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The Courts

Submission + - Supreme Court to hear case on Obama's alleged forged documents (examiner.com)

Submitted by
Examiner News
Examiner News writes: "On Wednesday, Chief Justice John Roberts of the Supreme Court scheduled a birther case brought on by Orly Taitz which calls into question Barack Hussein Obama's eligibility to be president of the United States. Dr. Taitz, a lawyer from Santa Margarita, Calif., also made the announcement on her website on Jan. 9."
Social Networks

Submission + - Point-and-shoot yourself with a nano copter

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The guys at Always Innovating has announced the MeCam, a self video nano copter to point-and-shoot yourself. The device hovers instantly, streams video to a phone, and can be controlled by voice and face movement. Unfortunately, Always Innovating doesn't sell to consumers but they hope to get licensing from social networking players.
Privacy

Submission + - Disney Wants to Track You With RFID (nbcnews.com) 3

Submitted by Antipater
Antipater writes: Disney parks and resorts have long had a system that combined your room key, credit card, and park ticket into a single card. Now, they're taking it a step further by turning the card into an RFID wristband (called a "MagicBand"), tracking you, and personalizing your park experience, targeted-ad style.

"Imagine booking guaranteed ride times for your favorite shows and attractions even before setting foot in the park," wrote Tom Staggs, chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, in a blog posting on Monday. "With MyMagic+, guests will be able to do that and more, enabling them to spend more time together and creating an experience that’s better for everyone."

Disney does go on to talk about all the things you can opt out of if you have privacy concerns, and the whole system seems to be voluntary or even premium.
The Media

Submission + - Al Jazeera Gets a US Voice

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "The NY Times reports that Al Jazeera plans to start an English-language channel available in more than 40 million US homes, with newscasts emanating from both New York and Doha, Qatar after announcing a deal to take over Current TV, the low-rated cable channel that was founded by Al Gore seven years ago. But the challenge will be persuading Americans to watch the award winning network with 71 bureaus around the world — an extremely tough proposition given the crowded television marketplace and the stereotypes about the channel that persist to this day. “There are still people who will not watch it, who will say that it’s a ‘terrorist network,’ ” says Philip Seib. "Al Jazeera has to override that by providing quality news.” With a handful of exceptions, American cable and satellite distributors have mostly refused to carry Al Jazeera English since its inception in 2006. While the television sets of White House officials and lawmakers were tuned to the channel during the Arab Spring in 2011, ordinary Americans who wanted to watch had to find a live stream on the Internet. “There’s a major hole right now that Al Jazeera can fill. And that is providing an alternative viewpoint to domestic news, which is very parochial,” says Cathy Rasenberger. "If you watch us, you're going to like us. You are going to find it interesting," adds Robert Wheelock. "We offer an alternative. It's a broader coverage of news. It's a broader spectrum into countries that aren't traditionally covered.""
Security

Submission + - NYT Twists Imperva Antivirus Study into Utter Nonsense (cio.com)

Submitted by
Curseyoukhan
Curseyoukhan writes: "A recent New York Times story says antivirus programs are useless because they are terrible at detecting threats. But the story is based on a misreading of an Imperva study — which only looks at new the ability to detect new viruses. The story also overlooks the fact that antivirus software can detect older threats that are just as dangerous as new ones,"
Security

Submission + - 'Murder By Internet-Connected Devices' is Dumbest Prediction of 2012, '13 &' (cio.com)

Submitted by
Curseyoukhan
Curseyoukhan writes: "Infosec vendor IID (Internet Identity) probably hopes that by the time 2014 rolls around no one will remember the prediction it just made. That is the year it says we will see the first murder via internet connected device. The ability to do this has been around for quite some time but the company won't say why it hasn't happened yet. Probably because that would have screwed up their fear marketing. CIO blogger challenges them to a $10K bet over their claim."
Government

Submission + - CIA whacks at Hollywood spy agency myths (networkworld.com) 2

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "The CIA had a few problems with the agency's portrayal in the recently released "Zero Dark Thirty" movie about the successful hunt for Usama Bin Ladin, so much so the acting director issued a statement about the film and the organization wrote up an interesting top "Hollywood Myths vs. the Real CIA" list."
Businesses

Submission + - Why do you want to kill my pet? Zynga to shut down PetVille and 10 Others (techcrunch.com) 1

Submitted by Dr Herbert West
Dr Herbert West writes: Executing the cost-reduction plan CEO Mark Pincus announced in November, Zynga has shut down, pulled from the app stores, or stopped accepting new players to more than 10 games such as PetVille, Mafia Wars 2, FishVille, Vampire Wars, Treasure Isle, Indiana Jones Adventure World, Mafia Wars Shakedown, Forestville, Montopia, Mojitomo, and Word Scramble Challenge.

Comments from gamers on the shutdown notices included things like “my daughter is heartbroken” and “Please don’t remove petville. I been playing for 4 yrs. and I’M going to miss my pet Jaime.why do you want cause depression for me and others. Why do you want to kill my pet?”

For players that have invested a lot of microtransactions and/or time, this comes as a heavy blow. Most readers on /. have become used to game publishers disabling content or shutting servers down with little or no notice-- is this a further sign of things to come, or will this cause enough outrage to reverse the trend?
Security

Submission + - The Only 2013 Cybersecurity Predictions List You Need to Read (cio.com)

Submitted by
Curseyoukhan
Curseyoukhan writes: "He read them all so you don't have to. This crack team of a researcher compiled and condensed all the painfully-obvious and self-serving 2013 cybersecurity-threat-prediction lists on the Web into a single tasty nugget. See the mighty experts say things like: 'Organizations must prepare for the unpredictable so they have the resilience to withstand unforeseen, high-impact events.' Ah, the life of the consultant."
The Internet

Submission + - ISP Walks Out of Piracy Talks: Not The Internet Police (torrentfreak.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A leading Australian Internet service provider has pulled out of negotiations to create a warning notice scheme aimed at reducing online piracy. iiNet, the ISP that was sued by Hollywood after refusing to help chase down alleged infringers, said that it can’t make any progress with righthsolders if they don’t make their content freely available at a reasonable price. The ISP adds that holding extra data on customers’ habits is inappropriate and not their responsibility.
Security

Submission + - New Malware Wiping Data on Computers in Iran (threatpost.com)

Submitted by
L3sPau1
L3sPau1 writes: "Iran's computer emergency response team is reporting new malware targeting computers in the country that is wiping data from partitions D through I. It is set to launch on only particular dates. While there has been other data-wiping malware targeting Iran and other Middle East countries such as Wiper and Shamoon, researchers said there is no immediate connection."

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