adamlazz - Slashdot User

Submission + - AT&T To Drop Early Termination Fees (yahoo.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 17, 2007 @06:50PM

An anonymous reader writes: AT&T on Tuesday announced new policies that apply to customers changing calling plans or exiting contracts early. Starting next month, customers who change a wireless calling plan will no longer be required to extend their current contact with AT&T or sign a new contract. Customers who terminate a contact early will no longer have to pay a flat early termination fee. The fee will be lowered during the term of the contact. The early termination policy, however, will go into effect early next year and will apply to new and renewing customers who sign a one or a two-year contract.

Comment Success? (Score 1) 1

by adamlazz on Wednesday October 17, 2007 @06:49PM (#21017741) Attached to: Stephen Colbert officially announces

I think it would be interesting to make a statement about how he would define a success. In my humble opinion, I think he knows what he is doing. But for some strange reason, I don't think he has enough of the country behind him to pull out as the winner. I wonder what kind of impact he wishes to make, or if he actually thinks he can win this thing.

Name-Your-Cost Radiohead Album Pirated More Than Purchased 582

Posted by Zonk on Wednesday October 17, 2007 @06:15PM from the perhaps-you-don't-understand-the-concept-of-free dept.

phantomfive writes "Forbes is reporting that despite Radiohead giving their latest album away 'for free', more copies of the album were pirated than downloaded from their site. Commentators offered up the opinion that this was probably more out of habit than malice. People download from regular BitTorrent sources, and may not have fully understood the band's very new approach to the subject. Regardless, Readiohead's efforts are having some measurable effect, as noted by the chairman of EMI: 'The industry, rather than embracing digitalization and the opportunities it brings for promotion of product and distribution through multiple channels, has stuck its head in the sand. Radiohead's actions are a wake-up call which we should all welcome and respond to with creativity and energy.'"

Submission + - Infrequent Anonymous Cowards Reliable on Wikipedia

Submitted by

Hugh Pickens

on Wednesday October 17, 2007 @05:50PM

Hugh Pickens writes: "Researchers at Dartmouth University have recently discovered that infrequent anonymous contributors, so called "Good Samaritans," are as reliable as registered users who update constantly and have a reputation to maintain.

By subdividing their analysis by registered versus anonymous contributors, the researchers found that among those who contribute often, registered users are more reliable. And they discovered that among those who contribute only a little, the anonymous users are more reliable. The researchers were most surprised to find that the reliability of Good Samaritans' contributions were at least as high as that of the more reputable registered users' contributions. "This finding was both novel and unexpected," says Denise Anthony, associate professor of sociology. "In traditional laboratory studies of collective goods, we don't include Good Samaritans, those people who just happen to pass by and contribute, because those carefully designed studies don't allow for outside actors. It took a real-life situation for us to recognize and appreciate the contributions of Good Samaritans to web content."
A graph from page 31 of the group's original paper (pdf file) shows that the quality of contributions of anonymous users goes down as the number of edits increases while quality goes up with the number of edits for registered users."

Submission + - Google to Update Urchin (computerworld.com) 1

Submitted by

mytrip

on Wednesday October 17, 2007 @04:16PM

mytrip writes: "Slashdot recently ran a story about Google's failure to update Urchin(http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/10/1256244)

Google Inc. is set to roll out new features to its Google Analytics service and beta of a new version of the Web analytics server software from its acquisition of Urchin Software two-and-a-half years ago.

Google Tuesday is set to announce that site search and event tracking features will be added to its Google Analytics software within the next few weeks.

The site search tool is designed to apply Google-like features to searches of internal Web sites, said Brett Crosby, senior manager of Google Analytics. The search tool will allow Web site operators to identify keywords, categories, products and trends across time and user segments to help companies measure the effectiveness of the site and marketing efforts, he added.

The new event tracking feature will help companies more accurately measure how visitors are using interactive Web site elements like Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX), JavaScript, Flash movies, page gadgets and other multimedia tools, Crosby added."

Man Hacks 911 System, Sends SWAT on Bogus Raid 754

Posted by Zonk on Wednesday October 17, 2007 @03:33PM from the word-dumb-doesn't-cover-it dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The Orange County Register reports that a 19 year old from Washington state broke into the Orange County California 911 emergency system. He randomly selected the name and address of a Lake Forest, California couple and electronically transferred false information into the 911 system. The Orange County California Sheriff's Department's Special Weapons and Tactics Team was immediately sent to the home of a couple with two sleeping toddlers. The SWAT team handcuffed the husband and wife before deciding it was a prank. Says the article, 'Other law enforcement agencies have seen similar breaches into their 911 systems as part of a trend picked up by computer hackers in the nation called "SWATting"'"

Submission + - Stephen Colbert officially announces (luc.edu) 1

Submitted by gbobeck on Wednesday October 17, 2007 @03:12PM

gbobeck writes: On Tuesday, October 16, Stephen Colbert officially declared he would run for President of the United States.

"After nearly 15 minutes of soul-searching, I have heard the call... I shall seek the office of the President of the United States"

Colbert hasn't announced if he will be running as a Democrat, Republican, both, or neither. Nor has he announced who his running mate will be, although he did toss out three possibilities: "Colbert-Huckabee, Colbert-Putin or Colbert-Colbert" He will, however, be running as a favorite son in the South Carolina primary.

Submission + - Student Who Uncovers Breach Escapes Expulsion (pcworld.com)

Submitted by

mikesd81

on Wednesday October 17, 2007 @01:38PM

mikesd81 writes: "PC world reports that a student at Western Oregon University who accidentally discovered a file containing personal data on a publicly accessible university server and then handed that data over to the student newspaper has narrowly escaped being expelled for his actions.

Brian Loving, stumbled upon a file containing the names, Social Security numbers and grade point averages of between 50 to 100 students on a publicly accessible university server in June. Loving downloaded a copy of what he discovered and handed it over to the Western Oregon Journal, the campus newspaper. Though the paper's final publication date for the academic year had already passed, it decided to publish a four-page special report with an article describing Loving's discovery. No names of any of the students were published in the article.

Two months into the investigation, Loving — who is now a staffer with the newspaper — was found to have broken a university computer use policy that prohibits unauthorized people from accessing confidential files that may have been inadvertently placed in a publicly accessible location."

Steve Jobs Announces iPhone SDK 467

Posted by Zonk on Wednesday October 17, 2007 @12:50PM from the independent-thought-coming-soon-to-a-phone-near-you dept.

An anonymous reader writes "It finally happened. Steve Jobs announced an iPhone SDK today. The plan is to release it in February, and the suggestion is that apps will need to be digitally signed (not unlike digital signing in Leopard). Here's hoping that developing for the iPhone/Touch will be cheap (or free) enough to allow the folks who have been writing apps to continue doing so. Says Jobs: 'It will take until February to release an SDK because we're trying to do two diametrically opposed things at once--provide an advanced and open platform to developers while at the same time protect iPhone users from viruses, malware, privacy attacks, etc. This is no easy task.'"

Submission + - BitTorrent Gets New CEO

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 17, 2007 @11:38AM

An anonymous reader writes: Looks like Bram Cohen has decided to let grownups run the company. He's becoming "Chief Scientist". The new CEO is the former CEO of Alias Systems. Wired News says: "The few gray hairs on Walker's head should go a long way towards soothing entertainment execs, whose panic over letting go of old business models is rivaled only by their panic over losing market share to internet upstarts. While Cohen, 32, and Navin, 30, inspire confidence respectively as tech genius and sharp dealmaker, they admit that a seasoned CEO helps their cause." http://www.wired.com/techbiz/startups/news/2007/10/bittorrent

Submission + - Urchin's not dead yet (itworld.com)

Submitted by

jfruhlinger

on Wednesday October 17, 2007 @09:01AM

jfruhlinger writes: "After Google acquired Urchin two and a half years ago, the hosted version of the product (now known as Google Analytics) has advanced by leaps and bounds, while the software package has languished, much to the dismay of customers. But a new version of the Urchin software is finally about to hit beta, nearly three years after the last one was released."

Submission + - P2P Network Now 50xs Faster (techcrunch.com)

Submitted by

verybadradio

on Wednesday October 17, 2007 @08:46AM

verybadradio writes: "Your P2P downloads may be getting much faster if this interview is correct. China's Kaiser Kuo claims that Blin.cn is 50 times faster than BitTorrent and when downloading the show 24 season 6 he was able to start watching it with 2.2% downloaded after only 3 minutes, and all in DVD quality."

Spam Hits 95% of All Email 270

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday October 17, 2007 @08:45AM from the thats-just-depressing dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Commtouch released its Email Threats Trend Report based on the automated analysis of billions of email messages weekly. The report examines the appearance of new kinds of attachment spamsuch as PDF spam and Excel spam together with the decline of image spam, as well as the growing threat of innocent appearing spam containing links to malicious web sites. Image spam declined to a level of less than 5% of all spam, down from 30% in the first quarter of 2007; also, image pump-and-dump spam has all but disappeared, with pornographic images taking its place."

Submission + - MySpace Teams Up With Skype, Sony BMG (physorg.com)

Submitted by

eldavojohn

on Wednesday October 17, 2007 @08:25AM

eldavojohn writes: "MySpace has teamed up with Skype to offer PC to PC phone calls "so they could reach people in their network even when they're not online." They have also signed a deal with Sony BMG allowing MySpace users to post artist materials on their sites within MySpace. It appears that MySpace approached eBay with this offer, it's clear that eBay is desperately looking for a way to build revenue from Skype. I'm sure MySpace is feeling the pressure from other social networking sites and hopes to gain an edge with these new features although both are heavy deterrents for me."

Submission + - Yahoo! accused of lying to Congress (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by

verybadradio

on Wednesday October 17, 2007 @08:18AM

verybadradio writes: "The House Committee on Foreign Affairs is calling Yahoo! chief executive Jerry Yang to a hearing on 6 November to explain why the company lied to Congress in early 2006 about its knowledge of the investigation into Chinese journalist Shi Tao."

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