Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Businesses

Best Buy Customer Gets Box Full of Bathroom Tiles Instead of Hard Drive 990

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the newest-in-ceramic-drives dept.
The Consumerist is reporting that a Best Buy customer recently purchased a hard drive only to discover that the box contained six ceramic bathroom tiles instead of the Western Digital drive he had expected. The rub of it is Best Buy is refusing to grant a refund or exchange for the non-existent drive. "The employee and assistant manager were more than willing to help, saying that it happens. So they set up the return and I repurchased the drive and while I was checking the contents to ensure it was a hard drive this time, the store manager came up, took the box from me and said to take it up with the manufacturer. Now to my surprise, I argued with the guy saying that they have already accepted the return and I have now purchased the new one. He said I was shit out of luck. I followed up with the manufacturer today and they said they would get the complaint to the Best Buy Purchasing department. Best Buy corporate said that they stand by their manager's decision."
Communications

Swearing at Work is Bleeping Good For You 421

Posted by CmdrTaco from the now-shut-the-bleep-up-you-bleeping-bleep dept.
coondoggie writes "This is the kind of news that your HR folks don't want to hear, but researchers today said letting workers swear at will in the workplace can benefit employees and employers. The study found regular use of profanity to express and reinforce solidarity among staff, enabling them to express their feelings, such as frustration, and develop social relationships, according to researchers at the University of East Anglia (UES). Researchers said their aim was to challenge leadership styles and suggest ideas for best practice. "Employees use swearing on a continuous basis, but not necessarily in a negative, abusive manner. Swearing was as a social phenomenon to reflect solidarity and enhance group cohesiveness, or as a psychological phenomenon to release stress, " the study stated." I'm sure the discussion and tags on this story will be completely G Rated ;)
Hardware Hacking

Stalling Cars Via OnStar 737

Posted by kdawson from the let-the-hacking-begin dept.
Lauren Weinstein writes to tell us that GM will be installing OnStar systems on almost 1.7 million 2009-model cars that will allow law enforcement (or anyone who cracks the system) to remotely shut down vehicles. Here is the AP's writeup, which like most MSM coverage doesn't mention any privacy implications.
Media

Sony BMG Says Ripping CDs is Stealing 767

Posted by CmdrTaco from the well-big-shock-here dept.
LKM writes "Sony seems to think we should not be allowed to rip CDs we own to our iPods. In fact, doing so is stealing, and we should all re-buy songs, preferably one copy for each device. Says Jennifer Pariser, the head of litigation for Sony BMG: 'When an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song. Making a copy of a purchased song is just a nice way of saying 'steals just one copy'.' I guess somebody should tell Sony about all the devices Sony produces that allow this stealing to occur!"
The Almighty Buck

New York Times Ends Its Paid Subscription Service 169

Posted by Zonk from the ding-dong dept.
Mike writes "The New York Times has announced that it will end its paid Internet service in favor of making most of its Web site available for free. The hope is that this move will attract more readers and higher advertising revenue. 'The longer-term problem for publishers like the Times is that they must find ways to present content online rather than just transferring stories and pictures from the newspaper. Most U.S. news Web sites offer their contents for free, supporting themselves by selling advertising. One exception is The Wall Street Journal which runs a subscription-based Web site. TimesSelect generated about $10 million in revenue a year. Schiller declined to project how much higher the online growth rate would be without charging visitors.'"
The Almighty Buck

After 10,000 Years, Farming No Longer Dominates 332

Posted by kdawson from the long-row-to-hoe dept.
Peter S. Magnusson writes "As reported widely in business and mainstream press, the ILO recently released world market employment statistics. Most outlets focused on US economic competitiveness vs. China and Europe. Few noticed the gem hidden away in the ILO report: for the first time since the invention of agriculture, farming is not the biggest sector of the global economy — services is. (Aggregate employment numbers often divide the economy into agriculture, industry, and services.) Workers are now moving directly from agriculture to services, bypassing the traditional route of manufacturing."
Music

RIAA Seeks Royalties From Radio 555

Posted by kdawson from the deja-vu-all-over-again dept.
SierraPete writes "First it was Napster; then it was Internet radio; then it was little girls, grandmothers, and dead people. But now our friends at the RIAA are going decidedly low-tech. The LA Times reports that the RIAA wants royalties from radio stations. 70 years ago Congress exempted radio stations from paying royalties to performers and labels because radio helps sell music. But since the labels that make up the RIAA are not getting the cash they desire through sales of CDs, and since Internet and satellite broadcasters are forced to cough up cash to their racket, now the RIAA wants terrestrial radio to pay up as well."
It's funny. Laugh.

Lawsuit Invokes DMCA to Force DRM Adoption 332

Posted by Zonk from the interesting-legal-tactic dept.
TechnicolourSquirrel writes "Forbes.com informs us that the company Media Rights Technologies is suing Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, and Real Networks for not using its DRM technology and therefore 'failing to include measures to control access to copyrighted material.' The company alleges that their refusal to use MRT's X1 Recording Control technology constitutes a 'circumvention' of a copyright protection system, which is of course illegal under the Digital Millenium Copryight Act. I would say more, but without controlling access to this paragraph with MRT's products, I fear I have already risked too much ..."
The Media

HBO Exec Proposes DRM Name Change 544

Posted by Zonk from the that's-all-that's-in-the-way dept.
surfingmarmot writes "An HBO executive has figured out the problem with DRM acceptance — it's the name. HBO's chief technology officer Bob Zitter now wants to refer to the technology as Digital Consumer Enablement. Because, you see, DRM actually helps consumers by getting more content into their hands. The company already has HD movies on demand ready to go, but is delaying them because of ownership concerns. Says Zitter, 'Digital Consumer Enablement would more accurately describe technology that allows consumers "to use content in ways they haven't before," such as enjoying TV shows and movies on portable video players like iPods. "I don't want to use the term DRM any longer," said Zitter, who added that content-protection technology could enable various new applications for cable operators.'"
Privacy

Airships to Patrol Venezuela's Skies 451

Posted by Zonk from the shadowrun-is-now dept.
bprime writes "The BBC reports that officials in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, have bought three airship UAVs to keep tabs on the local populace. From the article: 'The 15 metre (49 foot) long air ships are emblazoned with government slogans. Written in bright red are the words, We watch over you for your security.' They're not exactly black helicopters, but how long do you think until we see similar measures in high-crime American cities?"
Power

The Coming Uranium Crisis 485

Posted by CmdrTaco from the someone-just-invent-mr-fusion dept.
tcd004 writes "MIT reports that the world is running out of fuel for our nuclear reactors due to production limitations and an aging infrastructure. Nuclear power has gained popularity as a carbon-free energy source in recent years, but Dr. Thomas Neff, a research affiliate at MIT's Center for International Studies, warned that fuel scarcity could drive up prices and kill the industry before it gets back on its feet. Passport has pulled together some interesting numbers: there are 440 reactors currently in operation and 82 new plants under construction. The demand for fuel has driven the price of uranium up more than 40% in the last few months — 900% over the last decade. You can follow the spot price for a pound of uranium. "
Music

Music Execs Say Apple's DRM Hurting Industry 405

Posted by Zonk from the reference-the-pot-and-the-kettle's-similar-color-here dept.
EMB Numbers writes "C-Net says last year saw a 131 percent jump in digital sales, but overall the industry still saw about a 4 percent decline in revenue. Some executives at this week's Digital Music Forum East conference lashed out at Jobs, blaming Apple and its CEO for their troubles. The impression at the conference was that Jobs' call three weeks ago for DRM-free music was anything but sincere. As the article puts it, 'Apple has maintained a stranglehold on the digital music industry by locking up iTunes music with DRM ... and "it's causing everybody else who is participating in the marketplace — the other service providers, the labels, the users — a lot of pain. If they could simply open it up, everybody would love them.""
Music

RIAA Announces New Campus Lawsuit Strategy 299

Posted by samzenpus from the tell-us-everything dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The RIAA is once again revising their lawsuit strategy, and will now be sending college students and others "pre-lawsuit letters." People will now be able to settle for a discount. How nice."
Data Storage

Farewell To the Floppy Disk 616

Posted by kdawson from the first-they-came-for-the-Morse-code dept.
s31523 writes "Those of us who have been in the IT arena for a while remember installing our favorite OS, network client, power application, etc. by feeding the computer what seemed an endless supply of 5.25" soft floppy disks. We rejoiced when the hard 3.5" floppies came out, cutting our install media by 1/3. We practically did backflips when the data CD-ROM arrived and we declared: we will never need any other disk than this! It is with sadness that I report the beginning of the end for the floppy: computer giant PC World has announced it will no longer carry the floppy disk once current supplies run out."

Slashdot Top Deals

Anyone can make an omelet with eggs. The trick is to make one with none.

Close