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Submission + - Which tech company generates the most revenue? (itworld.com)

Submitted by bdking
bdking writes: We all know Apple, now the most valuable public company in the world, is a money-making machine. But did you know other tech companies generate more revenue than Apple on an annual basis (at least for now)?
Games

Submission + - Inventor of the Pinball machine dies (nytimes.com)

Submitted by porsche911
porsche911 writes: "Steve Kordek, who revolutionized the game of pinball in the 1940s by designing what became the standard two-flipper machine found in bars and penny arcades around the world, died on Sunday at a hospice in Park Ridge, Ill. He was 100."

“Steve’s impact would be comparable to D. W. Griffith moving from silent films through talkies and color and CinemaScope and 3-D with computer-generated graphics,” Mr. Sharpe said. “He moved through each era seamlessly.”"
Technology

Submission + - Zeppelins may be back (cnet.com) 2

Submitted by digitaldc
digitaldc writes: A start-up company is planning to offer tourists rides in a 250-foot zeppelin over the San Francisco Bay, Napa Valley and the Golden Gate Bridge.

Airship Ventures said Thursday that it plans to begin passenger flights in a German-made Zeppelin NT airship, to be based at NASA's Moffett Field airstrip about 40 miles south of San Francisco, in mid-2008.

Until Thursday's announcement at Esther Dyson's Flight School conference here, Airship Ventures had been in something of a stealth mode. Now it's disclosed details about the project, which will use a massive NT07 airship made by Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik that's a full 10 feet longer than the new Airbus 380.
NASA

Submission + - NASA sold PCs without wiping secret data (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Ivan Stepaniuk
Ivan Stepaniuk writes: "NASA has been left red-faced after selling off computers without ensuring that highly sensitive data had been removed." The BBC Reports An internal investigation found 10 cases where PCs were sold despite failing data removal procedures. Their report (PDF) in to the incidents says its impossible to know what data was left on the sold-off equipment. They also found dozens of PCs at a disposal facility that had external markings listing their network configuration details.

Submission + - Victims are told not to Report Fraud to the Police (findlawyerdirect.com)

Submitted by findlawyerdirect
findlawyerdirect writes: Credit card fraud is on the increase regardless of all the new security measures that have been introduced.

Credit card fraud has increased online and offline. Although financial institutions are trying to tackle the issue, there is still an alarming number of cases being reported.

Due to the number of cases, the Home Office in the UK has asked that if an individual is the victim of such a crime that they report it to the financial institution rather than the police.

The approach has received mixed responses. Amongst the responses is a view that this will in effect help the reported figures of such crime to be reduced as it will be up to the financial institutions to declare the number of offence, which they may not choose to do.

The Home Office have stated that the above approach is to allow for a much more efficient and effective way of dealing with such criminal offences.

Some have commented that it's amazing that at a time when the banks need protecting from such activity and need all the funds they can get their hands on the Home Office take this. The article really is eye opening Fraud Victims told not to bother Police
Movies

Submission + - How Hollywood Generally Gets Tech Wrong

Submitted by adeelarshad82
adeelarshad82 writes: For tech fans, feature films and TV shows are replete with laughable, forehead-smacking misrepresentations and misunderstandings of technology that we use every day. Some of these mistakes are so common that they have become conventions that filmmakers likely think they must include so the audience will understand what's going on, for instance the cell phone dial tones. In truth, conventions similar to CSI's famous infinite image zoom only serve to reinforce the bizarro rules of an alternate on-screen tech universe that is similar to our own, but oddly different.
Facebook

Submission + - Worker Rights Extend to Facebook (nytimes.com) 1

Submitted by wjousts
wjousts writes: From the NY Times:

In what labor officials and lawyers view as a ground-breaking case involving workers and social media, the National Labor Relations Board has accused a company of illegally firing an employee after she criticized her supervisor on her Facebook page.

American Medical Response of Connecticut had a policy that barred employees from depicting the company "in any way" on Facebook or other social media. The National Labor Relations Board has ruled that this policy runs afoul of the National Labor Relations Act which gives employees the right to form unions and prohibits employers from punishing workers for discussing working conditions.

Submission + - Reporter tricked captors into using Twitter (skunkpost.com)

Submitted by crimeandpunishment
crimeandpunishment writes: A kidnapper's curiosity can come in handy to a clever captive. A Japanese reporter who was released Saturday after five months of captivity in Afghanistan, today revealed how he tricked his captors into sending out a Twitter message that he was alive. Kosuke Tsuneoka says when one of the militants asked him to set up a new cellphone, he got them interested in Twitter....and when they asked him to show how it worked....."That's how I got the message out. I'm sure they never thought they were tricked".
Security

Submission + - Defense Department’s Cyberwar Credibility Ga (securityweek.com)

Submitted by wiredmikey
wiredmikey writes: Undersecretary of Defense William J. Lynn has published an essay in Foreign Affairs magazine redefining the United States’ stance towards cyberwarfare, and he’s already getting shot at – primarily by IT pundits who find it hard to believe that the incident which led to the Pentagon’s recognizing cyberspace as a new “domain of warfare” could have really happened as described.

The primary issue is that the malware involved, known as agent.btz, is neither sophisticated nor particularly dangerous. A variant of the SillyFDC worm, agent.btz can be easily defeated by disabling the Windows “autorun” feature (which automatically starts a program on a drive upon insertion) or by simply banning thumb drives. In 2007, Silly FDC was rated as Risk Level 1: Very Low, by security firm Symantec.

The question posed by Wisniewski and others is, why would a foreign intelligence agency attack the U.S. government with such a low-powered weapon? While making it clear that he has no insider knowledge of the incident, Wisniewski argues that the scenario put forth by Lynn isn’t credible. In his words, “Either it wasn’t put there by a foreign government or it wasn’t agent.btz.”
Advertising

Submission + - Retargeting Ads Stalk You for Weeks After You Shop (nytimes.com) 1

Submitted by eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: The New York Times is reporting on a new kind of web ad that takes products you were looking at purchasing on one site and continually advertises them in front of you at subsequent sites. After looking at shoes at Zappos, a mother in Montreal noticed the shoes followed her: 'For days or weeks, every site I went to seemed to be showing me ads for those shoes. It is a pretty clever marketing tool. But it’s a little creepy, especially if you don’t know what’s going on.' The spreading ploy is called 'retargeting ads' and really are just a good demonstration of how an old technology (all they use are leftover browser cookies) are truly invasive and privacy violating. Opponents are clamoring for government regulation to protect the consumer and one writer mentioned a consumer 'do not track' list — adding that retailers really show little fear of turning off customers with their invasion.

Submission + - RIM planning iPad competitor. (bloomberg.com)

Submitted by wisdom_brewing
wisdom_brewing writes: Research In Motion Ltd., maker of
the BlackBerry smartphone, plans to introduce a tablet computer
in November to compete with Apple Inc’s iPad, according to two
people familiar with the company’s plans.
          The device will have roughly the same dimensions as the
iPad, which is a 9.7-inch diagonal screen, said the two people
who wouldn’t be identified because the plans haven’t been made
public. The device will include Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless
technology that will allow people to use their BlackBerry
smartphones to connect to the Internet, the two people said.
Privacy

Submission + - Google Demands Phone Number for All Registrations (uswgo.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: We have now discovered after receiving complaints and reports from both the silenced YouTube activist and other sources that YouTube now requires all future Google and YouTube registrant users to verify their accounts via SMS or Voice Call....This is one step closer to a police state internet where just to get on the internet you'll be required to give out your drivers license identification maybe even your license plate number...

This also means that if you get your account suspended by YouTube or post a lot of controversial political videos you would either have to own a lot of phone numbers, cell phones, or have to resort to identity theft just to get back on YouTube. This is alarming now that YouTube is forcing all future users to tie their cell phone numbers or regular traceable phone numbers to their online accounts.

If you don't want to live in a police state I suggest boycott Google after calling them and telling them that until they stop the SMS verification or make it optional that you won't ever use a Google product or else one day Google may require a Social Security Number just to use an account....

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