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Comment Surprised this hasn't happened already TBH (Score 1) 192

by Gricey (#38856757) Attached to: Facebook Expected To Go Public Next Week

It can be argued that these guys are behind "Noo Meejuh" being an everyday household concept, but I still don't have a facebook account :-)

If anything I'm surprised this hasn't happened already given the size of the company, the talent they attract, etc.

Maybe this will make them innovate and change their game a bit, but for me they seems somewhat like a one-trick-pony and G+ seems to have stolen their trick. /G
Canada

IOC Claims Olympian Lindsey Vonn's Name As Intellectual Property 399

Posted by timothy from the somebody's-got-to-dirty-the-pool dept.
gehrehmee writes "As usual, the International Olympic Committee is coming down on hard on people mentioning things related to the Olympics without permission. This time it's UVEX sporting supplies, which sponsors Olympic skier Lindsey Vonn. Without explaination, their front page was today updated to include a tongue-in-cheek poem about UVEX's interaction with the IOC. Can the IOC really claim an Olypmian's name as their own intellectual property?"
Open Source

Linux Kernel 2.6.32 Released 195

Posted by CmdrTaco from the download-compile-reboot-repeat dept.
diegocg writes "Linus Torvalds has officially released the version 2.6.32 of the Linux kernel. New features include virtualization memory de-duplication, a rewrite of the writeback code faster and more scalable, many important Btrfs improvements and speedups, ATI R600/R700 3D and KMS support and other graphic improvements, a CFQ low latency mode, tracing improvements including a 'perf timechart' tool that tries to be a better bootchart, soft limits in the memory controller, support for the S+Core architecture, support for Intel Moorestown and its new firmware interface, run-time power management support, and many other improvements and new drivers. See the full changelog for more details."

Comment Abuse of Power (Score 1) 315

by Gricey (#30288136) Attached to: Sprint Revealed Customer GPS Data 8 Million Times

The problem with this kind of tool, and really it boils down to all the increasing surveillance options available to law enforcement (trust me, my ass is fully violated, I live in the UK) - they make it trivial for anyone interested with the correct clearance to go to town and infringe on someones rights. This kind of tool rarely has the correct AAA criteria set up for it (nor does any of the increasing computerised government systems), so more and more of our personal data is being shipped wholesale, without our permission, into the hands of people who are either incompetant or not suitable to handle it.

These kind of tools need peer-review as to their use, and an accountable audit procedure.

Comment This is how the internet works, FFS (Score 1) 153

by Gricey (#29784193) Attached to: Internet Traffic Shifting Away From Tier-1 Carriers

As an ISP, you have 3 things:

- stuff you provide on your own network (ISP email, webspace, etc)
- paths to other networks via peering agreements (IX's etc)
- paths to other networks via transit providers (your so called Tier 1's)

All that is happening here is that the amount of traffic pushed over peering links is getting bigger, mainly because a switchport at an IX is way cheaper (and faster, better latency etc) than going via your transit over the internet for it.

No conspiracy here, move along.
Security

Hacker Destroys Avsim.com, Along With Its Backups 780

Posted by timothy from the giving-you-the-benefit-of-their-bad-childhoods dept.
el americano writes "Flight Simulator community website Avsim has experienced a total data loss after both of their online servers were hacked. The site's founder, Tom Allensworth, explained why 13 years of community developed terrains, skins, and mods will not be restored from backups: 'Some have asked whether or not we had back ups. Yes, we dutifully backed up our servers every day. Unfortunately, we backed up the servers between our two servers. The hacker took out both servers, destroying our ability to use one or the other back up to remedy the situation.'"
Google

Confirmed Gmail / Google App Outage 189

Posted by timothy from the were-you-there-when-it-happened dept.
mbone writes "Earlier today there was a confirmed Google outage which got a lot of attention from network operators. From a post to NANOG after everything calmed down: 'Google ack'd a maintenance on their core network did not go as planned-Forced traffic to one peer link that was unable to handle all the traffic. Maintenance has been rolled back. Issue has been restored.' This is exactly what makes me nervous about cloud computing and data storage. It's bad enough when I screw up a config and it takes down my mail, but what about when it happens to the entire globe at once?" Several readers also point to CNET's coverage of the outage. Update: 05/14 19:25 GMT by T : CWmike adds this: "Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols writes that what may be happening is a massive DDoS attack. Based on the size of the attack that would be needed to interfere with Google, I believe that it's quite likely to be the result of an attack from the controllers of the Windows worm, Conficker. Another theory that has been put about — that the problem was due to AT&T NOC routing problems — does not appear to hold water, writes Steven." Update: 05/14 21:01 GMT by T : Google's put up a low-detail explanation on their blog that says "An error in one of our systems caused us to direct some of our web traffic through Asia, which created a traffic jam. As a result, about 14% of our users experienced slow services or even interruptions."
Medicine

Scientists Reverse Muscular Dystrophy In Dogs 143

Posted by Soulskill from the barking-up-the-right-tree dept.
Al writes "Scientists have taken a step toward developing a cure for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) by successfully treating the condition in dogs using a novel genetic technique. The scientists used a method called exon skipping, which involves adding a genetic 'patch' to block transcription of a portion of the gene involved in DMD. This puts the remaining genetic sequence back in order, essentially creating a much less severe version of the condition. The scientists recorded some remarkable video footage showing the resulting improvements in several dogs with naturally-occurring DMD. More work is needed before the treatment can be given to humans, however, because DMD sufferers often have different genetic mutations."
Businesses

PC Sales Slump Over Economic Crisis 232

Posted by timothy from the what've-you-bought-lately dept.
nandemoari writes "The damage isn't just limited to the United States. Shipments of PCs in Europe, the Mid-East, and Africa dipped to records posted around the turn of the century. It was even worse in Asia, which according to Gartner, posted its worst growth rate ever — just 1.8 per cent. Within the industry, desktops took the hardest hit, as was expected. Sales of non-portable computers were down about 16 per cent as consumers opted instead for the rising 'netbook' and similar hybrids. That fact alone is troubling for PC makers, given that $300-$500 netbooks offer a far lower profit margin than more expensive and more powerful laptops and desktops."

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