inetsee writes "Fortune Magazine's annual '100 Best Companies to Work For' list is out, and Google topped the list in their debut appearance. Some highlights of the benefits of working for Google that caught my eye were the free gourmet meals and the massages. The chance to spend 20% of your time working on your own personal projects also sounds very appealing. Of course, with resumes rolling in at the rate of thousands a day, the competition is fierce."

smooth wombat writes "Microsoft is combing personal data with your search habits to produce targeted ads. Users who use Microsoft's Hotmail email service, msn.com news service and other Microsoft-owned sites will see ads specific to their demographic and interests. From the article: 'Microsoft executives say the system works anonymously and they won't pass on people's names or addresses to advertisers. Executives say they want to foster confidence in users to build a long-term business, and one that gives an incentive to not misuse personal details.' "We're in the early days of behavioral targeting but it's an idea whose time has come,' says Simon Andrews, chief digital strategy officer for WPP Group's MindShare, a large buyer of ad time. 'There is a lot of potential to know if people have been looking at specific sites.'"

guruevi writes to let us know about a review of Microsoft Vista in the NY Times, in the form of an article and a video, by the known Mac-friendly David Pogue. In the article, Pogue recasts Microsoft's marketing mantra for Vista: "Clear, Confident, Connected" becomes "Looks, Locks, Lacks." Pogue writes that Vista is such a brazen rip-off of Mac OS X that "There must be enough steam coming out of Apple executives' ears to power the Polar Express." But the real fun is in the video, in which Pogue attempts to prove that Vista is not simply an OS X clone.

eldavojohn writes "Software giant Microsoft is helping the law track down and find phishers and political borders are no boundary for them. From the article, 'One court case in Turkey has already led to a 2.5-year prison sentence for a so-called "phisher" in Turkey, and another four cases against teenagers have been settled out of court, Microsoft said on Wednesday, eight months after it announced the launch of a Global Phishing Enforcement Initiative in March.' This initiative started back in March and has resulted in 129 lawsuits in Europe & the Middle East. Perhaps their legions of lawyers will come to some use for the rest of us but teenagers settling out of court? That reeks of RIAA/MPAA tactics to me."

schnippy writes "Esquire is running an interesting article on the work on adaptive optics and directed energy being done at the U.S. Air Force's Starfire Optical Observatory. This facility was the subject of a New York Times article earlier this year which suspected the facility was conducting anti-satellite weapons research under the cover of astronomy."

Slashback tonight brings some corrections, clarifications, and updates to previous Slashdot stories including Oklahoma's Spyware Bill dies a quiet death, Lenovo denies ditching Linux, Mars rover escapes again, RIM CEO speaks out against unlimited wireless, Microsoft LiveMail gets ads, FSF anti-DRM campaign expands, and AT&T calls Wired to task over leaked documents -- Read on for details.

Ski_Bird writes "DARPA is funding a startup the supposedly has a unique approach to detect rootkits. The startup, Komoku, is ready to 'emerge from stealth mode with hardware and software-based technologies to fight the rapid spread of malicious rootkits.' They have a PCI card that doesn't necessarily determine that a rootkit is installed, only that the O/S has changed dramatically enough to warrant investigation. Microsoft, however, demonstrated a rootkit running in a virtual machine outside of the user's O/S workspace that made detection impossible."

7x7 writes "Wired News is running an article on documents they recovered via the Freedom of Information Act and a lawsuit. From the article:" A computer failure that hobbled border-screening systems at airports across the country last August occurred after Homeland Security officials deliberately held back a security patch that would have protected the sensitive computers from a virus then sweeping the internet, according to documents obtained by Wired News." It looks like Zotob made it in to the supposedly protected network."

bagsc writes "BBC News reports Twentieth Centruy Fox confirms The Simpsons are going to the movies! Should hit theatres in 2007." From the article: "A 25-second trailer for the film has been shown to US audiences at screenings of Ice Age: The Meltdown, promising to introduce 'the greatest hero in American history'. It then cut to Homer Simpson, wearing only his underwear, who admitted: 'I forgot what I was supposed to say.'"

QMan asks: "I, like many others here at Slashdot, am an avid gamer. Recently, I've been thinking about upgrading my gaming PC, but with all the mish mash of components in the box, I don't really know which components are slowing down the rest, and would be an ideal candidate for replacement. I'm looking for advice on how to discover the inherent bottlenecks in my system, whether they be from my video card, RAM, CPU, or other components. I've tried various benchmarking utilities, but they generally give an overall performance rating, but not much info on which device(s) had the most impact in limiting that rating. I'd imagine many of you out there have encountered the same problem, and might have ideas on where to start."

b0r1s writes "Gamespot was among the dozens of gaming news sites to point readers to the arrival of the first of Nintendo's apparent marketing sites for Metroid Prime 2 Echoes. Having started the trend with Datadyne prior to the launch of Perfect Dark, Nintendo apparently pokes fun at ilovebees.com with several different fake domains. Also included are links to government contractors sites. It seems like Channel 51 and Orbis Labs will both be updated in the weeks prior to the release of Metroid Prime 2. Channel 51 seems to have new stories every week, and Orbis Labs promises that test videos of the Battle Sphere are coming soon. In addition, there is a name and password login on the Orbis site, which we expect will be leaked--or even "hacked"--later on."