An anonymous reader writes “I’ve managed to go my entire adult life without owning an actual camera. I’ve owned photosensors that were shoehorned into various other gadgets, but I’ve gotten to the point where the images produced by my smartphone aren’t cutting it. My question: what camera would you recommend for getting into basic photography? I don’t mean that in the sense of photography as a hobby or a profession, but simply as a method (more…)

superglaze writes “Against the backdrop of governments and courts around the world ordering ISPs to block file-sharing sites, European commissioner Neelie Kroes has said people have started to see copyright as ‘a tool to punish and withhold, not a tool to recognise and reward. … Citizens increasingly hear the word copyright and hate what is behind it,’ the EU’s digital chief said, adding that the copyright system also wasn’t rewarding (more…)

redletterdave writes “PETA believes Nintendo’s iconic plumber Mario takes a ‘pro fur’ stance” because he ‘wears the skin of a raccoon dog to give him special powers’ in the new handheld game released Nov. 13. PETA illustrated its disgust with Nintendo in an online campaign called ‘Mario Kills Tanooki.’ The page includes a side-scrolling Super Mario-style game called ‘Super Tanooki Skin 2D,’ where you play an angry, skinless tanuki that (more…)

First time accepted submitter LeDopore writes “Quantum computers might be coming. I’d estimate that there’s a 10% chance RSA will be useless within 20 years. Whatever the odds, some of the data we send over ssh and ssl today should remain private for a century, and we simply can’t guarantee secrecy anymore using the algorithms with which we have become complacent. Are there any alternatives to RSA and ECC that are trustworthy and properly (more…)

hessian writes with this story in Wired: “Federal authorities used a fake Verizon cellphone tower to zero in on a suspect’s wireless card, and say they were perfectly within their rights to do so, even without a warrant. But the feds don’t seem to want that legal logic challenged in court by the alleged identity thief they nabbed using the spoofing device, known generically as a stingray. So the government is telling a court for the first (more…)

aneroid writes “The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) has certified its first secure mobile device running Android 2.2 — the Dell Streak 5. It is certified for use in the Defense Department’s secure but unclassified communications. ‘Although the Streak 5 is no longer available commercially, Dell is supplying it to DOD because the military likes the form factor,’ said John Marinho, director of Dell enterprise mobility solutions. (more…)

1sockchuck writes “Is the data center industry on the verge of a revolution in which open source hardware designs transform the process of designing and building these facilities? This week the Open Compute Project gained momentum and structure, forming a foundation as it touted participation from IT heavyweights Intel, Dell, Amazon, Facebook, Red Hat and Rackspace. That turnout is not an isolated event, but reflects a growing focus on (more…)

judgecorp writes “When Mitsubishi announced in September it had been hacked in August it was criticized for keeping quiet for a month. Now it appears that the attackers got nuclear power plant and military aircraft details according to sources quoted in the Japanese media.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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First time accepted submitter para_droid writes “Version 1.3 of the popular open source notification system for Mac OS X, Growl has surprised its users by going closed-source and only available for purchase on the Mac App Store. Any users who provide links to bugfixes and source for the previous version 1.2 are being banned from the discussion group, and their messages deleted. Could it be time for the community to create an OpenGrowl fork?”

The (more…)

phil reed writes “Creative Cow Magazine reports that manufacturers of movie cameras have quietly discontinued production of film cameras. There are still some markets — not in the U.S. — where film cameras are sold, but those numbers are far fewer than they used to be. If you talk to the people in camera rentals, the amount of film camera utilization in the overall schedule is probably between 30 to 40 percent. However, film usage is dropping (more…)