martinmarv - Slashdot User

Submission + - Satya Nadella is Microsoft's Next CEO: Reports (slashdot.org)

Submitted by Nerval's Lobster on Friday January 31, 2014 @10:11AM

Nerval's Lobster writes: Microsoft’s next CEO will be Satya Nadella, if current reports prove accurate. According to Re/code, which drew its information from “numerous sources close to Microsoft,” Nadella could officially assume the role in early February. Meanwhile, anonymous sources speaking to Bloomberg suggested that co-founder Bill Gates could be forced to give up his longtime chairman role. Nadella (again, if confirmed) seems a logical choice for Microsoft. He’s been with the company for more than twenty years, eventually becoming executive vice president of its Cloud and Enterprise division. The enterprise remains a key—perhaps the key—customer segment for Microsoft, especially as its mobile and consumer efforts (excluding the Xbox) have floundered in recent years; in order to retain those business clients, Nadella and his team embarked on the creation of “Cloud OS,” the platform that powers Microsoft’s large-scale cloud services such as SkyDrive, Azure, and Office 365. Under his guidance, Microsoft’s revenue from cloud services has grown by several billion over the past few years, so he’s shown that he can expand a business. In addition, his technical background could afford him a measure of respect from Microsoft’s legions of engineers and developers. But if he’s ultimately tapped for the CEO seat, Nadella faces one of the toughest jobs in the technology industry: not only does he need to craft a plan that will allow Microsoft to grow and prosper in an integrated, holistic manner—he’ll need to do it while guiding the company through the massive internal reorganization initiated by his predecessor, Steve Ballmer.

Court Says Craigslist Sperm Donor Must Pay Child Support 644

Posted by samzenpus on Friday January 24, 2014 @06:34AM from the pay-up dept.

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "David Stout reports at Time Magazine that what began with a Craigslist ad from a lesbian couple calling for a sperm donor in rural Topeka, Kansas ended in court on Wednesday with a judge ordering the sperm donor to pay child support. The Kansas Department for Children and Families filed the case in October 2012 seeking to have William Marotta declared the father of a child born to Jennifer Schreiner in 2009 so he can be held responsible for about $6,000 in public assistance the state provided, as well as future child support. 'In this case, quite simply, the parties failed to perform to statutory requirement of the Kansas Parentage Act in not enlisting a licensed physician at some point in the artificial insemination process, and the parties' self-designation of (Marotta) as a sperm donor is insufficient to relieve (Marotta) of parental right and responsibilities to the child,' wrote Judge Mattivi. Marotta opposed that action, saying he had contacted Schreiner and her partner at the time, Angela Bauer, in response to an ad they placed on Craigslist seeking a sperm donor and signed a contract waiving his parental rights and responsibilities. 'We stand by that contract,' says Defense attorney Swinnen adding that the Kansas statute doesn't specifically require the artificial insemination be carried out by a physician. 'The insinuation is offensive, and we are responding vigorously to that. We stand by our story. There was no personal relationship whatsoever between my client and the mother, or the partner of the mother, or the child. Anything the state insinuates is vilifying my client, and I will address it.'"

Submission + - Pope Says the Internet is a 'Gift From God' 1

Submitted by SmartAboutThings on Friday January 24, 2014 @04:38AM

SmartAboutThings writes: You’d think that religion and science have separate ways, but there are certain points where these two intertwine. And here’s one such good example. With the occasion of the 48th World Communications Day, Pope Francis issued an official statement, calling the Internet a “gift from God” and a facilitator of communications between people of different faiths and backgrounds.

Submission + - Fixing broken links with the Internet Archive (medium.com)

Submitted by eggboard on Friday January 24, 2014 @03:15AM

eggboard writes: The Internet Archive has copies of Web pages corresponding to 378 billion URLs. It's working on several efforts, some of them quite recent, to help deter or assist with link rot, when links go bad. Through an API for developers, WordPress integration, a Chrome plug-in, and a JavaScript lookup, the Archive hopes to help people find at least the most recent copy of a missing or deleted page. More ambitiously, they instantly cache any link added to Wikipedia, and want to become integrated into browsers as a fallback rather than showing a 404 page.

Submission + - Candy Crush Saga Has Trademarked the Word 'Candy' (forbes.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21, 2014 @09:49AM

An anonymous reader writes: King.com, owners of Candy Crush, have received a U.S. trademark on the use of the word "candy" in games and clothing. Forbes thinks it is overly broad. "One would think Hasbro, the maker of that venerable children's board game (which does have video game versions) Candy Land, would already have this trademark sewed up."

Submission + - Dogecoin Gains Credibility and $40m in Value After Jamaican Bobsled Fundraising (ibtimes.co.uk) 1

Submitted by DavidGilbert99 on Tuesday January 21, 2014 @08:33AM

DavidGilbert99 writes: Dogecoin, the crypto-currency based on an internet meme about a Shiba Inus dog's inner thoughts, was seen as a joke by many, but after a high profile fundraising campaign by the dogecoin community no one is laughing any more. The market capitalisation of the crypto-currency soared by $40m to $65m in the space of 24 hours and — possibly more importantly — the credibility of dogecoin has been given a similar boost in the eyes of the world.

Submission + - Japanese CCTV System Identifies Criminals by the Way they Walk (ibtimes.co.uk) 1

Submitted by DavidGilbert99 on Tuesday January 21, 2014 @06:31AM

DavidGilbert99 writes: A new system for identifying criminals will use gait recognition as a way of identifying individual criminals in a crowd of up to 1,000 people with 99% accuracy by measuring how they walk, together with other physical characteristics. The system will look at a person's walking style including hand movements and stride — collectively known as gait recognition — and once it has been identified, the system can see whether the footage from other CCTV cameras offers up a match.

Submission + - EU: Google should face $1bn privacy fine, not 'pocket money' amounts (v3.co.uk) 1

Submitted by DW100 on Monday January 20, 2014 @12:34PM

DW100 writes: Despite Google being fined €900,000 by Spanish authorities and €150,000 in France for its controversial privacy policies in recent months, the EU has admitted this is mere 'pocket money' to the company. Instead, a new legal regime that would have seen Google fined $1bn for breaching data protection laws is needed to make US companies fear and respect the law in Europe.

Comment Re:Disable is disabled (Score 2) 201

by martinmarv on Thursday November 07, 2013 @11:20AM (#45356319) Attached to: Protect Your Android Phone By Killing All Its Crapware

Uninstalling updates enables "Disable" on some apps, but not others, unfortunately (on non-rooted devices). I have a Samsung Galaxy Note 3, and can't disable the Samsung Music app

Comment Re:My god! (Score 1) 86

by martinmarv on Thursday January 24, 2013 @01:25PM (#42681311) Attached to: Sony Fined In UK For PlayStation Network Hack

No, it's not the maximum fine under UK law - that's £500K. See http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/05/ico_power_analysis/

The summary isn't even about it being the highest fine imposed so far by the ICO for a breach of the Data Protection Act. There was a £325K fine imposed on an NHS trust. See http://www.ico.gov.uk/news/latest_news/2012/nhs-trust-fined-325000-following-data-breach-affecting-thousands-of-patients-and-staff-01062012.aspx

Sony Fined In UK For PlayStation Network Hack 86

Posted by timothy on Thursday January 24, 2013 @11:50AM from the that's-barely-a-bonus-for-ceos dept.

Sockatume writes "The UK's information protection authority, the ICO, has fined Sony for failing to adequately secure the information of PlayStation Network users. The investigation was triggered by a 2011 security breach, during which personally identifying information (including password hashes) was recovered from a Sony database where it had been stored without encryption. In the ICO's view Sony's security measures were inadequate, and the attack could have been prevented. The £250,000 (ca. $400,000) fine, the largest the ICO has ever imposed, is equivalent to a few pennies per affected user. Sony disagrees with the ICO's decision and intends to appeal."

86% of Windows 7 PCs Maxing Out Memory 613

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday February 18, 2010 @08:57AM from the brand-new-resource-hog dept.

CWmike writes "Citing data from Devil Mountain Software's community-based Exo.performance.network (XPnet), Craig Barth, the company's chief technology officer, said that new metrics reveal an unsettling trend. On average, 86% of Windows 7 machines in the XPnet pool are regularly consuming 90%-95% of their available RAM, resulting in slow-downs as the systems were forced to increasingly turn to disk-based virtual memory to handle tasks. The 86% mark for Windows 7 is more than twice the average number of Windows XP machines that run at the memory 'saturation' point, and this comes despite more RAM being available on most Windows 7 machines. 'This is alarming,' Barth said of Windows 7 machines' resource consumption. 'For the OS to be pushing the hardware limits this quickly is amazing. Windows 7 is not the lean, mean version of Vista that you may think it is.'"

Google's Nexus One, a Steal At $49 Unlocked? 311

Posted by kdawson on Saturday February 06, 2010 @10:47PM from the such-a-deal dept.

gjt writes "I initially posted a piece ragging on the Nexus One. But then a commenter pointed out a problem with my initial logic, and after doing some math I concluded that the $529 unlocked/unsubsidized Google Nexus One gPhone is much cheaper than it appears to be. In fact it's only $49 over two years — and that's unlocked! Google likes to say that the Nexus One represents 'Our new approach to buying a mobile phone.' But it actually seems as though T-Mobile deserves most of the credit by providing a $20/month discount to customers who purchase an unsubsidized phone, a fact that didn't seem to get much attention when T-Mobile created the plan last October."

2016 Bug Hits Text Messages, Payment Processing 340

Posted by Soulskill on Sunday January 03, 2010 @10:01AM from the y2k16-has-more-characters-than-2016 dept.

An anonymous reader writes "It seems some systems are suffering from a Y2K16 bug. When 2009 ticked over to 2010, some Australian EFTPOS machines skipped to the year 2016. Coincidentally, some Windows Mobile users are also having issues with their new year SMSes coming from 2016. What function could cause this kind of error?"

Comment Re:I don't really get it. (Score 1) 213

by martinmarv on Friday December 04, 2009 @02:15PM (#30326426) Attached to: A Look At the Safety of Google Public DNS

My ISP (o2 broadband in the UK) has a particularly bad set of DNS servers that regularly seem to error. Somehow, resetting the router helps, but I think that's because it just gets forwarded to a different pair of o2's DNS servers.

As a result of this, I've switched to OpenDNS, which hasn't errored at all, so far (about 6 months). However, I'm probably going to try Google's offering because I'd prefer to get a NULL response than a search page if I hit an unresolvable URI.

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