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AMD

Submission + - AMD bringing back FX performance chips (geek.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Recently AMD seems to have been focusing on its Fusion line and APUs that offer a lot of performance on a low power budget and price. At the same time Intel is offering up high-end Sandy Bridge Core processors and talking about Tri-Gate 3D transistors. But AMD has just been waiting for E3 to come around to announce it hasn’t forgotten about the high-end, performance-hungry end users out there--the FX brand is making a comeback. If you are after a gaming rig with AMD parts then the FX label is what you need to look for. The first FX product will be called "Scorpius" and combines an unlocked 8-core processor, 6000 series Radeon HD graphics card, and AMD 9-series chipset.
Sony

Submission + - Sony to end PlayStation Network Outage (ibtimes.com)

Submitted by Hkibtimes
Hkibtimes writes: Sony Corp. said it has begun restoring its online PlayStation video game network on Sunday, to end its PlayStation Network (PSN) outage since the mid April 2011 that is expected to have fully restored by the end of May. Sony today said that some PSN services — including gameplay — are expected to come back online on Sunday. The phased restoration of services will begin in the US, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and the Middle East.
Games

Submission + - Why people watch instead of play Starcraft (jeffhuang.com)

Submitted by generalepsilon
generalepsilon writes: Researchers from the University of Washington have found a key reason why Starcraft is a popular spectator sport, especially in Korea. In a paper published last week, they theorize that Starcraft incorporates 'information asymmetry', where the players and spectators each have different pieces of information, which transforms into entertainment. Sometimes spectators know something the players don't: they watch in suspense as players walk their armies into traps or a dropship sneaks behind the mineral line. Other times, players know something the spectators yearn to find out, such as 'cheese' (spectacular build orders that attempt to outplay an opponent early in the game). Rather than giving as much information as possible to spectators, it may be more crucial for game designers to decide which information to give to spectators, and when to reveal this information.
Facebook

Submission + - Facebook PR Firm Edited Its Own Wikipedia Page (shitplanet.org)

Submitted by metasonix
metasonix writes: In the midst of all this week's flap about Facebook hiring notorious PR firm Burson-Marsteller to defame Google, I discovered something else: a Burson-Marsteller employee completely rewrote the firm's Wikipedia article to remove all the negative information. He did it openly, he violated a number of Wikipedia internal policies, another Wikipedia editor helped him, and no one was the wiser.

Comment Re:Macs will be a closed platform in the end (Score 1) 517

by drkamil (#36035364) Attached to: Apple To Distribute OS X Lion via the Mac App Store
I don't quite understand why everyone is bashing apple for making it's mac line more and more user friendly. while keeping all the power users happy with the xcode ide, python/perl/ruby/gcc/vi/emacs preinstalled and several paket managers available (and a posix standard unix base), i see no problem in making some aspects more like an appliance, if you WANT you still CAN compile your applications from source.

Submission + - Samsung installs keylogger on its laptop computers (networkworld.com)

Submitted by NetSurferHI
NetSurferHI writes: Apparently Samsung thinks it is ok to capture every keystroke you type in on your Samsung laptop. From the Network World article by M. E. Kabay and Mohamed Hassan Mohamed Hassan:

"While setting up a new Samsung computer laptop with model number R525 in early February 2011, I came across an issue that mirrored what Sony BMG did six years ago. After the initial set up of the laptop, I installed licensed commercial security software and then ran a full system scan before installing any other software. The scan found two instances of a commercial keylogger called StarLogger installed on the brand new laptop. Files associated with the keylogger were found in a c:\windows\SL directory.

According to a Starlogger description, StarLogger records every keystroke made on your computer on every window, even on password protected boxes.

This key logger is completely undetectable and starts up whenever your computer starts up. See everything being typed: emails, messages, documents, web pages, usernames, passwords, and more. StarLogger can email its results at specified intervals to any email address undetected so you don't even have to be at the computer your[sic] are monitoring to get the information. The screen capture images can also be attached automatically to the emails as well as automatically deleted.

After an in-depth analysis of the laptop, my conclusion was that this software was installed by the manufacturer, Samsung. I removed the keylogger software, cleaned up the laptop, and continued using the computer. However, after experiencing problems with the video display driver, I returned that laptop to the store where I bought it and bought a higher Samsung model (R540) from another store.

Again, after the initial set up of the laptop, I found the same StarLogger software in the c:\windows\SL folder of the new laptop. The findings are false-positive proof since I have used the tool that discovered it for six years now and I am yet to see it misidentify an item throughout the years. The fact that on both models the same files were found in the same location supported the suspicion that the hardware manufacturer, Samsung, must know about this software on its brand-new laptops.

[Mich Kabay adds:]

Research online brought up a discussion of "Samsung rootkit" from May 2010 in which contributors reported a freeze on rootkit scans of Samsung laptop computers. However, no one seems to have reported a StarLogger installation as far as we have been able to determine using Web search engines.

In the next article, Mr Hassan discusses how Samsung responded to his discovery.

Submission + - Samsung plants keyloggers on laptops it makes (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
Saint Aardvark
Saint Aardvark writes: "Mohammed Hassan writes in Network World that he found a keylogger program installed on his brand-new laptop — not once, but twice. After initial denials, Samsung has admitted they did this, saying it was to "monitor the performance of the machine and to find out how it is being used." As Hassan says, "In other words, Samsung wanted to gather usage data without obtaining consent from laptop owners." Three PR officers from Samsung have so far refused comment."

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