Latest News
Last updated 29 Jul, 08:50 PM
BBC News - Home
US and EU expand sanctions on Russia - President Barack Obama says new, co-ordinated sanctions from the US and EU will continue to make Russia's "weak economy even weaker".
Israel steps up bombardment of Gaza - More than 100 Palestinians die, officials say, as Israel intensifies its Gaza bombardment and warns of a long conflict ahead.
Boyfriend killed six-week-old baby - A man who killed his girlfriend's six-week-old baby by battering him with a shoe and plastic bottle is found guilty of manslaughter.
Migration changes 'to put UK first' - A series of changes to restrict benefits to some EU migrants is unveiled as David Cameron warns people who are in the UK illegally "we will find you, we will send you home".
OKCupid experiments with 'bad' matches - Dating website OKCupid reveals that it experimented on its users, including putting the "wrong" people together to see if they would connect.
The Register
Do not pass 起点, do not collect 200 yuan: Microsoft accused of MONOPOLY in China - Regulators claim Office, Windows illegally tied Chinese regulators have confirmed they are investigating Microsoft for possible breaches of local anti-monopoly laws, following a series of surprise visits to Redmond's offices in several cities in China on Monday.…
Apple waggles eyebrows at parents: C'mon, get your kid an updated Macbook Pro Retina - Cheapest models given new processors, more RAM Apple has updated its MacBook Pro line, adding a slightly faster processors and more memory for the cheapest models on its high-end notebooks.…
NASA Cassini boffins spot 101 frigid gushers on Saturn moon - Caused by heated rubbing, apparently Boffins have now spotted 101 different geysers spewing material from the surface of Enceladus, one of Saturn's icy moons.…
BlackBerry to slurp encrypted mobile comms firm Secusmart - Firms to work together on snoop-proof mobes - like, er, Angela Merkel's BlackBerry has bought privately held German firm Secusmart as part of its drive to become the mobile handset provider of choice for security-conscious clients like government agencies and big businesses.…
Texan firm buys disaster recovery bods Neverfail - Artisan Infrastructure taken it over UK business continuity specialist Neverfail has been acquired by US-based Artisan Infrastructure in a quiet and unannounced deal.…
New Scientist - Online news
7 rogue wave disasters, from Columbus to cruise ships - Huge waves out of nowhere were dismissed as legends of the deep, but they may have caused many grisly shipwrecks from seafaring history
Genetic superheroes wanted to fight childhood diseases - Biologist Stephen Friend is searching for exceptional people who carry genes for serious childhood disease but have never got sick – are you one of them? (full text available to subscribers)
UK's national parks may not be safe from fracking - The UK government has almost ruled out fracking in beauty spots, many of which conceal shale oil and gas reserves, but it has left the door ajar
Today on New Scientist - All the latest on newscientist.com: rogue monster waves, how to read a baby's mind, Shakespeare and autism, ebola briefing, psychedelic cells and more
Art in science: Watermarks, whirls and spherulites - Is there an art to science? Images submitted to a Princeton University competition reveal the beauty underlying some current student research
Hacker News
Show HN: Markov chains explained visually - Comments
I created my own MMO and lost 100 pounds - Comments
Free, Worldwide, Encrypted Phone Calls for iPhone - Comments
My iOS Indie-Game Numbers - Comments
Deep Learning Image Classifier - Comments
Slashdot
Programming Languages You'll Need Next Year (and Beyond) - Nerval's Lobster writes: Over at Dice, there's a breakdown of the programming languages that could prove most popular over the next year or two, including Apple's Swift, JavaScript, CSS3, and PHP. But perhaps the most interesting entry on the list is Erlang, an older language invented in 1986 by engineers at Ericsson. It was originally intended to be used specifically for telecommunications needs, but has since evolved into a general-purpose language, and found a home in cloud-based, high-performance computing when concurrency is needed. "There aren't a lot of Erlang jobs out there," writes developer Jeff Cogswell. "However, if you do master it (and I mean master it, not just learn a bit about it), then you'll probably land a really good job. That's the trade-off: You'll have to devote a lot of energy into it. But if you do, the payoffs could be high." And while the rest of the featured languages are no-brainers with regard to popularity, it's an open question how long it might take Swift to become popular, given how hard Apple will push it as the language for developing on iOS. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Senate Bill Would Ban Most Bulk Surveillance - An anonymous reader writes: Today Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) introduced a bill that would ban bulk collection of telephone records and internet data for U.S. citizens. This is a stronger version of the legislation that passed the U.S. House in May, and it has support from the executive branch as well. "The bill, called the USA Freedom Act, would prohibit the government from collecting all information from a particular service provider or a broad geographic area, such as a city or area code, according to a release from Leahy's office. It would expand government and company reporting to the public and reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which reviews NSA intelligence activities. Both House and Senate measures would keep information out of NSA computers, but the Senate bill would impose stricter limits on how much data the spy agency could seek." Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Tesla and Panasonic Have Reached an Agreement On the Gigafactory - cartechboy writes: Tesla's been pretty quiet regarding its upcoming gigafactory lately, but that's about to change. It seems the Silicon Valley startup has reached an agreement with Panasonic in regards to the gigafactory, and Panasonic's going to end up having skin in the game. While the electronics giant was originally skeptical of Tesla's battery factory, it now isn't just on board, it's actually going to participate in the construction of this new facility. It's reported that Panasonic will invest 20 billion to 30 billion yen (194 million to $291 million at current exchange rates), and supply fabrication machinery necessary for cell production. That means Pansonic could end up footing the bill for $1 billion of the total $5 billion anticipated investment required for the gigafactory to get off the ground. If things continue to move forward, the Gigafactory should be online by the end of 2017. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
3-D Printing Comes To Amazon - An anonymous reader writes Promising "an appstore for the physical world," Amazon has just unveiled their new online market for products created using a 3-D printer. "Customization gives customers the power to remix their world," explains the co-founder of Mixee Labs (an Amazon partner), "and we want to change the way people shop online." Amazon's ability to sell you things before they've even been built is currently limited mostly to novelties like iPhone cases, jewelry, and bobbleheads that look like you. But this could be the beginning of mainstream 3D printing. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Ask Slashdot: Open Hard- & Software Based Security Token? - Qbertino (265505) writes I've been musing about a security setup to allow my coworkers/users access to files from the outside. I want security to be a little safer than pure key- or password-based SSH access, and some super-expensive RSA Token setup is out of question. I've been wondering whether there are any feasible and working FOSS and open hardware-based security token generator projects out there. It'd be best with ready-made server-side scripts/daemons. Perhaps something Arduino or Raspberry Pi based? Has anybody tried something like this? What are your experiences? What do you use? How would you attempt an open hardware FOSS solution to this problem? Read more of this story at Slashdot.