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Businesses

NY Times, LA Times Want Amazon To Collect More State Taxes 507

Posted by timothy from the this-golden-goose-soup-is-delicious dept.
theodp writes "Recalling that CEO Jeff Bezos originally explored placing Amazon.com on an Indian Reservation near San Francisco to 'have access to talent without all the tax consequences,' the NY Times argues it's time to put an end to the e-tailer's 'entity isolation' tax-avoidance games. The LA Times chimes in, saying Amazon's claims that collecting sales tax constitute an undue burden are 'worth a horselaugh,' noting that Amazon boasts it has no problem keeping track of millions of unique products."
Transportation

Boeing's 787 Dreamliner Takes Flight 278

Posted by kdawson from the million-lines-of-code-on-the-wing dept.
Bordgious and a number of other readers sent word of the 787 Dreamliner's first flight after two years of delays. The four-hour test kicks off nine months of airborne testing. Aviation Week has video of the test flight and a timeline of the 787's development. Here is the flight path. 840 of the planes are on order now, down from a high of 910, as some customers canceled orders due to the delays.
Programming

Platform Independent C++ OS Library? 310

Posted by timothy from the one-to-rule-them-all dept.
quench writes "Hello! I have been away from Windows and Linux application software for 5 years or so, doing mainly C-like embedded C++ programming. Now, I am about to start a project emulating embedded hardware on Windows. Been there, doing #ifdef WIN32 and #ifdef LINUX stuff, don't really want to go there any more. What I actually need is a platform independent lib covering Windows and Linux variants to handle sockets, IPC and threads abstractions. And a rock solid but simple embedded database to emulate flash memory. My reflex said, go for ACE and Berkeley-DB. Tell me, am I out of time? Am I missing something new and trendy, easier to use and better? Did time stand still?"
Role Playing (Games)

BioWare On Building a Community For Dragon Age 34

Posted by Soulskill from the let-me-tell-you-a-story dept.
Ray Muzyka, co-founder of BioWare, sat down with Gamasutra to discuss upcoming RPG Dragon Age: Origins, as well as some of the features they're working on for release alongside the game. In particular, they are interested in building a framework for players to show off their characters and share stories about the gameplay they encounter. "We're creating a community site that's going to enable the fans to get revved up about what each other is doing. They're showing their choices and consequences to friends. Even though it's single-player, you can still reveal those choices to each other and have fun doing it. It enables some of that stuff that occurs anecdotally amongst friends at the water cooler: 'Hey, did you play this yet? Did you go this way?' 'No, I didn't run into that. I did it this way.' 'Really? I didn't run into that at all!' You can meet people who are across the world and enable them to see those kinds of things, too, which I think will lead to a lot of fun discussion and collaboration in the community."
Robotics

Nano Origami for DNA, Complete With Software 32

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the next-gen-legos dept.
wisebabo writes "Some researchers at Technische Universitaet Muenchen and Harvard have developed a way to make DNA 'Origami' fold up into all sorts of desired nanoscale shapes. While this has been done before, there now seems to be a much greater assortment of shapes they can create. What's particularly interesting is that they've developed some software that can be used (presumably with a DNA assembler) that will create what you want; think of CAD/CAM on a molecular scale! 'The toolbox they have developed includes a graphical software program that helps to translate specific design concepts into the DNA programming required to realize them. Three-dimensional shapes are produced by "tuning" the number, arrangement, and lengths of helices.'"
Windows

Submission + - Four reasons to and not to upgrade to Windows 7 (computerworld.com)

Submitted by
Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: "Upgrading to Windows 7 is a no-brainer for Vista users; the new OS handily fixes the worst of Vista's mistakes. But for XP users, it's not so clear. Windows 7 makes finding files easier because it clusters different file types into shortcuts called Libraries. The OS just looks better than Vista, and it is a lot less invasive with its security warnings by default. It also lets you cycle through different background images and screen savers. Little features like the ability to burn CDs from single ISO image files are also great, and Windows 7 definitely boots up faster than XP or Vista on identically configured machines. On the other hand, Windows 7 is a radical interface departure from XP, and users will have to relearn most everything. There are also many various and confusing pre-release versions of Windows 7, and some cool features, such as Windows Movie Maker, aren't included with Windows 7."
The Military

Submission + - SPAM: Google Voice aims free program at military

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "Google today said it was launching a program that lets any active U.S. service member with a .mil email address sign up for a Google Voice account and start using the free service within a day. Google said it will prioritize military requests so personnel receive invites within 24 hours. Google says its Google Voice service will let service members can set up an account before they deploy. Or if they're already deployed, families can set up an account for their service member. [spam URL stripped]"
Link to Original Source
Government

Submission + - US cyber-security tsar steps down (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by b1nary atr0phy
b1nary atr0phy writes: Melissa Hathaway told the [Wall Street Journal] she was leaving for "personal reasons" and would return to the private sector. The former strategist was appointed as acting national cyber-adviser in February and was expected to be offered the post of full time. Ms Hathaway was widely regarded as the person to fill the post after taking on the role as acting senior director for cyberspace for the National Security and Homeland Security Councils in February. In April she completed a review of cyber-security for the Obama administration. At the time, Ms Hathaway said the job ahead was "a marathon, not a sprint." Her successor has not yet been named by the White House.
Games

Submission + - Wipeout HD loading ads scrapped after uproar (eurogamer.net)

Submitted by
RobotsDinner
RobotsDinner writes: "After yesterday's story about intrusive, loading-screen ads being retroactively added to the PSN racing title Wipeout HD, the popular uproar has indeed succeeded in getting Sony to pull them. You can put your pitchforks down; your voice has been heard!

Sony tells Eurogamer:

"The ad has been removed from WipEout HD and we are investigating the situation to ensure that any in-game advertising does not affect gameplay," said a spokesperson for the platform holder.

"
Security

Submission + - SPAM: UTM for your Small Business

Submitted by
BAC1
BAC1 writes: "Unified Threat Management can protect your small business network at the perimeter BEFORE bad things happen on your network. Just look what you get: ..Anti-Virus ..Anti-Spam ..Active Directory Sync ..Intrusion Prevention ..Intrusion Detection ..Content filtering ..Web filter ..Firewall ..IPSec VPN ..Remote VPN ..IM Blocking ..Real time reports ..Executive reports ..Administrator reports You take your business serious so take your business security serious — get Calyptix AccessEnforcer for Unified Threat Management."
Link to Original Source

Feed Techdirt: Spammer Discovers His Insurance Policy Doesn't Cover $6 Million Spam Fines (techdirt.com)

From feed by techdirtfeed
Scott Richter was a bigtime spammer, who was so proud of being a spammer, at one point he planned to release his own line of "Spamking" clothing (seriously). In 2005, though, he filed for bankruptcy (even though it appeared his spamming operations were still rolling in cash. That same year, there were reports that Richter had actually gone legit and he was actually removed from the infamous ROKSO list of known spammers (not an easy list to get removed from). Except... sometimes it's just difficult to stay away. MySpace sued Richter in 2007 and won a $6 million award against him (though, Richter claimed victory since MySpace wanted much more).

Now, Michael Scott alerts us to the news that Richter tried to have his insurance company pay the fines, but a court has now said that these fines were excluded from the policies, and thus Richter is on the hook for the fines instead. That seems like a good thing. It would be pretty troubling if spammers were able to buy insurance against getting fined.

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Government

Submission + - Brits to get in-home CCTV cameras

Submitted by BuisyBizz
BuisyBizz writes: The British Government plans to spend £400 million ($668 million) to install and monitor CCTV cameras in the homes of private citizens. Why? To make sure the kids are doing their homework, going to bed early and eating their vegetables. The scheme has, astonishingly, already been running in 2,000 family homes. The government's "children's secretary" Ed Balls is behind the plan, which is aimed at problem, antisocial families. The government is also maintaining a private army, incredibly not called "Thought Police", which will "be sent round to carry out home checks." And in a scheme which firmly cements the nation's reputation as a "nanny state", the kids and their families will be forced to sign "behavior contracts" which will "set out parents' duties to ensure children behave and do their homework."
KDE

Submission + - KDE to be default on openSUSE? (vizzzion.org)

Submitted by
ingwa
ingwa writes: "For some time there has been a discussion on the OpenSUSE feature tracking website about whether to make KDE the default desktop environment for that distribution. In a survey last year, around 68% of the OpenSUSE users preferred KDE and around 29% GNOME. Sebastian Kügler of KDE summarizes the debate well, and makes a strong case this is what the community wants. It would make a nice counterpoint to the way that Fedora has GNOME as the default desktop environment."

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It's a naive, domestic operating system without any breeding, but I think you'll be amused by its presumption.

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