Comment: Some power companies sell it, I have it at home (Score 5, Informative) 341
I have a surge protector connected to my power meter and the power company even guarantees your appliances against surges. Here is a link to FPL's "SurgeShield"
Xbox Modding Trial Dismissed 179
Posted
by
Soulskill
from the game-over dept.
from the game-over dept.
It seems the harsh words from District Court Judge Philip Gutierrez on Wednesday had their intended effect; prosecutors in Matthew Crippen's Xbox modding case have now dismissed the indictment. Quoting Wired:
"Witness No. 1, Tony Rosario, was an undercover agent with the Entertainment Software Association. He told jurors Wednesday that he paid Crippen $60 in 2008 to modify an Xbox, and secretly videotaped the operation. Rosario had responded to Crippen’s advertisement on the internet and met Crippen at his Anaheim house. All of that had been laid out in pretrial motions. But during his testimony, Rosario also said Crippen inserted a pirated video game into the console to verify that the hack worked. That was a new detail that helped the government meet an obligation imposed by the judge that very morning, when Gutierrez ruled that the government had to prove Crippen knew he was breaking the law by modding Xboxes. But nowhere in Rosario’s reports or sworn declarations was it mentioned that Crippen put a pirated game into the console. ... [Prosecutor Allen Chiu] conceded he never forwarded that information to the defense."
Amazon Patents Bad Gift Protection 210
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the no-more-fruitcake dept.
from the no-more-fruitcake dept.
theodp writes "Thanks to the inventors at Amazon.com, you needn't fear Aunt Martha any longer. On Tuesday, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos received a patent for a bad gift defense system that intercepts gifts you don't want and instead sends you something that you actually do want. For example, Amazon explains that its 'System and Method for Converting Gifts' would allow you to set up a rule like 'Convert all gifts from Aunt Mildred,' which would automatically convert any online gift orders from your well-meaning-but-tasteless Auntie into a gift certificate. Other examples of how the system might be used: You could convert bad gifts to something off your wish list; block specific products ('Not another XYZ comic strip calendar'); or ensure that any clothing gifts match your exact size ('Check clothes sizes first')."
Targeted Attacks Focus On Economic Cyberterrorism 73
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the serious-gold-farmers dept.
from the serious-gold-farmers dept.
Orome1 writes "When it comes to dangerous Web threats, the only constant is change and gone are the days of predictable attack vectors. Instead, modern blended threats such as Aurora, Stuxnet, and Zeus infiltrate organizations through a variety of coordinated tactics, usually a combination of two or more. Phishing, compromised websites, and social networking are carefully coordinated to steal confidential data, because in the world of cybercrime, content equals cash. And, as a new Websense report illustrates, the latest tactics have now moved to a political and nationalistic stage. Cybercriminals and their blended attacks are having a field day taking advantage of security gaps left open by legacy technologies like firewalls, anti-virus, and simple URL blockers."
Google Asks Users To Complain Against Facebook 218
Posted
by
CmdrTaco
from the battle-of-the-billions dept.
from the battle-of-the-billions dept.
dkd903 writes "A kind of war has been going on recently between Facebook and Google over a contact export issue. First, Google blocked Facebook access to the Gmail contacts API. To this, Facebook responded back with a new method to get Gmail contacts of a user (the download contacts option). And now Google has slapped back again at Facebook and asks users indirectly to file a data protectionism complaint against Facebook. When a Facebook user clicks on the Download Your Contacts button on the 'Facebook import contact via Gmail' page, the user is then redirected to a new page on Google's server, which looks something like this..." Can I just say that watching this is absolutely hysterical?
Sex Drugs and Texting 287
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the busy-hands-are-happy-hands dept.
from the busy-hands-are-happy-hands dept.
statesman writes "The Associated Press reports that teens who text frequently are three and a half times more likely to have sex. A survey of 4,200 public high school students in the Cleveland area found that one in five students sent more than 120 text messages a day or spent more than 3 hours a day on Facebook. Students in this group were much more likely to have sex. Alcohol and drug use also correlate with frequent texting and heavy Facebook use."
Real-Life Gadgets For Real-Life Superheroes 391
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the hero-on-a-budget dept.
from the hero-on-a-budget dept.
cylonlover writes "Yes, there are real-life superheroes. And no, we're not just referring to firefighters, paramedics, and other heroic people whom we're used to seeing come to the rescue of others. We're talking about costume-wearing, identity-concealing, cool-name-having people who fight crime, pollution, or other evils in their own communities, on their own time, and at their own risk. Many of them actually patrol the city streets, ready to intervene if they see trouble brewing – and being ready includes having the right tools. Given that none of these people have Bruce Wayne's budget, Gizmag takes a look at some of the real-world gadgets they use as they go about their crime-fighting duties."
Comment: Gosu sounds like Gozar, and Gozar is good (Score 1) 330
I know it can be difficult to select a name that sounds good and it's not (?)offensive(?) on all languages, but here is the thing about the name "Gosu":
"Gosu", in (BR) Portuguese, sounds exactly like "Gozo", which is one of the many names given to the byproduct of male ejaculation. On the other hand, in (PT) Portuguese, "Gozo" is the world for pleasure.
This thing runs on a JVM, and I derive no meaning of "Gozo" from that fact...
"Gosu", in (BR) Portuguese, sounds exactly like "Gozo", which is one of the many names given to the byproduct of male ejaculation. On the other hand, in (PT) Portuguese, "Gozo" is the world for pleasure.
This thing runs on a JVM, and I derive no meaning of "Gozo" from that fact...
Scroogle Has Been Blocked 281
Posted
by
CmdrTaco
from the well-that's-not-very-nice dept.
from the well-that's-not-very-nice dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Scroogle, the secure third-party Google search interface, has been blocked by Google. Scroogle was an SSL-based search proxy that enabled one to search for and receive Google results over an SSL connection in a pseudo-anonymous manner."
The Sopranos Meet H-1B In New Jersey 324
Posted
by
kdawson
from the know-guys-who-know-guys dept.
from the know-guys-who-know-guys dept.
theodp writes "We smack this IT geek around a little, take him for a nice car ride, threaten to 'take care of him' if he doesn't recant his story, give him 5 G's for his trouble, and badda boom, badda bing, case dismissed. Federal prosecutors allege that an H-1B visa-holding IT employee who was owed some $53,000 in back wages was threatened in meetings at restaurants and in his home if he didn't change his story. However, the victim captured some of what happened on tape, and two employees of an Illinois-based IT staffing company — not named in the indictment but identified by the NJ Star-Ledger as ComData Consulting Inc. of Rolling Meadows, IL — are now facing extortion-related charges and a possible 20 years in prison."