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Social Networks

Criminal Charges Against Speed Trap Tweeter 253

Posted by Soulskill from the flashing-your-lights-is-now-passe dept.
martinlp writes "A Twitter account named Pigspotter is making big news in South Africa. The traffic authorities in Johannesburg are taking legal action against Pigspotter, an individual who is tweeting up-to-the-minute information about speed traps in and around the city. He has recently stopped, stating that his Blackberry is going in for repairs, but it may be out of fear of getting prosecuted. The police claim he must be getting inside information and suspect that disgruntled traffic officers may be involved. There is also speculation that it is more than one individual that is tweeting."
Data Storage

Is SSD Density About To Hit a Wall? 208

Posted by Soulskill from the right-into-a-brick-wall dept.
Zombie Puggle writes "Enterprise Storage Forum has an article contending that solid state disks will stay stuck at 20-25nm unless the materials and techniques used to design Flash drives changes, and soon. 'Anything smaller and the data protection and data corruption issues become so great that either the performance is abysmal, the data retention period doesn't meet JEDEC standards, or the cost increases. Though engineers are working on performance and density improvements via new technologies (they're also trying to drive costs down), these are fairly new techniques and are not likely to make it into devices for a while."
Security

DDoS From 4chan Hits MPAA and Anti-Piracy Website 318

Posted by Soulskill from the wonder-how-much-piracy-went-unaddressed-while-they-were-down dept.
ACKyushu writes "Say what you like about 4chan; when they want something done, it gets done. Following a call to arms yesterday, the masses inhabiting the anonymous 4chan boards have carried out a huge assault on a pair of anti-piracy enemies. The website of Aiplex Software, the anti-piracy outfit which has been DDoSing torrent sites recently, fell victim to a DDoS itself. They were joined in the Internet wasteland by the MPAA's website, which also fell to a huge and sustained attack."
Earth

Facing Oblivion, Island Nation Makes Big Sacrifice 360

Posted by Soulskill from the sink-or-swim dept.
Damien1972 writes "Kiribati, a small nation consisting of 33 Pacific island atolls, is forecast to be among the first countries swamped by rising sea levels. Nevertheless, the country recently made an astounding commitment: it closed over 150,000 square miles of its territory to fishing, an activity that accounts for nearly half the government's tax revenue. What moved the tiny country to take this monumental action? President Anote Tong, says Kiribati is sending a message to the world: 'We need to make sacrifices to provide a future for our children and grandchildren.'"
Science

How Your Brain Figures Out What It Doesn't Know 96

Posted by Soulskill from the identifying-the-dunning-kruger-zone dept.
hex0D passes along an article at NPR about a study that examined the biology behind the self-assessment of knowledge. Quoting: "We isolated a region of the prefrontal cortex, which is right at the front of the brain and is thought to be involved in high-level thought, conscious planning, monitoring of our ongoing brain activity,' Fleming says. In people who were good at assessing their own level of certainty, that region had more gray matter and more connections to other parts of the brain, according to the study Fleming and his colleagues published in the journal Science."
Businesses

Google, Apple and Others Accused of 'No Poaching' Deal 276

Posted by Soulskill from the stories-that-don't-involve-deer-and-the-king's-land dept.
lightbox32 writes "According to the Wall Street Journal, several of the US's largest technology companies, which include Google, Apple, Intel, Adobe, Intuit and Pixar Animation, are in the final stages of negotiations with the Justice Department to avoid a court battle over whether they colluded to hold down wages by agreeing not to poach each other's employees. 'The Justice Department would have to convince a court not just that such accords existed, but that workers had suffered significant harm as a result. The companies may not want to take a chance in court. If the government wins, it could open the floodgates for private claimants, even a class action by employees. A settlement would allow the Justice Department to halt the practice, without the companies having to admit to any legal violations.'"

Comment Re:Adios (Score 1) 95

by bloosheep (#29009183) Attached to: Encyclopedia Britannica Loses Information-Retrieval Patent Ruling
Thank you for a good obituary for the Encyclopaedia Britannica. When it goes, its passing will be the end of an era -- and not just a passing of technology, a passing of quality. While Wikipedia is an amazing effort, it will not ever be Britannica, unless you pour a lot of money into it to hire writers and editors. They are both a luxury in the Internet media world, and the lack of them shows in the uneven writing and many factual errors Wikipedia suffers from. You can still rightfully call Wikipedia an experiment. There was nobody who could apply that term to Britannica. It strived to be a reference worthy of inclusion in all the libraries of the world. It shaped our world. Be a little bit in awe of it before it finally sinks beneath the waves.

Comment Swiss Army knife... (Score 1) 205

by bloosheep (#26945753) Attached to: We're Just Not That Into You, iPhone Apps
I get a lot of apps to use as blades in a Swiss Army knife -- you know, you have blades you hardly ever use on your knife, but when you need them you're glad they're there. I don't need a flashlight every day, but I have a flashlight app on my iPhone "just in case." Same for a unit converter app. Many of the travel apps will not get used every day, but will likely see use for the few times a year I travel.

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