×

Submission + - Two Ex-Editors for Murdoch Charged in Phone Hacking Scandal (nytimes.com)

Submitted by jlhandy
jlhandy writes: After a year of furious controversy over the widespread phone hacking by one of Rupert Murdoch’s tabloid newspapers, British prosecutors brought criminal charges on Tuesday against eight of the most prominent figures in the scandal, including Andy Coulson, who was Prime Minister David Cameron’s communications chief at 10 Downing Street until the scandal forced his resignation last year.
Businesses

Submission + - San Fran Poaching Tech Talent From The Valley (itworld.com)

Submitted by
jfruh
jfruh writes: "Silicon Valley, including San Jose and the chain of suburbs running north from it along the San Francisco Peninsula, has long been the epicenter of the tech business and startup scene. San Francisco itself, just a few miles to the north, has always been in the Valley's orbit — but now, more and more, the center of gravity is shifting to San Francisco, and the move seems to be hitting a tipping point. The reason: the young talent companies want to attract would rather live in a hip city than in suburban sprawl, and don't want to commute 45 minutes to work."
Idle

Submission + - 10 Weirdest TV Remote Controls (electronichouse.com)

Submitted by
ElectronicHouseGrant
ElectronicHouseGrant writes: "To say there has been a lot of innovation in the area of control is quite the understatement.Besides actually cutting the cord, the remote control now comes in many forms--sometimes very odd or fun forms. When it comes to the actual look of the remote, you probably think it hasn’t changed a whole lot. Well, you really need to get out more. Check out these 10 oddball remotes. Does form trump function?"

Submission + - What's Next for Superhero Movies? (theatlantic.com)

Submitted by Faizdog
Faizdog writes: The Atlantic (http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/07/whats-next-for-superhero-movies/260243/) has a very interesting article on what's next for superhero movies after the Dark Knight leaves theaters. DC in particular seems to not have a good pipeline of readily available heroes to create movies around.

They discuss the challenges surrounding the upcoming Man of Steel movie, as well as how the circumstances around the successful Spiderman reboot may not necessarily translate to a Batman reboot.

They also discuss the necessity and viability of the comic book print medium continuing on in light of the film successes, especially in terms of revenue (the Avengers movie alone made more profit for Marvel than ALL comic book sales for the last two years).

The article finally concludes with an interesting suggestion that television may be the ideal medium for comic book adaptations as it may permit a more richer and complex story telling experience than a two hour movie.

Submission + - Would you trust an 80-year-old nuclear reactor? (ieee.org)

Submitted by the_newsbeagle
the_newsbeagle writes: The worst nuclear near-disaster that you've never heard of came to light in 2002, when inspectors at Ohio's Davis-Besse nuclear power station discovered that a slow leak had been corroding a spot on the reactor vessel's lid for years [pdf]. When they found the cavity, only 1 cm of metal was left to protect the nuclear core. That kind of slow and steady degradation is a major concern as the US's 104 reactors get older and grayer, says nuclear researcher Leonard Bond.

US reactors were originally licensed for 40 years of operation, but the majority have already received extensions to keep them going until the age of 60. Industry researchers like Bond are now determining whether it would be safe and economically feasible to keep them active until the age of 80. Bond describes the monitoring techniques that could be used to watch over aging reactors, and argues that despite the risks, the US needs these aging atomic behemoths.
The Internet

Submission + - UK ISP and mobile networks snub net neutrality pledge (pcpro.co.uk)

Submitted by
nk497
nk497 writes: "UK ISP Virgin Media and two of the largest mobile networks, Everything Everywhere and Vodafone, are among the high-profile absentees from a new voluntary code of conduct on net neutrality, set to be unveiled tomorrow. The code requires those who sign it to give users access to all legal content and not to discriminate against content providers on the basis of a commercial rivalry — but Virgin has refused to sign because it isn't tough enough. "These principles remain open to misinterpretation and potential exploitation so, while we welcome efforts to reach a broad consensus to address potential future issues, we will be seeking greater certainty before we consider signing," a company spokesman said."
Advertising

Submission + - The Decline of Google (and Everybody's) Ad Business

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Rebecca Greenfield writes that during their recent earnings call, Google reported a 16 percent decline in Cost-per-Click (CPC), meaning the value of each advertisement clicked has gone down. This follows a 12 percent drop last quarter and 8 percent the quarter before that showing an unfortunate reality of online advertising — unlike the print world, internet ads lose value over time. The daily and stubborn reality for everybody building businesses on the strength of Web advertising is that the value of digital ads decreases every quarter, a consequence of their simultaneous ineffectiveness and efficiency writes Michael Wolff. "The nature of people's behavior on the Web and of how they interact with advertising, as well as the character of those ads themselves and their inability to command attention, has meant a marked decline in advertising's impact." This isn't just Google's problem. Overall Internet advertising has decreased in value over the years as online advertising continues its race to a bottom. "I don't know anyone in the ad-supported Web business who isn't engaged in a relentless, demoralizing, no-exit operation to realign costs with falling per-user revenues," adds Wolff, "or who isn't manically inflating traffic to compensate for ever-lower per-user value." For Google's overall business, this loss doesn't mean as much since it has since expanded its business beyond AdWords including its recent acquisition of Motorola. For companies that didn't just buy big hardware companies however, it's a scarier proposition. Like Facebook, for example."
IOS

Submission + - Apple to attend Black Hat Security Conference for the first time (networkworld.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: For the first time, Apple will officially be in attendance at the annual Black Hat security conference which is scheduled to run through Thursday of this week. This is a notable development for two reasons. First, Apple has never formally attended the conference. Two, many of the more prominent stories to emerge out of previous Black Hat events have centered on Apple security.

Representing Apple at the conference will be Apple platform security manager Dallas De Atley who is scheduled to deliver a speech on Thursday about the security technologies in iOS. Some have speculated that Apple's decision to attend the conference is rooted in their desire to make further inroads in the enterprise market while others believe it's a sign that Apple recognizes the growing importance of having a more open relationship with the hacker community at large.
Your Rights Online

Submission + - UK Judge "waters down" copyright claim letters to ISP customers (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by leptechie
leptechie writes: A UK judge has decided adult-film production company Golden Eye can pursue illegal downloaders through UK ISP O2, but only after a watered-down version of their original complaint was approved by a judge, and includes references both to the rights of the accused and how to get help in their defence, including a starting point for building one:
'The final letter, a copy of which has been obtained by the BBC, reads: "In the event that you were not responsible for the infringing acts outlined above, for example, another member of your household was the user of the computer, you should make full disclosure to us of the other parties at your residence using your internet connection."'
Security

Submission + - Hacker Exposes Security Vulnerabilities In 4 Million Hotel Keycard Locks (forbes.com)

Submitted by Sparrowvsrevolution
Sparrowvsrevolution writes: At the Black Hat security conference Tuesday, a Mozilla software developer and 24-year old security researcher named Cody Brocious plans to present a pair of vulnerabilities he’s discovered in hotel room locks from the manufacturer Onity, whose devices are installed on the doors of between four and five million hotel rooms around the world according to the company’s figures. Using an Arduino gadget Brocious built for less than $50, he can insert a plug into that DC port and sometimes, albeit unreliably, open the lock in a matter of seconds.

Brocious found that he can read the raw memory of the lock, including its cryptographic keys, by spoofing the portable programming device used to set master keys around a facility. Though the trick doesn't work in every case and still requires some tweaking, Brocious demonstrated it on at least one hotel room for a reporter, opening its door without a key.

Brocious's hacker ethics may come under some scrutiny: He didn't tell Onity about the vulnerability before publicizing it, and also sold the information for $20,000 to a law enforcement training firm.
Android

Submission + - Apple Wins EU Ban Of Smaller Samsung Tablet (informationweek.com)

Submitted by
walterbyrd
walterbyrd writes: "German court bans Samsung from selling its Galaxy Tab 7.7 across the European Union, but allows Samsung to continue selling its Tab 10.1N. . . The patent war between Apple and Samsung rages on. The latest victim is Samsung's Galaxy Tab 7.7 Android tablet. The Dusseldorf Higher Regional Court in Germany on Tuesday upheld a preliminary sales ban of the device."
Government

Submission + - Correcting the record: The Government's Role in the Internet (latimes.com)

Submitted by TwobyTwo
TwobyTwo writes: Yesterday, jaymzter posted a Slashdot piece titled Who Really Invented the Internet? . It quoted a Wall Street Journal article with the same title by Gordon Crovitz. Crovitz makes the claim that government research did not play a key role in driving the invention of the Internet, giving credit instead to Xerox PARC

Unfortunately, Crovitz' article is wrong on many specific points, and he's also wrong in his key conclusion about the government's role. In a wonderful piece in the LA Times Michael Hiltzik corrects the record. Hiltzik, who is the author of an excellent book about PARC called Dealers of Lightning, makes clear that government funded research was indeed the foundation for the Internet's success.
Apple

Submission + - German court imposes Europe wide Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 ban (paritynews.com)

Submitted by hypnosec
hypnosec writes: Samsung it seems is on a losing spree as in a fresh ruling a German court has upheld Apple’s claim of ban on Galaxy Tab to the point that it has also granted Cupertino a Europe wide ban Galaxy Tab 7.7 for infringing upon iPad’s design patents. The court has however allowed the Galaxy Tab 10.1N to remain on sale. The Dusseldorf Regional Court ruled that Apple can go ahead and seek a preliminary ban on the Galaxy S III maker’s 7.7-inch tablet. The court went a step ahead though and said that the tablet won’t be banned just in Germany but it will be removed from store shelves across the whole of Europe. The news didn’t turn out to be all sweet for Apple as the court has denied a ban on the re-designed Galaxy Tab 10.1N.
The Military

Submission + - Fiddler on the root (f-secure.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: F-Secure antivirus company of Finland has reported receiving e-mails from an iranian nuclear scientist, who says persian uranium-235 isotope refining efforts have just been hit with yet another cyber strike. (Stuxnet, Duqu and Flamer-Skywiper being the previous iterations of the same Operation Project Olympic attack plan.)

Last month, President Obama's staff has admitted to N. Y. Times that there is a joint IL-US cybermilitary operation behind the mishaps iranians have recently been suffering with their UF6 gas refining centrifuge systems in the Natanz and Fordo plants.

This time, the unverified e-mail claims, a new Metasploit-based malware owns iranian VPNs, causes fault in the nuclear plants' Siemens-based industrial control systems and randomly starts to play AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" aloud via the infected computers' speakers.
Iphone

Submission + - iPhone 5 Redoes The Docking Connector (reuters.com)

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: Two sources have told Reuters that Apple's new iPhone will drop the classic wide dock connector used in the company's gadgets for the best part of a decade in favor of a smaller one. The refresh will be a 19-pin connector port at the bottom instead of the previous 30-pin port "to make room for the earphone moving to the bottom". That would mean the new phone would not connect with the myriad of accessories playing a part in the current ecosystem of iPods, iPads and iPhones, at least without an adapter. On the upside a smaller connector will allow for more compact product designs. Some enterprising vendors in China have already begun offering cases for the new phone, complete with earphone socket on the bottom and a "guarantee" that the dimensions are correct.

Submission + - Website design tools for 14 year old 3

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: I am pretty computer literate, and have a son who is extremely computer savvy. He taught himself C#, Javascript, built his own desktop with his Christmas and birthday money two years ago and is an avid reader of stackoverflow, reddit and many forums.
He recently was asked to design a website for an architect, and likes to code by hand using Notepad++ and the Chrome developer tools. He uses CSS and Javascript libraries, but is convinced that all visual editors (Dreamweaver, Expression Web and so on) are only for extreme beginners and create non responsive, non compliant sites. I argue with him that while handcoding abilities are essential and great there is a value in knowing and using WYSIWYG editors. We agreed that having slashdot weigh in would be useful — comments appreciated on either the approach or good tools he can and should use.
Privacy

Submission + - Spooky: How NSA's Surveillance Algorithms See Into Your Life (techpp.com)

Submitted by
SmartAboutThings
SmartAboutThings writes: "A quite scary talk-show with former NSA members, now whistle blowers — Thomas Drake, Kirk Wiebe, and William Binney reveals that the NSA has algorithms that go throught gathered data about us and they can basically "see into our lives". And this seems to be going on especially since the Patriot Act has removed the statutory requirement that the government prove a surveillance target under FISA is a non-U.S. citizen and agent of a foreign power."
Microsoft

Submission + - Gartner analyst retracts "Windows 8 is bad" claim (pcpro.co.uk) 1

Submitted by
nk497
nk497 writes: "A Gartner analyst made headlines after describing Windows 8 desktop as: "in a word: bad". After web reaction, including one story asking why anyone bothers to listen to the consultancy firm anymore, Gunnar Berger has now yanked the offending sentence from his blog post, saying it was taken out of context and only applied to using the desktop with a mouse and keyboard, and that overall Windows 8 is a good thing. "If you look at my blog, I've gotten rid of it," he said. "It's upsetting me that it's being taken completely out of context.""

Slashdot Top Deals