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CAPTCHA Using Ad-Based Verification 174

Posted by samzenpus from the more-human-than-human dept.
mk1004 writes "Yahoo news has an article explaining how the text-based CAPTCHA is giving way to ad-based challenge/response. It's claimed that users are faster at responding to familiar logos, shortening the amount of time they spend proving that they are human. From the article: 'Rather than taking just a mere glance to figure out, recent studies show that a typical CAPTCHA takes, on average, 14 seconds to solve, with some taking much, much longer. Multiply that by the millions and millions of verifications per day, and Web users as a whole are wasting years and years of their lives just trying to prove they're not actually computers. This has led many companies to abandon the age-old system in favor of something not only more secure, but also easier to use for your average Webgoer: Ad-based verification, which can actually cut the time it takes to complete the task in half.'"

Comment Surely not harming the copyright holders? (Score 3) 38

by jbuk (#39832807) Attached to: Optus Loses Second Battle In Aussie TV-Timeshifting Battle
I don't see how this lawsuit can be for any purpose other than to make money out of Optus. Two minutes is an incredibly short amount of time, and is not allowing the customer to re-watch their programs at a later point in time, or anything like that which could conceivably leave the copyright holders out of pocket.
Security

U.S. Congress Authorizes Offensive Use of Cyberwarfare 206

Posted by Soulskill from the take-the-battle-to-the-enemy's-router dept.
smitty777 writes "Congress has recently authorized the use of offensive military action in cyberspace. From the December 12th conference on the National Defense Authorization Act, it states, 'Congress affirms that the Department of Defense has the capability, and upon direction by the President may conduct offensive operations in cyberspace to defend our Nation, Allies and interests, subject to: (1) the policy principles and legal regimes that the Department follows for kinetic capabilities, including the law of armed conflict; and (2) the War Powers Resolution.' According to the FAS, 'Debate continues on whether using the War Powers Resolution is effective as a means of assuring congressional participation in decisions that might get the United States involved in a significant military conflict.'"
Open Source

Android Devices Are Hives of License Violations 299

Posted by CmdrTaco from the license-to-license dept.
inkscapee writes "Android developers are paying little attention to Free/Open Source software licenses and have a 71% violation rate. Come on folks, FOSS licenses are easy to comply with, certainly easier than proprietary software licenses, and less punitive. But it seems even the tiny hoops that FOSS requires are too much for devs eager to cash in."
Google

Google Patents Browser Highlight All Button 150

Posted by CmdrTaco from the wish-i-thought-of-that dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Google has picked up another patent on a technology that you might think basic to the web: the highlight all button for searches in browsers. The patent will backdate to 1999 and presents an interesting problem for such software as the Firefox browser and FeedDemon RSS reader. And, in an interesting twist, Microsoft uses a similar mechanism in Windows Explorer. But Microsoft itself said that browser technology can't be separated from the operating system. Does that mean the company owes a royalty to Google for all those copies of Windows?"
NASA

Submission + - Curious NASA Pre-Announcement (nasa.gov) 2

Submitted by CrtxReavr
CrtxReavr writes: 'NASA will hold a news conference at 2 p.m. EST on Thursday, Dec. 2, to discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life.'

Comment Re:Let The Confustion Begin (Score 1) 324

by jbuk (#33414572) Attached to: It's Official — AMD Will Retire the ATI Brand
If you had R'ed TFA, you would have seen that system builders can (and presumably will) choose to put a sticker on the front that omits the AMD branding altogether and simply says "Radeon Graphics". The branding shift is also specifically towards the chips just being called "Radeon", with the fact that AMD are the manufacturer as a second thought.

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