fmatthew5876 writes "I have a friend who graduated with a degree in philosophy and sociology. He has been spending a lot of his spare time for the last couple years learning system administration and web development. He has set up web servers, database servers, web proxies and more. He has taught himself PHP, MySQL, and how to use Linux and openBSD without any formal education. I believe that if given the chance with an entry level position somewhere and a good mentor he could really be a great Unix admin, but the problem is that he doesn't have a degree in computer science or any related field. He is doing stuff now that a lot of people I graduated with (I was a CS major) could not do when they had a bachelor's degree. Does Slashdot have any advice on what my friend could do to build up his resume and find a job? I know a lot of people think certifications are pretty useless or even harmful, but in his case do you think it would be a good idea?"
redletterdave writes "At next week's WWDC 2012 in San Francisco, Apple is expected to unveil new laptops, desktops, accessories, and software features for its Mac OS X platform. But on Friday afternoon, several pictures surfaced on Twitter showing banners released around Moscone West in San Francisco, saying 'iOS 6: The world's most advanced mobile operating system.'"
snydeq writes "After hearing objections from developers, Microsoft will offer a version of its Visual Studio Express 2012 package for desktop application development after all. The company had previously announced that Express 2012 editions, which are free, platform-specific versions of the Visual Studio 2012 IDE, would be limited to Windows 8 Metro-style development as well as development for the Windows Azure cloud platform, Windows Phone, and Web applications. 'We heard from our community that developers want to have for Windows desktop development the same great experience and access to the latest Visual Studio 2012 features at the Express level. ... And it will enable developers working on open source applications to target existing and previous versions of Windows.'"
Harperdog writes "Scott Kemp writes about the similarities between the nuclear arms race and the use of cyberweaponry for offensive purposes. As the article points out, offensive cyberwarfare leaves a nation's own citizenry vulnerable to attack as government agencies seek to keep weaknesses in operating systems (such as Windows) secret. Quoting: 'In the world of armaments, cyber weapons may require the fewest national resources to build. That is not to say that highly developed nations are not without their advantages during early stages. Countries like Israel and the United States may have more money and more talented hackers. Their software engineers may be more skilled and exhibit more creativity and critical thinking owing to better training and education. However, each new cyberattack becomes a template for other nations — or sub-national actors — looking for ideas.'"
Trailrunner7 writes "Adobe has released a new version of their Flash player that now gives Firefox users the additional security of a sandbox and also includes a background update mechanism for Mac users. Flash has run in a sandbox on Google Chrome and Internet Explorer for some time already. The big security news in Flash player 11.3 is the addition of the protected mode sandbox for Firefox on Windows. That's a major change for Adobe, which has been adding sandbox to its main product lines for a couple of years now. Adobe Reader X has run in protected mode — which is what Adobe calls its sandbox — since its release, and the company also added a sandbox to Flash on Google Chrome. The sandbox is designed to prevent attackers from using vulnerabilities in Flash to break out of the application and move to other apps or the OS itself."
MrSeb writes "MIT has devised a way of creating complex, self-assembling 3D nanostructures of wires and junctions. While self-assembling structures have been made from polymers before, this is the first time that multi-layer, configurable layouts have been created, opening up the path to self-assembled computer chips. Basically, MIT uses diblock copolymers, which are large molecules formed from two distinct polymers (each with different chemical and physical properties). These copolymers naturally form long cylinders — wires. The key to MIT's discovery is that the scientists have worked out how to exactly control the arrangement of these block copolymers. By growing tiny, 10nm-wide silica 'posts' on a silicon substrate, the researchers can control the angles, bends, spacing, and junctions of the copolymer wires. Once the grid of posts has been built, the wafer is simply covered in the polymer material, and chip's wires and junctions self-assemble. The reason everyone is so excited, though, is that the silica posts can be built using equipment that is compatible with existing semiconductor fabs. Theoretically, chips built using this technique could have a much smaller feature size than the 28nm and 22nm chips produced by TSMC and Intel. According to Caroline Ross of MIT, it should be possible to build posts that are much smaller than 10nm."
Velcroman1 writes "So-called 'blood diamonds' or conflict diamonds are the well-publicized face of the decades-long human rights challenge in Africa. But the mining and sale of a lesser-known but more widely used group of natural resources known as 'blood minerals' has also fueled civil wars in Congo and Uganda — and they're in the latest smartphones. Congress sought to address the issue through the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, which included a requirement for companies to disclose conflict minerals. In 2011 the SEC opened a public debate about this disclosure — but Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Washington is critical of the process. 'They are afraid of being sued by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the World Gold Council,' McDermott said. Ahead of the SEC ruling, Sprint has made baby steps to come to terms with the controversy, joining the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI) and the Public-Private Alliance for Responsible Minerals Trade (PPA), and said it is working to make device manufacturers aware of the issue. But are they doing enough?"
Nick Fel writes "Apple has been granted a broad patent (PDF) on the wedge-shaped design of the MacBook Air. The design has been copied by most ultrabooks, and their manufacturers are likely starting to feel a little uneasy about the news."
CowboyRobot writes "Following yesterday's post about Poul-Henning Kamp no longer supporting md5crypt, the author has a new column at the ACM where he details all the ways that LinkedIn failed, specifically related to how they failed to 'salt' their passwords, making them that much easier to crack. 'On a system with many users, the chances that some of them have chosen the same password are pretty good. Humans are notoriously lousy at selecting good passwords. For the evil attacker, that means all users who have the same hashed password in the database have chosen the same password, so it is probably not a very good one, and the attacker can target that with a brute force attempt.'"
jfruh writes "Taipei's Computex trade show has seen an array of strange devices on sale that are somewhere between PCs and tablets: laptops with screens you can twist in every direction, tablets with detachable keyboards, all-in-one PCs with detachable monitors. Some have Intel chips, some ARM chips; some run Windows 8, some Android. They all exist because of the cheap components now available, and because Windows 8 will make touch interfaces possible — but mostly they exist because PC makes are starting to freak out about being left behind by the tablet revolution."
Nerval's Lobster writes "IBM's Watson made major headlines last year when it trounced its human rivals on Jeopardy. But Watson isn't just sitting around spinning trivia questions to stump the champs: IBM is working hard on taking it into a series of vertical markets such as healthcare, contact management and financial services to see if the system can be used for diagnosing diseases and catching market trends. Does this spell the end for certain careers? Not really, but it does raise some interesting thoughts and issues."
Mattygfunk1 writes "Facebook is following the leader and launching its own app store. The move is intended to encourage longer browsing sessions from users and attract attention from software developers, in addition to allowing more personalized advertising. 'Each app will generally allow the user to install it as a Facebook application. However, a "send to mobile" will also appear if the app has a mobile app from either the Apple iOS App Store or else the Google Play store. In either case, the app can be sent to a user's phone and can be installed there.' It's currently only available in the U.S., with more countries to follow in the coming weeks."
Hugh Pickens writes "Voters in Richmond, California are set to decide in November whether to make the Bay Area city the nation's first municipality to tax soda and other sugary beverages to help fight childhood obesity. The penny-per-ounce tax, projected to raise between $2 million and $8 million, would go to soccer fields, school gardens and programs to treat diabetes and fight obesity. Councilman Jeff Ritterman, a doctor who proposed the measure, says soda is a prime culprit behind high childhood obesity rates in Richmond, where nearly 20 percent of residents live below the poverty line. 'If you look at where most of our added sugar is coming, it's coming from the sugar-sweetened beverages,' says Ritterman. 'It's actually a poison for you, because your liver can't handle that huge amount of fructose.' Not everyone is pleased by the proposed license fee on businesses selling sweetened drinks. It would require owners of bodegas, theaters, convenience stores and other outlets to tally ounces sold and, presumably, pass the cost on to customers. Soda taxes have failed elsewhere — most notably in Philadelphia, where Mayor Michael A. Nutter's attempts to impose a 2-cents-per-ounce charge on sugary drinks have sputtered twice. However, Dr. Bibbins-Domingo says similar taxes on cigarettes have had a dramatic effect on public health. 'It was a few decades ago when we had high rates of tobacco and we had high rates of tobacco-related illnesses. Those measures really turned the tide and really led to lower rates of tobacco across the country.'"
While it may have been the game trailers that drew cheers from the crowd at Microsoft's Xbox briefing in Los Angeles this week, the partnerships and new features...
One of the more surprising episodes in Hewlett-Packard and Oracle's ill-fated enterprise IT partnership was touched upon for only a few minutes during testimony...
A new service called Fluent promises to revolutionize the way you use Gmail. We put it to the test to see what it's really all about.
This early release offers a sneak peak at what's to come in the next version of Canonical's popular free OS.
The U.S. and Mexican governments have reached agreements on the sharing of wireless spectrum on the border of the two countries, opening up spectrum in the 800...
By studying the cockroach, researchers at the at the University of California, Berkeley discovered that one of the ways the pests can quickly slip from sight.
Voting on Facebook's proposed changes to its privacy policy concluded Friday morning Pacific time, with voters delivering a strong rebuke of the proposed changes.
You’ll look silly taking 360-degree photos with a bunch of disposable cameras tied to your head. And yet... I kind of want to.
Is tech heading into another downturn? Market watchers see signs of hope for the end of the year but they are hedging their bets.
Microsoft's share alone for the malware was a hefty price while it was still in stealth operations, a security expert says.
The cloud-based Targeted Attack Protection checks e-mail for phishing efforts and CloudPassage adds an authentication service for cloud apps.
Voting on Facebook's proposed changes to its privacy policy concluded Friday morning Pacific time, with voters delivering a strong rebuke of the proposed changes...
A switch from Google Maps to Apple's own app at next week's developers conference could ramp up the rivalry for services on mobile devices.
Future scientists and technology professionals, not governments, will develop the innovations that most benefit society, online educator entrepreneur Sal Khan...
UPDATE: Tech companies and industry associations have backed a submission by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission warning that strict patents could stifle competition.
Clambook is a laptop peripheral that’s powered entirely by an Android or Apple smartphone.
The Flame cyber-espionage malware makes use of a previously unknown cryptographic attack variant that required world-class cryptanalysis to develop, experts from...
Oracle is planning to ship 14 patches related to Java SE on Tuesday, including a number with the highest level of severity under the CVSS (common vulnerability...
This little gadget will dance, play music, and flash its lights. It's also really cute, and you can make one, too!
Malicious computer code written by terrorists or nations threatens national security and stability, Homeland Security chief says -- to agreement by security experts.
Join us Monday at 10 a.m. PT for Apple's 2012 annual Worldwide Developers Conference.
Microsoft's search engine is integrating material from the old-school encyclopedia into its results pages.
Here is a first look at Facebook's App Center, the social network's take on an app store offering a centralized place to find more than 600 Facebook and Facebook-related apps.
Digital civil liberties groups in Europe are concerned that a controversial E.U. data retention law, which was voted unconstitutional in several countries, is...
Contrary to media reports on Friday, Europe's main telecommunication operators association, ETNO, has said it is not asking the United Nations to impose taxes on...
The price decline is a result of intense competition in the tablet PC market, and Apple is paving the way, according to IMS.
It may seem inconvenient, but the time it takes to enter a passcode to unlock your mobile device provides some peace of mind that the sensitive data it contains is safe.
Amazon Web Services has integrated configuration templates and auto-scaling features with its Spot Instances offering in an effort to make it easier for users to...
The Council of the European Union agreed on Friday to create a Global Alliance against Child Sexual Abuse Online that envisages blocking websites “where...
Virgin Mobile is the second U.S. carrier to offer prepaid iPhone plans, which could save you more than $500 over the lifetime of the phone compared to the big three carriers.
It started with the "iWarm," a computer mouse with a rechargeable, removable hand warmer attached, and inspired other accessories.
Hitman: Absolution art director Roberto Marchesi talks about what's new with the franchise, and how the latest Hitman game takes advantage of AI to make the game come alive.
This week's roundup of free games has a little something for everyone including a funny critique of RPGs
Kevin Young, a computer security expert who studies passwords, is nearly at a loss for words. Literally.
At the massive Computex exhibition in Taipei this week, hundreds of vendors hawk shiny new tablets, phones and computers.
Revenue from server sales declined by about 12 percent year-on-year in Europe, the Middle East and Africa during the first quarter of 2012, as vendors continue...
Apple has agreed to pay a A$2.25 million (US$2.21 million) penalty for allegedly misleading consumers by promoting the 4G capabilities of its latest iPad despite...
China on Thursday unveiled a draft of new Internet regulations that could force users of social networks, blogs, and online forums to register with their official IDs.
A U.S. Judge canceled a trial scheduled to start Monday in a patent dispute, and said he had tentatively decided the case should be dismissed.
Facebook took its App Center live on Thursday at a slick media event in San Francisco, announcing a handful of previously undisclosed features.
Five members of the U.S. House Appropriations Committee have asked the FCC to review all available spectrum controlled by the Department of Defense and try to...
This survey should make shopkeepers without an online store reconsider their strategy.
Google launched a Trusted Stores program that will provide online shoppers with customer satisfaction scores for participating merchants.
The online retailer's 7-inch color slate, a holiday hit when it debuted last fall, has "cooled with consumers," the Yankee Group says.
New technologies and solutions not only ease the pain of data and application migrations, but actually accelerate the migration process.
We speak with Alex Plank, creator or autism community Wrong Planet, on how tech has helped those with Autism Spectrum Disorders.
There are a bunch of great indie games at E3 that provide a welcome respite from the glut of gritty shoot-em-ups that dominate the show floor. Here are a few you should pay attention to.
For busy people (and aren't we all?), work and personal calendars dictate the day, from meetings to appointments, from project deadlines and the kids' soccer...
We sit down with PC-centric game developer Crytek's Rasmus Hojengaard to find out what's new with Crysis 3 at E3 2012.
Google's Gmail webmail service was unavailable for more than 90 minutes on Thursday, an outage that may have affected almost 4.8 million users.