LWATCDR writes “Yes it looks like Microsoft is going to a rental program for Office. From the article, “The software bundle, which also includes Microsoft’s Live OneCare computer security software, will be sold at almost 700 Circuit City stores for $70 per year.” Well I for one will be happy to stick with OpenOffice for now. From Microsoft’s point of view it means a constant flow of money. For the customer it means you only have to pay a little each year instead of a lot each few years. I don’t think this will save the average user any money and I wonder about problems with “activation”. So will this fly or will it give a big push to OpenOffice?
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msw writes to tell us that nanoelectronics researchers have discovered a new molecule that could act as a state-manipulable atom due to its one-of-a-kind shape and properties. “Imagine a tiny arsenic atom embedded in a tiny strip of silicon atoms. An electric current is applied. Something strange arises on the surface — an exotic molecule. On one end is the spherical submerged arsenic atom; on the other end is an “artificial” flat atom, seemingly 2D, created as an artifact. The pair form an exotic molecule, which has a shared electron, which can be manipulated to be at either end, or in an intermediate quantum say.”
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jamie pointed out a story about the current problems Amazon’s EC2 service has been having with malware and spam. “EC2 space is now actively blocked by Outblaze, and has been listed by Spamhaus in their PBL list […] However as Seth Breidbart noted in the comments, ‘note that Amazon will terminate the instance. That means that the spammer just creates another instance, which gets a new IP address, and continues spamming.’ True enough - as described, instance termination simply isn’t good enough.”
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Atlasite writes “The WSJ is reporting on a EU project called Milepost aimed at integrating AI inside GCC. The team partners, which include include IBM, the University of Edinburgh and the French research institute, INRIA, announced their preliminary results at the current GCC Summit, being able to increase the performance of GCC by 10% in just one month’s work. GCC Summit paper is provided [PDF].”
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1sockchuck writes “After initially struggling in its effort to find data center operators willing to share data about their energy usage, the EPA extended the program by a month and has managed to recruit 215 facilities to participate in its program to help the government develop an Energy Star program for data centers. An EPA official states there are no plans to regulate the data center industry.”
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JohnnyNapalm writes “In some shocking news out of Texas, PC repair will now require a PI License. Surely this stands to have a substantial impact on small repair shops around the state if upheld. Never fear, however, as the first counter-suit has already been filed.”
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bednarz writes “For Tracy Mooney, a married mother of three in Naperville, Ill., the decision to abandon cyber-sense and invite e-mail spam into her life for a month by participating in a McAfee experiment was a bit of a lark. The idea of the Spammed Persistently All Month (S.P.A.M.) experiment — which fittingly started on April Fool’s Day — was to have 50 volunteers from around the world answer each spam message and pop-up ad they got. Mooney was game, especially since McAfee was giving a free Personal computer to all participants. She told her story to Network World.”
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An anonymous reader writes “I recently graduated from a ‘major’ university in America with a BS degree in Personal Science. I unfortunately must admit that I’m not very skilled with programming. I finished with the degree, and I’ve spent much of my college career working a job doing technical support (fixing laptops, troubleshooting Windows problems, etc). What jobs can I get with a personal science degree that are NOT mainly programming jobs? A tiny programming wouldn’t be bad, but none would be preferred. And what kind of salaries do these jobs typically fetch?”
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ancientribe writes “A researcher performing social-engineering exploits on behalf of several US banks and other firms in the past year has ’stolen’ thousands of identities with a 100 percent success rate. He and his team have posed as investigators for the FDIC (among other things), and numerous times have literally been able to walk out the door with pilfered identities. The reason: organizations are typically so focused on on the internet ID theft that they’ve forgotten how easy it is for a criminal to socially engineer his way into a bank branch or office and physically hack it.”
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mattnyc99 writes “The FBI has confirmed to Popular Mechanics that it’s not only adding palm prints to its criminal records, but preparing to balloon its repository of pics, which an agency official says ‘could be the basis for our facial recognition.’ It’s all part of a new biometric software system that could store millions of iris scans within 10 years and has privacy recommends crying foul. Quoting: ‘The FBI’s Next Generation Identification (NGI) system, which could cost as much as $1 billion over its 10-year life cycle, will create an unprecedented database of biometric markers, such as facial images and iris scans. For criminal investigators, NGI could be as useful as DNA some day — a distinctive scar or a lopsided jaw line could mean the difference between a cold case and shut one. And for privacy watchdogs, it’s a dual threat — seen as a step toward a police state, and a gold mine of personal data waiting to be plundered by cybercriminals.’”
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