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Comment Re:Ridiculous (Score 1) 109

by jason.hall (#31296268) Attached to: LG Launches Watch Phone In India
Re: The purpose of owning a Rolex is to make a statement: "I am better than you because I have so much money that I can spend thousands of dollars on a watch that doesn't tell time any better than a $25 Timex".

Oh, that's probably the intent, but the REAL statement is usually "I have a higher credit card balance than you, because I spend thousands of dollars on a watch."
Windows

Vista Share Drops for the First Time In Two Years 332

Posted by kdawson from the disturbance-in-the-force dept.
adeelarshad82 writes "Windows Vista lost market share last month for the first time in almost two years, a sign that users are already abandoning the oft-ridiculed operating system in favor of the new Windows 7. According to Web metrics firm Net Applications, Vista dropped 0.2 percentage points during September to end the month at an 18.6% slice of the operating system pie. Windows 7, meanwhile, gained 0.3 percentage points, its biggest one-month gain since Microsoft began handing out the new OS to the public in January 2009. Windows 7 powered an estimated 1.5% of all computers that connected to the Internet last month, also a record."
It's funny. Laugh.

Finding a Personal Coding Trifecta 188

Posted by timothy from the benadryl-cocoa-and-a-down-comforter dept.
jammag writes "For Seinfeld's George Constanza, his dream of the ideal moment was having sex while watching TV and eating a pastrami sandwich. He called this Nirvana state 'The Trifecta.' Developer Eric Spiegel adapts this concept of Nirvana to the act of writing your best possible code. He examines all (or most) of the possible things that might contribute to the 'The Trifecta' for developers — food, beverages, time of day. Spiegel also describes his personal Trifecta."
Linux Business

Linux Flourishes In 200-Year-Old Gold Markets 195

Posted by timothy from the neal-stephenson-themes-everyhere dept.
tbarkerload writes "H-Online [a spin off of a major German daily] reports on a gold trader managing over 15 tonnes of gold, worth $660m, with a platform built on open source tech. BullionVault operates a 24-7 electronic market in gold bullion open to both retail and professional traders. Their systems handle thousands of daily transactions from both human traders and bots operating through their API. If Linux has reached the world of hundred year old assaying firms, and Swiss vaults buried in mountains, can final world domination be too far away?"
The Military

Bats Inspiring Future Micro Unmanned Aircraft 76

Posted by kdawson from the same-bat-station dept.
coondoggie writes "It's not the first time researchers have tried to emulate flapping as a way to fly aircraft, but US Air Force-funded researchers are now looking at how bats move to help them develop future micro-aircraft. According to these researchers, birds, bats, and insects have some highly varied mechanical properties that researchers have so far not utilized in engineering flight vehicles. The idea is to reproduce bat mechanics and develop technology could lead to small, remote controlled aircraft able to move in places where fixed-wing aircraft have a hard time — like the interiors of buildings, caves, or tunnels."
Microsoft

Microsoft To Buy Back $40bn of Its Shares 345

Posted by CmdrTaco from the that's-a-lotta-shares dept.
phantomflanflinger writes "As you may have heard already, Microsoft have announced their intentions to buy back $40 billion in stock from their investors, in the biggest single buy-back plan in business history. The announcement has given Microsoft shares a small gain but they still stand significantly below their level in January — before Microsoft's unsolicited bid for Yahoo!. The announcement of the plan has also created new speculation about a now-or-never deal with Yahoo!."
Privacy

Homeland Security Department Testing "Pre-Crime" Detector 580

Posted by timothy from the when-dowsing-meets-voight-kampff dept.
holy_calamity writes "New Scientist reports that the Department of Homeland Security recently tested something called Future Attribute Screening Technologies (FAST) — a battery of sensors that determine whether someone is a security threat from a distance. Sensors look at facial expressions, body heat and can measure pulse and breathing rate from a distance. In trials using 140 volunteers those told to act suspicious were detected with 'about 78% accuracy on mal-intent detection, and 80% on deception,' says a DHS spokesman."
Spam

Postfix's Creator Outlines Spam Solution 253

Posted by CmdrTaco from the spam-spam-spam-i-am dept.
SATAN writes "Wietse Venema started out as a physicist, but became interested in the security of the programs he wrote to control his physics experiments. He went on to create several well-known network and security tools, including the Security Administrator's Tool for Analyzing Networks (SATAN) and The Coroner's Toolkit with Dan Farmer. He is also the creator of the popular MTA Postfix and TCP Wrapper. SecurityFocus chatted up Venema to talk about software security, how to improve the code quality, what solutions we might have to fight spam successfully, the principle of least privilege, and the philosophy behind the design of Postfix. Venema is currently a researcher at IBM's T.J. Watson Research Center."
It's funny. Laugh.

"War On Terror" Board Game Confiscated In UK 598

Posted by kdawson from the security-theater-as-low-comedy dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The board game The War On Terror is a satirical game in which George Bush's 'Axis of Evil' is reduced to a spinner in the middle of the board, which determines which player is designated a terrorist state. That person then has to wear a balaclava (included in the box set) with the word 'Evil' stitched onto it. Kent police said they had confiscated the game because the balaclava 'could be used to conceal someone's identity or could be used in the course of a criminal act.' Balaclavas are freely sold all over the place in the area." Schneier has blogged this stupidity, of course.
Communications

Using My PC For Plain Old Telephone Service? 248

Posted by Soulskill from the pots-and-plans dept.
TheJerbear79 writes "I recently accepted a work-from-home job that will involve using my landline to talk to customers. When I log into the phone queue, my landline will ring, I'll put in a three digit code, and then calls are routed to the phone line I'm on. It essentially turns my landline into a softphone. Rather than using a regular handset or obtaining a nice business phone with a headset and speakerphone, I would like to use my PC's modem in conjunction with a normal PC headset and soundcard. I know the hardware is capable, but the modem didn't come with appropriate software. Has anyone found anything cheap/free that would suit this kind of usage? Just for clarity, I don't want to use a VOIP solution; I need to use my plain old landline. My reason is this: if I'm watching a movie or listening to an MP3 while I'm waiting for a call, I don't want it to ever be apparent to the person who is on the phone with me, and I want to route all the audio I use through a single headset. I've scoured Google for anything close to this application, and all I've managed to find is information on VOIP software or programs that turn my PC into an answering machine, neither of which will work."
Power

First US Offshore Wind Power Park In Delaware 363

Posted by kdawson from the doesn't-get-much-greener dept.
Dekortage writes "Offshore wind power company Bluewater Wind has announced an agreement to build America's first offshore wind turbine park off the coast of Delaware. 'Each turbine [will sit on] a pole about 250 feet above the waterline... the units are to be constructed to withstand hurricane-force winds. From the shore, the park will be visible only on clear winter days, and the turbines will be nearly invisible during summer months when Rehoboth Beach fills with vacationers. Each blade on the three-blade rotor is to be 150 feet long.' The wind farm will power 50,000 homes in Delaware, using about half of its capacity."
Space

NASA Plans Probe to the Sun 352

Posted by CmdrTaco from the hope-they-bring-suntan-lotion dept.
FudRucker writes "For more than 400 years, astronomers have studied the sun from afar. Now NASA has decided to go there. 'We are going to visit a living, breathing star for the first time,' says program scientist Lika Guhathakurta of NASA Headquarters. 'This is an unexplored region of the solar system and the possibilities for discovery are off the charts.'"

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