| Mobile Device Policy Feb 18th 2013, 08:00 The Mobile Device Policy will help your organization properly manage smartphones and tablet computers and safeguard the information on those devices. |  | UK Apple Shop Forced To Change Its Name Feb 16th 2013, 22:49 tlhIngan writes "The Apple Shop, in Norfolk, UK is a little corner store that sells apple products. Not Apple products, but apple products, in this case, cider. However, it's been forced to change its name to the Norfolk Cider Shop. However, the name change did not come from any lawsuit from Apple (the Cupertino one, that is), nor has there been any evidence that Apple (Cupertino) knew about them. Instead, they're changing their name because their phones have been ringing constantly from people seeking help with their Apple (Cupertino) products. Apple (Cupertino) opened an Apple store in 2009 in the nearby (larger) town of Norwich." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | SSH Password Gropers Are Now Trying High Ports Feb 16th 2013, 21:39 badger.foo writes "You thought you had successfully avoided the tiresome password guessing bots groping at your SSH service by moving the service to a non-standard port? It seems security by obscurity has lost the game once more. We're now seeing ssh bruteforce attempts hitting other ports too, Peter Hansteen writes in his latest column." For others keeping track, have you seen many such attempts? Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | The IIPA Copyright Demands For Canada and Spain Feb 16th 2013, 20:42 Dangerous_Minds writes "The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) is demanding a number of countries be placed back on the special 301 piracy watchlist. One country being recommended for inclusion is Canada (PDF). Apparently, even though Canada passed copyright reform laws, any compromise to protect consumers is reason for inclusion. Michael Geist offers some analysis on this move. Meanwhile, the IIPA is also recommending that Spain be included in the watchlist. In a separate filing, the IIPA makes a host of reasons why Spain should also be included. One of the main reasons seems to be that even though Spain passed the Sinde Law in spite of protests, the courts aren't simply rubberstamping any takedown requests and that cases that were dismissed due to lack of evidence is cause for concern. Freezenet offers some in-depth analysis on this development while noting towards the end that the Special 301 report suffers from credibility problems." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Ask Slashdot: I Just Need... Marketing? Feb 16th 2013, 19:33 An anonymous reader writes "Over the years, Slashdot has had many stories of non-technical entrepreneurs in need of programmers. Now I found myself in an almost opposite situation: I am a programmer with a fledgling mass-market product that needs marketing. I know Slashdot's general sentiment towards marketing. Without being judgmental one way or the other, I must say that for a product to reach the widest possible audience in a given time period, marketing is a necessity. Short of doing everything myself, I see a couple of options: 1. Hire marketing people, or an outside marketing firm; 2. Take in willing partners who are good at marketing (currently there are no shortage of people who want in). With these options, my major concerns are how to quantify performance, as well as how to avoid getting trapped in a partnership with non-performing partners — I already have a tangible product with a huge amount of time, money, and effort invested. Budget is also limited. (Budget is always limited unless you are a Fortune 500 business, but for now that's more of a secondary concern.) So here is my question to Slashdot: how do you address these concerns, and in a more general sense, how would you handle the situation: technical people with a product in need of marketing?" Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Google Watchers Expect Company-Branded Stores This Year Feb 16th 2013, 18:35 9to5Google cites "an extremely reliable source" in reporting that "Google is in the process of building stand-alone retail stores in the U.S. and hopes to have the first flagship Google Stores open for the holidays in major metropolitan areas. The mission of the stores is to get new Google Nexus, Chrome, and especially upcoming products into the hands of prospective customers. Google feels right now that many potential customers need to get hands-on experience with its products before they are willing to purchase. Google competitors Apple and Microsoft both have retail outlets where customers can try before they buy." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Residents Report Bright Streak Over Bay Area Friday Evening Feb 16th 2013, 17:33 The Chabot Space and Science Center has received numerous reports of a bright object flying through the sky in over northern California Friday night, as noted by The Washington Post, NBC, and others. According to NBC's version of the story "Chabot astronomers in Oakland said the meteor was not related to the asteroid passing near Earth. Gerald McKeegan, an astronomer at Chabot Space and Science Center in Oakland, said he did not see it, but based on accounts he thinks it was a 'sporadic meteor.' Sporadic meteors bring as much as 15,000 tons of space debris to Earth each year, according to McKeegan. He said it was likely smaller than another meteor that landed in the Bay Area in October, which caused a loud sonic boom as it fell." The eyewitness accounts make it sound pretty spectacular, though; too bad we don't have quite as many dashcams going as there are in Russia. Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Can Dell and HP Keep Pace With An Asia-Centric PC World? Feb 16th 2013, 16:30 MojoKid writes "If you've paid any attention to the PC industry in the past few years, you're aware that things aren't as rosy as they used to be. After decades of annual growth, major manufacturers like HP and Dell have both either floated the idea of exiting the consumer space (HP) or gone private (Dell). Contrast that with steady growth at companies like Asus and Lenovo, and some analysts think the entire PC industry could move to Asia in the next few years. The ironic part of the observation is that in many ways, this has already happened. Asia-Pacific manufacturers are more focused on the consumer electronics market and better able to cope with low margins thanks to rapid adoption and huge potential customer bases. Apple has proven that high margin hardware can be extremely profitable, but none of the PC OEMs have been willing to risk the R&D costs or carry new products for a significant period of time while they adapt designs and improve market share." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Blogging Platform Posterous To Shut Down April 30 Feb 16th 2013, 15:31 New submitter Mike Allton writes with the announcement from Posterous that the blogging platform will close at the end of April, after being acquired last year by Twitter. "It's been suggested that people should use platforms like Posterous or Google+ for their blog, and I think this is a perfect example of why that's a bad idea. When you use someone else's platform, you don't own your content and you don't have control over the platform. Do you have a Posterous account? What will you do with all your posts and content?" Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Facebook Employees' Laptops Compromised; User Data Believed Safe Feb 16th 2013, 14:32 Trailrunner7 writes "Laptops belonging to several Facebook employees were compromised recently and infected with malware that the company said was installed through the use of a Java zero-day exploit that bypassed the software's sandbox. Facebook claims that no user data was affected by the attack and says that it has been working with law enforcement to investigate the attack, which also affected other unnamed companies. Facebook officials did not identify the specific kind of malware that the attackers installed on the compromised laptops, but said that the employee's machines were infected when they visited a mobile developer Web site that was hosting the Java exploit. When the employees visited the site, the exploit attacked a zero-day vulnerability in Java that was able to bypass the software's sandbox and enable the attackers to install malware. The company said it reported the vulnerability to Oracle, which then patched the Java bug on Feb. 1." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | California Professors Unveil Proposal To Attack Asteroids With Lasers Feb 16th 2013, 13:25 An anonymous reader writes "Yesterday's twin events with invading rocks from outer space — the close encounter with asteroid 2012 DA14, and the killer meteorite over Russia that was more than close — have brought the topic of defending mankind against killer asteroids back into the news. The Economist summarizes some of the ideas that have been bandied about, in a story that suggests Paul Simon's seventies hit "Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover": Just push it aside, Clyde. Show it the nuke, Luke. Gravity tug, Doug. The new proposal is an earth orbiting, solar-powered array of laser guns called DE-STAR (Directed Energy Solar Targeting of AsteRoids) from two California-based professors, physicist Philip Lubin (UCSB) and industrial statistician Gary Hughes (Cal Polytechnic State). Lubin and Hughes say their system could be developed and deployed in a range of sizes depending on the size of the target: DE-STAR 2, about the size of the International Space Station (100 meters) could nudge comets and asteroids from their orbits, while DE-STAR 4 (100 times larger than ISS) could evaporate an asteroid 500 meters in diameter (10 times larger than 2012 DA14) in a year. Of course, this assumes that the critters could be spotted early enough for the lasers to do their work." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Sony Exercising Its Acquisition of GaiKai, Plans To Stream Games To PS4 Feb 16th 2013, 11:18 dmfinn writes "With less than 5 days until the reported PS4 launch event, new details are emerging regarding some of the console's next-gen capabilities. Since last June, Sony has been quietly sitting on its $380 million dollar acquisition of Gaikai, a cloud based gaming company. The Wall Street Journal, among other sources, is now reporting that the PS4 will have GaiKai's cloud-based gaming technology directly integrated, thought it is unclear exactly what types of games will be available for streaming. Back in June, a rumor circulated that Sony was planning to use the technology to support backwards compatibility with PS2 and PS1 games, though no further details have arisen regarding whether or not the new console will be able to play previous generation games. It appears that Sony will most likely be using the service to stream PS3 and indie games to the console, as the current technology only supports 720p, not high enough quality for blockbuster games. Constantly streaming interactive graphics, even if only at 720p, will still require a fast internet connection. Services like OnLive have struggled in the past due to the large amount of bandwidth they require, and many consumers complained of laggy connections and horrendous graphics. There is no word yet regarding the features of the games being streamed, including whether or not they will support online or local multiplayer." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | Windows 7 RTM Support Ending Soon Feb 16th 2013, 08:28 jones_supa writes with this news from Ars Technica: "Windows 7 users will have to install Service Pack 1 if they want to continue to receive security fixes and other support beyond April 9th. With the release of a Service Pack, Microsoft's policy is to support the old version for two years. Windows 7 Service Pack 1 was released on 22nd February, 2011, so the phasing out of support is happening more or less on schedule. In spite of a growing number of post-Service Pack 1 fixes and updates, Microsoft has shown no signs of shipping a second Service Pack. Should Service Pack 1 be the sole major update for Windows 7, it will continue to receive mainstream support — which encompasses both security updates, non-security bugfixes, and free phone support — until 13th January 2015. Extended support — security fixes and paid incidents only — will continue until 14th January 2020." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | 8 Smashing eBooks for Responsive Web Design & JS Feb 16th 2013, 07:01 
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This fabulous collection of 8 Smashing eBooks all about Coding for Web Design normally sells for $39.92, but for a limited time only you can get the entire collection for just $24! That’s a 40% discount! SponsorsProfessional Web Icons for Your Websites and Applications  | | Evil, Almost Full Vim Implementation In Emacs, Reaches 1.0 Feb 16th 2013, 05:31 New submitter karijes writes "Evil is a new Emacs major mode intended to implement full Vim emulation for Emacs editor, and it's reached its first stable release. Evil implements many Vim features and has support for plugins, so there is port for rails.vim, NERDCommenter and mapleader among others. You can find details about this release on the mailing list." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | | French Police Unsure Which Twin To Charge In Sexual Assaults Feb 15th 2013, 23:56 An anonymous reader writes "In a real life Prisoner's Dilemma taking place in the French city of Marseille, twin brothers have been arrested for a string of sexual assaults. While say they are sure that one of them committed the crimes (corroborated by a standard DNA test), police were told that it would cost upwards of €1m euros (£850,000, $1.3m USD) to distinguish between them using DNA evidence." Read more of this story at Slashdot.     | |
