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Microsoft

XP Users Are Willing To Give Windows 7 a Chance 720

Posted by kdawson from the light-at-the-end-of-the-long-tunnel-that-is-vista dept.
Harry writes "PC World and Technologizer conducted a survey of 5,000 people who use Windows XP as their primary operating system. Many have no plans to leave it, and 80% will be unhappy when Microsoft completely discontinues it. And attitudes towards Vista remain extremely negative. But a majority of those who know something about Windows 7 have a positive reaction. More important, 70 percent of respondents who have used Windows 7 say they like it, which is a sign that Windows 7 stands a chance of being what Vista never was: an upgrade good enough to convince most XP users to switch."
Announcements

Submission + - SPAM: MS FAT LFN patent workaround patch revised

Submitted by
Yuhong Bao
Yuhong Bao writes: "Only hours after Microsoft's Hyper-V Linux patch, tridge submitted a revised workaround patch for MS's FAT LFN patents. If you don't remember, the original patch was in response to MS suing TomTom over these patents. This revised version provides better compatiblity, particularly with Windows 98, portable MP3 players, as well as mtools."
Link to Original Source
Announcements

Submission + - Nissan slows bad drivers before danger hits (arnnet.com.au)

Submitted by TC
TC writes: Japanese car maker Nissan is using GPS systems to slow drivers down before they hit a dangerous curve in the road. Apparently tests conducting in Japan went without a hitch. What happens is if the car goes to a curve too fast, it triggers a warning announcement from the navigation system. Then if you don't slow down an actuator connected to the accelerator will push the pedal up to reduce the flow of fuel to the engine and then gently apply the brakes to reduce speed. When the car gets to the safe speed for the curve the system disengages.

Comment Re:Goddammit. (Score 3, Funny) 539

by cailith1970 (#28792085) Attached to: Artificial Brain '10 Years Away'

Maybe not. Taking the claim at face value, then we'll never be quite dead: there will be always a copy of our brain somewhere ready to be loaded into a VM by some system admin.

If it's our system admin doing the backup and restore then I don't like our chances.
The Almighty Buck

Fighting For Downloaders' Hearts and Minds 325

Posted by timothy from the dude-pirate-is-not-the-prefered-nomenclature dept.
iateyourcookies writes "As opposed to enforcement which usually makes the headlines, The BBC is running an article called Inside A Downloader's Head which looks at the film and music industries' attempts to prevent copyright infringement. It details some of the campaigns, their rationale, controversy surrounding them and notes that 'there are plenty, even among the young, who can be eloquent about why they believe illegal downloading is not wrong. These can include everything from what they see as the unacceptable "control freakery" of DRM and regional coding, to overcharging and exploitation of the very artists the music industry claims to protect.' However, PR company for the industry Blue Rubicon attests that 'campaigns can change hearts and minds... If you do them right you can make a material impact on people's behaviour.'"
Biotech

First Images of Memories Being Made 71

Posted by timothy from the from-the-brain-side-that-is dept.
TheSync writes Eurekalert reports that researchers at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital, McGill and UCLA have captured the first image of protein translation that underlies long-term memory formation. A fluorescent protein showed the increased local protein synthesis during memory formation, which requires cooperation between the pre and post-synaptic compartments of the two neurons that meet at the synapse."
Security

Submission + - Two New Mac Malware Attacks Found (theage.com.au)

Submitted by
PL/SQL Guy
PL/SQL Guy writes: "Security experts have discovered two new pieces of malware targeting Apple computers, making it clear that Mac users are no longer immune from worrying about viruses and security software. The attacks — dubbed OSX/Tored-A and OSX/Jahlav-C — "use social engineering tricks to fool you into installing it onto your computer," says Graham Cluley, a computer security expert with Sophos. Earlier this month, security consultant Rich Mogull wrote on his blog that Apple was struggling to protect users against malware and other online threats. It would appear that Macs are now also on the radar of malware authors."
Security

Submission + - Hacked Tiny URLs Redirects 2.2 Million Sites (channelinsider.com)

Submitted by
dasButcher
dasButcher writes: "Hackers have struck those tiny URLs again. As Larry Walsh writes (http://blogs.channelinsider.com/secure_channel/content/web_security/hacked_url_shortener_redirects_22_million_link.html), Clig is the latest victim of hackers targeting truncated URLs. In a hack over the weekend, hackers breached the Clig network and redirected millions of users to a single Web site."
Security

Submission + - Two dangerous kinds of blog comment spam (monashreport.com) 1

Submitted by
CurtMonash
CurtMonash writes: "As the owner of several WordPress blogs, I get over 100,000 spam comments per year, of which Akismet lets through a delightfully tiny fraction. Most of that spam seems to either be selling various (probably shady) products and services, or just attempt to transmit "link juice" to other sites for SEO purposes. At least two forms of comment spam, however, are more sinister than that.

First, some comments — especially ones focused on obscure "long-tail" keywords — try to direct visitors to actual malware delivery sites. I started seeing examples of those back in 2007; they're still coming in with high frequency. Second — and so far I've seen a single example of this one — I just got a comment containing a brazen offer to provide website-attacking services. Prices range from $25-70, depending on the duration of the attack, and the spammer promises "On average the data, ordered the site falls within 5 minutes after the start."

Aw shucks. I long for the good ol' days when spam just promised payday loans I could use to buy Viagra to enhance my enjoyment of free porn sites ..."
NASA

Submission + - NASA to Trigger Massive Explosion on the Moon

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "NASA is preparing to launch the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) which will fly a Centaur rocket booster into the moon, triggering a six-mile-high explosion that scientists hope will confirm whether water is frozen in the perpetual darkness of craters near the moon's south pole. If the spacecraft launches on schedule at 12:51 p.m. Wednesday, it will hit the moon in the early morning hours of October 8 after an 86-day Lunar Gravity-Assist, Lunar Return Orbit (LGALRO) that will allow the spacecraft time to complete its two-month commissioning phase and conduct nearly a month of science data collection of polar crater measurements before colliding with the moon just 10 minutes behind the Centaur. The cloud from the Centaur rocket booster will kick up 350 metric tons of debris that should spread six miles above the surface of the moon, hitting the sunlight and making it visible to amateur astronomers across North America. Over the final four minutes of its existence, as LCROSS follows the same terminal trajectory as the Centaur, the spacecraft will train its instruments and cameras on the debris cloud, searching it for the chemical signature of water. Previous spacecraft and ground-based instruments have detected signs of hydrogen near the moon's poles, and scientists are split over whether that is from ice that could have arrived through the impact of comets or by other means. Despite all the serious scientific talk about hydrogen signatures and lunar regolith, flying a rocket booster into the moon at 5,600 mph to trigger a massive explosion is just flat-out cool. "We're certainly going to be making a big splash," says Kimberly Ennico, the LCROSS payload scientist. "We're going to see something, but I don't know what to expect. I know on the night of the impact, I'll be running on adrenaline.""

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