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Comment Updated (Score 1) 646

by bkerensa (#41425145) Attached to: Ubuntu Will Now Have Amazon Ads Pre-Installed
I wanted to note that I updated my blog and linked to a screenshot of one user who searched for "Amazon Kindle Fire" the suggestions/ads whatever you would like to call them have only been showing up for some even if you have the latest unity-lens-shopping package.
Ubuntu

Submission + - FUD over Amazon Ads in Ubuntu 12.10 Should Be Ignored (benjaminkerensa.com)

Submitted by bkerensa
bkerensa writes: The recent FUD over Amazon Ads coming to Ubuntu 12.10 should be ignored because in reality ads will not be found in 12.10 unless you are seeing them on a third party website you go to in a web browser.

The Unity Shopping Lens is hardly an advertisement but instead is a suggestion engine and very unobtrusive at that.
Privacy

Submission + - Ubuntu Will Now Have Amazon Ads Pre-installed 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Scheduled to be released next month, Ubuntu 12.10 now includes both amazon ads in the user's dash and by default an amazon store in the user's launcher. The reason for these "features"? Affiliate revenue. Despite previous controversies with Banshee and Yahoo, Canonical is "confident it will be an interesting and useful feature for
our 12.10 users." But are the "users" becoming products?
Space

Submission + - Coronal Loop Analog Created in Caltech Laboratory (discovery.com)

Submitted by
astroengine
astroengine writes: "With the help of a vacuum chamber, electromagnet, plasma injection gun and a high-voltage supply, researchers from Caltech have created — for a split second — their very own coronal loop analog. Coronal loops are found in the lower atmosphere of the sun and are often the sites of flaring events. By creating a micro version of these plasma-filled loops in the lab, it is hoped space weather prediction models can be refined to better understand the magnetic environment. Already the research is proving fruitful — the researchers have observed two forces at work as the plasma loop expands, filling with plasma from both footpoints. "One force expands the arch radius and so lengthens the loop while the other continuously injects plasma from both ends into the loop," Paul Bellan, professor of applied physics at Caltech, explained. "This latter force injects just the right amount of plasma to keep the density in the loop constant as it lengthens." Next up will be a test to see how two plasma loops interact in close vicinity."

Submission + - Samsung to invest $4 Billion in America (redorbit.com)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: Samsung, the conglomerate from Korea, is to invest $4 Billion in the United States of America

The $4 Billion investment is to be used on remodelling a chip fabrication plant in Austin, Texas

The work for the remodelling starts August 2012, and is to be completed within the second half of 2013

About 2,500 construction workers and equipment vendors will be at the site to retrofit the facility and set up the equipment, Samsung revealed

The company's total investment in Samsung Austin Semiconductor since 1996 will exceed US$13 billion

Additional information can be had on http://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/2012/08/21/samsung-electronics-plans-4-billion-investment-in-austin-chipmaking-plant/ and also http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20120822PR200.html

Submission + - Canon's New BlackBerry Smartphone Printing and Scanning Aps (inkjetsuperstore.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: LAKE SUCCESS, N.Y., July 16, 2012 – In response to the increase of mobile devices in the workforce and the demand for print and scan capability from device users, Canon U.S.A., Inc., a leader in digital imaging solutions, today announced the availability of the Canon Direct Print and Scan for Mobile application for BlackBerry® smartphones. This application provides BlackBerry smartphone users with a mobile print and scan solution that easily integrates their BlackBerry smartphones with their Canon imageRUNNER and imageRUNNER ADVANCE systems1.
Idle

Submission + - Sea Chair Project harvests plastic from the oceans to create furniture (gizmag.com) 2

Submitted by cylonlover
cylonlover writes: You may have heard about the huge floating islands of garbage swirling around in the middle of the Earth's oceans. Much of that waterlogged rubbish is made up of plastic and, like Electrolux with its concept vacuum cleaners, U.K.-based Studio Swine and Kieren Jones are looking to put that waste to good use. As part of an ambitious project, they’ve come up with a system to collect plastic debris and convert it into furniture. Rather than collecting plastic that washes ashore or is snagged as by-catch in fishing nets, the team hopes to one day go where the trash is, collect and convert it to something useful while still at sea. Sea Chair envisions adapting fishing boats into floating chair factories that trawl for plastic and put it into production on-board.
Cloud

Submission + - Why Netflix, Instagram and Pinterest could have avoided downtime (benjaminkerensa.com)

Submitted by bkerensa
bkerensa writes: If you were at staying at home last night trying to enjoy a wholesome show or movie on Netflix or perhaps you were out snapping photos with Instagram that you might later share on Pinterest then you would have quickly found out that all three services were down for a couple of hours due to an electrical storm
Bug

Submission + - Leapsecond is here! Are your systems ready or going to crash? (redhat.com) 1

Submitted by Tmack
Tmack writes: The last time we had a leapsecond, sysadmins were taken a bit by surprise when a random smattering of systems locked up (including Slashdot itself) due to a kernel bug causing a race condition specific to the way leapseconds are handled/notified by ntp. The vulnerable kernel versions (prior to 2.6.29) are still common amongst older versions of popular distributions (Debian Lenny, RHEL/Centos 5) and embeded/black-box style appliances (Switches, load balancers, spam filters/email gateways, NAS devices, etc). Several vendors have released patches and bulletins about the possibility of a repeat of last time. Are you/your team/company ready? Are you upgraded or are you going to bypass this by simply turning off NTP for the weekend?

Submission + - Is Yahoo email having trouble?

Submitted by Pepebuho
Pepebuho writes: Scripts are not working with Yahoo
The mail app scripts are not working from Firefox.
-That is I cannot see more than the intital emails on the inbox.
-If I want to select all messages, I cannot click on the box on the headings line
-I cannot interact with a selected message (reply, forward, spam, etc.) those buttons are dead.
etc.etc.
If you go to the help screen, the scripts ot the Form for asking for help are not working for any browser. I tried Explorer, firefox, Chrome and nothing, they are all dead.

Is it happening to someone else?

I already cleaned the cache, disabled all plugins etc. and the result is the same. Did mozilla pass an update (now that updates are silent) that broke things up? My Firefox says 13.0.1
Programming

Submission + - An online PCRE regular expression testing tool (pcreck.com)

Submitted by
kandi3
kandi3 writes: "Writing regular expressions could be simplified by the ability to test a pattern on a real subject as it's being written. I've often wished for a nice tool for testing PCRE regular expressions I write for use in C, Lua, Perl, or whatever it may be, but there seemed to be none that were as usable as, for example, Ruby's Rubular.

PCREck is an open-source online tool that's equipped with a live, real-time pattern editor and a handy cheat sheet compiled off of the huge PCRE "man" page. The editor supports match highlighting, a view of captured subpatterns, and (inline) pattern compilation flags."
Apple

Submission + - iTunes credit; how can I get a partial refund or credit note? 1

Submitted by Keith_Beef
Keith_Beef writes: Imagine you went to a big department store and bought a pair of running shoes. You went home, and the following day got invited to a wedding. You realise your money would have been better spent on a pair of dress shoes, so take back the unworn running shoes. The store manager is happy to give you a credit not so you can buy the dress shoes, of course. After all, he still gets to sell you what you want, and he gets your money. Both you and the store manager are happy.

My young son made a mistake... Thinking he could use iTunes gift cards to purchase an iPad, he put the iTunes Gift Cards he had received as gifts into his iTunes account and then took all his cash savings down to CVS to buy more cards and put those into his account, too, to a total of $427.

Well, Apple won't allow you to use iTunes money to buy hardware, as we discovered. So I contacted iTunes Support at Apple to explain the situation, and ask how to organise a refund of the $427 so my son could buy the iPad.

Like the department store analogy: Apple had a chance there to keep my son happy, impress me with its customer service, make a device sale that would lead to future sales of apps, music and videos, and generally do the right thing by its customers.

So do you think Apple has been understanding and helpful? Not one bit. I even offered to accept a partial credit of $327, leaving $100 in the iTunes account for him to spend later. Apple doesn't want to help.

iTunes Support at Apple has refused to budge one iota: the response from the outset has been "iTunes credit is for the iTunes store; it cannot be used to buy hardware; there are no refunds". I managed to get the case escalated one level, but the person who has it now and who describes herself as "Senior Advisor iTunes Store/Mac App Store Customer Support" is not being helpful and is now refusing to escalate to a higher level. Here are two statements from her last email to me.

"My supervisor is the entity of Apple as a whole and therefore, I am here to help you directly. I am the end of the line for this matter."

"no further information pertaining to the issue is available, I do apologize however any further correspondence regarding the issue will not be addressed."

And just to put a cherry on top, she ends with this.

"Your experience is very important to us and we truly appreciate your continued devotion to the iTunes Store. Have a wonderful day."

Apple's left hand (iTunes store) apparently cannot talk to its right hand (the iPad and Mac store), even though the left hand and right hand need each other.

What I'm asking for here on Slashdot is for any advice on how to proceed, or for examples or links to stories about people having successfully persuaded Apple or another big corporation to take a more customer-friendly approach.

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