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Data Storage

Seagate To Stop Making 7200rpm Laptop HDDs 261

Posted by Soulskill from the mourn-the-spinning-platters dept.
jones_supa writes "'We are going stop building our notebook 7200rpm hard disk drives at the end of 2013,' said David Burks, director of marketing and product management at Seagate Technology, during a conversation with X-bit labs. The mainstream market demand is expected shift to different products, such as hybrid drives. Users who need maximum performance and care about battery life have been choosing notebooks with SSDs for years now, whereas those who required capacity and moderate price do not really care about actual performance. With the introduction of third-generation solid-state hybrid drives later this year, Seagate will position them for performance- and capacity-demanding end-users. The company will also continue to offer 5400rpm HDDs for value notebooks."
The Internet

Cox Communications and "Congestion Management" 282

Posted by timothy from the why-isn't-everything-unlimited-and-free? dept.
imamac writes "It appears Cox Communications is the next in line for throttling internet traffic. But it's not throttling of course; Cox's euphemism is 'congestion management.' From Cox's explanation: 'In February, Cox will begin testing a new method of managing traffic on our high-speed Internet network in our Kansas and Arkansas markets. During the occasional times the network is congested, this new technology automatically ensures that all time-sensitive Internet traffic — such as web pages, voice calls, streaming videos and gaming — moves without delay. Less time-sensitive traffic, such as file uploads, peer-to-peer and Usenet newsgroups, may be delayed momentarily...' Sounds like throttling to me."
The Internet

UK Government Abandons Piracy Legislation 155

Posted by CmdrTaco from the abandon-all-hope-ye-who-enter-here dept.
arcticstoat writes "Following last year's reports of a scheme to 'ban' pirates from the Internet via ISPs in the UK, it looks as though the UK government has now decided to back down on the plan, saying that it hopes it won't have to apply 'the heavy hand of legislation'. The UK's Intellectual Property Minister, David Lammy, said that 'I'm not sure it's actually going to be possible,' as a result of the complexities of enforcing such legislation. Lammy also revealed that he had a different opinion on file sharers than many people in the music industry. He pointed out that there's a big difference between organized counterfeiting gangs and 'younger people not quite buying into the system'. He added that 'we can't have a system where we're talking about arresting teenagers in their bedrooms. People can rent a room in an hotel and leave with a bar of soap — there's a big difference between leaving with a bar of soap and leaving with the television.'"
Security

Solving Obama's BlackBerry Dilemma 374

Posted by kdawson from the first-personal-communicator dept.
CurtMonash writes "Much is being made of the deliberations as to whether President Obama will be able to keep using his beloved "BarackBerry." As the NYTimes details, there are two major sets of objections: infosecurity and legal/records retention. Deven Coldeway of CrunchGear does a good job of showing that the technological infosecurity problems can be solved. And as I've noted elsewhere, the 'Omigod, he left his Blackberry behind at dinner' issue is absurd. Presidents are surrounded by attendants, Secret Service and otherwise. Somebody just has to be given the job of keeping track of the president's personal communication device. As for the legal question of whether the president can afford to put things in writing that will likely be exposed by courts and archivists later — the answer to that surely depends on the subject matter or recipient. Email to his Chicago friends — why not? Anything he'd write to them would be necessarily non-secret anyway. Email to the Secretary of Defense? That might be a different matter."

Comment Re:Here's your answer.. (Score 1) 835

by Sultin (#25840675) Attached to: Interviewing Experienced IT People?

I've found that in the last few years, apparently the definition of the word "help" has changed to mean "do this entire thing for me and hand it back so I can take credit." Not to mention that "training" seems to mean "Give the final steps without explaining why any of this is required."

I believe this is almost entirely due to the state of the higher education system. Computer Science seems to be focused on two things: proving the the professor is smarter than everyone else in the room, and teaching people how to claim the work of the smartest person they are working with.

As long as professors are required to do more research than teach, and allowed to teach without being taught how, the value of a college degree will continue to decline.

As to your point, few people with a computer science degree have ever been taught anything. The professors get away with not teaching a damn thing by using the "group project" system where they can be sure that those in the class that know what they are doing, have good research skills, or a talented friend, will do all of the work for the group. This allows 50% or more of the students to pass their class without understanding a thing. It's just another memorize key facts and puke experience for most of them.

Instead of complaining about how people ask for help, or how they train others, show them the right way. It takes a little time and patience, but it does wonders for the group.

Comment Re:glassdoor (Score 2, Interesting) 231

by Sultin (#25757079) Attached to: Job and Internship Salary Comparisons?

Yes, your state is so very progressive that Prop 8 passed easily. Add that to your comment and it begins to look like California is a bunch of people that hate everyone, but expect those people to pay for what they consume.

Apparently, I was wrong about the meaning of progressive. Of course, so is the Democratic party.

I hate the politicization of words, 'they' never bother to look them up first.
Data Storage

Next Generation SSDs Delayed Due To Vista 600

Posted by kdawson from the favorite-whipping-boy dept.
PoliTech notes in a journal entry that "Vista is the gift that just keeps on giving." "Speaking during SanDisk's second-quarter earnings conference call, Chairman and [CEO] Eli Harari said that Windows Vista will present a special challenge for solid state drive makers. 'As soon as you get into Vista applications in notebook and desktop, you start running into very demanding applications because Vista is not optimized for flash memory solid state disk,' he said... 'The next generation controllers need to basically compensate for Vista shortfalls,' he said. 'Unfortunately, (SSDs) performance in the Vista environment falls short of what the market really needs and that is why we need to develop the next generation, which we'll start sampling end of this year, early next year.' Harari said this challenge alone is putting SanDisk behind schedule. "We have very good internal controller technology... That said, I'd say that we are now behind because we did not fully understand, frankly, the limitations in the Vista environment.'"
Software

Usability Testing Hardy Heron With a Girlfriend 846

Posted by kdawson from the sleeping-on-the-couch-tonight dept.
toomin writes "Reviews of the latest Ubuntu version, 8.04 Hardy Heron, are everywhere, but most of them are undertaken by geeks familiar with Linux. This guy sits his girlfriend down at a brand-new Ubuntu installation and asks her to perform some basic tasks. Some of them are surprisingly easy, others frustrate and annoy. There are lots of little usability tweaks he stumbles upon just by seeing the desktop experience from the point of view of the mainstream user."
Communications

An IM Patent for the iPhone? 71

Posted by timothy from the could-b-could-b dept.
Ian Lamont writes "Apple has filed a patent for IM on portable devices, which could mean that it's getting ready to launch an IM client for the iPhone. The filing is titled 'Portable Electronic Device for Instant Messaging', and covers methods for sending, receiving, and viewing ongoing conversations. The proposed GUI is similar to Apple's current interface for SMS. As for why iChat wasn't enabled for the iPhone earlier, there's some interesting background and analysis here, which also includes a discussion of AIM for the iPhone. IM also came up in the discussions last year about the most-wanted features in iPhone 2.0."
Security

Chroot in OpenSSH 62

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the making-life-easier-always-my-goal dept.
bsdphx writes "OpenSSH developers Damien Miller and Markus Friedl have recently added a nifty feature to make life easier for admins. Now you can easily lock an SSH session into a chroot directory, restrict them to a built-in sftp server and apply these settings per user. And it's dead simple to do. If you need to allow semi-trusted people on your computers, then you want this bad!"
The Military

US Military Seeks Hypersonic Weaponry 332

Posted by kdawson from the what-was-that-noise dept.
Dr. Eggman writes "In an interview with the Star-Telegram, the Air Force's chief scientist, Mark Lewis, talks about the USAF's latest research direction. The service is working on hypersonic missile and bombers for the purposes of reconnaissance and attack. In response to Chinese and Russian anti-satellite developments, the Air Force plans to develop weapons capable of sustained travel at Mach 6 to allow them to deploy against and take out anti-satellite launch sites before the enemy can fire their missiles. Furthermore, should the US spy satellite network be brought down, the Mach 6 recon flight systems would be capable of filling in. Air Force officials hope to deploy a new interim bomber by 2018, followed by a more advanced, and possibly unmanned, bomber in 2035." We've discussed on a number of occasions the scramjet technology that would power such vehicles.
The Military

Boeing 12,000lb Chemical Laser Set to Fry Targets 625

Posted by samzenpus from the houseful-of-popcorn dept.
coondoggie writes "Boeing this week completed work on and installed a 12,000-pound chemical laser in a C-130H aircraft. Boeing's Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL) which is being developed for the Department of Defense, will destroy, damage or disable targets with little to no collateral damage, supporting missions on the battlefield and in urban operations."

Comment Travian (Score 1) 389

by snack (#21257929) Attached to: What Are The Best Free Games Online?
I'd suggest travian.

Travian is an online multiplayer browser-based game developed by Travian Games GmbH in Germany.[1] For the international market the game is published by Gameforge AG.[2] In Travian, players interact simultaneously and compete with thousands of others in a virtual world set roughly in Classical antiquity, at the time of the Roman Empire. (Shamelessly copied from Wikipedia)

Bluetooth Headset Roundup 194

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the comfort-is-king dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Here is an interesting comparison of four of today's best Bluetooth headsets. These devices are becoming increasing popular, both as a gadget and accessory, but despite how stylish they get, performance and comfort are still serious issues. Joe Selim takes a look at four very different products, two from Jabra and two from Plantronics, in order to make some sense of things."

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