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Businesses

EA Shuts Down Pandemic Studios, Cuts 200 Jobs 161

Posted by Soulskill from the say-goodnight-folks dept.
lbalbalba writes "Electronic Arts is shutting down its Westwood-based game developer Pandemic Studios just two years after acquiring it, putting nearly 200 people out of work. 'The struggling video game publisher informed employees Tuesday morning that it was closing the studio as part of a recently announced plan to eliminate 1,500 jobs, or 16% of its global workforce. Pandemic has about 220 employees, but an EA spokesman said that a core team, estimated by two people close to the studio to be about 25, will be integrated into the publisher's other Los Angeles studio, in Playa Vista.' An ex-developer for Pandemic attributed the studio's struggles to poor decisions from the management."
Microsoft

Revisiting the Original Reviews of Windows Vista 414

Posted by CmdrTaco from the take-with-a-grain-of-salt dept.
harrymcc writes 'We now know that a remarkable percentage of consumers and businesses decided to spurn Windows Vista and stay with XP. But did the reviews of Vista serve as an early warning that it had major problems? I looked back at the evaluations in nine major publications and found that they expressed some caution--but on the whole, they were far from scathing. Some were downright enthusiastic.'
Software

VLC 0.9.9, The Best Media Player Just Got Better 488

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the open-source-ahead-of-the-pack dept.
Matt Asay points out a recent update to VLC as they narrow in on a 1.0 release. Already a favorite of many, the open source project has made great strides in recent history towards really solidifying the position as best-in-class. This update, 0.9.9, fixes several display bugs and sees some definite performance improvements. "If you've yet to try VLC, do so. Whether you just want to play media files or also want to convert them, VLC can handle just about anything you throw at it. When all other media players fail, whether on Windows, Linux, or the Mac, VLC will almost always deliver. You can download VLC media player 0.9.9 here. It's open source, but that's not why you'll want to keep using it. You'll use it because it's better than its proprietary peers — by a long stretch.

Comment Re:Where did it go? (Score 1) 59

by Tolaris (#27053741) Attached to: Mars Gullies Show Water Once Flowed

Several reasons:

Size - Mars is just smaller than Earth, and even the Earth's core is cooling down.

No large moon - Earth's moon causes tidal forces in both bodies. This causes heat, although the moon's small size allowed its core to cool like Mars. Mars' small moons don't have the same effect and have not always been there (they are likely captured asteroids).

Farther from the Sun - the same tidal forces that a moon would impart, the Sun does as well. But less of it, as Mars is farther away.

Comment Re:Where did it go? (Score 2, Informative) 59

by Tolaris (#27053367) Attached to: Mars Gullies Show Water Once Flowed

This hapenned supposedly when Mars had an active nucleus that generated a magnetic field, protecting the atmosphere from solar winds.

Nowadays liquid water cannot exist on Mars surface, and the bigger mistery is why Mars lost it's magnetic field.

It lost its magnetic field as the core cooled. The fluid movement of a metallic core is what generates Earth's magnetic field.
The Courts

George Riddick — the One-Man RIAA of Clip Art 175

Posted by timothy from the sue-you-sue-anybody dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Pages at ireport.com and extortionletterinfo.com have been documenting and researching the activities of George P. Riddick III, previously known for his lawsuits against IMSI and Xoom at the turn of the century. In 2007 he issued a largely-ignored press release claiming the majority of clip art online infringes a copyright and has ranted about how Microsoft and Google are stealing from him. In recent months, he's apparently made a business model of going after web site operators who were using clip art they believed to be legally licensed or public domain, telling them they're infringing clip art collections he hasn't offered commercially in years and making outrageous settlement demands. He seems to have tested the waters on this some years back, but emboldened by the passage of the PRO-IP act, he's gone aggro with it. A few dodgy anonyblogs had popped up to 'out' him as a copyright abuser, but these recent ireport.com and extortionletterinfo.com reports go much deeper in documenting and researching Riddick's recent one-man campaign to be the RIAA of clip art."
Cellphones

EU Commissioner Wants Standard For Mobile Phone Connectors 374

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the things-that-will-never-happen dept.
Jantastic writes "European Commissioner Günter Verheugen wants manufacturers of mobile phones to come up with a standard connector for chargers and microphones. If companies fail to do so, proposed legislation should speed up this process. In theory, this could improve competition, while enabling longer life cycles for these devices."

Comment VSAT and VoIP will work fine (Score 2, Informative) 176

by Tolaris (#26767623) Attached to: Keeping in Contact With Family, From Afghanistan?

My company provides VSAT service in the Middle East and Africa, including as far east as Afghanistan.

VSAT latency is 600-1000 ms, and many VSAT Internet service providers prioritise voice-over-IP. We certainly do, although to a limited number of providers due to technical limitations.

Given sufficient bandwidth, VoIP will do fine. Be sure to use a service that supports good audio compression, and turn it on. Use G.729 or G.723, and never G.711.

On an iDirect VSAT network with cRTP enabled (RTP header compression), a G.729 call needs about 16 kbit each way. Good VSAT service in that area will have at least 64 kbit upload and 256 kbit download.
Security

Trojan Hides In Pirated Copies of Apple iWork '09 431

Posted by timothy from the good-reason-not-to-pirate-software dept.
CWmike writes "Pirated copies of Apple's new iWork '09 suite that are now available on file-sharing sites contain a Trojan horse that hijacks Macs and leaves them open to further attack, a security company said yesterday. The 'iServices.a' Trojan hitchhikes on iWork '09's installer, said Intego, which makes Mac security software. 'The installer for the Trojan horse is launched as soon as a user begins the installation of iWork, following the installer's request of an administrator password,' Intego said in a warning. Once installed, the Trojan "phones home" to a malicious server to notify the hacker that the Mac has been compromised, and to await instructions."

Overzealous AirTran Boots 9 Passengers Off 1002

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the fear-mongering-works dept.
An anonymous readerwrites "On Friday the wonderfully customer centric AirTran decided to remove a family of 9 US born Muslims after a comment between two family members regarding how close to the Jet engine they had been seated. The wonderful part is that after the FBI cleared the family 2 hours later, AirTran refused to fly the family, and refused to rebook them on their way from Washington to Orlando, Florida. The family purchased additional tickets on US Airways later that day, after AirTran requested that the irate father be escorted from their booking podiums by security. This whole story highlights the pathetic customer service we are getting from the Airlines these days — they actually treat us like criminals first and ask questions later. Just don't get me started on Delta." It's nice to see that stupidity still knows no bounds.
Government

Time To Discuss Drug Prohibition? 1367

Posted by kdawson from the with-your-remaining-brain-cells dept.
gplus writes "December 5th was the 75th anniversary of the end of alcohol prohibition in the US. The Wall Street Journal has an op-ed which argues that now may be the time to discuss our war on drugs and the drug prohibition currently in place. The article argues that the harm caused by the banned substance must be balanced against the harms caused by the prohibition. As to why Americans in 1933 finally voted to end prohibition, while we barely even discuss it: 'Most Americans in 1933 could recall a time before prohibition, which tempered their fears. But few Americans now can recall the decades when the illicit drugs of today were sold and consumed legally. If they could, a post-prohibition future might prove less alarming.'"
Spam

Massive Botnet Returns From the Dead To Spam On 205

Posted by timothy from the late-entry-for-hallowe'en dept.
CWmike writes "Gregg Keizer reports that the big spam-spewing Srizbi botnet, shut down two weeks ago when McColo was shuttered, has been resurrected and is again under the control of criminals, security researchers said today. As of late Tuesday, infected PCs were able to successfully reconnect with new command-and-control servers, which are now based in Estonia, said Fengmin Gong, chief security content officer at FireEye. The comeback confirms what researchers noted last week, that Srizbi had a fallback strategy. So, in the end, that strategy paid off for the criminals who control the botnet."

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