DesScorp writes "A story from UK's Guardian reports on a study of ice levels from the Himalayas area, and finds that no significant melting has occurred, despite earlier predictions of losses of up to 50 billion tons of ice. 'The very unexpected result was the negligible mass loss from high mountain Asia, which is not significantly different from zero,' said Professor Jonathan Bamber, who also warns that 8 years simply isn't enough time to draw conclusions. 'It is awfully dangerous to take an eight-year record and predict even the next eight years, let alone the next century,' he said." Readers have sent in a few other stories today relating to melting (or persisting) ice around the globe; read on for more.
gotfork writes "Quoting The Guardian: 'A pro-Kremlin group runs a network of internet trolls, seeks to buy flattering coverage of Vladimir Putin and hatches plans to discredit opposition activists and media, according to private emails allegedly hacked by a group calling itself the Russian arm of Anonymous.' While a similar program has operated in China for a long time, and some commentators have suggested that a similar program exists in Russia, this is the first confirmation."
Timothy Lord is exactly the kind of person for whom the SCOTTEVEST Ultimate Hoodie Microfleece was designed; He's on the go all the time, needs to travel light, and wants to carry lots of stuff on his person to avoid checking luggage when he's flying. Yes, we know; before long half the people waiting to board airliners will be bulked out to double their normal width. Meanwhile, Timothy managed to jam an amazing amount of stuff into his new hoodie. Or jacket, as he prefers to call it.
An anonymous reader writes "A mild electrical shock to the brain before learning a new task may enhance memory, researchers reported on Wednesday. A team of neuroscientists demonstrated that electrical stimulation to a critical junction in the brain appeared to boost memory in a few patients with epilepsy, a surprising finding that have implications for Alzheimer's disease treatment."
First time accepted submitter CIStud writes "Famed 'Dark Side of the Moon' engineer Alan Parsons, who also worked on the Beatles 'Abbey Road,' says audiophiles spend too much money on equipment and ignore room acoustics. He also is surprised the music industry has not addressed the artists' rights violations taking place on YouTube, wonders why surround-sound mixes for albums never took off, and calls the Jonas Brothers 'garbage' all in one interview."
nonprofiteer writes "With a program called Screenwise, Google is offering a total of $25 in Amazon gift cards to anyone willing to install a Chrome browser extension that will let the search giant track every website the user visits and what they do there over a year-long period. Google says it will study this in order to improve its products and services. Forbes points out that $25 in Amazon credits isn't quite enough to buy a six pack of Marshmallow Fluff ($26.75)." The money isn't much as a pure trade for privacy, but I suspect that many people would like to have their preferences be among those that shape how Google — and other companies, too — actually organize their interfaces. (Note that the tracking can be selectively turned off by the user.)
JoeRobe writes "For the first time in 30 years, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved licenses to build two new nuclear reactors in Georgia. These are the first licenses to be issued since the Three Mile Island incident in 1979. The pair of facilities will cost $14 billion and produce 2.2 GW of power (able to power ~1 million homes). They will be Westinghouse AP1000 designs, which are the newest reactors approved by the NRC. These models passively cool their fuel rods using condensation and gravity, rather than electricity, preventing the possibility of another Fukushima Daiichi-type meltdown due to loss of power to cooling water pumps." Adds Unknown Lamer: "Expected to begin operation in 2016 or 2017, the pair of new AP1000 reactors will produce around 2GW of power for the southeast. This is the first of the new combined construction and operating licenses ever issued by the NRC; hopefully this bodes well for the many other pending applications."
redletterdave writes "San Francisco-based game developer Double Fine took to Kickstarter to fund its next game project, and so far, the studio has enjoyed unprecedented success through crowdsourcing. The project, which was announced by the studio's founder Tim Schafer on Wednesday night, has already raised more than $700,000 in less than 24 hours. The funding frenzy has set new Kickstarter records for most funds raised in the first 24 hours, and highest number of backers of all-time, though both of those numbers are still growing. Schafer says he will build a 'classic point-and-click adventure game' in a six-to-eight month time frame, and will document the entire production process for fans to observe and give input on the game's development, which 'will actually affect the direction the game takes.'"
Hugh Pickens writes "Bloomberg reports that the FBI has released a decades-old file it kept on Steve Jobs, the deceased Apple co-founder, after a background check for a possible appointment by former President George H. W. Bush conducting interviews with unnamed associates of Jobs to judge his character, drug use and potential prejudices. 'Several individuals questioned Mr. Jobs' honesty stating that Mr. Jobs will twist the truth and distort reality in order to achieve his goals,' according to the materials. Several people commented 'concerning past drug use on the part of Mr. Jobs,' according to the file including marijuana, hashish and LSD during the period 1970 – 1974. The file also noted that Jobs was not a member of the communist party."
stry_cat writes "My company has bought into the FUD and is going 100% Microsoft. Rather than work in this environment and be continuously at odds with upper management, I have decided to seek employment elsewhere. Where do I look for an open source job? I've started with the local paper's Sunday classifieds. I've looked on dice.com and monster.com. However almost all are Microsoft related. The few that aren't are some sort of dinky contract or temp job. So is there a place to find a job in an open source environment?"
mikejuk writes "The UK's National Museum of Computing has come up with a novel idea to raise funds for its new gallery for its rebuilt Colossus computer — you can sponsor a valve. All you have to do is buy a small area in a picture of Colossus (at £0.1 per pixel — min £10), upload a picture to occupy the space, set a URL and pay using PayPal."
theodp writes "How'd you like to be deemed unworthy of a job based upon a scan of your GitHub updates? That's what proposed in a newly-published IBM patent application for Automated Analysis of Code Developer's Profile, which proposes weeding out developer candidates for certain roles based on things like the amount of changes one typically makes with each commit, how frequently and regularly one makes commits, what hours of the day one makes commits, the percentage of commits with conflicts that one resolves, and the 'depth' of one's commit comments ('shallow', 'mid-range' or 'deep'). Big Blue explains that commit or repository interactions can be used to produce a 'conclusion report' that compares a developer to others who have profiles on the repository, which helps management 'avoid wasted time with ineffective developers."
Lucas123 writes "Psychiatrists say VoIP technology is more popular with patients than even in-person therapy when it comes to counseling — especially for their younger patients who are less intimidated by it. Along with many patients who like the convenience, telepsychiatry is a necessity for others who live in rural areas or are in, prisons, nursing homes or hospital ICUs. 'We've had just over 60,000 patient encounters. To my knowledge, only six have refused to be seen via teleconferencing,' said Dr. Avrim Fishkind, an emergency psychiatrist. 'We're tailor made for telemedicine because we don't check people's livers. We just talk.'" I wonder whether Eliza can be sued for practicing medicine without a license.
An anonymous reader writes "I just received 3 'refurbished' SATA drives from Newegg. All 3 had some sort of existing partition. Most appeared to be factory diagnostic partitions, but one had a full Dell Windows XP install complete with customer data. How big a deal is this? Should I contact someone besides Newegg about this?"
garthsundem writes with a link to his story in Wired, according to which "Test scores and student/teacher ratio are nearly meaningless. But three new numbers do describe school quality: 1. (Test Scores/Parent Education): How do scores outpace expectations? 2. Test Score Growth: Any single score can be socioeconomics, but growth is due to the school. 3. (Teacher Salary*%Highly Qualified/Teacher Age): The best teachers will become highly qualified early, and will gravitate toward the best paying jobs." These factors seem to be at least interesting starting points; if you've shopped around for elementary schools, what else did you consider?
Google Screenwise gives you money if you allow it to track your search results in Chrome--but so does Bing Rewards.
Accuses opponents of most of the sins of his own industry, plus a few he just made up.
The New York Attorney General settled an antitrust case it brought against Intel in 2009, the chip maker announced on Thursday.
As patent infringement lawsuits continue to pile up in the mobile industry, Google, Apple and Microsoft appear to be trying individually to reassure regulators...
Microsoft's Steven Sinofsky revealed great detail of Windows 8 on ARM (WOA), including the revelation that it will come with "Office 15" built in.
Google is planning to enter the home entertainment market with a Google-branded wireless device that streams music within a house, according to the Wall Street...
There’s plenty of evidence that camera phones are cutting into the sales and usage of basic, consumer-oriented digital cameras–the very kind that Kodak has focused on for many years.
President Obama has shared his 2012 campaign playlist over Spotify.
Amazon has released a new advertisement that takes a shot at the price of Apple's iPad, emphasizing the lower cost of the Kindle e-reader and Android-based Kindle Fire tablet computer.
The former owner of two Illinois technology companies was sentenced Thursday to serve 30 months in prison for participating in a conspiracy to defraud a U.S...
Microsoft has released technical design details about the new version of Windows for devices that use ARM chips, outlining in a lengthy blog post different ways...
Lack of follow-through on promise to sever ties causes consternation
Microsoft shared its Patch Tuesday preview, revealing that there are nine security bulletins on the agenda for next week.
The founder of several Muslim jihad websites has pleaded guilty to three charges related to making online threats, including threatening the writers of the...
Which online services consume the most amount of bandwidth on your Internet connection?
Security firm Zvelo has discovered that the Google Wallet PIN, which is required of users to confirm purchases made with their phones, can be cracked via an exhaustive numerical search.
One of the first laptops to sport the new Ivy Bridge processor is now available for preorder.
An IT pro is tasked with looking into unused servers, but ends up creating a whole different set of problems for the network team.
With Valentine's Day around the corner, cyber criminals are ramping up spam, phishing, and other attacks targeting the lover's holiday.
Gaming accounted for many of the top apps last month, but there were a few business-oriented gems as well, according to a new report.
This super-robot is capable of using the toilet after eating due to a fake digestive system, and can also create electricity.
Facebook, Google, Twitter, and every other data-sucking Web giant should be forced to reveal exactly what data they collect about us -- before it's too late.
ReDigi wins round one of the battle against Capitol Records.
A music industry executive has said that Apple is creating 'magic money' for rightsholders with its iTunes Match service.
Sony's new CEO says the company needs to move on from its hardware roots.
Google is at odds with Apple, Microsoft and Cisco over the licensing and litigation of patents. While Google wants to make the most of patents it will receive if...
The 191-page document dates from a 1991 background check when Apple's founder was being considered for a position on the President's Export Council.
The latest version of Google's Chrome browser, known as Chrome 17, can now determine which sites you're likely to visit when you start typing them into your search bar and will actually preload them for you.
The mobile communications equipment market will hit the half-trillion-dollar mark in 2015, according to research firm IHS.
A running counter in this cross-platform browser add-on shows users how many tracking attempts have been blocked, and from which companies.
Why you should be excited that Markus Persson wants to fund Psychonauts 2, even if it doesn’t happen.
At one time, Kodak had more than 90 percent of the market share of film sales in the U.S, but the 131-year-old company struggled since the introduction of digital cameras.
The United States Navy has finally been delivered an industry-grade electromagnetic railgun prototype, taking weaponized combat one more step into the future.
The Taleo deal is expected to close in the middle of this year and is subject to shareholder approval.
Buzz over an alleged Apple iPad 3 event has reached a fevered pitch just as a Japanese site claims it has pictures of Apple's next-gen iPad 9.7-inch display.
Large numbers of data breaches are being initiated by targeted malware that antivirus software simply can't detect, according to an analysis.
The problem is social networking smartphone app Path seems to have known full well that storing a user's entire address book was the wrong thing to do.
Raspberry Pi Foundation's US$25 PC will become available by the end of this month, and buyers hope it could fill in as a low-power desktop, while being an...
A computer Trojan that targets online banking users is evolving and spreading rapidly because its creators have adopted an open-source development model...
Group called SwaggSec says the user names and passwords clipped from Foxconn can be used to place fraudulent orders from the company's clients.
Bango's technology targets the growing market of internet-enabled smartphone users, who are increasingly using their devices to carry out transactions online.
The bottom line: If you own an iPhone for 18 months and decide to resell it, you will get more money for it than any other comparable Android or BlackBerry smartphone.
Kat is joined by Stiv Tramer as they delve into Final Fantasy V and the question of story versus mechanics. Is there really such a thing as a good story in an RPG? Find out!
A news report says the new product will be free to consumers up to a certain size limit, and would also be folded into Google Apps for enterprise.
The hacker group Swagg Security announced the attack in a Twitter message and also leaked data stolen from the Foxconn site to The Pirate Bay.
Telemedicine has been around since the 1990s, but psychiatrists say it's increasingly used to treat remote patients as technology and security improves.
3D design software company Dassault Systèmes has acquired Netvibes, a website that allows the creation of personalized dashboards combining social network...
Growth in India's exports of IT services, business process outsourcing and related services is forecast to drop to 11 to 14 percent in the Indian fiscal year to...
Vodafone reported a 2.3 percent drop in revenue for the last three months of 2011, as economic conditions, particularly across southern Europe, continue to be...
The changes Samsung Electronics has made to the Galaxy Tab 10.1N are enough to no longer infringe on Apple's intellectual property rights, a judge at the...