Comment Gmail has started to roll this out too. (Score 1) 240

by oOkathyOo on Wednesday October 16, 2013 @03:24PM (#45146211) Attached to: Square Debuts New Email Payment System

Starting this past May or so, many Gmail users received a new "Attach Money" option that lets them send money through a Gmail email. It's integrated with their Google Wallet, which stores credit card info and uses that for payment. You can see more details at: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/3141103?hl=en I saw the "attach money" option appear just last month for me, while composing a new email. It seems a lot more convenient than registering for a new Square account and using their strange "subject and cc" method. I'd expect the Gmail version to be much more likely to catch on than this Square one.

HP Cuts Workforce By 5%, Looks To Probe GM Hires 304

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday January 02, 2013 @10:21PM from the picking-teams dept.

dcblogs writes "Hewlett-Packard's reduced its workforce last year by 17,800 employees, more than half-way to its restructuring goal. But some key IT workers left unexpectedly and have taken jobs with HP customer, General Motors. GM, which outsourced its IT for years to EDS, announced plans last year to in-source its IT. HP acquired EDS in 2008. On Nov. 30, 18 employees of HP's Global Information Technology Organization in Austin 'resigned en masse and without notice' and 'immediately began working for General Motors in Austin in GM's new IT Innovation Center,' according to court papers. HP is asking the court for approval to depose some of the exiting workers to determine whether employment contracts were violated. 'HP expects that additional resignations will follow as the departed employees will likely seek to build out their teams by filling in with subordinate employees from HP,' the company said."

Comment Wrong Lesson. (Score 1) 452

by oOkathyOo on Sunday March 14, 2010 @01:18PM (#31473018) Attached to: Venezuela's Chavez To Limit Internet Freedom

They've has picked the wrong point. The lesson to be learned from the unfounded news posting should not have been that the internet needs less freedom. It should be that you shouldn't trust unconfirmed website posts you read online.

People need to learn to not trust every rumor they read from stupid hoax chain mails and random web postings. And this goes for not just online, but for all aspects of life. You have to learn how to analyze what you hear and read, and decide for yourself what to trust and believe. Not that the government needs to filter all communication that may reach you, in order to ensure it is a "truth" that you should believe.

But of course, with a dictator like Chavez, what other reaction would you expect?

The Best Robots of 2009 51

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday December 23, 2009 @09:59PM from the best-of-show dept.

kkleiner writes "Singularity Hub has just unveiled its second annual roundup of the best robots of the year. In 2009 robots continued their advance towards world domination with several impressive breakouts in areas such as walking, automation, and agility, while still lacking in adaptability and reasoning ability. It will be several years until robots can gain the artificial intelligence that will truly make them remarkable, but in the meantime they are still pretty awesome."

Comment Re:Complete-the-line with a pen (Score 1) 709

by oOkathyOo on Thursday November 06, 2008 @02:34PM (#25664487) Attached to: In the U.S. election just ended, I voted ...

UCSB's security group has shown this type of Sequoia voting machine to be rather easy to compromise, actually. Despite the paper receipts. http://it.slashdot.org/it/08/09/09/1426246.shtml From what I gather, the main problem with them is that it is possible to cancel / void your vote, and try again. A compromised machine may be able to automatically void someone's vote, after they have left, and recast a new changed vote in their name.

Feed New York Times: Judge Bars Ticket-Buying Software (nytimes.com)

From feed by nytfeed on Tuesday October 16, 2007 @02:52AM

The software lets users flood the Ticketmaster Web site with requests and snap up tickets in bulk, beating out humans who log in manually to buy tickets.

Feed New York Times: Google Takes Step on Video Copyrights (nytimes.com)

From feed by nytfeed on Tuesday October 16, 2007 @02:52AM

Google’s long-anticipated system would allow media companies to prevent their clips from being uploaded to YouTube without permission.

Feed Techdirt: Is $9250 Per Song Unconstitutional? (techdirt.com)

From feed by techdirtfeed on Tuesday October 16, 2007 @02:52AM

It's well known that Jammie Thomas, the woman who lost her case against the RIAA for unauthorized file sharing was planning to appeal her decision -- though, we questioned some of the wisdom behind her pursuing the case. She does have a point in questioning the instructions given to the jury, which say that "making available" is distribution when that's still an open legal question with some rulings on both sides. The problem, though, is that the evidence that Thomas did participate in unauthorized file sharing is rather strong, which makes her appeal a lot less sympathetic. It looks like her lawyers may be realizing that and may be recognizing that the biggest point in Thomas' favor is that nearly everyone seems to feel the $222,000 awarded for 24 songs ($9,250 per song) seems rather excessive. With that in mind, the lawyers have now asked the judge to overrule the fine as being constitutionally excessive. You recall, of course, that the constitution has rules against cruel and unusual punishment. Two years ago there was even a research paper that argued the rates set by the law for infringement were constitutionally excessive. A year ago, that theory was first brought up in court. It's tough to see the court going for this argument, but it definitely would make the appeals process a lot more interesting.

Journal Journal: Critic of Software Patents wins Nobel Prize in Economics 235

Journal by doom on Tuesday October 16, 2007 @02:48AM

You don't need slashdot to hear about this story: Three Share Nobel in Economics for Work on Social Mechanisms (New York Times, login required), but you might have missed this detail: "One recent subject of Professor Maskin's wide-ranging research has been on the value of software patents. He determined that software was a market where innovations tended to be sequent

Submission + - What if Google Had to Design For Google? (meangene.com)

Submitted by

on Tuesday October 16, 2007 @02:38AM

An anonymous reader writes: Web developers increasingly grow weary of having to put so much effort into designing their sites according to the whims of the Google search engine. When the most important thing is "getting indexed" its increasingly difficult for web site designers to offer the simple, uncluttered user experience they'd like to. Reminiscent of the famed what if msft designed the ipod box here is a humorous look at what would happen to that famed, clean, uncluttered look if Google had to design for the Google Search Engine.