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Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft Kills Expression Suite (i-programmer.info)

Submitted by mikejuk
mikejuk writes: Microsoft has announced that the Expression suite of design tools is no more. It has been removed from sale immediately and it has been placed on a maintenance only status until it reaches its end of life. Expression was Microsoft’s offering for designers and competed directly with Adobe products. You can now download the components of Expression — Design 4, Web 4 and Encoder 4 — for free but you can’t buy them. Of course, knowing that you are using "doomed" products, even for free, takes some of the icing off the cake.The central component of the suite the UI designer Blend is to be integrated with Visual Studio 2012 probably along with Update 2. It looks as if Microsoft is giving up on trying to get designers to use its tools.
Privacy

Submission + - Banks Find Way To Sell Consumers' Shopping Data (forbes.com)

Submitted by nonprofiteer
nonprofiteer writes: Banks plan to compete with Groupon and LivingSocial by targeting coupons and deals at credit card holders based on their shopping habits. They found a way to do it without violating financial privacy laws...

"They’re “selling” shopping habits the same way Facebook “sells” personal data about its users: in-network. It’s a clever privacy work-around. Just as Facebook allows advertisers to specifically target certain kinds of users based on their profile information (without actually providing that profile information to the advertisers), banks plan to allow advertisers to send deals and coupons to their customers based on what they’ve bought before. That way, no user data actually leaves the network — instead, deals just enter the network. Each time a customer cashes in on one of those deals, the bank gets a commission."
Businesses

Submission + - Driven off the Road by MBAs 1

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: In his new book, Car Guys vs. Bean Counters: The Battle for the Soul of American Business, legendary car-guy Bob Lutz says to get the U.S. economy growing again, we need to fire the MBAs and let engineers run the show. The auto industry, writes TIME's Rana Foroohar, is actually a terrific proxy for a trend toward short-term, myopically balance-sheet-driven management that has infected American business. In the first half of the 20th century, industrial giants like Ford, GE, AT&T and others used new technologies to create the best possible products and services with the idea that if you build it better, the customers will come. But by the late '70s, if-you-can-measure-it-you-can-manage-it MBAs were flourishing, and engineers were relegated to the geek back rooms. While the whiz-kidding of American business yielded some positives, moving numbers around can do only so much; over the long haul, you've got to invent or improve real products and services to grow. 'Shoemakers should be run by shoe guys,' argues Lutz, 'and software firms by software guys.' Learning that China plans to open 40 new graduate schools of business in the next few years, Lutz quipped, 'That's the best news I've heard in years.'
Privacy

Submission + - LulzSec Document Dump Shows Cops' Fear Of iPhones (itworld.com)

Submitted by
jfruhlinger
jfruhlinger writes: "People are starting to comb through the details of the law enforcement documents made public by LulzSec. Blogger Kevin Fogarty noticed one interesting trend: The cops seem very anxious about iPhones, particularly apps that would allow encounters with a police officers to be recorded. Ironically, the cops seem extremely concerned with protecting their own privacy, but the documents encourage police to examine iPhones during the course of interacting with the public to see what apps they have."
Linux

Submission + - Linux 3.0 Will Be faster Than 2.6.39: Linus (muktware.com) 1

Submitted by sfcrazy
sfcrazy writes: While we were thinking that the announcement of 3.x branch was nothing more than Linus' mood swing, it seems there is more to it.

Linus wrote on the Linux Kernel Mailing List, "3.0 will still be noticeably faster than 2.6.39 due to the other changes made (ie the read-ahead), so yes, the regression itself is fixed."
AMD

Submission + - AMD Rejects Industry Recognized SYSmark Benchmark (marketwire.com)

Submitted by
Deathspawner
Deathspawner writes: "In an unusual move, Advanced Micro Devices has issued a press release rejecting its endorsement for the industry recognized benchmark SYSmark 2012. Developed by BAPCo and backed by industry heavyweights such as Dell, Intel and Hewlett-Packard, AMD has stated that BAPCo both has tuned SYSmark to create bias in favor of its competitor, and that its benchmarks are not relevant for the audience it targets. Also noted is a complete lack of heterogeneous CPU+GPU testing. Techgage tears apart AMD's claims to see if they are valid, while also evaluating the overall usefulness of SYSmark and the impact it can have on consumers."

Submission + - An Entirely New Genre Of Aircraft Arrives (gizmag.com) 1

Submitted by fergus07
fergus07 writes: Austrian research company IAT21 has presented a new type of aircraft at the Paris Air Show which has the potential to become aviation's first disruptive technology since the jet engine. Neither fixed wing nor rotor craft, the D-Dalus uses four, mechanically-linked, contra-rotating, cylindrical turbines for its propulsion, and by altering the angle of the blades, it can launch vertically, hover perfectly still, move in any direction, and thrust upwards and hence "glue down" upon landing, which it can easily do on the deck of a ship, or even a moving vehicle. It's also almost silent, has the dynamic stability to enter buildings, handles rough weather with ease, flies very long distances very quickly and can lift very heavy loads. It accordingly holds immense promise as a platform for personal flight, for military usage, search and rescue, and much more.
Firefox

Submission + - Mozilla Ships Firefox 5, Meets Rapid-Release Plan (computerworld.com)

Submitted by
CWmike
CWmike writes: "Mozilla delivered on Tuesday the final version of Firefox 5, the first edition under the new faster-release regime it kicked off earlier this year. The company also patched 10 bugs in Firefox 5, including one in the browser's handling of the WebGL 3-D rendering standard that rival Microsoft has called unsafe. Firefox 5 looks identical to its predecessor, Firefox 4, but Mozilla's made changes under the hood. Mozilla has denied copying Google Chrome's upbeat schedule but analysts have noted the similarities and pointed out the need of all browser makers to step up the pace. Because of the shorter development cycle, Mozilla called out relatively few new features in Firefox 5."
Microsoft

Submission + - SkyDrive drops Silverlight (i-programmer.info) 3

Submitted by mikejuk
mikejuk writes: Microsoft's SkyDrive, a web service that provides cloud storage for end user files, has just acquired a revamped user interface — and it is HTML5 based. Yes, another Microsoft website has dropped Silverlight. How can Microsoft expect independent developers to base their future on Silverlight when Microsoft itself is abandoning it like a sinking ship? Whatever happened to "eating your own dog food"? It seems that now Microsoft would rather eat dog food made elsewhere....
Government

Submission + - SCOTUS: Clean Air Act Trumps Emissions Lawsuits (reuters.com) 1

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a global warming lawsuit against five big power companies, its most important environmental ruling since 2007 and a victory for the utilities and the Obama administration.

The justices unanimously overturned a ruling by a U.S. appeals court that the lawsuit now involving six states can proceed in an effort to force the coal-burning plants to cut emissions of gases that contribute to climate change.

In a defeat for environmentalists, the Supreme Court agreed with the companies that regulating greenhouse gases should be left to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the clean air laws.

The ruling stemmed from a 2004 lawsuit claiming the five electric utilities have created a public nuisance by contributing to climate change. The lawsuit wanted a federal judge to order them to cut their carbon dioxide emissions.
Windows

Submission + - Microsoft to dump .Net for HTML5/JavaScript? (i-programmer.info)

Submitted by joelholdsworth
joelholdsworth writes: Microsoft seem to be set on adopting HTML5 and JavaScript as its main application development tools for Windows 8 — is this the end of .NET?" "Microsoft developers feel left in the dark and very angry at the way they are being treated. You only have to browse the Microsoft forums to discover how strong the feeling is: forum post 1, forum post 2 and an open letter.

Submission + - New FBI Operations Manual Increases Surveillance (nytimes.com)

Submitted by betterunixthanunix
betterunixthanunix writes: The New York Times is reporting that the new FBI operations manual suggests a broad increase in surveillance. Denoted the Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide, the manual officially lowers the bar of acceptability when it comes to engaging in surveillance activities, including allowing agents to perform such surveillance on people who are not suspected terrorists without opening an inquiry or officially recording their actions. The new manual also relaxes rules on administering lie detector tests, searching through a person's trash, and the use of teams to follow targeted individuals. It should be noted that these guidelines still fall within the general limits put in place by the attorney general.
Privacy

Submission + - School District Hit With New Mac Spying Lawsuit (computerworld.com) 2

Submitted by
CWmike
CWmike writes: "A former student at a suburban Philadelphia high school has sued his school district for allegedly spying on him and his family using a school-issued Mac laptop, according to court documents. The Lower Merion School District of Ardmore, Pa. was first sued in February 2010 by another student using similar charges. That case, dubbed 'Spygate' in some reports, was settled last October when Lower Merion agreed to pay Blake Robbins $175,000 and cover $425,000 in court costs. On Monday, Joshua Levin, a 2009 graduate of Herriton High, charged the district with violating his civil rights and privacy by remotely activating the notebook's built-in camera to take photographs and screenshots. On Wednesday, Lower Merion spokesman Doug Young called Levin's lawsuit 'solely motivated by monetary interests and a complete waste of the taxpayer's dollars.' Levin begged to differ. According to his lawsuit, Lower Merion used his laptop to take more than 8,000 photographs and screenshots between September 2008 and March 2009. A district report uncovered more than 30,000 photographs and 27,000 screenshots taken. Last June, lawyers made photos and screenshots available for viewing by the 76 affected students. 'Plaintiff opted to view the recovered images, and was shocked, humiliated and severely emotionally distressed at what he saw,' Levin's lawsuit stated."

Submission + - Judge Prevents 23,322 Does from Being Sued For Now (slyck.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Judge overseeing the US Copyright Group's lawsuit against 23,000 individuals sharing "The Expendables" has shut the door on progress. In a ruling made yesterday, the Judge has ordered the US Copyright Group to show cause as to how all 23,322 fall under his Court's jurisdiction. Considering the US Copyright Group's failure in the past to show cause on jurisdiction, this could be the beginning of the end.

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