FreyarHunter - Slashdot User

Hospital Equipment Infected With Conficker 289

Posted by timothy on Thursday April 30, 2009 @06:13PM from the would-never-happen-with-electronic-medical-records dept.

nandemoari writes "Recently, the Conficker/Downadup worm infected several hundred machines and critical medical equipment in an undisclosed number of US hospitals. The attacks were not widespread; however, Marcus Sachs, director of the SANS Internet Storm Center, told CNET News that it raises the awareness of what we would do if there were millions of computers infected in hospitals or in critical infrastructure locations. It's not clear how the devices (including heart monitors, MRI machines and PCs) got infected. Infected computers were running Windows NT and Windows 2000 in a local area network (LAN) that wasn't supposed to be Internet accessible, but the LAN was connected to one with direct Internet access. A patch was released by Microsoft last October that fixes the problem, but the computers infected were reportedly too old to be patched."

Klingons Cut From Final Star Trek XI Movie 447

Posted by timothy on Thursday April 30, 2009 @04:32PM from the gravest-importance dept.

darthcamaro writes "Classic era trek was all about Kirk kicking the Klingons' tails. But the new Star Trek XI movie, the reboot, will not have any spoken Klingon in it — a travesty that has some fan sites up in arms already. 'We actually had a sequence that ended up getting cut from the movie that took place on Rura Penthe, in a Klingon prison,' Star Trek co-writer Alex Kurtzman said, explaining the deletion. 'And there was definitely Klingon spoken in the movie, and it ended up getting cut.' Frakkin' Federation ..."

Comment Re:Seem to Imply Focusing on Sequel (Score 1) 23

by FreyarHunter on Thursday April 30, 2009 @03:26PM (#27777375) Attached to: Console Port of <em>The Witcher</em> On Hold

It's disappointing even to me (an owner and fan of the PC version) that others won't get to play it at this point. Remember that for some fans it's important to spread the influence of great titles as well as beg and plead on our knees for a sequel that's good. (IE: Not NFS:Carbon)

AI Could Power Next-gen CCTV Cameras 173

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday June 25, 2008 @10:13PM from the the-unseen-mechanized-eye dept.

Barence writes "UK researchers are working on fitting CCTV cameras with artificial intelligence, allowing them to more quickly respond to crimes. The technology, being developed by University of Portsmouth scientists, would allow cameras to "hear" violent sounds and react, swiveling quickly in the direction of a broken window or somebody shouting abusively for example, before alerting an operator. The artificial intelligence powering the camera would also be able to respond to visual cues such as fights, or violent behaviour."

Adobe Photoshop CS4 Will Be 64-Bit For Windows Only 478

Posted by kdawson on Friday April 04, 2008 @08:55AM from the takes-time-to-make-a-cup-of-cocoa dept.

HighWizard notes that Adobe Systems has shared the first scrap of information about its next version of Photoshop, CS4, and it's a doozy: there will be a 64-bit version of the photo-editing software, but only for Windows Vista and not for Mac OS X. Ars explains the history of how this conundrum came to pass — blame Apple and/or Adobe as you will.

Quake-Catcher Aims to be Largest Distributed Seismometer Network 75

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday March 28, 2008 @11:22PM from the shake-rattle-and-roll dept.

Nature is reporting that a new distributed computing application is looking to monitor earthquake data using the accelerometer in many computing devices. In the long run, "Quake-Catcher" will hopefully be fast enough to give warning before major earthquakes. "If it works, it will be the cheapest seismic network on the planet and could operate in any country. It wouldn't be as sensitive as traditional networks of seismometers, but Lawrence says that's not the point. 'If you have only two sensors in an area, you have to have a perfect system. If you have 15 sensors in a system it [can] be less perfect. One hundred, one thousand, ten thousand -- your need for the system to be perfect becomes much smaller,' he says. 'That's really our approach -- just to have massive numbers.'"

Comment Economy? (Score 2, Interesting) 701

by FreyarHunter on Wednesday March 26, 2008 @09:07PM (#22876682) Attached to: Blizzard Sues Creator of WoW Bot

A large portion of World of Warcraft and other MMOs is the scope of the game's economy. I've been hearing rumors about the WoW Gold (piece?) being labled as a known and accepted form of currency somewhere, but I'm not sure.

Really, at the software can and does damage that economy, throwing off the balance of this economy. I'm a former player that used to try and make money through auction house deals and I slowly saw servers starting to decline economically as more and more goods flooded markets, with no real gold anywhere to spread about.

This may not neccesarily be the fault of Glider itself, but it certainly is a supportive factor. As for lost revenue, when someone's found to be botting, they get banned, and revenue is lost, it's that simple there.
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My opinion is biased as I was a player in a server with a ruined economy and rampant cheating, but I kinda hope Blizzard wins this one, despite the arguments used. I'd rather the sale, distribution, and development of Glider be stopped/halted.

If IP Is Property, Where Is the Property Tax? 691

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday February 26, 2008 @09:36PM from the making-the-world-safe-for-mickey dept.

nweaver writes "In a response to the LA Times editorial on copyright which we discussed a week ago, the paper published a response arguing: 'If Intellectual Property is actually property, why isn't it covered by a property tax?' If copyright maintenance involved paying a fee and registration, this would keep Mickey Mouse safely protected by copyright, while ensuring that works that are no longer economically relevant to the copyright holder pass into the public domain, where the residual social value can serve the real purpose of copyright: to enhance the progress of science and useful arts. Disclaimer: the author is my father."

Comcast Gets Hard Up At FCC Meeting 163

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday February 26, 2008 @07:04PM from the asleep-in-the-seats dept.

alphadogg notes a story over at portfolio.com claiming, and presenting evidence, that Comcast paid people off the street to take up room at yesterday's FCC hearing in Massachusetts. Comcast acknowledges that it paid people to hold places in line for its employees. But Save The Internet claims that people were bussed in by Comcast and then took up almost all available seats in the meeting room 90 minutes before the meeting opened, blocking scores of interested people from attending. Such tactics are not unheard of in Washington DC, but how appropriate are they in a regional meeting on a college campus?

Jack Thompson Served With Order to Show Cause 299

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Saturday February 23, 2008 @06:24AM from the a-village-somewhere-is-missing-their-idiot dept.

cli_rules! writes "DailyTech has reported that Jack Thompson has been ordered to explain himself. 'Therefore, it is ordered that you shall show cause on or before March 5, 2008, why this Court should not find that you have abused the legal system process and impose upon you a sanction for abusing the legal system, including, but not limited to directing the Clerk of this Court to reject for filing any future pleadings, petitions, motions, letters, documents, or other filings submitted to this Court by you unless signed by a member of The Florida Bar other than yourself.'"

Reaction Engines plan Mach 5 Airliner 221

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday February 06, 2008 @12:46PM from the not-very-likely dept.

What is? writes "A British company has designed an eco-friendly airliner that could make a trip from London to Sydney in under five hours. Reaction Engines has received funding from the European Space Agency to design the plane as part of the Long-Term Advanced Propulsion Concepts and Technologies project. The A2 airliner would be capable of carrying 300 passengers at speeds of up to Mach 5."

DHS Official Suggests REAL ID Mission Creep 277

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday February 06, 2008 @09:06AM from the just-say-no dept.

The Register noticed that a senior US Department of Homeland Security official has floated the idea of requiring citizens to produce federally compliant identification before purchasing some over-the-counter medicines — specifically, pseudophedrine. The federal ID standard spelled out by the REAL ID act has been sold as applying only to air travel and entry to federal buildings and nuclear facilities. A blogger on the Center for Democracy and Technology site said, "[The] suggested mission creep pushes the REAL ID program farther down the slippery slope toward a true national ID card." Speaking of federal buildings, CNet has a state-by-state enumeration of what will happen on May 11, when REAL ID comes into effect, to citizens who attempt to enter, say, the Washington DC visitors bureau.

Asian Nations Battle for Google Data Center 130

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday January 30, 2008 @09:15PM from the most-popular-girl-in-school dept.

1sockchuck writes "Google is pitting foreign governments against one another in a battle for a major new data center in Asia. In the past week, both the prime minister of Malaysia and economic minister of Taiwan have said their countries are leading candidates for the Google project, with Japan, South Korea, India and Vietnam also mentioned as contenders in an 18-nation site selection process. Google typically invests $600 million in each new data center. Tech companies often use multi-site searches as a tool to coax incentives out of local governments, which sweeten their offers to outbid rivals from other regions. Google's Asian initiative appears to be taking this strategy to a new level, coaxing heads of state to invest political capital in their lust for one of Google's mega-datacenters."

National ID Cards Mandated in the US, If You're Under 50 869

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday January 11, 2008 @02:15PM from the 1984-is-about-the-good-old-days dept.

charleste writes "CNN is reporting that the US Homeland Security Department has mandated Real ID for drivers licenses. According to the article, this will not include a 'chip', but a list of options by state. Despite legislation passed in various states and objections by groups such as ACLU, this appears to be a done deal. Without one of the new IDs you will be unable to board a plane after 2014 if you are under 50."

12 Companies Caught Stealing Software in 2007 139

Posted by timothy on Thursday January 10, 2008 @03:23PM from the free-software-is-harder-to-steal dept.

buzzardsbay writes "Already forgotten Major League Baseball's Mitchell Report? Here's another kind of 'cheaters' list that folks will want to avoid. Baseline Magazine has compiled the top 12 companies fined by the Business Software Alliance last year for not playing by the rules of asset management. According to the report, many of the BSA's busts are made possible through a BSA Reward Program, which offers up to $1 million to individuals who report offending companies."

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