Latest News
Last updated 24 Jul, 04:20 AM
BBC News - Home
Experts to examine MH17 flight data - British experts are to begin the process of analysing the flight data recorder from the downed Malaysia Airlines plane.
Warning over NHS trust finances - Nineteen NHS trusts have been referred to ministers after auditors raised concerns about their financial health.
Commonwealth Games begin in Glasgow - The Queen declares the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow open after a live show featuring a cast of 2,000 and appearances from several famous Scots.
Hamas ties ceasefire to blockade - Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal says there can be no ceasefire in Gaza without an end to Israel's economic blockade, as fighting continues.
Paracetamol for back pain questioned - Taking paracetamol for lower back pain does not improve recovery time or provide any greater pain relief than using a placebo, scientists say.
The Register
Mozilla patches security bugs in Firefox - Update time Mozilla has released a bug-and-security update to Firefox 31, with 11 security fixes, three of them critical.…
Researcher sat on critical IE bugs for THREE YEARS - VUPEN waited for Pwn2Own cash while IE's sandbox leaked Security outlet VUPEN has revealed it held onto a critical Internet Explorer vulnerability for three years before disclosing it at the March Pwn2Own hacker competition.…
Bad back? Show some spine and stop popping paracetamol - Study finds common pain-killer doesn't reduce pain or shorten recovery The human spine is poorly-designed for the rigours of modern life, but so are the drugs most commonly prescribed to help you endure a bad back.…
Microsoft confirms secret Surface will never see the light of day - Microsoft's form 8-K records decision 'not to ship a new form factor' Speculation that Microsoft contemplated a “mini” version of its Surface fondleslabs, but decided not to let it see the light of day, has been confirmed in Redmond's 8-K form lodged with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).…
50,000 sites backdoored through shoddy WordPress plugin - Not running WordPress? Better hope your neighbour isn't Some 50,000 sites have been sprayed with backdoors from shonky malware targeting a popular and vulnerable WordPress plugin, according to researcher Daniel Cid.…
New Scientist - Online news
Give forests to local people to preserve them - The best way to protect forests, and the carbon they contain that could otherwise cause global warming, is to hand them over to local communities
Quantum split: Particle this way, properties that way - Can you separate a bell from its ring? You can in the quantum world – the Cheshire cat experiment has shown neutrons splitting from their spins (full text available to subscribers)
Baxter the robot brings his gentle touch to novel jobs - A robot designed to work alongside humans in factories is finding a range of unusual alternative applications – from treating patients to farming in space
An easier way to turn plant scraps to plastics - A new way of turning vegetable waste directly into bioplastics could make such materials even more environmentally friendly
Oxygen oasis for early life found in ancient rock - A 2-billion-year-old rock has revealed the first evidence of the isolated pockets where oxygen-breathing life may have evolved
Hacker News
A solar storm nearly destroyed life as we know it two years ago - Comments
Access Control in Swift - Comments
Firm Inefficiency - Comments
Tracking down a kernel bug with git bisect - Comments
Programming with Punched Cards (2005) [pdf] - Comments
Slashdot
Dropbox Head Responds To Snowden Claims About Privacy - First time accepted submitter Carly Page writes When asked for its response to Edward Snowden's claims that "Dropbox is hostile to privacy", Dropbox told The INQUIRER that users concerned about privacy should add their own encryption. The firm warned however that if users do, not all of the service's features will work. Head of Product at Dropbox for Business Ilya Fushman says: "We have data encrypted on our servers. We think of encryption beyond that as a users choice. If you look at our third-party developer ecosystem you'll find many client-side encryption apps....It's hard to do things like rich document rendering if they're client-side encrypted. Search is also difficult, we can't index the content of files. Finally, we need users to understand that if they use client-side encryption and lose the password, we can't then help them recover those files." Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Verizon's Offer: Let Us Track You, Get Free Stuff - mpicpp points out a new program from Verizon that is perfect if you don't mind being tracked. Are you comfortable having your location and Web browsing tracked for marketing purposes? If so, Verizon's got a deal for you. The wireless giant announced a new program this week called 'Smart Rewards' that offers customers credit card-style perks like discounts for shopping, travel and dining. You accrue points through the program by doing things like signing onto the Verizon website, paying your bill online and participating in the company's trade-in program. Verizon emphasizes that the data it collects is anonymized before it's shared with third parties. The program is novel in that offers Verizon users some compensation for the collection of their data, which has become big business for telecom and tech companies. Some privacy advocates have pushed data-collecting companies to reward customers for their personal information in the interest of transparency. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Microsoft's CEO Says He Wants to Unify Windows - Deathspawner writes A lot of people have never been able to understand the logic behind Microsoft's Windows RT, with many urging the company to kill it off so that it can focus on more important products, like the mainline Windows. Well, this is probably not going to come as a huge surprise, especially in light of mass layoffs announced last week, but Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has said that his company will be working to combine all Windows versions into a unified release by next year. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Raspberry Pi Gameboy - An anonymous reader writes: An enterprising hacker took on a project to rebuild a broken Gameboy using emulation software, a Raspberry Pi, and a few other easily-obtainable parts. The result: success! The hacker has posted a detailed walkthrough explaining all of the challenges and how they were solved. "Using a Dremel, I cut out a most of the battery compartment as well as some posts that on the case for the LCD that would no longer be needed. Doing so, the Pi sits flush with the back of the DMG case. ... The screen was the first challenge. The screen runs off 12V out of the box which wouldn't work with the USB battery pack. The USB battery pack is rated at 5V, 1000mAH so the goal was go modify the screen to allow it to run at 5V. ... I finally got it to work by removing the power converter chip as well as soldering a jumper between the + power in and the resister on the top right." Read more of this story at Slashdot.
VP Biden Briefs US Governors On H-1B Visas, IT, and Coding - theodp writes: Back in 2012, Computerworld blasted Vice President Joe Biden for his ignorance of the H-1B temporary work visa program. But Joe's got his H-1B story and he's sticking to it, characterizing the visa program earlier this month in a speech to the National Governors Association as "apprenticeships" of sorts that companies provide to foreign workers to expand the Information Technology industry only after proving there are no qualified Americans to fill the jobs. Biden said he also learned from his talks with tech's top CEOs that 200,000 of the jobs that companies provide each year to highly-skilled H-1B visa holders could in fact be done by Americans with no more than a two-year community college degree. Read more of this story at Slashdot.