An anonymous reader writes "According to Phoronix, AMD will be open-sourcing its Linux execution and compiler stack as part of jump-starting the Heterogeneous System Architecture Foundation. The HSA Foundation was started earlier this month at the AMD Fusion Developer Summit and AMD plans to open up its stack so that others can utilize the code without causing HSA fragmentation. This will include LLVM code, the HSA run-time, an HSA kernel driver for Linux distributions, an HSA assembler, and other components."
carmendrahl writes "Why do foods taste good together? Scientists aren't anywhere near figuring it out, but that hasn't stopped one popular idea from spawning a company dedicated to discovering avant-garde new pairings. The idea, called flavor-pairing theory, says that if foods share a key odor molecule, they'll pair well. But some scientists say the idea can't explain all cuisines, and another contends his work with tomato flavor (abstract) shows that flavor pairing is 'a gimmick by a chef who is practicing biology without a license.'"
New submitter sjdupont writes "A trio of University of South Florida (USF) engineering graduate students have decided to make a change in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education in an unusual and exciting way: by creating their own superhero personas and dressing in costumes as members of the Scientific League of Superheroes. Focused on elementary education, they have created a unique education program called the Superhero Training Network, a curriculum-based video series designed for the classroom which focuses on teaching STEM topics while engaging students in a fun way. Fifth grade classrooms in Hillsborough County (Florida) pilot tested the series during the 2011-2012 school year and enjoyed visits from the scientific superheroes to experience scientific demonstrations and participate in hands-on activities."
New submitter ryanakca writes "In a followup to a story we discussed on Sunday, Canadian Public Safety Minister Vic Toews has ordered a halt to the installation of eavesdropping equipment at Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport until a privacy review could be completed. Although 'similar audio-video equipment has been operating at other Canadian airports and ports of entry for "many years,"' the Canadian Border Safety Agency failed to complete the Privacy Commissioner's required 'privacy impact assessment' before the Ottawa airport installation."
Jason Levine writes "My son is 8 years old. I'd love to get him interested in science-fiction, but most of the books I can think of seem to be targeted to older kids/adults. Thinking that the length of some novels might be off-putting to him, I read him some of the short stories in Isaac Asimov's I, Robot. He liked these, but I could tell he was having a hard time keeping up. I think the wording of the stories was too advanced and there was too much talking and not enough action. Personally, I love Asimov, but I think much of it just went over his head. Which science fiction and/or fantasy books would you recommend for an 8-year-old? (Either stories he could read himself or that we could read together over the course of a few weeks.)"
BogenDorpher writes with news that Microsoft has officially introduced Windows Phone 8. The new version of their mobile operating system will bring support for processors with up to 64 cores, as well as resolutions higher than 800x480 — up to 1280x768. It will also include better support for NFC and microSD cards. One important thing to note is that Windows Phone 8 won't be coming to current Windows Phone devices.
ananyo writes "Japanese scientists have coaxed stem cells into forming a 5-millimeter-long, three-dimensional tissue that the researchers labelled a liver bud — an early stage of liver development. The bud lacks bile ducts but has blood vessels, and when transplanted into a mouse, was able to metabolize some drugs that human livers metabolize but mouse livers normally cannot. The work is 'the first report demonstrating the creation of a human functional organ with vascular networks from pluripotent stem cells,' the team claims."
An anonymous reader writes "Five years after it was first introduced, Google's Safe Browsing program continues to provide a service to the 600 million Chrome, Firefox, and Safari users, as well as those searching for content through the company's eponymous search engine. According to Google Security Team member Niels Provos, the program detects about 9,500 new malicious websites and pops up several million warnings every day to Internet users. Once a site has been cleaned up, the warning is lifted. They provide malware warnings for about 300 thousand downloads per day through their download protection service for Chrome."
olsmeister writes "On Tuesday, the Electronic Frontier Foundation announced its 'Defend Innovation' project, which includes seven proposals for software patent reform. These proposals include things like shorter coverage for software patents, and a requirement to demonstrate running code for each claim in the patent."
mk1004 writes with news from The Register that U.S. Senator Charles Schumer of New York has written to Apple and Google regarding their use of 'military-grade spy planes.' The Senator claims concerns ranging from voyeurism to terrorism. Suggested protections: Warn when areas are going to be imaged, give property owners the right to opt out, and blurring of individuals. Schumer seems happy enough, though, with the more detailed versions of such surveillance being in the hands of law enforcement agencies, and phrases his complaint to emphasize what he perceives as risks to infrastructure brought about by detailed maps that anyone can browse: "[I]f highly detailed images become available, criminals could create more complete schematic maps of the power and water grids in the United States. With the vast amount of infrastructure across the country, it would be impossible to secure every location."
itwbennett writes "If you buy into the idea that tablets (and ultrabooks, and smartphones) in the enterprise are nothing more than glorified thin clients, then Microsoft's Surface presentation seemed more flashback than future. And if you're a fan of free software, the announcement might also have struck fear in your heart. While Microsoft has never locked out apps based on license, it's not impossible that they might chose a more locked-down Apple-esque approach for Surface, writes blogger Brian Proffitt. 'And that could put free software for end users very much at risk.'"
Hodejo1 writes "[Tuesday] morning we learned that Google fired the first volley against YouTube conversion sites by blocking YouTube-MP3.org's servers from accessing its service and sending a letter threatening legal action. It looks like the fast growing Clip.dj also got the letter based on the note posted on the site: 'We're sorry to announce this, but Clip.dj has shut its service down for good.'"
judgecorp writes "Frustrated at the off-topic chatter on Twitter, British MP Louise Mensch has launched a supposedly rival service. Despite the name, Menshn, this is apparently not a hoax, but a site aimed at 'on-topic' conversation, initially around the U.S. election. Mensch is a former 'chick lit' author, and a Member of Parliament since 2010. She has taken part in questioning of Rupert and James Murdoch, and urged control of social media." If "control of social media" urged by sitting politicians strikes you as undesirable, or the hyper-focused content seems constraining, take heart: an anonymous reader points out an online community of a different stripe — a social network launched by Wikileaks, intended to be "a secure, surveillance-resistant social network purpose-built for Friends of WikiLeaks." Whether or not your politics line up with those of most Wikileaks supporters, you might wish for some of the features FoWL is designed to provide: "By design your details are encrypted, and hidden from everyone except your immediate contacts. Even we can't access them. Connected by FoWL, friends of WikiLeaks will communicate however they like, including using secure person-to-person methods. As the network grows away from the site infrastructure, it becomes autonomous and decentralized, opaque to observers and impossible to compromise."
The 2012 non-Retina display MacBook Pro gets a 7 out of 10 repairability rating from iFixit. Not being ultra slim has its pros when it comes to fixability.
Built-in voice control for smartphones is growing. First there was Apple's Siri. Then Samsung's S Voice. And now LG is introducing Quick Voice.
When brothers Beau and Nick Trincia put their PaletteCase, a wool felt and leather iPad case, up on Kickstarter in April of last year, they were optimistic. Beau works at IDEO as an experience designer and project lead, and his younger brother Nick works as a designer and prototyper at Peerless, a lighting company in Berkeley, California. They had, as they say, been making things together since they were in diapers. Sure, there were a lot of similar projects up on Kickstarter, but the brothers had an exceptional skill set and a good idea: An attractive iPad case that?s easier to grip due to a hand-sized hole in the back.
Microsoft unveiled Windows Phone 8, announcing eight platform updates. Here's a deeper dive into those eight features.
GigaOM Pro has published a new report that coincides with its Structure 2012 conference in San Francisco today, and one focus that stood out to ZDNet's Rachel King is "how cloud computing has trickled down the employee food chain in the last year and how that is transforming companies."GigaOM Network infrastructure curator Derrick Harris explained ...
If you?re a diehard Apple fan who desperately wants to run a buggy alpha version of iOS 6 right now, your only legal option is to shell out the $99 to join the iOS Developer Program. But your illegal options abound, thanks to a cottage industry of iOS beta resellers.
A class urging senior U.S. military officers to wage "total war" on Islam wasn't just the work of one misguided teacher. According to an inquiry ordered by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, it was the result of "institutional failures in oversight and judgment" at one of the military's top educational institutions.
A new exam to diagnose psychopaths may share fatal flaws with Alan Turing's famous "imitation test" for artificial intelligence.
Simon Crosby -- the man who oversaw the creation of the open source virtualization tool that underpins Amazon's cloud -- says his new company has built an entirely new form of virtualization. He calls it micro-virtualization, and the idea is to protect your machine from every malicious piece of code you may click on, including rogue web addresses, email attachments, and other files.
What does Alan Turing mean for Microsoft and the rest of the modern tech world? Rick Rashid can tell you.
Researchers have developed a camera with gigapixel resolution -- that's 1,000 megapixels -- and think they can build cameras with 10- or even 50-gigapixel abilities.
After a month-long IPO drought, four companies, including three tech companies, set IPO terms in recent days.
A new Consumer Reports poll shows that 86 percent of shoppers in a nationally representative sample of 1,000 adults said they wanted meat raised without antibiotics to be available in their local supermarkets. Superbug blogger Maryn McKenna reports.
Being a foodie is expensive. Mashing up quail eggs with caramelized tuna can get pretty pricey. Fortunately, one company is hoping to bring one of the more expensive pieces of foodie-inspired cooking hardware down a price that's affordable while making it portable.
What can't you do with CSS? We're not sure anymore. The little web standard that could seems to be capable of doing just about anything these days, including rendering a life-like image of an iPhone.
Foxconn CEO Terry Gou just can't help himself: When he sees an opening to stir up controversy, he goes all in. In his latest salvo, he disses Samsung -- and Koreans in general.
After years of turbulence, is flipping on the afterburners for its seventh season, spinning sci-fi tropes into superlative cartoonery. It's even made a comedy black hole like Larry Bird funny.
As a software company CEO, I have the opportunity to meet regularly with IT leaders from some ofthe world?s largest brands and leading IT organization innovators. Based on these conversations, ithas become clear that IT organizations continue to struggle with the centralization of company-widecomputing needs in the journey toward providing IT-as-a-Service. It?s also clear that ...
Thousands of documents sought by congressional investigators about a disastrous plan by federal agents to allow guns to "walk" into the hands of Mexico's drug cartels will now be out of reach. The Obama administration has asserted its executive privilege to withhold the documents -- just as lawmakers prepare to vote to hold the nation's top lawman in contempt on Congress.
Microsoft has finally clarified the question of whether current Windows Phone devices will be able to upgrade to Windows Phone 8 Apollo. The short answer: no. But that doesn't mean Windows Phones like the Nokia Lumia 900 won't see the light of a different -- but still new -- OS.
One of the US Army's rising stars stands accused of obstructing an inquiry into widespread corruption and mismanagement of the Afghan forces he mentored. And if the charges are accurate, they could end the career of one of the military's top officers.
This week's Game|Life Video rates Nintendo's first-party offerings at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in order of how hard they were to find and play at the show, from "hard" to "impossible."
British police say that Assange reneged on his bail by fleeing to the Ecuadoran embassy and that he's arrestable if he steps foot outside.
First things first. Before worrying about food storage or access to clean water during a major disaster, you need to make sure you get through the first wave safely. But never fear: When the next big tsunami hits, a water-ready modular bunker called the STATIM pod aims to float you above the flooding.
The W3C, the group that helps create web standards, has finished work on CSS Media Queries, turning the cornerstone of responsive web design into an official standard.
Microsoft's core business remains licensing software to partners who make the machines that run it. Which raises the question: Does Microsoft even care if the Surface sells? Some analysts don't think so.
A remote Alaskan volcano has experienced a high-altitude eruption. Volcanologist and Eruptions blogger Erik Klemetti reports.
Researchers have calculated the size of the snowflakes that fall onto the polar regions of Mars in its winter, and it turns out that they're pretty tiny.
The government's vast secrecy bureaucracy does two things with great frequency. The first, of course, is keeping secrets. The second is devising elaborate reasons why you can't know what those secrets are.
author Paolo Bacigalupi analyzes the cyberpunk breakthrough &mash; and wonders what the newest breed of writers might say to leave us gasping with surprise.