3802441
submission
JagsLive writes:
Call it a "you're not making us enough money" fee. If you don't make at least 12.5 minutes of long-distance calls, Verizon is assessing some home phone customers a $3.49/month "shortfall charge."
If you want to get rid of the fee, you can, but you'll have to pay a one-time $5.50 fee. Verizon told KING5, "that even if a person doesn't make long-distance calls, they still have access to the phone network. The "shortfall charge" helps pay for maintenance of the network." What a crock.
Consumerist : http://consumerist.com/5173620/verizon-charges-you-fee-for-not-making-long+distance-calls
1740969
submission
JagsLive writes:
Yahoo, under fierce financial pressure, has begun a search to replace company co-founder Jerry Yang as chief executive, the company said Monday.
"Jerry and the board have had an ongoing dialogue about succession timing, and we all agree that now is the right time to make the transition to a new CEO who can take the company to the next level," Chairman Roy Bostock said in a statement. "We are deeply grateful to Jerry for his many contributions as CEO over the past 18 months, and we are pleased that he plans to stay actively involved at Yahoo as a key executive and member of the Board."
Yang will resume his position as chief Yahoo, the company said, the role he had before taking over in 2007 after former CEO Terry Semel departed.
1365425
submission
JagsLive writes:
WASHINGTON, Oct 31 (Reuters) — Google may decide to scrap its proposed partnership with Yahoo rather than accept government-imposed antitrust restrictions on it, according to two sources familiar with the companies' discussions.
"Are they more serious about walking away? Yes. Have they decided? I'm not sure," one source told Reuters on Friday.
"Yahoo wants the deal, and they're willing to have Google sign anything at the Justice Department to have them do it," said the source.
A second source said that Google and Yahoo, Nos. 1 and 2 in the Internet search market, could announce as early as Friday that the deal had fallen apart.
Related: ZDNet.co.uk : http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/0,1000000097,39535499,00.htm
Yahoo-Google deal sparks fresh concerns :
A consumer group, legislators and Wall Street weighed in this week on Yahoo's proposed search-advertising deal with Google.
With the companies having granted the US Department of Justice (DoJ) two extensions to issue a decision on the deal, a fresh round of public commentary was to be expected.
JPMorgan analyst Imran Khan issued a research note on Wednesday that it's unlikely the DoJ will sign off on the Yahoo-Google partnership in its current form.
Meanwhile, senator Joe Barton, who heads the US congressional committee on energy and commerce, sent a letter on Tuesday to the head of the DOJ's antitrust unit, Thomas Barnett.
In his letter to Barnett, Barton urges the DoJ to "thoroughly investigate issues of competition and privacy that Yahoo failed to address fully in responding to questions about the online search advertising partnership agreement between Google and Yahoo".
1302315
submission
JagsLive writes:
When purchasing server processors directly from Intel, Google has insisted on a guarantee that the chips can operate at temperatures five degrees centigrade higher than their standard qualification, according to a former Google employee.
This allowed the search giant to maintain higher temperatures within its data centers, the ex-employee says, and save millions of dollars each year in cooling costs.
If the chips failed prematurely at these higher temperatures, the former Googler says, Intel was obliged to replace them at no extra charge.
Intel denies this was ever the case. "This is NOT true," a company spokesman said in an email. Google declined to comment on its relationship with Intel. "Google invests heavily in technical facilities and has dozens of facilities around the world with many computers," reads a statement from the company. "However, we don't disclose details about our infrastructure or supplier relationships."
The ex-Google employee learned of this Intel pact a little more than a year ago, during a Google "Tech Talk" open to anyone at the company. The talk was given by a Google thermal dynamics engineer, part of a small team — perhaps no larger than two people — that oversees heat issues inside the company's data centers.
According to the same ex-employee, it is now the norm for Google to construct its data centers by piecing together intermodal shipping containers pre-packed with servers and cooling equipment. In 2003, Google filed for a patent on this sort of modular data center, and the patent was granted last October.
( theRegister.co.uk : http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/15/google_and_intel/ )
1290799
submission
JagsLive writes:
The World Bank Group's computer network — one of the largest repositories of sensitive data about the economies of every nation — has been raided repeatedly by outsiders for more than a year, FOX News has learned.
It is still not known how much information was stolen. But sources inside the bank confirm that servers in the institution's highly-restricted treasury unit were deeply penetrated with spy software last April. Invaders also had full access to the rest of the bank's network for nearly a month in June and July.
In total, at least six major intrusions — two of them using the same group of IP addresses originating from China — have been detected at the World Bank since the summer of 2007, with the most recent breach occurring just last month.
In a frantic midnight e-mail to colleagues, the bank's senior technology manager referred to the situation as an "unprecedented crisis." In fact, it may be the worst security breach ever at a global financial institution. And it has left bank officials scrambling to try to understand the nature of the year-long cyber-assault, while also trying to keep the news from leaking to the public.
1230679
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JagsLive writes:
Was the Yahoo/Google deal a ploy to weaken Yahoo ? : Sen. Herb Kohl (D — Wisc.) chairman of the Senate Antitrust Committee
With the DOJ expressing skepticism over Yahoo's agreement to sell search ad space to its biggest competitor, a letter from a key US senator urging action could be preaching to the choir. What's interesting is that senator's theory.
In a letter to the Justice Department's antitrust chief yesterday, Sen. Herb Kohl (D — Wisc.), chairman of the Senate Antitrust Committee, advised the Dept. to maintain a close watch over Google and Yahoo as they initiate their search advertising deal, for two reasons: The first is something discussed quite often, that the deal could be used to drive up the price of contextual search advertising.
But the second is something that has been mentioned, but not fully explored: the notion that Google made the deal in bad faith, as an anti-competitive measure to maintain Yahoo's subordinate position in the marketplace.
"Many interested parties are also apprehensive that if the transaction is consummated, Yahoo will have less incentive to compete against Google, as it will rely upon its main competitor for a significant increase in its revenue," reads Sen. Kohl's letter to Assistant Attorney General Thomas Barnett. "Therefore, critics contend that an advertiser will have an incentive to bypass Yahoo entirely and only bid for Google advertisements since an advertisement purchased with Google could be placed on both Yahoo and Google's search result pages."
Furthermore, Kohl goes on, as Yahoo receives more and more revenue from Google, it will only gain further incentive to give Google better placement. That could water down the value of Yahoo pages for other advertisers, in a situation that eventually leads to Yahoo never retaining a position as a major player in search advertising.
http://www.betanews.com/article/Was_the_YahooGoogle_deal_a_ploy_to_weaken_Yahoo/1223070460
1201587
submission
JagsLive writes:
China is running out of IP addresses, Unless it makes the switch to IPv6. :
The Internet in China may soon run out. According to the China Internet Network Information Center, under the current allocation speed, China's IPv4 address resources can only meet the demand of 830 more days and if no proper measures are taken by then, new Chinese netizens will not be able to gain normal access to the Internet.
Li Kai, director in charge of the IP business for CNNIC's international department, says that if a netizen wants to get access to the Internet, an IP address will be necessary to analyze the domain name and view the pages. At present, most of the networks in China use IPv4 addresses. As a basic resource for the Internet, the IPv4 addresses are limited and 80% of the final allocation IP addresses have been used. By the current allocation speed, China's IPv4 address resource can only meet the demand of 830 more days. If there is no available new resource by then, new netizens will not be able to gain normal access to the Internet and the business expansion of network operators will be impossible.
( ChinaTechNews : http://www.chinatechnews.com/2008/09/23/7595-cnnic-chinas-internet-will-be-short-of-ip-addresses-soon/ )
( theinquirer.net : http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/09/24/china-running-ip-addresses )
1179841
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JagsLive writes:
The State of New York has started offering driver's licenses embedded with RFID chips, or enhanced driver's licenses (EDLs). The news comes on the heels of New York becoming the second state to offer identification that can be shown at the border in lieu of a U.S. passport (which is also RFID-embedded).
The radio frequency identification chip in the EDL will be able to be scanned by authorities to identify citizens entering the state from Canada, Mexico, or the Caribbean. Intercontinental travelers will still need to produce a passport to enter the country.
Authorities say no personal information will be stored or transmitted by the chip, only an identification number. Those who don't necessarily trust the powers that be can opt for a standard license, which doesn't work as a passport, or look into getting an RFID-blocking wallet and an aluminum foil hat.
( http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13746_7-10043662-48.html )
1173319
submission
JagsLive writes:
As Intel officially unveiled its six-core "Dunnington" Xeon 7400 processor Monday, Unisys rolled out servers boasting up to 96 cores--with a catch.
As expected, Intel launched the Dunnington chip for high-end servers, the company's first six-core processor and last of its Penryn-class chips. Penryn will be followed by the Nehalem microarchitecture, due to appear initially as the Core i7 processor in the fourth quarter.
The Xeon 7400 boasts significantly better performance due to its 16MB cache memory and half-dozen cores.
The Xeon 7400 is also one of the first Intel chips to have a monolithic design. In other words, all six cores will be on one piece of silicon. To date, for any processor having more than two cores, Intel has put two separate pieces of silicon--referred to as die--inside one chip package.
( http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10041308-92.html )
1173241
submission
JagsLive writes:
Judging from the phone company's voluminous new online customer manual, if you have a problem with your bill, too bad:
AT&T has sent customers an 8,000-word service agreement that, among other things, says people will be given 30-day notice of price increases only when "commercially reasonable" and that you can't sue the company.
Oh, and if you don't like AT&T's terms — providing you can make your way through the company's 2,500-page "guidebook" — your only recourse is to cancel service.
State regulators aren't happy about this and are looking into whether the AT&T service agreement violates the law and unfairly limits the rights of customers.
Meanwhile, the California Public Utilities Commission's Division of Ratepayer Advocates is preparing to protest an attempt by AT&T to remove numerous services from regulatory scrutiny before they're offered to customers.
Chris Witteman, a staff attorney for the PUC who also represents the Division of Ratepayer Advocates, confirmed that staffers recently reviewed AT&T's service agreement and that some believe regulatory action is needed to protect consumers.
"We want AT&T to be required to revisit and reformulate the agreement so it doesn't violate the law," he said.
H. Gordon Diamond, an AT&T spokesman, defended the agreement, saying it "provides customers with more direct information on their rights and . . . information on the services they purchase from us."
( http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-lazarus14-2008sep14,0,7827478.column )
1169899
submission
JagsLive writes:
Nokia has filed a patent ( http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PG01&s1=metadata.TTL.&OS=TTL/metadata&RS=TTL/metadata ) in the USA for a technique that enables users of cameraphones or digital cameras to scribble 'back-of-photo'
Nokia's approach is similar to a facility offered by Apple's Ipod know as 'cover flow'. However, the difference is that Nokia users will be able to flip through their snaps; select one and then turn it over.
With cameraphones users will be able to annotate the snaps using the keypad or keyboard just like they create SMS/text messages. The advantage is that the scribble will become an integrated part of the saved photo.
This isn't the first time Nokia has attempted to solve the issue of identifying saved photos. Owners of GPS enabled Nokia handsets like the N95 called Location Tagger.
This app at least gives the cameraphone owner some idea of where the snap was actually taken.
( http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/09/14/scribble-snaps-nokia )
1165361
submission
JagsLive writes:
Google's privacy reform is a hoax : Pulling the wool over privacy advocates' eyes :
AFTER GOOGLE announced Monday that it would begin removing Internet addresses from web search records after only nine months instead of its former 18 month retention period, it drew praise for that reform from European Commission privacy regulators and the press.
The only problem is that Google's announcement was just a ploy to deflect criticism and its web search archives will still contain data identifying individuals' online search activity for at least 18 months.
>>>>____Now, Google's clarification of its recent announcement states that it will change "some" — but by implication less than eight — IP address bits that it retains after only nine months. It says that it will still strip the last eight bits off the IP addresses it retains after 18 months.
But Google has not said anything about anonymising the cookie identifiers it retains in its logs after nine months have elapsed.
Changing a few bits in users' IP addresses means nothing if Google doesn't also clear or non-reversibly encrypt its users' cookie identifiers at the same time to render their search records truly anonymous.
The cookies Google presents to web browsers reportedly persist for two years, and their expiration dates are reportedly updated every time a user visits a website run by Google.
1139711
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JagsLive writes:
German customs raids 69 companies at IFA trade show in Berlin (on the hills of CeBit in March) :
An intrepid Register Hardware hack was this morning stopped from looking around MSI's stand at the consumer electronics show IFA, in Berlin.
The uniformed gents he mistook for overly officious security guards were in fact German Customs officers investigating claims of patent infringement.
Our man said he was removed from the stand by the men who would not tell him what was going on. It transpires that several stands were targeted by about 200 armed German Customs bods, reportedly after complaints from patent firm Sisvel. They seized equipment which will now be checked for evidence of patent breaches.
A spokesman for German Customs told us: "We've raided 69 companies today. We have seized equipment including flatscreen TVs, CD players, set-top boxes and MP3 players."
Customs raids at trade shows are nothing new — in March several stands at monster show CeBit were raided by German police and customs. They were acting on complaints from patent firm Sisvel which suspected that its intellectual property, or that of its clients, had been infringed.
( http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/29/customs_raids_german_show/ )
1136093
submission
JagsLive writes:
Nvidia 55nm parts are bad too :
HOT ON THE heels of its denials that anything is wrong with the G92 and G94s comes another PCN that shows the G92s and G92b are being changed for no reason. Yup, the problems that are plaguing G84 and G86 are the same that affect seemingly all 65nm and now 55nm Nvidia parts.
It is hard to overstate how bad this is. Basically every 65nm and 55nm Nvidia part appears to be defective. It is not a question of yes or no, but how defective each line is, and what the failure rate for each one is. We are hearing of early failure rates in the teens per cent for 8800GTs and far higher for 9600GTs, so this is not a quibble over split hairs.
To make matters worse, Nvidia has a mound of unsold defective parts that they are going to bleed out into the channel along side of the (hopefully) fixed parts. As a buyer, you have no way of knowing which one you are getting, and it looks like Nvidia isn't keen on helping you figure it out either, that would cost too much.
Until Nvidia comes fully clean on this fiasco, lists all the defective parts, and orders boxes clearly marked, you can't say anything other than just avoid them. Then again, since doing the right thing would likely bankrupt them, we wouldn't hold your breath for it to happen.
( http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/08/28/nvidia-55nm-parts-bad )
1135835
submission
JagsLive writes:
Comcast has confirmed that all residential customers will be subject to a 250 gigabyte per month data limit starting October 1.
"This is the same system we have in place today," Comcast wrote in an amendment to its acceptable use policy. "The only difference is that we will now provide a limit by which a customer may be contacted."
The cable provider insisted that 250 GB is "an extremely large amount of data, much more than a typical residential customer uses on a monthly basis."
"As part of our pre-existing policy, we will continue to contact the top users of our high-speed Internet service and ask them to curb their usage," Comcast said Thursday.
"If a customer uses more than 250 GB and is one of the top users of our service, he or she may be contacted by Comcast to notify them of excessive use," according to the AUP. "At that time, we'll tell them exactly how much data per month they had used. We know from experience the vast majority of customers we ask to curb usage do so voluntarily."
