Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror

Comment Re:I deeply dislike the end-run aroudn the courts (Score 1) 270

I am surprised Valve, any company really, doesn't have this included in there TOS from the get go, given the damages a class action lawsuit can bring to a company. The majority of customers don't care and can't even be bothered to read the agreement. There is hardly a downside, this clause can only improve their bottom line.
Security

Submission + - PayPal Starts Bug Bounty Program For Security Research (threatpost.com)

Trailrunner7 writes: PayPal is the latest company to join the ranks of software vendors and Web properties that offer bounties to security researchers who privately disclose new bugs to them. The company isn't saying how much it will pay for each bug, just that its security team will determine the severity of each flaw as well as the ultimate payout.

PayPal's decision to offer financial incentives to researchers follows the establishment of similar programs by companies including Google, Mozilla, Facebook, Barracuda and others. Google's bug bounty program may be the most well-known and comprehensive, as it includes bugs not just in its software products such as Chrome, but also its Web properties. The company has paid out more than $400,000 in rewards to researchers since the program began and researchers who consistently find bugs in Google's products can make a nice side income off the program.

Now PayPal is entering the fray at a time when financial fraud and attacks against high-profile Web sites are at a fever pitch. The company's top security official said that he believes PayPal is the first financial services company to start such a program.

Privacy

Have Your Fingerprints Read From 6 Meters Away 122

First time accepted submitter Burdell writes "A new startup has technology to read fingerprints from up to 6 meters away. IDair currently sells to the military, but they are beta testing it with a chain of 24-hour fitness centers that want to restrict sharing of access cards. IDair also wants to sell this to retail stores and credit card companies as a replacement for physical cards. Lee Tien from the EFF notes that the security of such fingerprint databases is a privacy concern." Since the last time this technology was mentioned more than a year ago, it seems that the claimed range for reading has tripled, and the fingerprint reader business has been spun off from the company at which development started.
Education

Submission + - Laptops in the classroom don't increase grades (nytimes.com)

blitzkrieg3 writes: Classrooms all around the country are being fitted with one to one laptop programs, networking hardware, digital projectors, and other technology in order to stay competitive in the 21st century. Kyrene school district spent $3 million modernizing their classrooms. The problem? The increase in spending doesn't lead to an increase in test scores. Policy makers calling for high tech classrooms, including former execs from HP, Apple, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, want to increase technology investment despite the results. Others are not so sure, or think it is an outright waste of money.

Submission + - NSA makes contribution to Apache Hadoop Project (apache.org)

An anonymous reader writes: The National Security Agency has submitted a new database, Accumulo, to the Apache Foundation for incubation. Accumulo is based on the original BigTable paper with some extensions such as the ability to provide cell-level security. It appears there are some hurdles that must be cleared concerning copyright before the project could be accepted.

Comment Re:I hope you like your change. (Score 1) 368

By "Set up" i meant there are a number of significant barriers to getting a third party elected. The main parties have done a good job at boxing out minority groups. Media coverage ignores them. Ballot laws are an obstacle for them to get listed. Our voting system of all or nothing makes voting third party a waist of time. Third party candidates aren't aren't even invited to the debates. The libertarian party has been struggling with this for a long time. It is far easier to change the ideology of the majority parties. There goals aren't set in stone and have changed considerably from when they were started.

Comment Re:I hope you like your change. (Score 2, Interesting) 368

The U.S. isn't setup for more than a two party system. Starting a new party would be a wast of time, no one other than a handful full of local politicians would get elected. The liberal party is your closest bet, That would still be a long shot as our culture is setup on the good old boys mentality. It is easier to influence a smaller group than the whole country. it's all about who you know, younger generations join the groups they best connect with. Friendships are made, and influence is a matter of fact. you are who your friends are. Change takes time and the tea party knows what they are doing. Historically, are major party's have changed ideology considerably.

Comment Re:Not the same (Score 1) 181

Unfortunitly my gass pump does. They are now putting tvs on top of the pumps to annoy you with ads often at a high volume. One of the worst new developments to make a few extra advertising dollars. I avoid those gas stations when ever posible. Yet, I worry they will soon be everrywhere.

Comment google ads (Score 2, Insightful) 71

Google's ads have been pointless for a long time. I don't understand how they make as much revenue as they do with ads that no one, or at least not anyone I know clicking on them. The ads are mostly spam and scams. Their text format is bad too. I rarely click on ads but those that I do are usualy non flash banners, or I'll unknowingly read a paid for review. A few key word lines of text doesn't have the click me afpeal that oither ad options do. It is about time they cleaned up their advertisers and made them more relevent.

Comment Re:Average (Score 1) 617

Quick warning here, by correcting yourself you significantly reduce the odds of entertaining replies, thus reducing the odds of a coffee-spew-on-screen, thus reducing the number of new monitors needed. You sir, are wrecking the economy.

Broken Monitor fallacy. Let me guess, you got a C in economics.

Science

First Black Hole For Light Created On Earth 244

An anonymous reader writes "An electromagnetic 'black hole' that sucks in surrounding light has been built for the first time. The device, which works at microwave frequencies, may soon be extended to trap visible light, leading to an entirely new way of harvesting solar energy to generate electricity. A theoretical design for a table-top black hole to trap light was proposed in a paper published earlier this year by Evgenii Narimanov and Alexander Kildishev of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. Their idea was to mimic the properties of a cosmological black hole, whose intense gravity bends the surrounding space-time, causing any nearby matter or radiation to follow the warped space-time and spiral inwards."
The Internet

Submission + - SPAM: Searching Where Google Can't

itwbennett writes: "Believe it or not, there are parts of the world beyond Google's reach. And while most of us have happily assumed that their information needs are being met with SMS alerts, Rose Shuman developed a contraption for this under-served population called Question Box that is essentially a one-step-removed Internet search:

A villager presses a call button on a physical intercom device, located in their village, which connects them to a trained operator in a nearby town who's sitting in front of a computer attached to the Internet. A question is asked. While the questioner holds, the operator looks up the answer on the Internet and reads it back. All questions and answers are logged. For the villager there is no keyboard to deal with. No complex technology. No literacy issues.

This week, Jon Gosier, of Appfrica, launched a web site called World Wants to Know that displays the QuestionBox questions being asked in real time. As Jon put it, it's allowing 'searching where Google can't.' And providing remarkable insight into the real information needs of off-the-grid populations."
Link to Original Source

Slashdot Top Deals

"Truth never comes into the world but like a bastard, to the ignominy of him that brought her birth." -- Milton

Working...