Forgot your password?

Close
typodupeerror
Businesses

Infinity Ward Lead Developers Axed Unexpectedly 276

Posted by Soulskill
from the let's-blame-the-dedicated-server-fiasco dept.
RogueyWon writes "Kotaku is reporting that Infinity Ward, the development studio behind Modern Warfare 2, has been at the center of strange events recently. Jason West and Vince Zampella, two lead developers, have been fired by parent company Activision for 'breaches of contract and insubordination.' Speculation is rife as to the reasons behind this; following Modern Warfare 2's spectacular sales figures, it seems unlikely that the studio's performance could be to blame."
Privacy

Federal Judge Orders Schools To Stop Laptop Spying 359

Posted by kdawson
from the black-electrical-tape dept.
CWmike writes "A federal judge on Monday ordered the Pennsylvania school district accused of spying on its students to stop activating the cameras in school-issued MacBook laptops. According to the original complaint, Blake Robbins was accused by a Harriton High School assistant principal of 'improper behavior in his home' and shown a photograph taken by his laptop as evidence. In an appearance on network television last Saturday, Robbins said he was accused by the assistant principal of selling drugs and taking pills — but he claimed the pictures taken by his computer's camera showed him eating candy. Also on Monday, the company selling the software used by the school district to allegedly spy on its students blasted what it called laptop theft-recovery 'vigilantism.'" jamie found two posts from stryde.hax pointing out suggestive information about one school district network administrator, and coaching students how to determine if their school-issued laptops were infected with the LANRev software used to operate the cameras remotely and in secret.
Microsoft

Gates and MS Don't See Eye-To-Eye On CO2 288

Posted by kdawson
from the forest-and-trees dept.
Sam Machkovech writes "Bill Gates's speech at last week's TED Conference centered on 'moving to zero-carbon energy, and our need to reduce CO2 emissions 80% by 2050.' His choice of subject was an abrupt turn from The Gates Foundation's typical humanitarian topics, but he insisted that energy innovation is crucial to his Foundation's goals. A move by Microsoft today proves that Gates's old company has less interest in that carbon-neutral goal — Microsoft has begun campaigning against a bridge redesign that would result in more bus and transit options for commuters between Seattle and the company's homebase of Redmond, WA."
Displays

Getting the Most from Large Monitors 3

Submitted by
Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward writes "A recent study (sponsored by NEC) has confirmed that large monitors can increase productivity up to 52% on certain types of tasks, but the productivity falls off when you get above 24 inches. The ability to watch a DVD while working might be partially to blame, but there is a bigger issue. Once you get over about 24 inches, the habits developed on smaller monitors no longer work. To work effectively with a large monitor you have to break habits formed from years of using smaller displays."
It's funny. Laugh.

Slashdot Most Overrated Blog According to TIME-> 16

Submitted by
Amit Agarwal
Amit Agarwal writes "In their annual list of Top 25 blogs, the TIME magazine has added Slashdot to the category of most overrated blogs. The review says — Reading Slashdot these days is like visiting the IT guy at work. He's infuriatingly smug and cares passionately about stuff you don't care about, and views your lack of interest as further confirmation of his intellectual superiority."
Link to Original Source
Math

Rubik's cube proof cut to 25 moves->

Submitted by
KentuckyFC
KentuckyFC writes "A scrambled Rubik's cube can be solved in just 25 moves, regardless of the starting configuration. Tomas Rosicki, a Stanford-trained mathematician, has proven the new limit (down from 26 which was proved last year) using a neat piece of computer science. Rather than study individual moves, he's used the symmetry of the cube to study its transformations in sets. This allows him to separate the "cube space" into 2 billion sets each containing 20 billion elements. He then shows that a large number of these sets are essentially equivalent to other sets and so can be ignored (abstract on the physics arxiv). Even then, to crunch through the remaining sets, he needed a workstation with 8GB of memory and around 1500 hours of time on a Q6600 CPU running at 1.6GHz. Next up, 24 moves."
Link to Original Source
It's funny. Laugh.

Rick Astley Discovers the Rickroll 1

Submitted by
Pickens
Pickens writes "Over the last year or so, Rick Astley has watched with puzzled amazement as "Never Gonna Give You Up" has been mocked, celebrated, remixed and reprised, its original music video viewed millions of times on YouTube, all by a generation that could barely swallow its Gerber carrots when the song first topped the pop charts. "If this had happened around some kind of rock song, with a lyric that really meant something — a Bruce Springsteen, "God bless America" ... or an anti-something kind of song, I could kind of understand that," Astley said. "But for something as, and I don't mean to belittle it, because I still think it's a great pop song, but it's a pop song; do you know what I mean? It doesn't have any kind of weight behind it, as such. But maybe that's the irony of it." Astley, who will be touring the U.K. in May with a group of other '80's acts, including Bananarama, and Nick Heyward, Heaven 17, Paul Young and ABC, sums up his thoughts on his unexpected virtual fame with characteristic good humor: "Listen, I just think it's bizarre and funny. My main consideration is that my daughter doesn't get embarrassed about it.""
Security

Casino insider tells (almost) all about security->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "Cool story on Casino security talks to Jeff Jonas, founder and chief scientist of Systems Research & Development (SRD), who helped build numerous casino systems before 2005 when his company was purchased by IBM. Between 1990 and 2005 Jonas helped pioneer facial recognition technology and various other systems in casinos such as the Bellagio, Treasure Island and Beau Rivage. "Today possibly half the casinos in the world run something or another that I had my hand in," he said. Jonas reveals some of the secret scams he learned from the casino industry such as the infinite hundred dollar bill, the hollowed out chip cup, the palm (trading cards), the specialty code (inserted by rogue programmer into video poker machine) and the cameraman, as well as detailing how casinos strike back against fraudsters and cheats. "In the old days it was the kneecaps, but those were the old, old days," he says. Jonas also talks about when casinos will actually allow cheating, such as card counters, to continue playing when their actions result in others losing money — thereby ensuring a profit for the casino. A very interesting read with lots of insider info on some of Vegas' most famous casinos"
Link to Original Source
Media (Apple)

iPhone SDK rules block Skype, Firefox, Java.-> 1

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes "Apple's iPhone software development kit is already drawing complaints due to the strict terms of service. Voice over IP apps like Skype that attempt to use the cellular data connection will be blocked. Competing web browsers Firefox and Opera are forbidden. Even Sun is now backpedaling on its recent announcement of a java port, noting that there are some legal issues. Critics are already comparing Apple's methods to Comcast's anti-net neutrality filtering, and Microsoft's Netscape-killing antitrust tactics. Could Apple face government regulators? CNET has more."
Link to Original Source
Windows

How do I split a directory into CD sized chunks?

Submitted by
EchoD
EchoD writes "I frequently have a need to split large directories (2 Gigabytes or more) into "chunks" that will fit on a CD-ROM. Every file needs to remain intact, and the exact size of the chunks can vary from one day to the next. Archive formats aren't an option, and neither are DVDs.

The way I've been doing this is selecting groups of files in Explorer and watching the selection size in the Status Bar. While effective, sometimes it's time consuming. I'm looking for an automated way to go about this. Any suggestions?

Any input is much appreciated. Thanks!"

optimist, n: A bagpiper with a beeper.