Comment: Re:I'd ditch the hull design first thing. (Score 1) 589
And use old tennis players as the crew. I wonder if Bjorn Borg is available?
Comment: Re:Remember: (Score 1) 474
I don't think TSA can arrest you. Detain you, yes. Cops or FBI make the arrest, right?
Comment: Re:First Illegal Troll (Score 1) 474
I used to think that Florida was the most f'd-up state in the union. I think I have to reassign that position to Arizona.
Comment: Re:This IS NOT NEWS FOR NERDS (Score 1) 1005
...and scaring simpletons who think they must be D&D satan worshippers.
Nowadays we say "scaring simpletons who think they must be Harry Potter demon worshippers.
Kinect grocery cart follows shoppers around the store
Submitted
by
cylonlover
cylonlover writes "When Chaotic Moon Labs debuted the Kinect-powered Board of Awesomeness — and its mind-reading offspring, the Board of Imagination — that was apparently just a preview of a more practical product the company had in the works. Grocery store chain, Whole Foods, recently gave a demonstration of Chaotic Moon's latest device, which uses the same technology in a self-propelled shopping cart. The "Smarter Cart," as it's been named, can detect what items are placed in it, match those to a shopping list, and even follow shoppers around the store on its own."
Springhill Group : Facebook might be reading your text messages->
Submitted
by
springmed
springmed writes "The online community is all abuzz on Sunday after an explosive report has accused Facebook of snooping in smartphone users’ text messages.
Though Facebook admitted to reading SMS of users who have downloaded their app, they said they are only doing so as part of a limited testing phase prior to launching their own messaging service and not to deliberately expose users to fraud.
The Facebook app running on Android is authorized to process, read, receive and write SMS, something they have declared in their terms beginning from the 1.7 version. Facebook said this is in anticipation of new features that will integrate Facebook tools with user texts. Now, if Facebook eventually introduces a feature that will be applicable to those permissions, they are ensuring the users even now that it will be accompanied by proper educational and guiding materials.
Facebook retorted that users should be aware that it said it might access their messages, contained under “Permissions” — that long article you are expected to have read before downloading/using the app. Unfortunately, 70% of smartphone users do not seem to have the time for reading the terms and conditions attached to an app.
Other popular companies that are using smartphones to access data and other personal details of users include Yahoo Messenger, Badoo, Google and Flickr.
Several companies can reportedly control smartphone features remotely, which includes taking images and video using the camera, as in the case of YouTube. Also, details like contacts list, location and browser history are accessed and can be passed on to third-parties like advertisers.
According to a statement issued by Facebook, it does not read user text messages and described the Sunday Times report as ‘completely wrong’ on their terminology and the impression they have made. But Facebook gave an explanation anyway: “we have done some testing of products that need the SMS part of the phone to talk to our app.”
Privacy concerns on smartphones have steadily increased in the past weeks as it was found out that a popular Android and iOS app, Path, is discovered to be collecting user contact details without permission — a move that can make users vulnerable to fraud. Other smaller companies that produce apps are capable of intercepting user calls like Tennis Juggling Game and My Remote Lock, which is supposed to be a security app to boot.
Just this month, Twitter has admitted that it has they have copied entire address books of their users from mobile phones. They have stored the data on their servers for 18 months without the users realizing it."
Link to Original Source
Though Facebook admitted to reading SMS of users who have downloaded their app, they said they are only doing so as part of a limited testing phase prior to launching their own messaging service and not to deliberately expose users to fraud.
The Facebook app running on Android is authorized to process, read, receive and write SMS, something they have declared in their terms beginning from the 1.7 version. Facebook said this is in anticipation of new features that will integrate Facebook tools with user texts. Now, if Facebook eventually introduces a feature that will be applicable to those permissions, they are ensuring the users even now that it will be accompanied by proper educational and guiding materials.
Facebook retorted that users should be aware that it said it might access their messages, contained under “Permissions” — that long article you are expected to have read before downloading/using the app. Unfortunately, 70% of smartphone users do not seem to have the time for reading the terms and conditions attached to an app.
Other popular companies that are using smartphones to access data and other personal details of users include Yahoo Messenger, Badoo, Google and Flickr.
Several companies can reportedly control smartphone features remotely, which includes taking images and video using the camera, as in the case of YouTube. Also, details like contacts list, location and browser history are accessed and can be passed on to third-parties like advertisers.
According to a statement issued by Facebook, it does not read user text messages and described the Sunday Times report as ‘completely wrong’ on their terminology and the impression they have made. But Facebook gave an explanation anyway: “we have done some testing of products that need the SMS part of the phone to talk to our app.”
Privacy concerns on smartphones have steadily increased in the past weeks as it was found out that a popular Android and iOS app, Path, is discovered to be collecting user contact details without permission — a move that can make users vulnerable to fraud. Other smaller companies that produce apps are capable of intercepting user calls like Tennis Juggling Game and My Remote Lock, which is supposed to be a security app to boot.
Just this month, Twitter has admitted that it has they have copied entire address books of their users from mobile phones. They have stored the data on their servers for 18 months without the users realizing it."
Link to Original Source
Warner Bros: New Program to Digitize Your DVDs!->
Submitted
by
shoutingloudly
shoutingloudly writes "Warner Brothers has just announced a new "Disc-to-Digital" program to convert your DVDs into digital files that you can play on your internet-connected computers. As the helpful Public Knowledge graphics demonstrate, all you have to do is find a participating store, drive there, pay again for your movie, wait while it's ripped for you, drive home, and hope it works. This will surely have tech-savvy movie fans saying, "Brilliant! I've been looking for an excuse to uninstall this free, 1-step DVD ripper that I can use in the comfort of my own home. This is much better than DMCA reform.""
Link to Original Source
Link to Original Source
Hiccup for Western Digital's Hitachi storage takeover->
Submitted
by
angry tapir
angry tapir writes "Western Digital's plan to buy Hitachi Global Storage has run into US FTC resistance: The U.S. FTC will require Western Digital to sell off assets used to manufacture desktop hard drives to a competitor as a condition of its US$4.5 billion acquisition of rival Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, the agency has announced."
Link to Original Source
Link to Original Source
AMD confirms CPU bug found by DragonFly BSD's Matt Dillon->
Submitted
by
Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "Matt Dillon of DragonFly BSD just announced that AMD confirmed a CPU bug he found. Matt quotes part of the mail exchange and it looks like "consecutive back-to-back pops and (near) return instructions can create a condition where the processor incorrectly updates the stack pointer". The specific manifestation in DragonFly were random segmentation faults under heavy load."
Link to Original Source
Link to Original Source
Comment: Re:Bad summary: the airline, not the government (Score 1) 624
I think our public schools will do fine without the Department of Education, considering that every state already has its own Department of Education.
Fine everywhere, except Texas.