Comment Re:Paypal only (Score 1) 277
Negative feedback isn't exclusively intended for when somebody does something illegal. You wasted the bidder's time by making a listing you weren't serious about.
Submission + - State of California sues e-voting vendor (computerworld.com.au)
Gustoman writes: Does relocating two circuit boards, rerouting several internal cables and changing some mounting bracket supports mean an e-voting device must be recertified to meet state e-voting requirements?
California Secretary of State Debra Bowen says yes. E-voting machine vendor Election Systems & Software Inc. (ES&S), which has been sued by Bowen's office over those changes, says no.
In an 18-page lawsuit filed Monday by the California secretary of state's office against Omaha-based ES&S, Bowen, who oversees elections for the state, alleges that the company sold 972 noncertified ballot-marking devices to five counties last year after making internal changes that were not recertified by the state.
The issue arose last July, when Bowen learned that internal modifications had been made to the original AutoMark A100 devices, which were renamed as AutoMark A200 models and sold to the counties without being recertified. Fourteen counties in the state use ES&S devices.
"ES&S ignored the law over and over and over again, and it got caught," Bowen said in a statement (download PDF). "California law is very clear on this issue. I am not going to stand on the sidelines and watch a voting system vendor come into this state, ignore the laws and make millions of dollars from California's taxpayers in the process."
The lawsuit seeks US$9.72 million in penalties for selling the 972 machines, and nearly $5 million to reimburse the counties that bought the non-certified hardware. Colusa County bought 20 machines, Marin County bought 130, Merced County bought 104, San Francisco County bought 558, and Solano County bought 160.
Vote To Eliminate Leap Seconds 531
Mortimer.CA writes "As discussed on Slashdot previously, there is a proposal to remove leap seconds from UTC (nee 'Greenwich' time). It will be put to a vote to ITU member states during 2008, and if 70% agree, the leap second will be eliminated by 2013. There is some debate as to whether this change is a good or bad idea. The proposal calls for a 'leap-hour' in about 600 years, which nobody seems to believe is a good idea. One philosophical point opponents make is that the 'official' time on Earth should match the time of the sun and heavens."
Feed Russian ATM runs on unactivated copy of Windows (engadget.com)
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
Granted, we'd be a tad more surprised about this if it wasn't found in Russia, but this one defies logic regardless. While we're unsure if tricksters have figured out a way to siphon unthinkable quantities of cash from this particular ATM, the owners should be ashamed of themselves for running a (presumably pirated) unactivated copy of Windows on the public banking machine. Of course, there's quite a few workarounds for this problem if you take the time to look, but seriously, who skimps on a product activation code when running a multi-million (billion?) dollar banking operating?[Via TheRawFeed]
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Microsoft Looks To Refuel Talks With Yahoo 188
froggero1 writes "The New York Post is reporting that Microsoft wants to rekindle the takeover talks with Yahoo. According to the article, Yahoo! has repeatability turned away their offers, but Microsoft hopes that a lucrative 50 billion dollar offer will bring them back to the table. This move would increase Microsoft's web search market share to roughly 38%."
Journal SPAM: 09-F9-11-02-9D-74-E3-5B-D8-41-56-C5-63-56-88-C0 7
09-F9-11-02-9D-74-E3-5B-D8-41-56-C5-63-56-88-C0
Can it be illegal?
Feed New Net radio fee collections delayed (com.com)
Blog: Webcasters will have two extra months--until July 15--to prepare to hand over steeper royalty fees. Some are vowing to get Congress involved.
Censoring a Number 1046
Rudd-O writes "Months after successful discovery of the HD-DVD processing key, an unprecedented campaign of censorship, in the form of DMCA takedown notices by the MPAA, has hit the Net. For example Spooky Action at a Distance was killed. More disturbingly, my story got Dugg twice, with the second wave hitting 15,500 votes, and today I found out it had simply disappeared from Digg. How long until the long arm of the MPAA gets to my own site (run in Ecuador) and the rest of them holding the processing key? How long will we let rampant censorship go on, in the name of economic interest?" How long before the magic 16-hex-pairs number shows up in a comment here?
New Sony DVDs Not Working In Some Players 651
An anonymous reader writes "It seems that the most recent DVDs released by Sony — specifically Stranger Than Fiction, Casino Royale, and The Pursuit of Happyness — have some kind of 'feature' that makes them unplayable on many DVD players. This doesn't appear to be covered by the major media yet, but this link to a discussion over at Amazon gives a flavor of the problems people are experiencing. A blogger called Sony and was told the problem is with the new copy protection scheme, and they do not intend to fix it. Sony says it's up to the manufacturers to update their hardware."
Many Americans Still Don't Have Home Net Access 313
Weather Storm wrote in with a story about those who see no need for home net access. Surprisingly, it's not the cost that is a barrier to entry. Instead, most say they don't see the value of having a net connection at home. "A little under one-third of U.S. households have no Internet access and do not plan to get it, with most of the holdouts seeing little use for it in their lives, according to a new survey. Park Associates, a Dallas-based technology market research firm, said 29 percent of U.S. households, or 31 million homes, do not have Internet access and do not intend to subscribe to an Internet service over the next 12 months."
Language Learner Looks for Leads in Learning? 42
zanzibar asks: "I learned C in a college course, I learned C++ and Java from books, and I learned Rails from blogs. I'm not convinced one of these methods was more effective than the others. I want to know what other readers think about technical education. What do they want to learn and how do they want it delivered? What do they like about their options today (from college coursework to Wikiversity)? What's missing? What just doesn't work?"
$25M Bounty Offered for Global Warming Fix 766
SaDan writes "Richard Branson is offering $25M as a bounty for a fix to global warming. The person or organization that can devise a method to remove at least a billion tons of carbon dioxide a year from the atmosphere will be able to claim the bounty. There are a few catches, of course. There can't be any negative impact on the environment, and the payment will come in chunks. A 5 million dollar payout will be paid when the system is put into place with the remainder of the bounty to be paid after 10 years of continuous use."
EMI May Sell Entire Collection as DRM-less MP3s 188
BobbyJo writes "According to the Chicago Sun-Times, EMI has been pitching the possibility of selling its entire music collection to the public in MP3 form ... without Digital Rights Management protections. According to the article, several other major music companies have considered this same route, but none as far as EMI. The reasons, of course, have nothing to do with taking a moral stand; EMI wants to compete with Apple. 'The London-based EMI is believed to have held talks with a wide range of online retailers that compete with Apple's iTunes. Those competing retailers include RealNetworks Inc., eMusic.com, MusicNet Inc. and Viacom Inc.'s MTV Networks. People familiar with the matter cautioned that EMI could still abandon the proposed strategy before implementing it. A decision about whether to keep pursuing the idea could come as soon as today.'"
Microsoft's Vista AV Fails Certification 161
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft's much-hyped anti-virus solution, Live OneCare and three other Vista AV products failed to achieve the Virus Bulletin's VB100 certification. The other products are McAfee's VirusScan Enterprise, G DATA's AntiVirusKit 2007, and Norman's VirusControl. All failed to pass a series of tests that are required to display the VB100 badge. 'With the number of delays that we've seen in Vista's release, there's no excuse for security vendors not to have got their products right by now,' said John Hawes, technical consultant at Virus Bulletin."
Novell May be Banned from Distributing Linux 553
Hymer writes "Reuters is reporting that Novell may be banned from selling Linux. In the wake of the (much maligned) Novell/Microsoft deal, the Free Software Foundation is reviewing Novell's right to sell the operating system at all. The foundation controls the rights to key parts of the operating system, and council for the organization said that 'the community wants to interfere any way it can' with the Novell business arrangement. No decision has yet been reached, but one should be made in the next two weeks." Is this a measured response, or an over-reaction to the Novell/Microsoft arrangement?
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