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Bitcoin

MtGox Files For Bankruptcy Protection 465

Posted by Soulskill from the all-about-the-bitjamins dept.
Sockatume writes "The beleaguered MtGox bitcoin exchange has officially filed for bankruptcy protection in Tokyo. According to the Wall Street Journal, Bitcoin held an impromptu press conference that addressed recent rumors. They state that they have over $60m in liabilities against just $30m in assets, and confirm the loss of over $500m worth of Bitcoins, split between customers' balances (750,000 BTC) and company assets (100,000 BTC). Owner Mark Karpeles said, 'There was some weakness in the system, and the bitcoins have disappeared. I apologize for causing trouble.'"
The Internet

ICANN Considers Using '127.0.53.53' To Tackle DNS Namespace Collisions 164

Posted by samzenpus from the that-doesn't-look-right dept.
angry tapir writes "As the number of top-level domains undergoes explosive growth, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is studying ways to reduce the risk of traffic intended for internal network destinations ending up on the Internet via the Domain Name System. Proposals in a report produced on behalf of ICANN include preventing .mail, .home and .corp ever being Internet TLDs; allowing the forcible de-delegation of some second-level domains in emergencies; and returning 127.0.53.53 as an IP address in the hopes that sysadmins will flag and Google it."
Businesses

How Jan Koum Steered WhatsApp Into $16B Facebook Deal 136

Posted by timothy from the ok-today-I-can-supersize-it dept.
First time accepted submitter paulbes writes "Jan Koum picked a meaningful spot to sign the $19 billion deal to sell his company WhatsApp to Facebook [Wednesday]. Koum, cofounder Brian Acton and venture capitalist Jim Goetz of Sequoia drove a few blocks from WhatsApp's discreet headquarters in Mountain View to a disused white building across the railroad tracks, the former North County Social Services office where Koum, 37, once stood in line to collect food stamps. That's where the three of them inked the agreement to sell their messaging phenom –which brought in a minuscule $20 million in revenue last year — to the world's largest social network." Forbes overstates the apparent selling price by a few billion dollars; big numbers, either way. [Update: 02/20 13:51 GMT by T : The $19 billion makes sense, if you include retention bonuses in the form of restricted stock units.] Another reader points out the interesting fact that "Acton — himself a former Apple engineer — applied for jobs at both Twitter and Facebook way before WhatsApp became a wildly popular mobile app. Both times he was rejected."
The Media

Quentin Tarantino Vs. Gawker: When Is Linking Illegal For Journalists? 166

Posted by Soulskill from the when-it-makes-somebody-mad dept.
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Jon Healey writes in the LA Times that a new lawsuit against the Gawker Media site Defamer for linking to an infringing copy of an unreleased screenplay should send chills down the spines of every reporter who writes about copyright issues. Tarantino had kept the script for his ensemble western The Hateful Eight unpublished, but someone obtained a copy and posted it online. In its piece, Defamer quoted only a brief excerpt and a short summary published earlier that day by the Wrap. But it also included two links to the leaked screenplay on a file-sharing site called AnonFiles. In a complaint filed in federal court in Los Angeles, Tarantino's lawyers say they repeatedly asked Gawker Media to remove the links, to no avail. John Cook, Gawker's editor, responded with a post that rebuts the complaint's most damaging allegations, saying Defamer had no involvement whatsoever in the leak or the script's posting online. Cook also quotes Tarantino's comments last week to Deadline Hollywood, in which the filmmaker said he likes having his work online for people to read and review. 'Reporters often assume that providing links to items of public interest is perfectly aboveboard, even if the items themselves aren't. If this case goes to trial, it could help clarify what links simply can't be published legally, regardless of the news value,' writes Healey. 'I'm not arguing that what Gawker did was legal — that's a judge's decision. I'm just saying that there's a journalistic reason for Gawker to do what it did, and those of us who write about copyrights struggle often with the question of how to report what seems newsworthy without crossing a line that's drawn case by case.'"

Comment SIM card on the 3ds (Score 1) 559

by Punto (#46022435) Attached to: How Can Nintendo Recover?

Or even better, build a phone on top of a decent controller, even the old NES was good enough. Mobile gaming will never have any depth until there's a good controller available, the touchscreen is no enough. They can bring Mario to phones all they want, but it'll be pointless without a good controller.
Communications

Mars One Studying How To Maintain Communications With Mars 24/7 143

Posted by timothy from the oh-such-unmitigated-cheek dept.
braindrainbahrain writes "Mars One, the low-credibility effort to colonize Mars, is at least funding some interesting concept studies for their alleged plan to colonize the red planet. One of the most interesting is the effort to maintain uninterrupted communications with Mars. This is not as trivial as it may sound, as any satellite in Martian orbit will still have to deal with occultations between Mars and Earth due to the Sun. Surrey Satellite Technology will be performing the study."

Comment "what to do?" send a robot of your own? (Score 1) 514

by Punto (#45904433) Attached to: Weapons Systems That Kill According To Algorithms Are Coming. What To Do?

If one side is sending robots to war, the other side will send their own robots against them. Has anyone figured out the game theory behind a war where both sides send robots instead of humans? It seems like it could be better than what we have now. I don't understand why we're so against the idea.

Comment Why not have them figure it out? (Score 1) 365

by Punto (#45901615) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: How Many (Electronics) Gates Is That Software Algorithm?

While an interesting question (I didn't even know hardware manufacturers were in the habit of converting software into hardware), why don't they figure it out themselves? They must have the tools/people to do it. Are you afraid they'll "steal your algorithm" if you give them the source? (that's much less interesting)

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