Submission + - One Company's Week-Long Interview Process (itworld.com)
jfruh writes: "What's the longest tech interview you've had to sit through — two hours? Eight? Ruby on Rails devs who want to work for Hashrocket need to travel to Florida and do pair-programming on real projects for a week before they can be hired. The upside is that you'll be put up in a beachfront condo for the week with your significant other; the downside is that you'll be doing real work for a week for little or no pay and no guarantee of a job slot."
Journal Journal: Where is iWork '12?
It's been some time since the latest iWork refresh. iWork '09 was released nearly three years ago, which is a long time in computer business. Several events were suggested as a reason for Apple to delay the release of the next version of their Office suite: the new iPad, Lion, and lately the release of iCloud was accused to be the reason to further work on Pages, Keynote and Numbers to work seamlessly with the service.
All those events came and went, yet a new version of iWork is still not
Submission + - China wants cyber crisis hotline (the-diplomat.com)
An anonymous reader writes: China should look at establishing a cyber crisis hotline with the United States, according to a Chinese newspaper seen as a window into official thinking. Discussions about a crisis hotline might seem an obvious first step in improving relations. But if it's a sign the Chinese government is beginning to think about how to coordinate a rapid, unified response to cyber emergencies, then it is an extremely important one.
Submission + - Mozilla's WebAPI for Firefox takes shape (extremetech.com)
MrSeb writes: "The first fruits of Mozilla’s attempt to make a Chrome OS-like Firefox operating system — Boot 2 Gecko — are now beginning to take shape in the Nightly builds of Firefox for Android. Dubbed “WebAPI,” these recent additions allow Firefox to access an Android device’s hardware through a JavaScript API. As of the latest Nightly, Firefox 11 for Android can now read the battery state, capture images from the camera, send SMSes, and trigger the vibrator motor. The end goal — and WebAPI is far from complete — is to have a full set of APIs that HTML5 web apps can leverage to create seamless, native-like experiences on Android or Boot 2 Gecko devices. WebAPI will enable HTML5 web apps that communicate via SMS when 3G or WiFi aren’t available, websites that detect when you’re running low on battery and point you towards the nearest charging point, HTML5 games (or adult video sites) could use the vibration API... and more!"
Submission + - Researchers Explore How Cyber Attackers Think (net-security.org)
Orome1 writes: In a unique collaboration, an engineer and a criminologist are applying criminological concepts and research methods in the study of cybercrime, leading to recommendations for IT managers to use in the prevention of cyber attacks on their networks. Their work is the first look at the relationship between computer-network activity patterns and computer-focused crime trends. The study shows that the human aspect needs to be included in security studies, where humans are already referred as the weakest link.
Submission + - Smart Meters Wreaking Havoc w/ Home Electronics (securityweek.com)
wiredmikey writes: About 200 customers of the Central Maine Power Company recently noticed something odd after the utility installed smart meters in their homes: household electronics including wireless devices stopped working, or behaved erratically.
Many Smart Meters broadcast in the 2.4GHz frequency range. Unfortunately, so do many of the consumer gadgets we take for granted these days including routers, electric garage doors, fire alarms, clocks, electric pet fences, answering machines, and baby monitors--even medial devices.
The electromagnetic congestion in the home is in some ways similar to the growing electronic congestion in hospitals as they acquire more and more electronic monitors all operating within a few feet of each other. Medical equipment has been known to shut down or give erroneous results when positioned close to another piece of equipment. Such interference is not new, just getting worse--rapidly....
Many Smart Meters broadcast in the 2.4GHz frequency range. Unfortunately, so do many of the consumer gadgets we take for granted these days including routers, electric garage doors, fire alarms, clocks, electric pet fences, answering machines, and baby monitors--even medial devices.
The electromagnetic congestion in the home is in some ways similar to the growing electronic congestion in hospitals as they acquire more and more electronic monitors all operating within a few feet of each other. Medical equipment has been known to shut down or give erroneous results when positioned close to another piece of equipment. Such interference is not new, just getting worse--rapidly....
Submission + - Netflix will lose money for all of 2012 (cnn.com)
PolygamousRanchKid writes: Netflix (NFLX) warned in its last earnings report that it expects to be unprofitable "for a few quarters" starting at the beginning of 2012. The primary culprit is Netflix's pricey plan to expand its streaming video service into the United Kingdom and Ireland, but a wave of subscribers jumping ship hasn't helped.
The filing also revealed that Netflix is in the process of raising $400 million from investors to help bulk up its cash stash. While that will give Netflix more money to invest in content, secondary offerings are sometimes considered ominous signs. They can signal that expenditures have outpaced expectations and that a company needs to raise more cash.
Netflix, which had $366 million in cash on hand at the end of last quarter, is facing threats from rivals with much deeper pockets. Studios are demanding more money for their valuable content, and the playing field is getting crowded. Meanwhile, Netflix is losing some of those all-important licenses. In September, Starz ended contract renewal negotiations with Netflix and said it will pull its movies and TV shows from Netflix early next year. That loss of content leaves angry customers asking why they're paying more for less.
The filing also revealed that Netflix is in the process of raising $400 million from investors to help bulk up its cash stash. While that will give Netflix more money to invest in content, secondary offerings are sometimes considered ominous signs. They can signal that expenditures have outpaced expectations and that a company needs to raise more cash.
Netflix, which had $366 million in cash on hand at the end of last quarter, is facing threats from rivals with much deeper pockets. Studios are demanding more money for their valuable content, and the playing field is getting crowded. Meanwhile, Netflix is losing some of those all-important licenses. In September, Starz ended contract renewal negotiations with Netflix and said it will pull its movies and TV shows from Netflix early next year. That loss of content leaves angry customers asking why they're paying more for less.
Submission + - Lost Russian Mars Probe Phoned Home (discovery.com)
astroengine writes: "The Russian Mars mission Phobos-Grunt has made a surprise announcement: she's alive.
According to the European Space Agency (ESA) in the early hours of Wednesday morning, a tracking station in Perth, Australia, picked up a signal from the ailing spacecraft."
According to the European Space Agency (ESA) in the early hours of Wednesday morning, a tracking station in Perth, Australia, picked up a signal from the ailing spacecraft."
Submission + - Engineers developing 'Bionic contact lens' (bbc.co.uk)
ProbablyJoe writes: The BBC reports that researchers at Washington University have made a breakthrough in developing a contact lens that will be able to overlay text and images on top human vision.
The research is still in early stages, so far just being able to light one LED on the lens, and requiring a battery no more than 1cm away. But researchers claim the main problem has already been overcome — getting the human eye to focus on an image generated on its surface.
While a long way from completion, the team hopes to soon increase the display to hundreds of pixels, and overlay text on the lens. The technology could eventually be used in future augmented reality applications, allowing futuristic 'Terminator' style vision.
The research is still in early stages, so far just being able to light one LED on the lens, and requiring a battery no more than 1cm away. But researchers claim the main problem has already been overcome — getting the human eye to focus on an image generated on its surface.
While a long way from completion, the team hopes to soon increase the display to hundreds of pixels, and overlay text on the lens. The technology could eventually be used in future augmented reality applications, allowing futuristic 'Terminator' style vision.
Submission + - Anonymous hacks CATCH Team Cybercime Investigator (nyud.net)
An anonymous reader writes: On Friday, a group of hackers operating under the banner of Anonymous' Operation AntiSec published the private e-mails of a California Department of Justice investigator. The hackers posted the entirety of the 38,000 e-mails in a Gmail account that appears to belong to Alfredo "Fred" Baclagan, a California Department of Justice special agent supervisor in charge of computer crime investigations, to a hidden site on Tor, as well as to a torrent listed on The Pirate Bay.
Submission + - Bulldozer's Just As Bad With Servers (arstechnica.com)
RobinEggs writes: Some reviews of Bulldozer's performance in servers have arrived, and Arstechnica has a breakdown. The results are pretty ugly. Apparently Bulldozer fares just as poorly with servers as with desktops.
From the article: 'One reason for the underwhelming performance on the desktop is that the Bulldozer architecture emphasizes multithreaded performance over single-threaded performance. For desktop applications, where single-threaded performance is still king, this is a problem. Server workloads, in contrast, typically have to handle multiple users, network connections, and virtual machines concurrently. This makes them a much better fit for processors that support lots of concurrent threads. Some commentators have even suggested that Bulldozer was, first and foremost, a server processor; relatively weak desktop performance was to be expected, but it would all come good in the server room.
Unfortunately for AMD, it looks as though the decisions that hurt Bulldozer on the desktop continue to hurt it in the server room. Although the server benchmarks don't show the same regressions as were found on the desktop, they do little to justify the design of the new architecture.'
It's probably much too early to start editorializing about the end of AMD, or even to say with certainty that Bulldozer has failed, but my untrained eye can't yet see any possible silver lining in these new processors.
From the article: 'One reason for the underwhelming performance on the desktop is that the Bulldozer architecture emphasizes multithreaded performance over single-threaded performance. For desktop applications, where single-threaded performance is still king, this is a problem. Server workloads, in contrast, typically have to handle multiple users, network connections, and virtual machines concurrently. This makes them a much better fit for processors that support lots of concurrent threads. Some commentators have even suggested that Bulldozer was, first and foremost, a server processor; relatively weak desktop performance was to be expected, but it would all come good in the server room.
Unfortunately for AMD, it looks as though the decisions that hurt Bulldozer on the desktop continue to hurt it in the server room. Although the server benchmarks don't show the same regressions as were found on the desktop, they do little to justify the design of the new architecture.'
It's probably much too early to start editorializing about the end of AMD, or even to say with certainty that Bulldozer has failed, but my untrained eye can't yet see any possible silver lining in these new processors.
Submission + - Best Buy Black Friday Store List 2011 (blogspot.com)
NF2PV4lenTinE writes: You can shopping and buy in BLACK FRIDAY 2011 on my blog,My blog have category allow you choose many shopping and buy in save price,Best product and Good deals. Thank you for shopping and buy in my blog. Black Friday Store List in my blog.
Submission + - Firefox Aurora finally aces Acid3, beats Chrome (mozilla.com) 4
CodeShark writes: "Seems late to the game, but the nightly build for Firefox (Aurora 10.0a2) finally aced the Acid3 JavaScript test suite, but equally important in my book, beat the current build of Chrome by an impressive 13% on the Webkit started Sunspider benchmark as well on my Windows7 machine."
Submission + - Divorcing couple ordered to share Facebook passwor (theverge.com)
PolygamousRanchKid writes: A judge recently ordered a divorcing couple to disclose their Facebook and online dating passwords, but Courtney and Stephen Gallion won't be snooping around each other's accounts: only the attorneys will get the information.
The order came after the husband found "useful" information on a shared computer and suspected more was online. It's an unusual application of a fairly standard evidentiary principle to our new ways of interacting online — and although the couple won't actually swap passwords, the Judge still ordered them not to try and impersonate each other online. New technology, same old crazy.
