kontos - Slashdot User

Submission + - Hard Disk Study Leaves Google Surprised

Submitted by bugg_tb on Monday February 19, 2007 @11:47AM

bugg_tb writes: The BBC is reporting on a study performed by Google engineers on regular 'off the shelf' hard drives that Google uses for caching data and how they perform and the likelyhood of them to fail. The author states: "We expected to notice a very strong and consistent correlation between high utilisation and higher failure rates. "However our results appear to paint a more complex picture. First, only very young and very old age groups appear to show the expected behaviour." The report concludes that: there was a clear trend showing "that lower temperatures are associated with higher failure rates". "Only at very high temperatures is there a slight reversal of this trend." You can see the full report here

HD-DVD and Blu-Ray Protections Fully Broken 682

Posted by Zonk on Tuesday February 13, 2007 @02:12PM from the open-season dept.

gEvil (beta) writes "According to an article at BoingBoing, the processing keys for the AACS encryption scheme used by both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray video discs have been extracted, and a crack has been released. What this means is that there is now a method to extract the copy-protected content of any HD-DVD or Blu-Ray disc out there. This is different from Muslix64's previous crack, which only extracted the volume key for each disc. This new method bypasses this step and allows anyone to extract the data without first requiring the volume key."

OLPC Available to the Public Early 2008 192

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday January 10, 2007 @02:43PM from the but-is-it-a-tax-writeoff dept.

Zoxed writes "The BBC is reporting that the OLPC will be available to the public early next year on a buy-2-get-1 basis through eBay. With its cheap price, fully open spec. and full/open hardware support for Linux, expandability, 2W rating and LinuxBIOS booting it sounds like an embedded-Linux hackers favorite new toy."

The NSFW HTML Attribute 273

Posted by Zonk on Friday December 29, 2006 @09:32AM from the thought-provoking dept.

phaln writes "Over at The Frosty Mug Revolution, PJ Doland makes a compelling case for a new HTML attribute in the spirit of the highly-regarded 'nofollow' attribute promoted by Google — the NSFW attribute (rel='nsfw'). His original idea has been refined and expanded by positive comments from readers, resulting in a semantic solution to the issue he raises in the original post. From the article: 'Content creators can apply the attribute to paragraph tags, div tags, or any other block-level element. Doing so will indicate that the enclosed content is not safe for work. Visitors will be able to configure their browsers to block display of just the content enclosed by the flagged block-level element. This isn't about censorship. It is about making us all less likely to accidentally click on a goatse.cx link when our boss is standing behind us. It is also about making us feel more comfortable posting possibly objectionable content by giving visitors a means of easily filtering that content.'"

Robotic Deer to Fight Illegal Hunting 325

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Tuesday December 26, 2006 @05:22AM from the low-tech-honey-pot dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes "If you were a law enforcement official searching for hunters who don't follow the rules, what would be a good gift for you? In 'Robot Deer Captures Poachers,' Brian Bull, reporting from Mosinee, Wisconsin, writes that you can buy robotic decoys for deer, elks, moose and even bears. These life-like creatures are made of animal hides or skins attached to polyurethane foam bodies and equipped with remotely controlled motors allowing the head and tail to move. After you pay about $2,000 for such a robo-deer, you put it on a side road. All you have to do is wait for an illegal hunter trying to shoot the fake deer and fine him. Many officers have reported collecting well over $30,000 in fines with a single robot. Not a bad deal."

Republican Aide Tries to Hire Hackers 427

Posted by Zonk on Friday December 22, 2006 @12:48PM from the hack-it-yourself-like-the-rest-of-us dept.

Noryungi writes "It seems as though a Republican Communications Director contacted Attrition.org, trying to hire hackers to improve his educational records. I don't know what is his dumbest move: (a) contacting Attrition in the first place, (b) using a real name Yahoo email address or (c) speaking at length about what he needed? Kudos to the Attrition crew for posting the whole email dialogue online! A sample from the conversation: 'Jericho: First, let's be clear. You are soliciting me to break the law and hack into a computer across state lines. That is a federal offense and multiple felonies. Obviously I can't trust anyone and everyone that mails such a request, you might be an FBI agent, right? So, I need three things to make this happen: 1. A picture of a squirrel or pigeon on your campus. One close-up, one with background that shows buildings, a sign, or something to indicate you are standing on the campus. 2. The information I mentioned so I can find the records once I get into the database. 3. Some idea of what I get for all my trouble.'"

When Beige Won't Do 214

Posted by Zonk on Friday November 24, 2006 @10:05AM from the so-90s dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The days of the beige box are behind us, as computing becomes ever more a consumer electronics field. A New York Times article, hosted at News.com, discusses the newest trends in moving away from standard beige for PCs and laptops. Designer colors, artfully designed notebooks, and personalization are just some of the options outfits are now offering." From the article: "Apple Computer is widely credited with long ago shattering conventions that had for years dictated how a computer had to feel and look. Windows-based personal computers generally lagged far behind in fusing function with form in ways that consumers found exciting. But that is changing, executives from mainstay computer companies like Dell and Toshiba say."

Virtualization Disallowed For Vista Home 369

Posted by Zonk on Friday November 24, 2006 @09:10AM from the little-bossy dept.

Maxx writes to mention a ZDNet article about Microsoft's dictum on Vista as a virtual machine. The software giant has declared that home versions of their upcoming OS may not be run virtually, because 'virtualization is not mature enough for broad adoption.' From the article: "'Microsoft says that consumers don't understand the risks of running virtual machines, and they only want enterprises that understand the risks to run Vista on a VM. So, Microsoft removes user choice in the name of security,' says Gartner analyst Michael Silver. 'The other option is to pay Microsoft US$300 for Windows Vista Business or US$399 for Windows Ultimate, instead of US$200 for Home Basic or US$239 for Home Premium,' Silver suggested."

Peter Jackson Will Not Be Making The Hobbit 467

Posted by Hemos on Monday November 20, 2006 @10:35AM from the a-sad-day dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Due to legal wranglings with New Line Cinema over accounting issues for Lord Of The Rings, Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh will not be involved in the making of either The Hobbit or the planned Lord of the Rings prequel." I suppose there is still a chance that Jackson & Co. could end up involved, but at this point that looks unlikely.

Craigslist Fair Housing Act Suit Dismissed 162

Posted by kdawson on Monday November 20, 2006 @09:13AM from the common-carrier dept.

tigersaw writes, "A federal judge in Chicago has dismissed the suit against Craigslist brought by the Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which accused the site of violating the Fair Housing Act of 1968 by not actively filtering out housing advertisements that include discriminatory language. Craigslist cited their community-based flagging system as an already effective means of limiting such posts. However, the court held that the site was nonetheless protected by the 1996 Communications Decency Act (CDA), which shields Web forums from liability for ads and opinions posted by their users."

My Maxtor Hard Drive Just Caught Fire! 386

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday August 31, 2006 @12:17PM from the hate-when-that-happens dept.

Dracos writes "Dell batteries you say catch fire? Well don't worry about that Dell battery, look inside your PC case at your HDD, mine just went up in smoke and flames..." Could be worse. It could be ball lightning. I hear there's a lot of that going around inside servers these days.

Reuters Admits, Pulls Doctored Photos 593

Posted by timothy on Monday August 07, 2006 @05:30PM from the fill-in-gimp-plug-here dept.

fragmentate points to a post on PopPhoto which says "Reuters pulled a photograph of burning buildings in Beirut yesterday after a post on the Little Green Footballs blog outed it as digitally manipulated. The photo, filed on Saturday by freelance photographer Adnan Hajj, ran with the caption "Smoke billows from burning buildings destroyed during an overnight Israeli air raid on Beirut's suburbs." Fragmentate adds "Another image from the same photographer was found to have been doctored. Whether you're a CNN fan, or a FoxNEWS fan, you have to wonder how much of what we see is fake, or exaggerated."

Encrypted Ammunition? 909

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Tuesday June 27, 2006 @12:32PM from the really-bad-ideas dept.

holy_calamity writes "A patent has been filed for bullets with built-in encryption. Pulling the trigger sends a radio signal to the cartridge in the chamber, but the charge only goes off if the right encryption key is sent. The aim is to improve civilian firearm security." Not sure I'm quite ready to trust the average techno-gadget failure rate on something like this just yet.

Intel To Slash Prices Up To 60% 227

Posted by Zonk on Thursday June 08, 2006 @04:13PM from the desperate-times dept.

Chuan-kai Lin writes "According to Bloomberg, Intel will slash product prices by up to 60% in order to regain market share captured by AMD." From the article: "Intel said it will reduce prices of faster dual-core chips by about 15 percent, according to Alex Lin, a product marketing manager at Micro-Star, Taiwan's third-largest maker of motherboards, which connect electronic parts in computers ... Shares of Intel have fallen 33 percent since Otellini succeeded Craig Barrett in May last year. Advanced Micro's stock has gained 77 percent during the same period. Intel fell 31 cents to $17.08 at 12:06 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market composite trading. Advanced Micro dropped $1.55, or 5.5 percent, to $26.45 on concerns that Intel will lower prices."

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