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Government

Submission + - UK Twitter tsar gets the boot over spoof Hitler vi (techworld.com)

Submitted by sweetpea86
sweetpea86 writes: A Scottish Labour MP has been forced to step down as his party's “Twitter tsar,” after posting a video on his blog portraying Scottish National Party leader Alex Salmond as Adolf Hitler. Tom Harris, who stood for election as Scottish party leader last year, used footage taken from the film Downfall in a spoof video posted on his official website on Saturday. Harris replaced the English subtitles from the film with his own captions, poking fun at Salmond's secrecy over a referendum on Scottish independence.
Intel

Submission + - Intel's Quad-Core Sandy Bridge-E Tested (hothardware.com)

Submitted by
MojoKid
MojoKid writes: "When Intel launched their high-end Sandy Bridge-E platform recently, the company also quietly launched a new midrange quad-core. The new Core i7-3820 is based on the very same die as the higher-end Core i7-3960X, but two more of its cores and some cache have been disabled. Whereas the Core i7-3960X has six active cores (eight total, two disabled) and 15MB of shared SmartCache, the Core i7-3820 has four active cores (8 threads with Intel HyperThreading) and 10MB of shared cache. Unfortunately the new chip doesn't offer much in the way of a performance boost over the previous generation Core i7-2700K, but it does offer more integrated PCI Express connectivity (Gen 3.0 compatible eventually once validated by Intel), more memory bandwidth (quad-channel vs. dual-channel), more on-chip cache, and it's paired to Intel's latest X79 chipset."
Intel

Submission + - Windows 8 tablets to be priced right out of conten (bgr.com)

Submitted by zacharye
zacharye writes: Tablets were the talk of the Consumer Electronics Show this year, but not the same way they were last year. In 2011 we saw more than 100 slates unveiled, the lion’s share of which were powered bu Android, and companies pushed hard to compete with Apple’s iPad. This year, barely any Android tablets were shown off at the show, but a number of companies had nameless prototypes on hand that were intended to show us what Windows 8 will be capable of once it hits the market. Unfortunately, according to a new report, the fantastic “Wintel” tablets we saw on display at this year’s show may end up with price tags that could deter most consumers and hurt Windows 8 tablets’ chances right out of the gate...
Microsoft

Submission + - Did Microsoft Just Kill Ubuntu Tablets? (muktware.com) 1

Submitted by sfcrazy
sfcrazy writes: There is no doubt that Canonical is looking at the ARM based hardware for its tablets. But Microsoft seemed to have nipped Ubuntu's Tablet in the bud. The company tweaked its Windows Hardware Certification Requirements to effectively ban most alternative operating systems on ARM-based devices that ship with Windows 8. This was the hardware that was going to be used by Ubuntu Tablets.
Government

Submission + - The 1% vs. The Queen's List 1

Submitted by Nefarious Wheel
Nefarious Wheel writes: When Her Majesty, the Queen of England's finances were so rich they threatened to take too much money out of circulation, Parliament took over the management of her funds and put her on the "Queen's List". It's a drawing account, good for a yacht or two here and there and the extra silverware butler if you need one. She's still quite rich — most of London owed her rent, and she can throw the odd grand wedding if she wants...

What if we did that to the (say) top 100 billionaires — let the country take over the management of their money, let them buy whatever they want (with the exception of a few things like nuclear centrifuges, small armies, congressmen, corporations, judges, things like that). Let them buy whatever they want out of their fund otherwise, no real restrictions on amount beyond that. Put them on oh, call it "The Treasury List".

Would that fix the disparity between the 1% — 99% ?
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft contributes code to Samba under GPL (itwire.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: It looks like pigs will finally fly. Microsoft has contributed code to the Samba project — under the terms of the GPLv2 or later.
Android

Submission + - Spanish Firm Wins Tablet Case Against Apple (blogspot.com)

Submitted by pmontra
pmontra writes: A Spanish company has won a legal case against Apple and will be able to sell an Android tablet that Apple had claimed infringes on the iPad patent. It is now seeking damages from Apple for a temporary seizure of its products by Spanish customs. Furthermore they are pursuing an antitrust complaint against Apple, alleging abusive anticompetitive behavior.
Apple

Submission + - Apple Lawyers Threaten Luxembourg Bistro (itworld.com)

Submitted by
itwbennett
itwbennett writes: "In today's edition of David v. Goliath, Apple lawyers have sent cease and desist letters to a tiny health food restaurant in Luxembourg named AppleADay. For their part, the owners of AppleADay, with help from a lawerly friend, have promised that they would continue to sell only food, not computers. Of course, Apple knows as well as anyone that promises are made to be broken, having famously promised Apple Corps, the Beatles' production company, they would never get into the music business."
Network

Submission + - Klout.com CEO Responds to Critics, Death Threats (foxnews.com) 1

Submitted by Velcroman1
Velcroman1 writes: Over 100 million users rely on Klout.com to measure their social media influence — the site defines people by a single number: 1 represents the least influential, 100 the most influential. The website calculates your Klout score based on true reach, how many people you influence, amplification, how much you influence them, and network impact, the full influence of your network. Scientists then jam all that information in an algorithm to create your ever-changing, sometimes frustrating, Klout score.

And the Web is up in arms over recent changes to the algorithm that determines it, including an #occupyklout Twitter protest movement. “http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/community/2011/11/03/klout-ceo-fernandez-responds-to-critics-gives-tips-and-talks-future/">I got everything short of death threats,” CEO Joe Fernandez said recently.
News

Submission + - The Queen sets a code-breaking challenge (i-programmer.info)

Submitted by mikejuk
mikejuk writes: Queen Elizabeth II has made her first ever visit to Bletchley Park, the home of the UK's World War II code-breaking efforts and now a museum. To mark the occasion The Queen has issued a code cracking challenge of her own "The Agent X Code Book Challenge" aimed at getting children interested in cryptography. Perhaps a royal programming or general technology challenge is next....

Submission + - Cheap GPUs Rendering Strong Passwords Useless (zdnet.com) 1

Submitted by StrongGlad
StrongGlad writes: Think that your eight-character password consisting of lowercase characters, uppercase characters and a sprinkling of numbers is strong enough to protect you from a brute force attack? Think again! The modern GPU can be leveraged as a powerful tool against passwords once considered safe from bruteforce attack.

Take a cheap GPU (like the Radeon HD 5770) and the free GPU-powered password busting tool called 'ighashgpu' and you have yourself a lean, mean password busting machine. How lean and mean? Working against NTLM login passwords, a password of "fjR8n" can be broken on the CPU in 24 seconds, at a rate of 9.8 million password guesses per second. On the GPU, it takes less than a second at a rate of 3.3 billion passwords per second. Increase the password to 6 characters (pYDbL6), and the CPU takes 1 hour 30 minutes versus only four seconds on the GPU. Go further to 7 characters (fh0GH5h), and the CPU would grind along for 4 days, versus a frankly worrying 17 minutes 30 seconds for the GPU.
Microsoft

Submission + - Pranksters Post Giant Windows Logo on Apple Store 1

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Working calmly in broad daylight and filming their efforts for YouTube posterity, a fake construction crew attached a large Microsoft Windows logo to the black facade of a soon-to-open Hamburg Apple Store. Neat hack in the MIT vein, but next time the crew might want to take along a pic of the Windows logo — with the adrenaline flowing, some of the colors got rearranged and were hung upside down.
Google

Submission + - Google Translate API rescued - but at a price! (i-programmer.info)

Submitted by mikejuk
mikejuk writes: article thumbnail

Google has responded to the cries of anguish from developers unhappy at the termination of the Google Translate API with a surprisingly foresighted and generous offer — you can have the Translate API but you will have to pay for it!

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