concealment - Slashdot User

Submission + - Amazon's Merchandising of Its Search Results Doesn't Violate Trademark Law (forbes.com)

Submitted by

concealment

on Tuesday February 26, 2013 @01:07PM

concealment writes: "Many of us have had the experience of going to Amazon to buy one thing but checking out with a huge shopping cart of items that we didn’t initially seek—or even know were available. Amazon’s merchandising often benefits Amazon’s customers, but trademark owners who lose sales to their competition due to it aren’t as thrilled. Fortunately for Amazon, a California federal court recently upheld Amazon’s merchandising practices in its internal search results."

Submission + - DRM Lawsuit Filed By Independent Bookstores Against Amazon, 'Big Six' Publishers (huffingtonpost.com)

Submitted by

concealment

on Thursday February 21, 2013 @02:06PM

concealment writes: "Three independent bookstores are taking Amazon and the so-called Big Six publishers (Random House, Penguin, Hachette, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster and Macmillan) to court in an attempt to level the playing field for book retailers. If successful, the lawsuit could completely change how ebooks are sold.

The class-action complaint, filed in New York on Feb 15., claims that by entering into confidential agreements with the Big Six publishers, who control approximately 60 percent of print book revenue in the U.S., Amazon has created a monopoly in the marketplace that is designed to control prices and destroy independent booksellers."

Submission + - Illinois state senator pushes anti-anonymity bill (dailycaller.com)

Submitted by

concealment

on Thursday February 21, 2013 @10:29AM

concealment writes: "The bill, called the Internet Posting Removal Act, is sponsored by Illinois state Sen. Ira Silverstein. It states that a “web site administrator upon request shall remove any comments posted on his or her web site by an anonymous poster unless the anonymous poster agrees to attach his or her name to the post and confirms that his or her IP address, legal name, and home address are accurate.”

The bill, which does not ask for or clarify requirements from entities requesting the comment removal, would take effect 90 days after becoming law."

Submission + - FBI Files Unlock History Behind Clandestine Cellphone Tracking Tool (slate.com)

Submitted by

concealment

on Tuesday February 19, 2013 @04:25PM

concealment writes: "Stingrays, as I’ve reported here before, are portable surveillance gadgets that can trick phones within a specific area into hopping onto a fake network. The feds call them “cell-site simulators” or “digital analyzers,” and they are sometimes also described as “IMSI catchers.” The FBI says it uses them to target criminals and help track the movements of suspects in real time, not to intercept communications. But because Stingrays by design collaterally gather data from innocent bystanders’ phones and can interrupt phone users’ service, critics say they may violate a federal communications law.

A fresh trove of FBI files on cell tracking, some marked “secret,” was published this week by the Electronic Privacy Information Center. They shed light on how, far from being a “new” tool used by the authorities to track down targets, Stingray-style technology has been in the hands of the feds since about 1995 (at least). During that time, local and state law enforcement agencies have also been able to borrow the spy equipment in “exceptional circumstances,” thanks to an order approved by former FBI Director Louis Freeh."

Submission + - The world's first taste-able magazine add -- just tear off a piece and consume (shortlist.com)

Submitted by

concealment

on Tuesday February 19, 2013 @02:09PM

concealment writes: "The new campaign from Fanta boasts the world's first tastable print ad, meaning you can tear a piece of the advert off and place it in your mouth. Sure, you can strictly do that with any ad but this one tastes of oranges."

Submission + - http://www.cio.com/article/728362/House_Immigration_Hearing_Targets_High_Skilled (cio.com)

Submitted by

concealment

on Wednesday February 06, 2013 @10:17AM

concealment writes: "In contrast, two separate bipartisan groups in the U.S. Senate are working on broader immigration issues, including tech-specific reforms. One of their proposals would increase the H-1B visa cap to as high as 300,000 a year. Goodlatte said it was "instructive to note" that only about 12% of legal immigrants to the U.S. are picked on the basis of education and skills, while some other countries, including Australia, the United Kingdom and Canada, "select over 60% of their immigrants on this basis." The hearing was well attended by lawmakers."

Submission + - As Music Streaming Grows, Royalties Slow to a Trickle (nytimes.com) 1

Submitted by

concealment

on Friday February 01, 2013 @10:16AM

concealment writes: "From 78 r.p.m. records to the age of iTunes, artists’ record royalties have been counted as a percentage of a sale price. On a 99-cent download, a typical artist may earn 7 to 10 cents after deductions for the retailer, the record company and the songwriter, music executives say. One industry joke calls the flow of these royalties a “river of nickels.”

In the new economics of streaming music, however, the river of nickels looks more like a torrent of micropennies."

Submission + - Dangerous: European Courts Considering Requiring Search Engine Filters Over Emba (techdirt.com)

Submitted by

concealment

on Thursday January 31, 2013 @05:04PM

concealment writes: "That did not stop Mosley, however, who first used the recent "Leveson Inquiry" (a response to the later story of News of the World hacking into phone lines) to push for new rules requiring search engines to delete the photos from ever being found online. And thus began phase two of Mosley's response to the article: he went on a campaign against search engines, believing that if he could somehow force search engines to ignore the photos from that original story, the world might forget about it. Even though, in the Leveson hearing, Mosley admits that he was warned that by taking this issue to trial in the first place, it would renew interest in the issue, including putting such private information into official public court documents:"

Submission + - Canadian Game Developer Fired After Spoofing Call-Center Workplace (cio.com)

Submitted by

concealment

on Thursday January 31, 2013 @04:54PM

concealment writes: "An independent game developer recently got fired from his day job at the Canadian Revenue Agency after releasing a satirical depiction of his apparently aggravating and unfulfilling call-center job.

Entitled "I get this call every day," David Gallant's point-and-click "adventure" game highlights the dubious satisfaction of dealing with thoughtless, abrasive people on the phone every day.

Gallant has not confirmed that the game is the reason for his dismissal due to legal concerns. However, the site also notes that he has realized a not-inconsiderable silver lining from the loss of his job: Sales of "I get this call every day" have skyrocketed."

Submission + - The Often Overlooked but Invaluable Benefits of Mentorship (forbes.com)

Submitted by concealment on Wednesday January 30, 2013 @01:27PM

concealment writes: The value of a mentor can be doubly undervalued by many people – especially younger professionals and junior executives. We learn a great deal about management principles and practices in school. Leadership, though more popularly discussed in school now, is still more often learned outside of school. The value of a mentor who can help cultivate leadership skills one-on-one in real-time, reduce the anxiety in taking big steps, and focus leaders on achieving their goals – is huge. Many times it’s the first few years out of school that can shape the career path of an MBA, and that is determined by whether they create or are given an opportunity to demonstrate their leadership skill.

Submission + - Is The Line Between 'Hacker' And 'Criminal' Really That Fuzzy? (techdirt.com)

Submitted by concealment on Tuesday January 29, 2013 @04:33PM

concealment writes: don't think there's a "line" — fuzzy, shifting or not — between "hacker" and "criminal." The two things are different. Can you be a criminal hacker? Sure. But the problem is that many non-techie folks seem to assume that any kind of hacking must be criminal. And that's the problem. It's not that some imaginary line is moving around, but that some people don't seem to understand that hacking itself is not criminal, and that there are plenty of good reasons to hack — including to expose security holes.

Submission + - Your Own Private Google: The Quest for an Open Source Search Engine (wired.com)

Submitted by

concealment

on Friday December 07, 2012 @01:10PM

concealment writes: "The company guards its search platform like the crown jewels. It’s not about to release a paper describing how it all works, so producing an open source clone is more difficult. But there are options, and the push toward open source versions of the Google search engine has gathered some steam in recent months, with the arrival of a new company called ElasticSearch.

These projects aren’t trying to compete with Google’s public search engine — the one you use every day. They’re trying to compete with Google’s search appliance and other products that help enterprises — i.e., big businesses — find stuff inside their own private networks."

Submission + - Apple to produce line of Macs in the US next year (chron.com)

Submitted by

concealment

on Thursday December 06, 2012 @10:21AM

concealment writes: "Apple CEO Tim Cook says the company will produce one of its existing lines of Mac computers in the United States next year.

In a separate interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, he said that the company will spend $100 million in 2013 to move production of the line to the U.S. from China."

Submission + - NoSQL: The Love Child of Google, Amazon and Lotus Notes (wired.com)

Submitted by

concealment

on Wednesday December 05, 2012 @11:06AM

concealment writes: "As they grew their enormously successful online services, Google and Amazon needed new ways of storing massive amounts of data across an ever-growing number of servers, so each created a new software platform that could do so. Google built BigTable. Amazon built Dynamo. And after these internet giants published research papers describing these sweeping data stores, so many other outfits sought to duplicate them.

The result was an army of “NoSQL” databases specifically designed to run across thousands of servers. These new-age software platforms — including Cassandra, HBase, and Riak — remade the database landscape, helping to run so many other web giants, including Facebook and Twitter, but also more traditional businesses."

Submission + - Report warns that censorship will not stop terrorism (cio.com)

Submitted by

concealment

on Wednesday December 05, 2012 @10:48AM

concealment writes: "The report evaluates the challenge of curbing online radicalization from the perspective of supply and demand. It concludes that efforts to shut down websites that could serve as incubators for would-be terrorists--going after the supply--will ultimately be self-defeating, and that "filtering of Internet content is impractical in a free and open society."

"Approaches aimed at restricting freedom of speech and removing content from the Internet are not only the least desirable strategies, they are also the least effective," writes Peter Neumann, founding director of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at King's College London and the author of the report.

Note to /. editors: I have editorialized the title to reflect actual interesting content, not the somewhat sensationalistic and generic original title."

Slashdot Top Deals