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Security

Submission + - Discover discontinues Secure Online Acct Numbers (discovercard.com)

Submitted by
BigVig209
BigVig209 writes: "This really doesn't seem like a good idea.

"Secure Online Account Number Discontinuation

Since Secure Online Account Numbers launched over a decade ago, we’ve continued to add layers of fraud detection and prevention, authentication and ID verification to protect your account information.

We have made the decision to discontinue Secure Online Account Numbers as of Sept. 8, 2011 because the above comprehensive security measures help protect your card from unauthorized use online, offline, anytime, anywhere. ""
Chrome

Submission + - Baidu trying to get rid of Android (google.com)

Submitted by
BigVig209
BigVig209 writes: "(With paraphrasing and bad translation) Baidu seems to be using Google's own strategy to take on the leader in Web search, Google, which developed the Android system for smartphones.... But the concept is also similar to another Google project, Chrome OS, which aims to evolve the web browser operating system. (link is to Google translation of Le Monde article)"
Games

Submission + - Disney purchases Wideload Games (chicagobusiness.com)

Submitted by
BigVig209
BigVig209 writes: "This just in from Enterprise City, Crain's Chicago Business small enterprise blog:

"Disney Interactive Studios on Tuesday said it agreed to acquire video game developer Wideload Games Inc. for undisclosed terms. The CEO of Chicago-based Wideload Games, Alexander Seropian, will join the company as vice-president of creative, a new position."

Seropian was a co-founder of Bungie and one of the original developers of Halo."
Image

Geeks Prefer Competence To Niceness Screenshot-sm 300

Posted by samzenpus from the catching-more-geeks-with-vinegar dept.
Death Metal writes "While everyone would like to work for a nice person who is always right, IT pros will prefer a jerk who is always right over a nice person who is always wrong. Wrong creates unnecessary work, impossible situations and major failures. Wrong is evil, and it must be defeated. Capacity for technical reasoning trumps all other professional factors, period."

Submission + - Swine Flu Outbreak at PAX (penny-arcade.com)

Submitted by
whisper_jeff
whisper_jeff writes: "There's been a confirmed outbreak of Swine Flu at PAX. Those who attended and are feeling under-the-weather after the con should not write it off as a typical convention cold and go see a doctor to make sure, just in case."

Submission + - Best Buy freaking out over unionized geeks (semiaccurate.com)

Submitted by
LemmingOverlord
LemmingOverlord writes: "Couldn't let this one slip by us. I know unions are always hard to digest, but the idea that the Geek Squad at Best Buy are going "union"... priceless...

Found this on Semi accurate.com (http://www.semiaccurate.com/2009/09/09/best-buys-geek-squad-votes-union/)

"IT LOOKS LIKE the old saying, "management gets the union it deserves" is coming to pass at Best Buy, or at least beginning to in parts of its Geek Squad division. We hear that some of them just voted by an overwhelming margin to go union.

While unions range across the board in quality, the smaller ones in particular tend to do a lot to protect their members and keep abusive management at bay. Having several friends who worked at Best Buy's Geek Squad (GS) division, I can say that many of the stories floating around about long hours, low pay, and lack of training are nothing new. The company sorely needs a union.

In the Pacific Northwest, a group of Best Buy workers, specifically one chunk of the Geek Squad, apparently got so fed up with mistreatment that they just voted to go union. We hear that Best Buy's management, both locally and at headquarters, is absolutely livid over it. Their worst nightmare is that word about this vote will spread, prompting more locales to unionize.

Can you imagine how much management bonuses would have to fall in order to pay workers a fair wage and train them properly? The horror! If you look at how well it reacted the last time the notion was floated, it just shows that Best Buy's management cares — just not about its employees.

Friends on the inside tell us that Best Buy prefers to promote Geek Squad personnel from sales to technical because it finds it easier to teach a sales droid to follow a trouble-shooting flowchart — especially if it has lots of pictures and not too many big words — than to indoctrinate a seasoned, knowledgable technician to upsell bling and push expensive extended warrantees.

See why it is afraid of unions? Standards, training, fair wages, fair hours, and in general, being good to employees could wreak havoc on Best Buy top management's stock options for several quarters.

From what we understand, Best Buy management is desperately trying to keep a lid on this 'problem' and wants to keep it from 'snowballing'. One brave soul described management as "freaked out".

If you too are worried about whether management at Best Buy will have to wait another quarter to get that new V12 Mercedes, please don't spread the news. In fact, don't tell anyone how scared it is of unionization and how Geek Squad workers in the Northwest voted by more than 75% to unionize.

If this spreads, a little more of Best Buy's wealth might be distributed to the people who actually generate it. How anti-capitalist is that?S|A""
Education

Submission + - Next Open Source Movement in Higher Education (insidehighered.com)

Submitted by
BigVig209
BigVig209 writes: "While the open source movement has taken off in course management systems, with Moodle and Sakai as alternatives to the dominant Blackboard, the administrative side of the house has been almost entirely corporate. While some colleges use home-grown systems, the norm has been to use any of a number of vendors for systems that allow colleges to manage and report on budgets, billing and many other functions crucial to running a college. These administrative software systems cost millions of dollars to install and manage, and any malfunctions can be hugely frustrating to institutions. Last week, in a move that could lead to a shake-up of the industry, Colorado State University and San Joaquin Delta College both went live with the first large-scale installations of full financial systems produced by the Kuali Foundation, a consortium of colleges that have pooled resources to create open source systems that could compete with corporate offerings."
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Russian hackers target the for profit and politics

Submitted by
BigVig209
BigVig209 writes: "The Chicago Tribune has an article (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-russia-hackers_for_webdec26,0,5245524.story) about why younger Russian programmers are committing crimes online instead of getting lower paying, non-illicit jobs:

"Not long ago, the simple, anonymous thrill of exposing chinks in American software was enough of a payoff for a Russian hacker.

Today it's cash. And almost all the targets are in the United States and Europe, where Russia's notorious hackers pilfer online bank accounts, swipe social security numbers, steal credit card data and peek at e-mail log-ins and passwords as part of what some estimate to be a $100 billion-a-year global cyber-crime business.""
Software

Submission + - Open Source Mobile Medical Care in Africa

Submitted by
BigVig209
BigVig209 writes: "Found on the Agitator marketing blog: The UN Foundation and the Vodaphone Foundation have partnered to develop and introduce software that enables health workers in sub-Saharan Africa to collect and utilize medical information in real-time in the field. In the next year the technology will spread into 22 African countries in support of programs ranging from immunization campaigns to disaster relief.

The open source application is called EpiSurveyor and was developed by nonprofit DataDyne.org, and the program is called mHealth, or mobile health. According to the UN Foundation release:"EpiSurveyor allows health workers in urban as well as rural areas to easily collect, manage and share clean and timely program monitoring data," said Dr. Balcha Girma Masresha, medical officer in the Immunization Program in the African Region of the WHO. "The introduction of this technology is enabling health workers to better understand and identify the strengths and shortcomings of their programs, so that they can actively work toward continuous improvement."
Education

Submission + - $50 computers spark learning (chicagotribune.com)

Submitted by
BigVig209
BigVig209 writes: "The Chicago Tribune is reporting that Innovations for Learning Inc., a non-profit in Chicago, has developed a hand-held gaming device, the Teachermate, to teach basic math and reading to elementary students and has found a way to drive the cost down to $50 per unit. The price also includes a set of headphones. The program is being rolled out to 500 Chicago public schools over the next two years. This is a cool idea that has been bouncing around among educators for a long time, but this is the first time I have heard about someone actually creating the device and the software and doing it in a way that is cost effective."
The Courts

Submission + - Inventor Sues OLTC Gains Victory in Nigerian Crt (philanthropy.com)

Submitted by
BigVig209
BigVig209 writes: "One Laptop Per Child, a charity that provides inexpensive computers to children in developing countries, has been sued by a company whose founder argues that the nonprofit group stole his designs for a Nigerian keyboard, reports [link=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/17/BUN6VJKB8.DTL&hw=nonprofit&sn=001&sc=796]the Associated Press[/link]."
Businesses

Submission + - Shareholder revolt may force sale of Take-Two

Submitted by
BigVig209
BigVig209 writes: "The New York Times reports a shareholder uprising might force Take-Two to sell the company.

From the article: Take-Two Interactive Software, the video game publisher whose marketplace impact has been overshadowed by its corporate upheaval, said yesterday that it was weighing options including a possible sale of the company, prompting a surge in its stock price."

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