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Submission + - Man Arrested for Exploiting Error in Slot Machines (post-gazette.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A man awaiting trial in Pennsylvania was arrested by Federal agents on Jan. 4, and accused of exploiting a software "glitch" within slot machines in order to win payouts. The exploit may have allowed the man to obtain more than a million dollars from casinos in Pennsylvania and Nevada, and officials say they are investigating to see if he used the method elsewhere. The accused stated that "I'm being arrested federally for winning on a slot machine. Let everybody see the surveillance tapes. I pressed buttons on the machine on the casino. That's all I did.".

Apparently, slot machine software errors are fairly common, as witnessed in these stories:
http://www.luxurylaunches.com/other_stuff/two_men_denied_slot_machine_winnings.php
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_14795166
http://www.onlinecasinosphere.com/news/reports/world-casinos/canadian-casino-refuses-to-pay-jackpot-5443.php

The lesson here seems to be that casinos can deny you a slot machine win any time they wish by claiming software errors, and if you find an error that you can exploit, you may find yourself on Federal charges for doing so.

Submission + - VOIP now technically illegal in China (people.com.cn)

Submitted by ironfrost
ironfrost writes: A recent ruling by China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has declared that VOIP services are illegal, except for the ones operated by state-owned telecom operators China Telecom and China Unicom. According to the article, "the decision is expected to make Skype, UUCall and other similar services unavailable in China", and is widely seen as a way to protect the traditional telecom operators' profits. Here's a more in-depth story in Chinese (Google Translate version).

Comment Power kites towing a train around a track? (Score 1) 252

by 33_softly (#32611526) Attached to: US Dept. of Energy Wants Bigger Wind Energy Ideas
Large stationary wind turbines are all the rage currently but how about a very large railroad loop/oval 10 or 20 miles set across the prevailing winds and use big computer control kites to tow the train creating power? You see kite sailing catching on and power kites to reduce fuel consumption on sea going vessels. Why not Kites?
IBM

IBM's Pilot Program For Internal Use of Macs 257

Posted by kdawson from the thinking-different-than-blue dept.
geoffrobinson writes "Roughly Drafted has obtained internal IBM documents detailing the results of a small pilot program for internal use of Macs. Positive and negative results were detailed, but overall most participants were happy with their Mac experience. The pilot will be expanded this year. One advantage cited: less reliance on Windows. So it seems a mix of Macs, PCs, and Linux boxes are in IBM's future. Given the history between IBM and Microsoft, this is quite interesting."

Microsoft's Virtualization Stance Eying Apple? 238

Posted by Zonk from the shifty-glances dept.
Pisces writes "Over the past several days, Microsoft has flip-flopped on virtualization in Vista, with one ascribing the change in policy to concerns over DRM. A piece at Ars Technica raises another, more likely possibility: fear of Apple. Apple is technically an OEM, and could offer copies of Vista at a discounted price. 'All of this paints a picture in which Apple could use OEM pricing to offer Windows for its Macs at greatly reduced prices and running in a VM. The latter is absolutely crucial; telling users that they need to reboot into their Windows OS isn't nearly as sexy as, say, Coherence in Parallels. If you've never seen Coherence, it's quite amazing. You don't need to run Windows apps in a VM window of Vista. Instead, the apps appear to run in OS X itself, and the environment is (mostly) hidden away. VMWare also has similar technology, dubbed Unity.' Is Microsoft terrified of a world where Windows can be virtualized and forced to take a back seat to Mac OS X or Linux?"

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