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Submission + - ScummVM 1.5.0 "Picnic Basket" Released (scummvm.org)

Submitted by

YokimaSun

on Monday July 30, 2012 @03:13AM

YokimaSun writes: "Fans of classic graphical point-and-click adventure games, will be happy to learn that a new version of ScummVM has been released with support for new games such as Once Upon A Time: Little Red Riding Hood, Backyard Baseball 2003, Blue Force, Darby the Dragon, Dreamweb, Geisha, Gregory and the Hot Air Balloon, Magic Tales: Liam Finds a Story and more. ScummVM not only supports Windows, Linux and new platforms such as iPhone and Android but also consoles such as Dreamcast, Gamecube and Nintendo 64 and rarer handhelds such as Openpandora and Dingoo."

Submission + - Fighting the iCrime Wave

Submitted by theodp on Saturday July 28, 2012 @12:34AM

theodp writes: 'What's the point of a mobile device,' asks WSJ reporter and iPad-beatdown-victim Rolfe Winkler, 'if people don't feel safe using it while they're mobile?' A lucrative secondhand market for today's electronics devices — a used iPad or iPhone can fetch $400+ — has produced an explosion in 'Apple picking' by thieves. So, how big is the iCrime wave? In New York City alone, there were more than 26,000 incidents of electronics theft in the first 10 months of 2011 — 81% involving mobile phones — according to an internal NYPD document. And plenty of the crimes are violent. The best way to deter theft is to reduce the value of stolen device — the wireless industry is moving to adopt a national registry that would deny service to such devices. A remote kill switch has been discussed as another approach. For its part, Apple says the company 'has led the industry in helping customers protect their lost or stolen devices,' although some are unimpressed. Could the estimated $575 in profit per iOS device be part of the problem?"

Submission + - 6 IT Projects are $8 Billion Over Budget at the Dept of Defense (federaltimes.com)

Submitted by McGruber on Friday July 27, 2012 @10:36PM

McGruber writes: The Federal Times has the stunning but not surprising news (http://www.federaltimes.com/article/20120723/DEPARTMENTS01/307230001/At-DoD-6-projects-8-billion-over-budget) that a new audit has found that Six Defense Department modernization projects are a combined $8 Billion — or 110 percent — over budget. The projects are also suffering from years-long schedule delays.

In 1998, work began on the Army’s Logistics Modernization Program (LMP). In April 2010, the General Accounting Office (GAO) issued their report "Actions Needed to Improve Implementation of the Army Logistics Modernization Program" (http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-461) about the status of LMP. LMP is now scheduled to be fully deployed in September 2016, 12 years later than originally scheduled, and 18 years after development first began! (Development of the often-maligned Duke Nukem Forever (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Nukem_Forever) only took 15 years.)

Prime contractors Computer Sciences Corp, Accenture, IBM and CACI obviously have learned the "If you're not a part of the solution, there's good money to be made in prolonging the problem" lesson! (http://www.despair.com/consulting.html)

Submission + - Games could predict whether you're color blind, a gambler, or have ADD (venturebeat.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 27, 2012 @02:58PM

An anonymous reader writes: Lukasz Twardowski, a young Polish entrepreneur, recently made an unexpected discovery. By analyzing data from video games, he thinks he’ll be able to predict whether players are color blind, have Alzheimer’s disease, or suffer from various learning and development disorders. He can already use this data to tell whether players are gamblers, cheaters, or minors, so the profiling of medical conditions is not that distant, Twardowski claims.

“Games are the richest and the most meaningful form of human computer interaction,” said Twardowski in an interview with VentureBeat. “We can use [them] to build a full user behavioral profile.”

Submission + - Web Giants Form US Internet Lobby Group (techweekeurope.co.uk)

Submitted by

judgecorp

on Thursday July 26, 2012 @08:28AM

judgecorp writes: "Google, Facebook, eBay and Amazon have apparently set up the Internet Association to lobby the US government on issues relating to online business. The official launch is not till September."

Submission + - OpenBSD's de Raadt slams Red Hat, Canonical over 'secure' boot (itwire.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26, 2012 @03:51AM

An anonymous reader writes: OpenBSD founder Theo de Raadt has slammed Red Hat and Canonical for the way they have reacted to Microsoft's introduction of "secure" boot along with Windows 8, describing both companies as wanting to be the new Microsoft.

Submission + - Bank Robbing a terrible business (wsj.com)

Submitted by

isoloisti

on Thursday June 14, 2012 @11:29AM

isoloisti writes: "Three UK economists get access to national data on bank robberies. The conclusion is that robbing banks pays, but not very much. Average take is about $19k per person per robbery. But, there's a 20% chance of being caught per raid. To make a below average income a robber needs to do two jobs per year, and has greater than 50% chance to be in the slammer after 2 years."

Submission + - Adjusting your PC set-up to cope with sudden sight loss (pcpro.co.uk)

Submitted by

Barence

on Thursday June 14, 2012 @07:14AM

Barence writes: "PC Pro's Davey Winder has written a first-hand account of how he overhauled his PC workstation to cope with a sudden deterioration of his eyesight. Winder contracted wet macular degeneration, a progressive disease that strikes very quickly, and turns items in the field of vision into a grey smudge.

He explains how he continued his work as a journalist by changing his word processor, swapping his desktop monitor for a touchscreen, and by replacing his keyboard with an Accuratus Monster keyboard (or Big Freaky Yellow Keyboard, as he's renamed it).

He also explains why he had to swap his favourite Chrome browser for Internet Explorer, and how a £3.99 iPhone app saved him from spending hundreds of pounds on a dedicated hardware reader."

Submission + - EU Clean IT project considers terrorist content database (itnews.com.au) 3

Submitted by schliz on Wednesday June 06, 2012 @02:10AM

schliz writes: Internet users could contribute to an official blacklist of suspected terrorist content under a budding 'Clean IT' project, backed by the European Commission. Participating governments are putting together 13 proposals in a text that commits web hosts, search engines and ISPs to helping to weed out content that incites acts of terror.

Submission + - Star Wars: 1313 To Offer M-Rated Gaming Adventure in a Galaxy Far, Far, Away (hothardware.com) 1

Submitted by

MojoKid

on Tuesday June 05, 2012 @02:43PM

MojoKid writes: "When it comes to Star Wars, the gaming industry has a long history of cranking out titles of uncertain quality. For every brilliant title like Knights of the Old Republic, we've seen several clunkers and a few outright failures like Republic Heroes. LucasArts demonstrated a new Star Wars game at E3 this week, Star Wars: 1313 and despite the brand's uneven history, folks are cautiously optimistic. The 1313 moniker refers to a specific level of Coruscant which is a haven for criminals, bounty hunters, and crime lords. You take on the role of a bounty hunter looking for information on an unspecified criminal conspiracy who descends to 1313 in search of data. This will be the first Star Wars game to be rated "M" for mature, and it focuses on the seedy underbelly of the universe."

Submission + - Pirate Bay Ready For IP Address Whac-A-Mole

Submitted by jones_supa on Tuesday May 29, 2012 @05:54AM

jones_supa writes: Last week The Pirate Bay added a new IP address which allows users to circumvent the many court-ordered blockades against the site. While this proved to be quite effective, the Hollywood backed anti-piracy group BREIN has already been to court to demand a block against this new address. But that won't deter The Pirate Bay, who say they are fully prepared for an extended game of whac-a-mole using the hundreds of IP addresses they have available. Courts all around the world have ordered Internet providers to block subscriber access to the torrent site, and the end is still not in sight.

Submission + - "Open Source Bach" project completed; score and recording now online (opengoldbergvariations.org) 1

Submitted by

rDouglass

on Monday May 28, 2012 @01:37PM

rDouglass writes: "MuseScore, the open source music notation editor, and pianist Kimiko Ishizaka have released a new recording and digital edition of Bach's Goldberg Variations. The works are released under the Creative Commons Zero license to promote the broadest possible free use of the works. The score underwent two rounds of public peer review, drawing on processes normally applied to open source software. Furthermore, the demands of Bach's notational style drove significant advancements in the MuseScore open source project. The recording was made on a Bösendorfer 290 Imperial piano in the Teldex Studio of Berlin. Anne-Marie Sylvestre, a Canadian record producer, was inspired by the project and volunteered her time to edit and produce the recording. The project was funded by a successful Kickstarter campaign that was featured on Slashdot in March 2011."

Submission + - SETI pioneer Jill Tarter retires (nature.com)

Submitted by ananyo on Wednesday May 23, 2012 @09:07AM

ananyo writes: After 35 years, astronomer Jill Tarter is retiring from the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) — a field she helped pioneer and popularize, most recently at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California. Tarter, who inspired the late Carl Sagan to create the fictional character Ellie Arroway, heroine of the book and movie ‘Contact’, says she will instead focus her efforts on what she calls “the search for intelligent funding.”

Submission + - Employee "Disciplined" for Installing BitCoin Software on Federal Webservers (delimiter.com.au) 1

Submitted by

Fluffeh

on Monday May 21, 2012 @02:03AM

Fluffeh writes: "Around a year ago, a person working for the ABC in Australia with the highest levels of access to systems got caught caught with his fingers on the CPU cycles. The staffer had installed BitCoin mining software on the systems used by the Australian broadcaster. While the story made a bit of a splash at the time, it was finally announced today that the staffer hadn't been sacked, but was merely being disciplined by his manager and having his access to systems restricted. All the stories seem a little vague as to what he actually installed however — on one side he installed the software on a public facing websever, and the ABC itself admits "As this software was for a short time embedded within pages on the ABC website, visitors to these pages may have been exposed to the Bitcoin software" and "the Coalition (current Opposition Parties) was planning on quizzing the ABC further about the issue, including filing a request for the code that would have been downloaded to users’ machines", but on the other side there is no mention of the staffer trying to seed a BitCoin mining botnet through the site, just that mining software had been installed."

Submission + - Report Highlights 10 Sites Unfairly Blocked by UK Mobile Internet Censorship (ispreview.co.uk)

Submitted by

Mark.JUK

on Monday May 14, 2012 @10:26AM

Mark.JUK writes: "The Open Rights Group (ORG), which works to raise awareness of digital rights and civil liberties issues, has published a new report that examines the impact of internet censorship on UK mobile networks and lists an example of 10 legitimate websites that often get unfairly blocked by adult content filters (over-blocking). The study is important because similar measures could soon be forced upon fixed line broadband ISP subscribers by the government. Some of the allegedly unfair blocks include censorship of the 'Tor' system, a privacy tool used by activists and campaigners across the globe, and the website of French ‘digital rights’ advocacy group 'La Quadrature du Net'."

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