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Submission + - IBM Preparing for U.S. Layoffs In Services Unit

Submitted by

Salary

on Wednesday March 25, 2009 @12:16PM

Salary writes: "IBM is preparing for layoffs for most employees in its service unit. It is confirmed by Wall Street Journal and CNBC. The numbers could be around 500 and the unit is going to be moved to India. The story is developing but is confirmed by various sources. The debate will be about outsourcing and globalization under this economy. Per salary list, the average salary for IBM employees last year is around $80K based on available public data. Some insiders estimate cost for Indian counterpart is around $20K."

Submission + - Nintendo Announces Wii Qube And Wii Relax (thebitbag.com)

Submitted by

tordavis

on Wednesday March 25, 2009 @11:49AM

tordavis writes: "The first product, Wii Qube revolutionizing reinvents the classic Tetris: thanks to an innovative concept from the control, you can manipulate in 3D blocks of the classic Tetris. In a way, you can even enter the game in first person, interacting with the blocks by means of movements of the body. It is not coincidence that PubCompany wanted to choose a classic like Tetris to create, starting from his mechanics, something totally new but familiar. Then comes Wii RelaxTM, which includes two products — Mind Relax and Relax Body — games that blend the control for the mental training to physical and mental relaxation, the movement of the body, providing a range of activities that contribute to physical and mental well being, thanks to 'implementation of techniques such as yoga, Thai Chi, Qi-Gong, progressive relaxation, mental visualization, massage, meditation techniques and breathing."

Submission + - RIAA Backs Down in Texas Case (blogspot.com)

Submitted by

NewYorkCountryLawyer

on Wednesday March 25, 2009 @09:56AM

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "After receiving a Rule 11 Sanctions Motion (PDF) in a Houston, Texas, case, UMG Recordings v. Lanzoni, the RIAA lawyers thought better of proceeding with the case, and agreed to voluntarily dismiss the case 'with prejudice', which means it is over and cannot be brought again. The defendant's motion papers detailed some of the RIAA's litigation history against innocent individuals, such as Capitol Records v. Foster and Atlantic Recording v. Andersen, and argued that the awarding of attorneys fees in those cases has not sufficiently deterred repetition of the misconduct, so that a stronger remedy — Rule 11 sanctions — is now called for."

Submission + - Obama's Gift to Gordon Brown fails due to DRM 9

Submitted by quanticle on Friday March 20, 2009 @04:40PM

quanticle writes: According to the Daily Telegraph, when Gordon Brown sat down to watch the DVDs that Obama had given him, he found out that they were from the wrong region. Will this be the impetus that finally convinces our government that region coding is detrimental?

Cities View Red Light Cameras As Profit Centers 740

Posted by timothy on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @11:21AM from the criminalize-everything-spread-the-guilt dept.

Houston 2600 writes "Chicago could rake in 'at least $200 million' a year — and wipe out the entire projected deficit for 2009 — by using its vast network of redlight and surveillance cameras to hunt down uninsured motorists, aldermen were told today. The system pitched to the City Council's Transportation Committee by Michigan-based InsureNet would work only if insurance companies were somehow compelled to report the names and license plates of insured motorists. That's already happening daily in 13 states, but not here."

Black Hat Presentation Highlights SSL Encryption Flaws 152

Posted by timothy on Thursday February 19, 2009 @11:53AM from the well-hey-nothin's-perfect dept.

nk497 writes "Hackers at the Black Hat conference have shown that SSL encryption isn't as secure as online businesses would like us to think. Independent hacker Moxie Marlinspike showed off several techniques to fool the tech behind the little padlock on your screen. He claimed that by using a real world attack on several secure websites such as PayPal, Gmail, Ticketmaster and Facebook, he garnered 117 email accounts, 16 credit card numbers, seven PayPal logins and 300 other miscellaneous secure logins."

Family Dog Cloned, Thanks To Dolly Patents 261

Posted by timothy on Wednesday January 28, 2009 @04:34PM from the better-would-be-to-clone-mougli-and-emily dept.

patentpundit writes "BioArts International announced today that they have delivered the world's first commercially cloned dog, a 10-week old Labrador named Lancey, to Florida residents Edgar and Nina Otto. According to the press release issued by the company, 'BioArts International is a biotech company focused on unique, untapped markets in the global companion animal, stem cell and human genomics industries. The Best Friends Again program is a collaboration between BioArts and the Sooam Biotech Research Foundation in South Korea, home to the best and most experienced dog cloning team in the world.' The technology that makes this animal cloning possible stems from the cloning patents developed at the Roslin Institute for the cloning of the now famous, or infamous depending on your view, Dolly the sheep."

Please No, Not a Blade Runner Sequel 585

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday January 28, 2009 @10:24AM from the don't-ruin-perfect dept.

bowman9991 submitted a story that ought to make even the most stone-hearted amongst you cry. He says "Travis Wright, one of the writers behind Eagle Eye, has been working on a sequel to Ridley Scott's Sci-Fi classic Blade Runner. Script proposals have explored the nature of the off-world colonies, what happens to the Tyrell Corporation in the wake of its founder's death, and what would become of Rachel. Travis said he intends to write a script 'with or without anyone's blessings.' Director Ridley Scott appears interested in a sequel too. At Comic-Con in 2007 Ridley said, 'If you have any scripts, you know where to send them.' It's doubtful he'll have time anytime soon though. He's already stated his next two science fiction films will be an adaptation of Aldous Huxley's Brave New Word with Leonardo DiCaprio and an adaptation of Joe Haldeman's The Forever War."

Critical Vulnerability In Adobe Reader 160

Posted by timothy on Wednesday November 05, 2008 @05:32PM from the see-attachment dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Core Security Technologies issued an advisory disclosing a vulnerability that could affect millions using Adobe's Reader PDF file viewing software. Engineers from CoreLabs determined that Adobe Reader could be exploited to gain access to vulnerable systems via the use of a specially crafted PDF file with malicious JavaScript content. Successful exploitation of the vulnerability requires that users open a maliciously crafted PDF file, thereby allowing attackers to gain access to vulnerable systems and assume the privileges of a user running Acrobat Reader."

Australian Censorship Bypassed Before Live Trials 184

Posted by timothy on Wednesday November 05, 2008 @04:03PM from the you-expect-free-choice-from-the-government? dept.

newt writes "The Australian Government is planning to conduct live trials of as-yet-unspecified censorship technology. But as every geek already knows, these systems can't possibly work in the presence of VPNs and proxy servers. PC Authority clues the punters in." Maybe the ISPs secretly like encouraging SSH tunneling — and making everyone pay for the extra bandwidth used. Not really; Australia's major ISPs, as mentioned a few days ago, think it's a bad idea.

How To Make Money With Free Software 81

Posted by kdawson on Monday November 03, 2008 @09:14AM from the coin-of-the-realm dept.

bmsleight writes "The Dutch Ministry of Finance organized an architecture competition to design not a building, but rather the new 5-Euro commemorative coin. The theme was 'Netherlands and Architecture'. The winning design was made 100% with free software, mainly Python, but also including The Gimp, Inkscape, Phatch, and Ubuntu. The design is amazing — the head of Queen Beatrix is made up of the names of architects based on their popularity in Yahoo searches (rendered in a font of the artist's own devising). In the end the artist, Stani Michiels, had to collaborate closely on location with technicians of the Royal Dutch Mint, so all the last bits were done on his Asus Eee PC. Soon, 350,000 Dutch people will use and enjoy the fruits of free software."

The Greatest Scientific Hoaxes? 496

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday October 27, 2008 @04:34PM from the april-fools-one-of-the-best-holidays dept.

Ponca City, We love you writes "The New Scientist has an amusing story about the seven greatest scientific hoaxes of all time. Of course, there have been serious cases of scientific fraud, such as the stem cell researchers recently found guilty of falsifying data, and the South Korean cloning fraud, but the hoaxes selected point more to human gullibility than malevolence and include the Piltdown Man (constructed from a medieval human cranium); a ten-foot "petrified man" dug up on a small farm in Cardiff; fossils 'found' in Wurzburg, Germany depicting comets, moons and suns, Alan Sokal's paper loaded with nonsensical jargon that was accepted by the journal Social Text; the claim of the Upas tree on the island of Java so poisonous that it killed everything within a 15-mile radius; and Johann Heinrich Cohausen's claim of an elixir produced by collecting the breath of young women in bottles that produced immortality. Our favorite: BBC's broadcast in 1957 about the spaghetti tree in Switzerland that showed a family harvesting pasta that hung from the branches of the tree. After watching the program, hundreds of people phoned in asking how they could grow their own tree but, alas, the program turned out to be an April Fools' Day joke." What massive scientific hoaxes/jokes have other people witnessed?

Alarm Raised On Teenage Hackers 213

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday October 27, 2008 @12:44PM from the moral-of-the-story-is-don't-get-caught dept.

Arno Igne writes to tell us that the number of underage participants in "high-tech" crimes has risen steeply in recent history. Reporting children as young as 11 swapping credit card details and asking for hacks, many are largely unskilled and thus more likely to get caught and arrested. "Communities and forums spring up where people start to swap malicious programs, knowledge and sometimes stolen data. Some also look for exploits and virus code that can be run against the social networking sites popular with many young people. Some then try to peddle or use the details or accounts they net in this way. Mr Boyd said he spent a lot of time tracking down the creators of many of the nuisance programs written to exploit users of social networking sites and the culprit was often a teenager."

WV Voters Say Machines Are Switching Votes 900

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday October 27, 2008 @11:20AM from the he-who-pays-diebold-wins dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Three Putnam County voters say electronic voting machines changed their votes from Democrats to Republicans when they cast early ballots last week. This is the second West Virginia county where voters have reported this problem. Last week, three voters in Jackson County told The Charleston Gazette their electronic vote for 'Barack Obama' kept flipping to 'John McCain.'"

Should You Break TOS Because Work Asks You? 680

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday October 27, 2008 @09:13AM from the just-don't-crawl-this-domain-please dept.

An anonymous reader writes "My boss recently assigned me a project that was all his idea, with two basic flaws that would require me to break multiple web sites' Terms of Service (TOS). Part requires scraping most of the site, parsing the data and presenting it as our own without human intervention. While we're safe on copyright issues, clearly scraping like this is normally not allowed. At times it might also put a load on those sites. The other is, for lack of better words, a 'load balancing' part that requires using multiple free accounts instead of purchasing space and CPU time for less than $2,000 USD per month. The boss sees it as 'distributed' computing when in reality it's 'parasitic.' My question is: am I wrong about the ethics? If I do need to walk, how best can I handle it without damaging my reputation and future employment opportunities?"

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