Feeds
9042 items (3468 unread) in 46 feeds
-
Google App Engine Blog (27 unread)
-
The Django weblog (10 unread)
Daily
(10 unread)
-
The Hacktory -
-
The Big Picture
(2 unread)
-
SparkFun Electronics - New Products (5 unread)
-
PassiveAggressiveNotes.com (3 unread)
Android
(20 unread)
-
Android and Me (2 unread)
-
Android Phone Fans (15 unread)
-
AndroidGuys (3 unread)
news
(433 unread)
-
the INQUIRER (22 unread)
-
The Register (165 unread)
-
Ars Technica (86 unread)
-
DailyTech Main News Feed (37 unread)
-
Netcraft
-
The Tech Report: News (22 unread)
-
-
Consumerist (70 unread)
-
Phoronix (14 unread)
-
Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories (1 unread)
-
pfSense Digest
tech
(709 unread)
-
AnandTech Article Channel (18 unread)
-
TechCrunch
(326 unread)
-
hack a day (85 unread)
-
information aesthetics (3 unread)
-
ReadWriteWeb (78 unread)
-
Semiaccurate.com recent articles (10 unread)
-
PC Perspective Articles Feed
-
GigaOM (189 unread)
gadgets
(393 unread)
-
Cool Tools (5 unread)
-
The Verge - All Posts
(388 unread)
slashdot
(921 unread)
-
Slashdot (921 unread)
comics
(61 unread)
-
xkcd.com (15 unread)
-
The Oatmeal - Comics, Quizzes, & Stories
(12 unread)
-
Natalie Dee (31 unread)
-
Hyperbole and a Half (3 unread)
finance
(362 unread)
-
The Big Picture
(362 unread)
vmware
(63 unread)
-
VROOM! Blog
(12 unread)
-
blog.scottlowe.org (23 unread)
-
The SLOG - SimonLong/Blog (11 unread)
-
Virtual Geek
(17 unread)
games
(54 unread)
-
Zero Punctuation (54 unread)
home
(49 unread)
-
Toolspotting
-
The Hardware Aisle
(15 unread)
-
Toolmonger: The Week In Tools
(34 unread)
MAKE
(356 unread)
-
MAKE Magazine (356 unread)
news (330 unread)
-
AMD's Trinity, Intel's Sandy Bridge Battle for Budget ($600-and-Lower) Space
Armed with improved battery life, CPU performance, and GPU performance AMD APU proves able in a close race
-
Navigate Through Your Social Security Information With New Online Tool
Remember the year you couldn't even find a babysitting job and cashed out all your savings bonds just to afford groceries and beer? The U.S. Social Security Administration does, and now all of your past earning info and more is online, ready and waiting for you to walk down memory lane or prepare for your future.
Unless you've just turned 25, or are 60 or older, you won't be receiving your Social Security statements in paper form in the mail. The new online tool allows citizens to create an account and then have access to their past earning record, as well as estimated benefits at retirement.
Also included:
• Estimates of the retirement and disability benefits you may receive;
• Estimates of benefits your family may get when you receive Social Security or die;
• A list of your lifetime earnings according to Social Security's records;
• The estimated Social Security and Medicare taxes you've paid;
• Information about qualifying and signing up for Medicare;
• Things to consider for those age 55 and older who are thinking of retiring;
• General information about Social Security for everyone;
• The opportunity to apply online for retirement and disability benefits;
• and A printable version of your Social Security Statement.
I'm all signed up, and am even more depressed that I spent all that time working at a cinema grill in the summers for such a pittance. The smell of fry grease and the soundtrack to Chicken Run still haunt me.
Get Your Social Security Statement Online [SocialSecurity.gov]
-
Cheques not checking out just yet
Electronic payments surge in Oz, but don't bounce paper rivalsElectronic payments surging, but cheques not about to bounce Electronic payments are replacing the humble cheque, but not so fast that the descendants of the promisory note are irrelevant or should be hustled towards a hastened retirement.…
-
U.S. and British Leaders Warn of EMP Bombs, Catastrophic Solar Storms
Mechanic: Somebody set up us the bomb./Operator: We get signal./...CATS: All your base are belong to us.
-
Greenpeace targets Apple with 10-foot Pod stunt
Fanbois drool over prospect of iOS-based homeSilicon Valley cops arrested two Greenpeace activists who sealed themselves into a huge (i)Pod outside Apple HQ today, but chose not to cuff another bunch of activists who were dressed as giant iPhones.…
-
U.S. Gov Moves Forward with Atlantic Wind Connection Project
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management could issue its first permit for a wind farm by the latter part of 2012
-
General Motors pulls annual $10 million worth of ads from Facebook
General Motors has announced that it would be pulling its paid advertising from Facebook, saying that it had too little impact. The announcement could not come at a worse time for the social media giant, which is expected to file its initial public offering on Friday.
The newspaper reported that GM spends $40 million annually to maintain a presence on Facebook, with a quarter of that in paid advertising.
Industry analysts have recently reported that companies are beginning to re-evaluate social media-based advertising.
-
Should Pizza Be Classified As A Vegetable? Crusading Lawmaker Thinks Not
When I ask for a burger with a side salad, what I'm really after is a nice slice of pizza. Hey, it's a vegetable, right, Congress? U.S. Rep. Jared Polis has had it with this whole "pizza is totally a vegetable because it has tomatoes in it" thing, and has announced new legislation that would allow the U.S. Department of Agriculture to implement nutrition standards for pizza.
According to CBS 4 in Denver, Polis says Congress "has actually declared pizza to be a vegetable," which is just silly.
"Pizza may be fine to eat from time to time, but it ain't a vegetable," he said, adding that he's not anti-pizza in general, if it's served with something healthy.
After all, should an eighth of a cup of tomato paste equal a nice plate of greens, a side of carrots or broccoli? Nope, says Polis, which means it shouldn't count for the vegetable in federally subsidized school lunches. To be clear -- Congress has never said, "Yes, pizza is a vegetable." It does count tomato paste a serving of vegetables, however.
Polis has introduced the "Slice Act" to improve lunch at schools and do away with the pizza loophole and effectively nix any future arguments from kids yowing, "But it IS a vegetable! Give me pizza!"
Rep. Polis Doesn't Want Pizza Classified As A Vegetable Anymore [CBS4 Denver]
-
Baidu touts mobe with 100GB web drive
$158 cloud-backed smartphone from 'China's Google'Baidu, the company which dominates China's search business as Google dominates elsewhere, has launched a smartphone using the company's cloud platform to reduce the price and keep the users loyal.…
-
Sheets of virus generate electricity when squished
Pressing a virus-filled device can generate power. (The gloves protect the virus, which only infects bacteria, from us.)
lbl.gov
Squishing a stack of virus sheets generates enough electricity to power a small liquid crystal display. With increased power output, these virus films might one day use the beating of your heart to power a pacemaker, the researchers behind them say.
Piezoelectric materials build up charge when pushed or squeezed. These materials may be familiar to you: they generate the spark in a gas lighter, and motors powered by such materials vibrate some cell phones. Piezoelectric materials made of metals or polymers require large inputs of energy to build up a charge. Bone, DNA, and protein fibers are weakly piezoelectric, but it’s hard to efficiently organize these materials on a large scale to yield electricity.
To handle this organizational issue, Seung-Wuk Lee, of the University of California in Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and his colleagues looked for a biomaterial that had intrinsic order and was easy to make. They settled on the M13 bacteriophage, a rod-shaped virus that only infects bacteria. One bacterium can produce one million copies of the virus within four hours, so starting material isn't a problem. And the virus neatly arranges itself in stacked rows when spread on a surface.
-
Oracle tells jury "clean room" not enough to avoid patent infringement
Scott Jones
Oracle v. Google
- Oracle v. Google patent phase wraps up
- Oracle to pursue longshot claim for copyright damages
- Oracle's copyright win may not amount to much as patent phase unfolds
- Engineers, experts take the stand as Oracle's patent attack on Google advances
- Oracle, Google lawyers spar over Android's Dalvik VM as patent phase begins
The Oracle v. Google patent case is now in the hands of a jury, as lawyers for the two tech giants presented their closing arguments this morning. The closings were fairly technical diatribes about how Android's Dalvik virtual machine works: the talk was about "symbolic references" versus "numeric references," field resolution, and static arrays.
For Oracle especially, a great deal is on the line now. Oracle is unlikely to get much from the mixed verdict that came in the copyright phase, and if it can't convince these jurors that Android infringes the two Java-related patents it has presented to them in a San Francisco courtroom over the last week, what was recently being called the "World Series of IP Trials" is going to end with a whimper.
Oracle: "Clean Room," "Open Source," "Fair Use" are irrelevantOracle's lead lawyer, Michael Jacobs, started out by reminding jurors that many of the defenses that would have applied in the copyright phase don't apply in the patent phase. If Oracle describes something in its patent that Google does—it infringes, period.
-
GM Says Facebook Ads Don't Work
GM spends about $40 million dollars on its Facebook presence, but only $10 million of that goes to Facebook itself, in the form of ads. Unfortunately for Facebook, it turns out that their cut will soon be zero.
GM has confirmed a report by the Wall Street Journal, claiming that the auto maker's executives determined paid ads on Facebook had little impact on consumers' car purchases.
From Reuters:
"We regularly review our overall media spend and make adjustments as needed...it's not unusual for us to move our spending around various media outlets - especially with the growth of multiple social and digital media outlets," GM said in a statement.
GM, the country's third largest advertiser, will continue to have Facebook pages for its vehicles. Facebook provides these pages to companies at no cost."In terms of Facebook specifically, while we currently do not plan to continue with advertising, we remain committed to an aggressive content strategy through all of our products and brands, as it continues to be a very effective tool for engaging with our customers," GM said.
GM plans to stop advertising on Facebook [Reuters]
-
Google Docs' new sidebar makes research faster
Enlarge / Sadly, Google's new research sidebar has no information on the planned Matlock Expressway.
If you're the type that has an unfortunate tendency of mangling popular Simpsons quotes or the words of English literary greats, Google is here to make your life a little easier.
Our friends at The Verge noticed a new feature in Google Docs today called Research—a sidebar that appears alongside a document for quick access to "web results, images, quotations, maps, reviews, and more." The feature can be invoked from Docs' Tools menu, by keyboard shortcut, or perhaps in the most useful way, by right-clicking on any word in the document area. A search bar produces similar results to a traditional query, but with the added ability to immediately embed found text or objects into the document area, along with appropriate citations wherever possible.
For example, an image search for "volcanoes" produces both diagrams of active volcanoes and traditional photographic images. But what's impressive is how the Research tab leverages Google search to provide recent information, alongside historical information or general knowledge data. For instance, a quote search for US President Barack Obama will not only return popular snippets from his 2008 election campaign, but more recent quotes from news reports as well—some mere hours old.
-
Chrome 19 arrives with tab syncing
Google has started quietly rolling out the latest Chrome update, and there's a new feature that ought to please folks who juggle multiple PCs and Android devices: tab syncing. In a nutshell, the feature lets you bring up tabs from other machines through a menu at the bottom of the new tab page.
...
-
Chrome 19 arrives with tab syncing
Google has started quietly rolling out the latest Chrome update, and there's a new feature that ought to please folks who juggle multiple PCs and Android devices: tab syncing. In a nutshell, the feature lets you bring up tabs from other machines through a menu at the bottom of the new tab page.
...
-
New Apple patent may spell trouble for Android
Threat level hinges on lawyers' cunningThe US Patent and Trademark Office has handed Apple's legal team what may turn out to be a powerful weapon in their ongoing battles against anyone with the temerity to launch products competitive with the iPhone and iPad: a patent on soft keyboards that modify their keys with the tap of an on-screen button.…
-
Was Righthaven right to sue an Ars author?
This guy is skeptical, too.
Flickr user gdudg
Eriq Gardner, who writes most often for The Hollywood Reporter, did a single piece for us. It was on Righthaven, the infamous copyright lawsuit outfit from Las Vegas which crashed and burned so badly that its principals are being investigated by the Nevada State Bar. And it got him sued, by Righthaven, in federal court.
The lawsuit was obviously bogus. Gardner had used a black-and-white image from one of Righthaven's own court filings in a news article about the company—textbook fair use—and they came to him seeking statutory damages up of to $150,000. When I called Righthaven to ask what was going on, I was told that the company had suffered some "confusion" about the photo and that "an internal error" or a "clerical mistake" of some (unspecified) kind had led to the suit. They dismissed the case.
But Gardner now wonders if Righthaven wasn't on to something. In a new ABA Journal cover story called "The Righthaven Experiment: A Journalist Wonders If a Copyright Troll Was Right to Sue Him," Gardner explores the idea of mass copyright litigation.
-
Android fragmentation: one developer encounters 3,997 devices
A map of all the thousands of separate device models that downloaded OpenSignalMaps in a six month period.
OpenSignalMaps
One developer can do business with nearly 4,000 distinct Android ROMs, according to data posted by the creators of OpenSignalMaps on Tuesday. While the Android platform provides a lot of flexibility to consumers, OpenSignalMaps' data drives home the point that the small army of device variations can be staggering. Market developers can miss out on a lot by not supporting less popular or older devices.
It's no secret that the Android umbrella covers many makes and models of devices, and that fragmentation is an occasionally daunting problem for developers. To see how wide a net they cast, OpenSignalMaps logged the specs of devices that downloaded the app over the course of six months. This collected info on over 680,000 devices—a significant sample, even if small compared to the many millions of Android users and devices in the world.
The Hungarian Concorde Tab
The developers logged 3,997 distinct devices, the most popular of which was the Samsung Galaxy S II. This figure was inflated quite a bit by custom ROMs, which overwrite the android.build.MODEL variable and cause those phones to be logged as separate devices. 1,363 types were logged only once, and while some were custom ROMs bucking the numbers, a good few were just massively unpopular devices—for example, the Hungarian 10.1-inch Concorde Tab.
-
Pro rugby club enlists IBM to predict when players will be injured
Leicester Tigers in action against Worcester Warriors
Sam Dredge
One of the world’s leading rugby teams is about to learn whether the sport, once described as “a ruffian’s game played by gentlemen,” can benefit from the genteel field of science.
The Leicester Tigers are the most successful English rugby union club of the past 25 years, winning the Premiership title a record nine times and twice capturing the European championship. Later this month, they’ll play in their eighth consecutive league final. In an effort to maintain that impressive success, the club is working with IBM to use statistical analysis software in assessing the likelihood of injury.
In the past, Big Blue has used its SPSS Modeler predictive analytics software to help clients like Coinstar find the most profitable location for its coin-conversion machines and show the Memphis Police Department where to deploy officers to reduce crime. It believes the same analytical approach can help the Tigers optimize training and keep the best players on the field.
-
Tesla Model S Could Land 265-Mile Range Rating from the EPA
High-end Tesla Model S could be the most efficient EV in the land
-
Apple TV could make ESPN another trick in its bag
ESPN's network executive Sean Bratches said on Tuesday that the sports network would be interested in working with Apple to bring a version of the WatchESPN app to ESPN subscribers with the Apple TV. ESPN is the most-watched sports network in America, and a deal with the company could bring more users to one of Apple's more timid products.
ESPN already allows users of Microsoft's Xbox to stream WatchESPN content if they subscribe to a participating television package that includes the sports network. Today, Bratches declared that ESPN (which is owned by the Walt Disney company), is "platform agnostic."
“To the extent that in the future there’s an opportunity with Apple to authenticate through the pay-TV food chain as we’re doing with Microsoft, that’s something that we will participate in,” Bratches told Bloomberg.
-
Judge: Ample evidence that Apple "knowingly joined" e-book conspiracy
Aurich Lawson
Apple is not officially on the hook yet for allegedly colluding with publishers to fix e-book prices, but US District Judge Denise Cote had some harsh words about the company's actions. Cote denied Apple and five publishers their request to have a class-action suit over the alleged price fixing thrown out on Tuesday, writing (PDF) that it certainly appears as if Apple and the publishers did not act as innocently as they claim when it came time to sell e-books on the iBookstore.
The class-action suit in question is the one brought by a number of US states, filed on the same day as the Department of Justice's own action against the companies. (The number of states involved in the class has since ballooned from 16 to 31.) An amended version of the complaint released last week revealed new details in the case, such as an e-mail from former Apple CEO Steve Jobs that implies that he was personally involved in the decision to push the "agency model" on e-book publishers. The e-mail doesn't explicitly show illegal actions, but does show that Jobs was thinking about many of the details that are now being argued in various lawsuits.
Cote apparently took note of it. In her opinion, she points out that Jobs' comment at the 2010 iPad launch—that e-book prices would all "be the same"—implies that publishers had indeed colluded to "raise eBooks' prices and that Apple intentionally and knowingly joined that conspiracy." She noted elsewhere that although Apple may not have had the same motivations to join the alleged conspiracy as the publishers, that doesn't mean Apple wasn't a participant.
-
Button batteries BURN KIDS FROM INSIDE
Where’s that dead CMOS battery you replaced last week?The next time you replace a button battery, do take care to dispose of it thoughtfully lest your kids swallow it and end up subjecting their innards to a damaging electrical current.…
-
Casablanca to screen for free on Facebook
Not the beginning of a beautiful friendship outside the USASeventy year-old flick Casablanca is set to get a free outing in a new medium: Facebook.…
-
Cambrian shutter of doom becomes sucker of worms
A sculpture of Peytoia, showing off the ring-shaped mouth.
Model created by Espen Horn, image via Wikipedia.
I have a soft spot for Anomalocaris. Of all the Cambrian oddballs, this segmented invertebrate was one of the strangest. The prehistoric creature’s stalked eyes, swim flaps, spiked grasping appendages, and plated mouth gave this predator an exceptionally alien appearance. Anomalocaris was so weird, in fact, that paleontologists only recently assembled a complete picture of what this animal looked like. For years, the various parts of Anomalocaris were believed to be parts of various other creatures. What was eventually recognized as the neo-predator’s mouth was especially perplexing.
The mouth of Anomalocaris started off as a jellyfish. That’s a historical quirk, not a biological one. A century ago, as he was cataloging 505-million-year-old fossils from the exceptional Burgess Shale site, paleontologist Charles Doolittle Walcott puzzled over what seemed to be a flattened ring. Walcott called the animal Peytoia, and suggested that it was a strange form of archaic jellyfish.
Walcott’s interpretation stayed in place for decades. When paleontologists Harry Whittington and Simon Conway Morris wrote an article about Cambrian life for Scientific American in 1979, they included the odd jelly in a reconstructed Burgess Shale habitat. As Stephen Jay Gould later commented in his book Wonderful Life, the artistically-reinvigorated Peytoia looked like “a kind of Frisbee cum flying saucer cum pineapple slice.”
-
South Australia plans digital evidence review
Laws mentioning “telegram and telegraph” may not cover Internet adequatelyLaw reform advocates in South Australia are leading a push to have the rules of evidence reviewed to take new computer and communications technology into account.…
-
Turn Your PlayStation Vita into a cell phone
Enlarge / Wait—this looks cool, right?
Kyle Orland
Ever since rumors of the PlayStation Phone first started circulating years ago, consumers have been eager for Sony to add mobile phone service to a full-fledged portable gaming system. The Xperia Play from Sony Ericsson proved a decent compromise, adding slide-out, PlayStation-style buttons to a full-featured Android Phone, but the phone’s software library remains a mish-mash of hastily adapted mobile titles and dated PlayStation “classics.”
The PlayStation Vita, on the other hand, has a software library that offers plenty of console-quality experiences, but the handheld device has relatively limited mobile connectivity. The 3G version of the Vita lets players use a contract-free cellular connection for everything from Web browsing to multiplayer gaming, but doesn't include a voice calling option that would make the unit into a true PlayStation Phone.
So when Sony finally released a Skype App for the Vita last month, it seemed like a sanctioned workaround to turn the system into a true PlayStation Phone, complete with its own phone number. Read on to find out how to modify your Skype account and Vita to turn the system into a VitaPhone—and for some impressions of why I found the whole process to be more hassle than it was worth in the end.
-
Graphics shocker: Nvidia virtualizes Kepler GPUs
VGX revs virty desktops, fluffs gamy clouds, changes everythingGTC 2012 You game-console makers who still want to be in the hardware business, look out. You console makers who don't want to be in the hardware business (this might mean you, Microsoft), you can all breathe a sigh of relief: after a five-year effort, Nvidia is adding graphics virtualization to its latest "Kepler" line of GPUs.…
-
AMD ships Trinity processor, aims for a piece of Intel's ultrabook market
Enlarge / AMD's silde introducing the Trinity CPU/GPU architecture.
AMD
On May 15, AMD officially unveiled Trinity, the company’s successor to its Llano line of "Fusion" processors that combine CPU and GPU into a single part. The company announced five models of the new processor: three for "mainstream" notebook computers, desktops, and "all-in-one" systems; and two targeted at what AMD calls the "ultrathin" notebook market.
With a 17-watt version available for "ultrathin" notebooks, AMD can offer up an alternative to Intel’s trademarked Ultrabook. "In theory, AMD has something that can work there, but we'll have to see how it plays out in the real world," said David Kanter, Manager and Editor of Real World Technologies, in an interview with Ars.
And there’s one other wrinkle to deal with: Intel’s pending delivery of its low-voltage Ivy Bridge processor this summer. "The big question is, from a power and performance standpoint, how does the 17-watt Trinity play out relative to Ivy Bridge?" Kanter said. "We haven’t seen the Ivy Bridge parts for Ultrabook yet."
-
Apple places massive DRAM order at Elpida plant - report
Memory-hungry fondleslabs and iPhones the culpritsApple has taken a punt on bankrupt Japanese DRAM manufacturer Elpida, placing orders for a whopping 50 per cent of the firm’s production of chips at its Hiroshima facility, according to Digitimes.…
-
NVIDIA virtualizes the GPU for streamed desktops and cloud gaming
NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang unveiling next-generation GPUs.
NVIDIA
NVIDIA this week unveiled an ambitious plan to solidify the GPU's place in high-performance computing, while bringing the blazingly fast graphics processing units to the worlds of virtualized desktops and streaming video games.
NVIDIA has tripled the performance-per-watt of its HPC-focused graphics processors and made them capable of running many more workloads simultaneously. NVIDIA also claims to have developed the "world's first virtualized GPU" with a virtualization layer that integrates with commercial hypervisors to build a virtual desktop platform similar to the ones businesses already use today. The difference, according to NVIDIA and its partner Citrix, is that GPU-based desktops can be streamed from data centers to devices faster and with much better quality.
To top it all off, NVIDIA said it has developed a system for powering cloud services with GPUs, which in the gaming world will let consumers play games on just about any device without bothering to download any actual games. NVIDIA made all these announcements Tuesday at its GPU Technology Conference in San Jose, bringing various partners on stage to show the world just how excited everyone is about the new technologies.
-
NVIDIA GTX 680: Windows 7 vs. Ubuntu 12.04
Following up on the performance comparison earlier this month of comparing Intel Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge graphics between Windows and Linux, up today are the results of a comparison of Windows 7 to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS when using a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 "Kepler" graphics card.
-
China steps up crack down on hi-tech exam cheats
No, you may not take that tablet into the exam hall...The Chinese ministry of education has been forced to update its rules prohibiting cheating in college entrance exams to take account of the increasingly ingenious hi-tech methods used by desperate students and their parents to succeed in the hugely important exams.…
-
Stuxnet ≠ cyberwar, says US Army Cyber Command officer
AusCERT: What is cyberwar anyway?While “cyber* operations” are becoming an increasing focus of both government and private research, legal frameworks are failing to keep pace, the US Army Cyber Command operational attorney Robert Clark has told the AusCERT security conference in Queensland.…
-
Telstra denies IPTV shift
Ellis review results hold staff in suspenseTelstra has strongly rejected claims that the company will move away from the IPTV market, in a response to The Register's report last Monday that it was reviewing its IPTV strategy and considering moving its 300,000+ T-Box customers to Foxtel.…
-
Wednesday Shortbread
Eight is Enough- Bloomberg: Intel CEO says replacement likely to come from within
- Bloomberg West: Take a tour of the Intel museum
and what's next for Intel? (videos) - WSJ: Apple fires back in lawsuit over Siri's performance
- Nvidia launches three new GeForce 600 GPUs for desktops
- Engadget: FXI Cotton Candy ICS-on-a-stick
gets May release date, sweetened design - Droid Life: Samsung Exynos 5250 spotted in Google Git
repository, are they collaborating again on the the next Nexus? - Computerworld: EU-Microsoft browser deal requires ballot screen in Windows 8
- Gamasutra's interview with Diablo III's Jay Wilson
-
Wednesday Shortbread
Eight is Enough- Bloomberg: Intel CEO says replacement likely to come from within
- Bloomberg West: Take a tour of the Intel museum
and what's next for Intel? (videos) - WSJ: Apple fires back in lawsuit over Siri's performance
- Nvidia launches three new GeForce 600 GPUs for desktops
- Engadget: FXI Cotton Candy ICS-on-a-stick
gets May release date, sweetened design - Droid Life: Samsung Exynos 5250 spotted in Google Git
repository, are they collaborating again on the the next Nexus? - Computerworld: EU-Microsoft browser deal requires ballot screen in Windows 8
- Gamasutra's interview with Diablo III's Jay Wilson
-
75,000 Raspberry Pi baked before August
Distie says Arduino sales 'overtaken in an instant'RS Components, one of two distributors for the Raspberry Pi, says the 75,000 of the tiny computers are burbling through the manufacturing supply chain and will be ready for release “in July to August”.…
-
Nokia Lumia 900 WinPho 7 smartphone
Bigger and better?Review So you’re trying to revive the fortunes of what was, until a few weeks ago, the biggest mobile phone manufacturer on the planet. You’ve launched a handset or two with a new operating system and they’ve gone down quite well. So what next? How about taking one of those handsets and releasing a near-identical one, different only in size and capabilities. Bigger and better, you know?…
-
Microsoft touts 400 per cent Asia growth for Office 365
SMBs make the leap online but Google benefiting tooMicrosoft is trumpeting impressive 400 per cent growth in adoption of its Office 365 online productivity suite by Asian SMBs over the past three quarters, although analysts pointed out that Google is still taking business from Redmond worldwide.…
-
AMD's A10-4600M 'Trinity' APU
One of the big stories in PC processors over the past few years has been AMD's struggles to match the performance of Intel's high-end desktop CPUs. The much-anticipated "Bulldozer" microarchitecture landed with a thud, unable to mount a serious challenge to the dominance of Intel's Core i5 and i7 offerings. Meanwhile, Intel continues to crank out major improvements to these products at a pretty regular clip, as it did with the introduction of the 22-nm Ivy Bridge chips last month.
However, there is another, even bigger story unfolding in PC processors at the same time, and AMD plays a more intriguing role in it. As you may know, CPUs have swallowed up a whole host of other system components in the past few generations from the memory controller to I/O and graphics. The reasons for this trend ...
-
AMD's A10-4600M 'Trinity' APU
One of the big stories in PC processors over the past few years has been AMD's struggles to match the performance of Intel's high-end desktop CPUs. The much-anticipated "Bulldozer" microarchitecture landed with a thud, unable to mount a serious challenge to the dominance of Intel's Core i5 and i7 offerings. Meanwhile, Intel continues to crank out major improvements to these products at a pretty regular clip, as it did with the introduction of the 22-nm Ivy Bridge chips last month.
However, there is another, even bigger story unfolding in PC processors at the same time, and AMD plays a more intriguing role in it. As you may know, CPUs have swallowed up a whole host of other system components in the past few generations from the memory controller to I/O and graphics. The reasons for this trend ...
-
IT bungle left dole office unable to check benefits for months
Tech delay hit DWP's Work ProgrammeLate delivery of IT to support the Work Programme left it without a system to carry out automated checks on whether people - who had been placed into work by the programme's 18 prime contractors - had stopped claiming benefits.…
-
OpenChrome Now Defaults To EXA
There's a new release of the OpenChrome open-source VIA X.Org driver...
-
Wine-Mono: Marrying Mono With WINE
This weekend there was a new release of Wine-Mono, a project which marries Wine with components of Mono...
-
One in two punters don't mind cookie-spewing stalking ads
Survey: Do not track, or do if you wantNearly half of UK internet users are happy for advertisers to track their online activity in order to deliver more targeted ads, according to new survey figures.…
-
Hitachi GST releases skinny spinner
Slim slow sliderWestern Digital's latest acquisition, Hitachi GST, has released a skinny single platter drive for consumer electronics devices.…
-
Only global poverty can save the planet, insists WWF - and the ESA!
Windfarms for all, but without using steel or concreteAnalysis Extremist green campaigning group WWF - endorsed by no less a body than the European Space Agency - has stated that economic growth should be abandoned, that citizens of the world's wealthy nations should prepare for poverty and that all the human race's energy should be produced as renewable electricity within 38 years from now.…
-
O2 dips toe into Groupon's pond with tat discounts
Polls punters for special offer ideasTaking a leaf out of Groupon's book, O2 is asking its "Priority Moments" customers which firms it would like O2 to negotiate deals with, tapping the social networks to discover that most O2 users like Nandos regardless of their demographic.…
-
Samsung Galaxy S III to go on sale early in the UK
Due to 'overwhelming demand'
-
Facebook starting to go big in Brazil. Hmm ...
Plus: Monaco and Iceland have more accounts than peopleFacebook's user base is plateauing across Europe and the US and the site has seen losses as well as gains in the developing world, the latest statistics from Social Analytics firm Socialbaked show.…
-
Google+ dying on its arse – shock new poll
Bet-the-company wager goes southGoogle has bet the company on Google+, but it’s dying on its arse. A study by traffic analysts RJ Metrics suggests that public engagement with the social network is weak, and failing to gather momentum.…
-
One in four UK citizens are ‘pirates’
Sayeth the Business Software Alliance
-
VMware Preps To Push More Mainline Kernel Code
To further enhance the Linux virtualization experience with VMware products, the company is preparing to push the Virtual Machine Communication Interface and VMCI Sockets into the mainline Linux kernel...
-
EMC rounds up rival arrays, beats 'em into submission
You will work with each otherEMC VMAX arrays will team up competing drive arrays with a new version of the VMAX Enginuity OS.…
-
HTC One X held at US Customs due to Apple patent spat
Firm sees shares tumble six per cent
-
Sony outs 1080p skinny laptops
Vaio Z revampedMore updated Vaio laptops from Sony, this time the Z series - the latter the original Ultrabook, introduced before the MacBook Air and long before Intel coined the term.…
-
ASA tuts at TalkTalk over broadband speed estimator
Tool can stay, but ISP must add warning about potential inaccuracyTalkTalk got rapped on the knuckles by the Advertising Standards Authority today after it upheld a complaint that its broadband speed checker was rather overestimating the actual speed of web surfing.…
-
Carphone Warehouse touts cut-price iPads
Catch: they're last year's modelCarphone Warehouse still has plenty of iPad 2s in its stock cupboard and has just knocked up to £50 off the price to shift them.…
-
The Incredible 4PB Hulk: EMC monsterises VMAX
Last big primary data array push before flash tsunamiEMC has gained top datacentre dog bragging rights with a coming 4 petabyte VMAX 40K storage array, storing 60 per cent more than HDS's biggest VSP array and 74 per cent more than IBM's DS8000. This is possibly one of the last massive primary data arrays before flash takes over the primary data storage universe*.…
-
Dell feeds Xeon E5s to hungry new PowerEdge beasts
Cheaper duos and quads, so we hearDell has added nine new Xeon E5-powered boxes to its PowerEdge 12G lineup as it chases the booming market for quad-socket machines in Asia.…
-
Nokia loses pole position in mobile phone sales
Samsung takes a bite out of competitors
-
HTC phones held up at US ports after Apple patent ban
Stocks low as customs search boxes for illicit gearUS sales of two new HTC smartphones have been held up at customs over the company's patent battle with Apple.…
-
Kaspersky: Mac OS is 'really insecure'
If the recent FileVault and Flashback trojan security snafus weren't strong enough indications, someone has now come out and said it: OS X's security leaves something to be desired. Or, as Kaspersky Lab CTO Nikolay Grebennikov put it in a chat with UK website Computing, "Mac OS is really vulnerable."
Going by what Grebennikov says, it sounds like the issue might not be so much OS X's inherent ...
-
Kaspersky: Mac OS is 'really insecure'
If the recent FileVault and Flashback trojan security snafus weren't strong enough indications, someone has now come out and said it: OS X's security leaves something to be desired. Or, as Kaspersky Lab CTO Nikolay Grebennikov put it in a chat with UK website Computing, "Mac OS is really vulnerable."
Going by what Grebennikov says, it sounds like the issue might not be so much OS X's inherent ...
-
Lost Winds 2: Winter of the Melodias
Blow job?iGamer With his Chibi proportions and boyish looks, Toku cuts an extremely familiar figure, as do most of the things around him: talking animals, impish sprites and elemental deities. So pervasive is Nintendo's influence throughout Winter of the Melodias, in fact, that neither the land of Mistralis nor its diminutive hero would seem out of place in a Mario or Zelda game.…
-
Confused, pessimistic on G-Cloud? You must work in government
VMware's ex-G-Cloud man's cure: communicationConfusion and pessimism about the government’s G-Cloud and ICT plans is widespread among civil servants running the nation’s technology .…
-
Fasthosts officially not the best in UK for virtual servers
Boasts in adverts banned by ASA after rival complainsBrit web biz Fasthosts has been slapped down by the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) for boasting that its virtual servers were the "best" in the UK.…
-
[NSFW] Watchdog bites bar over 'offensive' Facebook ad
Stoke venue's man oysters leave ASA open-mouthedNSFW The Advertising Standards Authority has sunk its teeth into the Manhattan Bar in Stoke on Trent, for a Facebook promotion "likely to cause serious or widespread offence".…
-
Sears Offers Crappy Tools And Service, First-Rate Apologies
We're still not quite sure what Sears is. It pretends to be a retail operation, but in reality acts more like its existence is an elaborate anti-capitalist prank, aiming to keep consumers from exchanging their money for tangible goods. Take, for example, the case of Michael. He would like to order a Craftsman steel workbench frame from Sears, and Sears is doing its best to prevent him from owning one.
I have been trying to buy a red 6' steel workbench frame for over a month. It's not stocked so I had to order from Sears.com.
Order 1. I receive the confirmation email and pick it up at the store. When I get home and unpack it, I notice one side is extremely kinked/bent, but the paint and box is perfect. It was painted bent, passed QA bent and was shipped bent.
I call to complain and they tell me to return it to the store, and ask if they can order me another one. Sure I said, but she ordered two! Two separate orders, two add'l charges on my card. I manage to get one cancelled and about 10 days later I get the "available for pickup email" I head to the store (3rd visit) and watch my order go from Open to Processed in 4 minutes.
However 40 minutes later I learned it isn't there as it "Missed the truck" The wall chart says 99% served in less than 5 minutes. I was served in 4 minutes, except there wasn't a bench onsite. (minor detail I know) The clerk offers to order me another one for the third or (or 4th) order, I notice the price jumped $30 and he explains he can't honor the online price. So I refuse to sign the credit card screen. I tell him to forget it.
When I get home to see if any of the credits have been put back on my card, I see a new charge for the 4th order at the inflated price. Unreal! So after 4 orders with 2 still on my credit card I still don't have a workbench.
Let me know when the bankruptcy liquidation sale is, because that's the next time I'll be at Sears.
Sears power tools are Chinese rubbish, but the excuses and apologies are still top notch.
-
Real-time drone videos get GPU-tastic
Swimming in sensors, drowning in dataHPC blog Here at the GPU Technology Conference (GTC 2012), you see a lot of things that you didn’t think were quite possible yet. Case in point: cleaning up surveillance video.…
-
'Catastrophic' Avira antivirus update bricks Windows PCs
rundll32.exe? cmd.exe? You clearly don't need thoseSecurity software biz Avira has apologised after its antivirus suites went haywire and disabled customers' Windows machines.…
-
Quick Note: Next Generation iPhone to Reportedly Receive 4+ Inch Display
If true, this move would bring the iPhone's screen size more in line with the Android competition
-
Why GM slammed the brakes on its $10m Facebook ads
Wheels fell off 'boring inefficient' car advertsAnalysis In the week that Facebook finally went public, General Motors has axed its paid-for advertising on Mark Zuckerberg's social network.…
-
Pints under attack as Lord Howe demands metric-only UK
Weights and measures a 'uniquely confusing shambles'Lord Geoffrey Howe of Aberavon has demanded that the UK goes fully metric as soon as possible, describing the current mix of miles and kilometres and pints and litres as a "uniquely confusing shambles".…
-
Blizzard fixes Diablo III server problems
Error 37 is 86’d
-
Alleged Customer Sues Over 2010 Racist Walmart PA Prank
Loyal Consumerist readers and retail-watchers may remember the 2010 incident in which a 16-year-old took over the PA system of a New Jersey Walmart and announced, "Attention Walmart customers: all black people must leave the store." The prankster had done the same thing a few months before, and was charged with harassment and bias intimidation for each incident. Now, more than two years later, someone has filed a lawsuit against the store over the incident. He claims to have been in the store at the time of the prank, and that the incident led to "depression, anxiety, anger, loss of sleep and appetite, paranoia, and antisocial tendencies."
Yes, the man who filed the suit is black.
The lawsuit claims that by not securing the public address system, the Washington Township Walmart was negligent and reckless and showed deliberate indifference.
Because we love you almost as much as we love public records, here is a copy of the complaint in all of its PDF glory.
Walmart sued over 2010 'black people' announcement in Washington Township store [NJ.com] (Thanks, Naomi!)
Our thorough coverage from 2010:
Racist NJ Teens Also Shop, Use P.A. Systems, At Whole Foods
Police: Racist Walmart PA Prankster Had Done It Before
Walmart Racist PA System Prank Culprit Arrested
NJ Walmart To End Racism By Reducing Access To PA System
Walmart Wants To Know Who Made The Racist Announcement Over Their PA System
-
Hands on with the new tab synchronization feature in Chrome 19
Google has rolled out a new release of Chrome in the stable channel. The update, version 19, uses the Chrome synchronization framework to introduce support for sharing open tabs between instances of the browser. The update also brings a number of security fixes and other minor improvements.
Google first lifted the curtain on its plans for browser synchronization in 2009. The feature was implemented on top of the XMPP protocol, enabling real-time propagation of synchronized data. Chrome presently supports synchronizing form autofill data, passwords, autocompletion history, extensions, and settings. The new version expands the lineup by adding support for tabs.
The tab support is implemented differently than some of the other synchronization features. Instead of trying to keep the same set of tabs open and active across all instances, Chrome instead provides a convenient menu for launching tabs that are open in other instances of the browser. This behavior is similar to how tab synchronization is implemented in Firefox. The menu for accessing remote tabs, which is titled Other Devices, is integrated into the browser’s new tab page next to the recently closed tab menu.
-
Pentagon Places New Restrictions on F-22 Raptor Fleet
No long flights for F-22's in Alaska
-
Social Network scribe to turn hefty Steve Jobs tome to popcorn-fodder
Plus: Aston Kutcher grows creepy beard for role in the OTHER Jobs filmThe screenwriter who brought a bratty young Mark Zuckerberg to life in the film The Social Network has been appointed as the writer of new Steve Jobs biopic.…
-
Dell Offers 25% Off Deal To Troops, Then Cancels Orders
Matthew, an Air Force veteran, saw a great deal on Dell laptops on the website of the Army & Air Force Exchange Service, a network of stores just for servicemembers. 25% off in a Mother's Day special, an impressive deal. He ordered three, because who doesn't want new, discounted laptops for their whole family? Only Dell canceled Matthew's order and those of other customers, with no explanation.
I have served my country as an enlisted Airman. I was recently on the AAFES website were Dell had a promotion going on that you would save 25% for Dell Alienware products through a mothers day special. I clicked on the link and chose my computer I would like to purchase. I added two more to the order because it was a great deal and I would like my wife and son to have a nice laptop as well. I was really excited that my son would get a brand new computer for his birthday with an illuminated keyboard and a high quality machine. I placed a following order then next day as I did not get confirmation from dell that my order was received (which I now know that I have to go through AAFES to find the order status). After placing the order I found out through a discussion board the order would show up on the AAFES site and I would need to click on the order status. Everything was fine at that point and I had a "in production" status.
After logging into the AAFES website two days later I saw that the orders had been canceled. I was upset and had been felt like I was getting run around with Dell and AAFES. Researching on various websites including slickdeals.net I found out that other peoples orders had been cancelled and others have shipped. There seems to be no explanation from the cancellation. I have been told the order configuration was incorrect and that I was only allowed to order one computer, where it does not state that for the sale. I'm looking for a resolution to this order cancellation. I would expect a company like Dell to honor their price that I had purchased the computer at. I have worked hard for my military benefits and this seems like a slap in the face to those serving. I really wish I get an explanation or some kind of apology from Dell. It's rather unfortunate that these companies treat us this way.
-
Man Claims He Found A Gun On The Job & Was Fired For Turning It In
What's a guy to do when he finds a gun on a lawn while he's employed to mow that piece of yard? One man says he was fired from Wayne County in Michigan because he found a gun and turned it in to police. He says there's no policy in that county on what to do if you find a gun on the job, but it would seem an odd reward to terminate employment for doing so.
John tells MyFoxDetroit.com he found the gun in the weeds, a snubnosed revolver, as he and his crew were mowing a lawn on May 3.
"It was damaged, so it could've went off. Surprisingly, it didn't kill the guy on the mower," he explained. "It got picked up, so we put [it] in the van, waited [for] police to drive by."
Since the police never came by, he finished work, took the gun home and then later that night, turned it in to local cops. They discovered the weapon had been stolen in 2005 and told him he'd done the right thing getting it off the street, says John.
His supervisors at the Department of Public Services didn't think so, however. His foreman was suspended for 30 days and John was fired for violating department policies, after 23 years on the job.
A spokesman for Wayne County says employees aren't allowed to possess a weapon on work property.
John insists he never brought a weapon to work, because he found it there. He was also let go for insubordination and unauthorized access to the road yard, and says he's fighting all three accusations.
"There is no policy. I've never seen a policy what to do if we find a gun out here. So, all I did was secure the situation to make sure nobody else got hurt or killed."
*Thanks for the tip, Justin!
Wayne County Worker Fired after Finding Gun on the Job [MyFoxDetroit.com]
-
Google unleashes Chrome 19, flattens 20 bugs
Hot fuzz spawns QuickTime patchGoogle released a major update to its Chrome browser on Tuesday that tackles 20 security vulnerabilities, eight of which are classified as high-risk bugs.…
-
Pure pushes flash stash, mocks spinning disk with YouTube gag
Cheap as NAND chipsVid Pure Storage is pushing the idea that its deduped flash array is cheaper than tier one enterprise disk array storage but miles faster and more reliable.…
-
East coast wind grid gets a go ahead
The Thanet Wind Farm 7 miles off the coast of Kent, UK.
Wessex Archaeology
Research journals are filled with clever ideas that never quite come to fruition in the form of a successful commercial venture. Technical glitches, a failure to scale, or some sort of unforeseen limitation keep some of the best research from ever having the impact that it might. That's why it was a pleasant surprise to see that one of the more compelling ideas of the last few years is inching its way toward reality.
Back in 2010, a group of researchers proposed an intriguing scheme that would take an intermittent source of power—wind energy—and convert it into something closer to baseline power. The goal would be to wire up wind farms off the East Coast of the US into one giant generating system that, given the region's prevailing wind pattern, would almost always be guaranteed to be producing a minimum amount of power.
It seemed like a brilliant idea that would almost certainly languish in obscurity. So the fact that the Department of the Interior has taken the first step toward approving it this week was a bit of a pleasant surprise.
-
Didn't Notice Damage To IKEA Item Before Attaching Legs? Tough
If you want to get a refund for a damaged IKEA item, God help you if you take a few minutes to put it together first. Alan ordered a desk, which had a small dent in the side of the box. Figuring the item inside was fine, he put it together. This turned out to be a fatal mistake, since assembling an item means you're then unable to
I recently purchased a Vika Amon tabletop and Vika Moliden legs from Ikea, for a cheap yet decent-looking desk project. The box arrived, with a substantial dent on one side that didn't concern me at first -- I have received boxes in far worse shape, and the merchandise inside was fine. Once the desk was assembled (by which I mean, attaching 4 legs with 5 screws. Probably 20 minutes of work). You'll immediately notice what I'm talking about from the attached pictures.
I contacted Ikea about this, and at first they were responsive -- emails within 24 hours. They asked for a number of pictures of the damage, which I gladly supplied (pictures attached). Unfortunately, I had to resend them four times, as they apparently have a total attachment size limit they don't know about, yet they ask for 5+ pictures. A little annoying, but not a big deal.
The response was:
"We have received the information provided in your email. At this time
we can offer you an 15% accommodation to keep the merchandise As-Is.
Unfortunately we are unable to issue replacements for assembled
merchandise. Please respond confirming this email so that your credit
can be issued."So, if I had spent the 20 minutes to unscrew the legs from the top, I'd get a refund, but now they can only offer me 15% off a $100 desk I paid $40 to ship. Unbelievable, and unacceptable.
I was understandably upset, and I let them know I would accept nothing except a new desk, and that I would like to speak to a supervisor if they didn't have the authority to provide it. I've heard nothing in 2 days, even after a couple further attempts to contact them.
I'm normally not one to complain in situations like this, this time, I feel it's warranted. I've never had a problem like this with any other merchant.
The lesson here: inspect every part of your flat-pack furniture for damage before you get out the screwdriver.
-
FCC to Verizon: what's wrong with that spectrum you never built out?
The Federal Communications Commission wants Verizon Wireless to explain why it never deployed cellular services in spectrum that it acquired four years ago and is now trying to sell off in order to get a better chunk of spectrum for its 4G-LTE network.
Verizon is trying to buy $3.6 billion worth of spectrum in the Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) band from a consortium of cable companies in a deal that requires FCC approval and has drawn antitrust concerns from competitors. To make that purchase more palatable to regulators, Verizon is proposing to sell off many of the Lower 700MHz licenses it bought in an FCC auction in 2008, and has made the sale contingent on approval of its new purchase.
The FCC sent Verizon Wireless a letter (PDF) yesterday noting that Verizon has yet to deploy services in the Lower 700MHz band, and asked what steps, if any, Verizon took to build out the spectrum. The FCC also asked Verizon to describe what challenges it faces in the 700MHz band and explain the relevance of the 700 MHz sale to its pending purchase of AWS spectrum. "What steps to date, if any, has Verizon Wireless taken to deploy mobile services using the Lower 700 MHz A or B Block licenses (either of both)?" the FCC asked. "Would Verizon Wireless abandon its plans to sell its Lower 700 MHz licenses if the Commission does not consent to the sale of all of the AWS licenses at issue to Verizon Wireless?"
-
BBC deletes Blue Peter from BBC One
Children's TV staple sent away to digitalBlue Peter - home to four-legged rascal Shep, the coat-hanger advent crown and school-boy favourite Janet Ellis, is being turfed out of its home on BBC One.…
-
Facebook buys Lightbox
Instagram was not enough for it
-
Facebook buys Android photo sharing app Lightbox
Instagram was not enough for it
-
Massachusetts Creates Fake Scam Websites To Warn People Of Real Scam Websites
Make a ton of money working from home! Lose weight by taking some fruit extract pills! Clear your debt today, guaranteed! Most of us know to give a wide berth to websites making promises like these. But the Massachusetts Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation has decided the best way to educate the consumers is for the state to create its own slate of bogus sites that look eerily like real scam sites.
The repository for these pages, at topmassachusettsdeals.com, itself sounds a bit like something scammy. But that's where you can find pages for products and services like Flabkiller, Envelope Elf, and ModExperts.
Clicking on any of the links on these bogus scam pages will take readers to a page providing more information on how to identify and avoid similar ruses.
"The Internet allows cyber criminals to get into your living room without even being in the country," said Barbara Anthony, Undersecretary of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation. "Every year consumers lose millions and millions of dollars to cyber-crooks in addition to something more important than money - their personal identity."
-
American consumers prepared to pay more for clean energy
The average US consumer is prepared to pay 13 percent more for clean electricity, new research suggests.
Callum Hampson
But is there the political will to match?
The average US consumer is prepared to pay $162 more for a national clean energy standard (NCES) that would require 80 percent clean energy by 2035, according to researchers at Yale and the George Mason University. This equates to a 13 percent increase in the 2009 average annual household energy bill of $1,250. However, for such a bill to pass through Congress, the increase would have to be restricted to about $50, the researchers found.
In a survey of 1010 US citizens, respondents were asked, among other questions, whether they would support or oppose a national clean energy standard that would require 80 percent of the US's electricity to be generated from clean sources by 2035. At random, respondents received one of three "technological treatments" or definitions of clean energy that included renewable energy sources alone, renewable sources plus natural gas, and renewable sources plus nuclear power. (President Obama's 2011 "80 percent by 2035" NCES proposal allowed for natural gas as a clean energy source.)
Respondents were also presented with differing amounts by which the NCES would increase their energy bill—amounts dubbed "bids" by the research team. These bid amounts fell on incremental values between $5 and $155 inclusive, and were presented to respondents at random.
-
Google's bots learn to read interactive webpages more like humans
Google feeds its search engine's index with site data from a virtual army of "bots"—Web-crawling applications that scour sites for content. But in the past, Google's bots hit a wall when they ran into interactive content that was loaded through JavaScript—especially on pages that use Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) to allow users access to additional content without reloading pages. But now, according to Vancouver-based developer Alex Pankratov, it appears Google's bots have been trained to act more like humans to mine interactive site content, running the JavaScript on pages they crawl to see what gets coughed up.
Google has in the past offered up proposals to make AJAX content more searchable, but this put the burden on Web developers rather than on Google's bots—and the proposals didn't gain as much traction as Google had hoped. During the last quarter of 2011, Google finally started to figure out how to efficiently solve the problem from its end, and began to roll out bots that could explore the dynamic content of pages in a limited fashion—crawling through the JavaScript within a page and finding URLs within them to add to the crawl. This required Google to allow its crawlers to send POST requests to websites in some cases, depending on how the JavaScript code was written, rather than the GET request usually used to fetch content. As a result, Google was able to start indexing Facebook comments, for example, as well as other "dynamic comment" systems. Now, based on the logs Pankratov has shown, it appears that rather than just mining for URLs within scripts, the bots are crawling even deeper than comments, processing JavaScript functions in a way that mimics how they run when users click on the objects that activate them. That would give Google search even better access to the "deep Web"—content hidden in databases and other sources that generally hasn't been indexable before.
-
Logicalis profits throttled by tight-fisted biz
UK earnings down a quarterICT jack-of-all-trades Logicalis UK has been hit by a freeze in demand as customers weathered the biting economic storm.…
-
Aaron Sorkin confirmed as Steve Jobs movie writer
The upcoming film dramatization of Steve Jobs' life and career might not suck after all. According to SlashFilm, Aaron Sorkin has been confirmed as the film's writer. With the backing of Sony Pictures, Sorkin will adapt Walter Isaacson's biography of the former Apple CEO (Steve Jobs) for the silver screen.
Sorkin is, of course, known for penning the screenplay of The Social Network , the dramatization of Facebook's rise to power, and winning an Academy Award for it. That screenplay, too, was adapted from a book: The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal ...
-
Aaron Sorkin confirmed as Steve Jobs movie writer
The upcoming film dramatization of Steve Jobs' life and career might not suck after all. According to SlashFilm, Aaron Sorkin has been confirmed as the film's writer. With the backing of Sony Pictures, Sorkin will adapt Walter Isaacson's biography of the former Apple CEO (Steve Jobs) for the silver screen.
Sorkin is, of course, known for penning the screenplay of The Social Network , the dramatization of Facebook's rise to power, and winning an Academy Award for it. That screenplay, too, was adapted from a book: The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal ...
-
NASA found filming August's Mars landing in California desert
'Just a rehearsal for the real one', insist rover boffinsNASA boffins have been found at a site deep in California's Mojave desert with a Mars rover of the exact type they say will land on Mars this August, filming the machine as it drove about among the Earthly sand dunes.…
-
Shareholders Sue JPMorgan & CEO Jamie Dimon Over $2 Billion Loss
Late last night, two separate lawsuits were filed against JPMorgan Chase & Co and its Chief Operating Officer, Jamie Dimon, accusing the bank and its management of excessive risk that led to trading losses of at least $2 billion.
A spokesman for the bank declined to comment on the lawsuits, filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, says Reuters.
Meanwhile yesterday, at the bank's annual meeting, Dimon also faced JPMorgan's shareholders directly for the the first time since the news of the loss broke last week, reports the Associated Press (via ABC News).
He offered a quick, blunt apology, saying the trading loss "should never have happened." He reportedly spoke about the loss for about four minutes, and two more talking about the company's accomplishments throughout the last year.
Of the trade, a bet on credit derivatives, Dimon said, "This should never have happened. I can't justify it. Unfortunately, these mistakes are self-inflicted." He also later told reporters: "The buck always stops with me."
Dimon won a non-binding shareholder endorsement of his pay package from last year, around $23 million, with most of the ballots cast in the weeks before the loss was revealed.
Shareholders sue JPMorgan Chase over trading loss [Reuters]
Subdued Dimon Is Confronted Over $2B Trading Loss [Associated Press]
-
Say hello to the real real-time Web
Real-time technologies are making Web apps faster—and in some cases, indistinguishable from desktop apps.
Garret Voight
It started with a simple idea—an online version of the classic arcade game Asteroids, but on a massively multiplayer scale.
It would support hundreds of players at once, thanks to a scalable network backend. It would be real-time, meaning that every player would see every shot and every movement simultaneously without delay.
Unfortunately for the Hacker News community—where an MMO Asteroids "prototype" would eventually make the front page—it all turned out to be fake. April Fools.
-
Three pitches 'cheaper' MiFi mobile hotspot
As good as the current model, but less expensiveThree hasn't said how much cheaper its new MiFi device is than Three's existing one, but that's what the telco is promising.…
-
WSJ: production of 4-inch iPhone beginning in June
Apple is indeed planning to introduce an iPhone with a larger screen, according to sources speaking to the Wall Street Journal. The company has reportedly ordered 4-inch screens from its suppliers, a bump from the currently standard 3.5-inch screen size that Apple has been using since the original iPhone appeared in 2007.
Rumors of a larger-screened iPhone have been floating around for some time now—especially since comparable Android phones gotten bigger and bigger, like the Galaxy Note and it's monster 5.3-inch screen. But many observers—including those of us at Ars' Infinite Loop—have not bought into those rumors. You can count me as a critic of this rumor, but there may be more to the large-screened iPhone rumors than we originally thought.
We're not likely to find out the truth anytime soon, though—the report says production is slated to begin next month, and Apple isn't expected to roll out new iPhones until the fall.
-
Skechers To Pay $40 Million In Refunds Because Putting On Shoes Is Not A Workout
News flash: you can't work out by not working out. As we predicted in November, the Federal Trade Commission has settled with shoemaker Skechers over claims that their rounded-bottom Shape-Up shoes helped wearers to tone their lower-body muscles and lose weight. These claims were all over ads and promotional material for the shoes, including an ad that aired during the 2011 Super Bowl.
Shape-Ups ads featured the endorsement of an "independent" chiropractor who claimed to have conducted a study that proved the superior health benefits of wearing Shape-Ups compared to regular old flat-bottomed sneakers. According to the FTC, there were a few problems with this claim: first, the studies didn't prove what the good doctor claimed, he just happens to be the spouse of a Skechers marketing executive, and the company paid for that not-so-independent study.
Here's a sample ad provided during the FTC press conference on the settlement today:
In the future, Skechers can't make claims about any of the following in their athletic shoe ads unless they're backed up with actual research:
- claims about strengthening;
- claims about weight loss; and
- claims about any other health or fitness-related benefits from toning shoes, including claims regarding caloric expenditure, calorie burn, blood circulation, aerobic conditioning, muscle tone, and muscle activation
Did you buy these shoes? You can check out the info and even file for a refund at the FTC's site for the settlement.PREVIOUSLY:
Skechers Prepping For Possible FTC Settlement Over Shape-Up Ads
-
Britain has 10 million twits, tweets Twitter
Why shout at the TV when you can yell at the web instead?There are ten million active Twitter accounts in Blighty, the microblogging wunderkind announced on, er, Twitter this morning. And 80 per cent of UK twits access the site on their mobiles.…
-
Massive DDoS attack keeps The Pirate Bay offline for over a day
The Pirate Bay has been down for about the past 24 hours, and says it has been hit by a "quite big" distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack. The controversial website for torrent downloaders confirmed the attack on its Facebook page, saying "We don't know who's behind it but we have our suspicions."
Just last week, the Pirate Bay criticized the Anonymous hacking group for running a DDoS campaign against Virgin Media. "We do NOT encourage these actions," the Pirate Bay said, also on its Facebook page. "We believe in the open and free internets, where anyone can express their views. Even if we strongly disagree with them and even if they hate us. So don't fight them using their ugly methods. DDOS and blocks are both forms of censorship."
The Pirate Bay, of course, is also under a very different kind of attack from copyright holders, who won a UK ruling last month ordering Internet service providers to block access to the site. But where legal means couldn't shut the Pirate Bay down worldwide, a DDoS attack has succeeded, at least temporarily.
-
Game Over? Apple's Bid to Kill HTC Nears Fruition as ITC Blocks Imports
U.S. Customs is blocking shipments of HTC One X and Evo 4G LTE "indefinitely"
-
Microsoft will remove the bloatware from your PC, for a price
Preinstalled trial versions of useless software have been slowing down new PCs for years, and Microsoft is finally offering a solution: bring your PC into a Microsoft Store and pay them $99 to install a clean copy of Windows.
The new program is an outgrowth of Microsoft's "Signature" PC initiative, which sells bloatware-free versions of PCs from Microsoft's partners in Microsoft stores. AllThingsD reports that Microsoft is now offering to change any computer into a Signature PC if customers bring it into the store and pay the requisite fee. Signature PCs also include Microsoft's Windows Live Essentials programs; the ad-supported, Word and Excel-only Microsoft Office Starter edition; the Microsoft Security Essentials antivirus package; and the Zune media player software. Users can choose not to have these programs installed, and can also specify if they would like other third-party browsers or programs installed. Ninety days of free phone support is also included.
It's nice that this new arm of the Signature program will do for regular users what power users have been doing themselves for years, but it's hard not to see this as a solution to a problem that Microsoft had a hand in creating. Installing bloatware and trialware is one way for PC makers to keep costs down—a goal many consumers appreciate—but by not enforcing stronger restrictions on what OEMs can and can't preinstall on their PCs, Microsoft and its partners have created a situation where the default Windows experience on new computers can be pretty terrible. It's nice that the Signature program offers a way around that, but it would be even nicer if the Signature program didn't need to exist in the first place.
-
Virgin Atlantic To Allow Some In-Air Mobile Phone Calls
If you are fan of the relatively chatter-free ambiance of the airplane cabin, this will probably not come as good news. On the other hand, if you're someone who finds the whole "no cell phone calls from the plane" thing tiresome, this may brighten your day a bit.
Virgin Atlantic became the latest passenger airline to allow in-flight cellphone calls, after it announced that passengers on some flights from London to New York will have the option of using their wireless devices while up in the air.
But there are so many restrictions on cost, carrier and number of passengers that you need not fear having to spend your flight listening to one half of an endless phone call about what jerks the guys in the London office are and how people in the UK drive on the wrong side of the road.
First, the service will only be available on Virgin's A330 Airbus planes, though the airline will begin retrofitting its Boeing 747s too.
Second, only people with service from O2 or Vodafone will have access to the wireless service. So your AT&T device won't be of use.
Then there's the cost. At $1.20/minute, you'd better have something important to say to the person on the other end of the phone.
Finally, only six passengers at a time can access the service, so even if they opened it up to all major carriers and brought down the price, you still won't have an entire plane calling home to mom.
"The service is intended for use in exceptional situations, when passengers need to send an SMS, make a quick call, or access an e-mail on a BlackBerry," the company said in a statement.
-
Is there life after ads for St Zuck?
Facebook credits, and what they might buyAnalysis As we reported today, the third-largest advertiser in the United States says it's going to stop advertising on Facebook, citing lack of engagement. General Motors is taking the $10m it spunks on Facebook ads somewhere else. This is a tiny proportion of GM's $1.1bn annual advertising budget, but it's hardly a vote of confidence from major brands in boy-child St Zuck's burgeoning global empire.…
-
Speaking in Tech: The worst government IT deal of ALL TIME
The one about the oversized Cisco routersPodcast It's the eighth episode of our enterprise tech podcast – and it's a special one. The podcast is split up into two parts: in the first part, your hosts interview a journalist investigating the State of West Virginia's absurd purchase of drastically oversized Cisco routers – it's an incredible story you have to hear to believe.…
-
Chiropractor Who Gave Skechers Such A Great Quote Is Also Married To A Skechers Staffer
As we mentioned earlier today, among the many pieces of evidence in the FTC's $40 million settlement with Skechers over deceptive advertising for the shoe maker's toning sneakers is one claim about a supposed "independent" clinical study undertaken by a chiropractor -- who may not have been totally unbiased in his research.
In ads for the shoes, a Dr. Steve Gautreau of California is quoted as saying:
After performing a six week clinical trial testing the benefits of SKECHERS Shape-ups, I am confident in recommending them to patients to increase their low back endurance and improve gluteal strength. Patients also benefited from weight loss and improved body composition.
But the FTC says that maybe Skechers should have gotten that quote from a different doctor, one that isn't married to someone who works for the company:
The FTC alleges that this study did not produce the results claimed in the ad, that Skechers failed to disclose that Dr. Gautreau is married to a Skechers marketing executive, and that Skechers paid Dr. Gautreau to conduct the study.
Today's Skechers settlement is the second such settlement reached in just the last year. Back in September, Reebok was hit for a $25 million bill on similar allegations, though we don't recall any charges of familial bias in that case.
-
Size Matters To Apple: New iPhones Will Reportedly Have Larger Screens
Hey, iPhoners, remember when you scoffed at your friend's Android and what you called its "ginormous screen" while lovingly cradling your tiny, precious iPhone? Looks like people really do want bigger screens on their smartphones, as a new report says Apple is preparing to build four-inch screens for its next-generation iPhone.
The Wall Street Journal cites sources familiar with the situation who say Apple has already placed orders for the new displays from its suppliers in Asia.
The new screens will measure four inches from corner to corner, which would be about a 30% increase in viewing area. The 3.5-inch screen has been used by Apple since the iPhone's introduction in 2007, but the pressure to compete with companies like Samsung and its new Galaxy S III phone with a 4.8-inch screen seems to be a factor in this screen stretching.
Early production of the screens has reportedly begun, and production orders from Apple could arrive as early as June. That would allow for manufacturing to begin on the phones in August, which then means you could have your hot little hands on the newest gadgetry in the fall. Be still, all those beating hearts.
Apple declined to comment on the buzz, which of course makes it all even buzzier.
Apple Moves Toward Larger iPhone Screens [Wall Street Journal]
-
AT&T Upgrades DSL Customer To U-Verse, Slower Internet, Static
Cameron moved recently, but not all that far away. Just to another apartment within the same building. Not so bad. He's been an AT&T DSL customer for six years, but the Death Star wants to wean customers off DSL and get them onto U-Verse. Cameron was told that he couldn't be reconnected to DSL down the hall, so he upgraded to U-Verse. Only the upgrade is more of a downgrade. To lower Internet speeds and static on the phone line.
For the past 6 years, I have been getting my DSL and home phone service through AT&T. Both services have been extremely reliable, and the DSL's 6 Mbps max speed has suited my needs. Recently, I decided to move into a larger apartment in my building. I ended up renting the unit right next door, meaning my entire move was approximately 15 feet down the hall. Sounds like it should be an easy move, right? Well, leave it to AT&T to screw things up.
Upon calling AT&T to schedule the move of my services, the rep told me that AT&T no longer offered DSL in my area and that I need to upgrade to their "fancy" U-Verse service. I was a little hesitant to pull the trigger, but they assured me I could retain my current 6 Mbps speed and explained how future upgrades to the U-Verse network would give me the option to increase my speed up to 24 Mbps. They also offered to waive the $100 charge for the new modem/router, so I decided to go for it.
Now this is the point in my story where I could go on for pages and pages about the technical issues with the service, the hours wasted on the phone with technical support, and the time spent waiting at home for 4 separate visits from AT&T technicians, but I will spare you that grief. In short, my phone line has an abnormal amount of static in it, which makes talking on the phone a pain in the butt and causes the modem to regularly drop the internet connection. This has been going on for 3 months now and I have contacted AT&T at least 12 times. Finally, in my last communication with Tier 2 tech support, I was informed that the static in my line (and subsequent internet problems) were being caused by my 6 Mbps connection. You see, in order to qualify for a 6 Mbps speed, my building would have to be within 6400ft of the service box in the area...my building is 8084ft from that box. The only fix for this? Lowering my internet speed to 3 Mbps.
The Tier 2 rep suggested I call the retention department and have them switch my service back to DSL if I want to keep my 6 Mbps speed (DSL is not subject to distance/speed issues that U-Verse is). I called, and wouldn't you know it, AT&T has "removed all of the DSL nodes from my area" (whatever that means). My only remedy...lower the speed to 3 Mbps. Being the generous company they are, AT&T did offer to lower my monthly rate a whole $2 a month for the inconvenience. Thanks AT&T! It's great to see that in a market as tiny as Los Angeles, you can offer your customers a service that was top-of-the-line back in 2002.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to enjoying my slower downloads, medium quality Netflix streaming, and sporadic X-Box Live connectivity.
P.S. - Since downgrading my service, my internet connection has stabilized...but I still have static in the home phone line (**le sigh**).
-
Samsung and SK Hynix shares slide on Apple snub
Memory-makers hurt by losing contract to bankrupt ElpidaShares in Samsung have fallen over 6 per cent on news that Apple preferred to place huge chip orders with bankrupt firm Elpida Memory.…
-
Safeway Suspends Employee After He Stopped A Man From Hitting Pregnant Girlfriend
We've gotten multiple tips from readers expressing disgust at Safeway, after an employee in California was suspended without pay for intervening in a domestic assault situation inside the store. The police called the worker a hero for stopping a man from hitting his pregnant girlfriend.
CBS 5 in San Francisco says Ryan, a meat clerk at a Safeway in the Monterey area, was going about his job when he saw a man beating his girlfriend, who is six months pregnant.
"Every few seconds he would turn around and push her and then he actually kicked her," Ryan said. "I told him to calm down and he was just irate."
He added that the man refused to stop, so he jumped in to break it up.
"I saw no one was intervening in the situation and I just became afraid for her safety and also other customers' safety," he said. "The guy was out of control and pretty much lost it in there."
The chief of police said if the employee hadn't done what he did, things could've been worse for the victim. Despite that, Ryan was suspended without pay from Safeway for violating company policy.
"We understand about policy, but at some point someone has to do something. And in my mind, in this case Ryan did the right thing," said the police chief.
Ryan has no income and his wife is five months pregnant, but he doesn't regret what he did.
"How many people have been injured, murdered, whatever in front of everyone because everyone looks the other way and no one wants to get involved?" he said.
A manager at a Safeway store in San Francisco told the news station that employees are supposed to contact store security or a manager if they see a conflict inside the store.
*Thanks to all our tipsters!
Monterey County Safeway Worker Suspended After Stopping Assault [CBS 5 San Francisco]
-
Timing quantum tunneling to attosecond precision
It's possible to make real-world depictions of an electron's wavefunctions, even though the math involves imaginary numbers.
UCSB.edu
Quantum tunneling is the process by which particles—electrons and so forth—can exit a system even though they appear to be trapped. Tunneling is responsible for a number of phenomena, including the radioactive decay of some nuclei and certain ionization processes. All of these begin with a confined particle and end with it freed to go somewhere else.
Measuring the rate of tunneling is a challenge, as responses in these quantum systems may occur on the order of 10-16 seconds (hundreds of attoseconds). However, knowing this information is essential for precision ultrafast physics experiments.
As they report in Nature, Dror Shafir et al. manipulated helium atoms and carbon dioxide molecules with a fast laser pulse to lower the barrier to ionization, so that one of the electrons could tunnel out easily. Once free, the electron interacted directly with the laser. This allowed the researchers to guide it back toward the ion, where it recombined, emitting a new photon at a higher energy than the original laser light; this process is known as high-harmonic generation. Observing the whole process allowed them to determine the actual tunneling time. Additionally, the researchers showed a difference in tunneling time between different initial and final quantum states in the carbon dioxide, demonstrating the high sensitivity of their measurements.
-
Mobile fee dodgers will get away with enough cash to bail out Greece
US code paranoia lets cash trickle through cracksMobile customers are dodging fees running to hundreds of billions of dollars by a combination of accident and design – both facilitated by badly designed billing systems which aren't up to the task. However, US paranoia plays its part too.…
-
Researchers hit 3Gbit/s in the Terahertz band
There's a lot more room up there
-
Walmart Customer Goes In For Oil Change, Drives Away With 'Satanic Symbols' On Car
This could be the auto service equivalent of rude receipt messages. A woman in Texas says that a recent trip to Walmart for an oil change resulted in devilish markings being left behind on the underside of her vehicle.
The woman says that during her last visit to Walmart, a helpful employee pointed out to here that someone has written "666," followed by what appears to be an upside-down crucifix and a pentagram, in sealant.
"Who does that? Being the Satanic symbols, it puts a bad omen. I mean, what if it's a curse?" the customer asked CBS Dallas-Fort Worth.
The employee figured that it had likely happened during the woman's previous oil change, as the sealant used is the exact same color as that used at Walmart.
"He had an attitude," the customer says about the Walmart worker who she believes is responsible for the writing. "Very sassy. By the time it was all said and done, I spent about three hours at that Walmart just for an oil change."
A Walmart rep tells CBS:
We've looked into the matter. And although we've been unable to confirm the details, we never want our customers to have an unpleasant experience. And we've reached out to the customer and will continue to resolve the issue.
Meanwhile, the customer says she will take Walmart up on its offer to have the marking scraped off.
-
Nvidia shows off superjuiced Kepler GPU
From workhouse to racehorseHPC blog There were quite a few surprises in today’s GTC12 keynote by NVIDIA CEO and co-founder Jen-Hsun Huang.…
-
Delayed Air Canada Passengers Pass Time With Free In-Plane Concert
Being stuck on a delayed, crowded plane -- even for a short period of time -- can be an ordeal. But for Air Canada passengers waiting on the tarmac to take off for their flight to Bucharest, they were lucky (or perhaps unlucky, depending on your taste in music) to be traveling with members of the Lemon Bucket Orkestra.
Taking advantage of the 20-minute delay at Toronto Pearson International Airport, decided to break out their instruments and perform a brief, impromptu concert for their fellow passengers, some of whom seemed to really enjoy it; a few of whom looked like they would rather have been reading the in-flight safety guide in peace.
Check out the video below and decide for yourself whether this is something airlines should encourage:
[via BlogTO.com]
Thanks to Chris for the tip!
-
Apple ITC win leads to HTC One X, Evo 4G LTE import holdup
HTC, AT&T, and Sprint are all feeling the effects of Apple's import ban win against HTC last December. The One X and Evo 4G LTE, both Android handsets, may be delayed from their May 18 launch date as the devices are currently being held by US Customs officials. Officials are examining both devices for compliance with an International Trade Commission ban on the import of HTC devices violating an Apple patent.
Apple's "thermonuclear" assault on Android began in earnest in 2010 when Apple sued HTC for patent infringement. Along with a federal lawsuit, Apple also filed a parallel complaint with the ITC seeking the import ban. Filing ITC complaints has become a common tactic in patent infringement disputes, as the ITC tends to rule on cases quicker than federal district courts. US import bans are also potentially quite effective since nearly all smartphones and other electronic devices are produced in China.
Though Apple originally claimed HTC infringed 10 of its patents, the ITC ultimately ruled that HTC's Android smartphones ran afoul of a patent related to a feature Apple first debuted on the Mac as "Data Detectors." This is the technology that automatically recognizes certain data types—such as addresses or phone numbers— and turns them into clickable links that perform a map lookup or dial a phone number.
-
5/16/2012 Daily Hardware Reviews
DailyTech's roundup of hardware reviews from around the web for Wednesday -
DDOS Attack Cripples The Pirate Bay
Origin of the attack remains a mystery -
GM Axes $10M in "Ineffective" Facebook Advertisements
The automaker said its Facebook ads have proved to be ineffective
-
Apple granted soft keyboard patent in US
For its multi-tiered IOS virtual keyboard on Iphone and Ipad devices
-
Judge Cites Steve Jobs' Own Words In Refusing Dismissal Of E-Book Suit
Apple co-founder Steve Jobs' words came back to haunt the electronics company today. Its attempt to have a judge dismiss charges of e-book price-fixing were refused, in part because of things Jobs said during his time with Apple.
Apple, along with the owners of MacMillan and Penguin, still face charges from the Justice Dept. that they conspired to institute so called "agency pricing," in which the publisher -- rather than the seller -- determines the final retail price of an e-book.
Agency pricing began when Apple got into the e-book business following the launch of the iPad. The idea was to make prices even across the board between Apple, Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other sellers, which of course just meant higher prices for consumers.
In her ruling today, the judge Jobs' own statement to publishers that, under agency pricing, "the customer pays a little more, but that's what you want anyway."
Apple and the publishers have been arguing that agency pricing wasn't a deliberate attempt to hurt Amazon's market share but was about improving efficiencies of distribution.
The judge disagreed, writing that, "It has everything to do with coordinating a horizontal agreement among publishers to raise prices, and eliminating horizontal price competition among Apple's competitors at the retail level...
"With the fortuitous entry of Apple into the market for e-books, and the decision by Apple to join the price-fixing conspiracy, that horizontal conspiracy became a potent weapon for engineering a fundamental shift in an entire industry."
The DOJ has already agreed to settlements with three publishers -- HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, and Hachette. In spite of the dismissal request, Apple has stated it is willing to stand trial on this issue.
-
UK.gov's G-Cloud 2.0 pushes back launch date
Public sector IT bazaar turns to open sourceThe launch of the second version of the UK government’s IT shopping catalogue G-Cloud has slipped to the end of spring.…
-
IPhone Won't Be Profitable for Sprint Until '15, Early Upgrades Ending June 1
Apple is sure to see a much greater benefit from this iPhone relationship than Sprint
-
ACTA deathwatch: profs call process unconstitutional, Europe revolts
ACTA protestors send a message in Paris this past February.
Roberto Pasini
Just when you thought that everyone was content to let debates about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) simmer down, a group of American legal scholars has now submitted an open letter to the United States Senate, challenging the lack of a Congressional approval process for ACTA.
The letter, published Wednesday, argues that Congress needs to review and approve ACTA, and that the Obama Administration lacks the executive authority to ratify the agreement on behalf of the United States without explicit congressional approval. (This is a position that Harold Koh, a legal advisor to the United States Department of State, has previously taken, though Koh argues the authority was granted by 2008's PRO-IP Act). Normally, the United States Constitution delegates authority to ratify treaties to Congress, which can also give that authority to the White House through either an “ex ante” or an “ex post” Congressional-Executive Agreement.
“The reason Congressional approval is important is that it provides the public process so sorely lacking from the negotiation of the agreement itself,” wrote Sean Flynn, an intellectual property lecturer at American University and one of the letter’s organizers, in an e-mail to Ars. “There has not been a single public hearing on the ACTA text and its impact on US law, for example. As the EU, Australian, and other parliaments provide public processes on ACTA for their own citizens, now is the time for our government to provide the same.”
-
Prosecutors: "pedodave69" was former top FBI agent
Photo illustration by Aurich Lawson
Law enforcement v. Internet sex criminals
- How a fake Justin Bieber "sextorted" hundreds of girls through Facebook
- How would-be pedophiles use Craigslist—and how they get caught
- "The hidden side of your soul": How the FBI uses the Web as a child porn honeypot
Logging in to file-sharing networks has become a routine part of online child pornography investigations—so routine that multiple agencies sometimes target the same person without knowing it. Case in point: an undercover FBI agent was using the GigaTribe P2P program back in September 2010 in order to observe the material being shared by “pedodad36569."
The case didn't look to be a difficult one. "Pedodad36569" had hundreds of child pornography images in his share folder, and he had a publicly viewable IP address that resolved to a home on Fig Tree Lane in Roscoe, Illinois. But before a search warrant could even be obtained, a separate law enforcement agency gave the same information to the Illinois Internet Crimes Against Children task force, which got a warrant and conducted a search. (Including any variant of "pedo" in your online user name no doubt invites this sort of extra attention from law enforcement, but people just keep doing it.)
But police found nothing—except, we imagine, one terrified homeowner. All computers at the residence were examined, but no child pornography was discovered. Investigators finally realized that the home had an open wireless router and that anyone in the nearby area could have been responsible.
-
Pirate Bay struggling to get on feet after DDoS to the knee
Anonymous says 'not us, dude'The Pirate Bay claimed to be “getting back up! Stronger than ever!” this evening after crumpling under a DDoS attack for most of today.…
-
Texas Farm Bureau Applauds Domino's For Keeping Pigs In Small Cages
Just how much room pigs need to root around and snuffle is a hotly debated topic. And while some fast food chains have moved to phase out confining gestation crates for pigs, Domino's recently decided to continue using the controversial devices -- and is receiving some love from the Texas Farm Bureau for doing so.
The Dallas Observer points out that the Texas Farm Bureau gave the pizza chain a hearty slap on the back after Domino's shareholders recently rejected a resolution suggested by the Humane Society of the United States for a ban on gestation crates.
Other large food chains, including Burger King, McDonald's, Wendy's and Safeway have all announced plans to phase out the use of the small cages, which prevent sows from moving around.
The publications director for the Texas Farm Bureau, Mike Barnett, is pleased as punch with Domino's and its decision, posting a letter on the bureau's blog praising it for "showing some backbone to the animal rights activist group," while others "caved to their demands, fearing HSUS will stir public outcry and reprisal if they don't."
He adds that research and science should determine what animal welfare standards should be, instead of "animal rights activist groups" trying to end food-animal production.
Meanwhile, the HSUS has a different opinion. Its policy director Matthew Prescott says:
We're a nation of animal lovers. We care very much about how animals are treated and that doesn't stop on the farm. American farmers have a long history of innovation and the Texas Farm Bureau and Pork Producers Council refusal to address these issues really sells farmers short. I think farmers want to farm. They don't want to run a factory of widgets lined up in a row. They should take note of that and let farmers be farmers.
The Texas Farm Bureau Applauds Domino's Support For Gestation Crates, Orders a Pizza [Dallas Observer]
-
Verizon To Kill Grandfathered Unlimited Data Plans
If you were one of the Verizon Wireless customers who was allowed to continue their unlimited data plans after the company switched to tiered pricing last summer, we have some bad news. The company says it will be eliminating grandfathered plans as it rolls out LTE service.
Speaking at the J.P. Morgan Technology, Media and Telecom conference, Verizon CFO Fran Shammo said customers currently enjoying unlimited 3G data access will have to switch to VZW's soon-to-launch data-share plan when they move to 4G LTE service.
Explained Shammo:
LTE is our anchor point for data share. So, as you come through an upgrade cycle and you upgrade in the future, you will have to go on to the data share plan. And moving away from, if you will, the unlimited world and moving everyone into a tiered structure data share plan.
"Everyone will be on data share," said Shammo. "A lot of our 3G base is on unlimited... [and] when they migrate off 3G they will have to go to data share."
This is precisely why we opposed the AT&T/T-Mobile merger and wireless consolidation in general. Consumers need to have options when companies decide to pull the rug out from under them. Now at the very least, people still have a small handful of national options.
Verizon will kill 'grandfathered' unlimited data plans, push users to data share [Fierce Wireless]
Verizon CFO says grandfathered unlimited plans on the way out
[Engadget]
-
Prototype Google Glasses don't have full HUD displays
After Google unveiled its Glasses project last month, we saw a number of Google executives donning prototype glasses out in public. One notable example: the appearance of Google X Founder Sebastian Thrun on Charlie Rose a few weeks back.
However, according to a new story by CNet News, the prototype glasses actually fall well short of the experience portrayed ...
-
Prototype Google Glasses don't have full HUD displays
After Google unveiled its Glasses project last month, we saw a number of Google executives donning prototype glasses out in public. One notable example: the appearance of Google X Founder Sebastian Thrun on Charlie Rose a few weeks back.
However, according to a new story by CNet News, the prototype glasses actually fall well short of the experience portrayed ...
-
For Some Reason The Idea Of Cat Tongue Candy Is Less Than Appetizing
How about biting into a nice chocolatey piece of candy resembling a rough cat tongue suitable for licking up hair and dirt from a furry pelt? Yum? We're always amazed at what companies come up with that somehow made it first into the "Yes!" bin of ideas and then end up on store shelves. Cat Tongue candy, you might be the weirdest thing yet.
Shannon found herself face to face with Lenguas de Gato at a gift shop in the Los Cabos Aeropeurto in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. She notes, "I did not try it or buy it. I was too repulsed by the idea of a chocolate cat tongue."
She also thought the kitty in the picture looked kind of sad, perhaps because "she was cursed with a chocolate tongue that these candy distributors stole from her."
We're sure her cocoa-dusted hairballs must be downright delicious.
UPDATE: Reader Niki writes in to encourage the idea of cat tongue candy gaining worldwide domination, saying: "As a native Austrian, I am quite familiar with them. They are a chocolate delicacy in Austria. They get their name from a French bisquit that is called "langue-de-chat."
Feel free to send pictures of any other odd foods you spy on store shelves to tips@consumerist.com. We wouldn't mind having something to take our minds off edible cat tongues.
-
Halo 4 Limited Edition, Spartan Ops mode announced
The Halo 4 box art, revealed after many fans pieced a puzzle together
Microsoft unveiled the Halo 4 Limited Edition on Wednesday, which will include several features geared toward broadening the multiplayer experience. The company also announced that the game will feature weekly, limited edition episodic multiplayer experiences called "Spartan Ops."
Spartan Ops, featuring the new Majestic squad, will take place on the USNC Infinity freighter, and will provide weekly single-player or four-player co-op missions. The Spartan Ops mode contrasts with the "War Games" mode, where players can engage in regular competitive matches à la every other Halo game in the series.
The Limited Edition will include a War Games map pack, vouchers for three future map DLCs, and early access to six multiplayer specializations that the general audience will see "released over time." The set will also include a 90-minute extended edition of "Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn," a live-action digital series set to launch before the game itself.
-
Sony Pictures Hires Aaron Sorkin for Steve Jobs Film Adaptation
Walter Isaacson's "Steve Jobs" will hit theaters thanks to Sony Pictures and Aaron Sorkin
-
RoboBrrd at Maker Faire!
Meet the newest addition to the flock of RoboBrrds at Maker Faire: RoboBrrd Phoenix! If you are going to Maker Faire, be sure to see it in person at my RoboBrrd table (located with the other robot tables)! Read on for a few more sneak peek photos...
Here you can see where the controller board can fit inside of the RoboBrrd. The Diavolino matches the colour theme quite well!
The material is 1/8 inch MDF, which makes it really durable but also lightweight! It took a very long time to determine what material would be best for RoboBrrd. Some attempts were made with thicker MDF, poplar, basswood, wood, and more.
The laser cutting for this is quite detailed. Designed to look like flames.
For the Robot Party this week, it will depend on the internet at the event centre. It would be cool to broadcast live at the end of Maker Faire Education Day, but we will see how it works out! Circle us on Google+ for up to date information.
That's all for the sneak peeks for now! Hope to see everyone at Maker Faire!
-
78-Year-Old Woman Forced To Leave House She & Her Husband Built In 1956
After the story of a 78-year-old grandmother being evicted from the home she and her husband built in 1956 hit the news, public outcry over the story has granted her a bit of a reprieve. The tricky part of all of this? Her daughter says her mental faculties are making it hard to figure out who exactly holds the mortgage.
The News Sentinel in Knoxville reports that after an earlier story ran about Mary Cate and her family's plight, the family said they've gotten an extension to stay a few weeks longer, until June 15. Mary Cate lives with her two teen grandchildren, who will be able to finish the school year, as well as her son, who is wheelchair-bound.
Mary Cate and her husband built the home in 1956 themselves, and until 2007, owned the home outright. She then took out a $60,000 mortgage on the house to make repairs, and fell behind on payments after undergoing open-heart surgery three years ago.
"Some of it was my fault," Mary Cate told the paper, saying she got confused after receiving information from two or three different people about the loan. "I kept sending payments, but it wasn't the same (mortgage) company. They kept changing. The people from Arkansas who have it now have never spoken to me whatsoever."
Her daughter said no one knew about the mortgage until recently.
"I didn't know (about the loan) and had no idea this had taken place until a month ago Thursday," she told the paper, adding that her mother's declining mental faculties have made figuring out things difficult. She tried, unsuccessfully, to withdraw her teacher's state retirement fund early and pay off the loan.
"Over time, they sold the loan out and I've had a hard time finding out about it," said her daughter. "I've felt like a little fish in a sea of bureaucrats."
An eviction specialist hired by a local realtor to handle the removal has said she won't handle the case.
"I'm not going to do it," she told the paper. "That woman is too old and fragile to be put out on the street and set on the curb. All I could think about was what if that was my grandmother in that situation? I know it's a job, but all money is not good money. It's morally wrong."
Mary Cate won't be headed to the curb -- her daughter said she, the two grandkids and her brother can move in to her home with her husband.
This isn't the first time we've seen elderly people pushed out of their homes, unfortunately: There was the 103-year-old woman and her 83-year-old daughter who were saved from eviction when police and movers refused to move her out; a 101-year-old woman evicted from her home in Detroit and an elderly woman forced to move out after a deed mix-up.
*Thanks for the tip, Gary!
Public responds to Strawberry Plains widow facing eviction; brief reprieve given on forced move [News Sentinel]
-
Australia's first space park launched
WA set to track space stations Swedish styleAustralia’s only dedicated satellite park, SSC Space Australia, is now open for business and is currently in advanced negotiations with two international space agencies from Europe and Asia to use the new West Australian (WA) facility.…
-
MIPS Looks to Challenge ARM in Mobile Device Dominance
Veteran architecture shares some with ARM, but features an even lighter instruction set
-
Google Update Begins Transition From Search Engine To 'Knowledge Engine'
Over the last few years, several updates to Google have improved the quality of its search results, and features like page preview have helped cut down on unnecessary clicking. But today the Internet biggie announced the roll-out of what it calls the Knowledge Graph, which supplements search results with information and links that you might also be interested in based on your search.
Say, for example, you want to learn about pro tennis. Searching for the name of a famous tennis player -- or maybe a tournament like Wimbledon -- would bring up the standard Google results. But it would also open a sidebar containing biographical info on that player or historical data on that tournament, along with links and photos to people, places and things closely related to that person.
In that way, it's not much different from what many people do every day when they go to sites like Wikipedia or IMDB, except you may never end up going to those sites because the information you seek (ex. What was the name of that movie with Bruce Willis and the guy from Friends?; or What is the population of Chile?) may already be there right on your Google search page.
"Google can jumpstart your research process by combining the information that others found useful with the information in the Knowledge Graph," explains Product Manager Emily Moxley.
Product management director Johanna Wright says that this is just an early phase in the transition of Google from "being an information engine to becoming a knowledge engine."
We hope that this update will help to prevent people from going to scammy sites that simply load their pages up with popular search terms and searched-for information. Though we wonder if sites, like the aforementioned IMDB or Wikipedia might be negatively impacted if people no longer need to go to those and similar sites for information.
The Knowledge Graph is being rolled out now to English-reading users in the U.S. and will be made available on mobile devices.
-
Verizon Wireless to Kill Unlimited LTE Data, Even for Grandfathered Users
Verizon won't make any new friends with its latest attack on unlimited data
-
Money! That's what Flashback's creators want (but they can't get it)
A Flashback botnet of Macs could bring in up to $10,000 per day, but it doesn't. Symantec has published a new report after having followed OSX.Flashback's advertising component for a few weeks, concluding that the creators have only garnered about $14,000 in three weeks and have yet to figure out how to get the money into their bank accounts.
Symantec's original report from the end of April said that Flashback was capable of generating up to $10,000 per day in ad clicks, primarily impacting Google and bringing in "untold sums of money for the Flashback gang." The ad-clicking component works by monitoring Web searches being performed in Safari, Chrome, and Firefox. It then bypasses Google's own advertising on the results page by substituting ads from various pay-per-click (PPC) services. When clicked, the PPC services would then pay fees to the Flashback team.
In its latest report, Symantec says that during a three-week period in April, the Flashback botnet managed to generate around 400,000 ad clicks out of roughly 10 million being displayed. That 4-percent conversion rate resulted in about $14,000 worth of payouts to the Flashback creators—if the PPCs would actually pay them, that is. In a twist of schadenfreude, Symantec points out that collecting the money has been a problem.
-
Apparently This Woman Doesn't Find Clothing Necessary For Running Errands
Ever get that feeling like you knew you forgot something before leaving the house, but just can't figure out what it was? That could maybe kind of perhaps explain why a woman recently visited a few stores in upstate New York recently, totally and completely naked. Or hey, could be she just decided it was a nude kind of day.
The Times Union in Albany, N.Y. says a woman visited a lumber yard sans clothing and told an employee, "Have a good day" on her way out.
The manager says she asked a few employees what time it was before exiting.
"No one wanted to say much to her," he said. "It's not a situation you want to be involved in."
Nope, no one wants to be the one caught in a long conversation with a naked stranger.
She then went to another shop, where an employee said she was asked if she knew what was going on with her attire situation.
"The manager said 'Ma'am, are you aware you have no clothes on?' She was kosher and cool about it, and the manager told her she needed to leave," said the employee.
She was finally picked up by the sheriff's office, and by that time, had managed to clothe herself.
'Ma'am, are you aware you have no clothes on?' [Times Union]
-
Paralyzed woman controls robotic arm, sips coffee
Performing even a simple movement is a rather complicated process. First, the brain has to signal its intent to perform an action, which then gets translated into the specific motions that are required to achieve that intention. Those motions require a series of muscle contractions; the signals for these need to be sent out of the brain, through the spinal cord, and to the appropriate destination.
For most people who suffer from paralysis, it's really these later steps that are affected—most of the setup can still go on in the brain, but damage keeps the signals from making their way to the muscles. If there were a way to eavesdrop on the brain, it might be possible to identify an individual's intent and translate that into some form of useful action.
This may sound like science fiction, but significant progress has been made in the area. As far back as 2006, researchers were already reporting that electrodes placed in a person's motor cortex would allow them to manipulate an on-screen object in a three-dimensional environment. More recently, monkeys with a similar implant were hooked up to a robotic arm, which they learned to use to perform some simple tasks.
-
Best Buy's surprisingly insecure approach to new PC setup
Enlarge / Want Geek Squad to set up your PC? Just write your e-mail and password in that box on the left
A basic rule of password-based security is "don't write down your password." A second rule might be "don't train people to write down passwords." And a third rule, which few follow, is "don't adopt password policies that lead to people writing their passwords down" (over-aggressive change requirements often have this effect, for instance).
Best Buy hasn't received the memo, apparently. This past Friday I came in contact with a surprisingly bad password policy in action as I shopped with my brother for his new computer in Scottsdale, Arizona. He had settled on an HP Windows 7 machine and was in the process of paying for it when a Best Buy employee handed him an 8.5” by 11” sheet of paper labeled “PC Recommendation Worksheet.”
Emblazoned with the familiar Best Buy and Geek Squad logos, one side contained a “new computer setup” form, where you can select antivirus software, Geek Squad tech support, data transfer services, Microsoft Office, and so forth. The other side had more of the same—along with a request for my brother’s e-mail and password, right below the fields for name, address, and phone number. Anyone reading this form would interpret it as a request for your e-mail address and e-mail password. And less-sophisticated users will fill it in, no questions asked. But we balked.
-
Gates' Corbis busted again for fraud
Infoflows wins US$12m in damages, Gates still madCorbis, the digital stock photo company founded by Bill Gates in 1989, remains embroiled in a protracted fraud case instigated by Seattle based Infoflows.…
-
DisplaySearch: 'Retina' laptop panels carry a hefty premium
A lot of us are looking forward to high-DPI notebook displays from Apple and other vendors. Some say they might appear as soon as next month, which is definitely an exciting prospect. According to numbers by NPD DisplaySearch, though, the new, denser panels will carry a substantial premium for hardware makers—and of course, one wonders if that premium will be passed on to the consumer.
DisplaySearch's Richard Shim told CNet News that high-DPI 13.3" and 15.4" panels (with resolutions ...
-
DisplaySearch: 'Retina' laptop panels carry a $65-92 premium
A lot of us are looking forward to high-DPI notebook displays from Apple and other vendors. Some say they might appear as soon as next month, which is definitely an exciting prospect. According to numbers by NPD DisplaySearch, though, the new, denser panels will carry a substantial premium for hardware makers—and of course, one wonders if that premium will be passed on to the consumer.
DisplaySearch's Richard Shim told CNet News that high-DPI 13.3" and 15.4" panels (with resolutions ...
-
Existing unlimited data plans' days are numbered, Verizon says
Verizon sees a way out of unlimited data plans through its upcoming shared plans, Verizon Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo said at a JP Morgan conference on Wednesday. Shammo said that as customers with unlimited access to 3G networks start to move to 4G, they will be forced to move to the new shared data plans.
Verizon and AT&T have both dropped major hints that each network provider plans to start offering shared data plans, where multiple devices can draw from a single pool of data that is paid for in one big chunk (Verizon announced it would drop unlimited data plans for individual phones in May 2011). Not only would multi-device families possibly gain from this, but multiple-device owners would too; for instance, an iPad and an iPhone belonging to one person could be allowed to share a few gigabytes between them.
But from the sound of Shammo's comments, customers currently subscribed to unlimited data plans won't be able to benefit from sharing without switching to tiered plans. Likewise, Shammo implied that customers switching from unlimited 3G plans to 4G LTE ones will be forced to start using tiered plans. "A lot of our 3G base is unlimited," Shammo said. "As they start to migrate to 4G, they will have to come off unlimited and go into the data share plan. And that is beneficial for us for many reasons, obviously."
-
Roman roads get the web maps treatment
M-III traffic means Londinium to Venta (Winchester) takes 3.7 daysClassical scholars at Stanford University have created a “Geospatial network model of the Roman world” which offers the chance to calculate journey times along Roman roads in much the same way as is possible on Google Maps and other online mapping services.…
-
Private: some search engines make money by not tracking users
In the United States, two out of every three searches go through Google, which serves up a total of three billion search queries per day. "Googling" has become so ubiquitous that the company has become a verb in English (and in other languages, too).
Given that most of us use Google several times a day and may also use it to send e-mail, to plan our calendar, and to make phone calls, questions commonly arise about how all of that data is used. Google has said that it needs access to such large amounts of data as a way to “make it useful” and to sell personalized ads against it—and to profit substantially in the process.
However, a March 2012 study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that two-thirds of Americans view a personalized search as a “bad thing,” with 73 percent of those surveyed saying that they were “not OK” with personalized searches on privacy grounds. Another recent poll of California voters recently reached similar results, as “78 percent of voters—including 71 percent of voters age 18-29—said the collection of personal information online is an invasion of privacy.”
-
Vixie warns: DNS Changer ‘blackouts’ inevitable
Father of BIND fears ISP crisis in JulyRidding the world of the DNS Changer is proving a long, slow process that won’t be accomplished by July 9, when the court orders granted to the FBI expire and infected users suffer their inevitable blackout.…
-
Terahertz frequencies bring Japanese researchers 3Gbps in a WiFi prototype
The terahertz wireless radio is small enough to fit in portable devices.
A team of researchers at the Tokyo Institute of Technology has transmitted data on the terahertz range of spectrum using a wireless radio no bigger than a 10-yen coin (roughly the size of a penny). The tiny contraption can access spectrum between 300GHz and 3THz (otherwise known as T-Rays for terahertz), and was able to transfer data at a speed of 3Gbps. But this was only a test run—researchers suspect that using terahertz spectrum could get data transfer up to rates of 100 Gbps.
The newest WiFi standard available to consumers (but not yet ratified by the IEEE), 802.11 ac, transmits on a 5GHz band and can theoretically achieve 1.3Gbps. There's an even-further-out standard in the works as well; 802.11ad (otherwise known as WiGig) will transmit on the 60GHz rage for a theoretical 10Gbps—although this will generally only be within a line-of-sight range.
A T-ray based WiFi is certainly far off, and the greatly increased frequency of the transmission will undoubtedly require devices using terahertz spectrum to be quite close to each other. As Extreme Tech points out, the short distance of transmission for this technology would be better for server farms than anything else, permitting servers to share data between each other wirelessly rather than through a web of wiring.
-
AWS CISO needs permission to visit his data centres
He doesn't mind and you shouldn't either because they're not that interestingAmazon Web Services' General Manager and Chief Information Security Officer Stephen E. Schmidt is not allowed to make unannounced visits to the company's data centres.…
-
Oracle v. Google: The Road Ahead
by eleZeta
Oracle v. Google
- Oracle tells jury "clean room" not enough to avoid patent infringement
- Oracle v. Google patent phase wraps up
- Oracle to pursue longshot claim for copyright damages
- Oracle's copyright win may not amount to much as patent phase unfolds
- Engineers, experts take the stand as Oracle's patent attack on Google advances
The month-old Oracle v. Google trial hasn't had a lot of clarity. Dozens of motions have been filed over issues both great and small, with the only clear development so far being a split copyright verdict. But key events in the past 24 hours have shown what the possibilities are going forward.
First, Judge William Alsup has said he will make a ruling about whether or not programming APIs are copyrightable as early as next week. Next, Oracle has agreed to drop its longshot case for copyright damages it was talking about pursuing last week. Those developments, along with the patent trial verdict that a San Francisco jury should soon deliver, will soon make clear the road ahead.
Four outcomes possibleThe most important question in the case now is whether Alsup finds APIs can be copyrighted at all. Alsup said yesterday he is preparing a ruling on that issue, but it won't be ready before next week. The judge delayed this key ruling until after the entire copyright phase of the trial took place, saying he wanted to hear additional evidence before he ruled. Now the copyright phase is over, with a mixed verdict that found that Google had infringed, but the jury couldn't agree about whether Google was protected by fair use or not.
-
Asia leads global BYOD race
IT managers jump on the bandwagonAsian IT professionals are racing ahead of their global rivals when it comes to implementing Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies in their organisations, according to new research from BT.…
-
GPS rival Beidou will cover Asia Pac by end of the year
Chinese satnav project could go global as early as 2014China will expand its home grown GPS rival Beidou by launching three global positioning satellites that it hopes will make it possible to have the service up and running in Asia Pacific by the end of the year.…
-
Sony NEX-7 24.3Mp APS-C compact system camera
DSLR worrier?Review Sony’s NEX-7 is its flagship Compact System Camera that’s been graced with advanced features to justify the high-end price tag for a pocketable interchangeable lens model. Indeed this 24.3Mp APS-C shooter with a built-in OLED electronic viewfinder plus tilting LCD and full manual control, is certainly going to give some DSLRs a run for their money.…
-
Wild excitement over terahertz wireless demo
It’s not the messiah, just a very fast modulationJapanese researchers have demonstrated a 3 Gbps transmission on a 542 GHz carrier. It’s interesting, even exciting, in its own right: at the very least, it’s certain to be surpassed before such technologies become part of the commercial product landscape.…
-
Hong Kong CERT wants bigger team to tackle cyber threats
Region's multinationals a big target for hackersHong Kong’s Computer Emergency Response Team (HKCERT) has called for more resources to help it step up attempts to proactively monitor and deal with attacks on organisations in the special administrative region (SAR) of China.…
-
Thursday Shortbread
Eight is Enough- The facts about Xfinity TV and Xbox 360: Comcast is not prioritizing
- Bloomberg: Biggest attack on Apple computers didn't pay off, Symantec says
- X-bit labs: WD's HGST begins to use 500GB 2.5"
platters in new-generation consumer hard drives - PC Perspective: Nvidia reveals GK110 GPU -
Kepler at 7.1B transistors, 15 SMX units - X-bit labs: Nvidia introduces Tesla K10, announces K20 accelerators
- Fudzilla: Nvidia promises impressive things with GeForce GRID
- WSJ: Apple moves to larger iPhone screens
- Legit Reviews: Diablo III gaming benchmarks on Ivy Bridge & Trinity laptops
-
Thursday Shortbread
Eight is Enough- The facts about Xfinity TV and Xbox 360: Comcast is not prioritizing
- Bloomberg: Biggest attack on Apple computers didn't pay off, Symantec says
- X-bit labs: WD's HGST begins to use 500GB 2.5"
platters in new-generation consumer hard drives - PC Perspective: Nvidia reveals GK110 GPU -
Kepler at 7.1B transistors, 15 SMX units - X-bit labs: Nvidia introduces Tesla K10, announces K20 accelerators
- Fudzilla: Nvidia promises impressive things with GeForce GRID
- WSJ: Apple moves to larger iPhone screens
- Legit Reviews: Diablo III gaming benchmarks on Ivy Bridge & Trinity laptops
-
Child support IT fail: Deadbeat mums 'n' dads off the hook
NAO: Child maintenance computers unable to keep tabs on paymentsProblems with IT systems at the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission (CMEC) have left it unable to report payment arrears properly, the National Audit Office (NAO) has found.…
-
Dell to cut UK workforce
Box shifter 'grows business' by trimming headcountDell has threatened staff in the UK with redundancy, Channel Register can reveal.…
-
Google offers up new mobile usage interface to attract ad loot
Just the thing to bulk out any business pitchThe Mobile Marketing Association and Google have again gathered smartphone usage, from 40 countries this time, and provided a snazzy interface capable of generating comparison charts of XLS files on demand.…
-
X.Org: "A Wasteland of Unreviewedness"
After David Airlie brought up the new DDX driver API for the X.Org Server, a new discussion was born concerning the lack of patch review taking place for the X.Org Server...
-
Boffins smash 3Gbps speed barrier with 542GHz T-Rays
Sky's the limit in terahertz territoryJapanese geniuses have maintained a 3Gbit/s radio link at 542GHz, opening up more of the electromagnetic spectrum to the voracious appetite of wireless data.…
-
A New NVIDIA Linux Binary Driver Released
NVIDIA has released the updated 295.53 binary Linux display graphics driver for GeForce and Quadro hardware...
-
Hacker claims credit for Pirate Bay attack
Torrent web site down for over 24 hours
-
Mobile net filters block legit content too – campaign group
It even bins age-appropriate stuffMobile operators currently provide filter systems that enable parents to stop children accessing websites deemed to contain content suitable for individuals aged 18 or over. However, the Open Rights Group (ORG) said there are "a number of serious problems" with how those systems work.…
-
Intel Glamor Acceleration Compared To SNA, UXA
Going back to last year there's been the "Glamor Acceleration" project out of Intel to accelerate the 2D operations within X using OpenGL on Mesa. This is similar to the Xorg state tracker approach and while it's not yet enabled by default, Intel OTC developers have been making much progress in recent months. In this article is a look at the recent Glamor update while comparing it to the stock Intel UXA acceleration as well as to the other experimental acceleration option: Intel SNA.
-
Pink Samsung Galaxy Note is coming to the UK next month
Designed for women with big hands
-
LOHAN starts to feel the barometric pressure
Mulls spaceplane rocket motor triggerAs the design of our Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator (LOHAN) Vulture 2 spaceplane continues apace, we've been considering just how to fire the aircraft's solid rocket motor at a predetermined altitude.…
-
Halo 4 is available for pre-order
Time to book 6 November off, Spartan
-
Soyuz hooks up with Space Station, delivers new 'nauts
Full crew to be ready for Dragon arrivalVid The Soyuz spacecraft carrying three new members of Expedition 31 hooked up with the International Space Station this morning without a hitch at 4.36am GMT.…
-
Crooks sell skint fanbois potatoes instead of iPhones
'I wanted an Apple, not a vegetable'Greater Manchester police are appealing for help after a number of people who thought they were laying hands on a shiny new iPhone ended up with a sack of spuds instead.…
-
Compare The Market can't touch web filth extension - simples
First biz to lose .xxx cybersquat disputePrice comparison biz Compare The Market has lost its bid to seize the domain name comparethemarket.xxx.…
-
Chinese counterfeiter goes out of business
By way of prison
-
Off-the-shelf forensics tool slurps iPhone data via iCloud
Cops don't need your actual phone any moreElcomSoft has updated its mobile forensics software to include the ability to retrieve online backups from Apple iCloud storage.…
-
UK.gov IT slasher axes himself - after 5 months in new job
Ian Watmore follows horde of civil servants streaming out the doorFormer tech-spending axeman Ian Watmore is leaving the civil service just five months after taking up a new role as the permanent secretary at the Cabinet Office.…
-
Blottr wants to reinvent news
Interview
CEO Adam Baker talks up collaborative reporting by journalists and readers
-
Steam's remote library management now out of beta
Stuck at work and eager to try a new game as soon as you get home? Too lazy to get out of bed to start a game download? Good news, then: Steam's remote library management feature has come out of beta.
...
-
Steam's remote library management now out of beta
Stuck at work and eager to try a new game as soon as you get home? Too lazy to get out of bed to start a game download? Good news, then: Steam's remote library management feature has come out of beta.
...
-
SoundBrush
Paint me a tuneiOS App of the Week After happily tapping away with Figure just recently, I decided to try and find some other simple apps that might be fun for musically challenged people like me. SoundBrush is well named, as its clever interface allows you to doodle with sound in the same way that you would sketch with a simple painting app.…
-
HP frogmarches new Xeon, Opteron chips into ProLiants
Wants world+dog to know that it's also using E5-2400 two-socketeersIn the wake of Intel's launch of the entry Xeon E5-2400 processors for two-socket servers earlier this week, X86 server juggernaut Hewlett-Packard wants to keep its name in the mind of customers who might be shopping for systems from rivals Dell, IBM or Fujitsu.…
-
Microsoft books stall at Appule - the Mac expo stiffed by Apple
Redmond to flog Office at UK fanboi gatheringMicrosoft has signed up for the Appule Personal and Professional User Live Expo, which Apple has so far snubbed.…
-
Samsung Galaxy S III is up for pre-order at T-Mobile
Get yours with unlimited data
-
UK man to spend year in the clink for Facebook account hack
21-year-old admitted breaking into US victim's profileA British man has been jailed for a year after hacking into the Facebook account of a US citizen.…
-
Legal scholars lend weight to ACTA debate in the US
It's not a treaty until it's ratified by the US Senate
-
Iomega's new Xeon-packing NAS does more than store data
The Iomega px12-450r
Iomega
As network-attached storage devices add more powerful processors and more RAM, and as manufacturers add applications and features to differentiate their products from the competition, the line between a NAS and a low-end server continues to blur. Iomega's new px12-450r is a 12-drive, 2U NAS that shares many features with the existing px12-350r, but adds a faster processor, more RAM, support for 4TB hard drives, and support for 10 gigabit Ethernet via PCI Express expansion slots.
The new NAS is powered by a new quad-core Intel Xeon based on Intel's Ivy Bridge architecture, which, like the consumer-focused Core processors, features increased performance and lowered power consumption compared to its predecessors. Using this stronger processor and its 8GB of RAM, the px12-450r can run more applications without the need for an additional server—camera surveillance software is already available from MindTree and Soleratec, and an SDK will be available for anyone who wants to create their own programs for the px12-450r's Linux distribution.
The px12-450r is also the first of Iomega's networked storage products to include a three-year license for McAfee VirusScan Enterprise, which runs directly on the NAS to provide a layer of protection from users and devices not running antivirus software themselves. McAfee will also be included on other Iomega's px-series NAS products when it is available in the third quarter of this year, but the company says it currently has no plans to offer the software to existing customers.
-
Steve Jobs' death clears way for rumoured 4in 'iPhone 5' screen
Apple places order for large display, claim sourcesThe next Apple iPhone will have an enlarged 4-inch screen, according to well-placed anonymous sources.…
-
Target's Price-Match Policy Not Suited To Paperless World
Brick-and-mortar stores that match competitors' prices generally don't match prices from online merchants. They also won't match the websites of their competitors down the street, or price-match their own websites. All of that is reasonable and well within their rights. But what happens in a paperless world, where the only evidence a customer has of that sale price is a circular delivered electronically? Reader Span_Wolf receives an electronic copy of the Best Buy circular every week. Getting a paper copy would require a trip to Best Buy or purchasing a Sunday newspaper. But this isn't sufficient proof of the lower price for Target.
Best Buy had a product I was interested in on sale. It was listed in their weekly circular. The weekly ad that is sent out in paper form, via email to those that subscribe to the BB newsletter, and visible digitally right on their website when you click on the "Weekly Deals" button on the front page.
I decided to go to Target to pick up said item instead of Best Buy because I had a gift card to Target, the Target was much closer, and Target price matches. I offered them a print out of the page of the ad, to show them the web version of the ad on my phone, as well as pulling it up right there on their computer to show them the sale price on the Best Buy website. They declined to price match without an original print circular. I asked why and two different customer service agents said, "Policy." I asked what exactly the policy was and they couldn't describe it further. I asked them what difference it made considering it wasn't a coupon but a sale price and what difference there is between the paper version and the carbon copy digital version visible on their website? After leaving the store I called up the support number and got the exact same response, and lack of clarification.
I did not have the print circular on hand, because I do not receive it in the mail, I get it emailed to me every week. It would be a pain to go get one because after the effort of driving to a Best Buy that's much further way than the Target is, and then going back to the target to get the deal, I might as well save myself the extra effort and buy the item at Best Buy when I go there the first time.
I really just want to know what's the point to the policy? I can understand not wanting photocopied coupons, or advertised deals via third party sites, but when I can give 3 different versions of the exact same ad, all directly from Best Buy, what reason does Target have to refuse me?
-
Watchdog tells Greenpeace to stop 'encouraging anti-social behaviour'
Hippies told to stop asking for money to fund vandalismThe UK's advertising watchdog has upheld a complaint against advertising by hippy collective Greenpeace, which solicited money to help in such things as breaking into power stations and defacing property.…
-
Facebook hacker jailed
Gets a year for takeover of one account
-
Pinterest valued at $1.5 BILLION, bags $100m in funding
Next stop: JapanCupcake and kitten-laden photo site Pinterest has bagged $100m in funding from a bunch of investors led by Japanese online retailer Rakuten.…
-
Morningstar Veggie Dogs Make Triumphant Return To Grocery Shelves
I have to be honest: the last two summers have been tough. Like other vegetarians, I've been forced to make it through grilling season without access to the superior veggie dogs made by Morningstar Farms. They disappeared from store shelves in 2009 due, the company told sad customers, to a problem with sourcing one of the ingredients. The popular corn dogs returned last year, but the plain old hot dogs didn't...until now. They're back on store shelves, but are they any good? I set out on a rigorous research project, also known as "dinner."
The bad news is that they've been shrink rayed. Now a box of six dogs, not eight, sells at the same price point as other Morningstar meatless wonders.
I cooked mine in boiling water instead of grilling them, so I can't say whether they have the same blistered skin as the old version. They tasted close to my memories of the original.
(Those are pierogies on the right, before anyone asks.)
They're not exactly pure food products. The ingredients list contains the vegetarian equivalents of pig lips and cow anuses, items like "SOY PROTEIN ISOLATE" and "HYDROLYZED CORN PROTEIN." They're also still not vegan. But they're awfully tasty.
PREVIOUSLY:
Morningstar Farms Veggie Dogs Disappear, Taking Vegetarians' Dreams With Them
Morningstar Corn Dogs Make Triumphant Return To Grocery Shelves
-
What's responsive Web design all about?
The website for Washington's Sasquatch Music Festival responds automatically to the width of the browser's window.
When you consider how many different tablets, laptops, Web browsers, and operating systems access the Internet on a day-to-day basis, it's a small miracle that Web designers and developers manage to stay sane. There are, of course, Web standards and entire organizations that exist for the sole purpose of making sure the Internet you see is generally the same Internet that everyone else sees. But the sheer number of devices can pose a bit of a problem when you're attempting to create a site or service that works well for the masses.
In the past, a developer or designer might code a different site for desktop and mobile users, often with some or all of the same functionality. For the most part, in fact, this is still how things are done today. But in some cases, that's beginning to change. A relatively new technique called "responsive design" has been gaining traction over the past few years, and it's promising to change the way we code and interact with the Internet on devices of all shapes and sizes.
Responsive Web design, as the name implies, is a style of Web development where content responds to the device on which it is being rendered. So, while a website viewed from within a traditional desktop browser might be rendered one way, a tablet or smartphone browser will be smart enough to render that same code in a different way—one that takes into account the size and resolution of a smaller screen. Text is reflowed, navigation is simplified, and images are shrunk, or even hidden entirely, and the code to do it all needs only be written once.
-
Council fined £70k after burglars nick vulnerable kids' files
Second data law breach in two yearsThe UK's privacy watchdog has fined the London Borough of Barnet £70k ($111k) after the local authority lost extremely sensitive information about young children for the second time in two years.…
-
Can Verizon Hike My Cable Box Rent In The Middle Of A Contract?
Jeanne has had her Verizon FiOS settop boxes for three years now, and the rent for them has remained the same. Until now. The difference is only a dollar, but what vexes her is that she just signed a contract in order to get a discount on her service. They shouldn't be able to raise the rent when she's signed a contract. Should they? And why is the rent higher when she still has the same old boxes?
I just received my Verizon cable/internet bill and noticed a strange $1 fee for partial month set top box rental, and then noticed that the monthly rent on each box had increased by $1.
Verizon did not notify me, nor call out the increased rental fee on the bill.
When I called Verizon I was told that there was nothing they could do, the rental price for all boxes of this type had increased, and the hold time for a supervisor was 45 to 60 minutes.
These are the same boxes that I have had for almost three years, and they have not provided any increase in service.My current options are limited because I stupidly agreed to a two-year contract in December to secure a $5/month discount after they increased the monthly fee by $10. And they are giving out $300 gift cards for new installations with no contract. [hand to forehead]
1. Can they increase the rent on an item that's already installed?
2. Can they do it without notice?
3. Is there someone I can complain to at the FCC?You can try to make the case that the raised fee is a materially adverse charge, but that depends on the contact of the contract that you signed with Verizon. You can also try to just get the rental fee waived for the remainder of the contract. Verizon has proven receptive to executive e-mail carpet bomb in the past.
-
NHTSA Eyes New Rollover Prevention Rules for Large Trucks, Buses
Electronic stability control systems may become mandatory in big trucks and buses -
Man with Paralyzed Hands Writes, Feeds Himself Again After Nerve Rewiring Surgery
Researchers connected undamaged nerves to damaged nerves in order to help a patient regain movement in his hands -
E15 Fuel Could Damage Cars According to Automakers, DOE Says "Whatever"
Automakers claim E15 damaged 2 out of 8 test cars
-
Asking A State Trooper For Illegal Alcohol By Text Message Won't Work Out Well
It's always a good idea to double and triple check to make sure you know who you're texting -- no one wants to say, accidentally send a message to an Alaska State Trooper regarding the illegal purchase of alcohol, after all.
The Associated Press says two women are facing possible charges up there yonder in the coldest part of our fair country, after errant text messages were fired off to a state trooper.
A spokeswoman for the Troopers said an off-duty trooper began receiving text messages from an unknown phone number after midnight one night. Alcohol sales are barred in that particular community, 400 miles west of Anchorage, because no one has been cleared to sell it.
The trooper responded to the texts and arranged a meeting. Officials say the woman who was texting and another alleged buyer showed up to the meeting. As did the trooper, in his uniform.
The women both face possible misdemeanor charges. No word on whether they were texting while walking.
Authorities: Text message soliciting illegal alcohol buy errantly sent to Alaska trooper [Associated Press]
-
Damned if you don’t (dam): groundwater use outpacing dam building
Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River in China
Photo by Pedro Vásquez Colmenares
Last year, we had covered a study on the non-trivial contribution of groundwater depletion to sea level rise. It concluded that humans have pumped enough water from underground sources to account for up to 13 percent of the rise in ocean levels that occurred between 2000 and 2008.
A caveat, from a related paper, was that this might be offset by an increased retention of surface water in large reservoirs behind new dams. That would make the net effect of these human activities a wash. In fact, the 2007 IPCC report left out groundwater depletion when projecting sea level rise because of the uncertainty of existing estimates and the presumed balance with reservoir impoundment.
A new estimate, published recently in Geophysical Research Letters, takes a closer look at dam building and projects current trends into the future. While groundwater depletion continues, dam construction is on the decline. The result should be an increasing contribution to sea level rise.
-
Adobe sucks on Oracle brain drain for HTML5 game gain
Java VM experts exit en masseAdobe seems to be juicing its software gaming credentials against HTML5 by grabbing some hard-core Sun Microsystems talent as they slip out Oracle's back door.…
-
Google will meet with French privacy watchdog
To discuss privacy policy changes
-
Google, French watchdog to hook up over privacy
Last encounter left CNIL unsatisfiedGoogle will meet CNIL next week to chat about the French regulator's ongoing concerns over the web giant's revamped privacy policy.…
-
Google Knowledge Graph straddles semantic web and Star Trek
Beyond Bing-blocking and screen-fiddlingGoogle’s battle to retain search supremacy is seeing it roll something it claims will take us closer to the "computers of Star Trek".…
-
No More Plastic Bags Anywhere In Hawaii
Quite a few municipalities have managed to ban the practice of giving out non-biodegradeable plastic bags at checkout, including three of Hawaii's four counties. Last month, the Honolulu County Council passed its own ban, making Hawaii the first state where single-use plastic bags in stores are verboten.
It's important to note that this isn't a statewide ban, like California tried and failed a few years ago. It just means that each county has passed its own separate ban.
There are some useful exceptions, including: dry-cleaning bags, bags for live fish, door-hanger bags, prescription drug bags, and (thank goodness) dog waste bags. Retailers have until 2015 to comply and get rid of their existing bag stocks.
Should Plastic Shopping Bags Be Banned?
Plastic Bags Banned on All Hawaiian Islands [Plastic Bag Ban Report]
-
LinkedIn profiles tease new Mirror's Edge, Bad Company titles
Almost a year ago, EA Games President Frank Gibeau told GameTrailers that EA was "actively looking at how to bring [Mirror's Edge] back in the right way." A sequel to the first-person free-running action game based on Battlefield 3's Frostbite 2 engine could be in the cards, he said.
Now, fresh evidence suggests the game has been in development for some time—or definitely was at some point in the past. As GamerZines reports ...
-
LinkedIn profiles tease new Mirror's Edge, Bad Company titles
Almost a year ago, EA Games President Frank Gibeau told GameTrailers that EA was "actively looking at how to bring [Mirror's Edge] back in the right way." A sequel to the first-person free-running action game based on Battlefield 3's Frostbite 2 engine could be in the cards, he said.
Now, fresh evidence suggests the game has been in development for some time—or definitely was at some point in the past. As GamerZines reports ...
-
Pre-Pet Commodore micro up for grabs on eBay
Kim-1 could be yoursReaders, you now have 12 hours or so to bid for a slice of computing history: a Kim-1 single-board computer, released some 36 years ago by the company that would become a key part of Commodore.…
-
Jam Band Fights The Ticketmaster Man By Scalping Its Own Tickets
You're not the only one who's sick and tired of all the fees levied on event tickets sold through Ticketmaster. Members of jam band String Cheese Incident are so fed up with fans having to shell out extra cash, that they're taking a stand by buying up bunches of tickets and reselling those to concertgoers, sans fees. So sort of a reverse scalp, maybe?
The New York Times reports on String Cheese Incident's (heretofore known as SCI) ambitious plan to express discontent with the system, which ultimately results in a loss of money for the band.
One Friday afternoon recently, about 50 fans and friends of the band String Cheese Incident took $20,000 in cash to the Greek Theater in Los Angeles to take a small stand against the system - in this case, Ticketmaster.
With money advanced by the band, each person had enough to buy eight tickets at $49.95 apiece for the group's show in July. Once all tickets were in hand, almost 400 of them, they were carried back to String Cheese headquarters in Colorado and put on sale again through the group's Web site - for $49.95.
MIke Luba, a band manager, explained, "We're scalping our own tickets at no service charge. It's ridiculous."
The band has a solid following, and wants to be able to offer tickets to its entire summer tour without service fees charged by Ticketmaster and other vendors. They're willing to eat the cost this summer in order to show their fans how much they appreciate them, said one member.
This battle against Ticketmaster isn't coming out of the blue -- SCI has handled as much as half of its own ticket sales to many of its shows. It sued Ticketmaster in 2003, accusing the company of abusing its market power by denying the group more than the 8 percent of tickets it customarily makes available to acts.
That case was settled, and allowed the band to handle tickets for five years, an agreement which ended in 2009.
"I would argue that on some level they are our tickets," Luba said. "If people in a free market find that Ticketmaster's service is easier and more effective, by all means go for it. But we have found a group of people who are used to buying tickets directly from the band's Web site."
Ticketmaster didn't comment, citing a confidentiality agreement with the band. One that Luba noted as well after a few interviews.
In other recent SCI/ticket news, scalpers used an Americans with Disabilities Act loophoole to snatch up all the wheelchair-accessible seats, resulting in some fans with actual disabilities not being able to buy tickets to an SCI show at Red Rocks in Colorado.
A Band Battles Ticketmaster on Sales Fees [Associated Press]
-
Nvidia drops veil on game-changing might of VGX
VDI'ing Your BYODsHPC blog What’s a “holy crap” moment? For me, it’s when I see or hear (or do) something that has far-reaching and previously unforeseen consequences. I’ve had at least two of these moments (so far) at the GTC 2012 conference. The first was when Jen-Hsun Huang, in his keynote presentation, tossed up a slide about Kepler and this new thing they’re calling VGX.…
-
Survey Finds Best & Worst Airlines For Redeeming Rewards Miles
It's incredibly easy to pile up airline miles. I think I just earned 400 miles for merely mentioning this fact. But as you may have already discovered, it's not always so simple to actually redeem those miles. A new survey looked at dozens of domestic and international carriers to find which ones were more likely to have seats available for rewards travel.
The folks at IdeaWorks queried the availability of rewards seats on a range of dates from this coming June through October.
Southwest Airlines' Rapid Rewards program was the best of any U.S. airline (and tied with Air Berlin's Topbonus for best overall), with 100% of travel dates having flights with at least two rewards seats available.
The next-best U.S. carrier was AirTran, which is now owned by Southwest. IdeaWorks had a success rate of 87.1% when searching for rewards travel on the discount airline. This tied AirTran with United Airlines -- the highest-rank major domestic carrier. Both AirTran and United saw remarkable upticks in rewards seat availability (40% and 15.7%, respectively) over last year's survey.
These two were followed immediately by JetBlue, with an 86.4% availability rate. The nearest U.S. carrier on the list after that was American Airlines, with only a 45.7% rate -- a drop of 17.2% from last year.
But even that wasn't as sad as the numbers for U.S. Airways (33.6%) or the survey's worst-ranked airline, Delta, which remained unchanged at 27.1%.
You can check out the entire report, which includes several international carriers, HERE [PDF].
-
BBC shrinks Red Button: Loses 8 channels after the Olympics
Extra 24 live HD streams during the GamesThe BBC will be dropping eight of its Red Button channels after an Olympic splurge, focusing on IPTV content instead of the alternative electronic programme guide that the Red Button had become.…
-
Indian Supreme Court orders Pirate Bay, Pastebin blocks, gets DDoSed
An injunction issued by an Indian court in a copyright infringement case has forced Indian Internet service providers to block access to the video-sharing sites Vimeo and DailyMotion, Bittorrent-tracker The Pirate Bay, text-sharing site Pastebin and a number of other websites. In response, members of Anonymous mounted a denial of service attack on the websites of the Indian Supreme Court and the Indian National Congress political party. As of 2pm GMT, both sites are back up.
The temporary restraining order (PDF) was issued by The High Court of Judicature at Madras in response to a lawsuit by the Chennai, India based company Copyrightlabs (whose site appears to have been taken down for maintenance) over the sharing of the movie "3" online. It orders ISPs to stop sharing of the film "by copying, recording, reproducing, camcording or communicating, or allowing others to to communicate" the contents of the film in any form.
Meanwhile, the denial of service attack on The Pirate Bay Ars examined on May 17—which lasted for over a day—has ended. ZDNet reports that credit for the attack was claimed by a hacker going by the name Nyre. The hacker, who also claims to be a former supporter of Anonymous, posted his displeasure with the quality of porn on The Pirate Bay just before the DDoS attack started.
-
Flying While Fat: Research And Self-Awareness Mean Smooth Travel
Reader Mechpaul is a large man. He used to avoid flying, afraid of what would happen if he was too big for his seat, encroaching on his neighbors' space and potentially being humiliated and marched off the plane. Instead of approaching his flight with fear, he armed himself with two essential tools: a measuring tape and the Internet. He used these to find out whether he would fit in a United Airlines seat, and to plan accordingly.
For years I had tried to stay away from planes. It's not that I was afraid of them. It's that I was obese and I didn't want to inconvenience the other passengers with my size. However, because of work, I had to travel out to Las Vegas from North Carolina. There wasn't much choice in the matter.
I wondered if I would have to buy two tickets. So, instead of buying one ticket and hoping for the best, I decided I would do my research. I found a website which listed all of the sizes of various airplane seats and found the average to be 18 inches wide. Then, using a yardstick, I realized that my hips were 21 inches wide. There was no way I would be able to fit in one seat and put the armrest down without cutting into my stomach. I needed to buy two tickets for me.
That's exactly what I did.
I didn't have any problems ordering two tickets. Both tickets had my name on it. I did have other issues. I was not allowed to check in online and I had to do so from the kiosk at the airport, and even the kiosk had problems and told me to check with an associate. I explained my situation (I am a large passenger and bought two tickets) and they were extremely courteous and helpful to me. She told me, "I would recommend that if you need to fly again and purchase two tickets for yourself, after purchasing call Delta and tell them they are both for you so we can merge the seats together on our flight plan. Otherwise, we'll see two people with the same name which can cancel out the tickets." She also checked all of my flights and made sure my two seats were adjoining. Then she sent me on my merry way.
Getting on the flights was absolutely no problem. I was never approached by a steward / associate telling me I was too fat to fly (and, if they had, I had two tickets to show them). Also, having two seats was a great thing as well. The people next to me enjoyed having the extra room to sprawl, and I was able to use the tray table of the other seat since I couldn't fully deploy mine due to my size. I also discovered that I was absolutely right from the start - I was encroaching on the seat next to me and I could not put down the armrest. My research paid off. I didn't have a single issue with any of my flights.
In short, learning to be real with yourself about how large you are is not a discriminatory issue against obese passengers. It's about being comfortable with your size and learning where you can fit and where you can't. I did the 10 minutes of research and had a comfortable flying experience. Thank you, Delta, for being courteous to an obese passenger!
-
Finally a real use for NFC: Heart monitor in a credit card
Pay-by-bonk becomes bleeding-edge techVid We've seen heart monitors built into mobile phones and puck-sized Bluetooth kit, but now iMPak Health has got one down to the size of a credit card and used wireless technology to transfer the data.…
-
Should Domino's Be Held Accountable For Franchisee's Robocalls?
Where do you place the invisible line of responsibility that separates a national fast food company from the actions of its franchisees? That was the question facing a judge in Washington state, who found that Domino's Pizza should not be held liable for the questionable telephone marketing employed by one of its franchisees.
In the proposed class-action suit, filed in a U.S. District Court in Tacoma, the plaintiffs had alleged that they had received "numerous calls... in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act."
The plaintiffs claimed that the calls were made without any prior consent having been given and that the pre-recorded message always identified the called as "Domino's Pizza."
Domino's defense had been that the calls were made by a telemarketing firm hired by the local franchisee. However, the suit claims that the franchisee and the telemarketer came together at a national franchisee convention where Domino's allowed the telemarketer to market its service to franchisees.
Additionally, the plaintiffs alleged that since Domino's franchise agreement states that franchisees "agree to participate in all national and local and regional advertising," then "Domino's has an extremely broad right to control advertising and marketing decisions, including robo-calling campaigns."
In depositions, Domino's executives stated that the company "does not engage in robo-call marketing on a national level and has little, if any, involvement in [a] franchisee's local marketing plans."
The judge sided with Domino's, writing: "The mere fact that Domino's requires franchisees to participate in marketing campaigns does not somehow mean that any franchisee's illegal use of [robo-calling] is imputed to the franchisor... it is not enough that Domino's benefitted from the calls (although they surely did)."
While the judge did dismiss the case against Domino's and deny the plaintiffs' request for class-action status, he allowed the case against the franchisee to continue.
Domino's Dodges Suit Over Robocall Marketing [CourthouseNews.com]
-
Viacom, Time Warner kiss and make up over iOS app streaming
Photo illustration by Aurich Lawson
Users of Time Warner Cable's iPad app will soon have access to a plethora of Viacom-owned content once again thanks to a settlement between the two companies. Viacom announced the agreement on its blog on Wednesday, saying that the two companies have "agreed to resolve their pending litigations" so that Time Warner subscribers will now have access to shows like the intellectually stimulating Jersey Shore and The Daily Show through the TWC TV iOS apps.
"All of Viacom’s programming will now be available to Time Warner Cable subscribers for in-home viewing via internet protocol-enabled devices such as iPads and Time Warner Cable will continue to carry Viacom’s Country Music Television (CMT) programming," the companies said in a joint statement. "In reaching the settlement agreement, Time Warner Cable and Viacom were also able to resolve other unrelated business matters to their mutual satisfaction. Neither side is conceding its original legal position or will have further comment. "
The dispute goes back to early 2011 when Time Warner rolled out its free iPad app that allowed Time Warner subscribers to stream live TV from dozens of channels. As it turns out, Time Warner had rolled out the app without working out the legal details with Viacom, which owns a handful of cable channels offered through Time Warner (including MTV and Comedy Central). Viacom wasn't the only one, either—Fox also sent a cease-and-desist letter to have its content removed, and Time Warner ended up shedding many of the channels it had originally launched with the app.
-
Facebook Co-Founder Could Save $67 Million in Taxes After Axing U.S. Citizenship
Bloomberg reached this number by adding the 15 percent U.S. capital gains rate to the $448 million difference between September's $2.44 billion and today's $2.89 billion
-
Sony Vaio S Series hands on [Video]
A Sony product specialist shows us the 13.3in model, the S13
-
SGI skips future Xeon E7s, lobs E5-4600s into UV2 supers
Adds Xeon E5s, Tesla K10 GPU coprocessors to rackable boxesSupercomputer and cluster maker Silicon Graphics has fallen hard for Intel's new "Sandy Bridge-EP" Xeon E5-4600 processors for four-socket servers.…
-
Acronis creates new roles for biz and M&A hotshots
Could be poised to snap up some juicy prospectsData protection software supplier Acronis has created two new roles on its executive team: senior vice president in corporate development and SVP in global business development. The move suggests the firm is anticipating a spike in growth and is preparing itself to make a few acquisitions, or even positioning itself to be acquired.…
-
Lenovo Has My Defective Computer, Isn't Returning My Calls
Bethany's Lenovo laptop computer is pretty nice. At least, it is when it's around. It keeps taking extended vacations at Lenovo's repair depot, to the point that she had to buy another computer in order to get through finals and computerless life in general. After they held on to her machine for three weeks, she finally asked for a refund instead of getting the evidently defective computer back. That's when they stopped returning her calls.
I became a Lenovo customer in September of last year, when I bought a laptop from them on the basis of positive things I'd heard about their products and customer service. My laptop worked just fine for two or three months, and then in December the power jack became loose and the laptop stopped functioning. I sent it in for repair, got it back quickly, no worries - right?
In February, the same thing happened again. I called tech support and they promised it would be fixed for good this time, or else Lenovo would offer me alternative options. I sent it in and waited almost a month to get it back. Not surprisingly, a few weeks after it was returned to me, the same issue started recurring.
I called Lenovo, requested a replacement, and got my complaint escalated. The guy who dealt with my issue said that it would be fixed properly this time, and within 5-10 days (this was crucial, since I had plans to leave the country for the summer, and I wanted to take my laptop with me). I agreed, sent my laptop back in, and waited.
And waited. Lenovo didn't bother to contact me to give me any repair updates, I was stressing out with finals (and actually ended up shelling out for a netbook just to get me through them), and once I realised that it had been three weeks since I'd sent the laptop, I shot a quick email to the guy who was handling my case. He responded to say they were waiting on a part and he was going to look into replacing my laptop; since I was planning to leave the US for three months about three days later, I asked him about the possibility of a refund instead of a repair or a replacement.
This is where he stopped responding. I tried calling, tried emailing again, but nada. As far as I'm concerned, this lack of a response was nothing more than a ridiculous delaying tactic, because today, TEN DAYS after I'd asked for a refund, he emailed me to say that my laptop had been repaired and shipped back. He did not bother to respond to any of my actual concerns.
Since I've left the country for the summer, and I hate the idea of waiting three months to test out my laptop after a repair, I'm pretty understandably pissed about this. My warranty runs out a month after I get back, and I'm pretty sure that even if something does go wrong, Lenovo will just delay any actual repair till it's out of warranty. (Had they at least offered me some kind of warranty extension, I would have been pacified.) I think I've been pretty reasonable throughout all this, and I'm furious that Lenovo haven't even bothered responding to my concerns, especially as it looks like I'll have the use of my laptop for less than six months out of my first year of ownership.
That's not very nice. In the past, Lenovo has responded well to executive e-mail carpet bombs, and if you used a credit card to purchase the laptop, it may also be worthwhile to check and see what kind of warranty extension protection they provide.
-
Wendy's Offer Of A Small, Hot Redhead Confuses Those Out Of The Coffee Loop
The Internet world is in a buzz of confusion. Or at least some of its denizens are, after a Wendy's coupon offered up a "Free Small Hot Original Redhead" with any purchase. Sounds like a good deal -- or it sounds like you could get a small ginger person, if you aren't aware that Redhead Roasters is Wendy's newish moniker for its coffee.
Over on Reddit, a common thread tied to a post showing the coupon is a sense of befuddlement along the lines of: "Uh, hey, everyone, what exactly is a Redhead?" Surely it can't be an actual human, because that would be human trafficking.
A few savvy commenters filled in their confused peers, and we also checked it out over at Wendy's official breakfast site, where it appears that yes indeed, a Redhead is a coffee.
We've asked a Wendy's rep to check into the coupon, to make sure it's even a valid offer.
We've all learned a little something new today. Thanks, Internet!
*Hats off to Jeff for the tip!
Wendy's now in the business of human trafficking. [DasPope on Reddit]
-
5/17/2012 Daily Hardware Reviews
DailyTech's roundup of hardware reviews from around the web for Thursday
-
According to iTunes, "jailbreak" is a four-letter word
Enlarge
Someone at Apple appears to have decided that the word "jailbreak" is a dirty word. The term is now being filtered in iTunes Store search results, as originally reported by Shoutpedia.
Apple often filters many of the most common swear words (but curiously, not "bitch"). When returning search results for these terms, the iTunes Store will show the word with most letters replaced with asterisks, e.g. "f**k."
And now, searching for the term "jailbreak" returns numerous results for songs and albums titled "J*******k." Curiously, the filtering doesn't appear to include a handful of TV shows and books with the word "jailbreak" or "jailbreaks" in the title, nor does it filter the word in every single case.
-
Ford's C-MAX Hybrid Targets Toyota Prius v, Priced from $25,995
Ford has the Prius v in its crosshairs
-
U.S. Postal Service Set To Close Or Combine 229 Mail Processing Sites
The U.S. Postal Service has announced its next step in the belt-tightening process of trying to cut down on its costs. It will close or consolidate operations at 140 mail processing sites through February 2013, said a postal official.
Reuters cites USPS Chief Operating Officer Megan Brennan who said that the closing or consolidation of those 140 sites is one part of a two-phase process. The second involves another wave of shutting down or combining operations at 89 additional facilities beginning in February 2014.
Facing a loss of $14 billion this year, the USPS had previously announced some drastic measures, including closing down a rumored 3,700 of its 32,000 post offices. That plan was recently replaced with one that would instead reduce hours at those locations, saving the USPS about half a billion dollars.
This all started in February when the USPS announced it would have to cut jobs, close post offices, get rid of Saturday delivery and raise stamp prices in order to save money. Those plans are on hold as the government furrows its collective brow over how to save the USPS using other measures.
U.S. Postal Service to close or consolidate 140 sites [Reuters]
-
The state of particle physics—a report from Pheno 2012
So far, the CMS detector hasn't found any indications of supersymmetric particles.
CMS/CERN
I spent three days last week at the Phenomenology 2012 Symposium in Pittsburgh, known as Pheno 2012. Phenomenology specifically refers to the practice of predicting and analyzing the results of particle physics experiments, and the symposium looked at the possibility of a "new physics"—things not predicted by the Standard Model of particles and interactions—that might show up in experiments like the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
Particle physics is the study of the particles that make up ordinary matter—quarks, electrons, and so forth—along with their more exotic cousins produced in high-energy collisions. Accelerators bring particles up to high speeds and smash them together for the purposes of probing the internal structure of atomic nuclei and the forces holding matter together. The weak and strong nuclear forces play important roles at high energies—along with potentially interesting new forces and new particles yet undiscovered.
The energies involved are sufficient to access the quarks that are normally locked away inside protons and neutrons. But they also make it possible to create new particles—a process described in part by Albert Einstein's famous formula E = mc2. If you put enough energy into the collisions, some of it will get converted to mass in the form of a particle.
-
Seeing ads on Wikipedia? Then you're infected
Click fraudsters are milking you for cashSurfers who see ads when they visit Wikipedia are likely infected with malware, the online encyclopedia warns.…
-
Facebook pokes major hole in a Yahoo patent claim
In a potentially embarrassing blow to Yahoo, Facebook has discovered a document that seems to prove Yahoo was wrong in claiming that two patents owned by Facebook were issued under false pretenses.
Yahoo recently alleged that two patents Facebook purchased and then asserted against Yahoo were issued to the original inventor only because crucial information was intentionally withheld from the patent office. But Yahoo just didn't look in the right places. Facebook located a document that contradicts Yahoo's claim, along with evidence that Yahoo never tried to access the document.
As background, Yahoo sued Facebook in March, alleging that the company infringed ten patents held by Yahoo. In response, Facebook countersued Yahoo with ten patents of its own, most of which Facebook acquired from other entities. As part of its defense against these new counterclaims, Yahoo alleged that two of Facebook's patents were obtained fraudulently.
-
Police Efforts to Ban Citizen Taping Beaten Back by Department of Justice
Feds back ACLU in arguing that taping is necessary to prevent police brutality; some cops disagree
-
Spammers Using Pinterest Pics To Hide Scammy Links
Through the evolution of e-mail, the Internet and social media, most of the rules for identifying spam remained the same. The text of a scam e-mail sent on old school AOL isn't that different from the spam links posted today on Twitter or Facebook. But photo-based social sites like Pinterest are giving nogoodniks a less-familiar way to trick people into clicking.
It's incredibly easy to create a Pinterest page, then load it up with images people on which people will want to click. And it's just as easy to have those legitimate-looking photos link back to less-than-legitimate content.
But what isn't easy, is getting the problem resolved.
Bloomberg has the story of a jewelry maker who found that a photos of her products were being used to direct people to spam sites. She says she contacted Pinterest every day for 10 days before she was able to get the images with offending links removed.
But some damage had already been done, both to those who clicked and to the woman whose images had been swiped.
"I can't gauge how many customers I lost," she tells Bloomberg. "But I did have people messaging me asking, 'Are you linked to spam?' I was just distraught."
Spammers Invade Pinterest-Era Social Media, Avoid E-Mail [Bloomberg]
-
Mutant number-crunchers win cluster popularity contest
CUDA you dig it? Yes, you canHPC blog Hybrid computing has come a very long way in a relatively short period of time. My first exposure to hybrids came at SC08 in the lovely city of Austin, Texas. Earlier that year, the Roadrunner system at Los Alamos National Lab had achieved two milestones: 1) It was the first system to break through the petabyte barrier; and 2) It was the first high-profile hybrid system.…
-
330Mbps fiber-to-the-home coming to UK this summer
Back in 2006, BT and the British telecom regulator Ofcom reached an agreement which forced the former telco monopoly to make its copper wiring available to independent ISPs, who could then serve individual homes across the United Kingdom. Under this setup, BT's last-mile business became "Openreach" and nearly 400 ISPs and phone companies have taken advantage of this setup.
On Monday, Openreach announced it's ready to upgrade its wholesale offerings with fiber to the premises that will reach as high as 330 megabits per second.
“The 330/20 Mbit/s product is also launched with a special offer to encourage [ISPs] to offer the product variant to their customers and test this high bandwidth in the home environment,” the company said in a statement. At first, the new tier will come at a discount. “The 330/20 Mbit/s special offer will apply to orders raised between 11 June 2012 and 31 January 2013 and represents savings of more than 50 per cent per line per calendar month (based on transition prices).”
-
Comcast suspends data caps... for now
Cable giant Comcast, one of the largest Internet providers in the US, today announced a suspension of its 250GB/month data cap policy while it looks for better alternatives.
The two new approaches it has in mind don't differ radically from the current setup, but they do improve it modestly by increasing data limits for all users. Comcast will trial the scenarios in two different markets this year (to be named later), and it will not enforce the cap at all for customers not in a test market. (Comcast draws a distinction between “enforcing” the 250GB data cap and "contacting the very small number of excessive users about their usage"—which will continue.)
Here are the two proposed approaches to limiting monthly data use:
-
DIRECTV Offers "Exede" High-Speed Internet/Video Bundle in U.S.
DIRECTV has partnered with satellite broadband providers ViaSat and Hughes to offer a new video/Internet bundle called the Exede
-
What The Facebook IPO Could Mean To Consumers
Tomorrow, a very small group of people -- many of them already incredibly wealthy -- will be super incredibly wealthy when shares of Facebook start trading on Nasdaq. But while only a few folks will reap a direct, immediate benefit from the IPO, the decision to take Facebook public with such huge dollar amounts attached to the deal will definitely have a long-term impact on consumers.
From its infancy, venture capitalists have been pumping their cash into Facebook, and they will be paid back tomorrow when the company makes shares open to the public. Unfortunately, this now means that Facebook will now have a much larger group of investors, all of whom expect a return.
In order to keep that stock price up, Facebook will need earn more money. The current valuation is around 24 times the company's sales for the last 12 months.
Unless Facebook suddenly changes to a paid subscription model -- which it has said it will never do and which would decimate its audience -- to us, this means it will have to resort to more ads on the site and more invasive marketing techniques.
Facebook has generally shied away from conventional advertising (i.e., banner ads, page wraps, video headers), but their unconventional ads don't appear to be doing the trick for big-ticket advertisers. So we could easily see more standard types of online ads begin to creep their way onto the site. It's an easy way to generate revenue, especially given the size of Facebook's audience.
Beyond that, we expect to see more prominent "sponsored posts," which currently highlight the fact that one of your Facebook friends "liked" a sponsor. Our crystal ball (really just clear plastic) sees these posts being moved into the news feed and presented in a way that makes them more appealing to paying advertisers.
There are already hundreds of millions of registered Facebook users and while that number is likely to continue growing in the foreseeable future, that growth rate will eventually have to flatten. At that point, the site won't be able to tout its increasing audience size and will need to begin mining that audience for more revenue.
We predict changes to the privacy policy (or re-interpretations of existing policy) that would allow Facebook to skim through your posts and photos to allow advertisers to market directly to you.
So while you currently could like a retailer in order to get its daily deal posts, we would not be shocked if you suddenly started seeing e-mails from Facebook that say things like "We saw you mentioned Retailer X, here is a sale you might be interested in."
Interestingly enough, over at PCmag.com, they polled staffers for a wish list of what they hope to see happen on a post-IPO Facebook and almost all of their ideas -- getting rid of tagging, increased privacy, fewer social reader apps -- would seem to have a negative impact on Facebook's revenue.
-
Study Links Popular Antibiotic Zithromax To Rare But Deadly Heart Risk
Many people use the antibiotic Zithromax, or azithromycin, to treat bronchitis and other common infections. Some surprising results of a 14-year study might turn some off the antibiotic, as it found the risk of sudden deadly heart problems increased with use of Zithromax.
It's a more expensive antibiotic than others, notes the Associated Press (via KATU.com), but many people like it because it works in fewer days. Researchers at Vanderbilt University are now suggesting that due to the results of the study, doctors should prescribe other options for anyone already prone to heart problems.
The researchers analyzed health records and data on millions of prescriptions for several antibiotics given to about 540,000 Tennessee Medicaid patients from 1992 to 2006. Among those who took Zithromax during five days of treatment, there were 29 heart-related deaths. That risk was more than double that of patients on amoxicillin, another antibiotic, or those who took none.
Each group had patients with comparable risks of heart troubles, the researcher said. According to the results, there would be about 47 extra heart-related deaths per 1 million courses of treatment with Zithromax, compared to amoxicillin. People usually take Zithromax for about five days, instead of 10 days of amoxicillin or other antibiotics.
*Thanks for the linkage, Amy!
Antibiotic 'Zithromax' linked with rare but deadly heart risk [KATU.com]
-
You can feed 800 VMs off 1 of our boxes, startup brags
Tintri wraps NetApp up in white paperApparently, just adding a tincture of Tintri to your virtualised server-storage array pathway gets those VMs running like super-charged rockets. The firm says a European customer is running 800 virtual machines off one Tintri box, leaving a NetApp array chastened in the background.…
-
Twitter confirms support for Do Not Track
Twitter will officially support the Do Not Track feature in browsers, Ed Felten, chief technology officer for the Federal Trade Commission, announced on Thursday. Twitter itself confirmed its compliance in a tweet shortly after the announcement, meaning those who visit the site will be able to opt out of cookies that collect personal information.
This places Twitter in contrast to services like Facebook, which aggressively collects data on users and non-users alike (a site must actively support Do Not Track in order to prevent information collection; Facebook is not yet one of those sites). By complying with Do Not track, Twitter allows visitors to opt out of cookies that collect personal info, as well as third-party cookies that collect information for the use of advertising networks.
On one hand, this is Twitter continuing its support for user privacy—on May 8, the company fought back against a government subpoena for the tweets of an Occupy Wall Street protester. But this may also show the company's intent to draw a line in the sand with regard to its business model.
-
Arby's Is Really Sorry That Piece Of Finger Ended Up In A Sandwich
Tip to fast food workers: If you lose part of your finger while on the job, let your coworkers know so they don't just pick up making that sandwich where you left off. A 14-year-old boy in Michigan ended up with the "fingerprint portion" of an employee's finger in his sandwich recently after a trip to the drive-through.
MLive.com in Grand Rapids says the boy was eating the sandwich with his mother, when he pulled out a pad of finger from his mouth, say police. Let's pause for a huge, "eww!"
Arby's has already responded to soothe customers who might be upset by the incident.
"Arby's wants to reassure customers that we are committed to providing quality food in a safe and healthy environment. We are deeply concerned and apologetic to the guest involved in this unfortunate incident," says a letter signed by the vice president of corporate communications, John Gray. He called it an "isolated and unfortunate accident," but also says in the letter that Arby's has been unable to confirm the details and is conducting an investigation.
What appears to have happened is that a worker had cut her finger while operating the restaurant's meat slicer. When she left her station to tend to the wound without alerting anyone else to what had happened, her colleagues picked up where she left off and filled the order.
The meat slicer was subsequently shut down and cleaned according to proper protocol, in cooperation with the health department, and the employee and the boy are both doing fine.
We hope you've already eaten your lunch today.
*Thank you for the tip, Harper!
Arby's customer in Jackson, Michigan finds piece of finger in sandwich [MLive.com]
-
It's (just barely, sort of) alive!
marya
For something we are all familiar with, life tends to be a remarkably difficult thing to define. Most definitions, however, include the ability to reproduce. Which means that a microbial community that has been discovered on the floor of the Pacific Ocean stretches the definition of what it means to be alive.
Bacteria are detected in the sediments down to the level of at least 20m, and are probably present (if rare) below that. But based on oxygen consumption, the cells are operating at a metabolism that appears to be right at the minimum energy flux needed to simply keep their cellular components operational. With no energy to spare, it's possible that these cells are not even able to reproduce.
The discovery of thriving ecosystems at deep-ocean hydrothermal vents helped revolutionize how we view life. Unlike familiar ecosystems on the surface, these organisms weren't ultimately dependent upon sunlight to power the base of the food chain, instead relying on chemical energy provided by the Earth's internal heat. Since then, other communities have been found that rely on unusual sources of energy. Deep in a mine, organisms appear to rely on radioactive decay to provide a source of hydrogen. Under an Antarctic ice sheet, another community grabs its energy by oxidizing iron exposed by the glaciers.
-
Video mockup shows Metro version of Firefox
I apparently missed this last week, but it's worth a look if you haven't seen it. Ever wonder what Firefox will look like in Windows 8's Metro environment? We got an early glimpse earlier this month, when Mozilla announced plans for a unified Firefox visual identity. Now, there's more: a concept video whipped up by the Firefox UX Designer Yuan Wang.
...
-
Video mockup shows Metro version of Firefox
I apparently missed this last week, but it's worth a look if you haven't seen it. Ever wonder what Firefox will look like in Windows 8's Metro environment? We got an early glimpse earlier this month, when Mozilla announced plans for a unified Firefox visual identity. Now, there's more: a concept video whipped up by the Firefox UX Designer Yuan Wang.
...
-
Man Commits Suicide After Years Of Fighting Wachovia & Wells Fargo Over Mortgage Mess-Up
We've written some incredibly sad stories about homeowners trapped in the mortgage meltdown maze, and this one certainly ranks up there among the most depressing. Not just because a man is dead, but because it could have all been prevented more than three years ago.
Back in 2000, the man and his wife purchased a home together in Southern California. They made a 30% down payment and spent the next several years making their payments to the bank on-time and in-person.
They also spent several years dodging suggestions from Wachovia to refinance their mortgage. But five years ago, a Wachovia rep got into their heads with promises of lowering their monthly payments by more than $600 by refinancing using the bank's new Pick-A-Pay adjustable rate plan.
FYI, that's the same plan that just cost Wells Fargo $590 million because the folks at Wachovia had a habit of fudging application paperwork. In fact, the story here, the loan officer flat-out lied about the homeowners' income, almost doubling it on the application without their knowledge.
In addition to those deceptions, the homeowners were told "if an [interest rate] increase should occur it would have a negligible effect on the monthly payments of no more than a few dollars," and that they "should expect to refinance within the next two years to take advantage of even more favorable interest rates."
In spite of all this, the couple still made their monthly payments, in person, via cashier's check.
Then in May 2009, they were told they had missed a payment the month before. The homeowners say they provided proof that they had given a cashier's check to the teller for April, along with proof that the check had been cashed.
But Wachovia's collections department continued to demand payment. According to the homeowners, they received 6 to 8 calls each week from the bank.
In early August 2009, they received a notice of intent to foreclose, but when they contacted Wachovia they were told that their account was current and received an apology for the error.
Then later that month, Wachovia sent them a certified letter demanding payment of nearly $3,500. That same week, the bank claimed that the check which the homeowners had already proven had been cashed had actually had a stop-payment put on it.
However, the homeowners didn't issue the cancellation nor did they get that money back in their account.
While all this was going on, the couple alleged that they received multiple statements from Wachovia for several months. But these weren't duplicates, say the homeowners; the amounts were different on each statement.
In September 2009, the couple applied for a loan modification. And when they tried to make their payment at the local Wachovia, they were told it could not be accepted because the loan was being reviewed for a modification.
This continued on for several months, with the bank continuing to threaten foreclosure while all the while saying it could not accept payments during the review process.
The couple were put through the usual "we haven't received all your documents" wringer by Wachovia. Even after the bank, in April 2010, told them it had all the docs, a month later their application was denied because of supposed missing documentation.
"I had the money...I had the money. I had everything to make that work," the wife tells CBS Los Angeles.
They sold the house in November 2010, but their lawyer was able to get a judge to issue a stay. That eventually fell apart and earlier this month the family was given five days to get out of their house.
So that they would have somewhere to stay, the husband bought a motor home. But even that stopped working as soon as he got it back to their soon-to-be-former house.
The next day, Mother's Day, the man took his own life in his bedroom.
"He saw there was no more way out and there was no where to go and...he snapped," explains his wife, who says she has spent all her money fighting the bank.
Wells Fargo offered to let her and her son stay in the house a little longer, following her husband's death, but she tells CBS it's a little too late for that.
"I cannot be here anymore with what has happened with that blood bath in there, I can't," she says.
A rep for Wells Fargo released the following statement to Consumerist:
Our thoughts are with the friends and family of [the deceased] at this difficult time. The eviction has been postponed and we will continue to work with [his widow]. Despite current reports, we tried repeatedly to find affordable options for the family.
AlterNet has the full story, including a copy of the lawsuit filed by the couple in January of this year. We definitely recommend reading that complaint so you can get see just how messed up this situation was from the start.
Thanks to dragonfire81 for the tip.
-
New $74 Android mini computer is slightly larger than a thumb drive
The AllWinner A10 Android 4.0 mini PC
CNX Software
Chinese retailers have started selling a miniature Linux computer that is housed in a 3.5-inch plastic case slightly larger than a USB thumb drive. Individual units are available online for $74.
The small computer has an AllWinner A10 single-core 1.5GHz ARM CPU, a Mali 400 GPU, and 512MB of RAM. An HDMI port on the exterior allows users to plug the computer into a television. It outputs at 1080p and is said to be capable of playing high-definition video.
The device also has a full-sized USB port with host support for input devices, a conventional micro-USB port, a microSD slot, and an internal 802.11 b/g WiFi antenna. The computer can boot from a microSD card and is capable of running Android 4.0 and other ARM-compatible Linux platforms.
-
Canadian PM Harper: To Oppose Gov't Spying is to Support Child Porn
Contentious C-30 bill would allow gov't to seize citizens' private data without warrant
-
Seagate, WD need to get a firm grip on solid disks
Pro-tip: They should buy OCZ and STECBlocks and Files STEC is touting its great CellCare flash endurance, and it is great, reinforcing a view that it and OCZ make natural flash market buy-in points for Seagate and Western Digital.…
-
Dell forges GPU-enriched virty rack workstation
Quadro graphics and Tesla compute tag teamLike everyone else on the planet, you want a rocketsled to do your work. The faster, the better. But if Dell has its way, it may not be on top of or underneath your desk, but sitting in a rack in a data center. And it may not be a rocketsled as much as a rocketbus, with multiple people using it at the same time.…
-
Sprint Says "No Thanks" to Survivalist Merger
Hesse says iPhone deal is enough to carry through
-
Are You A Customer Service Saboteur? If So, What Kind?
The idea of the bad consumer -- the person whose antics make products and services more expensive or cause stores to enact anti-consumer policies -- is nothing new to Consumerist readers. But a college student in Washington recently undertook an effort to identify seven categories of what he calls "Customer Service Saboteurs."
Washington State University student Joel Anaya presented his findings on Customer Service Sabotage -- "The act or behavior must have a negative effect on others customers while at service establishments" -- at the Hospitality Business Management school's Academic Showcase.
"Customers don't just go to a restaurant to enjoy a burger," he explains. "They go to have a good time, to enjoy the ambience of the establishment. If that's ever affected, if they ever leave liking your hamburger but saying they had a bad time, that's not a win for the restaurant."
As part of his research, Anaya came up with the following categories of Customer Service Saboteurs:
Badmouthers: This is the most common class of saboteur, whose favorite weapon is loud profanity. "It's crazy what a few bad words can do, how uncomfortable they can really make other customers nearby," says Anaya.
Paranoid Shouters: These are close cousins to Badmouthers, but are identified by their tendency to lose control at the first sign of inadequate service or a perceived injustice.
Customers with Poor Hygiene: These are your fellow shoppers whose smell, or sweatiness or nose/ear/scab-picking sours other customers' -- and presumably store employees' -- experience.Outlandish Request-Makers: The shoppers and diners who bring customer service to a halt by making complex demands.
Service Rule-Breakers: These are line-cutters and other people who for whatever reason are convinced they aren't governed by the social norms that we all generally adhere to.
Bad Parents with Bad Kids: Parents who let their children run amok, not just making noise but actually interfering with the goings-on of other customers.
Unknowledgeable Customers: These are similar to the Outlandish Request-Makers, except these people hold up customer service by being uninformed about the product or service they are buying.Anaya's goal wasn't just to come up with funny categories for people that spoil the shopping experience. It's more about identifying the specific issues associated with each type of saboteur and acting appropriately.
We're sure y'all have different and/or better ideas for customer service saboteur types. Feel free to share in the comments.
-
Whitman said to be planning massive HP job cuts
25,000 to 35,000 HPers may face extinctionNew(ish) HP CEO Meg Whitman has been at the helm for long enough to come up with a longer-term plan for the company, and according to various rumors, her plan will look eerily familiar to HPers who remember the early years of ex-CEO Mark Hurd: job cuts, predominantly in services.…
-
FTC Applauds Twitter For Signing On With "Do Not Track" Firefox Feature
Twitter is joining the ranks of other websites that allow users to control who is checking out their online doings, announcing today that it is all set to support Do Not Track. For those not in the know, Do Not Track is a feature in Firefox that allows Internet surfers to tell participating websites that they don't want their activity tracked.
"As the Federal Trade Commission's CTO, Ed Felten, mentioned this morning, Twitter now supports Do Not Track," Twitter's Carolyn Penner wrote in an email to the Los Angeles Times. "We applaud the FTC's leadership on Do Not Track, and are excited to provide the benefits of Do Not Track."
Using the feature sends out a "Do Not Track HTTP" header every time a user's data is requested from the Web. Windows users can find it in the menu for Tools, then Options, then Privacy. Check the box next to "Tell websites I do not want to be tracked." Mac users can click on Firefox>Preferences>Privacy and click that box.
The FTC is likely pleased as punch that Twitter has joined the ranks of sites handing over more control to the consumers using those sites on a daily basis. In a recent report regarding consumer privacy, the FTC urged the Internet industry to keep it up with the self-regulatory measures like using Do Not Track.
"Although some companies have excellent privacy and data security practices, industry as a whole must do better .... Do Not Track is a step toward putting you in control of the way your information is collected and used online," read the report.
Twitter supports 'do not track' [LATimes.com]
-
Comcast answers data cap questions
D.C. Atty
In the wake of its decision to suspend its 250GB per month data caps while it considers two plans that would increase them to at least 300GB per month, Comcast execs took questions from journalists today about the move. Here, then, are Comcast's answers to the top questions, in bite-sized form. Unless indicated, all statements were made by Executive Vice President David L. Cohen.
How should journalists headline their stories today? "The headline today should be that there isn't a cap anymore. We're out of the cap business."
How has Comcast "killed" its caps? "Each of these pilot approaches will effectively offer unlimited usage of our services because customers will have the ability to buy as much data as they want."
-
Comcast To Remove 250GB Data Cap. Don't Celebrate Just Yet
Following the recent news that Comcast would not count any of its own Xfinity streaming video services against Internet customers' 250GB data cap, the folks at Kabletown have announced they is doing away with that cap -- and replacing it with tiered data plans.
The good news is that the tiers will actually begin above the 250GB level, with everyone bumped up to a 300GB cap.
The bad news is that those who go over that limit won't be throttled -- as Comcast currently does to cap-busters -- but will instead be hit with fees for additional blocks of GB.
(The Comcast statement gives an example of $10 for 50GB over the limit, but it's not clear if that's merely a possible example or an actual price to be quoted.)
Comcast isn't exactly set on how it's going to price those tiers, so it will begin doing trials in some select markets.
Adds the company:
In markets where we are not trialing a new data usage management approach, we will suspend enforcement of our current usage cap as we transition to a new data usage management approach, although we will continue to contact the very small number of excessive users about their usage.
So while we're glad that Comcast is realizing that more and more people are using the Internet to view data-hogging video, we won't be able to judge its tiered plan until we actually see the tiers and their respective overage prices.
-
Verizon CFO Probably Wasn't Supposed To Say That Thing About Killing Grandfathered Unlimited Plans
Yesterday, the CFO of Verizon Wireless kicked the hornet's nest that is the Internet by unofficially announcing that VZW would be killing off currently grandfathered unlimited data plans as customers made the shift from 3G to 4G LTE. Judging by the company's response since then, he probably wasn't supposed to let that particular cat out of the bag just yet.
In a statement that the L.A. Times labels "backpedaling," but which we would call "slapping a band-aid on a gut wound," Verizon Wireless posted this last night:
As we have stated publicly, Verizon Wireless has been evaluating its data pricing structure for some time. Customers have told us that they want to share data, similar to how they share minutes today. We are working on plans to provide customers with that option later this year.
We will share specific details of the plans and any related policy changes well in advance of their introduction, so customers will have time to evaluate their choices and make the best decisions for their wireless service. It is our goal and commitment to continue to provide customers with the same high value service they have come to expect from Verizon Wireless.
So wait -- are they getting rid of grandfathered plans or not? We're guessing that if the CFO had simply misspoken, then Verizon would be saying so.
It's possible that killing the grandfathered plans is just one option the company is considering, and therefore they can't officially say yay or nay, but when the CFO of the country's largest wireless company tells a room full of people that the goal is "moving everyone into a tiered structure data share plan," and that "everyone will be on data share," that sounds pretty concrete.
-
HTC Implements Workaround to Apple's Patent for Evo 4G LTE, One X
Customs ban remains in effect, government hasn't revealed when it will bother to review HTC's changes
-
Justice Dept. defends public’s constitutional ‘right to record’ cops
[]As police departments around the country are increasingly caught up in tussles with members of the public who record their activities, the U.S. Justice Department has come out with a strong statement supporting the First Amendment right of individuals to record police officers in the public discharge of their duties.
In a surprising letter (PDF) sent on Monday to attorneys for the Baltimore Police Department, the Justice Department also strongly asserted that officers who seize and destroy such recordings without a warrant or without due process are in strict violation of the individual’s Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
The letter was sent to the police department as it prepares for meetings to discuss a settlement over a civil lawsuit brought by a citizen who sued the department after his camera was seized by police.
-
CEO who rebelled against Microsoft over Windows licensing backs down
The CEO of a virtual desktop company who dared Microsoft to sue him by launching a service that would intentionally violate Windows licensing rules said today he is going to back down and issue a public apology.
Guise Bule, CEO of tuCloud, was angry that competitor OnLive offered a free virtual desktop service to iPad users for months without any public intervention from Microsoft, despite the service violating Microsoft’s rules for delivering hosted desktop services. The rules that everyone else has to follow, he said, are harmful to tuCloud because they impose licensing restrictions regarding the deployment of virtual Windows 7 desktops on multi-tenant infrastructure and to customers who haven’t bought Software Assurance and Virtual Desktop Access licenses. Only the biggest customers can afford that, he said.
In protest, Bule launched a new site called Desktops On Demand that promised cheap virtual desktops without following Microsoft licensing rules. Subsequently, OnLive pledged to Microsoft that it would go legit, but even then Bule said he would not back down.
-
What Is This Debt You Speak Of? Study Says Many Students Are Clueless About Student Loans
Student loan debt is the cause of plenty of headaches in this country, from aspiring nuns to the families of those straddled with a deceased loved one's payments. So it's a bit unsettling that a new study says many students are underestimating how much they owe -- and some don't even know they have debt in the first place. Shudder.
A financial literary study conducted by Iowa State University faculty and staff found that almost 40% of their students underestimated how much they owed, and one in eight didn't even realize they had debt, reports the Des Moines Register.
The researchers surveyed 801 undergraduate Iowans in fall 2010 in the process of coming up with these shocking figures. The study also found that 10% of those underestimating their debt were off by more than $10,000. Those who didn't take out any loans only accounted for 22% surveyed.
Researchers think the results suggest a need for additional financial counseling so students can fully understand what they're getting themselves into, and that it will play a major role in their post-graduation lives.
To that effect, ISU will send emails to all of its students showing how much they owe, for the first time, this summer. It'll also lay out their estimated monthly repayment upon graduation and a list of lenders, said Roberta Johnson, ISU director of student financial aid.
Another helpful tool will be an online calculator from the federal government debuting this summer, that will show students how much their majors will likely net them, salary-wise, and measures the impact of monthly student loan payments after graduation.
New study: 1 in 8 ISU students unaware of college debt [Des Moines Register]
-
Symantec releases software as Amazon Machine Image
Getting cloudy with managed servicesSymantec has made its new O3 cloud identity and access control suite available as an Amazon Machine Image (AMIs), the company's first foray into selling software as a hosted virtual machine.…
-
Reuters: Sources Confirm Apple Aims to Follow Android with 4+ Inch iPhone
Steve Jobs was firm opponent to larger smartphones or smaller tablets, said Android was making a mistake
-
Unreal Engine 4 will bring us beautiful games faster than ever
Wired
A select group of people got a private demo of Epic Games' Unreal Engine 4 at the Game Developers Conference in March, and Stu Horvath of Ars Technica's sister publication Wired was one of the lucky few. UE4 has many new features that will let it continue to sit on the Throne of Games (Engines), though Wired hints that old console hardware may hinder its crack at progress.
The most recently released version of Epic Games' engine, Unreal Engine 3, powered the game Gears of War released in 2006. Since then, it's been an unstoppable force behind over 150 games, including the Mass Effect trilogy, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Mirror's Edge, and Borderlands.
One of the distinct properties of UE4 is its ability to create and display effects based on the inherent properties of an environment, rather than displaying pre-programmed ones based on anticipated scenarios. For example, light that travels through water would refract, and a character that stands in a mirror would see a reflection of themselves, not a pre-programmed image or pre-rendered character standing on the other side. This natural behavior presumably creates much less work for developers—rather than having to explicitly teach everything how to react to every individual stimulus, objects have inherent behaviors and know what to do.
Ash particles drift through a scene rendered with Unreal Engine 4. Wired
Another one of UE4's desirable new features is its particle effects, or the ability to render hordes of tiny objects and all of their erratic motions. In the demo shown at GDC, onlookers saw the engine's ability to render many pieces of ash floating in the air, and dust particles floating in the light of a flashlight in a dark room. Normally, having to render the odd and easily affected paths of particles brings processors to their knees, but with UE4 running on an NVIDIA Kepler GTX 680, they drifted without effort.
-
Hybrid computing just like FLESH-EATING bacteria
A scholarly comparisonHPC blog Hybrid computing (using CPUs plus GPUs to accelerate processing speed/throughput) and necrotizing faciitis (a flesh-eating bacterial* infection) have more in common than is typically thought. Both exhibit high growth rates, and both are incredibly difficult to stop once they get started.…
-
Release roundup: New coolers and old motherboards
With the Computex trade show barely three weeks away, the flow of new releases from Far Eastern hardware makers is starting to slow. Still, a handful of notable announcement hit our inbox this week:
...
-
Release roundup: New coolers and old motherboards
With the Computex trade show barely three weeks away, the flow of new releases from Far Eastern hardware makers is starting to slow. Still, a handful of notable announcement hit our inbox this week:
...
-
Facebook Shares Will Open at $38 USD
Company is estimated to be worth around $107B USD, including unexercised share options
-
Mozilla preparing Mac code signing for Mountain Lion’s Gatekeeper
Firefox will soon be compatible with Gatekeeper
TheRedPanda
Mozilla developer Ben Hearsum wrote a blog post today, describing the status of the effort to integrate code signing into the automated build process for Firefox on Mac OS X. Mozilla aims to turn on code signing for the browser’s nightly builds by next week.
The application needs to be signed so that it will continue to work on Mac OS X 10.8, codenamed "Mountain Lion," which is expected to launch later this year. Mountain Lion introduces a new security feature called Gatekeeper that will prevent the platform from executing applications that come from untrusted sources.
Gatekeeper supports several different configurations, but the default setting will only allow users to run software that has been signed with an Apple-supplied developer key or that comes from the Mac App Store. Third-party developers who do not distribute their applications through the Mac App Store will need to register with Apple, obtain a developer ID and start signing their applications.
-
Those $22,600 W. Virginia routers were "economical"
Rep. Walden gives NTIA his "face of skepticism."
At a House Energy and Commerce Committee oversight hearing yesterday, Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR) wanted to know why the state of West Virginia bought hundreds of $22,000 enterprise-grade routers from Cisco, only to place some of them into tiny rural libraries with a couple computers. Hundreds more sit in warehouses, still awaiting installation.
The routers, each of which can serve a branch office or campus of more than 500 computers, were purchased as part of a $24 million contract paid for with federal stimulus money doled out by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. The state stuck the same Cisco 3945 series router into every public facility on its list, regardless of size. Some needed routers of this size; others could have used models that cost a few hundred dollars.
"It seems pretty disturbing," Walden said.
-
Governments may hit social networks with cyber attacks
Arab Spring alerted governments to power of Facebook, Twitter et alSocial networking operators like Facebook and Twitter need to consider themselves much more vulnerable to attacks – not because they are more vulnerable or more attractive to criminals than previously, but because states are now actors in security threats.…
-
Exporting copyright: Inside the secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership
"Git Haversall" tried to present the Corporate Power Tool Award to USTR Ron Kirk
TX Corporate Power Partnership
The scene last week at the Intercontinental Dallas Hotel looked like any generic corporate event held in any generic hotel ballroom—until the protesters crashed the party.
Trade officials from countries scattered around the Pacific Rim mingled in business attire. Ron Kirk, current US Trade Representative and former mayor of Dallas, welcomed everyone to the the latest round of negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The crowd applauded, and Kirk stepped down, ready to continue with the festivities, when a man strode confidently to the podium and introduced himself as "Git Haversall," president of the "Texas Corporate Power Partnership."
"I would like to personally thank the negotiators for their relentless efforts," he said into the microphone. "The TPP agreement is shaping up to be a great way for us to maximize our profits regardless of whether the public of this nation, or any other nation, thinks it's right."
-
Stanford boffins create light-powered artificial retina
Prosthetic works without batteriesA group of researchers led by Stanford University has created a prosthetic retina that works without an external power source. Instead, by combining a light sensor with photovoltaics, the implant is driven by light.…
-
$US38 share price values Facebook at US$104b
Each member worth about $115Facebook has decided it is worth US$104b, valuing each of the shares that will go on sale early Friday US time at US$38.…
-
Windows 8 frightens me, and here's why
Some people just hate change. It can't be helped. Those people cling to old versions of their favorite software as long as they can. When support cycles end and upgrades are forced upon them, they work tirelessly to customize new releases to look just like the old ones. When that fails, they take to Internet message boards and complain endlessly. "Why did they move such and such?" they ask. "Why did they merge this menu and that one? Why does it ask for my permission when I try to do this? Why, why, why?"
Those people are the bane of developers and web designers everywhere. When they're spoon-fed improvements with shiny silverware, they purse their lips and shake their heads and cry and moan until whatever they were offered splatters ...
-
Windows 8 frightens me, and here's why
Some people just hate change. It can't be helped. Those people cling to old versions of their favorite software as long as they can. When support cycles end and upgrades are forced upon them, they work tirelessly to customize new releases to look just like the old ones. When that fails, they take to Internet message boards and complain endlessly. "Why did they move such and such?" they ask. "Why did they merge this menu and that one? Why does it ask for my permission when I try to do this? Why, why, why?"
Those people are the bane of developers and web designers everywhere. When they're spoon-fed improvements with shiny silverware, they purse their lips and shake their heads and cry and moan until whatever they were offered splatters ...
-
Anonymous turns its DDoS cannons on India
Takes out government, court and political party sitesHacktivist collective Anonymous has turned its attention to India, taking down the web sites of the Supreme Court, the country’s two major political parties and several government sites in retaliation for a court injunction which led to the blocking of several video sharing and bit torrent sites.…
-
Twitter signs up for Do Not Track
Small print refreshed after data-ignoring pledgeTwitter has signed up to the US Federal Trade Commission's Do Not Track (DNT) initiative and now offers its users the chance to avoid having their data shared with third parties.…
-
Chinese 3G users top 150 MILLION but most still on 2G
Operators launch HSPA+, cheap deals to snare more puntersChina may boast staggeringly large internet and mobile phone user numbers but the latest government figures show that the quality and speed of the services most are receiving still leave a lot to be desired.…
-
Friday Shortbread
7 Up- USA Today: Facebook prices its IPO at $38 ahead of Friday's trading
- PCMag: Comcast ditching 250GB data caps,
exploring new options (thanks David G.) - Verizon clarifies: Unlimited data plans to die slow death
- Ars Technica: Microsoft will remove the bloatware
from your PC—for a price (thanks Neutronbeam) - Mozilla's Ben Hearsum: Code signing coming to Firefox Mac builds
- AppleInsider: Filing details Apple's plans for Retina-ready resolution-independent OS X
- Wired on the next Unreal Engine: Why next-gen video games will rock your world
-
Friday Shortbread
7 Up- USA Today: Facebook prices its IPO at $38 ahead of Friday's trading
- PCMag: Comcast ditching 250GB data caps,
exploring new options (thanks David G.) - Verizon clarifies: Unlimited data plans to die slow death
- Ars Technica: Microsoft will remove the bloatware
from your PC—for a price (thanks Neutronbeam) - Mozilla's Ben Hearsum: Code signing coming to Firefox Mac builds
- AppleInsider: Filing details Apple's plans for Retina-ready resolution-independent OS X
- Wired on the next Unreal Engine: Why next-gen video games will rock your world
-
Hey big spender: China set to take Asian IT spending crown
US safe as global leader ... for nowChina’s ascent to the top of every conceivable tech rankings list is set to continue in 2013 when it becomes the biggest IT spender in Asia, leapfrogging ailing Japan as it prepares to fork out $173bn (£110bn) on tech kit, according to IDC.…
-
Diablo III
Hell’s bellsReview Back in 1997, I worked in a youth centre and some fool gave me the keys to the place. So I would sneak in every night to continue a degrading tryst with Diablo I, cutting down waves of monsters in anticipation of a loot splurge. It was a while before I worked out the portal system – I used to moan about the amount of walking – until someone pointed out I was a noob. Luckily, in Diablo III, the portal is shown as a small blue vagina on the user interface, so there's no risking sore feet now.…
-
Atlassian warns of critical security flaw
Confluence customers urged to upgradeAtlassian has warned of a critical security flaw in its Confluence product.…
-
Will UK.gov crack down on itself for missing Cookie Law deadline?
In other news - Pope actually JewishMost government websites will fail to comply with new laws on cookies when the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) begins formally enforcing them next week, the Cabinet Office has said, according to reports.…
-
iPad factory towns in China to finally get Apple Stores
Need to send money to California may puzzle localsApple will start selling fondleslabs in the Chinese cities where they are made, a job advert reveals.…
-
CSC's UK techies get one extra month to find new jobs
Unite says US biz has taken its finger off the triggerThe Unite union claims it has succeeded in postponing compulsory layoffs by CSC in the UK in the aftermath of the NHS IT project fiasco.…
-
Scotland considers dishing out more iPads to schoolkids
Maybe, if it's 'promoting new teaching behaviours' elsewhereThe Scottish government has announced plans to "explore" the option of rolling out more mobile devices to education institutions in the country.…
-
IK Multimedia iRig Mic Cast
Pick-up trickAccessory of the Week IK Multimedia’s newest microphone is aimed squarely at podcasters. The package comes with a plastic stand which props up an iPhone at just the right angle for talking into the mic. You can use it with an iPod Touch too, though you’ll have to turn it upside down in order to plug the Mic Cast into its headphone jack.…
-
SpaceX Dragon to smuggle SECRET package to the ISS
Mysterious cargo buried in the belly of the beastJust to add some icing to the SpaceX Dragon launch cake, the cargoship may be carrying a secret payload that nobody knows about.…
-
Inside Nvidia's GK110 monster GPU
Fermi, Tesla, and Maxwell would all want oneAt the tail end of the GPU Technology Conference in San Jose this week, graphics chip juggernaut and compute wannabe Nvidia divulged the salient characteristics of the high-end "Kepler2" GK110 GPU chips that are going to be the foundation of the two largest supercomputers in the world and that are no doubt going to make their way into plenty of workstations and clusters in the next several years.…
-
The Great El Reg Private Cloud survey: Results are in!
Applications must work for the cloud to floatWe were surprised at the strength of positive feedback from the 570 readers who participated in our recent Reg reader survey on private cloud.…
-
Txt-speak is a sign of humanity 4 U
But don't ask your dentist for oral sex, OK?Something for the Weekend, Sir? It barely warranted a mention in Reg Hardware's recent Retro Week, but mobile telephony will be celebrating a couple of anniversaries this year. Groupe Spécial Mobil (GSM) was founded 30 years ago and the first commercial GSM networks came into service ten years later.…
-
Post-pub nosh deathmatch: Mealy pudding v migas
Hispano-Caledonian full-fat fryfestFollowing a long winter hibernation burning the fat reserves gained from a generous serving of Dutch delicacy kapsalon, our Special Projects Bureau post-pub nosh team has emerged blinking into the spring sunshine to bring you a further selection of quality international cuisine designed to soak up the excesses of a night on the town.…
-
DHS Warns of Potential Security Issues for Smartphones and Medical Devices
DHS warns of implanted medical device security vulnerabilities
-
Senator probes NASA airfield deal for Google's jets
Is space agency giving Larry a break on government's jet fuel?A US senator has asked NASA (PDF) to cough up five years of data about Larry Page and Sergey Brin's personal jets – in the latest flare-up in the rumbling controversy over whether NASA is cutting Google bosses a soft deal by storing their private airplanes in a government-funded research airport.…
-
Amazon drops planned 8.9in Kindle For for 10.1in job
Oi vapourAmazon, it has been claimed, will be dropping a version of the Kindle Fire it might, maybe, put into production in favour of a different model that it could, possibly make in the future.…
-
'Facebook ads are very boring and not very imaginative'
Plus: 'IT boys, hiss it through your teeth – Shut up, bitch!'Quotw This was the week when investor interest hit ever higher feverish pitches as (not sure if you heard about this or not) Facebook prepares to go public.…
-
Hands on with the Motorola Razr Maxx
Marathon runnerFirst look In the time since Motorola's Razr was launched in 2011, rivals have released powerhouse handsets that make the Razr feel more Bic than Wilkinson Sword.…
-
Report: Amazon wants to put ads on the Kindle Fire
Already, Amazon offers versions of its Kindle e-book readers with ads on their home and lock screens. Could the Kindle Fire join that list? Maybe so, according to the folks at AdAge. They claim to have it on good authority that Amazon is rounding up advertisers to slap ads on the Fire.
The ad campaigns would run for two months and also include inventory from Amazon's "Special Offers" product. For $1 million, advertisers ...
-
Report: Amazon wants to put ads on the Kindle Fire
Already, Amazon offers versions of its Kindle e-book readers with ads on their home and lock screens. Could the Kindle Fire join that list? Maybe so, according to the folks at AdAge. They claim to have it on good authority that Amazon is rounding up advertisers to slap ads on the Fire.
The ad campaigns would run for two months and also include inventory from Amazon's "Special Offers" product. For $1 million, advertisers ...
-
Can SMEs score those big gov contracts?
Public sector doesn't make it easy for smaller suppliersThe UK public sector spends £230bn on goods and services a year, roughly 15 per cent of the UK economy and £1 for every £7 spent in Britain. The procurement of these goods and services is a massively complex undertaking, fraught with inefficiency accumulated over successive governments.…
-
The Register is rocking on Windows Phone 7
App of the week?We’re gradually updating our mobile app efforts. First out of the gate is this beauty for Windows Phone 7.…
-
Facebook's Eduardo Saverin: I'm not a tax-dodger
Meanwhile, US senators try to get him banned from the USFacebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin has insisted that he will pay taxes in the US and his decision to change his citizenship to Singapore had nothing to do with the country's more hospitable tax environment.…
-
Shoreditch's sparkle smokescreen leaves BBC journo 'tech-struck'
Why is Auntie (literally, this time) in bed with Google?Analysis “I haven’t felt so good having spoken to a businessman for ten minutes in about 25 years. That’s not normally how I feel! So thanks very much!” And thanks to you, BBC presenter Fi Glover, for sharing the feel-good factor with us.…
-
GM snatchback of $10m Facebook ad cash = amateur move
When a sell is more than a saleOpen ... and Shut Talk about bad timing. Right before Wall Street set up to open the curtain on Facebook's $100bn IPO, General Motors (GM), which spends $40m on its Facebook presence, announced that it's pulling the plug on Facebook advertising. The reason? Advertising on Facebook apparently hasn't worked.…
-
Twitter to offer more tailored following suggestions
Say bye to vacuous celebrities
-
Facebook IPO starts
There’s money in those peoples' details
-
Vulture 2 trigger triggers serious head-scratching
Just how do we fire that LOHAN rocket motor?It's fair to say that the question of just how we fire the Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator (LOHAN) Vulture 2 spaceplane rocket motor is a touch thorny.…
-
Quick Note: Lexus Euthanizes Slow Selling, Overpriced HS 250h Hybrid Sedan
Lexus makes the surprise move of killing a model after less than three years on the market
-
Iran threatens to chuck sueball at Google over missing gulf
State unhappy that 'Persian Gulf' name is goneIran's Foreign Ministry has threatened to take legal action against Google because the web firm removed the name Persian Gulf from its Maps and left the stretch of water nameless.…
-
1800Flowers.com Doesn't Deliver Mom's Flowers, Conveniently Forgets To Tell You
Here's the thing with sending gifts, particularly gifts of flowers. You generally don't call up the recipient ahead of time and say, "hey, expect some flowers on Saturday." A big part of the gift is the delight and element of surprise. Aaron ordered some Mother's Day flowers for his mom from 1800Flowers.com, and only learned that his order hadn't showed up later in the week when he noticed she hadn't mentioned them. Okay, they hadn't delivered the flowers, but why didn't they notify him, and why did they keep the money?
He blogged about this misadventure:
I ordered flowers for my mother from 1-800-FLOWERS on May 2, scheduled to be delivered May 12 or 13 -- May 13 being Mothers' Day -- and they processed my order, taking the money from my account as expected. What they didn't do, however, was deliver the flowers.
Nor did they let me know they didn't deliver the flowers: I had to find this out myself. Thinking it odd that my mom hadn't mentioned the flowers (she's always very conscientious about such things), I logged into my 1-800-FLOWERS account to check the order status today (May 17) and there it was: "Order Placed". Now, they'd processed the order and taken my money, but after that? Nothing.
I called their customer service line and after waiting on hold for ten minutes (clearly I'm not the only irate customer the company has right now) I was finally connected with a customer service representative who checked the details I provided him and to his credit, immediately issued a full refund. (Of course, I have only their assurance this refund will actually happen, and that assurance isn't worth much in my eyes right now.) However, this doesn't address the primary problem: why didn't they let me know there was a problem with the order? It's a full four days after the delivery date, which they have in their system, and their system also contains the order status as uncompleted. I'm not a computer science wizard, but I do know that given those two fields, a simple query should be able to pull up all orders that have not been fulfilled.
One would think following a major flower delivery holiday like Mothers' Day that a competent and conscientious company might want to make sure their customers received the services they paid for, but apparently 1-800-FLOWERS does not feel that to be a priority. After all, they had my money -- the important part of the transaction to them -- so why worry about the rest? I just double-checked, and they have both my current email and phone number on my account.
I brought this up to the CSR, who (yes, in heavily accented English) apologized. And apologized again. In fact, that's pretty much all he did was say "Yes sir, I do apologize" and so forth. However, he couldn't give me any excuse for the indisputable fact that they processed my order, took my money, and then completely failed to follow up on their end. The best he could tell me was that there were no available florists in the area to fulfill the order, but their system supposedly takes that into account up front, limiting the arrangements that are available for delivery in a given area based on availability. I mentioned that and he had no answer for me. He also had no answers for me on why they processed my order and took my money before issuing any flowers, nor why I wasn't contacted regarding this problem. Surely someone at 1-800-FLOWERS management should realize that flowers ordered for Mother's Day should perhaps be delivered when promised? And if they can't
be or won't be for whatever reason, that proactively letting your customers know there's a problem and you're working to solve it or at least mitigate the circumstances is a better strategy than burying your head in the sand and hoping people don't realize there's a problem? I have to assume they chose the latter because let's face it: if I hadn't followed up to check this out I would have just assumed the flowers were delivered as promised, my mother would have assumed I hadn't sent her flowers, and they would have just KEPT THE MONEY. That is a totally unacceptable way to do business...1-800-FLOWERS ruins Mothers' Day, has no excuse [Aaron's blog]
-
Quick Note: Verizon Wireless Clarifies Stance on Unlimited LTE Data
Unlimited data will still be available to customers who purchase phones at full price
-
Travel across the Roman Empire in real time with ORBIS
In a clever bit of technological legerdemain, Stanford University has combined historical research, mapping, and Web technology to bring ancient Roman Empire travel to the Internet. A cross-disciplinary team has created and launched ORBIS: The Stanford Geospatial Network Model of the Roman World. With it, a user can determine how long it will take to travel from any point in the Roman Empire to any other, as well as calculate the cost of transporting goods and people.
This heretofore unnatural union of geographers, technologists, and historians of the ancient world is becoming more and more common under the descriptor of "digital humanities." ORBIS looks to be one of the most effective examples of its promise.
Built by historian and classicist Walter Scheidel and Stanford Libraries' digital humanities specialist Elijah Meeks, with the assistance of geographer and Web developer Karl Grossner and GIS analyst Noemi Alvarez, the interactive online atlas is based on a host of data. This includes historical tide information and weather; size, grade, and surface of roads; main cities and ports; land, sea, and river routes; vehicle speed (including ships, ox carts, horse, and walking); and the cost of transport.
-
Apple scrubs dirty iCloud data centre with second solar wash
2012 clean date statedApple is flying the green flag on the North Carolina data centre that will power iCloud – the very same one that was slammed by Greenpeace for being dirty.…
-
Big Issue sellers could soon be flogging QR Codes
Homeless move into digital downloadsGlasgow-based INSP, which represents magazines distributed by the homeless, is planning to go digital - assuming it can raise enough cash to pay for some trials.…
-
Why Did Toyota Sell Me A Van With An Obsolete Navigation System?
Ben bought a Toyota Sienna minivan last year, and one of the fancy options included was a built-in navigation system. That's neat. But what's strange is that his car has the wrong system. It has the one meant for the 2011 model, not the 2012 that he purchased. This doesn't seem like all that big a deal, but it hurts the resale value of his van and is just generally annoying. Wouldn't you want the technology that you paid for?
In late 2011, I purchased a 2012 Toyota Sienna XLE with Navigation. It took them 3 months to deliver the car to me (I received it in February), and my wife and newborn twins have been relatively happy with it since then.
Fast forward to about a week ago when I was browsing the Toyota website. It turns out that 2012 Sienna's are supposed to come with a completely different navigation system than the one I received. The one I received is actually the 2011 model nav that has no special features, while 2012 models allow you to search Bing, make restaurant resevations, stream Pandora, etc.
Needless to say, I'm annoyed. My 2012 Sienna is effectively worth less than every other 2012 Sienna, as it has older technology than the others.
I called the dealership, and they will do nothing. They claim that I got a great deal on the car and should be happy with what I got. They also claim that they reviewed the options with me when I bought it, and if I didn't like what I was getting, I should have said something then.
My position is that it never occurred to me that they would put 2011 options in a 2012 car. I saw that my 2012 car had nav, and just assumed that it would have the 2012 version of it. They also didn't specifically state that I was getting the 2012 seat belts - do I now need to go and check those as well?
I spoke to Toyota corporate, and they said that these things have to go through the dealership, so there is nothing they can do.
Any advice on where I can go next?
-
UK prosecutions for hacking appear to be be dropping
But plenty of caveats applyThe number of prosecutions under the UK's computer hacking laws may have declined over recent years, according to the latest available government figures.…
-
UK.gov: ICT in schools ain't dead, it's just resting
And there'll be tech contracts for the kids when they grow up, honestThe UK government denied today that it was dropping IT entirely from the national curriculum while adding that tech contracts would be more bite-sized and flexible at some point soon.…
-
ICO on new Cookie Law: 'Don't expect torrent of enforcement action'
Plans to wait for user complaints as the law comes into effectAmid criticism that hardly any UK government websites comply with the new EU-mandated "Cookie Law" that comes into force on 27 May, the ICO has announced that it will be sending out some letters, and then waiting for people to complain.…
-
Consumerist Friday Flickr Finds
Here are twelve of the best photos that readers added to The Consumerist Flickr Pool this week, picked for usability in a Consumerist post or just plain neatness.
(#2 - a.r. briggs)
(#3 - PepOmint)
(#4 - kenfagerdotcom)
(#5 - SCHMEGGA)
(#6 - Fujoshi)
(#7 - athrog)
(#8 - gavinzac)
(#9 - ktorster)
(#10 - Scott D. Rogers)
(#11 - Carlos del Vaca)
(#12 - Fujoshi)
Our Flickr Pool is the place where Consumerist readers upload photos for possible use in future Consumerist posts. Just be a registered Flickr user, go here, and click "Join Group?" up on the top right, and start hitting "send to group" on your individual photos you want to add to the pool.Add your shots to The Consumerist Flickr Pool, and perhaps they'll be featured in a future story, or even highlighted in a Friday Consumerist Flickr Pool Finds post. See previous winners of the Friday Consumerist Flickr Pool finds here.
-
Is it time for enterprise PC outfits to carry Apple Macs?
Mac-maker is hard to ignore, despite being a 'difficult' vendorFor years, the Apple Mac has played a small and niche role in enterprise computing, finding favour in areas such as desktop publishing, graphical design and video or content production.…
-
CrashPlan is cloud backup for literally everyone
Update: There are many solutions to the backup problem. We chose to look at CrashPlan—rather than Carbonite, Mozy, Amanda Enterprise, KineticCloud, the Tivoli Storage Manager, and others that we researched—because CrashPlan offered both better pricing and a better feature set than its contemporaries. So we set out to compare CrashPlan's features to its most prominent competitors. While this isn't an in-depth technical evaluation of the service's operation, it should give you enough information to know whether it might solve your backup-related woes.
We've recently spent a fair amount of time talking about cloud syncing solutions for PCs and mobile devices. In addition to syncing files and data across multiple devices, these services also provide as much off-site backup as most home users need. But power users and businesses often need more control than the typical cloud sync service can offer—whether it’s over what data is backed up and how, which users can use the service, how that data is secured both in transmission and at rest, or any combination of those flavors of control.
For users and system administrators who are less worried about syncing and more worried about keeping their data safe, a cloud backup solution could be the answer. Among cloud backup solutions, CrashPlan is one of the most competitive, both in features and in pricing. For consumers and small businesses, CrashPlan offers a range of versatile and highly configurable products that can back up client data to CrashPlan's cloud servers without requiring users to pay for and maintain their own file servers or network-attached storage devices. Larger businesses and enterprises can also back data up to CrashPlan's cloud, but are given the added option of creating their own on-site backup servers, which should calm security hawks distrustful of using other companies' servers to store important or sensitive data.
-
Ethernet sales slump punches Brocade in the wallet
Business not so goodEthernet sales slumped a bit and caused Brocade's second 2012 quarter results to stumble.…