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Submission + - A letter on behalf of the world's PC fixers (pcpro.co.uk)

Submitted by
Barence
Barence writes: "PC Pro's Steve Cassidy has written a letter on behalf of all the put-upon techies who've ever been called by a friend to fix their PC. His bile is directed at a friend who put a DVD bought on holiday into their laptop, and then wondered what went wrong.

"Once you stuck that DVD in there and started saying 'yes, OK' to every resulting dialog box, you sank the whole thing," Cassidy writes. "It doesn’t take 10 minutes to sort that out; it requires a complete machine reload to properly guarantee the infection is history."

"No, there is no neat and handy way I’ve been keeping secret that allows you to retain your extensive collection of stolen software licences loaded on that laptop. I do disaster recovery, not disaster participation.""
Politics

Submission + - Hosni Mubarak steps down. 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: BBC news reports that Hosni Mubarak of Egypt has stepped down and the Army council is taking temporary control.
Transportation

Obama Calling For $53B For High Speed Rail 1026

Posted by samzenpus from the lyle-lanley-approved dept.
Antisyzygy writes "President Obama is calling for $53B to be appropriated for the construction of high-speed rail in the United States over the next 6 years. Assuming Congress approves this plan, the funding would be spent on developing and/or improving trains that travel at approximately 250 miles/hour, as well as spent on connecting existing rail lines to new developed high speed lines."
Microsoft

Hotmail Launches Accounts You Can Throw Away 286

Posted by timothy from the at-last-a-feature-that-leads-gmail dept.
suraj.sun writes with this excerpt from CNET: "Today, Hotmail is getting a new feature aimed at 'e-mail enthusiasts,' which lets anyone create multiple e-mail accounts that can be read, replied to, and managed from their everyday e-mail inbox. These additional e-mail addresses can be had in the same manner as signing up for new accounts, but they require no extra log-ins or upkeep. ... The idea is to give users a safe way to provide third parties with an e-mail address, without giving up the address they've provided to family and friends, which, if compromised, can end the usefulness of that particular account. Each user will be able to create up to five aliases, any of which can be deleted and replaced with another at any time. Over time, Microsoft will increase that limit to 15 aliases per account, making it so that the true heavy users won't need to juggle between two or more Hotmail accounts."
Intel

Submission + - Asus, Gigabyte to replace all Sandy Bridge boards (techreport.com)

Submitted by J. Dzhugashvili
J. Dzhugashvili writes: In the wake of Intel's announcement that all existing Sandy Bridge chipsets have a bug that causes degraded Serial ATA performance, top-tier motherboard makers Asus and Gigabyte have made public statements regarding their return policy for affected boards. Asus is promising 'hassle-free return and/or replacement', while Gigabyte says owners of affected boards are entitled to a full refund or replacement—and it recommends that users seek refunds. Both companies are advising users to contact the original place of purchase to proceed. On a related note, Gigabyte has announced that new Sandy Bridge motherboards with bug-free chipsets will be available in volume in April.
Android

Submission + - A Deeper Look Into Android 3.0

Submitted by adeelarshad82
adeelarshad82 writes: Google is getting ready to show off Android 3.0 aka Honeycomb later today and it's definitely going to give iOS a run for its money. Google's new OS carries a completely overhauled user interface. Not only does the interface have deeper, darker colors to increase battery life but also the home screen now provides the ability to view multiple widget as well as the functionality of stacking items within a widget like pictures or videos. Along with the UI, Google has also improved the multitasking functionality. The existing method of accessing running or recently opened applications has been grown to display in-app screens instead of just the name of the app and an icon. One of the biggest differences between Honeycomb and other operating systems running on tablets is that, Honeycomb along with the apps running on it are optimzed for dual core processing. Natively, Android will run the garbage collector on one core and an app on another. However, the tools are there to utilize both cores for your app, and to benefit from the performance gains that will occur. To take a shot at Blackberry's market, Google has ensured that the tablet carries business features like password expiration and encrypted storage tools. Finally the OS adds support for legacy Bluetooth devices which is not available on most of the other tablets in the market today.
Microsoft

Submission + - Windows drops below 90% market share (networkworld.com)

Submitted by jbrodkin
jbrodkin writes: Windows' market share has dropped below 90%, with all versions of the operating system now being used on 89.7% of PCs and other devices including smartphones and tablets. Some observers have pointed out that Windows actually dropped below 90% long ago according to some stat tracking organizations. But the latest 90% barrier crossing, reported by Net Applications, is still a significant one as it demonstrates Microsoft's failure to counteract Apple and Android in the world of mobile devices. When excluding smartphones and tablets, and counting only PCs, several counting organizations still put Windows at more than 90% share.
Crime

Submission + - Man Arrested for Exploiting Error in Slot Machines (post-gazette.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A man awaiting trial in Pennsylvania was arrested by Federal agents on Jan. 4, and accused of exploiting a software "glitch" within slot machines in order to win payouts. The exploit may have allowed the man to obtain more than a million dollars from casinos in Pennsylvania and Nevada, and officials say they are investigating to see if he used the method elsewhere. The accused stated that "I'm being arrested federally for winning on a slot machine. Let everybody see the surveillance tapes. I pressed buttons on the machine on the casino. That's all I did.".

Apparently, slot machine software errors are fairly common, as witnessed in these stories:
http://www.luxurylaunches.com/other_stuff/two_men_denied_slot_machine_winnings.php
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_14795166
http://www.onlinecasinosphere.com/news/reports/world-casinos/canadian-casino-refuses-to-pay-jackpot-5443.php

The lesson here seems to be that casinos can deny you a slot machine win any time they wish by claiming software errors, and if you find an error that you can exploit, you may find yourself on Federal charges for doing so.

Submission + - RapidShare wins against Atari (p2pnet.net)

Submitted by newtley
newtley writes: "RapidShare AG has once more won the case against Atari in a dispute regarding the scope of its auditing duties", says the company in an email to p2pnet. Used not only by alleged file sharers but also by the likes of Big 4 music gang member EMI, according to MP3tunes' Michael Robertson, the company appealed a ruling by the Dusseldorf Regional Court in March last year. Rapidshare, "one of the world’s largest file-hosting sites with millions of files stored on its servers", was accused of not taking adequate measures to "hinder the distribution of the computer game 'Alone in the Dark' via its platform". Meanwhile, "Having been named as a 'notorious' piracy site by both the RIAA and MPAA", RapidShare is fighting back", says Music Ally, noting, "In an interview, RapidShare's attorney and spokesperson Raimer "indicated that the company intends to work the Google parallel for all it's worth, saying it is no more a piracy haven than the search engine." Accordingly, "It's hired US lobbying firm Dutko, which has previously worked for Google. Its main task: to 'counter negative attacks on the company from US copyright interests'."
Idle

Submission + - What Your e-mail Address Says About You

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "Doug Gross writes at CNN that whether you know it or not, people judge you the moment they see what comes after the "@" in your email messages and that @aol.com, @hotmail.com, @yahoo.com, @gmail.com , @mywebsite.com, or a work or school e-mail address say very different things about you. So at the risk of flirting with internet snobbery and knowing that like all stereotypes, there are exceptions, let the stereotyping begin! For example , if your email address ends in @aol.com, then you have probably had the same e-mail address you had in 1997, you are probably 70 years old, and you are lazy — too lazy to upgrade. At the other end of the specturm if your email address ends with @gmail.com you "most likely knows your way around a computer" and "when the internet stops working, actually tries rebooting the router before calling a family member for help." If you insist on using your work e-mail for all your personal messages, then people think you spend too much time at work and if you're still using @harvard.edu 20 years after graduation, you're the digital equivalent of the middle-aged guy still trying to squeeze on his letterman's jacket. Finally if you have your own domain name for your email that pretty much puts you at the top of the e-savvy stack. "No one will think you're a rube when they get your e-mail," writes Gross. "They may, however, think you're self-centered. And possibly a megalomaniac.""
Google

Submission + - The Android Invasion Cometh; is Resistance Futile? (deviceguru.com) 1

Submitted by __aajbyc7391
__aajbyc7391 writes: Last month, we learned from Gartner that Android will probably be the number-two worldwide mobile OS this year, and may lead the pack by 2014. With Android's growing use as the OS embedded in phones, in tablets, in set-top boxes, and in LCD HDTVs, it seems like the Linux-based OS could end up dominating the entire non-PC consumer device operating system space. What do Slashdot readers think: Is resistance futile?

Submission + - WikiLeaks: WMD's were found in Iraq (wired.com) 3

Submitted by
DesScorp
DesScorp writes: "Wired reports that among the latest batch of war documents that WikiLeaks released included documentation showing that various quantities of banned WMD's were found in Iraq well into 2008, though in much smaller quantities than the Bush Administration feared. Almost all were chemical or biological agents (or technologies used to make them), and years into the Iraq War, the concern shifted to Al Qaeda and their insurgent allies acquiring and using the leftover agents against US allied forces. Among the weapons that were found were 155 mm shells with mustard gas. Other documents deal with the capture of "foreign agents" helping the insurgents in an attempt to use leftover chemical weapons."

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