MP Wants Official Email Address Kept Private 179

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday August 10, 2010 @01:42AM from the la-la-la-i-can't-hear-you dept.

nk497 writes "An MP in the UK has had his official email address removed from the parliamentary website, because he's tired of getting 'nuisance' emails via online campaign websites. MP Dominic Raab's parliamentary.uk email is currently not listed on the House of Commons' website following a spat with online campaigners 38 Degrees. 'Just processing the emails from your website absorbs a disproportionate amount of time and effort, which we may wish to spend on higher priorities, such as helping constituents in real need or other local or Parliamentary business,' he said, threatening to report the group to the government's data and privacy watchdog if they didn't remove the details from their own website. 38 Degrees says Raab gave them his personal email address during the election: 'it's only since he became a member of parliament with a taxpayer funded email address that he's now said he doesn't want to hear from people,' unless they're willing to shell out for a stamp to write him a letter. The lobby group said Raab likely averaged fewer than two emails from their site each day."

OpenSSL 1.0.0 Released 105

Posted by Soulskill on Monday March 29, 2010 @04:31PM from the sweet-when-is-2.0 dept.

hardaker writes "After over 11 years of development since the start of the OpenSSL Project (1998-12-23), OpenSSL version 1.0.0 has finally hit the shelves of the free-for-all store."

Google Makes Apps Script Available To All 61

Posted by Soulskill on Sunday March 14, 2010 @10:49AM from the come-one-come-all dept.

theodp writes "Formerly only available to Apps Users, Google has made Apps Script available to everyone (sample script), including you Google Docs low-lifers. Apps Script lets you automate actions across spreadsheets, sites, calendars, and other Google services. No spamming, kids!"

America's Army Games Cost $33 Million Over 10 Years 192

Posted by Soulskill on Thursday December 10, 2009 @04:25AM from the your-tax-dollars-at-play dept.

Responding to a Freedom Of Information Act request, the US government has revealed the operating costs of the America's Army game series over the past decade. The total bill comes to $32.8 million, with yearly costs varying from $1.3 million to $5.6 million. "While operating America's Army 3 does involve ongoing expenses, paying the game's original development team isn't one of them. Days after the game launched in June, representatives with the Army confirmed that ties were severed with the Emeryville, California-based team behind the project, and future development efforts were being consolidated at the America's Army program office at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama. A decade after its initial foray into the world of gaming, the Army doesn't appear to be withdrawing from the industry anytime soon. In denying other aspects of the FOIA request, the Army stated 'disclosure of this information is likely to cause substantial harm to the Department of the Army's competitive position in the gaming industry.'"

New WoW Patch Brings Cross-Server Instances 342

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday December 09, 2009 @04:36AM from the new-and-shiny dept.

ajs writes "World of Warcraft's Wrath of the Lich King expansion was staggered into 4 phases. The fourth and final phase, patch 3.3, was released on Tuesday. This patch is significant in that it will be the first introduction of one of the most anticipated new features in the game since PvP arenas: the cross-realm random dungeon, as well as the release of new end-game dungeons for 5, 10 and 25-player groups. The patch notes have been posted, and so has a trailer. The ultimate fight against the expansion's antagonist, the Lich King a.k.a. Arthas, will be gated as each of the four wings of the final dungeon are opened in turn — a process that may take several months. The next major patch after 3.3 (presumably 4.0) will be the release of Cataclysm, the next expansion."

Boxee vs. Zinc vs. Hulu 116

Posted by timothy on Monday June 29, 2009 @08:11AM from the we-had-to-invent-tv-and-we-liked-it dept.

For those with a Windows PC and some time for TV, DeviceGuru writes "Which is the best Internet media streaming application for a media-center PC? Boxee, Zinc, or the new Hulu Desktop? A post at DeviceGuru.com reviews these three media streaming platforms and draws some interesting conclusions. Key pros and cons are tabulated and numerous screenshots are included. Interestingly, despite lots of Boxee hype, Zinc already has a number of valuable features that Boxee is scrambling to add to its next version, due out in the fall. On the other hand, Boxee boasts far more third-party content-access applications support."

Comment Re:Cloud (Score 1) 387

by mjmartin_uk on Friday June 26, 2009 @09:24AM (#28480999) Attached to: News Sites Slammed By Michael Jackson Traffic

Mod parent up. Absolutely.

Of course the big sites don't have redundancy for a big unfortunate event like this and I question the commercial viability of even adapting their achitecture to suit rare events. Is it really worth scaling like that for a rare event? Is it really worth re-addressing their systems architecture for events that rarely happen?

How much resource would that reorganising take? How much would it cost? We're in an economic down turn, do they have the money in the bank to address this when the money may be better spent elsewhere in their respective businesses rather than auto-scaling on big events?

What's the online ad revenue like at the time of a big event? How is that revenue impacted at the time the service experiences difficulties? Is it worth swallowing the cost of downtime?

I'm sure all of these questions may be going through the CTOs' minds at their respective channels/agencies right now. They should be.

Now I'm not disagreeing with Reuven Cohen's comments per say, I'm just pointing out that there's got to be a good business case for scaling to this level and that business case is going to vary from news channel to news channel.

Comment Re:On whose authority? (Score 1) 1123

by mjmartin_uk on Monday December 01, 2008 @05:07PM (#25951237) Attached to: IT Job Without a Degree?

Agreed, it's a matter of trust (much like SSL certificates). X University says you passed their degree course.

I respect X University therefore, I know that you're at least good at something. And so long as you can prove yourself and show how good you are, you have fewer hurdles to jump in the interview process.

That being said, I have a Bachelors in Music. But I've worked at a few tech companies, founded my own (which I'm finishing with at the moment) and now have a decent job as a programmer, get paid quite well, not CxO well but well enough for my age and experience. Do I wish to have a CS degree? Absolutely. But hey, I'm young, and with the futher experience I've got now, I shouldn't have any problems in pursuing that if I need to in the future.

Sony Claims PS3 Javascript Performance Is Better Than IE7's 112

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday October 28, 2008 @11:05PM from the ouch dept.

Scorpinox writes "According to Sony Online Entertainment, the latest 2.50 update to the Playstation 3, which added Flash 9 support, is 'not up to the level of Google Chrome,' but 'beats Internet Explorer 7' in Javascript performance. The article goes on to say 'Sony has actually been working on Flash 9 support for quite some time — as far back as late last year. To get it running on the PS3, Sony ended up customizing a separate Flash implementation that was provided to it by Adobe.'"

In UK, Broadband Limits Confuse Nine In Ten Users 217

Posted by kdawson on Friday October 24, 2008 @10:24AM from the ninety-percent-of-everything dept.

Mark Jackson writes "ISPreview reports that 86% of UK broadband users don't understand the usage limits on their service, and nearly one million have reached or exceeded their ISPs limit in the last year. This is important because 56% of major providers are prepared to disconnect those who 'abuse' the service. However, it also shows how damaging bad marketing can be, with 6.2M people believing they have an 'unlimited' service with no restrictions. The UK Advertising Standards Authority is also blamed for making the problem worse by allowing providers to describe their services as unlimited even if there is a usage cap, as long as it is detailed in the small print. However, consumers are none the wiser with over 10 million broadband customers never reading their usage agreements and a further 1.8M not knowing whether they have read it or not. Unsurprisingly 7.5M do not even know their download limit, which is understandable when so few providers clarify it."

High Cost of Converting UK To High-Speed Broadband 268

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday September 09, 2008 @05:23AM from the at-least-the're-doing-the-math dept.

Smivs notes a BBC report on a government study toting up the high cost of converting the UK to high speed broadband, which could exceed £28.8 B ($52.5 B). The options examined range from fiber to the neighborhood, providing 30-100 Mbps connections for a total cost of £5.1 B ($9.3 B), up to individual fiber to the home offering 1 Gbps to each household at a cost of £28.8 B. England's rural areas could pose tough choices. In the lowest-cost, fiber-to-the-neighborhood scenario, "The [group] estimates that getting fiber to the cabinets near the first 58% of households could cost about £1.9 B. The next 26% would cost about £1.4 B and the final 16% would cost £1.8 B."

Computer Beats Pro At US Go Congress 496

Posted by kdawson on Friday August 08, 2008 @08:52AM from the going-going-gone dept.

Bob Hearn writes "I was in attendance at the US Go Congress match yesterday where history was made: the go program MoGo, running on an 800-core supercomputer, beat 8-dan professional go player Myungwan Kim in a 9-stone handicap game. Most in the audience were shocked at the computer's performance; it was naturally assumed that the computer would be slaughtered, as usual. Go is often seen as the last bastion of human superiority over computers in the domain of board games. But if Moore's law continues to hold up, today's result suggests that the days of human superiority may be numbered." Read below for more details in Bob's account of the match.

How to Turn a PlayStation 3 Into a Linux PC 276

Posted by timothy on Thursday June 05, 2008 @11:58PM from the sleek-box-of-ubuntu dept.

MahariBalzitch writes "Popular Mechanics shows step by step guide on how to install Ubuntu Linux on a PlayStation 3 and still keep the PS3 gaming functionality. Now I just need to get my hands on a PS3." Not bad specs for the price, either, since Blu-Ray players still aren't cheap. And though the article calls the procedure "somewhat complicated," it's a lot simpler than was installing Linux from floppies not so many years ago.

Duke Nukem Forever Preview On Jace Hall Show 341

Posted by timothy on Thursday June 05, 2008 @09:52PM from the you-have-no-idea-how-much-I-care dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The Jace Hall Show launched today on Sony's Crackle with a real gameplay preview of Duke Nukem Forever. Jace Hall is a former video game producer and Warner Bros exec and apparently this is his foray into online celebrity. DNF is 12 years in development ... it might be real after all." And if you have had enough self-indulgent gaming-news patter, another reader says "If you want to simply skip right ahead, it's about 4:20 in."

Google Assists In Arrest Of Indian Man 609

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday May 19, 2008 @10:47AM from the many-shades-of-evil dept.

An anonymous reader writes "After a Google user posted a profane picture of the Hindu saint Shivaji, Indian authorities contacted Google to ask for his IP address. Google complied. He was arrested and is reported to have been beaten by a lathi and asked to use the same bowl to eat and to use in the toilet. Not surprisingly, Google is a keen to play this down as Yahoo is being hauled over the coals by US Congress for handing over IP addresses and emails to the Chinese Government which resulted in a Chinese democracy activist being jailed." Readers are noting that these are 2 unrelated cases — the latter is several months old.