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Blackberry

New RIM Streaming Music: $5 For 50 Songs? 149

Posted by Soulskill from the opinions-are-like-music-services dept.
jfruhlinger writes with news that Research In Motion will soon jump into the music service market. The service will be available through BlackBerry Messenger, and will offer users 50 songs for $5/month, which they can then share with other people who own BlackBerries. "So why would anyone pay $5 a month to get 50 songs on their phone, when they can pay $10 a month and get an unlimited number of songs, that work on lots of different devices, from services like Rdio and Rhapsody? Reasonable question! But RIM seems to be assuming that its subscribers won’t ask. Instead it is playing up the notion that BBM Music will be about 'personalizing' your phone, in the same way that ringtones supposedly did a decade ago. Ringtones, as you’ll recall, let buyers play a few seconds of a song, and sold for a couple bucks, while full songs from Apple’s iTunes went for 99 cents. And for a few years, the music companies and the wireless carriers sold lots and lots of ringtones."
Security

Fired IT Worker Replaces CEO's Presentation With Porn 316

Posted by samzenpus from the best-meeting-ever dept.
An anonymous reader writes "52-year-old Walter Powell wanted revenge when he was fired from his position as an IT manager at Baltimore Substance Abuse System Inc. So, he hacked into their systems — installing keyloggers to steal passwords. Then, when his CEO was giving a presentation to the board of directors he replaced the slides with pornographic images. Powell has now been given a 2 year suspended sentence, and 100 hours community service."
Wireless Networking

GSM Association Slams Euro Call For Ban On Wireless In School 271

Posted by Soulskill from the don't-cloud-this-issue-with-facts dept.
jhernik writes "The ongoing debate over the supposed dangers posed by mobile phone usage and wireless signals has exploded once again. An influential European committee has called for a ban on mobile phones and Wi-Fi networks in schools – the GSM Association has denounced the report as an 'unbalanced political assessment, not a scientific report.' The report made its recommendation to reduce mobile and wireless use in schools, despite admitting that there is a lack of clear scientific and clinical proof. However, it said the lack of proof was reason enough to restrict use, just in case, comparing mobile phone radiation to other things whose dangers were once unknown, such as asbestos, leaded petrol and tobacco."

Comment Microsoft has always dealt with bugs as a PR issue (Score 1) 100

by Black Art (#36050732) Attached to: Does Microsoft Need Bug Bounties?

Since Microsoft has a habit of ignoring the issues that get reported without a bounty, I don't see how adding one would improve the issue.

One of the reasons for Full Disclosure is to pressure companies that think of security vulnerabilities as a PR problem instead of an urgent technical issue. If the first reaction you get from a company is "this only effects a small handful of users" then they are trying to patch through spin instead of fixing the problem. Microsoft is not the only one that does this, but they have been one of the biggest offenders.

BTW, "this only effects a small handful of users" has been used by Microsoft so many times that they have grounds to trademark the phrase.

Comment Re:Rainbow Dash (Score 2) 141

by Black Art (#36028268) Attached to: Intel Designs Faster, 3D Transistor

If it uses 50% less power, it will be cooler. The Atom processors generate very little heat compared with the more power-hungry Xeon and Core Duo chipsets.

Intel has become very aware of power usage as well as heat. The days of the room heating CPU are hopefully behind us.
Democrats

Senator Wants to Tax Internet Shopping 705

Posted by CmdrTaco from the diapers-are-expensive dept.
tripleevenfall writes "A Democratic senator is preparing to introduce legislation that aims to end the golden era of tax-free Internet shopping. The proposal — expected to be made public soon after Tax Day — would rewrite the ground rules for Internet and mail order sales by eliminating the ability of Americans to shop at Web sites like Amazon.com and Overstock.com without paying state sales taxes."
Government

Submission + - Government Transparency Sites Face Chopping Block (sunlightfoundation.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Congress is quietly proposing to eliminate the funding for a slew of websites that allow citizens to keep government accountable. As part of the frantic budget cutting the electronic government fund would be slashed from $34 million to $2 million. Sites such as Data.gov, USASpending.gov and the IT Dashboard [http://it.usaspending.gov] would be immediately crippled and be forced to shutdown in a matter of months. The provision to cut these programs began with House Republicans and was recently re-introduced by Senate Democrats.

The most recent developments indicate the situation is quite dire. Funding will run out for many of these projects on April 20th and put valuable data back into the shadows. Journalists who depend on this data will lose access, citizens will not be able to examine the government's activities and all tools built on the data will break. The Sunlight Foundation fights to improve government transparency and if these cuts go through, the public will be denied the vital resources many members of Congress have previously championed.

Submission + - Film Company Suing 5,865 Downloaders Has Problem (hollywoodreporter.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: According to The Hollywood Reporter
Camelot Entertainment Group has hopped onto the mass-suing bandwagon by targeting 5,865 alleged downloaders of the B-movie revenge flick Nude Nuns with Big Guns. But the company might not even own the film. Lawsuit filed after Camelot defaulted on loan, and had its films seized, raising possibility that one of the largest copyright lawsuits in California history was made over a title outside the plaintiff's actual domain.

Comment Tablets will replace netbooks (Score 1) 643

by Black Art (#35669140) Attached to: MS Global Strategy Chief: Tablets Are a Fad

Tablets serve the same niche that netbooks do. A smaller machine that is more portable than a laptop or desktop that handles tasks that are needed while traveling or away from your more permanent machine. Also something that is not as expensive as your laptop and won't be as painful if lost or stolen.

There seems to be an assumption by the industry that people want to own just one machine that does everything. What is happening is that they own multiple devices that may or may not share similar tasks, but have different levels of portability. You may have one device that stays at home and one that you take on the bus to work with you. Another may be just for long trips. The hard part is not the form factor, but getting those devices to share data in a transparent and secure manner.

Another reason that Microsoft may be grousing about tablets is it breaks the usage model for Windows. Most windows software wants at least a two button mouse. Click for select and right click for context menus. With a tablet you have no right or left mouse buttons so you have to come up with replacements for those actions. Apple has an easier time converting because they were mostly one button instead of two. (And X windows users have three buttons to contend with. (Though two are just cut and paste.))

I expect that tablets will almost entirely replace the netbook market by 2015. By then the OS issues will be worked out and they will "just work".

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