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Submission + - Hulu Blocks VPN Users (torrentfreak.com)

Submitted by electronic convict
electronic convict writes: Hulu, apparently worried that too many non-U.S. residents are using cheap VPN services to watch its U.S. programming, has started blocking IP address ranges belonging to known VPN services. Hulu didn't announce the ban, but users of the affected VPNs are getting this message:

Based on your IP-address, we noticed that you are trying to access Hulu through an anonymous proxy tool. Hulu is not currently available outside the U.S. If you’re in the U.S. you’ll need to disable your anonymizer to access videos on Hulu.

Hulu may make Hollywood happy by temporarily locking out foreign users—at least until they find new VPN providers. But in so doing it's now forcing its U.S. customers to sacrifice their privacy and even to risk insecure connections. Hulu hasn't even implemented SSL on its site.

Submission + - Cosmic Slurp (nsf.gov)

Submitted by aarondubrow
aarondubrow writes: A “tidal disruption” occurs when a star orbits too close to a black hole and gets sucked in. The phenomenon is accompanied by a bright flare with a unique signature that changes over time. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology are using Stampede and other NSF-supported supercomputers to simulate tidal disruptions in order to better understand the dynamics of the process. Doing so helps astronomers find many more possible candidates of tidal disruptions in sky surveys and will reveal details of how stars and black holes interact.

Submission + - Google Offers $2.7M in Pwnium Hacking Contest

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: Building on the success of the last couple of years, Google plans to offer more than $2.7 million in potential rewards in the next iteration of its Pwnium hacking competition at this year’s CanSecWest conference in Vancouver. The company has run the contest in parallel with the older Pwn2Own competition at the conference, with somewhat different rules, and this year plans to allow researchers to go after Chrome OS running on both ARM- and Intel-based Chromebooks,

Pwnium began as Google’s answer to Pwn2Own, the well-known hacking contest that has attracted some of the top researchers in the industry over the course of the last few years, including Dino Dai Zovi, Charlie Miller, Chaouki Bekrar and the Vupen team and many others. Pwn2Own has traditionally not required contestants to submit complete exploit information, but rather the details of the vulnerability and the crash data. Pwnium requires researchers to submit full exploits, something that has kept some of the potential contestants away, notably the Vupen team.

But the money that Google is putting up for new compromises of Chrome OS is far beyond what’s available at Pwn2Own or any of the other major contests and has attracted a small, but elite, group of contestants in past years. The company is promising rewards of as much as $150,000 plus some bonuses, paid at Google’s discretion, for especially innovative or serious exploits.

Submission + - Lead by Steve Jobs, Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to surpress engineers' wages

Submitted by Oneflower
Oneflower writes: In a widespread conspiracy, the CEOs of Apple, Google, Intel, Adobe, Intuit, and Pixar secretly agreed to surpress the wages of their tech staff reports Mark Ames at Pando. The DoJ accuses that

Between approximately 2005 and 2009, Defendants Adobe, Apple, Google, Intel, Intuit, Lucasfilm, and Pixar allegedly engaged in an “overarching conspiracy” to eliminate competition among Defendants for skilled labor. The conspiracy consisted of an interconnected web of express bilateral agreements among Defendants to abstain from actively soliciting each other’s employees.Plaintiffs allege that each agreement involved a company under the control of Steve Jobs (Co-Founder, Former Chairman, and Former CEO of Apple) and/or a company that shared at least one director with Apple’s Board of Directors.

Submission + - How LucasArts Fell Apart (kotaku.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: "Over the last five months, I’ve talked to a dozen people connected to LucasArts, including ex-employees at the company’s highest levels, in an attempt to figure out just how the studio collapsed. Some spoke off the record; others spoke under condition of anonymity. They told me about the failed deals, the drastic shifts in direction, the cancelled projects with codenames like Smuggler and Outpost. They told me the stories behind the fantastic-looking Star Wars 1313 and the multi-tiered plans for a new Battlefront starting with the multiplayer game known as Star Wars: First Assault.

All of these people helped paint a single picture: Even before Disney purchased LucasFilm, the parent company of LucasArts, in November of 2012, the studio faced serious issues. LucasArts was a company paralyzed by dysfunction, apathy, and indecision from executives at the highest levels."

Submission + - Nokia's Elop to Get $25 Million if Microsoft Deal Done

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: Stephen Elop, the former Nokia Oyj chief executive officer who is rejoining Microsoft, is set to get more than $25 million if the Finnish company completes the sale of its handset business to the software maker. Microsoft will pay 70 percent of the projected total amount of about 18.8 million euros ($25.5 million), and Nokia the remainder, according to a proxy filing by Nokia today. The value of Elop’s reward is estimated using Nokia’s Sept. 6 closing share price and may still change. Nokia shares have dropped by more than a third since Elop was hired on Sept. 10, 2010, even with the stock’s gain since the sale to Microsoft was announced. Nokia shareholders are set to vote on the transaction Nov. 19. Elop will move back to Microsoft as part of the $7.2 billion takeover. He is also a candidate to succeed Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.

Submission + - Did Apple Make a Mistake by Releasing Two New iPhones? (slashdot.org)

Submitted by Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster writes: As noted by CNET, Apple hasn’t released data on the number of iPhone 5C units it presold in the device’s first 24 hours of availability—a first for the iPhone since 2009. Why is that? Reporter Josh Lowensohn speculates that iPhone 5C sales “may not be as impressive when stacked up against tallies from previous years,” with one outside analyst suggesting that Apple racked up 1 million iPhone 5C preorders last Friday, or roughly half the 2 million presales scored by the iPhone 5 on its first day of ordering availability last year. However well the iPhone 5C ends up performing on the open market, Apple’s decision to launch two iPhones this year—rather than a single “hero” device—could result in self-cannibalism, as users who would’ve bought the iPhone 5S instead gravitate toward the cheaper option. Cannibalism is a topic that Apple knows well, as it’s been dealing with the iPhone cannibalizing the iPod for the past several years; but a new iPhone eating away at another new iPhone is fresh territory for the company. During earnings calls, Apple CEO Tim Cook likes to argue that cannibalization—whether iPhones feeding off the iPod, or the iPad taking the place of MacBooks—is a good thing, so long as it’s Apple products eating other Apple products. But it’s far more questionable whether he would welcome the iPhone 5C—almost certainly a low-margin device, despite its current-generation components and plastic body—taking a bite out of the more expensive, and presumably higher-margin iPhone 5S. Margin erosion remains a prime concern of investors and Apple watchers; anything that contributes to that erosion is bound to be viewed unfavorably.

Submission + - Molecule in Corked Wine Plugs Up Your Nose (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Ever send a bottle of wine back at a restaurant? If you weren't just being a pretentious snob, then it was probably because the wine seemed “corked”—had a musty odor and didn’t taste quite right. Most likely, the wine was contaminated with a molecule called 2,4,6-trichloroanisole (TCA), the main cause of cork taint. But a new study by Japanese researchers concludes that you do not smell TCA directly; rather, TCA blocks up your sense of smell and distorts your ability to detect odors. The findings could help the food and beverage industry improve its products and lead to less embarrassment for both you and your waiter.

Submission + - How Companies Are Preparing For The IT Workforce Exodus (itworld.com)

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: If you think there's a glut of contract IT workers now, just wait. 10,000 U.S. baby boomers will turn 65 every day from now until 2030, and at least some of them will want to ease into retirement. This may sound like music to the ears of IT organizations who already would rather hire temporary staff with specialized expertise — especially for working on legacy technologies. 'The contractor ratio, already high in tech, will continue to increase as companies allow retiring staff to work part-time hours or hire them for short-term projects,' says Matthew Ripaldi, senior vice president at IT staffing firm Modis.

Submission + - Fukushima actually "much worse" than so far disclosed

Submitted by PuceBaboon
PuceBaboon writes: The BBC is reporting that experts are casting doubt on the veracity of statements from both the Tokyo Electric Power Company and the Japanese government regarding the seriousness of the problems at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Not only are the constant leaks releasing radioactivity into the ocean (and thus into the food chain), but now there are also worries that the spent fuel rod storage pools may be even more unstable than first thought.
An external consultant warns, "The Japanese have a problem asking for help. It is a big mistake; they badly need it."

Submission + - A New Spate of Deaths in the Wireless Industry (wsj.com)

Submitted by onehitwonder
onehitwonder writes: The race to build out advanced cellphone networks in the U.S. has contributed to a spike in deaths among tower workers, making this one of the industry’s deadliest years and drawing fresh scrutiny from federal regulators, according to The Wall Street Journal. At least 10 workers have died in falls from communication towers so far this year, and three more were seriously injured. The accidents, nine of which were related to cellphone network work, come during one of the biggest building booms in years, as Sprint Corp. and T-Mobile US Inc. ramp up major network upgrades in an attempt to catch up with Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc.

Submission + - The video game drawn by hand (redbull.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Interesting behind the scenes interview with the creator of Paper Sorcerer, the stunning hand drawn RPG video game that was successfully Kickstarted last year and is now nearing launch. Jesse Gallagher, the artist single handedly creating the game in Unity, has painstakingly drawn out each character and environment across all 50 dungeons. He estimates he's gone through at least 600 pages of drawings in his notebooks in the process, and had to scan them all in — but he says it's worth it to give artists more control over the games they work on. "I was disappointed with how little input the artists had into the overall game design, so I decided to go the solo dev route,” he says. "Now I’d like to just continue making indie games until I fall over dead at the keyboard."

Comment Re:Self teaching, followed by volunteer work (Score 2) 293

by Giskard Reventlov (#43929839) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Getting Exchange and SQL Experience?
#2 can be substituted with "help solve other people's problems on online forums". There's a lot of homework BS on MSDN Forums, Stack Overflow, etc - but there are quite a few great, diverse, relevant questions as well. When I was learning SQL Server in an environment where it wasn't a large part of my job, I combined extensive reading (books & blogs) with solving other people's problems on online forums. I went from zero to intermediate/advanced in a couple of years, using this method.

Submission + - Supreme Court Rules For Monsanto In Patent Case (huffingtonpost.com)

Submitted by Pigskin-Referee
Pigskin-Referee writes: WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court has sustained Monsanto Co.'s claim that an Indiana farmer violated the company's patents on soybean seeds that are resistant to its weed-killer.

The justices, in a unanimous vote Monday, rejected the farmer's argument that cheap soybeans he bought from a grain elevator are not covered by the Monsanto patents, even though most of them also were genetically modified to resist the company's Roundup herbicide.

Justice Elena Kagan says a farmer who buys patented seeds must have the patent holder's permission. More than 90 percent of American soybean farms use Monsanto's "Roundup Ready" seeds, which first came on the market in 1996.

Submission + - Bloomberg admits to snooping on the stock terminals it leased. (nytimes.com)

Submitted by sir lox elroy
sir lox elroy writes: Evidently Bloomberg wanted that little extra inside information. They have admitted to snooping on the users of their stock terminals they leased. Bloomberg reporters were told "to use the terminals to get an edge in the competitive world of financial journalism" which let them "view subscribers’ contact information and, in some cases, monitor login activity in order to advance news coverage".

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