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Submission + - Apple Fails to Deliver on Boot Camp Promise (apple.com)

Submitted by SkydiverFL
SkydiverFL writes: For those fans of Apple's Boot Camp package, it looks like you might be waiting on the next "end of year" to use Windows 7 on your shiny silver boxes. Back in October (2009, of course), Apple published a rather short, but rather affirmative, promise stating quite simply that, "Apple will support Microsoft Windows 7 (Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate) with Boot Camp in Mac OS X Snow Leopard before the end of the year. This support will require a software update to Boot Camp." Needless to say that the support page has no updates regarding the new version. Maybe they're waiting for iSlate?
United States

Submission + - Ten Most Ridiculous Uses of Stimulus Funds (theatheistconservative.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Verum Serum lists the ten most ridiculous uses of stimulus funds among which are: a $9.3 million to fund the design and development of a coordinated colony of robotic bees, a $712,883 research grant to develop oemachine-generated humor, and a $427,824 grant to design better video games for senior citizens based on their unique oegame-play needs.

Comment Steve Dahl? Make that man shut-up already! (Score 1) 383

by bhodikhan (#30076032) Attached to: Your Opinion Counts At CNN — But Should It?
Personally, I don't care what Steve Dahl has to say either. When I saw his name I remembered his days as the leader of the 'disc demolition army' and a fairly lousy radio personality. If I don't care to hear what some clown on twitter has to say about the news on CNN I sure as hell don't care what Steve Dahl has to say.
NASA

"Frickin' Fantastic" Launch of NASA's Ares I-X Rocket 383

Posted by Soulskill from the we-can-crash-rockets-into-the-oceans-like-a-champ dept.
coondoggie writes "With a hiss and roar, NASA's Ares I-X rocket blasted into the atmosphere this morning at about 11:33 am EST, taking with it a variety of test equipment and sensors but also high hopes for the future of the US space agency. The short test flight — about 2 minutes — will provide NASA an early opportunity to look at hardware, models, facilities and ground operations associated with the mostly new Ares I launch vehicle. The mission went off without a hitch — 'frickin' fantastic' was how one NASA executive classified it on NASA TV — as the upper stage simulator and first stage separated at approximately 130,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean. The unpowered simulator splashed down in the ocean."
Education

Submission + - Interest on Loans Rankles College Grads 3

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Like many recent college grads, Steven Lee finds himself unemployed in one of the roughest job markets in decades and saddled with a big pile of debt, owing about $84,000 in student loans for undergrad and grad-school. But what's really got Lee angry are the high interest rates on his government-backed student loans. 'The rate for a 30-year mortgage is around 5%,' Lee said. 'Why should anyone have to pay 8.5%? The government has bailed out homeowners. It's bailed out big businesses. Why can't it also help students?' Not only that, federal student loans are the only loans in the nation that are largely non-dischargeable in bankruptcy, have no statutes of limitations, and can't be refinanced after consolidation, so Lee can forget about pulling a move out of the GM playbook. And unlike mortgages on million-dollar vacation homes, student loans have very limited tax deductibility. A spokeswoman for the Department of Education blamed Congress for the rates which she conceded 'may seem high today' (especially compared to the deal Wall Street banks get), but suggested that students are a credit-unworthy lot who should thank their lucky stars that rates aren't 12% or higher. Makes one long for the good-old-days of 3% student loans, doesn't it?

Submission + - Mozilla blocks WPF & .NET Framework Add-Ins (mozilla.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Mozilla has blocked the Microsoft WPF Plug-In & .NET Framework add-in. Firefox users on Windows will start seeing these blocked completely by the browser as of Saturday.

Submission + - Kaspersky CEO Wants End to Online Anonymity (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by Andorin
Andorin writes: Eugene Kaspersky, CEO of well-known computer security company Kaspersky Labs, is calling for an end to the anonymity of the Internet, and for the creation of mandatory "Internet passports" for anyone who wishes to browse the Web. Says Kaspersky, "Everyone should and must have an identification, or internet passport... the internet was designed not for public use, but for American scientists and the US military. Then it was introduced to the public and it was wrong...to introduce it in the same way." He calls anonymity "the Internet's biggest security vulnerability" and thinks any country that doesn't follow this regime should be "cut off." The EFF objects, and it's likely that they won't be the only ones.
Music

Artist Not Allowed To Stream His Own Music 423

Posted by Soulskill from the you-can't-get-there-from-here dept.
the_arrow writes "Scottish artist Edwyn Collins wanted to stream one of his own songs on MySpace, but it seems that copyright misunderstandings make him unable to do so. According to the article, 'Management for the former Orange Juice frontman have been unable to convince the website that they own the rights to A Girl Like You, despite the fact that they, er, do.' Collins said, 'I found a nice lawyer guy at Warners, very apologetic, promised to get it sorted, but all these months later it isn't.' His wife added, 'MySpace are not equipped to deal with the notion that anyone other than a major [label] can claim a copyright.'"
Desktops (Apple)

Most Mac Owners Also Own a Windows PC, But Not Vice Versa 814

Posted by timothy from the I-was-gonna-tell-you-honest dept.
Barence writes "More than eight out of ten Mac owners also own a PC, according to a new piece of research. The NPD survey found that 12% of US computer-owning households have a Mac. However, 85% of those also own a Windows PC, suggesting that the Mac/PC divide is nowhere near as clear cut as both Apple and Microsoft suggest. Mac owners are also far more likely to have multiple computers in the house. Two thirds of Mac owners have three or more computers in the home, while only 29% of PC owners have two or more PCs."
Medicine

Artificial Heart Recipient Has No Pulse 465

Posted by Soulskill from the just-a-low-pitched-hum dept.
laggist writes "A heart patient in Singapore has been implanted with an artificial heart that pumps blood continuously, allowing her to live without a pulse. From the article: '... the petite Madam Salina, who suffers from end-stage heart failure, would not have been able to use the older and bulkier models because they can only be implanted in patients 1.7m or taller. The 30-year-old administrative assistant is the first recipient here to get a new artificial heart that pumps blood continuously, the reason why there are no beats on her wrist.'" The story is light on details, but an article from last year in MIT's Technology Review explains a bit more about how a pulse-less artificial heart works.
Books

In Trial, Kindles Disappointing University Users 247

Posted by kdawson from the write-on dept.
Phurge writes "When Princeton announced its Kindle e-reader pilot program last May, administrators seemed cautiously optimistic that the e-readers would both be sustainable and serve as a valuable academic tool. But less than two weeks after 50 students received the free Kindle DX e-readers, many of them said they were dissatisfied and uncomfortable with the devices. 'I hate to sound like a Luddite, but this technology is a poor excuse of an academic tool,' said Aaron Horvath, a student in Civil Society and Public Policy. 'It's clunky, slow and a real pain to operate.' 'Much of my learning comes from a physical interaction with the text: bookmarks, highlights, page-tearing, sticky notes and other marks representing the importance of certain passages — not to mention margin notes, where most of my paper ideas come from and interaction with the material occurs,' he explained. 'All these things have been lost, and if not lost they're too slow to keep up with my thinking, and the "features" have been rendered useless.'"
IT

Bad PC Sales Staff Exposed 650

Posted by samzenpus from the barely-trying dept.
Barence writes "An undercover investigation has revealed how Dell's online sales staff take liberties with the truth when trying to sell customers new PCs. One member of staff told an undercover reporter that he would need a PC with a good graphics card to download digital photos. Another, who was more incompetent than devious, was asked how many photos could be stored on a 250GB hard disk. 'Its[sic] on average 2 MB then 1024 MB * 2,' came the bewildering reply. Meanwhile, a sales assistant at supermarket Tesco told the reporter that netbooks got their name because 'a Japanese man on a plane fell asleep with a laptop on his thighs and was horribly burned, so the industry has dropped the name laptop.'"
Security

Schneier On Un-Authentication 336

Posted by CmdrTaco from the gimme-back-my-keys dept.
Trailrunner7 writes "Bruce Schenier writes on Threatpost.com: 'In computer security, a lot of effort is spent on the authentication problem. Whether it is passwords, secure tokens, secret questions, image mnemonics, or something else, engineers are continually coming up with more complicated — and hopefully more secure — ways for you to prove you are who you say you are over the Internet. This is important stuff, as anyone with an online bank account or remote corporate network knows. But a lot less thought and work have gone into the other end of the problem: how do you tell the system on the other end of the line that you are no longer there? How do you un-authenticate yourself? My home computer requires me to log out or turn my computer off when I want to un-authenticate. This works for me because I know enough to do it, but lots of people just leave their computer on and running when they walk away. As a result, many office computers are left logged in when people go to lunch, or when they go home for the night. This, obviously, is a security vulnerability.'"
Security

Reddit Javascript Exploit Spreading Virally 239

Posted by CmdrTaco from the hate-when-that-happens dept.
Nithendil writes "guyhersh from reddit.com describes the situation (warning: title NSFW): Based on what I've seen today, here's what went down. Reddit user Empirical wrote javascript code where if you copied and pasted it into the address bar, you would instantly spam that comment by replying to all the comments on the page and submitting it. Later xssfinder posted a proof of concept where if you hovered over a link, it would automatically run a Javascript. He then got the brilliant idea to combine the two scripts together, tested it and it spread from there."

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