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Submission + - Google halts print editions of Frommer's guidebooks (skift.com)

Submitted by __aaelyr464
__aaelyr464 writes: Several months after Google bought Frommer's to bolster its location efforts, reports are coming in that iconic travel guide maker has completely stopped publication of print editions. Authors say that many of their scheduled Frommer's books now won't be published; a few say their contracts were simply delayed, but the usual raft of guides that would show at this time of year just haven't materialized. The writing may have been on the wall when the online bookstore disappeared from the Frommer's site in September. If true, many travelers will have to either switch to rival guides or use Google's digital parallels to learn what's interesting in a strange new land.
The Courts

Submission + - Twitter Sued $50M For Refusing To Identify Anti-Semitic Users (ibtimes.com) 1

Submitted by
redletterdave
redletterdave writes: "After a French civil court ruled on Jan. 24 that Twitter must identify anyone who broke France's hate speech laws, Twitter has since refused to identify the users behind a handful of hateful and anti-Semitic messages, resulting in a $50 million lawsuit. Twitter argues it only needs to comply with US laws and is thus protected by the full scope of the First Amendment and its free speech privileges, but France believes its Internet users should be subject to the country's tighter laws against racist and hateful forms of expression."

Submission + - Fate of $35 Aakash Tablet in Doldrums as Indian Government Changes Tone (paritynews.com)

Submitted by hypnosec
hypnosec writes: The Indian Government has given up on the $35 Aakash – the tablet which was once known as India’s weapon to bridge the gap of digital divide, by insisting that it’s not the hardware that matters but, the ability of enabling students is what counts. Speaking with members of the press, M. M. Pallam Raju, India’s Human Resource Development (HRD) minister said that the efforts should be concentrated to help students gain access to content and that users themselves will determine the nature of the device that will help them gain knowledge rather being obsessed with the hardware. The Minister said that there are "others who have come up...students will pick up whatever serves the purpose better and affordable."
Privacy

Submission + - Tracking the Web Trackers (itworld.com)

Submitted by
itwbennett
itwbennett writes: "Do you know what data the 1300+ tracking companies have on you? Privacy blogger Dan Tynan didn't until he had had enough of being stalked by grandpa-friendly Jitterbug phone ads. Tracking company BlueKai and its partners had compiled 471 separate pieces of data on him. Some surprisingly accurate, some not (hence the Jitterbug ad). But what's worse is that opting out of tracking is surprisingly hard. On the Network Advertising Initiative Opt Out Page you can ask the 98 member companies listed there to stop tracking you and on Evidon's Global Opt Out page you can give some 200 more the boot — but that's only about 300 companies out of 1300. And even if they all comply with your opt-out request, it doesn't mean that they'll stop collecting data on you, only that they'll stop serving you targeted ads."
Intel

Submission + - Intel's Pentium chip turns 20 today (v3.co.uk)

Submitted by girlmad
girlmad writes: Intel's Pentium processor was launched 20 years ago today, a move that led to the firm becoming the dominant supplier of computer chips across the globe. This article has some original iComp benchmark scores, rating the 66MHz Pentium at a heady 565, compared with 297 for the 66MHz 486DX2, which was the fastest chip available prior to the Pentium launch.
Security

Submission + - Twitter, Microsoft, LinkedIn, Yahoo open to hijacking (scmagazine.com.au)

Submitted by mask.of.sanity
mask.of.sanity writes: Twitter, Linkedin, Yahoo! and Hotmail accounts are open to hijacking thanks to a flaw that allows cookies to be stolen and reused.
Attackers need to intercept cookies while the user is logged into the service because the cookies expire on log-out ( except LinkedIn which keeps cookies for three months). The server will still consider them valid.
For the Twitter attack, you need to grab the auth_token string and insert it into your local Twitter cookies. Reload Twitter, and you'll be logged in as your target (video here). Not even password changes will kick you out.

Comment Re:Honestly (Score 1) 436

by __aaelyr464 (#41477147) Attached to: Even Windows 8 Users Prefer Windows 7

Which is really sad, because (when the drivers worked properly) the cards I've had from them in the past were great. The X-Fi on Windows 7 really was good, and did give a noticable improvement over the on-board audio on my mobo. But you are quite right: they are certainly driving me away and I'm fairly sure I will not even bother putting the X-Fi back in my computer now.

Although I suppose one (good?) thing Creative did was show me what the new (friendlier!) blue screen in Windows 8 looks like: http://i.imgur.com/lk57d.png

Comment Honestly (Score 1) 436

by __aaelyr464 (#41476677) Attached to: Even Windows 8 Users Prefer Windows 7

I've been using Windows 8 since it was released on MSDN/TechNet on three computers (two desktop machines and an ultrabook). I'm getting used to it, and actually starting to like the interface.

My biggest gripes:
- driver/software support for my Samsung Series 9 for Windows 8 is currently non-existant (all h/w installed fine, touchpad is a bit flaky though) - driver support from Creative for my SB XFi is pretty pathetic, and buggy

Otherwise, it seems to run smoother and overall feels more polished. Yes, I know this is /. and I'm speaking positively about Windows 8--so I clearly must be a paid Microsoft shill or out of my mind. Honestly however, I think a lot of people are making noise and whining about a product just to say "hey look at me!" more than anything. Of course, I'm speaking entirely from a consumer standpoint. I can see some of the UI changes (notably the removal of the start menu) to be a problem for enterprise users. I can't speak to the changes/improvements/etc. for enterprise management and such (re: 'portable windows' on USB?)
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft Surface Launching October 26th (slashgear.com)

Submitted by __aaelyr464
__aaelyr464 writes: Microsoft is set to launch their Surface Tablet alongside Windows 8 on October 26th of this year. The initial press surrounding the tablet looked promising; however, Microsoft has caught some heat regarding their tablet--notably how it could alienate OEM partners in the long run. In their annual report, Microsoft stated, "The next version of our operating system, Windows 8, will be generally available on October 26, 2012. At that time, we will begin selling the Surface, a series of Microsoft-designed and manufactured hardware devices." Pricing on Surface tablets isn’t clear at this point, but Microsoft has previously stated that Surface prices will be in line with comparable ARM tablets or Intel ultrabook PCs, hinting at a range of $500-$1000.
Japan

Submission + - Robot which wins rock, paper, scissors every time (ibtimes.co.uk)

Submitted by asavin
asavin writes: Scientists from the University of Tokyo have created a robot which can beat any human at rock, paper, scissors 100 per cent of the time. It is able to recognise in a millisecond what shape the hand will form and move accordingly.

The creators of the robot are hoping similar technology will one day be adapted and be used in situation where split second co-operation between a human and a robot is vital, for instance when dealing with volatile materials.
Entertainment

Submission + - Game of Thrones: Bush's Head Gets a Makeover (inquisitr.com)

Submitted by __aaelyr464
__aaelyr464 writes: After apologizing for using a likeness of former President George W. Bush's head in the season finale of the first season of "Game of Thrones", HBO has digitally altered the offending scene. From the commentary: "The last head on the left is George Bush. George Bush’s head appears in a couple of beheading scenes. It’s not a choice, it’s not a political statement. We just had to use whatever head we had around."

After releasing an formal apology, HBO proceeded to yank the episode off all digital platforms, as well as halt distribution of the Season 1 box sets. The episode is now back with an altered head; more hair, less chin. Show creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss later clarified, "We use a lot of prosthetic body parts on the show: heads, arms, etc. We can't afford to have these all made from scratch, especially in scenes where we need a lot of them, so we rent them in bulk. After the scene was already shot, someone pointed out that one of the heads looked like George W. Bush."
Science

Submission + - Sexual Selection Studies Indicate Females Gain Advantage from Multiple Partners (redorbit.com)

Submitted by
horselight
horselight writes: "Bateman's original study of fruit flies from 60 years ago is probably the most over cited work on the subject of sexual selection in existence. It's fundamental premise, unchallenged for 60 years, holds that males gain evolutionary advantage from multiple sex partners while females do not. Researchers have reproduced the conditions of Bateman's original experiments and have determined his assumption and methods were flawed at multiple levels and he missed the mark completely. Females and their offspring benefit even more from multiple partners in mating strategies than do males."

Submission + - The Physics of the Knuckleball 1

Submitted by snoop.daub
snoop.daub writes: R.A. Dickey, pitcher for the New York Mets, has been in the news this week after two dominant pitching performances in a row, holding opponents to one hit in each of the games for the first time since Dave Stieb did it in 1988. He has taken over as the league's only knuckleball pitcher after Tim Wakefield retired last season. But just what is it about the knuckleball that makes it hard to hit? Conventional wisdom has it that the lack of spin on the knuckleball causes it to move in completely unpredictable ways, even changing directions in mid-flight. In the last few years, there has been a lot of good science done to understand baseball pitch trajectories, and a few months ago Prof. Alan M. Nathan showed that knuckleballs aren't really so different from other pitches. It turns out that the same 9-parameter equation that can be used to describe other pitch trajectories applies just as well to the knuckleball. The difference appears to be that, like in a chaotic system, knuckleballs depend sensitively on the initial conditions, so that small changes can cause randomly different forces at the start of the pitch which determine the resultant trajectory. Much of this and similar work depends on the Pitchf/x tool, which has recorded the complete trajectory, spin angle and spin rate of every MLB pitch since 2007! Baseball really does have the best sports stats geeks.
Security

Submission + - "State-sponsored" zero-day exploit hits aerospace firm (sophos.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A European aeronautical supplier's website has been hacked, and infected with an as-yet unpatched Microsoft vulnerability that has been linked to state-sponsored cyberwarfare attacks.

The infection was discovered when a computer user attempted to visit the affected website, and received a warning message that a file on the site was infected by code which attempts to exploit the vulnerability in Microsoft XML Core Services which could allow Remote Code Execution (CVE-2012-1889).

According to security researcher Graham Cluley, "We know that a tried-and-trusted method of hacking into large companies and organisations is to target the supply chain. The theory goes that rather than try to hack a company which may have robust security practices and security teams, the bad actor can instead attack a smaller supplier who are less well placed to notice the security breach."

Sophos which identified the security breach, has declined to name the company involved — but has raised its threat level to "Critical".

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