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Submission + - Patents that kill (economist.com)

Submitted by wabrandsma
wabrandsma writes: The Economist:
The patent system, which was developed independently in 15th century Venice and then in 17th century England, gave entrepreneurs a monopoly to sell their inventions for a number of years. Yet by the 1860s the patent system came under attack, including from The Economist. Patents, critics argued, stifled future creativity by allowing inventors to rest on their laurels. Recent economic research backs this up.

Submission + - Study Reveals Britons Spend More Time On Tech Than Sleeping (gizmobeast.com)

Submitted by J.R.C.L.
J.R.C.L. writes: A recent study by a UK Communications regulator reflects an excessive use of technology that disrupts our normal life.

Research by Ofcom reveals that UK adults spend an average of eight hours and 41 minutes a day on media devices, compared with the average night’s sleep of eight hours and 21 minutes.

Among those surveyed, more alarming are the habits of 16-24 years old who squeezed 9 hours 8 minutes each day by multi-tasking and using different media and devices at the same time.

On a positive note however, the report suggests that children were found to have an advanced understanding of technology devices, with six-year-olds having the same level of knowledge as the average 45-year-old.

Submission + - Oracle Database Redaction Trivial to Bypass (threatpost.com)

Submitted by msm1267
msm1267 writes: Researcher David Litchfield is back at it again, dissecting Oracle software looking for critical bugs. At the Black Hat 2014 conference, Litchfield delivered research on a new data redaction service the company added in Oracle 12c. The service is designed to allow administrators to mask sensitive data, such as credit card numbers or health information, during certain operations. But when Litchfield took a close look he found a slew of trivially exploitable vulnerabilities that bypass the data redaction service and trick the system into returning data that should be masked.

Submission + - San Jose police apologize for hiding drone program, halt until further review (muckrock.com)

Submitted by v3rgEz
v3rgEz writes: As part of MuckRock's Drone Census, the San Jose twice denied having a drone in public records requests — until the same investigation turned up not only a signed bid for a drone but also a federal grant giving them money for it. Now, almost a full year after first denying they had a drone, the department has come clean and apologized for hiding the program, promising more transparency and to pursue federal approval for the program, which the police department had, internally, claimed immunity from previously.

Submission + - China Bans iPad, MacBook Pro, And Other Apple Products For Government Use (hothardware.com) 1

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: China seems to be on a mission to isolate itself from the world, at least in terms of technology. After banning Windows 8 on government PCs and raiding several of Microsoft's offices in China as part of an anti-trust investigation, Chinese officials have now prohibited to purchase of several Apple products for government use. The list of banned Apple products include the iPad, iPad Mini, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and half a dozen other items, all of which were left off of a final government procurement list distributed in July. This is a potentially big hit to Apple, which generated around 16 percent of its $37.4 billion in revenue last quarter from China. Apple saw its iPad sales jump 51 percent and Mac sales boosted 39 percent in China.

Submission + - Skype Blocks Customers Using OS-X 10.5.x and Earlier 1

Submitted by lurker412
lurker412 writes: Yesterday, and without previous warning, all Mac users running Leopard or earlier versions of OS-X have been locked out of Skype. Those customers are given instructions to update, but following them does not solve the problem. The Skype Community Forum is currently swamped with complaints. A company representative active on the forum said "Unfortunately we don't currently have a build that OS X Leopard (10.5) users could use" but did not answer the question whether they intend to provide one or not. I had a chat exhange with a Skype rep, who told me that not only would there be no version for Leopard, but that refunds were not going to be given for those with paid balances "...outside of 15 day cooling off period," whatever that means. I'm not assuming that the chatbot really speaks for the company. I understand that software vendors cannot be expected to support products forever. But would a bit of advance warning be too much to ask?

Submission + - Datacenter HDD wipe policy

Submitted by socheres
socheres writes: Hi Slashdot! I keep a Slackware server hosted at various datacenters on leased hardware for personal / freelance business use. I have been doing this for the last 10 years and during this time I moved my stuff to several datacenters, some small and some big name companies. No matter the hosting company, since I choose to install my own OS and not take a pre-installed machine, I always got the hardware delivered with the previous guys' data stored on the hard drives. It was also the case with spare drives, which were not installed new if I did not ask specifically for new ones. Has this happened to you ? How often ?

Submission + - Facebook seeks kernel devs to make network stack as good as FreeBSD's (facebook.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Facebook posted a career application which, in their own words is "seeking a Linux Kernel Software Engineer to join our Kernel team, with a primary focus on the networking subsystem. Our goal over the next few years is for the Linux kernel network stack to rival or exceed that of FreeBSD."

Submission + - Ecuador to forge ahead with State-Backed Digital Currency

Submitted by jaeztheangel
jaeztheangel writes: Ecuador's government has approved plans to start a new Digital Currency backed by the state. With defaults in recent history, and dwindling oil reserves is this a brave move, or a foolish one?

Congress last month approved legislation to start a digital currency for use alongside the U.S. dollar, the official tender in Ecuador. Once signed into law, the country will begin using the as-yet-unnamed currency as soon as October.

Submission + - Twitch Shuts Down Justin.tv, Google Acquisition To Blame?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Twitch today announced that the Justin.tv website, mobile apps, and APIs are no longer in service. A very simple explanation is given for the shutdown: since rebranding the company to Twitch Interactive in February 2014, all resources are now focused on Twitch.tv. The news today will almost certainly further fuel the rumors that Google is acquiring, or has already acquired, Twitch. Purchases are often followed by consolidation, as well as cutting off any excess limbs.

Submission + - Again, Qt will be moved to an other company

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: From Digia blog:
"We are now starting a conscious effort to overcome these problems. As you might have read, Digia has decided to move the Qt business into a company of it’s own. Thus we will soon have a company (owned by Digia), that will focus 100% on Qt. At the same time we would like to take the opportunity and retire qt.digia.com and merge it with the content from qt-project.org into a new unified web presence. The unified web page will give a broad overview of the Qt technology, both enterprise and open-source, from a technical, business and messaging perspective. "

Submission + - Google Play Store Now Allows App Refunds Within 2 Hours Instead of 15 Minutes (techfeasta.com)

Submitted by TechFeasta
TechFeasta writes: Sometimes we mistake the description and purchase the App which doesn’t satisfy us. Has same happens with you?
Google play use to allows app refunds within 15 Minutes, For the convenience of users Google has reportedly but not officially increased the time to 2 Hours. Users can now ask for App refunds within 2 Hours of purchasing a paid app and game

Submission + - UK Police Take Down Proxy Service Over Piracy Concerns (torrentfreak.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Since last year City of London Police have been working together with copyright holders to topple sites that provide or link to pirated content.

The police started by sending warning letters to site owners, asking them to go legit or shut down. Late last year this was followed by a campaign targeted at domain registrars, asking them to suspend the domain names of several “illegal” sites.

A few days ago police sent out another round of requests to U.S.-based domain name registrar eNom, asking it to suspend the domains of several allegedly infringing sites. Although the requests were made without a court order or other authority, eNom has complied and effectively shut down the sites.

Among the new targets is Immunicity, a general proxy server that was set up as a censorship circumvention tool.

Submission + - Apple Products Reportedly Banned from Chinese Government Purchases 1

Submitted by SmartAboutThings
SmartAboutThings writes: China has continued its equivocal relationship with US technology companies. The country has now prohibited the purchase of Apple hardware products from its government agencies citing security reasons. The ban will affect all the central and local agencies in China. People familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that the government is now not allowed to purchase ten Apple products including different variants of iPads and MacBook laptop. Several devices have been omitted from a government procurement list distributed by China’s National Development and Reform Commission and Ministry of Finance.

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