86741201
submission
zarmanto writes:
Ars Technica reports that one particular game studio might finally get it, when it comes to DRMed game content. They're publishing their latest game, Shadow Warrior 2 with no DRM protection at all. From the article:
"We don't support piracy, but currently there isn't a good way to stop it without hurting our customers," Flying Wild Hog developer Krzysztof “KriS” Narkowicz wrote...
... "We hope that our fans, who were always very supportive, will support us this time as well," Zielinski told Kotaku. "...In our imperfect world, the best anti-pirate protection is when the games are good, highly polished, easily accessible and inexpensive," Maksara added.
59752155
submission
zarmanto writes:
The numbers have been telling us for awhile now that (formerly expensive) feature phones have been slowly displaced by ironically more "feature rich" high-end smartphones, so it should come as no surprise to hear that the other end of the market is also receiving active encroachment by low-end smartphones. Now, ARM is suggesting that it's actually quite conceivable for OEMs to produce a "smartphone" for as little as $20 — as long as you compromise a bit on those things which actually make it a smartphone in the first place.
So, is this just more graying of the line between smartphones and feature phones? Or is this an indication that the feature phone (as we used to know it) is finally well-and-truly dead?
33129511
submission
zarmanto writes:
It seems that the Flashback botnet has netted their creators nothing but frustration. Flashback was tagged early on by anti-virus vendors, who promptly sink-holed many of the command & control addresses, and essentially crippled the hacker's ability to control the vast majority of the Flashback botnet... but that's not the best part. The Flashback spawned click fraud campaign resulted in... nada! It seems that their pay-per-click affiliate may be on to their scheme, as they refused to pay out. Score one for the good guys, for once.
31492787
submission
zarmanto writes:
In a move that is so long overdue that it boggles the mind, the FCC and the four largest cellular providers in the US state that they will be joining forces to combat cell phone theft. From TFA:
"Over the next six months, each of the four operators is expected to put in place a program to disable phones reported as stolen and within 18 months the FCC plans to help merge them into a central database in order to prevent a phone from being used on another carrier’s network."
