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PC Games (Games)

Submission + - World Of Warcraft Visa Cards, apply today

Submitted by gblackwo
gblackwo writes: The notion of "frequent gamer rewards" has been tossed around by trend specialists and pundits (like MAKE Magazine's Philip Torrone) for some time now as online gaming becomes more and more profitable and increasingly entrenched in mainstream culture. Now, it's a reality with the World of Warcraft Visa credit card. — Crave.CNET.com Today the gap between virtual currency and real currency just got smaller.
Java

Sun Completes Java Core Tech Open-Sourcing 141

Posted by Zonk from the the-beans-are-gratis dept.
MsManhattan writes "A year after announcing its plans, Sun Microsystems has made almost all of the core technology in Java available as open-source software under the GNU general public license version 2 (GPLv2). However, some of the code remains 'encumbered'; that is, Sun doesn't have sufficient rights to release it under GPLv2, and the company is requesting the open-source community's help in resolving these issues. Rich Sands, community marketing manager for OpenJDK community at Sun, would not say what percentage of Java's 6.5 million lines of code are encumbered, but explained that it is largely Java 2D graphics technology, such as font and graphics rasterizing."
Biotech

Submission + - World's First: One Trillion Pixel Image

Submitted by entrepreneur.md
entrepreneur.md writes: Medgadget.com is reporting on the world's first tetrapixel image developed by the leader in digital pathology technologies, Aperio Inc. Even more impressive than this trillion pixel image of breast cancer tissue, is the fact that Aperio has made an unprecedented move when it opened its brand new digital pathology imaging file format to the open source software community!
Security

Submission + - 22000 SSN's stolen from Univ. of Missouri Database

Submitted by Anonymous UM Employee
Anonymous UM Employee writes: 22000 records containing Social Security numbers have been stolen from a database at the University of Missouri. The records affected were of employees employed at any UM campus in 2004 and who had attended the University of Missouri — Columbia as students at any time before that. The compromised database was one used by IT services for tracking help desk quality. See the Press Release or the IT Services QA page for more details. This was the letter that I received:
Dear University of Missouri Employee:
A University of Missouri database was breached beginning May 3, compromising more than 22,000 names and social security numbers. Those affected include employees of any campus within the UM system during calendar year 2004 who were also current or former students at the Columbia campus.
Of those employees affected, nearly 9,000 are still employed by the University of Missouri. These employees will receive an individual e-mail outlining the specifics of the incident along with detailed instructions about how to proceed. Emails to affected employees have already been sent. If you did not already receive a separate email, you are not one of the employees affected and no further action is required.
The University of Missouri is committed to protecting the confidentiality of all employee information. A recent project has been in progress to remove social security numbers from university databases in an effort to avoid such breaches of confidentiality. As this extensive process continues, please be advised the university is doing everything possible to ensure the safety of its data.
For more information about the security breach, please access the Computer Security Web page that includes a question-and-answer section regarding the event at http://doit.missouri.edu/computersecurity.
Slashdot.org

Submission + - Percent of Spam Content in Slashdot RSS Firehose

Submitted by
bubblah
bubblah writes: "We signed up for the Slashdot fire hose about a week or so back and it is bringing to mind the vast amount of things submitted to Slashdot that just don't make sense. There is a large amount of spam, fly by night, ooh look at me, religious items that are submitted, and stand little chance of making it into the system. Story located here http://techwag.com/index.php/2007/05/07/rss-feed-o verload-the-slashdot-fire-hose/"
Power

Submission + - Scientists look to the jet stream for power

Submitted by
Aviran
Aviran writes: "Scientists are eyeing the jet stream, an energy source that rages night and day, 365 days a year, just a few miles above our heads. If they can tap into its fierce winds, the world's entire electrical needs could be met, they say. Dozens of researchers in California and around the world believe huge kite-like wind-power generators could be the solution. As bizarre as that might seem, respected experts say the idea is sound enough to justify further investigation."
Security

Submission + - Are New TLDs A Solution to Phishing?

Submitted by
c0uchw4rrior
c0uchw4rrior writes: "SecureWorks researcher Ben Feinstein has posted a detailed rebuttal to F-Secure's .bank TLD proposal.

Feinstein doesn't believe the creation of a new TLD will have the desired impact of decreasing phishing. "When it comes to phishing, confusion is the key to success. A new TLD will simply add to the confusion. Regardless, the phishers don't currently see any need to use the same TLDs as the banks anyway. Their phishing URL simply has to look "close enough" for at least one person to be fooled. [...] If a .bank TLD is created, I'd predict wide spread phishing attacks using announcements of new .bank sites from the financial institutions. In fact, financial institutions would be adding to the confusion if they announce their move to the .bank TLD via email to their customers. It will be difficult to distinguish the legitimate announcements from the phishing attempts. Other attempts at confusing the user would involve the use of JavaScript or browser exploits that set or obscure status bars and hyperlink mouse-overs to display a .bank TLD.""
NASA

Submission + - Sibling Competition for Humanity's Colonization

Submitted by
nlhouser
nlhouser writes: "Over the years, since the first thought of living on another planet crossed the minds of humanity on Earth, comparison studies have been gathered on a minute-by-minute basis on an international level. Where do we want to live for a safe environment, which has better living conditions that would benefit us, which would advance our evolution better to its highest realm, which would be more dangerous for us and our home planet, and which would be the closest to still work with Earth? And in all actuality, does it all really matteras the more we study outer space, the more we find out about our own planet here on Earth while taking that same technology to improve it."
Sony

Submission + - Sony Must Lower Price Of PS3, Says Lazard

Submitted by
Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward writes: "Colin Sebastian of Lazard Capital Markets is insisting that Sony must lower the price of it's next-gen console, Playstation 3, if the company is to profit at all during the fourth quarter of 2007. In addition, Sebastian also noted the presence of a stronger software line-up was crucial in boosting sales of the console."
NASA

Submission + - "Digging Moon Dirt" for $250,000-Want a Jo

Submitted by
nlhouser
nlhouser writes: "How would it feel to be paid a huge pile of money to move a huge pile of simulated moon soil by using an autonomously operating system? Teams from Rancho Palos Verdes, California; Livermore, California; Berkeley, California; Fulks Run, Virginia; Rolla, MO; Berkley, Michigan, Milwaukee; Vancouver and British Columbia, have all registered to find out."
Security

Submission + - Are cell phones zapping 911 emergency services?

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "A number of stories from across the country coupled with new research on the subject indicates that cell phones are increasingly bedeviling emergency first-responders and the country's 911 system is suffering. For example The Journal News in New York tells of a 911 glitch that almost cost a 71-year-old woman sinking in a creek near the Hudson River her life. That's because an emergency cell phone call went got bounced around to a number of cell towers before some one local could respond to the situation... And to top it all off a new study on 911 and cell phone effectiveness gives the technology a failing grade. http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/1495 5"
The Internet

Submission + - A skeptical look at Digg and the revolt

Submitted by
antidigg
antidigg writes: "From a blog giving an alterate view on Digg, Digg users are its value. Its actual technology and website can easily be cloned (as seen in open source versions like pligg) and is already duplicated by big sites like Netscape. This is all stating the obvious and proven. So when Digg comes out and says they are "behind their users", be skeptical. The truth about Digg is they are always behind their users because that's the only position they can be in."
IBM

Submission + - IBM to layoff half of Global Services division

Submitted by Rolgar
Rolgar writes: Cringely says that IBM has begun massive layoffs in a quiet manner, starting with 1300 employees, but by the end of the year, the total will rise to at least 100,000 and probably closer to 150,000 employees, nearly 40% of their U.S. workforce. Some people will be temporarily retained as contractors at a fraction of their salary, and eventually, IBM will also dump many of the unprofitable customer contracts worked on by Global Services or outsource the work to Asia. If these people are looking for work, that could seriously drop wages for technical workers in the US since they will have to compete with these people for available jobs.

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