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Comment Re:Not just for old accounts (Score 1) 35

Here's the beginning of the email I received yesterday:

Dear G Suite Administrator,

We are writing to inform you that between January 13, 2019 and May 9, 2019, an internal system that logged account signup information for diagnostic purposes, inadvertently stored one of your user account passwords in our encrypted systems in an unhashed format. This impacted the user account password provided during the initial account signup process. The log information was retained for 14 days following the signup process, and then was deleted according to our normal retention policies.

We have reviewed the login information for the account and have found no evidence that the unhashed password was misused.
Firefox

In Indonesia, a Winner For Now In the Browser Wars 76

Posted by timothy from the no-longer-beginner's-luck dept.
angry tapir writes "Mozilla is building an army of volunteers in Indonesia to help customize Firefox and recommend add-ons. Mozilla wants that input so it can retain the high market share that Firefox already has in the country. Web statistics company StatCounter puts the share at 75 to 80 percent, the browser's highest in Asia. The worldwide share of Firefox, which competes with Internet Explorer and Google Chrome, is just over 30 percent."
Microsoft

Microsoft Asks Fed For Bailout 346

Posted by samzenpus from the too-big-to-fail dept.
snydeq writes "Microsoft requested on Tuesday some $20 billion in bailout funds from the federal government, claiming that as the company controls an overwhelming share of the OS market, it is too big to fail. Low adoption rates for Vista, the ensuing ad campaign trying to convince people that they really do like Vista, and the increased need for development resources to rush Windows 7 to market to make people forget about Vista have necessitated the bailout, the company said. 'We want to make it absolutely clear that this is not a crisis of mismanagement,' said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in a prepared statement. 'This is simply a crisis of dollars — a crisis of not having enough dollars coming our way.'"
Image

Oldest Human Hair Discovered In Fossilized Poop 50

Posted by samzenpus from the near-the-top-of-the-food-chain dept.
goran72 writes "A new study has suggested that strands discovered in fossil hyena poop found in a South African cave could be the oldest-known human hairs. According to a report in National Geographic News, researchers discovered the rock-hard hyena dung near the Sterkfontein caves, where many early human ancestor fossils have been found."

Comment Re:DEFINATELY the OLPC (Score 1) 556

by dborod (#25913345) Attached to: Computer For a Child?

I also bought an original G1G1 OLPC for my then 2-year old. While there aren't a lot of activities that she can use on her own, she can turn the computer on and off and can use the tam tam mini activity to a certain extent (she can use the direction keys to select different sounds and then mash the keyboard to adjust the pitch of the sound.

The computer is quite rugged too. It folds up into a little briefcase shape with a handle.

Also, since I find it too slow and hard to type on for me, there's never going to be contention for access to it.

She gets a lot more use and enjoyment out of my iPhone however. She can launch itunes, play a movie, pause the movie, quite itunes, scroll the home screen to see the icon of an app she likes, launch and use the app and so on.

It is quite rugged and the only precaution I take is to make sure she doesn't walk around with it (or have sticky fingers)
Space

New Theory Explains Periodic Mass Extinctions 383

Posted by Zonk from the we're-not-due-for-a-little-while-yet dept.
i_like_spam writes "The theory that the dinosaurs were wiped out by an asteroid impact, the K-T extinction, is well known and supported by fossil and geological evidence. Asteroid impact theory does not apply to the other fluctuations in biodiversity, however, which follow an approximate 62 million-year cycle. As reported in Science, a new theory seems to explain periodic mass extinctions. The new theory found that oscillations in the Sun relative to the plane of the Milky Way correlate with changes in biodiversity on Earth. The researchers suggest that an increase in the exposure of Earth to extragalactic cosmic rays causes mass extinctions. The original paper describing the findings is available online."

Feed Be Careful Not To Use Any Patented Tax Shelters This Tax Season (techdirt.com)

From feed by techdirtfeed
Last last year, we wrote about the growing trend of patenting tax strategies and deductions -- and now that it's tax season, that story has reappeared. lavi dave writes in to point to yet another story about patented tax deductions. This isn't getting very much attention because most people don't realize how it may impact them -- and about the only people talking about it are (of course) patent attorneys and financial types who are hoping to get rich off of these patents. The article includes quotes from one patent holder who insists that of course tax strategies should be patentable since he had to "think outside the box" to come up with it. His attorney also comes up with some totally unsupported statement that somehow this "levels the playing field." What's not explained is why any of this is patentable. If the tax deductions are allowed by the law, then it seems pretty ridiculous to think that it can be limited by a monopoly right. It's another bastardization of the patent system, where people are using it not to create incentives for actual innovation, but to figure out ways to force others to pay for doing what they would normally do otherwise. It's important that people realize that the patent system is now trampling on their rights, rather than helping promote innovation. In the meantime, of course, the trend has continued to build. Back in October there were 50 such patents granted, and 81 pending. Apparently, the numbers are now 53 granted and 84 pending. So as we get to tax day, besides going over all your tax forms and deductions carefully, you may need to spend an extra day pouring over patents to make sure you're not infringing...
Sci-Fi

Submission + - New Laws of Robotics proposed for US kill-bots

Submitted by jakosc
jakosc writes: The Register has a short commentry about a proposed new set of laws of robotics for war robots by John S Canning of the Naval Surface Warfare Centre. Unlike Azimov's three laws of robotics Canning proposes (pdf) that we should "Let machines target other machines and let men target men." although this sounds OK in principle, "a robot could decide under Mr Canning's rules, to target a weapon system such as an AK47 for destruction on its own initiative, requiring no permission from a human. If the person holding it was thereby killed, that would be collateral damage and the killer droid would be in the clear.."

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