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Privacy

NYPD Anti-Terrorism Cameras Used For Much More 400

Posted by Soulskill from the donut-location-devices dept.
An anonymous reader writes with an excerpt from the NY Times: "The Police Department's growing web of license-plate-reading cameras has been transforming investigative work. Though the imaging technology was conceived primarily as a counterterrorism tool, the cameras' presence — all those sets of watchful eyes that never seem to blink — has aided in all sorts of traditional criminal investigations. ... 'We knew going into it that they would have other obvious benefits,' Mr. Browne said about the use of the readers in the initiative. 'Obviously, conventional crime is far more common than terrorism, so it is not surprising that they would have benefits, more frequently, in conventional crime fighting than in terrorism.'"
Google

Old Media Says Google Will Destroy Film & Music 336

Posted by samzenpus from the back-in-my-day dept.
SirWinston writes "A Daily Mail editor has written perhaps the most Luddite attack on Google ever, reading just like a 19th-century manifesto against looms and factories. 'Google has become a global predator ruthlessly gobbling up potential rivals such as YouTube and 'stealing' the creative work of writers, film makers and the music industry... Google has granted these piracy sites a licence to steal... It undermines investment in the very creative industries that have become such an important part of our national prosperity, and employ hundreds of thousands of people.' The article lionizes brick-and-mortar business and traditional media, and reads as a funny anachronism--except that these may be the attitudes of European regulators now shaking down Google and new media."
Security

France Outlaws Hashed Passwords 433

Posted by samzenpus from the keep-your-receipt dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Storing passwords as hashes instead of plain text is now illegal in France, according to a draconian new data retention law. According to the BBC, '[t]he law obliges a range of e-commerce sites, video and music services and webmail providers to keep a host of data on customers. This includes users' full names, postal addresses, telephone numbers and passwords. The data must be handed over to the authorities if demanded.' If the law survives a pending legal challenge by Google, Ebay and others, it may well keep some major services out of the country entirely."
Sci-Fi

Happy 80th Birthday, William Shatner! 226

Posted by CmdrTaco from the say-the-other-guys-thing dept.
gregg writes "Today another geek legend celebrates a birthday. Best known for portraying Captain James T. Kirk, William Shatner has cemented himself into geek science fiction lore forever. Today he begins his ninth decade on this planet — yes, Captain Kirk is now 80 years old."
Communications

AT&T To Acquire T-Mobile From Deutsche Telekom 748

Posted by timothy from the drei-ist-genug dept.
teh31337one writes "AT&T and Deutsche Telekom have entered into a definitive agreement for the sale of T-Mobile USA for $39 billion in cash and stocks. Press release here." Gripes one anonymous reader: "Americans will have even less choice now when it comes to cell phone carriers. Say good-bye to the one that had the best customer service and was most friendly towards Android and rooting."
Japan

A Handy Radiation Dose Chart From XKCD 392

Posted by timothy from the is-there-anything-xkcd-can't-do? dept.
An anonymous reader points out Randall Munroe's latest contribution to public health awareness, a "chart of how much ionizing radiation a person can absorb from various sources, compared visually. 1 Sievert will make you sick, many more will kill you, however, even small doses cumulatively increase cancer risk." It's a good way to think about the difference between Chernobyl and Fukushima.
Software

Apple's App Store Accepts 'Gay Cure' App 794

Posted by timothy from the gee-wally-guess-it-was-just-a-mistake dept.
parallel_prankster writes "Apple is under fire for approving a controversial app created by a religious organization — Exodus International. The app seeks to help gay individuals become heterosexual. It received a '4' rating from Apple, which indicates the company considered the app to contain 'no objectionable material.' The new smartphone app was released last week and is now available through iTunes. Exodus International claims to be 'the world's largest ministry to individuals and families impacted by homosexuality.' A petition has been launched by Truth Wins Out, which describes itself as a non-profit organisation that fights anti-gay religious extremism on the change.org website, asking Steve Jobs to intervene to remove the app."

Comment Re:Brother printers are your friends. (Score 1) 294

by JediTrainer (#33367796) Attached to: Lexmark Sues 24 Companies Over Toner-Cartridge Patents
You can fight this nonsense by not buying Lexmark, Canon, HP, Epson, etc.

Must depend on the Canon printer. I've got one that's happily working away, that simply uses an optical sensor to see if the ink is low. Granted it's old (Pixma MP750 - I think about 5 years old now) but it's been a great workhorse. Ink cartridges run about $16-18 CAD. Should be trivial to refill, from the looks of them, but at that price point I don't need to bother.

Comment Re:Tech is still Tech, yucko! (Score 2, Funny) 435

by JediTrainer (#33187662) Attached to: The 'Net Generation' Isn't
I'm in the late 20s/early 30s bracket, the gen who grew up having to fiddle with DOS just to get games to run.

Oh the memories (me too - same age bracket here)

Tweak the order in which things will load in your config.sys and autoexec.bat. Work like hell to squeeze that extra few k out of your memory. Special boot disks just to play one game. Practice your swear words trying to get the Gravis UltraSound to work properly as a Sound Blaster emulator. Goddamn it, I bought a new game that needs 45MB and my whole hard drive only has 80 - beg, borrow, steal space. Stacker is a godsend. No, it's not - doesn't work nearly as well as advertised. Goddamn it, I'm out of IRQ ports. Plug and play will never work, no way, no how. And we liked it that way.

Now get off my lawn :)

Comment Re:I don't get it. (Score 1, Redundant) 764

by JediTrainer (#33083954) Attached to: To Ballmer, Grabbing iPad's Market Is 'Job One Urgency'
Really? Ask Wordstar, Wordperfect, Lotus 1-2-3, dBaseIII, Netscape, and countless other companies what fat lot of good the early lead did for them?

I'm no giant MS fan, but at the same time with most of these should serve as an example as to why if you're in the lead, you can't rest on your laurels. Stop innovating, and your product becomes inferior over time. Your competition will catch up (and with that momentum, quickly leave you in the dust). I stuck with Wordperfect, Lotus and Netscape for the longest time. I resisted, but eventually the realization came that something better has come along and everyone else has moved on already.

So I used IE for a while. Then Firefox came along. Et al, et al.

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