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Submission Summary: 0 pending, 15 declined, 9 accepted (24 total, 37.50% accepted)

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Submission + - IBM divorces itself from chip manufacturing business (bloomberg.com)

Virtucon writes: IBM has reached a deal with Global Foundries to divorce itself from chip manufacturing. The deal looks to have IBM pay GF $1.5 billion USD to take over the ailing division. Meanwhile they've abandoned their long stated 2015 earnings goal which means they expect to have a shitty year. They've divested themselves of multiple business lines and people for over 5 years in an attempt to reach their 2015 goal.

Submission + - Protesters picket in front of Kevin Rose's Home (cnet.com) 1

Virtucon writes: Another anti-tech protest happened this weekend outside of Kevin Rose's home in San Francisco. Kevin Rose, founder of Digg and a Google Ventures partner was targeted with a protest and leaflets were handed out "warning" the neighbors that he is destroying San Francisco.

The anarchistic group protesting Kevin was called Counterforce and has demanded that Google Pay $3 billion. The group has called for the creation of "autonomous, anti-capitalist, and anti-racist communities throughout the Bay Area and Northern California."

I don't know about you but if two women held up a protest banner threatening to snip something off I'd be a bit concerned.

Submission + - City Councilman Resigns Using Klingon (wral.com) 1

Virtucon writes: A city councilman in Indian Trail Town, North Carolina has resigned and opted to write his letter of resignation in Klingon. David Waddell is obviously a fan of Star Trek. I wonder if the other council members know what the hell he wrote? I'm sure a nice Qu'vatlh would have sufficed.

Submission + - 23AndMe Ordered To Stop Selling DNA tests. (go.com)

Virtucon writes: The Food and Drug Administration has ordered Google-backed genetic test maker 23andMe to halt sales of its personalized DNA test kits, saying the company has failed to show that the technology is supported by science. It seems that 23andMe has been slow in responding to the FDA with regards to the testing and methods used in the Personal Genome Service (PGS) as the main reason for the order. The issues were outlined in the order the FDA sent on 11/22.

Submission + - GOCE satellite is falling to Earth but Scientists don't know where. (foxnews.com)

Virtucon writes: The Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer or GOCE Satellite is expected to fall to Earth this weekend. It weighs over a ton and unfortunately the Scientists don't exactly know where it will land. You can track it here. It should re-enter sometime between Sunday night and Monday morning.

Makr Hopkins, chair of the National Society's Executive Committee said: "The satellite is one of the few satellites in a Polar Orbit. Consequently, it could land almost anywhere,"

The GOCE mission was to create an accurate gravity map of the Earth.

Submission + - Engineers Create Urine Powered Robot (theengineer.co.uk)

Virtucon writes: Using the idea that urine can be used to generate electricity, Engineers in the UK have developed a prototype pump that mimics the human heart. This pump presumably could be used to deliver urine to waste powered fuel cells.

‘We speculate that in the future, urine-powered EcoBots could perform environmental monitoring tasks such as measuring temperature, humidity and air quality,’ said lead researcher Peter Walters of the University of the West of England (UWE), which runs the BRL with Bristol University.

Are pee powered robots in our future? Could the technology be used to power vehicles and would you want it? I mean would you buy a $90,000 Tesla if it smelled like urine all the time?

Submission + - French Court Orders Google To Block Pics and Links of Max Mosley (pcmag.com)

Virtucon writes: This one goes to the old adage "closing the stable door after the horse bolted." A French court on Wednesday ruled that Google must remove from its search results photos of a former Formula One racing chief, Max Mosley, participating in an Nazi-themed orgy. Google could be fined up to 1,000 Euros/day for not complying. What's strange here is that Mosley A) Sued in a French Court B) Didn't go after anybody else other than Google and C) has definitely strange tastes in extracurricular activities. In this day and age it's laughable to think that once your private photos/videos hit the Internet that you have any expectation of reigning them in or filtering the embarrassing parts out. Google isn't the only game in town so to speak in terms of Internet search. I wonder if his lawyers checked out Yahoo or WebCrawler? Of course Google plans to appeal the decision to ... be able to show pics of an old man getting er um never mind...

Submission + - New Allegations of large scale data collection by the NSA on Google and Yahoo (usatoday.com)

Virtucon writes: Another revelation of a new program that goes beyond PRISM, this program called MUSCULAR which gets around sticky US laws by relying on the GCHQ. If true this may actually start to get Google, Facebook, Yahoo and Microsoft to start flexing some of the legal and lobbying muscle in Washington to outlaw this kind of crap.
David Drummond, chief legal officer at Google has said:


"We are outraged at the lengths to which the government seems to have gone to intercept data from our private fiber networks, and it underscores the need for urgent reform."


Submission + - California Public Utilities Commission approves Ride Sharing Services (latimes.com)

Virtucon writes: Ride Sharing Services such as Uber, Lyft and Sidecar received a big boost today when the California Public Utilities Commission approved rules that would allow them to continue to operate as long as the followed a few rules. This makes California the first state to adopt such rules and is expected to preempt local governments who are trying to clamp down on these services and try to regulate them like local taxi companies.

Submission + - How do you deal with software publishers who ignore known Vulnerabilities?

Virtucon writes: If you have a software publisher who ignores vulnerabilities or distributes software that has third party dependencies that have vulnerabilities, what do you do about it when they ignore the situation? I mean if they keep distributing updates and the vulnerabilities still are present, other than not using the application anymore or reporting it what can you do? Shame them publicly? Also what if it's a home-use product vs. an enterprise product, do you treat those differently?

Submission + - Labor Department wanted $1 million for e-mail addresses of political appointees. (twincities.com)

Virtucon writes:

The AP asked for the addresses following last year's disclosures that the former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency had used separate email accounts at work. The practice is separate from officials who use personal, non-government email accounts for work, which generally is discouraged—but often happens anyway—due to laws requiring that most federal records be preserved. The scope of using the secret accounts across government remains a mystery: Most U.S. agencies have failed to turn over lists of political appointees' email addresses, which the AP sought under the Freedom of Information Act more than three months ago. The Labor Department initially asked the AP to pay more than $1 million for its email addresses.

The reason for the $1 million dollar request was to do research including going to backup tapes. Some of the information has been turned over to AP but it still seems that the government just can't get their hands on e-mail addresses for their own people.

Submission + - Federal Magistrate rules in favor of accused in decryption issue. (wired.com)

Virtucon writes: U.S. Magistrate William Callahan Jr. of Wisconsin has ruled in favor of the accused in that he should not have to decrypt his storage device. The US Government had sought to compel Feldman to provide his password to obtain access to the data. Presumably the FBI has had no success in getting the data and had sought to have the judge compel Feldman to provide the decrypted contents of what they had seized.

The Judge ruled:

This is a close call, but I conclude that Feldman’s act of production, which would necessarily require his using a password of some type to decrypt the storage device, would be tantamount to telling the government something it does not already know with ‘reasonably particularity’—namely, that Feldman has personal access to and control over the encrypted storage devices. Accordingly, in my opinion, Fifth Amendment protection is available to Feldman. Stated another way, ordering Feldman to decrypt the storage devices would be in violation of his Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination.


Google

Submission + - Google is pushing back on law enforcement requests for access to Gmail accounts (arstechnica.com)

Virtucon writes: Ars technica has an interesting article on how Google is handling requests from law enforcement for access to Gmail accounts. With the recent Petraeus scandal where no criminal conduct was found, it seems that they're re-enforcing their policies and standing up for their users.

"In order to compel us to produce content in Gmail we require an ECPA search warrant," said Chris Gaither, Google spokesperson. "If they come for registration information, that's one thing, but if they ask for content of email that's another thing."


Android

Submission + - MIT Researchers find that some Android apps collect information when off (mit.edu)

Virtucon writes: MIT Researchers have discovered that some Android applications collect personal information including Google Maps even when they are off. Maybe Free isn't so great after all?

From the Article: " After evaluating 36 applications — ranging from popular games such as Angry Birds to text-messaging platforms, social media applications and photography applications — researchers found that most applications collect personal information about their users even when the phone is not in operation. Shih and Zhang found that applications tracked everything from location information to stored contacts and the device's Web history."

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