NateSac - Slashdot User

Submission + - Gemalto Creates SIM Card With Facebook (zdnet.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 14, 2011 @08:29PM

An anonymous reader writes: Gemalto, a Dutch digital security company, has announced Facebook for SIM at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The company’s software development team has effectively shrunk Facebook down so that it fits onto a standard SIM card, enabling anyone with a GSM phone to enjoy the service even if without a data plan. In fact, the company is claiming the Facebook application is compatible with 100 percent of SIM-compliant mobile phones. As a result, it works on prepaid as well as on subscription-based mobile plans.

In doing so, Gemalto is offering Facebook to millions of mobile phone users regardless of their handset type. Facebook for SIM doesn’t require a data connection because it taps into a handset’s SMS connectivity to allow the user to interact with the service; users can sign up for Facebook, log in directly, and even check out friend requests, status updates, wall posts, and messages, all via the dedicated SIM application.

Submission + - Android Tablets Were Born Too Soon

Submitted by adeelarshad82 on Sunday February 06, 2011 @02:54PM

adeelarshad82 writes: When you look at the Apple iPad's sales figures, it's not hard to see why every technology company on the planet is jumping on the tablet bandwagon, alot of which are Android tablets. Unfortunatley though, some of these Android tablets were born way too early. They are haunted with a series of problems including flimsy hardware, low-quality resistive touch screens, serious display resolution issues, and old Android versions with limited or non-existent access to apps. Even the Samsung Galaxy Tab came well before it's time. Even though it's fast, well-designed, and comes with a decent Android implementation, it's functionalities are limited to those of an Android smartphone. So here's to hoping that Honeycomb's functionalities make up for the lost ground.

Submission + - RoboEarth - a web for robots (i-programmer.info)

Submitted by mikejuk on Sunday February 06, 2011 @09:24AM

mikejuk writes: A world wide web for robots? It sounds like a crazy idea but it could mean that once a task is learned any robot can find out how to do it just by asking RoboEarth. You use the web to find out stuff, including where you are and how to do something so why not robots.
Shades of SkyNet? Surely not.....

Submission + - Girlfriend's Revenge courtesy of Google Images (huffingtonpost.com) 2

Submitted by another similar on Saturday February 05, 2011 @08:42PM

another similar writes: This article on HuffPo teaches us that if you happen to have a bad break up with someone who's reasonably tech-savvy, beware where your descriptively captioned photos might end up after the breakup. Dude...

Submission + - World of Starcraft Mod Gets C&D from Blizzard (pixelatedgeek.com)

Submitted by eldavojohn on Wednesday January 19, 2011 @02:23PM

eldavojohn writes: If you've been following the team who created World of Starcraft (an amazing mod of Starcraft to be more like World of Warcraft), their youtube video of what they've done so far has already resulted in a cease and desist from Activision/Blizzard. Evidently when you are given tools to make custom mods to games you should be careful about making something too good. The author of the mod is hopeful that it's just a trademark problem with the name of his mod but few details are out.

Submission + - PC Virus Turns 25 (cio.com) 1

Submitted by Batblue on Wednesday January 19, 2011 @10:25AM

Batblue writes: Happy anniversary Basit and Amjad! Twenty-five years ago this month, the Alvi brothers of Lahore, Pakistan, gave the world the Brain Virus, the first bit of malware capable of infecting a DOS-based PC. Back in those relatively innocent times, the brothers actually embedded their real names and business address in the code and later told Time magazine they had written the virus to protect their medical software from piracy.

Who knows what they were really thinking, but by all accounts the Brain Virus was relatively harmless. Twenty-five years later, most malware is anything but benign and cyber criminals pull off exploits the Alvi brothers never envisioned.

Submission + - The 10 biggest hoaxes in Wikipedia's first decade (networkworld.com)

Submitted by jbrodkin on Friday January 14, 2011 @01:55PM

jbrodkin writes: Wikipedia will celebrate its 10th birthday on Saturday, with founder Jimmy Wales having built the site from nothing to one of the most influential destinations on the Internet. Wikipedia's goal may be to compile the sum total of all human knowledge, but it's also, perhaps, the best tool in existence for perpetuating Internet hoaxes. Top hoaxes include a student who fooled the entire world's media with a fake obituary quote, Rush Limbaugh spouting inaccurate facts lifted from Wikipedia, the incorrect declaration of Sinbad's death, Stephen Colbert's African elephant prank, Hitler posters on the bedroom wall of a teenage Tony Blair, and several fake historical figures invented out of thin air. Wales has taken steps to head off vandalism including preventing unregistered editors from creating new pages and temporarily protecting controversial articles, but Wikipedia's very nature makes it susceptible to the hoaxes described in this story.

Submission + - Vodafone dealer-logins given to organised crime? (abc.net.au) 1

Submitted by

beaverdownunder

on Sunday January 09, 2011 @06:18AM

beaverdownunder writes: ""Vodafone has confirmed it believes its secure customer database has been breached by an employee or dealer who has shared the access password, revealing the personal details of millions of customers...According to Fairfax newspapers, criminal groups are paying for the private information of some customers including home addresses and credit card details.""

Submission + - US Government Strategy To Prevent Leaks, Is Leaked 1

Submitted by Jake on Sunday January 09, 2011 @04:56AM

Jake writes: The US government's 11-page document on how to get various US government agencies to prevent future leaks has been leaked. It doesn't get any more ironic than that. After the various leaks made by WikiLeaks, the US government understandably wants to limit the number of potential leaks, but their strategy apparently isn't implemented yet. It's clear that the Obama administration is telling federal agencies to take aggressive steps to prevent further leaks. According to the document, these steps include figuring out which employees might be most inclined to leak classified documents, by using psychiatrists and sociologists to assess their trustworthiness. The memo also suggests that agencies require all their employees to report any contacts with members of the news media they may have.

Submission + - Some Wikileaks Contributions to Public Discourse 3

Submitted by

Hugh Pickens

on Sunday January 09, 2011 @01:20AM

Hugh Pickens writes: "EFF reports that regardless of the heated debate over the propriety of Wikileaks actions, some of the cables have contributed significantly to public and political conversations around the world. The Guardian reported on a cable describing an incident in Afghanistan in which employees of DynCorp, a US military contractor, hired a "dancing boy," an underaged boy dressed as women, who dance for gatherings of men and is then prostituted — an incident that contributed important information to the debate over the use of private military contractors. A cable released by Wikileaks showed that Pfizer allegedly sought to blackmail a Nigerian regulator to stop a lawsuit against drug trials on children. A Wikileaks revelation that the United States used bullying tactics to attempt to push Spain into adopting copyright laws even more stringent than those in the US came just in time to save Spain from the kind of misguided copyright laws that cripple innovation and facilitate online censorship. An article by the New York Times analyzed cables released which indicated the US is having difficulties in fulfilling Obama's promise to close the Guantánamo Bay detention camp and is now considering incentives in return for accepting detainees, including a one-on-one meeting with Obama or assistance obtaining IMF assistance. "These examples make clear that Wikileaks has brought much-needed light to government operations and private actions," writes Rainey Reitman, "which, while veiled in secrecy, profoundly affect the lives of people around the world and can play an important role in a democracy that chooses its leaders.""

Submission + - Aussie solar car smashes land speed record

Submitted by snowdon on Saturday January 08, 2011 @08:50PM

snowdon writes: A record which has stood for 22 years, set by General Motors, has been broken by a university team. The land speed record for a solar powered car was 78km/h and now stands at 88km/h despite the cloudy conditions... If only Doc Brown had used the metric system!

Submission + - Social Security Information Systems Near Collapse (informationweek.com)

Submitted by matty619 on Saturday January 08, 2011 @07:22PM

matty619 writes: An Information Week article warns that the computer systems that run the Social Security Administration which were deployed in 1979 may collapse by 2012 due to increased workload, and a half $Billion upgrade which won't be ready until 2015.
One of the biggest problems is the agency's transition to a new data center, according to the report. The IG has characterized the replacement of the SSA's National Computer Center (NCC) — built in 1979 — as the SSA's "primary IT investment" in the next few years.
The agency has received more than $500 million so far to replace the outdated center, which is now so severely strained by an expanded workload over its time of operation that it may not be able to function by 2012, according to the report.

Comment DONT HELP HIM (Score 1) 600

by NateSac on Sunday November 21, 2010 @04:34PM (#34300164) Attached to: Best IT-infrastructure For a Small Company?

Very interesting subject to me, because I've done this. I built the IT infrastructure for the company I now own and operate, but at the time, I was building it for some one else. It now just became mine through some sick twist of fate. Anyways, that said, ANY ONE WHO HELPS THIS DOUCHE BAG IS ALSO A DOUCHE BAG. OP; you should have never taken this job. You don't have the experience and know how to do this right. You should now go and an hero.

Submission + - Hulu, NBC, and other sites block Google TV (vortex.com)

Submitted by padarjohn on Saturday November 06, 2010 @09:08PM

padarjohn writes: Imagine the protests that would ensue if Internet services arbitrarily blocked video only to Internet Explorer or Firefox browsers! Or if Hulu and the other networks decided they'd refuse to stream video to HP and Dell computers because those manufacturers hadn't made deals with the services to the latter's liking.

Submission + - Bees reveal nature-nuture secrets

Submitted by NoFear on Saturday November 06, 2010 @06:51PM

NoFear writes: The nature-nurture debate is a "giant step" closer to being resolved after scientists studying bees documented how environmental inputs can modify our genetic hardware. The researchers uncovered extensive molecular differences in the brains of worker bees and queen bees which develop along very different paths when put on different diets The research was led by Professor Ryszard Maleszka of The Australian National University's College of Medicine, Biology and Environment, working with colleagues from the German Cancer Institute in Heidelberg, Germany and will be published next week in the online, open access journal PLoS Biology.

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