17892420
submission
ubermiester writes:
CBC News reports that Wikileaks has published "a secret U.S. State Department list of key infrastructure sites in foreign countries ... that Washington considers vital to the national security of the United States." The sites, which include nuclear facilites, mines, dams, undersea cables, factories, etc., were deemed vital because they "could seriously harm the U.S. if they were targeted by terrorists or destroyed by other means." The leaked cable includes the "locations of [British] undersea cables, satellite systems and defence plants." Calling Wikileaks "irresponsible, bordering on criminal", the British Foreign Secretary is quoted as saying "This is the kind of information terrorists are interested in knowing". It is unclear why Wikileaks chose to release this information.
17474874
submission
ubermiester writes:
The NYTimes is reporting that British financial regulators, in an effort to combat insider trading, will now require "all financial services firms...to record any relevant communication by employees on their work cell phones" for use in future investigations, and would require the firm to hold on to the recordings for six months (at their cost). They would also be required to "discourage" employees from using the private phones for business related communications. Land-lines are already covered — as they are in many other European countries — but Britain would be the first to apply the requirement to cellphones.
13002232
submission
ubermiester writes:
The NYTimes is reporting that AT&T will no longer offer unlimited data plans to new smartphone customers. "The decision, industry analysts said, could signal a shift away from an era in which American wireless carriers sought to attract customers with simple, all-you-can-eat pricing plans for data. The trouble for AT&T was that a fraction of users — fewer than 2 percent — made such heavy use of the network that they slowed it down for everyone else."
12505546
submission
ubermiester writes:
The NYTimes is reporting that scientists Fermilab have found evidence of a very small (about 1%) average difference between the amount of matter/anti-matter produced in a series of particle collisions. FTA: "[T]he team, known as the DZero collaboration, found that the fireballs produced pairs of the particles known as muons, which are sort of fat electrons, slightly more often than they produced pairs of anti-muons. So the miniature universe inside the accelerator went from being neutral to being about 1 percent more matter than antimatter." This offers a possible explanation for why there is so much more matter than anti-matter in the universe in spite of "Big Bang" theory suggesting that there should be equal amounts of both. (Here's a PDF version of the paper.)
10110808
submission
ubermiester writes:
The blog Binge Gamer reports on its investigation into the abrupt departure of the two top execs at Infinity Ward (creators of the $1 billion blockbuster FPS Modern Warfare 2). Apparently IW offices were locked down following a "heated exchange" at a high level meeting, and the execs were fired by parent corp Activision not long after (apparently for "insubordination"). As for causes, Binge claims that "Infinity Ward has yet to be paid a single dime in royalties for Modern Warfare 2", and that because of the way in which the IW — Activision deal was structured, there is major conflict over who will get to make and distribute future CoD titles.
Unfortunately, none of this appears to have anything to do with dedicated servers or rampant cheating, but maybe its a step in the right direction...
6759184
submission
ubermiester writes:
After years of panicked lawsuits against TiVo and DVR technology in general, the the NYTimes is reporting on yet another lesson for content providers to learn and then immediately forget:
"Against almost every expectation, nearly half of all people watching delayed shows are still slouching on their couches watching messages about movies, cars and beer. According to Nielsen, 46 percent of viewers 18 to 49 years old for all four networks taken together are watching the commercials during playback, up slightly from last year." The article offers one very plausible explanation for why viewers do not take advantage of the fastforward button on their DVR while watching their favorite shows: "It's still a passive activity".
Long live the couch potato!
