Day: October 12, 2013

Hubble Finds Sign That Habitable Planets Could Exist Beyond Solar System

cold fjord writes with this excerpt from the BBC: “Astronomers have detected the tell-tale signs of a shattered asteroid being eaten by a dead star, or white dwarf. The Hubble telescope spotted the event some 150 light-years from Earth. The researchers tell Science Magazine that the chemical signatures in the star’s atmosphere indicate the asteroid…


The retaliation begins: Google profiles get Schmidt-faced

In a protest over Google+ now grabbing users’ photographs for ads, some people have apparently decided to change their profile shot to a photo of Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt…….


Ask Slashdot: Mitigating DoS Attacks On Home Network?

First time accepted submitter Gavrielkay writes “We seem to have attracted the attention of some less than savory types in online gaming and now find our home network relentlessly DoSed. We bought a new router that doesn’t fall over quite so easily, but it still overwhelms our poor little DSL connection and prevents us web…


Read Better Books To Be a Better Person

00_NOP writes “Researchers from the New School for Social Research in New York have demonstrated that if you read quality literary fiction you become a better person, in the sense that you are more likely to empathize with others [paper abstract]. Presumably we can all think of books that have changed the way we feel…


Fight Bicycle Theft With the Open Source Bike Registry

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes “No one wants to buy a stolen bike, but if you see a bike you’re interested in on Craigslist or at a flea market, there isn’t a good way to know if it’s stolen. Now Kickstarter has an interesting project that is looking for funding to expand a searchable database…


Dumping Malware Config Data From Memory With Volatility

… Read more http://packetstormsecurity.com/news/view/23174/Dumping-Malware-Config-Data-From-Memory-With-Volatility.html


Fake Biometrics Firm Stock Pump Gets Nailed By Swedish Cops

… Read more http://packetstormsecurity.com/news/view/23172/Fake-Biometrics-Firm-Stock-Pump-Gets-Nailed-By-Swedish-Cops.html


How Hacktivists Went On A Mass Web Joyride Spree

… Read more http://packetstormsecurity.com/news/view/23173/How-Hacktivists-Went-On-A-Mass-Web-Joyride-Spree.html


Speaker specifications: A consumer guide

The Audiophiliac and speaker designer Andrew Jones decipher speaker specifications for the average buyer…….


The Game Controllers That Shaped the Way We Play

An anonymous reader writes “Neal Stephenson’s ambitious sword fighting Kickstarter Clang has run into financial troubles, and part of the reason is down to new controller that was required — the extra investment reportedly scared away investors. Sometimes though, games can help usher in a whole new type of controller, and create new ways to…