Comment Re:The scam of Siri (Score 3, Interesting) 403
Crickey! Loo' at that. We're very lucky! You almost never see a four digit this far from its native habitat of lurking. Ah she's a beaut!
Can this become a new Slashdot meme, please?
Submission + - Dennis Ritchie dies (google.com) 1
Comment Re:Careful... (Score 1) 247
I'd give you a million mod points if I had them.
Submission + - MS hides Firefox extension in toolbar update 2
Jan writes: As part of its regular Patch Tuesday, Microsoft released an update for its various toolbars, and this update came with more than just documented fixes. The update also installs an add-on for Internet Explorer and an extension for Mozilla Firefox, both without the user's permission.
Ars Technica
Ars Technica
Comment Re:we need to stop coddling stupidity. (Score 5, Insightful) 81
I don't necessarily disagree with you when you say 'We need to let people like that sink or swim', but in this world of tightly connected social networks where friendship among individuals governs their level of access to your details, I'm not so sure about that. You're only as secure as your weakest link. If one of your less technologically-savvy friends on Facebook happens to fall for this scheme and gives up his login information to the attackers, then your information is exposed to them, and you're put at risk. This is why while I sympathize with your point, I still think it's incredibly important that phishing attacks like this be cracked down upon as quickly as possible to prevent exactly that sort of thing from happening.
Comment Re:Bogus logic (Score 2, Funny) 96
STOP in the name of Godwin's Law!
Before you reich my heart?
Comment Re:Typical Customer Service Department attitude (Score 2, Funny) 749
why should some random 9-to-5er paid-hourly desk jockey in a car company know who the hell he is?
Because he was on Dancing With The Stars! Doesn't everybody watch that show?
Because he was on Dancing With The Stars! Doesn't everybody watch that show?
Somali Pirates Open Up a "Stock Exchange" 666
reginaldo writes to clue us that pirates in Somalia have opened up a cooperative in Haradheere, where investors can pay money or guns to help their favorite pirate crew for a share of the piracy profits. "'Four months ago, during the monsoon rains, we decided to set up this stock exchange. We started with 15 "maritime companies" and now we are hosting 72. Ten of them have so far been successful at hijacking,' Mohammed [a wealthy former pirate who took a Reuters reporter to the facility] said. ... Piracy investor Sahra Ibrahim, a 22-year-old divorcee, was lined up with others waiting for her cut of a ransom pay-out after one of the gangs freed a Spanish tuna fishing vessel. 'I am waiting for my share after I contributed a rocket-propelled grenade for the operation,' she said, adding that she got the weapon from her ex-husband in alimony. 'I am really happy and lucky. I have made $75,000 in only 38 days since I joined the "company."'"
Submission + - Judge orders Microsoft to stop selling Word 1
fractalVisionz writes: A judge on Tuesday ordered Microsoft to stop selling Word, one of its premier products, in its current form due to patent infringement.
Judge Leonard Davis of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas issued a permanent injunction that "prohibits Microsoft from selling or importing to the United States any Microsoft Word products that have the capability of opening .XML, .DOCX or DOCM files (XML files) containing custom XML," according to a statement released by attorneys for the plantiff, i4i.
Judge Leonard Davis of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas issued a permanent injunction that "prohibits Microsoft from selling or importing to the United States any Microsoft Word products that have the capability of opening
Submission + - Judge orders a halt to MS Word sales (goodgearguide.com.au) 1
angry tapir writes: "A judge has ordered Microsoft to stop selling Microsoft Word products in their current form in the U.S., but legal appeals or technical work-arounds make an actual halt of sales unlikely. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas gave Microsoft 60 days to comply with the injunction, which forbids Microsoft from selling Word products that let people create custom XML documents, according to i4i. The ruling, which also includes additional damages Microsoft must pay, are related to a patent infringement suit filed by i4i."
Submission + - US court tells Microsoft told to stop selling Word (arnnet.com.au)
oranghutan writes: A judge in a court in Texas has given Microsoft 60 days to comply with an order to stop selling Word products in their existing state after a patent infringement suit filed by i4i.
According to the injunction Microsoft is forbidden from selling Word products that let people create XML documents, which both the 2003 and 2007 versions let you do.
An analyst quoted in the article — Michael Cherry from Directions — said:
"It's going to take a long time for this kind of thing to get sorted out."
Basically, most don't believe the injunction will stop Word being sold as there are ways of getting around it. However, in early 2009 a jury in the Texas court ordered Microsoft to pay i4i US$200 million for infringing the patent.
http://www.arnnet.com.au/article/314620/injunction_microsoft_word_unlikely_halt_sales
Bill Gates Remembers 1979 310
Hugh Pickens writes "Last week Gizmodo had a special celebration of 1979, the last year before a digital tsunami hit, that put Bill Gates in a nostalgic mood this week. Bill chimed in with his own memories of that seminal year when everything changed. 'In 1979, Microsoft had 13 employees, most of whom appear in that famous picture that provides indisputable proof that your average computer geek from the late 1970s was not exactly on the cutting edge of fashion,' wrote Gates. 'By the end of the year we'd doubled in size to 28 employees. Even though we were doing pretty well, I was still kind of terrified by the rapid pace of hiring and worried that the bottom could fall out at any time.' What made Gates feel a little more confident was that he began to sense that BASIC was on the verge of becoming the standard language for microcomputers. 'By the middle of 1979, BASIC was running on more than 200,000 Z-80 and 8080 machines and we were just releasing a new version for the 8086 16-bit microprocessor. As the numbers grew, we were starting to think beyond programming languages, too, and about the possibility of creating applications that would have real mass appeal to consumers.' Gates remembers that in 1979 there were only 100 different software products that had more than $100 M in annual sales and all of them were for mainframes. 'In April, the 8080 version of BASIC became the first software product built to run on microprocessors to win an ICP Million Dollar Award. Today, I would be surprised if the number of million-dollar applications isn't in the millions itself' writes Gates. 'More important, of course, is the fact that more than a billion people around the world use computers and digital technology as an integral part of their day-to-day lives. That's something that really started to take shape in 1979.'"
Submission + - The Irksome Cellphone Industry (nytimes.com)
gollum123 writes: David Pogue of the NYTimes wonders why congress is worrying about the exclusive handset contracts when there are more whopping things that are broken, unfair and anticompetitive in the American cellphone industry. ( http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/23/technology/personaltech/23pogue.html?pagewanted=1&hpw ) He lists Text messaging fees — Currently 20 cents each to send and recieve a message, Double billing — getting billed for sending and receiving a call, Why companies do not reduce the price of the contract after you have paid off your cell phone among the major problems not being addressed by congress.
"Right now, the cell carriers spend about $6 billion a year on advertising. Why doesn't it occur to them that they'd attract a heck of a lot more customers by making them happy instead of miserable? By being less greedy and obnoxious? By doing what every other industry does: try to please customers instead of entrap and bilk them? But no. Apparently, persuading cell carriers to treat their customers decently would take an act of Congress."
Submission + - Bad news, everybody!
mykepredko writes: "Future episodes of Futurama will not use the vocal talents of Billy West (Fry, Professor, and Ziodberg), Katey Sagal (Leela), John DiMaggio (Bender), Maurice LaMarche (Kif Kroker, among others), or Tress MacNeil (Mom, and several others). Fox released a statement saying "We love the Futurama voice performers and absolutely wanted to use them, but unfortunately, we could not meet their salary demands. While replacing these talented actors will be difficult, the show must go on. We are confident that we will find terrific new performers to give voice to Matt and David's brilliantly subversive characters." Sigh. Read about it here."
Submission + - Audacity: sound editor 1.3.8 released (sourceforge.net)
SF:vjohnson writes: The Audacity Team is pleased to announce the release of Audacity 1.3.8 (Beta) for Windows, Mac and Linux/Unix (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download). It contains a number of significant improvements, plus some bug fixes. Highlights include:
* VST Effects now display in GUI mode by default
* Updated Nyquist implementation
* Improvements to Equalization, Noise Removal,
Truncate Silence, Click Track and effects chains
* Improved Plot Spectrum analysis and new
preferences for Spectrograms
* Record more than 16 channels
(hardware/drivers permitting)
* New \"Mixer Board\" view with per-track VU meters
* AMR NB export support via the optional FFmpeg
library (http://manual.audacityteam.org/index.php?title=FAQ:Installation_and_Plug-Ins#installffmpeg)
* 32-bit float data over 0 dB handled without clipping
* Draft Manual/Quick Help included in Windows and Mac installers
* Faster waveform drawing and better response in
multi-track projects
* Various bug fixes, stability and accessibility improvements
See New in Audacity 1.3.8 (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/features-1.3-a#details) for more on the latest features and fixes.
Note: This release does not support Windows 98 or ME, for which 1.3.7 is still available (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/beta_windows#recdown).
