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Games

Rockstar Creates 'Cheaters Pool' For Game Hackers 228

Posted by timothy
from the we-call-this-area-d-block dept.
itwbennett writes "Rockstar Games announced yesterday in a newswire post that the company has created a 'cheater's pool' (sort of like the populating of Australia with criminals) where players who have hacked the game to give themselves advantages will only be able to play against other cheaters. Although, Ars Technica points out that players may actually prefer the 'special' world."
Cellphones

Jailbroken Devices Compromised By Charging Stations 93

Posted by Soulskill
from the charged-with-computer-fraud dept.
mask.of.sanity writes "Data can be stolen from Windows, Android and Apple devices by unassuming power charging towers. In an attack demonstrated at the Defcon hacking conference, mobile phone charging units were rigged to pull data from phones plugged into them. Researchers found many jailbroken and modified devices activated USB functions when they were plugged in, or simply rebooted."
The Internet

Netflix Subscriber Base Eclipses Comcast's 333

Posted by Soulskill
from the streaming-to-the-future dept.
NicknamesAreStupid writes "Netflix just announced its earnings and claims to have more subscribers than Comcast. 'Netflix's global subscriber base grew almost 70% over the past year, to 23.6 million users. ... More than 7% of Americans now subscribe to Netflix.' Does that go to show how great Netflix really is or, well, you know?"
Cloud

Google Gmail Motion Beta 104

Posted by CmdrTaco
from the i-got-a-gesture-for-you dept.
PB8 noted that has been following all the kinect projects that have been floating around the net, and decided to use detection along with a rich visual vocabulary including common gestures and American Sign Language to accelerate your gmail time. This is going to require a bit of a change in my email composition since normally I use those to vent frustration.

Comment: Always will have nerds (Score 1) 453

by K.B.Zod (#30527804) Attached to: The US Economy Needs More "Cool" Nerds

Eventually, on its own, computing may move out of the "nerd" area of interest and into the mainstream. It's already starting with smartphones, music players, and ever more intricate gaming consoles. Once that happens, computing will be cool, and some other area of interest will become nerdy. Or, computing will stay "nerdy", and maybe something else will become cool, like tabletop gaming or massive LEGO collections or comic books. (Sorry guys ...)

Society will always need to label some as nerds, for whatever demented sociological reason there is for it.

The Internet

After Links To Cybercrime, Latvian ISP Cut Off 116

Posted by timothy
from the people-interpret-jerks-as-damage-and-route-around-them dept.
alphadogg writes with this Network World story, excerpting "A Latvian ISP linked to online criminal activity has been cut off from the Internet, following complaints from Internet security researchers. Real Host, based in Riga, Latvia was thought to control command-and-control servers for infected botnet PCs, and had been linked to phishing sites, Web sites that launched attack code at visitors and were also home to malicious 'rogue' antivirus products, according to a researcher using the pseudonym Jart Armin, who works on the Hostexploit.com Web site. 'This is maybe one of the top European centers of crap,' he said in an e-mail interview. 'It was a cesspool of criminal activity,' said Paul Ferguson, a researcher with Trend Micro."
Science

Another Way the LHC Could Self-Destruct 367

Posted by kdawson
from the no-physics-whatsoever dept.
KentuckyFC writes "Just when you thought it was safe to switch on the LHC (though it won't be for a while yet), another nightmare scenario has emerged that some critics worry could cause the particle accelerator to explode. The culprit this time is not an Earth-swallowing black hole but a 'Bose supernova' in the accelerator's superfluid helium bath. Physicists have been playing with Bose Einstein Condensate (BECs) for over 10 years now. But in 2001, one group discovered that placing them in a powerful magnetic field could cause the attractive forces between atoms to become repulsive. That caused their BEC to explode in a Bose supernova — which they called a 'Bosenova,' a name that fortunately did not catch on. This was little more than a curiosity when only a microscopic blob of cold matter was involved. But superfluid liquid helium is also BEC. And physicists have suddenly remembered that the LHC is swimming in 700,000 liters of the stuff while being zapped by some of the most powerful magnetic fields on the planet. So is the LHC a Bose supernova waiting to go off? Not according to the CERN theory division, which has published its calculations that show the LHC is safe (abstract). They also point out that no other superfluid helium handling facility has mysteriously blown itself to pieces."
Security

Microsoft Issues Zero-Day Attack Alert For Word 483

Posted by kdawson
from the incoming dept.
0xbl00d writes "Eweek.com is reporting a new Microsoft Word zero-day attack underway. Microsoft issued a security advisory to acknowledge the unpatched flaw, which affects Microsoft Word 2000, Microsoft Word 2002, Microsoft Office Word 2003, Microsoft Word Viewer 2003, Microsoft Word 2004 for Mac and Microsoft Word 2004 v. X for Mac. The Microsoft Works 2004, 2005 and 2006 suites are also affected because they include Microsoft Word. Simply opening a word document will launch the exploit. There are no pre-patch workarounds or anti-virus signatures available. Microsoft suggests that users 'not open or save Word files,' even from trusted sources."

Bug Pushes Vista Out to November 8th 285

Posted by Zonk
from the keep-the-ant-hill-under-glass dept.
IntelliAdmin writes "Microsoft originally targeted October 25th for Vista's release to manufacturing, but a last-minute bug that 'took most of the Vista team by surprise' has caused an unexpected delay, said Ethan Allen, a quality assurance lead at a Seattle high-tech company that tests its products for Vista. Allen said the Vista team discovered the bug, which 'would totally crash the system, requiring a complete reinstall'. Vista now has a new RTM date of November 8th" A reader wrote in to point out this story originated with Paul Thurrott.

Wii Pre-Orders at EB Games and Gamestop 233

Posted by Hemos
from the come-and-get-it dept.
Punkster812 writes "Tomorrow, Friday October 13th, EB Games and Gamestop will begin taking pre-orders. They say they have very limited numbers and will do a first come first serve. A $50 deposit is the minimum down payment for a console and they suggest for you to call your local store for availability. Their online pre-order information will be released at a future date. For full information, visit EB Games or Gamestop for full details."

Ext4 Filesystem Enters Experimental Kernel Tree 237

Posted by timothy
An anonymous reader writes "Looks like the next version of the venerable Linux 'ext' filesystem is just around the corner. Andrew Morton has added an early version of ext4 to his 2.6.19-rc1-mm1 tree, enabling Linux to support storage volumes up to 1020 petabytes in size, and to write files in 'extents,' or contiguous, reserved areas. According to an article at Linux-Watch, ext4 will be ready for production use within six to nine months, if all goes well. On the downside, the new ext4 filesystem will offer only limited backward compatibility with ext3-aware Linux kernels."

The unfacts, did we have them, are too imprecisely few to warrant our certitude.

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