Comment Who'd have thought... (Score 2, Insightful) 194
that this postal strike actually has some kind of benefit to the general public?
And kudos to MS for allowing this to happen, some good PR they got going there.
How Much Is Your Online Identity Worth? 199
itwbennett writes "Answer a few questions about your personal Internet use, and a new tool from Symantec will calculate your net worth on the black market. You'll get three results: how much your online assets are worth, how much your online identity would sell for on the black market, and your risk of becoming a victim of identity theft. The tool is intended to raise consumer awareness about cybercrime, said Marian Merritt, Internet security advocate for Symantec. It's unlikely the average consumer would read an Internet Security Threat Report, she added, but a simply illustrated example might get the same point across. 'It's shocking how little value criminals place on your credit card,' she said."
The Problem With Estimating Linux Desktop Market Share 409
jammag writes "It's long been one of those exceptionally hard-to-quantify numbers: exactly what percentage of the desktop PC market is held by Linux? Doubters suggest it hovers around a negligible one percent, while partisans suggest it's in excess of 10 percent. Bruce Byfield explores the various sources of estimates, dismissers' and fan boys' alike, and guesstimates it might realistically be 5-6%. Still, he admits, 'the objectivity of numbers is often just a myth.'"
New Flu Strain Appears In the US and Mexico 315
Combat Wombat writes with this excerpt from Reuters:
"A strain of flu never seen before has killed up to 60 people in Mexico and also appeared in the United States, where eight people were infected but recovered, health officials said on Friday. Mexico's government said at least 20 people have died of the flu and it may also be responsible for 40 other deaths. [The government] shut down schools and canceled major public events in Mexico City to try to prevent more deaths in the sprawling, overcrowded capital. ... Close analysis showed the disease is a mixture of swine, human and avian viruses, according to the CDC. Humans can occasionally catch swine flu from pigs but rarely have they been known to pass it on to other people. Mexico reported 1,004 suspected cases of the new virus, including four possible cases in Mexicali on the border with California.
Comment Re:Well Colour Me Confused (Score 1) 360
O2 are not owned by BT in any way shape or form - they bought out what used to be BT Cellnet but O2 is owned by Telefónica
Oh.. that probably explains it.
Less confused now, more Red Faced.
Comment Well Colour Me Confused (Score 3, Interesting) 360
O2 are my mobile service provider (owned by BT) and I just navigated to thepiratebay.org with absolutely no issues.
I was using GPRS to do this rather than 3G though, so maybe that it... although that makes almost no sense.
Unless we only want to stop children downloading porn at high speed?
I was using GPRS to do this rather than 3G though, so maybe that it... although that makes almost no sense.
Unless we only want to stop children downloading porn at high speed?
Comment How dare the military invade our internet (Score 5, Funny) 83
It's not like they started it or... Oh wait...
D'oh
UK Government Boosts Open Source Adoption 106
Cameron Logie writes "The UK Government has today announced full backing for greater adoption of Open Source solutions in the public sector. According to the article at the BBC News site, 'Government departments will be required to adopt open source software when "there is no significant overall cost difference between open and non-open source products" because of its "inherent flexibility."'"
Comment I would like it to match my destination (Score 1) 534
I would like gravity to match gravity at the end point of the journey. That way it won't be yet another thing to get accustomed to on arrival.
Nintendo Brain Games Effectiveness Questioned 63
nandemoari writes "While Nintendo boasts that its Wii can make you fit, the game company's popular line of DS 'Brain Games' have for some time promised to make kids smarter by challenging them with word puzzles and math formulas. However, a French professor isn't buying the shtick. University of Rennes professor Alain Lieury, a cognitive psychology specialist in Brittany, France, recently studied a group of ten-year-old children playing a variety of mentally-challenging games. Not all were video games, however; Lieury pitted more traditional games (including sudoku, Scrabble, and regular old reading and homework) against Nintendo's popular line of DS hits, including Brain Age, Big Brain Academy, and Brain Training. Although he credits the Nintendo DS — one of the best selling consoles of all-time — as 'a technological jewel,' he finds Nintendo's claim that it can actually help kids learn is nothing more than pure 'charlatanism.'"
Submission + - MS advises users to switch to alternate browser 1
SteveAU writes: "Microsoft has begun flooding media outlets with information advising users to switch to an alternate browser while a serious security flaw is being patched — http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7784908.stm The flaw, which effects all versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer, is manifested via Malware — http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/Hackers-Compromise-Legit-Web-Sites-to-Target-Microsoft-IE-Flaw/ — and has infected over 6000 sites thus far.
Microsoft states: "The vulnerability exists as an invalid pointer reference in the data-binding function of Internet Explorer. When data binding is enabled (which is the default state), it is possible under certain conditions for an object to be released without updating the array length, leaving the potential to access the deleted object's memory space. This can cause Internet Explorer to exit unexpectedly, in a state that is exploitable." http://computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9123338
This will no doubt do some permanent damage to IE's market share!"
Microsoft states: "The vulnerability exists as an invalid pointer reference in the data-binding function of Internet Explorer. When data binding is enabled (which is the default state), it is possible under certain conditions for an object to be released without updating the array length, leaving the potential to access the deleted object's memory space. This can cause Internet Explorer to exit unexpectedly, in a state that is exploitable." http://computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9123338
This will no doubt do some permanent damage to IE's market share!"
Which OS Performs Best With SSDs? 255
Lucas123 writes "Linux, Vista and Mac OS perform differently with solid state disks. While all of them work well with SSDs, as they write data more efficiently or run fewer applications in the background than XP, surprisingly Windows 2000 appears to be the winner when it comes to performance. However, no OS has yet been optimized to work with SSDs. This lost opportunity is one Microsoft plans to address with Windows 7; Apple, too, is likely to upgrade its platform soon for better SSD performance."
Comment Re:21 million is 3/4 of accounts? (Score 1) 302
I think the 28M bank accounts is just bullshit. It's gotta be heaps higher.
Surely 100M wouldn't be that big a figure even?
--Q
Perhaps a lot of Germans use the equivalent of UK building societies. They're not counted as Bank accounts but have a lot of the same functionality
American Nerd 240
Adam Jenkins writes "This book seemed to have potential, particularly since the image of nerds has changed in recent times.
Once objects of derision and schoolyard bullying, nerds are now acknowledged as having a place in society.
The Lord of the Rings became a multi-million dollar movie trilogy, the internet is now used by an incredible number of people,
and computer games are no longer seen as being 'just for kids.' Around the years of the dot-com boom, successful
nerds were driving Ferraris and going to cool parties. So it's not so surprising
that the definition of a nerd has changed over time, nor that a society which has generally become better at accepting
people who are different, has accepted nerds." Read below for the rest of Adam's review.
Anti-Matter Created By Laser At Livermore 465
zootropole alerts us to a press release issued today by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, announcing the production of 'billions of particles of anti-matter.' "Take a gold sample the size of the head of a push pin, shoot a laser through it, and suddenly more than 100 billion particles of anti-matter appear. The anti-matter, also known as positrons, shoots out of the target in a cone-shaped plasma 'jet.' This new ability to create a large number of positrons in a small laboratory opens the door to several fresh avenues of anti-matter research, including an understanding of the physics underlying various astrophysical phenomena such as black holes and gamma ray bursts." The press release doesn't characterize the laser used in this experiment, but it may have been this one.
