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Government

Submission + - OnStar Reverses ToS Changes (gm.com)

Submitted by BlackWind
BlackWind writes: It seems that even Government Motors is smart enough to figure out when they've gone too far. GM announced that the OnStar service will revert to their previous Terms of Service in the wake of the firestorm of criticism that their plan to sell GPS data created.
Games

Submission + - Square Enix Admits Final Fantasy XIV Damaged Brand (gamasutra.com) 1

Submitted by
_xeno_
_xeno_ writes: "It's taken a year since Final Fantasy XIV launched to what can at best be called unfavorable reviews, but Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada is finally willing to admit that the (still subscription free) MMO "greatly damaged" the entire Final Fantasy brand. Despite this damage, Wada said that Square Enix will continue to work on "reviving" the game, with an upcoming patch promising to finally introduce such series staples as chocobos and airships. Even so, there's still no word on the PS3 release, which was delayed until the game was "fixed," nor is there any sign that Square Enix feels the game will be worth charging a subscription fee any time soon."
The Military

Submission + - Cold-War Missile Launches Military Satellite (foxnews.com)

Submitted by Velcroman1
Velcroman1 writes: At 11:49 a.m. EDT, a Minotaur IV+ rocket — essentially a decommissioned Peacekeeper missile built decades ago during the Cold War — launched the TacSat-4 satellite into orbit. Most troops today carry PRC-117 radios for communication, devices that rely on UHF transmissions. They relay calls and data back to a base station that's brought in and fixed in place, either set up on a hillside locally or carried overhead in a nearby plane. The TacSat-4 (or tactical microsatellite) lets the hundreds of thousands of military handheld radios currently in use communicate directly with an antenna orbiting in the most convenient spot imaginable: all that space overhead.

"If you're a mobile force, that requires a mobile infrastructure, the best place to put that infrastructure is in space," said Dr. Larry Schuette, director of innovation for the Navy's Office of Naval Research (ONR).

Submission + - Copyright Lobbyist Set Up in Senate Rotunda (copyrightalliance.org)

Submitted by esocid
esocid writes: While the Senate is preparing to debate the PROTECT IP bill, the Copyright Alliance, a lobbying group "educational display" in the Senate Russell Building Rotunda. One wonders if the Senate allows such other totally biased parties to set up exhibits like that during debate on other bills.

Directly from their website: "The exhibit is an opportunity to showcase for lawmakers and visitors to the U.S. Capitol Complex the importance of copyright to creators across America..."

Comment Re:RTFA (Score 3, Informative) 545

by BlackWind (#33108376) Attached to: Verizon Changing Users Router Passwords

If the guy has Verizon FiOS, and is using the ActionTec router that was installed as part of the service, he does not own it. Verizon does NOT sell the router to the customer. (Buying the router is never an option.)
Verizon supplies the router to support TV & Internet services over FiOS, and Verizon will repair or replace the router at any time that there is a problem with it without charging the customer. (With the exception of incidents of vandalism, or a pattern of abuse requiring multiple swaps of the router over time.)
[I currently work for Verizon, and install FiOS every day. (Yes, the majority of the STUPID configuration decisions are forced on us by management to save time & effort from dealing with the average tech knowledge of both customers and other technicians with little or no knowledge about networks or security.)]

Comment Re:Why cut the copper? (Score 1) 269

by BlackWind (#19793857) Attached to: Verizon Copper Cutoff Traps Customers
Actually, Verizon is even now leasing some of it's fiber lines to competing companies. (At least they are in PA) Granted, they are doing this more to prevent anyone from claiming that Verizon is creating a new monopoly, than from any intention of being nice.
And no, they aren't raping the competing company. Verizon really is charging them Verizon's cost to provide the phone service. The "reasonable Rates" that Verizon is required to sell service to smaller competitors are nothing more than a forced subsidy, paid for by Verizon.
Verizon is perfectly willing to have other companies offering service to people in areas that VZ serves, they're just not happy with having to pay for that company to do it.
Google

Google Confirms $600M South Carolina Data Center 144

Posted by CowboyNeal from the company-annexes dept.
miller60 writes "Google continues its furious data center building program in the Carolinas. Today the company announced a $600 million data center in Berkeley County, South Carolina. Google has already begun construction on a $600 million data center project in Lenoir, North Carolina, and is in the permitting process on another huge project in Richland County, South Carolina. Google's appetite for large tracts of land and cheap power are driving the site location process. Similar huge projects in central Washington are already transforming the tiny town of Quincy, where real estate prices have spiked, with open land fetching as much as 10 times its previous value."
Google

Submission + - Google Building 800 (yes 800) acre data center!!!

Submitted by
Bruce Taylor
Bruce Taylor writes: "The rumor has been rampant for months about a mammoth business coming to our town of 10,000. The local pols have been VERY tight-lipped. Tonight the local newspaper confirmed that Google is planning on an 800 acre site for a new project in the heart of Oklahoma. It will be a massive data center dedicated to handling Youtube video traffic. Here is the link to the story: http://www.mayescounty.com/extra/040507D.pdf Bubba Taylor Rednecks.TV"

Feed iPod takes bullet for soldier (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Portable Audio

Kevin Garrad of the 3rd Infantry Division looks to have gotten a little assistance from an unexpected source while on a street patrol in Iraq recently, when the iPod in his pocket got in the path of a bullet fired at close range, slowing it down enough that it didn't pierce his body armor. As if that wasn't a rare enough occurrence, as you can see above, the iPod in question was an HP iPod -- imagine the odds!

[Via Digg]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Google

Submission + - Tokyo Demands Youtube Play Fair

Submitted by
eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: "Sometimes I think Google does more negotiating with foreign countries than the United States government. Recently, Tokyo has requested for political speeches to be pulled from the site claiming that it gave certain hopefuls an advantage over others for Sunday's election. You may recall Youtube being in trouble with more than couple countries. Is it fair that some government officials are being viewed more on Youtube than others or is it simply leveling the playing field for anyone with a message since it costs very little to put a video on Youtube? American politics seem to have embraced it either way."
Databases

Submission + - Review of Data Sharing and Visualization Websites

Submitted by VisualizationGuy
VisualizationGuy writes: Social websites are all the rage right now, and are not just hyped by the media (MySpace and YouTube in particular), but there are also large amounts of money involved. But does the social model make sense for data analysis and visualization? And will users play and interact with data the way they do with other media? Two websites were launched recently to find out: Swivel and Many Eyes. This review looks at the two sites in terms of their founders, approach, social aspects, technology, capabilities, broad appeal, and ethics.
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Towards more aesthetic forms of cryptography

Submitted by
ChristW
ChristW writes: "A security expert currently working at the Philips Research lab in Eindhoven has set himself a new challenge, making encryption and decryption more aesthetically pleasing. From the introduction to his paper: "When a scientific or engineering discipline reaches a high level of sophistication, it ceases to be a purely function-oriented endeavour and acquires certain aesthetic qualities. Consider for instance robotics. The elegant and efficient motions of sleek robotic arms are delightful to watch. Another example is fractal art. The difference between a sophisticated and an immature discipline is like hearing a song instead of mere speech, reading poetry instead of mere words, seeing a sculpture instead of mere stone. Cryptography has clearly not yet reached this state of maturity. Not by a long way. Instead of being delightful, it a is messy, painstaking, boring, arduous business for all involved parties, especially for the cryptanalist. I hypothesize that when cryptography reaches a sufficient state of maturity, reading and analyzing ciphertext will be akin to submerging oneself in a profoundly poetic work of art. Cryptanalysis, even if unsuccessful, will fill the practitioner with joy, while the encrypting and decrypting parties will delight in the beautiful relationships between the plaintext and the ciphertext." See the paper on his home page for an example and his conclusion."
User Journal

Journal Journal: Boycotting Broken Gadgets

Journal by MattSparkes
I've become bored of my gadgets, because they don't seem to do what I want them to do. A few years ago I had a smart phone, which let me download and listen to MP3 tracks via bluetooth, carry files from computer to computer and lots of other tricks that were very useful. Now I have 'upgraded', and my phone does none of those things. My MP3 player looks very good, but I can't just drop MP3 files on and listen to them, and I can't sync with my work PC as well as my Mac at home. What are the option

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Top Ten Things Overheard At The ANSI C Draft Committee Meetings: (5) All right, who's the wiseguy who stuck this trigraph stuff in here?

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