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Comment Re:I stopped using Chrome (Score 2) 260

Financing[edit] The Mozilla Foundation is funded by donations and "search royalties". Since 2005, the vast majority of funds have come from Google Inc. Initial funding in 2003 came from AOL, who donated US$2 million, and from Mitch Kapor who donated US$300,000. The group has tax-exempt status under section 501(c)(3) of the U.S. tax code, though the Mozilla Corporation subsidiary is taxable. In 2006, the Mozilla Foundation received US$66.8 million in revenues, of which US$61.5 million is attributed to "search royalties" from Google.[9] The foundation has an ongoing deal with Google to make Google search the default in the Firefox browser search bar and hence send it search referrals; a Firefox themed Google search site has also been made the default home page of Firefox. The original contract expired in November 2006. However, Google renewed the contract until November 2008 and again through 2011.[10] On 20 December 2011 Mozilla announced that the contract was once again renewed for at least three years to November 2014, at three times the amount previously paid, or nearly US$300 million annually.[11][12] Approximately 85% of Mozilla’s revenue for 2006 was derived from this contract.
Security

Submission + - NASA: huge water loss in the Middle East (go.com)

dstates writes: Water is a huge global security issue. To understand the middle east, you need to understand that the Golan Heights provides a significant amount of the water used in Israel. Focusing on conflicts and politics means that huge volumes of valuable water are being wasted in the Middle East, and this will only exacerbate future conflicts. Water is a serious issue between India and China. And then there is Africa.US food exports are in effect exporting irrigation water drawn from the Ogallala aquifer. Fracking trades water for energy, and lack of water limits fracking in many parts of th world. Think about it.

Submission + - North Korea's Satellite Is Out of Control (gizmodo.com)

Koreantoast writes:

After failing miserably on numerous occasions, North Korea has finally put a satellite in orbit. But according to US officials, it is now "tumbling out of control." This is bad news, and more bad news, covered in a double layer of extra bad news.

According to US officials, it appears that North Korea's new satellite has failed to achieve a stable orbit and is now "tumbling out of control." The greatest danger is the threat of it colliding with another satellite, adding to the growing debris field around the earth. A separate Gizmodo article provides links for tracking the current location of the satellite.

Submission + - Jammie Thomas takes constitutional argument to SCOTUS (blogspot.com)

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "Jammie Thomas-Rasset, the Native American Minnesotan found by a jury to have downloaded 24 mp3 files of RIAA singles, has filed a petition for certioriari to the United States Supreme Court, arguing that the award of $220,000 in statutory damages is excessive, in violation of the Due Process Clause. Her petition (PDF) argued that the RIAA's litigation campaign was "extortion, not law", and pointed out that "[a]rbitrary statutory damages made the RIAA’s litigation campaign possible; in turn,that campaign has inspired copycats like the so-called Copyright Enforcement Group; the U.S. Copyright Group, which has already sued more than 20,000 individual movie downloaders; and Righthaven, which sued bloggers. This Court should grant certiorari to review this use of the federal courts as a scourge"."
Google

Submission + - Google boss says tax avoidance IS capitalism (independent.co.uk) 1

Bruce66423 writes: Eric Schmidt said £2.5 billion tax avoidance 'is called capitalism': is totally unrepentant. One must admit to being impressed by his honesty, unlike Starbucks who are gratuitously giving the British government money. So the question is — how can British geeks ensure their displeasure is demonstrated — apart from making sure that ALL their friends have Adblocker software installed
Education

Submission + - Learning rocket science with videogames. (wired.com)

GNUman writes: Wired writes an article about using videogames to get kids into engineering, starting with Kerbal Space Program, a indie physics driven sandbox where you build your own spaceship and explore space. I have had much fun with this game the past year and I have actually learned a bit of rocket engineering and orbital mechanics while at it. The article also mentions Minecraft, World of Goo, Amazing Alex, Patterns, Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts, Fantastic Contraption and SpaceChem. I really like the idea of games that are great fun while fostering creativity and even learning in the process and would like to know what other games would you add to this list.
Security

Submission + - Islamic hacker group resumes attacks on banks (infoworld.com)

tsamsoniw writes: "PNC, Bank of America, SunTrust, and other major financial institutions have experienced a wave of DDoS attacks and site outages over the past couple of days, and Islamic extremist hacker group Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters is claiming responsibility. The group, which launched similar attacks earlier this year, reiterated its demands: that a controversial YouTube video mocking the prophet Mohammed "be eliminated from the Internet.""
Censorship

Submission + - Google.com now 'censors' explicit content from image searches (zdnet.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Google search users now have to be a little more specific before receiving goods of an explicit nature. For example, if one were to type in a particular sexual act, Google.com will no longer dish up what one was expecting. If users are more specific in what they are after, then it will return what one expected in the first place.
Space

Submission + - Hubble sees tribe of baby galaxies 13+ billion light years away

The Bad Astronomer writes: "Using Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have spotted seven galaxies that are all over 13 billion light years away... including one that appears to be a record breaker at a staggering 13.3+ billion light years distant. That one is seen as it was only 380 million years after the Big Bang. This observation reaches into the era of the young cosmos when stars were first forming, and allows astronomers to better understand what the Universe was like back then — a time we know very little about."
Spam

Submission + - The SEO Spammers Behind Online Infographics (itworld.com)

jfruh writes: "Over the past couple of years, you may have noticed a rash of often high-quality infographics by third parties appearing on your favorite websites. These images are offered to Web publishers free of charge, with the only request being a link back to the creator's own site. But when one blogger got an odd email from a the creator of infographic he put on his site two years ago, he did some digging and discovered that he had inadvertantly helped some shady characters do SEO spamming."

Submission + - Atheist blogger sentenced to 3 years of prison for insulting Islam (alarabiya.net)

An anonymous reader writes: Egyptian blogger Alber Saber, maintainer of the Egyptian Atheists Facebook page, has been
sentenced to three years in prison under Egypt's blasphemy law for posting the trailer for the anti-Muslim film Innocence of Muslims. This film was widely blamed for al-Qaeda's coordinated attacks on US embassies on September 11 of this year, which were meant to pressure the US for the release of Omar Abdel-Rahman, who is imprisoned in the US for his role in the World Trade Center attack of 1993.

PC Games (Games)

Understanding Addiction-Based Game Design 308

spidweb writes "The common theory is that games like World of Warcraft are addictive. But what are the exact qualities that make it so? Are there specific elements of the design that can be pulled out, distilled, and used at will to give a game drug-like properties? Is it wrong to do so? A new article at IGN RPG Vault attempts to isolates the exact qualities that go into making an addiction-based design. From the article: 'If a game uses rewards of any sort to entice you to experience highly repetitive content, you should see what it's trying to do and which of your buttons it's trying to press. If you don't mind, that's cool, but you should understand it.'"
PlayStation (Games)

Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 Confirmed For the PS3, 360 83

RyuuzakiTetsuya writes "According to Kotaku, Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is making its way to the PS3 and the Xbox 360. It's based on the Dreamcast code, and it includes Online play and widescreen support. A demo will be available Thursday on the Playstation Network, and the full game will retail for $15 on each of the respective online services. A gameplay trailer is available as well."

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