zot o'connor - Slashdot User

Submission + - Commercial green fuel from algae still years away (reuters.com)

Submitted by

chrnb

on Saturday October 10, 2009 @04:56PM

chrnb writes: "SAN DIEGO (Reuters) — Filling your vehicle's tank with fuel made from algae is still as much as a decade away, as the emerging industry faces a series of hurdles to find an economical way to make the biofuel commercially.
Estimates on a timeline for a commercial product, and profits, vary from two to 10 years or more."

Submission + - Apple customers: Time Capsule has a high fail rate (engadget.com)

Submitted by mantis2009 on Tuesday October 06, 2009 @10:30PM

mantis2009 writes: Engadget reports on a hot topic in Apple's official support forum, where dozens of Time Capsule NAS users are reporting that their units died after only 18 months. Many are upset that 18 months is far too short a lifespan for an expensive backup solution, but that is also enough time to exhaust Apple's one-year manufacturer's warranty. Several users are livid that Apple charges some $420 to replace the product — but only if the original hard disk is sent to the service center. Speculation that the failures are caused by faulty power supplies might explain why the units appear to suddenly refuse to power up at all. There is so far no word from Apple on a recall.

Submission + - Google confirms, downplays Gmail phishing attack (computerworld.com)

Submitted by CWmike on Tuesday October 06, 2009 @05:37PM

CWmike writes: Google confirmed today that passwords for its free Gmail online e-mail service had been harvested by hackers, but downplayed the phishing attack as involving just a "small number" of accounts. Earlier Tuesday, the BBC reported that both Gmail and Yahoo Mail had been targeted by a large-scale identity theft scam, perhaps the same one that collected between 10,000 and 20,000 passwords from those services as well as from Microsoft's Windows Live Hotmail, Comcast, Earthlink and others. "We recently became aware of a phishing scheme through which hackers gained user credentials for Web-based mail accounts including a small number of Gmail accounts," a Google spokesman confirmed today in a reply to questions from Computerworld. "As soon as we learned of the attack, we forced password resets on the affected accounts. We will continue to force password resets on additional accounts if we become aware of them." Like Microsoft on Monday, Google today denied that Gmail had been hacked, and Gmail usernames and passwords stolen because of a lapse on its end. "This was not a Gmail security issue, but rather a phishing scheme," said the Google spokesman.

Submission + - Jolt Cola filing for Bankruptcy

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 05, 2009 @09:58PM

An anonymous reader writes: Jolt Cola (featured in Hackers the movie..) is filing for bankruptcy
after promising to order 90 mil. sodacans from Rexam between -07 and -09 and so far have only
ordered 27 mil. cans.

Company might be saved if people get riled up and start mass-ordering jolt cola.. Save jolt!

Do Retailers Often Screen User Reviews? 454

Posted by Soulskill on Sunday October 04, 2009 @11:14AM from the four-and-a-half-stars dept.

Mechanist.tm writes "I recently purchased a NAS from a well-known online computer component shop. I have purchased several items from the website and have never had much trouble before. That was until I realized what I had bought was a terrible NAS. All the reviews on the site from users seemed very good. After a little research, it became clear that the product in question was indeed terrible. After finding the product pretty much useless for its intended purpose, I proceeded to write a review for it on the website to inform other would-be buyers. After about a week, I noticed that the review never made it up there, so I wrote another one just in case. After several attempts to leave a negative review for the product, I realized that the website was screening reviews and only posting the ones that made the products look good. All the reviews on the website are positive; I've only found one at less than 3 out of 5 stars. Is this legal? Ethically speaking, it's wrong, and it's intentionally misleading to the customer. Is there a good place to report behavior like this? How common is this among online retailers who provide user reviews?"

Miniature Stonehenge Discovered In Wiltshire, UK 152

Posted by kdawson on Sunday October 04, 2009 @01:23AM from the druids-at-work-and-play dept.

CmdrGravy weighs in with exciting archaeological news, "one of the most important prehistoric finds in decades" according to the article: a miniature Stonehenge a mile from the famous site. "Bluehenge," as the find is being called because of the assumed color of its (now-missing) stones, is believed to have been put up around the time of Stonehenge, 5,000 years ago. "All that remains of the 60-ft.-wide Bluehenge are the holes of 27 giant stones set on a ramped mount. Chips of blue stone found in the holes appear to be identical to the blue stones used in Stonehenge. The four-ton monsters, made of Preseli Spotted Dolerite — a chemically altered igneous rock harder than granite — were mined in the Preseli Mountains in Pembrokeshire and then rolled, dragged, and floated the 200 miles to the site on the banks of the Avon in Wiltshire."

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