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Submission + - FAA Creates Website for Reporting Laser-Strikes (star-telegram.com) 1

Submitted by
hutsell
hutsell writes: "The Federal Aviation Administration has launched a website to report laser strikes on aircraft, which have rose from about 300 in 2005 to 3,129 as of Nov. 25. The FAA said major metropolitan areas report the highest number of laser strikes. The agency announced that it would impose civil penalties of up to $11,000 for people who point lasers at aircraft cockpits.

An excerpt FTA: When a laser beam broke the darkness and flooded the "bubble" of his helicopter, CareFlite pilot Scott Wallace got scared — afraid of being blinded and of crashing and dooming himself and the nurse and paramedic on board as well as anyone on the ground.

Then he got mad."
Android

Submission + - FBI Admits Carrier IQ Used For Law Enforcement (muckrock.com)

Submitted by bonch
bonch writes: A FOIA request has revealed that the FBI is using Carrier IQ data for investigative purposes. In response to a request for documents related to accessing Carrier IQ information, the FBI replied that it did have files but could not release them due to possible interference with an ongoing investigation. This would seem to contradict earlier claims by researchers that Carrier IQ isn't logging data.
Privacy

Submission + - U.S. malls stop tracking shoppers' cellphones (www.cbc.ca)

Submitted by nairnr
nairnr writes: Technology that tracks shoppers using their cellphones has been shut off at two U.S. malls over privacy concerns, a U.S. senator says. Promenade Temecula in Southern California and Short Pump Town Center in Richmond, Va., had planned to run tests of the technology from Nov. 25 to Jan.1, reported Cleveland, Ohio-based Forest City Commercial Management, which owns the two malls.

The cellphone tracking technology, called Footpath, is made by Path Intelligence Ltd., a Portsmouth, U.K.-based company. It uses sensors placed throughout the mall to detect signals from mobile phones and track their path around the mall. The sensors cannot gather phone numbers or other identifying data, or intercept or log data about calls or SMS messages, the company says.

Forest City Commercial Management said it planned to use the data gathered about shoppers' length of stay and shopping patterns to determine whether to relocate some stores, figure out what other retailers should be added, and learn what events and promotions are most effective for attracting shoppers.

Comment Product Pushing. (Score 2) 373

by nairnr (#37613768) Attached to: How Windows Gets Infected With Malware
Of course this study was done to showcase a product... And it is a Danish company CSIS...

"With this study CSIS has received confirmation that our security program Heimdal is addressing a market not adequately covered by a proper patch routine or policy for this area. "

Submission + - Five Years On, Containers Gain Favor in Enterprise (datacenterknowledge.com)

Submitted by 1sockchuck
1sockchuck writes: It's been nearly five years since Sun introduced its Blackbox, the first commercial data center container. After several years with few visible deployments, the data-center-in-a-box movement has caught on. Case in point: the adoption of modular designs by financial institutions, including a 21-container data center park in Denmark. Even Wells Fargo is contemplating the new model, which allows for faster and cheaper deployment of IT infrastructure. Containers are also being used by IT outsourcers and colo providers — as well as Google, Microsoft and Amazon.

Submission + - Are IE Users Dumb? (cnn.com) 1

Submitted by nairnr
nairnr writes: Are users of other Web browsers smarter than the people who use Microsoft's Internet Explorer? A new survey doesn't quite say so. But it sure as heck suggests it.

The survey by AptiQuant, a Vancouver-based Web consulting company, gave more than 100,000 participants an IQ test, while monitoring which browser they used to take the test.

The result? Internet Explorer users scored lower than average, while Chrome, Firefox and Safari users were slightly above average. And users of the more obscure Camino and Opera browsers, as well as those using Explorer with Chrome Frame (a plug-in designed to let users view emerging HTML5 content), had what AptiQuaint called "exceptionally higher" IQ levels.
The Internet

Submission + - Netflix dominates North American Internet (financialpost.com)

Submitted by nairnr
nairnr writes: Accounting for 29.7% of all information downloaded during peak usage hours by North American broadband-connected households in March, Netflix Inc. received the title in the latest Global Internet Phenomena Report released by Sandvine Corp. on Tuesday.

In its ninth such report, Waterloo, Ont.-based Sandvine found the amount of data consumed by users streaming television shows and movie from Netflix’s online service exceeded even that of peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing technology BitTorrent.

Comment Apple needs to stand on it's own feet (Score 1) 520

by nairnr (#35237884) Attached to: Steve Jobs Health Worries Escalate
Any company that requires a specific individual to inspire confidence is, by default, in trouble. Few companies are in the position that Apple is in. How many CEO's could you name? Apple needs to get beyond the cult of leadership that currently surrounds them. I am sure that we still see similar product advances whether he is there as the pitchman or not.
Transportation

Submission + - Boeing, Boeing ... Gone? 1

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "The Seattle Times reports that as Boeing prepares to announce yet another delay for the 787 Dreamliner — at least three months, possibly six or more — the crucial jet program is in even worse shape than it appears with problems go well beyond the latest setback, an in-flight electrical fire last month that has grounded the test planes. Meanwhile, on the production side, one veteran employee on the 787 said he's witnessing "the perfect storm of manufacturing hell." The global supply chain is at a standstill, and outside the Everett factory the rows of partly finished jets will take many months to complete. "The purpose of flight tests is to find out what you did wrong," says a senior engineer who expects the 787 will ultimately prove successful. "But the amount of stuff we are finding is horrible. We shouldn't be dealing with this many issues this late in the program." Jon Talton writes that Boeing has bet the company on the Dreamliner and now faces cost overruns of $12 billion or more. "The experience of doing the 787 on the cheap with a globalized supply chain should shake the foundations of "Welchism," the brutal management style, intimidating anti-employee bias and mania for quick results of retired General Electric chief executive Jack Welch," writes Talton. "Boeing is running out of time to ensure its "game changer" doesn't change the game permanently in favor of Airbus and new competitors.""
IT

Submission + - A Decade of Agile Programming: Has It Delivered? (infoworld.com)

Submitted by
snydeq
snydeq writes: "InfoWorld offers a look back at the first decade of agile programming. Forged in February 2001 when a group of developers convened in Utah to find an alternative to documentation-driven, 'heavyweight' software development practices, The Manifesto for Agile Software Development sought to promote processes that accommodate changing requirements, collaboration with customers, and delivery of software in short iterations. Fast-forward a decade, and agile software development is becoming increasingly commonplace, with software firms adopting agile offshoots such as Scrum, Extreme Programming, and Kanban — a trend some see benefiting software development overall."

Comment Re:Never Upgrade, Never Surrender! (Score 1) 470

by nairnr (#34066102) Attached to: IE6 Addiction Inhibits Windows 7 Migrations

I don't think you understand the scope of the problem. Not even a little.

Companies and governments have massive amounts of custom code which runs only on IE6. The time, money, and effort to rewrite this would be absolutely huge.

Are you seriously suggesting that organizations just toss out a mission-critical bit of software either because it's old or proprietary? If so, then I think you have absolutely no understanding of what IT works like on a corporate scale.

I believe the entire Government of Canada has to use IE6 because they have apps that tie them to it. I suspect many really large organizations have this issue as well.

The entire Government of Canada has to use IE6 WTF?! I take it you don't work for the Government of Canada, nor do you have a clue. I can't think of many of our corporate systems that span the entire government that require IE let alone IE6. Our standard is now Win7/IE8 but you are free to use the browser of your choice.
Image

3 Drinks a Day Keeps the Doctor Away Screenshot-sm 470

Posted by samzenpus from the drink-em-if-you-got-em dept.
Nzimmer911 writes "Heavy drinkers outlive non-drinkers according to a 20 years study following 1,824 people. From the article: 'But a new paper in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research suggests that - for reasons that aren't entirely clear - abstaining from alcohol does actually tend to increase one's risk of dying even when you exclude former drinkers. The most shocking part? Abstainers' mortality rates are higher than those of heavy drinkers.'"

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