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Bitcoin

New Mac OS Trojan Produces BitCoins 247

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the why-is-my-computer-on-fire dept.
angry tapir writes about an interesting use for malware. From the Techworld article: "A newly identified Mac OS X Trojan bundles a component that leverages the processing power of video cards to generate Bitcoins, a popular type of virtual currency. The new Trojan was dubbed DevilRobber by antivirus vendors and is being distributed together with several software applications via BitTorrent sites."
Idle

Pope Says Technology Causes Confusion Between Reality and Fiction 779

Posted by samzenpus from the where's-the-reset-button dept.
Pope Benedict XVI has warned that people are in danger of being unable to discern reality from fiction because of new technologies, and not old books. "New technologies and the progress they bring can make it impossible to distinguish truth from illusion and can lead to confusion between reality and virtual reality. The image can also become independent from reality, it can give birth to a virtual world, with various consequences -- above all the risk of indifference towards real life," he said.
The Military

Critics Say US Antimissile Defense Flawed, Dangerous 312

Posted by kdawson from the bullet-with-a-bullet dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "The New York Times reports that President Obama's plans for reducing America's nuclear arsenal and defeating Iran's missiles rely heavily on a new generation of antimissile defenses which last year he called 'proven and effective.' Now a new analysis being published by two antimissile critics at MIT and Cornell casts doubt on the reliability of the SM-3 rocket-powered interceptor. The Pentagon asserts that the SM-3, or Standard Missile 3, had intercepted 84 percent of incoming targets in tests. But a re-examination of results from 10 of those apparently successful tests by Theodore A. Postol and George N. Lewis finds only one or two successful intercepts, for a success rate of 10 to 20 percent. Most of the approaching warheads, they say, would have been knocked off course but not destroyed, and while that might work against a conventionally armed missile, it suggests that a nuclear warhead might still detonate. 'The system is highly fragile and brittle and will intercept warheads only by accident, if ever,' says Dr. Postol, a former Pentagon science adviser who forcefully criticized the performance of the Patriot antimissile system in the 1991 Persian Gulf war. Dr. Postol says the SM-3 interceptor must shatter the warhead directly, and public statements of the Pentagon agency seem to suggest that it agrees. In combat, the scientists added, 'the warhead would have not been destroyed, but would have continued toward the target.'"

Comment Re:Ha. (Score 1) 270

by antime (#31775868) Attached to: Geohot Brings Other OS Support To PS3 With Custom Firmware

Sony loses money on every PS3

Are you sure about that? The component costs have come down by a lot since launch (esp. the Blu-ray laser, but also the Cell CPU) and I'd not be surprised at all if they turn a profit nowadays, especially with the Slim. But the big money is certainly in collecting license fees.
Science

USGS Develops Twitter-Based Earthquake Detection 95

Posted by samzenpus from the whole-lotta-shaking-going-on dept.
sprinkletown writes "A team of seismologists at the US Geological Survey has found that Twitter is the fastest way to get information out of an earthquake area, especially in those less densely populated. Seeing the Twitter community as an untapped resource, the USGS has developed a new way to track earthquakes by clustering quake-centric tweets."
Television

Move Over BoxeeBox, Here Comes PopBox 117

Posted by CmdrTaco from the lookout-appletv dept.
DeviceGuru writes "Following closely on the heels of the December announcement of D-Link's BoxeeBox, Syabas Technology today said it will ship the PopBox, a $129 Internet-based A/V streaming set-top box (STB) in March. Both new gadgets have the potential to give Roku's popular STB a run for its money. All three boxes can deliver a range of Internet-based A/V streaming and social networking services to consumers' TVs. Like Roku's digital video player STB, the PopBox will include Netflix on-demand video streaming when it first ships. D-Link, meanwhile, is rumored to be scrambling to add Netflix streaming support to its BoxeeBox device as well, prior to inaugural shipments of that device. All three run embedded Linux OSes, and all are expected to sell for less than $200."

Comment Re:Great work! (Score 1) 236

by antime (#30142036) Attached to: Fedora 12 Released
Thumbs up to this. I wish the whole distro release system would go away. Unless there is a major change coming that will break everything (libc5 -> glibc6-type changes) I should not have to reinstall my system just because I want a new version of some application.

Comment Re:broken by design (Score 2, Interesting) 362

by antime (#29404095) Attached to: eBay Denies New Design Is Broken, Blames Users
Indeed. For some reason the hot new trend in shit website design is hiding information behind tabs or even better, hidden tabs. For a prime example of this, see Sourceforge. Every time they have redesigned the site they have made it more difficult to use, primarily by hiding all the relevant information in increasingly complex ways. Originally all the relevant info was on one big page and the functionality was in easy and simple menus. In the next design they put all the info in a small box so you couldn't see it all at once but had to scroll the contents and in the current design you can't fucking find anything.

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