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Social Networks

Submission + - 60% Of Twitter Users Don't Return The Next Month (pcmag.com)

Submitted by adeelarshad82
adeelarshad82 writes: According to the research done by Nielsen Online 60 percent of current Twitter users fail to return the next month. Even though Oprah's appearance on Twitter has helped a traffic boost by 24% and retention rate by 10% (30% to 40%), Vice president of primary research for Nielsen Online points out that when Facebook & Myspace emerging networks their retention rate for twice as much.
PlayStation (Games)

Breaking Down the Dropping Parts Cost for Sony's PS3 302

Posted by timothy from the wait-until-it's-all-one-chip dept.
will_die writes "The people at iSuppli have taken apart an October 2008 version of the PlayStation 3 to create a bill of materials, along with providing a comparison to original PS3. The article provides information about the changes Sony has made. One of the big ones was that the hardware has gone from costing $690.23 to the current price of $448.73. This was done using a combination of removing parts (currently 2,820 vs. the original 4,048), cutting the cost of the CPU ($46.46 vs. $64.40), and cutting the cost of the graphics processor to $58.01 from $83.17."
Bug

Tales From the Support Crypt 855

Posted by timothy from the plug-in-your-mouse-please dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Talking viruses, infected physical devices, and lights that go out are some of the 'problems' Panda Security's tech support service has had to face. Many of them were not a result of computer viruses, but of confused users. This proves once again, that antivirus manufacturers must make a special effort to increase user knowledge regarding computer security and malware effects." For anyone who's been on the receiving end of such questions, now's a good time to tell your cathartic tale.
Cellphones

What's the Problem With iPhone 3G Reception? 322

Posted by Soulskill from the solar-flares dept.
CWmike writes "Apple's iPhone 3G was just a couple of days old when reports began trickling onto the company's support forum from dissatisfied customers complaining about poor reception. Although no one outside of Apple and AT&T — and maybe a chipmaker or two — really knows, that has not kept others from speculating, or in a few cases, making claims based on unnamed sources. What's going on? We may not have all the answers, but we do have questions. Gregg Keizer put together everything we know in a FAQ on the griping about iPhone 3G reception."
Biotech

Former Intel CEO Rips Medical Research 484

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the git-r-done dept.
Himuanam writes "Former Intel CEO Grove rips on the medical research community, contrasting their lack of progress with the tech industry's juggernaut of breakthroughs over the past half-century or so. 'On Sunday afternoon, Grove is unleashing a scathing critique of the nation's biomedical establishment. In a speech at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, he challenges big pharma companies, many of which haven't had an important new compound approved in ages, and academic researchers who are content with getting NIH grants and publishing research papers with little regard to whether their work leads to something that can alleviate disease, to change their ways.'"
Security

Submission + - Ebay Hacker Posts Credit Card Info of Ebay Users (associatedcontent.com)

Submitted by
vampriter
vampriter writes: "The info that was published included user id, name, address, email address, feedback score, credit card number, date of registration, and the three digit code contained on the back of your card. Because of this, the potential for fraud is very real, not only for those appearing on the list. http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/392758/apparent_ebay_hacker_posts_credit_card.html"
Privacy

Sony Developing Gigapixel Satellite Imaging 101

Posted by Zonk from the hello-up-there dept.
holy_calamity writes "Sony and the University of Alabama are working on a gigapixel resolution camera for improved satellite surveillance. It can see 10-km-square from an altitude of 7.5 kilometres with a resolution better than 50 centimetres per pixel. As well as removing annoying artefacts created by tiling images in Google Earth and similar, it should allow CCTV surveillance of entire cities with one camera. 'The trick is to build an array of light sensitive chips that each record small parts of a larger image and place them at the focal plane of a large multiple-lens system. The camera would have gigapixel resolution, and able to record images at a rate of 4 frames per second. The team suggests that such a camera mounted on an aircraft could provide images of a large city by itself. This would even allow individual vehicles to be monitored without any danger of losing them as they move from one ground level CCTV system to another.'"
United States

Submission + - San Jose Cops Unveil Interactive Crime Map (mercurynews.com)

Submitted by
Degrees
Degrees writes: "The San Jose police department has unveiled new crime-mapping software on its web site that pinpoints crime data down to the city block. People can see the status of a report, such as whether an arrest was made or if an investigation is continuing or was dropped. And, with more detailed mapping, they also can zero in on an area as small as a one-mile radius of their home or school. CrimeReports.com takes you to the data — providing you register first.

The San Jose Police Department web site has a press release (in the form on a .pdf). It says that future upgrades include SMS alerting, allowing the SJPD to send alerts to specific neighborhoods if specifically requested by the department."
Mozilla

Firefox Working to Fix Memory Leaks 555

Posted by CmdrTaco from the important-but-boring-work dept.
Christopher Blanc writes "Many Mozilla community members, including both volunteers and Mozilla Corporation employees, have been helping to reduce Firefox's memory usage and fix memory leak bugs lately. Hopefully, the result of this effort will be that Firefox 3 uses less memory than Firefox 2 did, especially after it has been used for several hours." Here's hoping. Frequent restarts of things on my computer make me furious. I can't imagine why anyone would tolerate such things.
Communications

Submission + - Ashton Kutcher's VOIP Service Has Fatal Flaw (brainhandles.com)

Submitted by
gbulmash
gbulmash writes: "In this article, a tech reviewer describes his experience with the beta of the new VOIP service, Ooma, which names Ashton Kutcher as it's creative director. The service uses the landlines of its subscribers to help it provide last mile connections for long distance calls, and the author points out two potential pitfalls for Ooma (slow adoption, telco lawsuits). But a blogger has pointed out the true fatal flaw in Ooma's plan... a simple TOS change by the telcos could turn your Ooma hub into a $400 paperweight."
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - The Emoticon Turns 25 :-) (cnn.com)

Submitted by tuxlove
tuxlove writes: CNN reports: "Twenty-five years ago, (Sept 19, 1982) Carnegie Mellon University professor Scott E. Fahlman says, he was the first to use three keystrokes — a colon followed by a hyphen and a parenthesis — as a horizontal "smiley face" in a computer message."

Emoticons are now part of daily life for anyone who uses a computer or other text-capable communication device. Just about everyone in the world has at least seen an emoticon. It may perhaps be the most important innovation ever in electronic communications. I know the smiley has saved me many times from horrible email misunderstandings. How many others has it saved? :-) Unfortunately, in recent years others have tried to claim rights to emoticons, most notably the evil folks at Despair.com. In a controversial move, they trademarked the frowny emoticon and banned its use from email without a license. In their defense, the license fee is quite affordable. :-( (Yes, this one is licensed.)
Portables

Which Lost/Stolen Laptop Trackers Do You Like? 572

Posted by Zonk from the come-back-vorpal dept.
saudadelinux writes "I was held up at gunpoint in July, and my laptop was stolen. There are companies out there which, for a fee, install tracker software on your laptop. If it's stolen or lost, they track its whereabouts whenever it gets on the 'Net and work with local law enforcement and ISPs to find the machine. I'm wondering: has anyone used one of these services? Does anyone have a recommendation for which company to go with? My new laptop is a a dual-boot Ubuntu/XP machine, and the couple of companies I've looked at do Windows-only. Are there Linux options?"
NASA

Submission + - NASA to detail International Space Station gear (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "NASA will next week show off a critical new piece of equipment for the International Space Station that will let new labs be attached and more astronauts live in space. The Node-2 module, known as Harmony, is a key utility component that will act as an internal connecting port and passageway for future international science labs and cargo spacecraft. The module is approximately 21 feet long and 14 feet in diameter. Basically the space station will get roomier, growing from the size of a three-bedroom house to the space equivalent of a typical five-bedroom house, once the Japanese Kib and European Columbus laboratories are attached. http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/19414"

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