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Social Networks

Submission + - Virtual Burglary Leads to Arrest (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by
G0rAk
G0rAk writes: "The BBC is reporting that a 'Virtual theft' has lead to an arrest in the Netherlands. A Dutch teenager who scammed people out of their Habbo Hotel usernames and passwords allegedly used the information to steal virtual designer furniture from his victims and moved it to his own virtual home. The police have become interested because, although the furniture was bought with "Habbo Credits", these have a cash value. From the article:

"It is a theft because the furniture is paid for with real money. But the only way to be a thief in Habbo is to get people's usernames and passwords and then log in and take the furniture. "We got involved because of an increasing number of sites which are pretending to be Habbo. People might then try and log in and get their details stolen."
Can't wait to see this come to court and the judge asking the prosecution to show the jury some of the swag..."
Games

Dutch Teen Arrested for Virtual Property Theft 183

Posted by Zonk from the should-have-stuck-with-robbing-monsters dept.
vuo writes "A story on the BBC website reports that Dutch police have arrested a teenager for robbery of virtual furniture worth roughly $5900. The crime took place in the virtual world/social network Habbo Hotel, a website run by Sulake Corporation. Sulake has 80 million registered users of its sites in 31 countries. ' Habbo users can create their own characters, decorate their own rooms and play a number of games, paying with Habbo Credits, which they have to buy with real cash. "It is a theft because the furniture is paid for with real money. But the only way to be a thief in Habbo is to get people's usernames and passwords and then log in and take the furniture. We got involved because of an increasing number of sites which are pretending to be Habbo. People might then try and log in and get their details stolen."'"
The Almighty Buck

Close but no Cigar for Netflix Recommender System 114

Posted by CmdrTaco from the fifty-grand-aint-bad dept.
Ponca City, We Love You writes "In October 2006, Netflix, the online movie rental service, announced that it would award $1 million to the first team to improve the accuracy of Netflix's movie recommendations by 10% based on personal preferences. Each contestant was given a set of data from which three million predictions were made about how certain users rated certain movies and Netflix compared that list with the actual ratings and generated a score for each team. More than 27,000 contestants from 161 countries submitted their entries and some got close, but not close enough. Today Netflix announced that it is awarding an annual progress prize of $50,000 to a group of researchers at AT&T Labs, who improved the current recommendation system by 8.43 percent but the $1 million grand prize is still up for grabs and a $50,000 progress prize will be awarded every year until the 10 percent goal is met. As part of the rules of the competition, the team was required to disclose their solution publicly. (pdf)"
The Internet

Submission + - Vint Cerf on the Past and Future of the Internet (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by
G0rAk
G0rAk writes: "Vint Cerf, founding father of the internet and Chief Internet Evangelist at Google has an interesting piece on the BBC's The Tech Lab on the past, present and future of the internet. From the article:

The internet, however, stands poised to become the greatest communications platform humanity has ever known. It has profoundly increased access to information around the world, and it has likewise provided a platform for free expression on a scale unimaginable a generation ago.
He discusses the amazing rate of expansion of the medium, compared to say the telephone or TV, and addresses upcoming infrastructure concerns and comments on the increasing power of the Internet to affect all of our lives:

The idea that all the world's knowledge could be discoverable not just by humans but by programs acting on their behalf at speeds well beyond the superhuman, is one of this century's most exciting opportunities.
"
Microsoft

Submission + - Why the Windows ecosystem is broken (chron.com)

Submitted by
Christopher Blanc
Christopher Blanc writes: "Windows, although a proprietary operating system, is the hub of an open computing system. Anyone can build a computer that runs it, using off the shelf parts. This open system has worked well so far; it's what has driven the growth of the personal computing industry for decades. With each successive version of Windows, hardware makers and developers must decide whether to support their older products on the new operating system. They can throw resources at writing drivers for hardware and patches for software, but as time goes on, they have more and more legacy products in the mix. As I wrote in Tuesday's entry, what Microsoft needs to do is start over.

http://blogs.chron.com/techblog/archives/2007/08/h eres_why_the_windows_ecosystem_is_broken.html#more "
Hardware Hacking

Submission + - Personal LASER Weaponary for the Masses (lifehacker.com)

Submitted by
G0rAk
G0rAk writes: "From the Argh!-My-eyes! department

You've always wanted one and now you can have one. Your own, personal, handheld LASER gun!

DIYer Kipkay extracts the laser from a DVD burner and mounts it in a small flashlight to create a handheld laser burner that can light matches and burst balloons.
Watch the demo video, grab a DVD burner and follow the instructible. Normal safety warnings apply: this probably isn't safe."

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