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Comment Re:Gates was on the right track.. (Score 1) 304

That $2bn/yr is coming from lots of different sources, or is at least being funded by many different players in the Android market in some form or fashion. Besides, Samsung is make 95% of the profits on Android, not Google: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-05-16/google-makes-android-but-samsung-makes-all-the-money

Submission + - Protesters Dodge the Sudanese Internet Shutdown with a Phone-Powered Crowdmap (vice.com)

Submitted by Daniel_Stuckey
Daniel_Stuckey writes: Called the Abena crowd map, the map is the product of Mohammed Hashim Saleh and Abeer Khairy, engineers both, and Ahmed Hassan, the co-founder of Khartoum Geeks. In the short amount of time the internet was on yesterday, they deployed the map, which follows events on the ground in Sudan with direct reports.

SMS messages are connected automatically with the Ushahidi-based crowdmapping platform, Saleh told me. Activists, some in-country (who work when possible) and the rest outside, login and check the messages. They are then doubled checked with news sources and social media before being finally confirmed and mapped. The crew has also been manually updating the platform.

Submission + - Ford's Mulally emerging as frontrunner for Microsoft CEO job (networkworld.com)

Submitted by colinneagle
colinneagle writes: Speculation is growing that Ford CEO Alan Mulally is not just in the running for the CEO position at Microsoft, but has become the frontrunner among all candidates, both internal and external. One reason, which I did note in my recent blog post on him, is that Mulally was a top executive at Boeing for years and has connections to the Seattle area. Earlier this month, Reuters reported earlier this month that the Ford board had given Mulally the option to step down earlier from his position than is specified in his contract (there was speculation that he might take a position in the Obama administration). Nokia CEO and former Microsoft executive Stephen Elop has remained a top candidate, but interest has shifted toward Mulally because of his experience turning around a faltering company. No one can say Elop turned around Nokia.

Submission + - Indian Supreme Court gives voters right to reject all candidates (indiatimes.com)

Submitted by btb1
btb1 writes: In a landmark judgement on Friday, the (Indian) Supreme Court for the first time allowed voters to cast negative vote by pressing a button saying none of the candidates is worthy of his vote. (Highlights)

The SC asked the Election Commission to provide None Of The Above (NOTA) button on EVMs and ballot papers.

The apex court said the right to vote and the right to say NOTA are both part of basic right of voters.

"When a large number of voters will press NOTA button, it will force political parties to choose better candidates. Negative voting would lead to systemic change in polls," the apex bench observed.

Submission + - NSA Trying to Shift Surveillance Narrative

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: When things go badly in Washington, D.C., when a scandal breaks or damaging leaks begin to surface, there is an established and well-worn playbook that politicians and executives can turn to for solace. There’s a page for every conceivable situation, and it’s that playbook that the National Security Agency and its director, Gen. Keith Alexander, are relying on now as they struggle to win back a bit of the public and political support they’ve lost and keep their tenuous grasp on the collection tools they’ve been employing for more than a decade.

“What we were blamed for as an intelligence community is not connecting the dots. So we came up with a couple of programs. FISA is the key to connecting the dots,” Alexander said.

By shifting the focus away from the NSA’s potential abuses of the surveillance programs the question of whether the bulk collection of phone and Internet data is even necessary, Alexander is employing the time-honored strategy of answering the question he wanted to be asked rather than the one that was posed. He is changing the narrative.

No one disputes that the NSA, CIA, FBI and other agencies are working hard to defend the country and disrupt terrorism. That’s their job, and they’re good at it. Those agencies need tools to do the job, but the thing about tools is that each one is designed for a specific purpose. Start using one for a different job, and it’s not as effective, or worse, someone gets hurt. The old saying is that when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. That bit of wisdom isn’t limited to hand tools.
Cloud

Datagram Recovers From 'Apocalyptic' Flooding During Sandy 114

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the mother-nature-wants-you-to-die dept.
1sockchuck writes "During SuperStorm Sandy, few data centers faced a bigger challenge than the Datagram facility in lower Manhattan. The storm surge from Sandy flooded its basement, disabling critical pumps. 'It was apocalyptic,' said CEO Alex Reppen. 'It was like a tidal wave over lower Manhattan.' While companies like CoreSite dealt primarily with the loss of ConEd power, the Datagram team sought to recover operations in an active flood zone. Why was mission-critical equipment in the basement? Because city officials restrict placing fuel tanks on rooftops and upper floors, citing concerns about diesel emerging from the 9-11 attacks."
Microsoft

Windows 8 PCs Still Throttled By Crapware 657

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the the-more-things-stay-the-same dept.
jfruh writes "Windows 8's Metro UI presents a clean and spiffy new interface for Microsoft's latest OS. But one of the operating system's oldest and most hated problems — crapware — still lurks below the surface. For instance, the Acer Aspire 7600U is an all-in-one that, at $1,900, is hardly a bargain-basement PC. And yet as shipped it includes over 50 pieces of OEM and third-party software pre-installed, much of which simply offer trials for paid services."
Businesses

Submission + - O'Reilly Discounts Every eBook by 50% (oreilly.com)

Submitted by destinyland
destinyland writes: O'Reilly and Associates just announced that they're offering a 50% discount on every ebook they publish for Cyber Monday. Use the code CYBERDAY when checking out to claim the discount (which expires at midnight). Amazon has also discounted their Kindle Fire tablets to just $129. Due to a prodcution snafu, they've already sold out of the new Kindle Paperwhite, and won't be able to ship any more until December 21
Mars

Submission + - SpaceX Founder Sets Sights On Martian Colony (isciencetimes.com)

Submitted by amkkhan
amkkhan writes: Elon Musk, founder of the private spaceflight company SpaceX, is has his eye on forming a Mars colony, and you can be part one of the first Martian explorers for only $500,000. The Mars colony would be part of a Mars settlement program, and Must envisions ferrying up to 80,000 people to the red planet as part of the first Mars colony.

The Mars settlement program would start with 10 people, who would journey on to Mars on a reusable rocket created by SpaceX powered by liquid oxygen and methane, according to Yahoo! News.

"At Mars, you can start a self-sustaining civilization and grow it into something really big," Musk said, according to Space.com.
Security

Submission + - Dual Interface Mobile Devices To Address BYOD Issue (computerworld.com)

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: Next year, smart phones will begin shipping with the ability to have dual identities: one for private use and the other for corporate. Hypervisor developers, such as VMware and Red Bend, are working with system manufacturers to embed their virtualization software in the phones, while IC makers, such as Intel, are developing more powerful and secure mobile device processors. The combination will enable mobile platforms that afford end users their own user interface, secure from IT's prying eyes, while in turn allowing a company to secure its data using mobile device management software. One of the biggest benefits dual-identity phones will offer is enabling admins to wipe corporate data from phones without erasing end users profiles and personal information.
Bug

Submission + - Researcher Finds Nearly Two Dozen SCADA Bugs in a Few Hours' Time (threatpost.com)

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: It is open season on SCADA software right now. Last week, researchers at ReVuln, an Italian security firm, released a video showing off a number of zero-day vulnerabilities in SCADA applications from manufacturers such as Siemens, GE and Schneider Electric. And now a researcher at Exodus Intelligence says he has discovered more than 20 flaws in SCADA packages from some of the same vendors and other manufacturers, all after just a few hours' work.

Aaron Portnoy, the vice president of research at Exodus, said that finding the flaws wasn't even remotely difficult.

"The most interesting thing about these bugs was how trivial they were to find. The first exploitable 0day took a mere 7 minutes to discover from the time the software was installed. For someone who has spent a lot of time auditing software used in the enterprise and consumer space, SCADA was absurdly simple in comparison. The most difficult part of finding SCADA vulnerabilities seems to be locating the software itself," Portnoy said in a blog post.

Portnoy said that he plans to suggest to ICS-CERT that the group consider developing a repository of SCADA software to make it easier for security researchers to do their work.

Comment Title is wrong (Score 1) 2

by mreed911 (#35703588) Attached to: 18000 x norm radiation in San Francisco tap wate
Title says tap water... article says rain water. The synopsis is also wrong. The synopsis says that "3 Liters of rainwater collected contained 134 Becquerels of Iodine for an average of 20.1 Becquerel per liter", but this isn't the case (and in any case the average given those numbers would be 44.67 (134 / 3 = 44.67)). That data shows that 20.1 Bq/L of Iodine 131 were found (in three liters, meaning a total of 60.3 becquerel) and the parenthetical number (134) is "the number of liters of water that one would need to consume to equal the radiation exposure of a single round trip flight from San Francisco to Washington D.C. (0.05 mSv)."

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