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Comment Another monitizing opportunity (Score 1) 276

by katarn (#37813532) Attached to: Why Computer Voices Are Mostly Female
1) Include female synthesized voices in Germany and other places which prefer male.
2) Include male synthesized voices in the USA and other places which prefer female.
3) Sell "value enhancement" packages of other voices for $10 a shot.
4) Profit!
5) Uhm, where's my slice of the pie for thinking of the idea?

Comment Re:Losing neflix would be a loss to us all (Score 1) 349

by katarn (#37426674) Attached to: Netflix To Lose 1 Million Subscribers
Not at all; then the low price solution would be DEAD and the only alternative would be the $$ cable companies. The studios got along just fine without Netflix before, they'd be happy to "get along" without Netflix again, provided they keep their lucrative contracts with traditional media. No, they don't care at all if Netflix goes under. You talk about sending a message. If people really want to send a message, they would cancel their cable/HBO and order Netflix. Actually that may be what has been happening, and the additional scrutiny this brings is perhaps a bit uncomfortable for Netflix. In my case I didn't cancel cable because Cable/HBO/Direct TV was never worth it at the price point they offered (even if they'd offer it at half the price point it wouldn't have been) so my Netflix subscription is actually a gain to the studios.

Comment Losing neflix would be a loss to us all (Score 3, Interesting) 349

by katarn (#37416766) Attached to: Netflix To Lose 1 Million Subscribers
Don't be too hard on Netflix; It seems they are caught between a rock and a hard place. The studios let them get by on table scraps before because they didn't see them as a serious revenue source, and saw them as just an opportunity to pick up minor bits of revenue which they wouldn't otherwise collect. Now Netflix has everyone's attention, and the studios are going to want the full slice of the pie. Analysts predict that Netflix licensing is going to increase from $180M to 1.98B in the next few years. With that looming over Netflix, they must be desperate to find a strategy to cope. If the studios get their way and Netflix goes down or concedes to their desired licensing, then we all lose and we end up paying $60 to $120 per month like we pay for cable instead of $8 / month. Personally I just have the Netflix streaming service and no DVD. I don't care about the DVDs, but I wish they streamed more videos. It would be nice to have Netflix under Linux though, so I wouldn't have other options than my console.
Media

Submission + - Anonymous kills websites, cartels kill bloggers. (npr.org)

Submitted by katarn
katarn writes: While drug cartels in Mexico are disemboweling people they accuse of blogging about drug violence https://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/09/15/140501229/mexican-drug-gangs-send-gruesome-message-to-internet-users Anonymous, busies its self taking down Mexican government websites. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/15/us-mexico-hackers-idUSTRE78E7AC20110915 With all the problems facing people in Mexico right now, including drug cartels extorting teachers for 50% of their pay and killing schoolchildren http://www.examiner.com/drug-cartel-in-national/cartels-now-extorting-teachers-killing-schoolchildren-mexico Mexico's Cantarell oil field in terminal decline http://survivalandprosperity.com/2011/07/28/forget-cantarell-kmz-latest-oil-concern-for-mexico-and-u-s/ and drug cartels kidnapping bus loads of people and forcing them into gladiator-style contests to the death http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2003743/Mexican-drug-cartels-force-kidnap-victims-fight-death-gladiator-style-contests.html Anonymous' actions appear particularly petty. In light of all the problems Mexico is facing, Anonymous' attacks seem about as appropriate as kicking the crutches from under under Tiny Tim.

Submission + - New tool lets police find porn on WiFi (katu.com)

Submitted by katarn
katarn writes: The article is a little scant on details, but is touting http://www.flukenetworks.com/enterprise-network/network-testing/AirCheck-Wi-Fi-Tester as a device for police to use in finding WiFi setups engaged in the transfer of child porn. The article tries to give the impression this tool is some great new thing which can singlehandedly track down child porn, but backtracks to state that the police need “a lead on a child predator”, so assuredly the transfer of porn has already been verified by other means, and all the device does is narrow down the location of the device in use. Not to pass this article along as a free advertisement for fluke, but my question to those in the networking field who have used this device is: The writeups present this device as a no-brains method of finding child predators. How easy would it be for someone with actual networking knowledge to trick the device into falsely implicating someone else? There is always the concern that police/judge/jury may blindly accept the apparent evidence presented by a tool like this, even though the details may be more complex than indicated.
Education

Submission + - Man captures entire univers in on image (skysurvey.org)

Submitted by katarn
katarn writes: Nick Risinger traveled the world, using a robotic camera mount and six air cooled cameras each fitted with their own lenses and filters, to capture the entire universe in one image; the largest full true-color sky survey. The project took a year of time and logged 60,000 miles. The final image is made up of 37,000 individual photos, has a resolution of 5000 megapixels, and took months to piece together. Risinger states: "Travel was necessary as capturing the full sphere of the night sky brought with it certain limitations. What might be seen in the northern hemisphere isn't always visible from the south and, likewise with the seasons, what may be overhead in the summer is below the horizon in the winter. Complicated by weather and moon cycles, this made for some narrow windows of opportunity which we chased through the remote areas of Arizona, Texas, Nevada, Colorado, California and Oregon."
Government

Submission + - Spectrum Analyzer Catches Exam Cheats In Taiwan (itworld.com)

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: In what is thought to be the first case of its kind, officers used spectrum analyzers to catch at least 3 people suspected of cheating on an exam for prospective government workers. The FSH4 analyzers were specially configured by the German manufacturer Rohde & Schwarz. 'They didn't tell us what they were going to do. They just told us what to design, and later we found out what it was for,' said Lai Cheng-heng, a senior engineer at Rohde & Schwarz, who wrote the analyzer software used to monitor the exam.

Submission + - The 'Spaser' heats up laser technology

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Lasers have revolutionized the communications and medical industries. They focus light to zap tumors and send digital TV signals and telephone communications around the world. But the physical length of an ordinary laser cannot be less than one half of the wavelength of its light, which limits its application in many industries. Now the Spaser, a new invention developed in part by Tel Aviv University, can be as small as needed to fuel nano-technologies of the future.
Facebook

Submission + - Facebook uses scare tactics to mine more user data (sophos.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Facebook is being accused of using similar scaremongering tactics to those deployed by fake anti-virus scams and phishing attacks, under the pretext of actually making users' accounts better protected.

Messages tell Facebook users that their "Account protection status" is currently "very low", but ask users to hand over alternative email addresses, mobile phone numbers, etc.

Security firm Sophos says it has received a number of messages from concerned Facebook users who were worried that the alerts were bogus, and declares that the "suggestion that users' accounts currently have a protection status of "very low" is entirely misleading and stinks of scare tactics."

Submission + - Websites Don't Have to Remove Defamatory Comments (internetcases.com)

Submitted by DustyShadow
DustyShadow writes: In the case of Blockowicz v. Williams, The US Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals refused to force Ripoff Report to remove allegedly defamatory comments posted by a user. The Ripoff Report has a well-publicized no-takedown policy, even if the author wants to remove his/her post, so the Ripoff Report refused. The Blockowiczs then claimed that the Ripoff Report violated FRCP 65(d) because the Ripoff Report was "in active concert or participation" with the initial posters by refusing the injunction's removal order. The district court (and the Court of Appeals) disagreed with the Blockowiczs. Absent the "active concert or participation," the website was outside the court's control. Ripoff Report has released a statement concerning this case: "In keeping with our core mission of protecting speech to the fullest extent of the law, we decided that it was not just our right but also our duty to ask questions and dig deeper before we could comply with such an order. Other sites claim they support free speech, but when the going gets rough, they will usually protect their bottom line rather than the Constitutional rights and freedoms this country was founded upon. Unlike other sites, even when the speech involved is harsh or negative and even if our position sometimes generates negative press for us, we think that the First Amendment requires us to put our principles before our pocketbook and fight against censorship."
Transportation

Submission + - Boeing, Boeing ... Gone? 1

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "The Seattle Times reports that as Boeing prepares to announce yet another delay for the 787 Dreamliner — at least three months, possibly six or more — the crucial jet program is in even worse shape than it appears with problems go well beyond the latest setback, an in-flight electrical fire last month that has grounded the test planes. Meanwhile, on the production side, one veteran employee on the 787 said he's witnessing "the perfect storm of manufacturing hell." The global supply chain is at a standstill, and outside the Everett factory the rows of partly finished jets will take many months to complete. "The purpose of flight tests is to find out what you did wrong," says a senior engineer who expects the 787 will ultimately prove successful. "But the amount of stuff we are finding is horrible. We shouldn't be dealing with this many issues this late in the program." Jon Talton writes that Boeing has bet the company on the Dreamliner and now faces cost overruns of $12 billion or more. "The experience of doing the 787 on the cheap with a globalized supply chain should shake the foundations of "Welchism," the brutal management style, intimidating anti-employee bias and mania for quick results of retired General Electric chief executive Jack Welch," writes Talton. "Boeing is running out of time to ensure its "game changer" doesn't change the game permanently in favor of Airbus and new competitors.""
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft: mules, not phishing victims, lose money (microsoft.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Our examination of mules has interesting implications. First, it suggests that it is not the victims of phishing and keylogging that lose money but money mules. Second, mule recruitment is the major bottleneck in the fraud pipeline: without them stolen credentials are worth little. Third, this explains why credentials sell for small fractions of their face value; i.e. there is an insufficient supply of mules to drain the number of compromised accounts. Finally, it shows there is no shortage of compromised accounts. Thus a reduction in the rate of account compromise will not reduce fraud at all, at least until account compromise is at a level small enough that it becomes the bottleneck. The only effective way to reduce online fraud is by making mule recruitment even harder.
Security

Submission + - Former Employee Stole Ford Secrets worth $50m (threatpost.com)

Submitted by chicksdaddy
chicksdaddy writes: Threatpost writes that a ten year veteran of U.S. automaker Ford pleaded guilty in federal court on November 17 to charges that he stole company secrets, including design documents, valued at between $50 million and $100 million and sharing them with his new employer: the Chinese division of a U.S. rival of Ford's. Xiang Dong ("Mike") Yu admitted to copying some 4,000 Ford Documents to a external hard drive, including design specifications for key components of Ford automobiles, after surreptitiously taking a job with a China-based competitor in 2006. Yu, who took a job for Beijing Automotive Company in 2008, was arrested during a stopover in Chicago in October, 2009. The FBI seized his Beijing Automotive-issued laptop at the time. An analysis found 41 stolen Ford specification documents on the hard drive. He faces five to six years in prison and a $150,000 fine, according to a statement by Barbara McQuade, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan.

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