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Businesses

Submission + - Dell lays off 200 at small-town call center

Submitted by
mr_josh
mr_josh writes: "Dell closed its Roseburg, OR call center this morning, giving its employees less than 24 hours notice. FTFA:

"They've already had all of our checks cut," said another employee, Travis Dominguez. "They knew the whole thing was coming and everything."

Roseburg is a small (about 25,000 people) timber town in southern Oregon, and it was a pretty big deal when this call center opened in 2002. They were given huge property tax incentives at the time of their opening, and those incentives are about to run out. Also, some employees from the call center put together a lawsuit several months ago, "claiming Dell violated federal and state wage and hour laws."

Coincidence?

http://www.newsreview.info/article/20070802/NEWS/7 0802014"
Media

Submission + - Michael Moore, CNN Spat over SiCKO

Submitted by
em8chel
em8chel writes: "In response to Moore's open letter in which he accuses CNN of false reporting and further questions CNN's journalistic integrity, CNN releases a statement retorting Moore was comparing apple to orange in his data selection for SiCKO, and is now starting a row only to seek publicity. In the statement, CNN also responds to specific points Moore lays out on his Checkup on the Facts page."
Biotech

Submission + - Autism Reversed at MIT Lab (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by
ClayTapes
ClayTapes writes: "It seems that scientists at MIT have been able to reverse the effects of autism and some forms of mental retardation in mice caused by fregile X chromosomes. They do so by targetting an enzyme that changes the structure of connections between brain cells. The treatment actually repairs these structural abnormalities which suggests that it may be possible to reverse the effects in children who already show symptoms. Article here."
The Courts

Submission + - Anti-Piracy Outfit Tries to Shut Down Demonoid

Submitted by
Ernesto
Ernesto writes: "The Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN filed a lawsuit against Demonoid's ISP Leaseweb in which they demand that the site will be taken offline.

This the the fist time that BREIN takes on one of the bigger BitTorrent sites. Last week they won a lawsuit against Leaseweb in a similar case. In this case the Amsterdam court decided that Leaseweb had to take down the BitTorrent site everlasting.nu and hand over the name and address of the owner. Additionally, Leaseweb was forced to take down everlasting.nu, in case the site returns in the near future."
United States

Submission + - Stanford gears up for robot race

Submitted by nght2000
nght2000 writes: The Stanford Racing Team displayed their entry for the DARPA Urban Challenge this past weekend. The story was reported in the Palo Alto Daily News. The DARPA Urban Challenge features autonomous ground vehicles conducting simulated military supply missions in a mock urban area. Safe operation in traffic is essential to U.S. military plans to use autonomous ground vehicles to conduct important missions. The vehicle, a 2006 diesel powered Passat named Junior, was donated by Volkswagen of America. Volkswagen's Electronics Research Laboratory in Palo Alto, California is once again joining the Stanford Team by providing vehicle support, modification and testing. This year the team is being sponsored by no less than Google, Intel, Red Bull and others. Stanford won the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge with their Volkswagen Touareg robot named Stanley. The Urban Challenge is scheduled to be held at an undisclosed location on November 3, 2007.
United States

Submission + - Stanford gears up for robot race

Submitted by nght2000
nght2000 writes: The Stanford Racing Team displayed their entry for the DARPA Urban Challenge this past weekend. The DARPA Urban Challenge features autonomous ground vehicles conducting simulated military supply missions in a mock urban area. Safe operation in traffic is essential to U.S. military plans to use autonomous ground vehicles to conduct important missions. The vehicle, a 2006 diesel powered Passat named Junior, was donated by Volkswagen of America. Volkswagen's Electronics Research Laboratory in Palo Alto, California is once again joining the Stanford Team by providing vehicle support, modification and testing. This year the team is being sponsored by no less than Google, Intel, Red Bull and others. Stanford won the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge with their Volkswagen Touareg robot named Stanley. The Urban Challenge is scheduled to be held at an undisclosed location on November 3, 2007.
Businesses

Submission + - Does not having signed an NDA give any leverage?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: For the past few months, I've worked with a startup developing a new technology that could be of interest to many different sectors when market ready. Despite the fact that the company is well funded, I have yet to be paid, and the issue will likely soon come to a head. Through a combination of circumstance and oversight, I also happen to be the only employee at the company who has not signed a non-disclosure agreement, despite having full access to the technology at hand. Does this give me any discernible leverage in getting the money that is owed to me?
Power

Submission + - Worlds Largest Wave Farm

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/6377423.stm is reporting that the Scottish Executive has announced funding for a project to create what will be the worlds largest wave farm.
The location off Orkney has been used to test the Pelamis device in the past and is now to be the location for commercial testing. It is estimated that waters off Scotland could provide 25% of the wave power available to Europe
Security

Submission + - Google Maps used to locate phishing victims

Submitted by Damon Hastings
Damon Hastings writes: http://www.techworld.com/security/news/index.cfm?n ewsID=8077

Okay, the story here is that it is once again possible to download a trojan merely by visiting a web page. All articles I've found have unfortunately focused on a single exploit of this vulnerability, and thus the articles are nearly irrelevant. The vulnerability is what matters. If it isn't patched soon, you could see millions of infections from more creative exploits in the very near future. If any hacker is able to smuggle the trojan onto even a single major website, he could net millions of victims.

Does anyone know which vulnerability is being used? Or what browser(s) are affected? Is it just Internet Explorer 6? IE7? How long has Microsoft known about this vulnerability, and when will they fix it (or have they already?) I can't find any useful articles on the net — they're all just clones of this one.

The Google maps bit is of course completely irrelevant — the ability to map IP addresses to physical locations has been widely and publicly available since before Google existed. Google has no culpability here, despite the misleading reporting done by the major news agencies.
PlayStation (Games)

Submission + - PS3 Firmware Version Check Circumvented

Submitted by
Chouonsoku
Chouonsoku writes: "Before yesterday, PlayStation 3 owners had to be running the latest system firmware in order to access the PlayStation Network. The PlayStation Network allows users to play their games online, download demos, trailers and add-ons for their games. However, with a simple DNS request redirection, the firmware check becomes null and void, allowing users to access the PlayStation Network from any firmware, up-to-date or not."
Space

Submission + - Temp. difference observed between Sun's poles

Submitted by ATestR
ATestR writes: From the Article (science.nasa.gov), one pole of the sun is cooler than the other. That's the surprising conclusion announced today by scientists who have been analyzing data from the ESA-NASA Ulysses spacecraft.

Measurements of the Northern Solar pole taken by Ulysses in 1994 and 1995 observed a temperature difference of 7 — 8 percent from the recent measurements taken of the Southern pole. Since the average Solar temperature has been measured to be constant during this twelve year period, the scientists invovled with the project are scratching their heads over the difference.
Censorship

Submission + - Saudi Free Speech Campaign Goes Online

Submitted by
cultrhetor
cultrhetor writes: "Following the arrest of ten Saudi activists involved in circulating a petition in favor of protecting freedom of expression, fellow reform advocates have posted the petition online, according to a BBC news article posted today. According to the article, By placing their petition on the internet, the Saudi activists are taking an enormous risk. From the article:

The petition calls for elections in which both men and women would be allowed to vote.
The signatories want freedom of expression to be protected by law and they want the powers of the interior ministry curtailed.
But the Saudi authorities have made it clear they will not tolerate public calls for political change.
What do you think? Can the Internet be use effectively to change policy in truly authoritarian governments?"
Operating Systems

Submission + - The Open Source in Mac OS X Server

Submitted by DECS
DECS writes: Apple has used open source to rapidly build a server business after its previous efforts fell flat in the mid 90s. Open Source in Mac OS X Server explains how Apple balances its commercial and open developments, why the criticism of Apple's Darwin project is inevitable, and how open source has fueled rapid progress in five versions of Mac OS X Server.

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