Linux Business

Ubuntu Linux Claims 12,000 Cloud Deployments 165

Posted by Soulskill from the partly-cloudy-with-a-chance-of-tux dept.
darthcamaro writes "The cloud is more than just hype for Ubuntu. Canonical COO Matt Asay is now saying that they can count 12,000 deployments of the Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud. He also thinks the cloud is where Ubuntu can make money — because in his view, the company for the last five years wasn't set up to generate revenue. From the article: 'The conversion of non-paying to paying users is often a difficult ratio to report for any open source effort, and Ubuntu is no exception. Asay noted that Canonical plans to get more aggressive at tracking its free-to-paid ratio on Ubuntu Linux and its related services and technologies. "For the first five years of the company's life, it wasn't set up to make money," Asay said. "The company was set up to make a fantastic Linux distribution and other tools around it and get it out there and get people using it. That was the focus." That's now changing at Canonical as the emphasis is now shifting to generating revenues.'"
Security

Phishing Education Test Blocked For Phishing 113

Posted by Soulskill from the please-enter-your-opinion-and-credit-card-number-below dept.
An anonymous reader writes "It appears a website called ismycreditcardstolen.com, designed to 'educate users about the dangers of phishing,' has itself been flagged by Firefox as a reported web forgery. The site, which asks visitors to enter their credit card details to 'see if they've been stolen,' takes the hapless visitor to a page warning them about the perils of phishing, giving them advice on how to avoid similar scams and also provides a link to the Anti-Phishing Working Group's website. Or at least it did, until various browsers started blocking it. As the Sunbelt blog post notes, the project was likely doomed to failure, both because of the domain name itself and also because it uses anonymous Whois data, which isn't exactly going to make security people look at it in a positive light. Does anyone out there think this was a good idea? Or will malicious individuals start playing copycat on a public now trained to think sites like this are just 'harmless education?'"
Cellphones

HTC Walks From Palm Bid, Will Lenovo Step Up? 97

Posted by Soulskill from the palm-rejected-out-of-hand dept.
MojoKid writes "Earlier in the month, it was reported that Palm was being shopped around. At that time, two of the main potential suitors were HTC and Lenovo. HTC obviously felt like the best fit. Lately, HTC has shown that it has a penchant for creating fantastic hardware, but it has to rely on Google and Microsoft for software. It seemed as if buying Palm would give HTC the power they needed to move ahead as a standalone unit, pairing HTC hardware with the WebOS mobile operating system. Apparently, that's not going to happen. Based on a new report out of Asia, HTC has declined to place an official bid on Palm, leaving Lenovo as the only other potential buyer at the moment."
Privacy

Facebook Retroactively Makes More User Data Public 287

Posted by Soulskill from the privacy-is-a-crutch dept.
mjn writes "In yet another backtrack from their privacy policy, Facebook has decided to retroactively move more information into the public, indexable part of profiles. The new profile parts made public are: a list of things users have become 'fans' of (now renamed to 'likes'), their education and work histories, and what they list under 'interests.' Apparently there is neither any opt-out nor even notice to users, despite the fact that some of this information was entered by users at a time when Facebook's privacy policy explicitly promised that it wouldn't be part of the public profile."
Crime

Former Nurse Charged With Aiding Suicides Via Web 168

Posted by timothy from the everybody-needs-a-hobby dept.
mernil writes "A former US nurse has been charged with two counts of aiding suicides on the Internet, US officials say. William Melchert-Dinkel, 47, is accused of encouraging the suicides of Mark Drybrough from Coventry, UK, in 2005 and Canada's Nadia Kajouji in 2008. Melchert-Dinkel, from Minnesota, allegedly posed as a female nurse, instructing people in suicide chatrooms how to take their lives. He reportedly admitted helping five or fewer people kill themselves. Some legal experts say it could be difficult to prosecute Melchert-Dinkel under a rarely used law because he allegedly only encouraged the victims to kill themselves, without physically helping them to take their lives."
Google

Google Backpedals On Turn-By-Turn GPS For iPhone 145

Posted by timothy from the unforeseen-circumstances dept.
Smurf writes "Last October Google's Vic Gundotra announced that Google would bring turn-by-turn GPS navigation to the iPhone: 'However, Google is working with Apple on bringing it to the iPhone, and it's not ruling out licensing the software to makers of portable navigation devices used in cars throughout the world, said Gundotra, vice president of engineering at Google for mobile and developers.' Nevertheless, after such plans were confirmed during a press conference in London yesterday, today the 'Don't be Evil' company backpedaled on them: '"We did not say we would bring it to iPhone, we said to date we've had it on Android and that in the future it may come to other platforms, but did not confirm this will be coming to iPhone at all," a Google spokesperson told PCWorld.'"
Power

Re-Purposing the Netherlands' Dike System For Power Generation 132

Posted by timothy from the let's-go-dutch dept.
vikingpower writes "Built in reaction to a major flood that killed 1,800 in the '50s, the Dutch system of dikes, sluices, surge barriers, and dams has been dubbed 'one of the seven wonders of the modern world' by the American Society of Engineers. Now there are proposals to use the system differently, e.g. as tidal power plants, by punching holes in them. Any civil engineer's mouth will probably be watering when thinking of the mega-projects this could give rise to."
Earth

Aral Sea May Recover; Dead Sea Needs a Lifeline 131

Posted by timothy from the just-needs-feng-shui-adjustment dept.
An anonymous reader writes "It's a tale of two seas. The drying up of the Aral Sea is considered one of the greatest environmental catastrophes in history, but the northern sector of the sea, at least, is showing signs of life. A dam completed in 2005 has increased the North Aral's span by 20 percent, and birds, fish, and people are all returning to the area. Meanwhile, the Dead Sea is still in the midst of precipitous decline, since too much water is being drawn out of the Jordan River for thirsty populations and crops. To keep the sea from shrinking more, scientists are pushing an ambitious scheme called the 'Red-Dead conduit,' which would channel huge amounts of water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea. However, the environmental consequences of such a project may be troubling."
Power

Arizona Trialing System That Lets Utility System Control Home A/Cs 393

Posted by timothy from the so-you-preferred-the-brownouts-sir dept.
AzTechGuy writes "Arizona Public Service Co., Arizona's largest power company, is implementing a test program that would put customers' thermostats under their control to help balance power needs during critical peak usage times. APS will be able to remote control the customers' thermostats to control power draw from their A/C when there is a critical power transmission issue on the grid. Customers will be able to override these settings if they desire."
Programming

Best Seating Arrangement For a Team of Developers? 520

Posted by timothy from the corner-office-round-table dept.
TekNullOG writes "I was given the job to prepare the logistics involved with moving our office. At the same time my bosses asked me to look into buying new desks for a small team of four developers and to consider if it could benefit the team to sit at a round table. In many offices and departments it increases productivity and makes collaboration easy. However, I am concerned that putting developers around a table could potentially be distracting consequently diminishing productivity by increasing coding errors. What are your thoughts?"
Transportation

EyeDriver Lets Drivers Steer Car With Their Eyes 166

Posted by timothy from the would-be-dead-a-thousand-times dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "NPR reports that German researchers have tested a new technology called eyeDriver that tracks a driver's eye movement and, in turn, steers the car in whatever direction they're looking at speeds up to 31 mph. 'The next step will be to get it to drive 60 miles per hour,' says Raul Rojas, an artificial intelligence researcher at Berlin's Free University. A Dodge Caravan fitted with eyeDriver has been tested on the tarmac at an abandoned airport at Tempelhof Airport. However, it remains unclear when — or if — the technology will be commercialized, as questions about safety and practicability abound: What about looking at a cute girl next to the road for a few seconds? Not to mention taking phone calls or typing a text while driving. But the researchers have an answer to distracted drivers: 'The Spirit of Berlin' is also an autonomous car equipped with GPS navigation, scores of cameras, lasers, and scanners that enable it to drive by itself. And should the technology-packed vehicle have a major bug, there's still an old fashioned way of stopping it. Two big external emergency buttons at the rear of the car allow people outside to shut down all systems."
Privacy

Hacking Big Brother With Help From Revlon 71

Posted by Soulskill from the better-option-than-back-alley-eye-transplants dept.
skids writes "All those futuristic full-face eyeliner jobs in dystopian cyberpunk fiction might not be that far off the mark. A New York University student spent his thesis time exploring computer vision technology (OpenCV) for ways in which one could confound first-stage algorithms that initially lock onto faces. Then he mixed in a bit of fashion sense to predict future geek chic. Now, whether you want to go for the coal-miner look just to stay out of the data mine, that's up to you."
Emulation (Games)

Emulation For Preservation of Digital Artifacts 81

Posted by Soulskill from the sitting-at-his-virtual-desk dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Author Salman Rushdie donated his papers and notes to Emory University a while ago. Not surprisingly, many of Rushdie's original notes, drafts, and correspondence existed in electronic form. Rather than printing them out or converting them to other formats, archivists at the university created an emulated image of Rushdie's old computer, complete with old software. Researchers visiting the archive can read his email in Eudora and his Stickies notes, or read drafts of his books in ClarisWorks. When you leave your legacy to future generations, would you like a virtualized copy of your personal system to be included?"
IT

Confessions of a SysAdmin 385

Posted by Soulskill from the type-with-your-fists dept.
Mr.Fork writes "Scott Merrill from CrunchGear has a confession. He really, really hates computers. He writes: 'No, really, I hate them. I love the communications they facilitate, I love the conveniences they provide to my life, and I love the escapism they sometimes afford; but I actually hate the computers themselves. Computers are fragile, unintuitive things — a hodge-podge of brittle hardware and opaque, restrictive software.' Does his editorial speak to all of us in similar IT-related fields? Do we all silently hate the complexities and idiosyncrasies computers have, like error messages and UI designs that make no sense to the common user, which make our tech professions miserable?"

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