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Censorship

Submission + - Tableau Software Getting Bad Reax Over Wikileaks (tableausoftware.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Although it's been linked elsewhere on Slashdot, it's worth taking a look at Tableau Software's page on its decision to remove an analysis of Wikileaks directly because of the request of Joe Lieberman that companies have no truck with Wikileaks. The negative response from its users is overwhelming. Tableau has apparently even deleted a prior blog entry which had praised the very same Wikileaks analysis it's now taken down. This would clearly seem to be one of those unanticipated "snowball" responses which will bring massive bad publicity in ensuing days. But so far, company representatives are adamant that they have committed no offense against free speech.
Games

Submission + - Gog.com shutting down

Submitted by snakeplissken
snakeplissken writes: It seems goodoldgames are/have shut down. I just went there and read the simple close down notice. They are going to allow folk to re-download already purchased games but in their words: "we've decided that GOG.com simply cannot remain in its current form."
IT

Submission + - How to Get Tough With Your Tech Vendor (infoworld.com) 1

Submitted by
snydeq
snydeq writes: "InfoWorld's Robert Scheier offers in-depth advice on how IT can get the most from its procurement budget — and avoid getting fleeced by its tech vendors. 'Despite the shaky economic recovery, consultants say it's still mostly a buyer's market, with vendors competing for your IT dollar. Use the uncertain economy — and the knowledge that vendors need your dollars — to drive smart deals based on a clear-eyed knowledge of your real needs,' Scheier writes, adding that knowing how sales reps are compensated, rejecting pricey maintenance plans, and negotiating with senior executives are key, as is a keen understanding of the kinds of dirty vendor tricks that can be pulled in any negotiation. 'You may be looking for a better deal because of the tough economy — but so are the vendors who are trying to preserve income and even grow despite the tough times. Many will play hardball as well, and a few will go beyond tough negotiations to underhanded techniques.'"
Education

Submission + - More Parents use Digital Grounding to Punish Teens 1

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "Donna St. George writes in the Washington Post that the art of family discipline has begun to reflect our digital age, Not long ago teenagers lost their evenings out, maybe the keys to the family car — now parents seize cellphones, shut down Facebook pages, pull the plug on PlayStation. "It's a modern version of grounding," says Richard Weissbourd, a Harvard psychologist and author of "The Parents We Mean to Be." "It's like taking away a weekend or a couple of weekends. It's a deprivation of social connections in the same way." Experts point out that the word discipline actually means to teach and suggest it should be approached that way. Some go further, saying consequences should be related to the transgression: that taking away a cellphone makes sense for breaking rules about texting, but perhaps not for coming home late; in that case, the consequence might include curfew times. "The easiest thing to do is take away what your child values in hopes they'll correct their behavior to get it back, but that's going to feel like punishment, not like discipline," says Kenneth R. Ginsburg, author of "A Parent's Guide to Building Resilience in Children and Teens." But in a report earlier this year from the Pew Institute, 62 percent of parents said they had taken away a cellphone as punishment. Parents "know how important and vital it is to their teens' existence," says the report's co-author Amanda Lenhart. "They were getting them where it hurt.""

Submission + - IE worldwide marketshare drops below 50% (statcounter.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: For the second weekend in a row the combined marketshare of all Internet Explorer versions around the world dropped below 50%
Businesses

Submission + - Tech's Dark Secret: It’s All About Age 2

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Universities really should tell engineering students what to expect in the long term and how to manage their technical careers. But since they're not, Vivek Wadwha uses his TechCrunch bully pulpit to give students a heads-up about the road ahead. Citing ex-Microsoft CTO David Vaskevitch's belief that younger workers have more energy and are sometimes more creative, Wadwha warns that reports of ageism's death have been greatly exaggerated. While encouraging managers to consider the value of the experience older techies bring, Wadwha also offers some get-real advice to those whose hair is beginning to grey: 1) Move up the ladder into management, architecture, or design; switch to sales or product management; jump ship and become an entrepreneur. 2) If you're going to stay in programming, realize that the deck is stacked against you, so be prepared to earn less as you gain experience. 3) Keep your skills current — to be coding for a living when you're 50, you'll need to be able to out-code the new kids on the block. Wadwha's piece strikes a chord with 50-something Dave Winer, who calls the rampant ageism 'really f***ed up,' adding that, 'It's probably the reason why we keep going around in the same loops over and over, because we chuck our experience, wholesale, every ten years or so.' Well, Microsoft did struggle with problems that IBM solved in the '60s.
Security

Submission + - 5 Million Domains Serving Malware via NS (net-security.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A compromised widget provided by Network Solutions was serving malware on otherwise legitimate websites. But, as bad as this discovery was, it was bound to be overshadowed a couple of days later by another revelation: the widget is automatically included on every "parked" domain by Network Solutions! A quick search on Google and Yahoo! revealed that there are around 500,000 and 5,000,000 domains affected and serving malware, respectively. A manual check of some 200 parked domains on the list showed that all of them were provided with the malware-serving widget.
Google

Submission + - Google kills Wave (blogspot.com)

Submitted by mordejai
mordejai writes: Google stated in it's official blog that they will not continue developing wave as a standalone product. It's sad because it had a lot of potential to improve communications, but Google never promoted it well, denying it a chance to replace email and other collaboration tools for many uses.

Submission + - No Kindle for university students (washingtonexaminer.com) 1

Submitted by steak
steak writes: The Justice department forced the kindle textbook test porgrams to shutdown because it supposedly violates the ADA.

"The Civil Rights Division informed the schools they were under investigation. In subsequent talks, the Justice Department demanded the universities stop distributing the Kindle; if blind students couldn't use the device, then nobody could."
Graphics

Submission + - OpenGL 4.1 Specification Announced (extremetech.com)

Submitted by WesternActor
WesternActor writes: The Khronos Group has announced full details for the OpenGL 4.1 specification. Among the new features of the spec, which comes just five months after the release of the 4.0 specification, is full support for OpenGL ES, which simplifies porting between mobile and desktop platforms. It'll be interesting to see what effect, if any, this new spec has on the graphics industry--more compatibility could change the way many embedded systems are designed. There are lots of other changes and additions in the spec, as well.
Hardware Hacking

Submission + - Put Your Own Micro Satellite in Orbit For $8,000 (npr.org)

Submitted by eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: For just over eight large, a California company will give you a kit and put your satellite in orbit. A professional astronomer who purchased one with the intent of making music out of the solar sensor described the kit, 'It has a power system that's basically two lithium AA batteries hooked together, a little stick of gum computer chip, a bunch of very fragile solar cells that are packed away, antenna and lots of wires. If you were expecting to see Sputnik, it's completely different.' However, it appears that whatever you could fit inside the shoebox sized "launch cylinder" could go up (no weight limits listed). The TubeSat Kit suggests many possible uses and experiments including 'Earth-from-space video imaging, Earth magnetic field measurement, Satellite orientation detection (horizon sensor, gyros, accelerometers, etc.), Orbital environment measurements (temperature, pressure, radiation, etc.), On-orbit hardware and software component testing (microprocessors, etc.), Tracking migratory animals from orbit, Testing satellite stabilization methods, Biological experiments, On-orbit advertising, Private e-mail, Space art and even Space burials.' Considering how easily some have made image satellites, there might be a lot of uses for amateur and professional alike.

Submission + - Study that 99.7% of torrents are "illegal" flawed (torrentfreak.com) 1

Submitted by Caledfwlch
Caledfwlch writes: techdirt, and others, point to an analysis by TorrentFreak of the recent report by Internet Commerce Security Laboratory (ICSL) of Australia that only 0.3% of torrents contain legal content. One of the data points was that the movie The Incredible Hulk was the number one seeded torrent "the fact that the release is nearly two years old should have sounded some alarm bells. It appears that the researchers have pulled data from a bogus tracker, and it wouldn’t be a big surprise if all the torrents in their top 10 are actually fake.". The study had been widely picked up a couple of days ago by the media, here, at ArsTechnica, and others.

Submission + - Is Valve's Anti-Cheat software faulty? (rockpapershotgun.com)

Submitted by HaymarketRiot
HaymarketRiot writes: There have been reports that Valve's Anti-Cheat software (VAC) has recently banned a large number of Modern Warfare 2 players. A banning from VAC is especially strict in that there is no chance of appeal, as that would show a fault in supposedly perfect software. Word from the associated Steam Group indicates that the problem may be the fault of the game's developers, Infinity Ward.
Microsoft

Submission + - Will Ballmer be replaced as Microsoft CEO? (thedailybeast.com)

Submitted by Strudelkugel
Strudelkugel writes: The Beast reports unhappiness with Steve Ballmer as CEO of Microsoft: Sources say the talk around Microsoft's Redmond, Washington, headquarters—which has grown increasingly louder ever since Apple surpassed Microsoft in market capitalization—-is that the company's stock suffers from a "Ballmer discount," and that the CEO is on the clock to significantly move the needle on its share price over the next two or three quarters or face a potential move to oust him. "Ballmer is on the list of mega-executives under pressure," says a banker who has negotiated deals for Microsoft. "If he was asked to leave the building, I suspect there would be more happy than unhappy people."
Privacy

Submission + - Facebook can infer what you're browsing on the web (arnab.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: "Facebook is indirectly collecting your entire browsing history for all websites that have Facebook widgets. You don’t have to click any like buttons, just visiting sites like IMDB.com or CNN.com or BritneySpears.com will enable this."

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