gollum123 writes "Peter Jackson wowed the crowd with 13 minutes of highly anticipated footage from the first of his two ultra-expensive 'Hobbit' movies. But he also played it safe — very safe — by not so much as mentioning, much less demonstrating, the filmmaking wizardry at the heart of the project. That left big questions about the movie industry's future unanswered and added to a theme of this year's Comic-Con: Hollywood has come to fear this place. Mr. Jackson is shooting his two 'Hobbit' movies, the first of which is to arrive in theaters in December, at an unusually fast 48 frames a second, twice the standard rate. But an estimated 6,500 fans did not have that experience when they gathered in Comic-Con's cavernous Hall H moments earlier to see the new footage.Still, Mr. Jackson, one of Hollywood's boldest directors, made the unexpectedly timid decision to present The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey in a standard format here — it was not even in 3-D — because he feared an online outcry that could hurt box-office results."

Nerval's Lobster writes "For the past 40-some years, relational databases have ruled the data world. Relational models first appeared in the early 1970s thanks to the research of computer science pioneers such as E.F. Codd. Early versions of SQL-like languages were also developed in the early 70s, with modern SQL appearing in the late 1970s, and becoming popular by the mid-1980s. For the past couple of years, the Internets have been filled with heated arguments regarding SQL vs NoSQL. But is the fight even legitimate? NoSQL databases have grown up a bit (and some, such as Google's BigTable, are now mature) and prove themselves worthy. And yet the fight continues. Tech writer (and programmer) Jeff Cogswell examines both sides from a programming perspective."

An anonymous reader writes "Yahoo! has patched the security hole that allowed hackers to access some 450,000 email addresses and passwords associated with Yahoo! Contributor Network and ultimately publish them last week. In the meantime, the group responsible for the hack of the official forum site of technology company NVIDIA has also dumped some user 800 records taken during the breach."

theodp writes "In April, the Chicago Tribune touted its investment in and use of news outsourcer Journatic. 'We're excited to partner with Journatic, both as an investor and as a customer,' said Dan Kazan, the Trib's Sr. VP of Investments. 'Journatic will expand Tribune's ability to deliver relevant hyperlocal content to our readers, and we believe that many other publishers and advertisers will benefit from its services as well.' That was then. In a Friday-the-13th letter to readers, the Tribune announced a plagiarized and fabricated story has prompted the paper to suspend its relationship with Journatic. The move comes two weeks after Journatic's standards and practices were called into question by This American Life, which noted several Journatic-produced stories had appeared this year on TribLocal online with false bylines. Explaining why he went public about his experience at Journatic, reporter Ryan Smith said he felt 'people should know how their local newspapers are being hollowed out.'"

First time accepted submitter Flere Imsaho writes "During the NutHui Internet conference last week, the NZ judge to hear the Dotcom extradition case was speaking on the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement and how the U.S. entertainment industry is pushing to make region code hacking illegal, when he said 'Under TPP and the American Digital Millennium copyright provisions you will not be able to do that, that will be prohibited ... if you do you will be a criminal — that's what will happen. Even before the 2008 amendments it wasn't criminalized. There are all sorts of ways this whole thing is being ramped up and if I could use Russell [Brown's] tweet from earlier on: we have met the enemy and he is [the] U.S.'"

hypnosec writes "Raspberry Pi, the small $35 ARM-based computer system capable of running Linux that took the world of technology by storm just a few months back, has its order limit shackles removed as it has been revealed that manufacturers are now producing 4000 units per day. The Raspberry Pi Foundation, the non-profit organization behind the tiny computer, has said that RS Components and element14/Premier Farnell have started producing enough units to allow them to scrap the order limit on Raspberry Pi. In a blog post, the foundation made the announcement. Initially the limit of one unit per customer was placed in the light of limited stocks. Despite these limits, there was always a shortage and people had to wait for long time to get their hands on one of these credit card sized computers."

Sparrowvsrevolution writes "A year ago, free information advocate and Bradley Manning supporter David House was subpoenaed to testify in the grand jury investigation of WikiLeaks that's taking place in Alexandria, Virginia. Now he's released a transcript of his interrogation that he produced by taking handwritten notes on a legal pad and handing pages to his lawyer during their consultations. Though House pled the fifth and didn't tell the prosecutors much, the notes show the prosecution attorneys focusing their questions on Boston-area hackers as well as Tor developer and WikiLeaks supporter Jacob Appelbaum."

Alex Rivest has created one of the most visually riveting videos we've seen. Alex says, "In looking at the pictures taken from the International Space Station of the earth at night, I find my attention drawn to that thin line separating earth from space: Our atmosphere." He also says, "A good photograph is one that sparks a question." Since this video runs at 30 (really 29.97) frames per second, and it's about 290 seconds long, that's close to 8700 questions. Luckily, Alex has written a blog post that answers most of them. This doesn't mean you shouldn't enjoy his work for its sheer beauty. Or that you shouldn't wish Alex well in his attempt to get into NASA's 2013 Astronaut Candidate Class. A fine art photographer who also has a PhD in Neuroscience from MIT... what better qualifications could there possibly be for astronauthood?

flatt writes "Ending a sixteen year partnership between the now Comcast-owned NBCUniversal and Microsoft, the MSNBC.com website has been immediately renamed to NBCNews.com. Both parties note that the integration between both parties is deep and will require 2 years to complete the decoupling. For the immediate future, NBC will continue to provide news content for MSN.com and Microsoft will continue to be the advertising provider for the site. Content control, brand confusion, and partisan content are cited as reasons behind the breakup. Microsoft sold its 50% share in the MSNBC TV rights to NBC back in 2005."

aesoteric writes "Tasmania's police force has taken the unusual step of asking the public to stop alerting it to every 'abusive or harassing' comment posted to Facebook or other social media sites. The force said it was 'increasingly receiving complaints' about material posted to the sites, but sought to clarify that 'the use of technology to undertake some conduct does not in itself create an offense.'"

SchrodingerZ writes "The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is known for making odd scientific advances ranging from hypersonic unnamed rockets to bionic prosthetic limbs to insect-sized reconnaissance drones. But recently DARPA has made a interesting advancement in the field of fire suppression. Using two speakers arranged on either side of an open liquid fuel flame, an acoustic field was emitted and engulfed the fire. 'The sound increases air velocity, which then thins the area of the flame where combustion occurs, known as the flame boundary.' This make the flame weak and much easier to douse. Another wonderful thing about this: it's not even that loud! DARPA began its testing in 2008, stating that despite extensive research in this area, there have been no new methods for extinguishing and/or manipulating fire in almost 50 years. The agency plans to expand on this experiment and try to make it successful on a practical scale."

First time accepted submitter rosy rohangi writes "Biologists at UC San Diego have discovered a chemical that provides a completely new direction and promise for the development of drugs to treat metabolic disorders such as type 2 diabetes – a key concern of public health in the U.S. due to the current obesity epidemic. From the article: '...Scientists have long suspected that diabetes and obesity could be related to problems of the biological clock. Laboratory mice with altered biological clocks, for example, often become obese and develop diabetes. Two years ago, a team led by Steve Kay, dean of the Division of Biological Sciences at UC San Diego, discovered the first biochemical link between the biological clock and diabetes. He found that a key protein, cryptochrome, which regulates the biological clocks of plants, insects and mammals also regulates glucose production in the liver and that changes in levels of this protein could improve the health of diabetic mice.'"

hypnosec writes "A specially designed smartphone for the visually impaired or partially sighted has been launched in the UK. The device, dubbed Georgie, has many special features including a voice-assisted touch screen and apps that will allow for easy completion of day-to-day tasks like catching a bus, reading printed text and pinpointing a location. Designed by a blind couple, Roger and Margaret Wilson-Hinds, and named after Mrs Wilson-Hind's guide dog, the smartphone is powered by the Android operating system and uses handsets like Samsung XCover and Galaxy Ace 2, notes the BBC. The main reason for developing such a phone, according to the couple, was that they wanted to get the technology across to people with very little or no sight. 'It's exactly the type of digital experience we want to make easily available to people with little or no sight,' said Roger."