Comment Re:Doing things the slow way (Score 1) 220
alright, go ahead, get them out of your system.. I know you have a couple more analogies in there..
eBay Battles Power Sellers 370
DigitalDame2 writes "eBay power sellers, angered by the recent eBay policy changes, have been hitting back the auction site with listing boycotts and now with accusations of fake listings and forum censorship. EBay admitted that a "bug" in its system had accidentally placed listings from eBay-owned shopping.com onto eBay.com late Friday night. A California-based seller's new eBay listings did not allow users to actually bid on his items. "This guy has over 35,000 items. And there is no button for a 'buy it now' and no button for making a bid." As a result, sellers are threatening to take their complaints to the Federal Trade Commission, but eBay is not backing down." Normally I wouldn't really care, but I think this is interesting because eBay is so dominant in their field, that there is no real alternative. Watching how things like this play out is interesting to me because I want to believe that the internet will require everyone to be more responsible or lose. But the real question for me is at what point does total marketplace dominance trump that.
Are Aliens Living Among Us? 350
pickens writes "In recent years scientists have begun to view the existence of life outside of our solar system as ever-more likely. If life does emerge readily under terrestrial conditions, then perhaps it formed many times on our home planet. To pursue this tantalizing possibility, scientists have begun searching deserts, lakes and caverns for evidence of earth-bound 'alien' life-forms, organisms that would differ fundamentally from all known living creatures because they arose independently. Microbes have already been found inhabiting extreme environments ranging from scalding volcanic vents to the dry valleys of Antarctica. Other so-called extremophiles can survive in salt-saturated lakes, highly acidic mine tailings contaminated with metals, and the waste pools of nuclear reactors. Although 'alien' microbes might look like ordinary bacteria, their biochemistry could involve exotic amino acids or different elemental building blocks so researchers are devising tests to identify exotic microbes. If shadow life is confined to the microbial realm, it is entirely possible that scientists have overlooked it."
1300 Unopened Fry's Rebate Forms Found In Dumpster 433
blackmonday writes "The Consumerist is reporting a find of 1,300 unopened rebate submissions in a dumpster belonging to Vastech, a rebate processor hired by Fry's Electronics. Vastech's management blames it on a bad employee."
Major Shakeup in Nintendo of America Brass? 82
Last month Game Informer Online was reporting that Nintendo of America's (NoA) marketing and sales team was being moved away from the company headquarters in Redmond. The likely new home cities for staffers were either New York or San Francisco. Either way, it seems as if that choice didn't sit well. GI is now saying that 90% of the folks in those departments have opted not to move, and instead are taking severance packages. Surprisingly, this includes three of NoA's biggest names: Senior Director of Public Relations Beth Llewelyn; Vice President, Marking and Corporate Affairs Perrin Kaplan; and Senior Vice President, Marketing and Corporate Communications George Harrison. At the moment there is no official confirmation from Nintendo, but if true this would constitute huge change in the message from the company in North America.
Feed ORFO robot put on chaperon duty at Korean school (engadget.com)
Filed under: Robots
In a bit of a step down after serving as a security guard at last year's World Cup, the German-designed ORFO robot is now being put on what amounts to chaperon duty at a middle school in South Korea as part of a trial project, which could eventually see the robots keeping an eye on students across the country. As at the World Cup, the robot packs a camera and microphone to monitor its surroundings, and can either be manually controlled or programmed to follow a specific route using its built-in GPS. Unlike some other security bots, however, ORFO isn't able to directly intervene in problematic situations itself, with it only able to issue a warning that a human security guard is on the way.[Via The Register]
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Submission + - Scientists develop 40% efficient solar cells
gtada writes: A story published on Physorg.com states 'Scientists from Spectrolab, Inc., a subsidiary of Boeing, have recently published their research on the fabrication of solar cells that surpass the 40% efficiency milestone — the highest efficiency achieved for any photovoltaic device. Their results appear in a recent edition of Applied Physics Letters.' How much longer until we all have paneled roofs?
Why Apple Should Acquire AMD 340
slashdotLIKES writes "CoolTechZone.com columnist Gundeep Hora has a new column up that discusses why Apple should acquire AMD and how both companies would be a good fit for each other. From the article, "After private equity groups, let's look at a more strategic acquisition. For that, Apple is the best bet. Yes, I know it sounds way too radical to be taken seriously. However, Apple could drop Intel altogether and adopt AMD for its Macintosh PCs. Sure, the transition is going to take sometime, and it would probably make Apple announce a brand new line of PCs. However, it will be well worth it. We know Steve Jobs is ruthless when it comes to making interesting deals with powerful companies. This makes AMD a perfect match. Obviously Intel isn't going to be too delighted, but other companies don't bother Jobs. We all know he's the type of executive who crafts deals on his own terms. If Intel wants to be associated with Apple, then they won't really have much of a choice."
Feed LEGO Johnny Five is (kinda) alive; needs input (engadget.com)
Filed under: Robots
While we're no strangers to the crazy robots people build out of LEGOs, Daniele Benedettelli's LEGO Johnny Five has got to be the most awe-inspiring brickwork we've seen in a while. The NXT-based 'bot actually contains two NXT units that communicate via Bluetooth to provide Mr. Five a full range of motion from his 6 motors and as much input as he can handle from up to 8 sensors. Benedettelli built the model after careful study of Johnny Five photos to determine his precise measurements, and two previous attempts. While we applaud all this effort, we can't imagine how much time it's going to take her to plate version 4 in gold. Check the read link for plans and videos of Johnny in action.[Via MAKE: blog]
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
6G iPod & Apple's Future 226
belsin_gordon writes "CNET rounds up what we're going to get from the next iPod and where Apple is heading as a company and as a business juggernaut. [They have the] 100GB widescreen video iPods, Wi-Fi-enabled iPods capable of on-the-fly movie downloads over the air, unlimited downloads from iTunes for a flat fee and the UK finally getting its content-hungry hands on movie downloads.
Apple has dropped the 'Computer' from its company name, and is making significant advances into the media-distribution business. It's bringing video to everyone everywhere with iTunes movies and now Apple TV, and the rumours and speculation we've discussed promote the theory that Apple is setting itself up as a major player in the media-distribution industry."
Apple Ships 8-Core MacPro 628
ivan1024 writes "The Apple website is announcing the availability of an 8-core Mac Pro. The machine will ship with two 3.0 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon 5300 processors. Older models with the Dual-Core chips remain available. Base model with two 3.0 GHz Quad-Core Xeon processors start at $3997, (albeit with unacceptably minimal RAM or HD space; fully spec'd with dual 30" monitors and tons o' RAM/HD still over $10K... bummer)"
Why Microsoft Should Fear Apple 576
jcatcw writes "Computerworld's Scot Finnie says that Microsoft should be afraid because Apple has gotten smarter about how it competes. He says that it's the Parallels Desktop software that has been truly transformational for the Mac. Finnie did a simple three-month trial of the Mac last in the fall and realized four months later that he wasn't going back. Since then he's received hundreds of messages from readers who've also made the switch. 'In the end, this is about perception. It isn't about Apple's market share or even its quarterly sales numbers. (Apple's notebook computer sales for the fourth quarter were 4.1% of all portable computer sales, according to DisplaySearch.) What this is about is that Apple is reaching the right people with its product, winning new converts, Windows user by Windows user -- and creating buzz. How do you measure buzz? You don't. It's something that experienced people in this industry can just feel. And that's the condition Microsoft should fear. Because buzz can turn into something much harder to combat than sheer numbers.'"
Java-Based x86 Emulator 263
jaavaaguru writes "Researchers at Oxford University have produced a Java-based x86 emulator that they hope will be useful in testing applications and learning about viruses without damaging the host, utilizing the robust sandboxing that Java provides. They have an online demo available that boots DOS and has some games to play. Being purely Java, this emulator should be able to run on almost anything, including cell phones." The code is not yet available outside the Oxford community; the developers are said to be working on a suitable general license. In the meantime the code can be licensed on a case-by-case basis.
Submission + - U.S. leading the world in malware creation?
PetManimal writes: "China, Russia, and the other developing countries usually blamed for the increasing amount of malware are not the biggest culprits, according to Symantec. The security software company just released a report which claims that the U.S. leads the world in a number of malware categories, ranging from the "amount of malicious activity originating from their networks" to "underground economy servers". Preston Gralla says the U.S. lead should come as no surprise, considering the capitalist way of life and the high level of technical knowledge. He also suggests that the some of the "criminals" may actually be Internet entrepreneurs who crossed over to the dark side:
"It's an inevitable result of a thriving free market and tech expertise. An underground economy often mirrors the legal, above-ground one. Scratch a criminal, and sometimes you find a misguided entrepreneur, looking to get rich a little too quick.
Submission + - Google's Blog Software Used for Phishing
jimbojw writes: "In a recent security advisory Fortinet is reporting:
We can only hope that this will not cause Google to remove Blogger.com's templating engine — which is both a source of its strength, and a potential liability as illustrated by these recent attacks."
CNET reported on the situation, quoting an unnamed Google representative:Blogger.com ( Google ) is one of the most visited blog sites. Due to its popularity, hackers have started to embed malicious scripts on some blogs. These scripts have shown up on hundreds of Blogger.com sites. In some cases, a variant of the Stration mass mailer is responsible for directing traffic to the Blogger.com sites.
The blogs in question use meta or JavaScript redirection to push traffic to a phishing or malware site. Links to the blogs are subsequently mass-mailed by infected visitors — typically via worms in the Stration family."These are not legitimate blogs that were compromised. They appear to be deliberately set up to promote phishing, which is against our terms of service. We are investigating, and blogs found to include malicious code or promote phishing will be deleted,"
We can only hope that this will not cause Google to remove Blogger.com's templating engine — which is both a source of its strength, and a potential liability as illustrated by these recent attacks."
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