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Businesses

eBay Denies New Design Is Broken, Blames Users 362

Posted by kdawson from the just-test-the-darn-thing dept.
krick-zero writes "eBay recently rolled out a new page design. Many eBay sellers are reporting issues with missing description text, resulting in lost sales. Buyers are reporting the same intermittent issue, on multiple platforms, with multiple browsers. After complaining to eBay customer service, one user got this response: 'I have reviewed several of your listings using my computer and had several of my coworkers view your listings as well and we are seeing the complete listings. Many times when buyers are not able to see the whole description or just bits and pieces it is due to browser issues they are having. A lot of times if they simply clear out their cache and cookies or change browsers (i.e. change from Internet explorer to Firefox or vice versa) they no longer have this problem.'"
Robotics

Exoskeletons For Rent In Japan 226

Posted by kdawson from the place-holder dept.
destinyland writes "Cyberdyne has started renting their exoskeleton body suits in Japan. The mind-controlled wearable machine increases strength and endurance, and rents for $2,300 a month. (Sensors on the skin detect traces of nerve signals from the brain, synchronizing the power suit's movements with the user's own limbs.) New video shows the suits in use on the streets of Tokyo, and the concept may be catching on. DARPA now has a program called Exoskeletons for Human Performance Augmentation 'to develop devices and machines that will increase the speed, strength and endurance of soldiers in combat environments.'"
Networking

Chinese Game Operator Used DDoS Attacks On Rivals 28

Posted by Soulskill from the world-of-latencycraft dept.
carusoj writes "An attack by a Chinese online game provider meant to cripple the servers of its rivals ballooned to cause an Internet outage in much of the country in May, according to police. The escalation began with a distributed denial-of-service attack on a domain registrar that serves many small gaming companies. While the national scale of the effects was unusual, such attacks are common among some small Internet businesses competing to draw customers in China, security researchers say. Police have arrested four people involved in the attack."
Earth

Earth's Period of Habitability Is Nearly Over 756

Posted by kdawson from the nice-while-it-lasts dept.
xp65 writes "Scientists at this year's XXVIIth General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil agree that we do not yet know how ubiquitous or how fragile life is, but that: 'The Earth's period of habitability is nearly over on a cosmological timescale. In a half to one billion years the Sun will start to be too luminous and warm for water to exist in liquid form on Earth, leading to a runaway greenhouse effect in less than 2 billion years.' Other surprising claims from this conference: that the Sun may not be the ideal kind of star to nurture life, and that the Earth may not be the ideal size."
United States

Submission + - Apple MacBook Pro (17-inch) Unibody (reviewsbuzz.com)

Submitted by
Apple MacBook Pro (17-inch) Unibody
Apple MacBook Pro (17-inch) Unibody writes: "A groundbreaking development in the domain of laptop made by Apple — by innovating a new series, like MacBook Pro 17" Unibody — primarily the sibling of MacBook Pro 15". It is accompanying multiple highly creative features, which makes this latest series stand out among the mob."
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Do arrogant IT managers presage a failing company? 4

Submitted by
freedom_india
freedom_india writes: "Do companies which have arrogant, prima donna IT managers presage that the company is failing?
From my one-and-half-decade work experience with various companies i have noticed a trend:
Companies which have a slow-moving, yet quiet and humble IT continue to shine and prosper in this economic situation.
For instance HSBC, Wells Fargo, Statestreet, Webster Bank, etc.
On the other hand, companies who have had arrogant, positively evil IT managers and leaders have stumbled or stumbling now. For instance AIG, Citibank, Credit Suisse, WaMu, etc.
I have worked for the best as well as worst IT managers, including the one at Citi who took a screenshot of our IT application, put it on his desktop as wallpaper and screamed at us that our application didn't work. It took us 4 days and multiple escalations until we found out. Unfortunately, that guy had a good laugh and was never even warned by his manager. That was 9 years ago. That guy rapidly proceeded to become a AVP. Fortunately, his downfall came rapidly too: he was one of the first to be fired by Citi when it cut down costs.
Similar case with Credit Suisse where we were forced to work 20 hour days for about 4 months to finish a job to "their" satisfaction, which meant scrapping all we did and doing it repeatedly after their managers had a chance to google for a solution.
AIG was the worst of all when we had to digest an architecture and design document of 138 pages in one day and make a presentation the next day. AIG bosses thought it was funny to see us struggling and said that as a vendor we ought to be superhuman and not a mere human being.
So, tell me, am i right that companies with worst attitude IT fail, while companies with strong and benevolent IT are a success?"
Media

Submission + - Lies, damn lies and the copyright industry

Submitted by artg
artg writes: Ben Goldacre writes about invalid and misleading 'science' in the Guardian. Here's his report on the statistics behind a recent press story that reported illegal downloading to involve 120 billion pounds worth of material.
Earth

Submission + - NASA believes sun heats earth (dailytech.com) 2

Submitted by windowshater13
windowshater13 writes: Report indicates solar cycle has been impacting Earth since the Industrial Revolution Some researchers believe that the solar cycle influences global climate changes. They attribute recent warming trends to cyclic variation. Skeptics, though, argue that there's little hard evidence of a solar hand in recent climate changes.Via Daily Tech Al Gore in search of new income.
Windows

Submission + - What yet-to-be-written software do you need?

Submitted by
Indebi
Indebi writes: "I'm a beginning .NET developer and I wanted to ask Slashdot what kinds of software they need that hasn't been written or hasn't been written well and I may write it if it looks like it may be needed. Note: This software would have to run under Windows or Mono."
Transportation

Submission + - Autopilot responsible of Air France 447 accident?

Submitted by anubios
anubios writes: Spanish pilot Pedro Guil has formulated an hypothesis (sorry, link on spanish) of Air France 447 accident based on his own personal experience. He was flying a Boeing 747-300 about the same zone of the accident crossing the Intertropical Convergence Zone with medium to strong turbulence when the air temperature suddenly rose up causing the plane to stall, he had to disconnect the autopilot as it tries to maintain the altitude increasing engine power. They were on the Coffin corner. If the autopilot were not disconnected possibly the plane could have been crashed. Although it only happened once in 40 years flying he thinks is possible. Note that Airbus recommendation is to NOT disconnect the autopilot with strong turbulences but a situation like that is not expected to occur.
Idle

Submission + - Apple gets pwned by DVD-Jon's guerilla marketing (techcrunch.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Techcrunch has an article today about the ultimate real-life Apple hack. DVD-Jon's company doubleTwist put up a huge ad on the wall outside of the Apple Store in San Francisco.

The ad invites passersby to try "The Cure for iPhone Envy", which they can use to access their "iTunes Library on any device. In Seconds". It's clearly a message that Apple doesn't want anything to do with. We're hearing that Apple employees are currently scratching their heads as to how this appeared.

Apparently the window technically belongs to BART, the Bay Area's commuter transit system. doubleTwist got in touch with an ad agency that BART deals with and leased the window, giving them the chance to plaster their ad just below the Apple logo in its full glory. This is apparently the first time the window has been used for this purpose (before it just sat bare). And because everything was done legally, Apple's going to have a hard time getting rid of it.

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