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+ - White House Petition Lobbies to Make Cell Phone Unlocking Legal->

Submitted by Tanlis
Tanlis writes "The Librarian of Congress decided in October 2012 that unlocking of cell phones would be removed from the exceptions to the DMCA. As of January 26, consumers are no longer able to unlock their phones for use on a different network without carrier permission, even after their contract has expired. Consumers will be forced to pay exorbitant roaming fees to make calls while traveling abroad. It reduces consumer choice, and decreases the resale value of devices that consumers have paid for in full. The Librarian noted that carriers are offering more unlocked phones at present, but the great majority of phones sold are still locked. We ask that the White House ask the Librarian of Congress to rescind this decision, and failing that, champion a bill that makes unlocking permanently legal."
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Linux

+ - Linux-savvy IT pros are in high demand, low supply->

Submitted by
tsamsoniw
tsamsoniw writes "IT professionals with Linux chops — particularly systems administrator — are in high demand and short supply, according to a new survey from Dice. Over 90 percent of hiring managers surveyed said they plan to hire at least one Linux professional in the next six months — though nine out of 10 respondents also said that it's "somewhat difficult" or "very difficult" to find experienced Linux pros. That demand — driven by trends such as open-cloud development, Big Data, and increasing migration to Linux — has helped push the average salary for Linux pros up 9 percent to this past year, to $90,853."
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AT&T

After Complaints, AT&T Solidifies, Increases Data Limit 211

Posted by Soulskill
from the nice-try-with-the-math-trick dept.
New submitter rullywowr writes "After many users expressed anger, AT&T has moved the slowdown throttling bottleneck from 3GB of data to 5GB of data for users of 4G LTE smart phones. 'Previously, AT&T slowed speeds for subscribers who reached the top 5% of data users for that billing cycle and geographic location. Customers were outraged, arguing that the percentage method meant they had no way to know what the limit was — until AT&T informed them via text message that they were in danger of exceeding it.' AT&T still maintains the position that less than 5% of its users exceed the 3GB threshold each month."
Privacy

+ - OnStar Tracks Your Car Even When You Cancel Servic->

Submitted by
concealment
concealment writes "Navigation-and-emergency-services company OnStar is notifying its six million account holders that it will keep a complete accounting of the speed and location of OnStar-equipped vehicles, even for drivers who discontinue monthly service.

OnStar began e-mailing customers Monday about its update to the privacy policy, which grants OnStar the right to sell that GPS-derived data in an anonymized format.

Adam Denison, a spokesman for the General Motors subsidiary, said OnStar does not currently sell customer data, but it reserves that right."
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Comment: App usage while out on patrol (Score 5, Funny) 80

by Tanlis (#35906454) Attached to: Army Develops Android-Based Framework For Battlefield Ops

While out in the field with the Android phone and the new apps...

Sergeant: Private! Check to see if any other patrols have left any warning signals near here.

Private: Ok Sarge!

5 minutes later...

Sergeant: Private! What's taking so long? Are there any damn warnings?!?!

Private: Ohh! Sorry Sarge. I had to wait for the ad for Angry Birds Rio to finish loading and then I decided to download to it.

Sergeant: Gomer!!!

Math

Erdos' Combinatorial Geometry Problem Solved 170

Posted by Soulskill
from the math-that's-way-over-your-head dept.
eldavojohn writes "After 65 years, Paul Erdos' combinatorial problem has been solved by Indiana University professor Nets Hawk Katz. The problem involved determining the minimum number of distinct distances between any finite set of points in a plane and its applications range from drug development to robot motion planning to computer graphics. You can find a description of the problem here and the prepublication of the paper on arXiv. The researchers used the existing work on the problem and included two new ideas of their own, like using the polynomial ham sandwich theorem, to reach a solution that warranted at least half of Erdos' $500 reward posted for solving this problem way back in 1935."
Earth

Arctic Sea Ice Rallies a Bit 152

Posted by timothy
from the mysterious-ways dept.
radioweather writes "Like the recent stock market rebound, Arctic sea ice is making a big rally over the record low set last year. According to the Alaskan IARC-JAXA website, satellite data which shows sea ice extent as of 10/14/08 was 7,064,219 square kilometers, when compared to a year ago 10/14/08 it was 5,487,656 square kilometers. The one-day gain between 10/13/08 and 10/14/08 of 3.8% is also quite impressive. On May 5th, The National Snow and Ice Data Center suggested the possibility of an ice-free north pole in 2008, but so far, this year has been a banner year for sea ice recovery."

"Oh my! An `inflammatory attitude' in alt.flame? Never heard of such a thing..." -- Allen Gwinn, allen@sulaco.Sigma.COM

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