.) Dayal points the finger at Vobile, whose content-blocking technology was used by Ustream, which hosted the derailed coverage of the Hugos. The good news — such as it is — is that Ustream has apparently suspended their use of Vobile's software. Vobile isn't the only player in the content-cop software space, and Dayal's article includes links to Vobile, Attributor, Audible Magic, and Gracenote (but ALL the links in the article go through contextly.com, so you'll need to enable scripts from contextly to get to the actual web sites in question — boo, Wired).
Science

Submission + - Quantum Teleportation Sends Information 143 Kilometers (sciencedaily.com)

Submitted by
SchrodingerZ
SchrodingerZ writes: "Scientists from around the world have collaborated to achieve quantum teleportation over 143 kilometers in free space . Quantum information was sent between the Canary Islands of La Palma and Tenerife. Quantum teleportation is not how it is made out in Star Trek though. Instead of sending an object (in this case a photon) from one location to another; the information of its quantum state is sent, making a photon on the other end look identical to the original .'Teleportation across 143 kilometres is a crucial milestone in this research, since that is roughly the minimum distance between the ground and orbiting satellites.' It is the hope of the research team that this experiment will lead to commercial use of quantum teleportation to interact with satellites and ground stations. This will increase the efficiency of satellite communication and help with the expansion of quantum internet usage. The full paper on the experiment can be found in the journal Nature here."
Science

Submission + - Human water use accounts for 42% of recent sea level rise (nature.com)

Submitted by scibri
scibri writes: During the latter half of the twentieth century, global sea level rose by about 1.8 millimetres per year. The combined contribution from heating of the oceans, which makes the water expand, along with melting of ice caps and glaciers, is estimated to be 1.1 millimetres per year, which left some 0.7 millimetres per year unaccounted for.

It seems that the effects of human water use on land could fill that gap. Researchers report in Nature Geoscience that land-based water storage could account for 0.77 millimetres per year, or 42%, of the observed sea-level rise between 1961 and 2003. The extraction of groundwater for irrigation and home and industrial use, with subsequent run-off to rivers and eventually to the oceans, represents the bulk of the contribution.

It would be even worse if we weren't also locking up lots of water from rivers behind dams like the Hoover Dam.
Digital

Submission + - Photographers, you're being replaced by software (photo-mark.com)

Submitted by Mrs. Grundy
Mrs. Grundy writes: CGI software, even open-source software like Blender, continues to improve in quality, speed and easy-of-use. Photographer Mark Meyer wonders how long it will be before large segments of the photography industry are replaced by software and become the latest casualty to fall to outsourcing. Some imagery once the domain of photographers has already moved to CGI. Is any segment of the photography market safe? Will we soon accept digital renderings in places where we used to expect photographs?
Earth

Submission + - The Most Detailed 121-megapixel Image Of Earth Captured By Russian Satellite (gizmocrazed.com) 1

Submitted by Diggester
Diggester writes: The satellite, known as Elektro-L No.1, took this image from its stationary point over 35,000 kilometers above the Indian Ocean. This is the most detailed image of the Earth yet available to human beings, just because it captures the Earth in a single shot with 121-megapixels unlike NASA satellites, which usually use a collection of pictures from multiple flybys stitched together. The detail in the pic is just amazing, with everything visible so clearly.
Science

Submission + - Scientists Plan $1 Billion Ghost Town

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Although a fully operation city with no people sounds like the setup for a dystopian sci-fi novel, the Boston Globe reports that the Center for Innovation, Testing and Evaluation will develop a $1 billion scientific ghost town near Hobbs, New Mexico to help researchers test everything from intelligent traffic systems and next-generation wireless networks to automated washing machines and self-flushing toilets on existing infrastructure without interfering in everyday life. Bob Brumley, senior managing director of Pegasus Holdings, says the town will be modeled after the real city of Rock Hill, South Carolina, complete with highways, houses and commercial buildings, old and new although unlike traditional cities, City Labs will start with its underground “backbone” infrastructure that will allow the lab to monitor activity throughout the 17-mile site. “The idea for The Center was born out of our own company’s challenges in trying to test new and emerging technologies beyond the confines of a sterile lab environment,” says Brumley. Since nobody lives in the Center's buildings, computerized systems will mimic human behavior such as turning thermostats up and down, switching lights off and on, or flushing toilets. The Center’s test facilities and supporting infrastructure may require as much as 20 square miles of open, unimproved land where the controlled environment will permit evaluation of the positive and negative impacts of smart grid applications and integration of renewable energies for residential, commercial and industrial sectors of the economy. Additional testing opportunities would include technologies emerging in intelligent traffic systems, next-generation wireless networks, smart grid cyber security and terrorism vulnerability. “It’s an amusement park for the scientists,” adds Brumley. "The only thing we won't be doing is destructive testing, blowing things up — I hope.""
The Military

Submission + - Britain to deploy "sonic gun" at Olympics (reuters.com)

Submitted by skipkent
skipkent writes: Britain's military will be armed with a sonic device that can be used as a high-volume loudspeaker or a non-lethal weapon to disperse crowds at this summer's Olympic Games in London, the defence ministry said on Friday.

The equipment, which can project a piercing sound over hundreds of metres causing physical pain, has been used during protests at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh in 2009 and against pirates operating off the Somali coast.

The Ministry of Defence said it expected to use it primarily in loudspeaker mode to communicate with boats it wants to stop on the River Thames.

Defence chiefs have already caused controversy by announcing plans to put surface-to-air missiles on the top of residential buildings near the Olympics site in east London.

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