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Comment my company just switched from XP (Score 1) 727

by KernelMuncher (#41729605) Attached to: Microsoft Urges Businesses To Get Off XP
I work in finance and our company just made the transition from XP to 7 this summer. And that only happened because we were upgrading our hardware which happens every 3 or 4 years. As to the ancient machines being discussed in the thread that are still running XP, I'd be worried about the hard drives going bad. Forget the OS, the hardware doesn't last forever !
Moon

Submission + - NASA to Build Manned Space Station Beyond the Moon? (gizmag.com)

Submitted by Zothecula
Zothecula writes: After forty years of venturing no farther than low Earth orbit, NASA may have decided to establish a manned outpost at a greater distance than humanity has ever traveled before. According to documents seen by the Orlando Sentinel, NASA has chosen a proposal to build a space station beyond the Moon that will act as a “gateway spacecraft” to explore the Moon, the asteroids and eventually as a staging post to launch a manned mission to Mars.
Government

Submission + - Published Threat Intelligence, Not Cybersecurity Laws, Is What's Needed (threatpost.com)

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: For several years now, Congress has been wandering around the wilderness, trying to figure out why so much of America's intellectual property is being sucked into a giant vortex somewhere over Asia and whether they should do something to stop it, like maybe pass a cybersecurity law. They've taken innumerable swings at it, and struck out every time, with the two parties unable to agree on what needs to be in a cybersecurity bill and what entities should be covered by it. Now Congress is in recess and it looks less and less likely that anything will be passed before the end of the session. And, for once, we all should be thankful for our lawmakers' inability to act.

Congress is good at several things. It's good at acting in its own interest. It's good at posturing and showboating. And it's good at taking nice, long breaks. What it's not good at is understanding the Internet or acting swiftly and decisively. The current cybersecurity legislation mess is the perfect combination of those two factors. Corporations and government agencies in the U.S. have been getting their heads handed to them by attackers from around the world for several years now. Long-term, persistent campaigns have been targeting defense contractors, energy and utility companies, manufacturing firms and government agencies with an alarming rate of success.

But Congress, or at least some members of it, don't seem to understand that. Sen. Joseph Lieberman sent a letter Monday to President Obama, comparing the threat to U.S. networks from foreign attackers to the threat from terrorists before 9/11. He then urged the president to use his executive authority to somehow influence the situation.

Let's be clear: If the companies that own and operate critical infrastructure--not to mention defense contractors--don't understand the nature of the threat they're facing at this point, no amount of incentives is going to change that. Neither Congress nor the president can fix this problem with the kinds of solutions they're considering.

The one thing that could truly make a difference is a major change in the way that threat intelligence is handled.
Apple

Submission + - Phil Schiller: iPhone 5 scratches and chips are normal (geek.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: For any brand new product that you’ve paid hundreds of dollars to purchase, damage out the box is totally unacceptable. But as far as Apple is concerned, it looks like you’re just going to have to accept the iPhone 5 is prone to damage.

That’s the view of Phil Schiller at least, Apple’s president of marketing. He’s probably been getting more than a few emails from iPhone 5 owners complaining about the damage to the aluminum casing, so he decided to respond to one of them. His explanation is not going to make many people very happy. Schiller briefly explains that aluminum will scratch or chip and “that is normal.” That’s all he had to say on the matter and it suggests he thinks iPhone 5 owners just need to accept it is going to happen.
Cloud

Submission + - Larry & the cloud (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
BButlerNWW
BButlerNWW writes: "No longer disparaging, Oracle czar Larry Ellison now sings the praises of cloud computing.

As recently as 2009, Ellison was one of the industry's biggest cloud-bashers, questioning what the cloud really was, accusing venture investors of latching on to the latest fad and dismissing the cloud the hot fashionable buzzword of the day.

But since then Ellison's views on the cloud seem to have evolved. Today he's out and about speaking of the benefits of Oracle's ever-expanding cloud offerings. Last week he even spilled the beans on news his company will make at its OpenWorld show next week, expanding the Oracle cloud from a software as a service (SaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS) play into the infrastructure as a service (IaaS) market.

Some say Ellison's disparaging views of cloud reflected the threat cloud software vendors, such as Salesforce.com, Amazon Web Services and others, could play to Oracle. Others say it's just Larry being Larry. "Take Larry for what he is," says Michael Fauscette, an IDC analyst who covers Oracle. "He says a lot of things to be controversial." Now the question is what, if anything, Ellison's FUD-spreading in the cloud will mean for Oracle's own plans in this space."
Google

Submission + - Google Captures Great Barrier Reef in First-ever Underwater 'Street View' (paritynews.com)

Submitted by hypnosec
hypnosec writes: Google has released the first-ever underwater ‘street view’ images of some of the world’s most famous undersea locations – the Great Barrier Reef, Hawaii’s Hanauma Bay, and Apo Island in the Philippines. Google in collaboration with Caitlin Seaview Survey used specialized SVII camera to capture the amazing underwater images. The camera travels at around 2.5 miles / hour and captures a 360-degree panorama with geolocation information and a compass heading every 3 seconds.

Comment ripoff (Score 1) 362

by KernelMuncher (#41292023) Attached to: One Company's Week-Long Interview Process
Sounds like the company just wants a free week of work. Instead pay the job candidate like a normal employee. Then both parties would benefit. However I still don't see how anyone other than an unemployed person could participate in this "interview" format. So the company has (by accident) already ruled out the likely best group of candidates - those who are currently employed.

Comment predicting being a teenager ? (Score 1) 163

by KernelMuncher (#40991235) Attached to: Detecting Depression From How (Not What) You Browse
"peer-to-peer file sharing, heavy emailing and chatting online, and a tendency to quickly switch between multiple websites and other online resources all predict a greater propensity to experience symptoms of depression" All of that sounds like normal teenager behavior in 2012. And seriously, what teenager isn't depressed. Their faces are all spotty, they have to sit in Trigonometry class, won't have gratuitous sex until college, curfew, living with parents, can't drink alcohol, etc. Just remembering all of that makes ME depressed.

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