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Cellphones

Florida Reduces Penalties For 'Sexting' Teens 295

Posted by Soulskill from the more-time-to-work-through-their-shame dept.
SonicSpike sends word that Florida has changed how law enforcement deals with teenagers who send racy pictures to each other over their phones. Quoting CNN: "Before Saturday, a Florida teenager who sent or received nude photos or video could have been charged with a felony and forced to register as a sex offender. But a new law, recognizing the proliferation of cell phones and computers, eases the penalties for 'sexting' infractions. A first offense is punishable by eight hours of community service or a $60 fine; the second is a misdemeanor and the third is a felony. ... Under House Bill 75, teens who receive explicit images won't be charged if they took reasonable steps to report it, did not solicit the image and did not send it to someone."
Robotics

Carnegie Mellon Introduces RoboBowl To Spur Robotics Advances 32

Posted by timothy from the non-man-vs-non-man dept.
coondoggie writes "With the goal of taking ideas for new robots off the drawing board and moving them into real-life situations, Carnegie Mellon University will host a series of competitions aimed at bringing new robotic technologies for manufacturing, healthcare and national security applications. Carnegie calls the competitions 'RoboBowls' and says they will feature next-generation robotics challenges 'intended to find and foster start-up and early-stage companies seeking to develop 'big idea' products and services.'
Google

Google Explores Re-Ranking Search Results Using +1 Button Data 126

Posted by samzenpus from the circle-search dept.
tekgoblin writes "Google plans to use data from its +1 button to re-order search results and keep spammers at bay. While this would bring Google’s search engine into the social networking era, it would also create a new avenue for blackhats to manipulate search results. From the article: '"Google will study the clicks on +1 buttons as a signal that influences the ranking and appearance of websites in search results," a spokesman wrote. "The purpose of any ranking signal is to improve overall search quality. For +1's and other social ranking signals, as with any new ranking signal, we'll be starting carefully and learning how those signals are related to quality."'"
Patents

Samsung Cites 2001: A Space Odyssey In Apple Patent Case 432

Posted by Soulskill from the i'm-sorry-steve-i-can't-do-that dept.
suraj.sun and several other readers sent word that Samsung is using a clip from Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey as an example of prior art in its defense against Apple's patent infringement claims. "In a clip from that film lasting about one minute, two astronauts are eating and at the same time using personal tablet computers. ... As with the design claimed by the D'889 Patent, the tablet disclosed in the clip has an overall rectangular shape with a dominant display screen, narrow borders, a predominately flat front surface, a flat back surface (which is evident because the tablets are lying flat on the table's surface), and a thin form factor." Samsung also supplied a clip from 1970s British TV series The Tomorrow People.

Comment Re:One server per service is stupid (Score 1) 330

by Ancantus (#37160862) Attached to: Linus Thinks Virtualization Is 'Evil'
We use Solaris zones at the University i work at, and while we dont do one service per zone, it is pritty close. It is invaluable to have his when your moving to new servers or adding more functions. You can clone a new zone from an existing, add new functions or copy it to the new server. Test it all out, then pull the plug on the old zone after the dns name has been changed. It provides a nice compartment for individuals to work in and not screw up something someone else is doing.
Compaq

Napkins and the History of Ethernet, Compaq, Facebook 67

Posted by CmdrTaco from the spammers-eat-your-soul dept.
alphadogg writes "Napkins don't really stack up well against hard drives or even floppy disks for preserving data over time. But some of the technology and business world's most enduring ideas are said to have at least gotten their starts as sketches on dinner or cocktail napkins (which in fact were inspiration for the 5 ¼ floppy disk's size). Robert Metcalfe's early Ethernet diagrams from his days at Xerox PARC back in the early 1970s might be the most famous napkin sketches in the technology industry, but there are napkin stories involving Compaq, Facebook, @home and more."
Image

Man With 10 Million Air Miles Gets Plane Named After Him Screenshot-sm 249

Posted by samzenpus from the fly-me-to-the-moon dept.
Chicago car salesman Thomas Stuker has set a record by accumulating an astonishing 10 million air miles on United Airlines. In the past 29 years Thomas has flown almost 6,000 times - racking up a total mileage that would circle the Earth 400 times. From the article: "Mr Stuker has already been highly rewarded with access to a special lounge at the airlines hub in Chicago, first-class upgrades as a matter of course and even a plane named after him on the fleet."
NASA

CmdrTaco at Kennedy Space Center Screenshot-sm 105

Posted by CmdrTaco from the wish-you-were-here dept.
Matthew Travis from the Ares Institute Inc helped me get a press pass for the STS-135 Launch. so I'm crossing my fingers and hoping for no scrub. I'm tweeting as @cmdrtaco from the launch if you are into that sort of thing. I'll have more later, but for now you'll have to make do with a photo I took, as well as a brief video clip I took of Atlantis on the pad at night.
AT&T

AT&T: Meet the New US GSM Monopoly 189

Posted by timothy from the for-some-values-of-monopoly dept.
itwbennett writes "Why should consumers care about the AT&T/T-mobile merger? Already, Verizon has dropped unlimited data plans and the US trails Japan, South Korea, and others in variety and performance of mobiles. Don't think for a second that those aren't the direct result this new monopoly, says blogger Tom Henderson. '...Those pesky State agencies that used to have regulatory authority has been usurped by the US Federal Government,' writes Henderson. 'This wasn't an accident. Who would you rather deal with, 43 different state regulatory authorities, or those convenient people on Capitol Hill?'"

Comment Re:Bimonthly release cycle == overhead? (Score 1) 555

by Ancantus (#36606510) Attached to: Firefox Is For "Regular" Users, Not Businesses

For my college (we use active directory, but the profiles are almost blank) and we use a shared network drive that we run all most of the programs from. The programs don't suffer too much in speed because Windows caches the program running. Updating the program is as easy upgrading the shared drive, and all the labs are done instantly. Also you might consider installing all the popular browsers, and have a small program that lets the user choose their browser. We implemented that and it saves a lot of time, cause people choose what they are familiar with.

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