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Comment Re: Whose privacy? (Score 1) 97

"They'd have to disable Flash" ?

Don't know under which rock you've been living for the past 14 years, but iOS has *never* supported Flash, and it's never been available on Safari for iOS since the iPhone introduction.

That alone makes all you rant completely worthless.

Oh, by the way, did anyone told you that javascript is enabled by default by *every* single browser out there, on *every* single platform ?

Comment Richard Feynman and Freeman Dyson (Score 1) 434

by Lightman_73 (#20526959) Attached to: Bringing Science and Math Into Writing?
If you want to somewhat expose your students to what a scientist can be, I suggest you make them read "Surely you're joking Mr. Feynman!" and "What do you care what other people think?" by R.P. Feynman, and "Disturbing the Universe" by F. Dyson.

Another nice book is "Who Got Einstein's Office?: Eccentricity and Genius at the Institute for Advanced Study" from Ed Regis.

These are books that are not science books, but books on science (and/or scientists lifes). Most people seems to think that science is boring, and that doing science, that is, being a researcher is even more boring. These books shows that that's not always true, and that science can be interseting, intriguing and fun.
Media

Analyst Says Blu-ray DRM Safe For 10 Years 493

Posted by kdawson from the words-ripe-for-the-eating dept.
Mike writes to let us know that a poster on the AVS forum says that the latest issue of HMM magazine (no link given) contains a quote from Richard Doherty, a media analyst with Envisioneering Group, extolling the strength of the DRM in Blu-ray discs, called BD+. Doherty reportedly said, "BD+, unlike AACS, which suffered a partial hack last year, won't likely be breached for 10 years." He added that if it were broken, "the damage would affect one film and one player." As one comment on AVS noted, I'll wait for the Doom9 guys to weigh in.
Security

iPhone Researchers Gain a Shell 242

Posted by Zonk from the just-don't-play-three-card dept.
SkiifGeek writes "A team of researchers dedicated to finding means to fully control and interact with the new Apple iPhone claim to have successfully gained an interactive shell on the device. In order to achieve this feat physical access to the phone is required, as it relies on some minor electronics to be created and connected to the phone's serial port. It is believed that general control over the iPhone will be available to the enterprising researchers within a week (after all, it has only just been a week since the iPhone was released), with the promise of enough control to allow for self-propagating code not very far away."

Vista Sales Strong, Higher Than Expected 394

Posted by Zonk from the so-it-begins dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Despite reports, it seems Microsoft is not only alive, but has been thriving these last few months. Following Apple's solid earnings yesterday comes above-expectation reporting from Microsoft. Profits jumped 65% from the previous year, and sales of its Windows operating system were strong: 'Microsoft said it deferred $1.2 billion in Windows Vista revenue to the third quarter, to account for upgrade coupons given to PC buyers during the holiday season before the consumer launch of the new operating system. Excluding this figure, client revenue totaled $4.1 billion, 30 percent higher than last year.' Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell said Vista beat internal forecasts by $300 million to $400 million, and Office 2007 sales were $200 million better than expected."
Windows

Vista Protected Processes Bypassed 221

Posted by CowboyNeal from the falling-confidence-levels dept.
Anonymous Hero writes "Security Researcher Alex Ionescu strikes again, this time with a proof of concept program that will arbitrarily enable and foremost disable the protection of so-called 'protected processes' in Windows Vista. Not only threatening Vista DRM and friends, it's also another step towards hardened and even more annoying malware. Normally, only specially signed processes made by special companies (decided by Microsoft) can be protected, but now the bad guys can protect any evil process they want, including the latest version of their own keylogger, spambot, or worm, as well as unprotect any 'good' one."
Supercomputing

Quantum Computer Demoed, Plays Sudoku 309

Posted by kdawson from the more-qubits dept.
prostoalex writes "Canadian company D-Wave Systems is getting some technology press buzz after successfully demonstrating their quantum computer (discussed here earlier) that the company plans to rent out. Scientific American has a more technical description of how the quantum computer works, as well as possible areas of application: 'The quantum computer was given three problems to solve: searching for molecular structures that match a target molecule, creating a complicated seating plan, and filling in Sudoku puzzles.' Another attendee provides some videos from the demo." Anyone want to guess how long before "qubit" gets compressed to "quit" (as "bigit" became "bit" in the last century)?
IBM

DRAM Almost as Fast as SRAM 115

Posted by CmdrTaco from the rammit-rammit-rammit dept.
An anonymous reader writes "IBM said it has been able to speed up the DRAM to the point where it's nearly as fast as SRAM, and that the result is a type of memory known as embedded DRAM, or eDRAM, that helps boost the performance of chips with multiple core calculating engines and is particularly suited for enabling the movement of graphics in gaming and other multimedia applications. DRAM will also continue to be used off the chip."
Google

Google "Loses" Gmail in Europe 154

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the what's-in-a-name dept.
Hippie Hippie Shake writes to mention that Google has just lost the right to use the name 'Gmail' in Europe, according to the EU. "Daniel Giersch, a German-born 32-year old entrepreneur, has just announced that his company received a positive ruling last week from the Harmonization Office supporting his claim that "Gmail" and his own "G-mail" are confusingly similar. G-mail is a German service that provides a "gmail.de" email address, but also allows for a sort of "hybrid mail" system in which documents can be sent electronically, printed out by the company, and delivered in paper format to local addresses." It looks like "Google Mail" from here on out, at least in the Old Country."
Microsoft

Windows Vista Launches To Mixed Reactions 674

Posted by Zonk from the new-opening-in-your-house dept.
Several users have submitted stories reporting on the launch of Microsoft's newest operating system. The Guardian focuses on virus warnings already threatening the OS, while the New York Times discusses the bug hunt that's begun. With hackers writing scripts to attack, and well-paid bounty hunters looking for bugs to defend, Vista's first few months on the market are sure to be interesting. In the meantime, what is your impression of the OS? Have you had a chance to use the retail version yet? Are you supporting it in a business environment? What's the launch of Vista been like for you?
Communications

Verizon Rejected iPhone Deal 290

Posted by kdawson from the just-saying-no dept.
SnowDog74 writes "According to an article in USA Today, Verizon Wireless rejected an Apple deal over the iPhone. The article says that Verizon wasn't happy with the strict terms Apple demanded — a Verizon Wireless VP is quoted saying that Apple wanted a cut of monthly revenues and control of the customer relationship. What's perhaps equally interesting, however, is the implication from sources that say Cingular's exclusive 5-year deal with Apple applies within the United States only. If this is true, it undermines some of the criticism Apple has been receiving for their business strategy surrounding the iPhone, given the size of the cell-phone market outside the US."
Upgrades

Vista Upgrades Require Presence of Old OS 561

Posted by kdawson from the recovery?-disaster dept.
kapaopango writes "Ars Technica is reporting that upgrade versions of Windows Vista Home Basic, Premium, and Starter Edition cannot be installed on a PC unless Windows XP or Windows 2000 is already installed. This is a change from previous versions of Windows, which only required a valid license key. This change has the potential to make disaster recovery very tedious. The article says: 'For its part, Microsoft seems to be confident that the Vista repair process should be sufficient to solve any problems with the OS, since otherwise the only option for disaster recovery in the absence of backups would be to wipe a machine, install XP, and then upgrade to Vista. This will certainly make disaster recovery a more irritating experience.'"
Microsoft

Microsoft to Launch Zune in EU 220

Posted by Zonk from the worked-well-here-why-not-there dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Happy with the sales from the little brown music player here in the states, Microsoft is working to launch the Zune media player in Europe by the end of the year. According to the Washington Post article, they are trying to have a realistic outlook on the entrenched Apple product line. They're not trying to play catch-up at the moment ... they're just trying to get on the map. From the article: '"Our next round of introductions will probably be in time for the holiday of this year." [Jason Reindorp] said Microsoft planned extensive research with focus groups in Europe to see how it could be modified for a European consumer. He said the Zune had a 10.2 percent market share in the U.S. in the 30 gigabyte category, according to the latest data, and that it was still in line to sell over a million units by June 30, the end of its current fiscal year.'"
Google

Firefox Creator No Longer Trusts Google 528

Posted by CowboyNeal from the watching-the-watchmen dept.
watashi writes "Blake Ross the man whose scratched itch became the Firefox browser explains on his blog why he has a problem with Google's policy of promoting their own products over competitors' in search results. His main gripe is that the tips (e.g. "Want to share pictures? Try Google Picasa") result in an inability for other products (perhaps even Parakey?) to compete for the top slot on Google."

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