Slashdot Mirror

atlanticbreakers writes ""Dr. Phil Maymin is an Assistant Professor of Finance and Risk Engineering at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University. He holds a Ph.D. in Finance from the University of Chicago, a Master's in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University, and a Bachelor's in Computer Science from Harvard University. He found a correlation between the annual average beat variance of the songs in the US Billboard Top 100 since its inception in 1958 through 2007 to the standard deviation of returns of the S&P 500 for the same year. He makes an interesting statement about Michael Jackson's songs."

Philip K Dickhead writes "Bloomberg is reporting that the World Health Organization discovered a single, surprising characteristic that's emerged among swine flu victims who become severely ill: They are all fat. Infected people with a body mass index greater than 40 suffer respiratory complications that are harder to treat and can be fatal. The virus appears to be on a collision course with the obesity epidemic. WHO officials are gathering statistics to confirm and understand this development. 'It's very likely that if we went back retrospectively and looked at people who did poorly during seasonal flu, what would shake out is that obesity would be one of the risks.' Fat cells secrete chemicals that cause chronic, low-level inflammation that can hamper the body's immune response and narrow the airways, says Tim Armstrong, a doctor working in the WHO's chronic diseases department in Geneva."

BotScout writes "The nation's Social Security numbering scheme has left millions of citizens vulnerable to privacy breaches, according to researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, who for the first time have used statistical techniques to predict Social Security numbers solely from an individual's date and location of birth. The researchers used the information they gleaned to predict, in one try, the first five digits of a person's Social Security number 44 percent of the time for 160,000 people born between 1989 and 2003. A Social Security Administration spokesman said the government has long cautioned the private sector against using a social security number as a personal identifier, even as it insists 'there is no fool-proof method for predicting a person's Social Security Number.'" Update: 07/07 00:01 GMT by T : Reader angrytuna links to Wired's coverage of the SSN deduction system, and links to the researchers' FAQ at Carnegie Mellon, which says that the research paper will be presented at BlackHat Las Vegas later this month.

eldavojohn writes "The Ethics Organization of Computer Software (EOCS), now 233 companies strong, and met in Tokyo yesterday to ban a controversial title from Japan known as RapeLay, an eroge game (something much more adult than the more popular dating simulators). It's gotten a lot of press as reviewers have noted at one point the player must force sex on a 12-year-old. More importantly, the large ($353 million annually) adult game industry in Japan will now need to stay away from rape in their games if they wish to remain a member of EOCS. RapeLay seems to be available on Amazon's UK and JP sites, sparking outrage and causing a former US Ambassador to Japan to write an editorial criticizing Japan, saying, 'Only Japan allows people to possess these hideous images without penalty. Six of the G-7 countries have found ways to protect the innocent from being prosecuted for possession of child pornography. Is it not time for Japan to find a way to punish the guilty?' Singapore's Straits Times has more details, pointing out that it's still not illegal to possess these materials in Japan. We discussed this and other games last month in an editorial."

theodp writes "Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is threatening to move Microsoft employees offshore if Congress enacts President Obama's plans to curb tax avoidance by US corporations. 'It makes US jobs more expensive,' complained billionaire Ballmer. 'We're better off taking lots of people and moving them out of the US as opposed to keeping them inside the US.' According to 2006 reports, Microsoft transferred $16 billion in assets to secretive Dublin subsidiaries to shave billions off its US tax bill. 'Corporate tax is part of the overall advantage of doing business in Ireland,' acknowledged Ballmer in 2005. 'It would be disingenuous to say otherwise.'"

PL/SQL Guy writes "Search giant Google is set to offer its free Android mobile-phone operating system for computers, opening a new front in its rivalry with Microsoft by challenging the dominance of the company's Windows software. Acer Inc., the world's second-largest laptop maker, will release a low-cost notebook powered by Android next quarter, said Jim Wong, head of information-technology products at the Taipei-based company. Calvin Huang, an analyst at Daiwa Securities Group Inc, says that adoption of Android-based netbooks will likely eat into Windows' share of PC operating systems." Meanwhile, notes reader Barence, Asus is continuing to distance itself from Android, saying it "isn't a priority."

Bloomberg reports that pirated versions of EA's The Sims 3 were downloaded over 180,000 times between May 18 and May 21. The game will not be officially released until June 2nd, and it does not make use of SecuROM for DRM. Quoting: "That outpaces the 400,000 downloads over three weeks for Electronic Arts' Spore, the most-pirated game of 2008. ... Copies of the game available on file-sharing Web sites aren't the full version, Electronic Arts said. 'The pirated version is a buggy, pre-final build of the game,' Holly Rockwood, a company spokeswoman, said in an e-mailed statement. 'It's not the full game. Half the world — an entire city — is missing from the pirated copy.'"

Take-Two Interactive has now sued 3D Realms over the cancellation of Duke Nukem Forever . Take-Two did not provide continuous funding for the game, but they did pay $12 million for the publishing rights to the game. A Bloomberg report quotes Take-Two's complaint as saying that 3D Realms "continually delayed the completion date" and "repeatedly assured Take-Two and the video-gaming community that it was diligently working toward competing development of the PC Version" of the game. (The complaint refers to 3D Realms as part of Apogee Software, Ltd., not to be confused with Apogee Software, LLC, the publisher behind the still-forthcoming Duke Nukem Trilogy.)

Tom DBA writes "Bloomberg reports on claims that the swine flu could have been accidentally made in a lab, which are now being investigated by the World Health Organization. Quoting: 'Adrian Gibbs, 75, who collaborated on research that led to the development of Roche Holding AG's Tamiflu drug, said in an interview today that he intends to publish a report suggesting the new strain may have accidentally evolved in eggs scientists use to grow viruses and drugmakers use to make vaccines. Gibbs said that he came to his conclusion as part of an effort to trace the virus's origins by analyzing its genetic blueprint. ... Gibbs and two colleagues analyzed the publicly available sequences of hundreds of amino acids coded by each of the flu virus's eight genes. ... [The CDC's Nancy Cox says] since researchers don't have samples of swine flu viruses from South America and Africa, where the new strain may have evolved, those regions can't be ruled out as natural sources for the new flu.'" Time has a related story evaluating the World Health Organization's response to H1N1.

Karim Y. writes "The Vatican is going solar in a big way. The tiny state recently announced that it intends to spend 660 million dollars to create what will effectively be Europe's largest solar power plant. This massive 100 megawatt photovoltaic installation will provide enough energy to make the Vatican the first solar powered nation state in the world! 'The 100 megawatts unleashed by the station will supply about 40,000 households. That will far outstrip demand by Pope Benedict XVI and the 900 inhabitants of the 0.2 square-mile country nestled across Rome's Tiber River. The plant will cover nine times the needs of Vatican Radio, whose transmission tower is strong enough to reach 35 countries including Asia.'"

Bloomberg is running a story about several video game publishers and developers who are pushing for a long overdue price cut on Sony's PS3 console. Sales of the PS3 are lagging behind both the Wii and the Xbox 360 despite the PS2's resounding victory in sales of the previous generation of consoles. One of the creators of LittleBigPlanet, a PS3 exclusive, made similar comments in an interview with Gamasutra, acknowledging that they're looking forward to the day Sony drops the PS3's price. An analyst from Janco said such an action is necessary if Sony doesn't want to "lose support from game developers and publishers."

theodp writes "Among the first to benefit from the investment in roads and bridges from Obama's stimulus plan is Microsoft, which has $20B in the bank. Local planners have allotted $11M to help pay for a highway overpass to connect one part of Microsoft's wooded campus with another. Microsoft will contribute almost half of the $36.5M cost; other federal and local money will pay the rest. 'Steve Ballmer or Bill Gates could finance this out of pocket change,' griped Steve Ellis of the Taxpayers for Common Sense. 'Subsidizing an overpass to one of the richest companies in the country certainly isn't going to be the best use of our precious dollars.' Ellis called the project 'a bridge to Microsoft,' alluding to Alaska's infamous 'Bridge to Nowhere.'" A White House spokesman said this bridge project is still under review.

afabbro writes "The US Supreme Court rejected the FTC's bid to impose anti-trust penalties on Rambus. Without comment, they let stand an appeals court decision favoring Rambus. The FTC had found that Rambus undermined competition by getting secretly patented technology included in industry standards, but the Supremes evidently didn't agree."

CWmike writes "The blogosphere regularly excoriates Microsoft for being a monopoly, but Google may be in the cross-hairs of the nation's next anti-trust chief for monopolistic behavior, writes Preston Gralla. Last June, Christine A. Varney, President Obama's nominee to be the next antitrust chief, warned that Google already had a monopoly in online advertising. 'For me, Microsoft is so last century. They are not the problem,' Varney said at a June 19 panel discussion sponsored by the American Antitrust Institute, according to a Bloomberg report. The US economy will 'continually see a problem — potentially with Google' because it already 'has acquired a monopoly in Internet online advertising.' Varney has yet to be confirmed as antitrust chief, and she said all this before she was nominated. Still, it spells potentially bad news for Google. It may be time for the company to start adding to its legal staff."

pdabbadabba points out a CNN report on changes to the planned economic stimulus bill (the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 [PDF]) that will remove the $2 billion allocated to broadband development. The changes also eliminated smaller amounts allocated to NASA, the National Institute for Standards and Technology, and the National Science Foundation. $16 billion in school construction funding was removed, as well as another $3.5 billion for higher education construction. A variety of environmental projects were also cut or reduced (half of the $7 billion set aside for energy-efficient federal buildings, half of the $600 million for hybrid federal vehicles), and over $8 billion in health-related provisions are gone. The bill will likely go to vote in the Senate on Tuesday.

theodp writes "Indian police arrested two employees from the affiliate of PricewaterhouseCoopers who audited Satyam Computer Services, the IT outsourcing giant at the center of the nation's largest fraud inquiry. The move comes after Satyam founder Ramalinga Raju said he had fabricated $1 billion of assets and confessed to making up more than 10,000 employees to siphon money from the software company. State Farm Insurance has severed its ties with Satyam, citing uncertainty about the company's future as 'the only factor responsible for the termination of the contract,' which will reportedly affect at least 400 on-site Satyam employees. Other customers, including GE, are standing by Satyam, one of the top recipients of H-1B and L visas (so much for those $500 Fraud Prevention and Detection fees!)."

suraj.sun writes "US regulators are examining Apple Inc.'s disclosures about Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs's health problems to ensure investors weren't misled, a person familiar with the matter said. The Securities and Exchange Commission's review doesn't mean investigators have seen evidence of wrongdoing, the person said, declining to be identified because the inquiry isn't public. Bloomberg News reported last week that Jobs is considering a liver transplant as a result of complications after treatment for cancer, according to people who are monitoring his illness."

Amiga Trombone sends this quote from the beginning of a story at Bloomberg: "President-elect Barack Obama will probably tear down long-standing barriers between the US's civilian and military space programs to speed up a mission to the moon amid the prospect of a new space race with China. Obama's transition team is considering a collaboration between the Defense Department and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration because military rockets may be cheaper and ready sooner than the space agency's planned launch vehicle, which isn't slated to fly until 2015, according to people who've discussed the idea with the Obama team."

knapper_tech writes "The scope of the auto industry troubles continues to increase in magnitude. The call to retool and develop new vehicles has been made several times already, but with all of the challenges from labor prices and foreign competition, how exactly can the industry retool itself to be more competitive? In light of superior competition facing losses, there doesn't seem to be enough room in the industry moving forward. In the context of finding a new place in the auto industry, the future isn't bright. Calls for no disorderly collapse of the cash-strapped big three and a reluctant congress can only point to an underlying lack of direction. However, consider two other standing economic challenges. The airlines have continued to struggle due to fuel prices and heightened security. Consumers backed off of SUV's due to high fuel prices, and while those prices have eased in the face of global recession, the trend will pick up again with growth in China and India leading the fight for resources. In short, things are moving less, and the industries that support the movement are in need of developing new products while consumers are in need of a cheaper method of transportation." Read on for the rest of knapper_tech's thoughts. knapper_tech continues:
"Looking abroad, it's clear the US has far less invested in local and regional rail systems. With regard to high-speed rail systems, the US is conspicuously behind. France's TGV is moving people at 574km/h. China operates the world's first commercial maglev line while the famous Japanese Shinkasen goes without mentioning. In the US there is only one line in operation between DC and Boston with a few more planned as a result of the 2008 election in California.

The traditional barrier to implementation of rail systems is the initial investment costs, but in the context of economic stimulus, such investment sinks are actually desirable. The auto industry has clearly taken note with proposals from companies like Caterpillar for huge new infrastructure projects.

A friend who recently bought a house observed that real-estate prices are on the rise nearer to city centers, where the fallout of mortgage problems and expensive, time-consuming drives from the suburbs can be avoided. Recalling the huge number of urban revitalization plans and efforts to increase the viability of older city centers, it seems as though many municipal governments would also be in line to gain from the added density of rail systems and increased activity they can support in downtown areas.

Putting it all together, it seems like now would be a good time to direct the industrial capacity of the automotive and supporting industries to developing local and regional, high-speed rail systems to provide a more efficient and effective infrastructure basis for US cities while essentially creating a new market where competition from foreign car manufacturers will not be a problem. At the same time, a huge labor force would be required. The task would call for engineers for development, factory workers for manufacturing, operators, and maintenance workers. Caterpillar still gets to sell construction equipment. The inevitable stream of stores popping up around stations would provide new commercial areas. Last-mile bus and taxi services would also have a new place. The list goes on.

Besides the savings in fuel, the US could also gain international prestige and possibly help lead China and India away from our mistakes, helping to stem the rising demand for oil globally and avoiding the attendant international tension. Climate change is yet another win in this scenario.

It seems like we're not exactly headed in that direction, and I'm curious to see what Slashdot readers think of all this. What pieces need to be in place to make the investments pay off? What are additional resources that are required? Can the industries really make such a change of direction? Do we have everything we need in the US? How would such systems work out long term? Would the initial investments be able to pick up fast enough to stimulate the economy?"

knapper_tech writes "The scope of the auto industry troubles continues to increase in magnitude. The call to retool and develop new vehicles has been made several times already, but with all of the challenges from labor prices and foreign competition, how exactly can the industry retool itself to be more competitive? In light of superior competition facing losses, there doesn't seem to be enough room in the industry moving forward. In the context of finding a new place in the auto industry, the future isn't bright. Calls for no disorderly collapse of the cash-strapped big three and a reluctant congress can only point to an underlying lack of direction. However, consider two other standing economic challenges. The airlines have continued to struggle due to fuel prices and heightened security. Consumers backed off of SUV's due to high fuel prices, and while those prices have eased in the face of global recession, the trend will pick up again with growth in China and India leading the fight for resources. In short, things are moving less, and the industries that support the movement are in need of developing new products while consumers are in need of a cheaper method of transportation." Read on for the rest of knapper_tech's thoughts. knapper_tech continues:
"Looking abroad, it's clear the US has far less invested in local and regional rail systems. With regard to high-speed rail systems, the US is conspicuously behind. France's TGV is moving people at 574km/h. China operates the world's first commercial maglev line while the famous Japanese Shinkasen goes without mentioning. In the US there is only one line in operation between DC and Boston with a few more planned as a result of the 2008 election in California.

The traditional barrier to implementation of rail systems is the initial investment costs, but in the context of economic stimulus, such investment sinks are actually desirable. The auto industry has clearly taken note with proposals from companies like Caterpillar for huge new infrastructure projects.

A friend who recently bought a house observed that real-estate prices are on the rise nearer to city centers, where the fallout of mortgage problems and expensive, time-consuming drives from the suburbs can be avoided. Recalling the huge number of urban revitalization plans and efforts to increase the viability of older city centers, it seems as though many municipal governments would also be in line to gain from the added density of rail systems and increased activity they can support in downtown areas.

Putting it all together, it seems like now would be a good time to direct the industrial capacity of the automotive and supporting industries to developing local and regional, high-speed rail systems to provide a more efficient and effective infrastructure basis for US cities while essentially creating a new market where competition from foreign car manufacturers will not be a problem. At the same time, a huge labor force would be required. The task would call for engineers for development, factory workers for manufacturing, operators, and maintenance workers. Caterpillar still gets to sell construction equipment. The inevitable stream of stores popping up around stations would provide new commercial areas. Last-mile bus and taxi services would also have a new place. The list goes on.

Besides the savings in fuel, the US could also gain international prestige and possibly help lead China and India away from our mistakes, helping to stem the rising demand for oil globally and avoiding the attendant international tension. Climate change is yet another win in this scenario.

It seems like we're not exactly headed in that direction, and I'm curious to see what Slashdot readers think of all this. What pieces need to be in place to make the investments pay off? What are additional resources that are required? Can the industries really make such a change of direction? Do we have everything we need in the US? How would such systems work out long term? Would the initial investments be able to pick up fast enough to stimulate the economy?"

miller60 writes "Three undersea cables in the Mediterranean Sea have failed within minutes of each other in an incident that is eerily similar to a series of cable cuts in the region in early 2008. The cable cuts are already causing serious service problems in the Middle East and Asia. See coverage at the Internet Storm Center, Data Center Knowledge and Bloomberg. The February 2008 cable cuts triggered rampant speculation about sabotage, but were later attributed to ships that dropped anchor in the wrong place."

twitter writes "Analysts at Bloomberg noticed the tumble in Microsoft's traditional software sales last quarter and blamed it on netbooks: 'The devices, which usually cost less than $500, are the fastest-growing segment of the personal-computer industry — a trend that's eating into Microsoft's revenue. Windows sales fell short of forecasts last quarter and the company cut growth projections for the year, citing the lower revenue it gets from netbooks. When makers of the computers do use Windows, they typically opt for older and cheaper versions of the software. Equipping Linux on a computer costs about $5, compared with $40 to $50 for XP and about $100 for Vista, according to estimates by Jenny Lai, a Taipei-based analyst at CLSA Ltd.' This is why MS declared war on the segment last year and palm top computers in previous years. While they may have successfully tamed the Asus EEE PC, they can't hold back everyone who wants to make a buck on cheap hardware and free software. Analysts have predicted the fall of MS's business model when computers break below $250/unit retail. We are there now, and it has shown in the bottom line."

Hugh Pickens writes "Internet companies led by Google joined groups representing Web users to challenge the Bush administration's bid to toughen international enforcement against copyright pirates. The companies said the US courts and Congress are still working out the correct balance between protecting copyrights and the free exchange of information on the Web and a treaty could be counterproductive. 'There's this assumption that what is good for Disney is what's good for America, but that's an oversimplification,' said Jonathan Band, an intellectual property lawyer representing libraries and high-tech companies. 'There's also what's good for Yahoo and Google.' The US, Japan, Canada and other nations said last year that they would begin negotiations on an agreement aimed at cracking down on counterfeiting of such goods as watches and pharmaceuticals, and the piracy of copyrighted materials, such as software and music recordings. A leaked draft of the deal showed that the treaty could force Internet service providers to cooperate with copyright holders."

negRo_slim writes with some welcome news from Ars Technica: "Comcast has 30 days to disclose the details of its 'unreasonable network management practices' to the Federal Communications Commission, the agency warned Wednesday morning as it released its full, 67-page Order. As FCC Chair Kevin Martin said it would, the Commission's Order rejects the ISP giant's insistence that its handling of peer-to-peer applications was necessary. 'We conclude that the company's discriminatory and arbitrary practice unduly squelches the dynamic benefits of an open and accessible Internet,' the agency declares." And from reader JagsLive comes news that Comcast has a different plan in place to deal with heavy bandwidth users: slow traffic for up to 20 minutes at a time to users who are grabbing the most bits.

natenovs writes "China's intellectual-property rights enforcer said the government isn't probing Microsoft Corp. for breaching antitrust laws, denying yesterday's report by a state-owned newspaper. 'We are not conducting an anti-monopoly investigation against Microsoft and have no plans to do so,' Yin Xintian, a spokesman and legal director at the State Intellectual Property Office, said by telephone today in Beijing. The newspaper's report is 'completely untrue,' the agency said on its Web site."

fistfullast33l writes "Bloomberg is reporting that a recently unsealed court case by shareholders against Yahoo reveals that Microsoft offered $40 a share for the Internet search company in January 2007 and Yahoo turned it down. We've extensively discussed Microsoft's bid for Yahoo earlier this year for $33 a share, which was rebuffed. Investor Carl Icahn has launched a proxy fight against Yahoo over the spurning of the Microsoft deal." CWmike notes Computerworld's coverage of the revelations: "The complaint places much of the blame on [Yahoo CEO Jerry] Yang, describing him as someone with a 'well-known' antipathy toward Microsoft who acted out of a personal interest to keep Yahoo independent. Something wrong with that? Oh, yeah... public company."

mikkl666 writes "Even just since this morning, there's much to report in the ongoing fight between Microsoft and Yahoo!. After Yahoo! announced yesterday that they are testing Google AdSense, Microsoft reacted with a comment pointing out that 'any definitive agreement between Yahoo! and Google would consolidate over 90% of the search advertising market in Google's hands.' Ironically, they complain that 'this would make the market far less competitive.' Both companies try to team up with strong partners, as well. Yahoo! and AOL are now closing in on a deal to combine their Internet operations. And of course, this morning's news was that Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. is apparently in talks for a joint bid for Yahoo!"

An anonymous reader writes "As you're probably already aware, Charlton Heston passed away yesterday. Wired has a piece looking back at Heston's extremely notable work in the sci-fi genre, with roles in films like "Planet of the Apes" and "Soylent Green". 'Heston also roared out some of sci-fi's greatest and most memorable lines, bringing his macho swagger and over-the-top intensity to the screen in movies like 1973's food freak-out flick Soylent Green and the Planet of the Apes series. In a pivotal scene from 1968's Planet of the Apes (see clip), Heston's character, time-traveling astronaut George Taylor, utters the first words spoken by a human to the simian rulers of a bizarro future Earth: "Take your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape!'"

NobleSavage sends a story from Bloomberg about Japan Steel Works Ltd., a company that still makes Samurai swords, and how it may control the fate of the global nuclear-energy renaissance. "There stands the only plant in the world, a survivor of Allied bombing in World War II, capable of producing the central part of a nuclear reactor's containment vessel in a single piece, reducing the risk of a radiation leak. Utilities that won't need the equipment for years are making $100 million down payments now on components Japan Steel makes from 600-ton ingots. Each year the Tokyo-based company can turn out just four of the steel forgings that contain the radioactivity in a nuclear reactor. Even after it doubles capacity in the next two years, there won't be enough production to meet building plans."

Billosaur writes "Things do not look good for Vonage. Yesterday, they lost their request for reconsideration of their settlement with Verizon. This means Vonage owes Verizon $120 million to end the patent lawsuit filed against them. The costs associated with defending the case have cut into Vonage's bottom line, and despite attempts to cut costs by laying off 10% of their workforce, they may be unable to make a payment against their debt come December. According to the settlement, Vonage will pay $117.5 million to Verizon and another $2.5 million dollars to charity. Vonage's shares have dropped 87% since their IPO, now hovering around $1.50 per share."

JohNNy1+4 writes "Several US telephone communications firms are refusing to answer the questions of a congressional panel about spying on American citizens. The panel is making an inquiry into Bush administration tactics in the years since 2001, but has been stymied by the administration's claim that releasing that information would be illegal. As a result Verizon, AT&T, and Qwest have declined to answer the panel's queries. '"Our company essentially finds itself caught in the middle of an oversight dispute between the Congress and the executive relating to government surveillance activities," AT&T Inc. General Counsel Wayne Watts said in a letter to the House Energy and Commerce Committee that was released today by the panel.'"

butterwise writes "AOL plans to cut 2,000 jobs, or 20 percent of its worldwide workforce, as the Internet division focuses on advertising sales to make up for subscriber losses. 'The latest cuts will pare AOL's staff to 8,000, down from about 18,000 employees in 2001, when the company bought New-York based Time Warner for $124 billion. The combination led to $100 billion in losses and a more than 60 percent drop in Time Warner's stock as customers dropped dial-up Web access.'"

boxlight writes in to mark the occasion when the Canadian dollar hit parity with the US dollar for the first time in 31 years. The article notes that Canada has run a budget surplus in each of the last 10 years. "This is actually bad for the profits of Canadian corporations that sell their products to the US for US dollars (Canada sells far more to the US that the US sells to Canada); but it means us Canucks will get cheaper Macs as the Canadian prices get closer to US prices with every new release."

mahesh_gharat writes "Russia has tested the "Father of all bombs," a conventional air-delivered explosive that experts say can only be compared with a nuclear weapon in terms of its destructive power.The device is a fuel-air explosive, commonly known as a vacuum bomb, that spreads a high incendiary vapour cloud over a wide area and then ignites it, creating an ultra-sonic shock wave and searing fireball that destroys everything in its wake."

eldavojohn writes "Guess who owns the patent on the touch-screen keyboard. Not Apple — SP Technologies has filed a suit based on just that. Ars brings out the intriguing detail that the founder of the patent troll company is serving prison time for health-care fraud." Read on for four more patent developments in the day's news.
Today the news broke that Aloft is suing Microsoft and Adobe for deliberately violating the patent entitled 'Network Browser Window with Adjacent Identifier Selector.' Qualcomm had a bad day as the US Trade Representative advised the President not to intervene in the patent beef it is losing against Broadcom. Today we found out Sharp is suing Samsung for an LCD infringement. Ending an eventful day on a note of sanity, a judge today threw out the jury verdict on Alcatel-Lucent vs. Microsoft and Microsoft no longer has to pony up $1.5 billion.

netbuzz writes "SAP's CEO Henning Kagermann uses the undoubtedly lawyered term 'inappropriate download' to describe the company's questionable actions. Henning blames a rogue business unit, but there can be no mistaking the fact that Oracle caught SAP with its hand in the IP jar on this one. The legal proceedings that will follow should prove interesting. 'The admission hurts SAP's reputation in the battle with Larry Ellison's Oracle in the $56 billion market for software that manages tasks such as payroll. The rivalry between SAP and Oracle escalated when Oracle filed its March 22 lawsuit claiming SAP workers hacked into a Web site and stole software codes on a grand scale.'"

Bloomberg is reporting on Microsoft's efforts to be more inclusive to 'family' game players. Essentially, Micrsoft admits they're looking to Nintendo as the generation leader this time around, with low cost and family appeal driving their sales numbers ever higher. To that end, Microsoft is looking at a possible price cut and shift in strategies to appeal to a broader audience. This dovetails with comments made by Bill Gates at the AllThingsDigital event regarding motion controls in the future of the console. "Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer wants to avoid the fate of the first Xbox. The console appealed mainly to hard-core gamers, generally males between 15 and 29 years old, and trailed Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 2 in sales by a 5-to-1 margin ... Microsoft's initial attempts to target children didn't live up to the company's expectations. A November game called Viva Piñata, in which kids build a garden and raise animals that look like piñatas brought to life, didn't make it into the top 20, even with a Saturday morning cartoon created to promote the game." It might not have sold, but VP was an awesome game.

Bennett Haselton is back with another piece on e-mail privacy. He starts "On April 14, 2007, I signed up for an AmeriTrade account using an e-mail address consisting of 16 random alphanumeric characters, which I never gave to anyone else. On May 15, I started receiving pump-and-dump stock spams sent to that e-mail address. I was hardly the first person to discover that this happens. Almost all of the top hits in a Google search for "ameritrade spam" are from people with the same story: they used a unique address for each service that they sign up with, so they could tell if any company ever leaked their address to a spammer, and the address they gave to AmeriTrade started getting stock spam. (I don't actually do that with most companies where I create accounts. But after hearing all the AmeriTrade stories, I created an account with them in April just for the purpose of entering a unique e-mail address and seeing if it would get leaked.)" Bennett continues on if you're willing to click the link.

What's surprising is that as far as I can tell, AmeriTrade has taken almost no heat in the media for letting this happen. Despite the abundant testimonials from bloggers who had their addresses leaked, the story never crossed over into the "mainstream" Internet press. In a recent Bloomberg News story, the FBI warned that E*Trade and AmeriTrade users were vulnerable to spyware installed by criminals in hotels and cybercafes to capture accounts and run pump-and-dump stock spams; no mention of the fact that all AmeriTrade e-mail addresses were apparently already in the hands of spammers anyway (although no one knows if usernames and passwords were leaked to the spammers as well).

This doesn't bode well for anyone who uses any type of online service and wants that service to keep their personal information secure. If AmeriTrade got skewered in the media for leaking customers' personal information to spammers, other companies would see that and learn the lesson. On the other hand, if AmeriTrade gets away with it with barely a whisper in the mainstream news, other companies are going to take note of that, too. Besides, spam and identity theft hurt everyone, not just the victims, because the costs are passed on to all of us in terms of higher ISP charges, higher payment processing fees, and more mail lost due to stringent spam filters.

AmeriTrade disclosed in April 2005 that a tape containing some customer information might have been stolen in February of that year, and many spam victims who blogged about their AmeriTrade addresses being stolen, referenced that incident as the likely cause. But after Bill Katz's blog post became a clearinghouse of sorts for complaints about stolen AmeriTrade addresses (probably as a result of being the first match on Google for "ameritrade spam"), several users posted that they had received spam at accounts that were only created with AmeriTrade in summer 2006. And then my e-mail address got leaked between April 14 and May 15, 2007. So it's pretty clear that some attacker has access to the AmeriTrade customer database on an ongoing basis, and the February 2005 tape theft probably had nothing to do with it.

AmeriTrade says that California law required them to notify their California customers of a potential security breach after the tapes were stolen, and that they went further and notified all of their customers anyway. Since there is now proof that their database is more or less perpetually open to some outside attacker, will they send out another notification letter to customers?

An accidental security breach can happen to any responsible company, especially if they are compromised from the inside. But the trail of blogosphere and UseNet posts indicates that several times AmeriTrade has concealed the full extent of the problem from customers who asked them about it, or has given out information that they already knew was wrong. In one thread in October 2005, a user reported that they wrote to AmeriTrade asking why their AmeriTrade-only e-mail address was getting spammed, and AmeriTrade replied that the spammer might have guessed the address using a dictionary attack, adding:

We have no reason to believe that any of our systems have been compromised. Ameritrade deploys state of the art firewalls, intrusion detection, anti-virus software as well as employs a full time staff of employee's dedicated strictly to Information Security and protecting Ameritrade's systems from unauthorized access.

But that was long after February 2005, when AmeriTrade said that tapes containing customer data were stolen. (Even if that turned out not to be the cause of the spam after all, by that point AmeriTrade knew that their customers' addresses had been leaked somehow.)

Then when my friend Art Medlar complained to AmeriTrade this year about the same thing happening, he got a response saying that even if he was getting spammed by an address that he only gave to AmeriTrade, that could be the result of hackers "implanting 'bots' that have the ability to extract e-mail addresses from your computer, even when you have protective spy software engaged". But of course this makes no sense -- if this were the source of the problem, it would affect everyone's e-mail addresses equally, and would not explain why a disproportionate number of complaints were coming from people who created addresses that they gave to AmeriTrade specifically.

When I sent AmeriTrade my own inquiry, I got a response that was identical to a forwarded message that someone else posted to news.admin.net-abuse.email in April. (To their credit, in this version of the message, AmeriTrade is acknowledging responsibility for the problem instead of attributing it to dictionary attacks or botnets. But the e-mail contains the curious piece of advice: "Please be sure to delete any spam you might receive, then empty your e-mail's trash so that it's no longer kept there, either." Huh? As one reader replied to the UseNet thread: "Cynical Translation: Please don't retain any independent evidence.") At first I didn't realize this was a boilerplate response, so I sent back some more questions, asking, for example, whether they would notify their California customers of the data security breach as required by that state's laws. The second response I got was a copy of the old boilerplate that they were sending out two years ago, blaming "dictionary attacks".

Now, compared to the 1,000 spams I already get every day (pre-filtering), the AmeriTrade spams were just a drop in the bucket, and many of their customers are probably in the same boat. And unlike most AmeriTrade customers, at least I can stop all AmeriTrade spam just by de-activating those addresses, since they aren't used for anything else. (Right now I'm keeping them open just to see what else comes in.) But AmeriTrade's database also contains much more valuable information such as names, PIN numbers (do you use the same PIN number everywhere that you sign up?), and Social Security Numbers. When I signed up for my account, informed by dire warnings that federal law required accurate information "to help the government fight the funding of terrorism and money laundering activities", I gave AmeriTrade my real SSN, address, and other personal data, figuring that if I gave them false information, I might get in more trouble than the experiment was worth. But now that the attacker has my e-mail, they might have all of my other information as well. In the coming months I'll probably start checking my credit report more often than I used to.

Probably someone inside AmeriTrade is selling customer data to an outside spammer. (It seems less likely that an attacker would keep breaking into AmeriTrade repeatedly to get updated copies of the customer list. Once you've broken in and gotten the customer database from 2006, why bother breaking in a year later, taking the risk all over again of getting caught and going to jail, just to get the updated 2007 database? Surely the 2006 list would be enough to run any pump-and-dump stock scam that you want!) Two suggestions to AmeriTrade to tighten their security: First, the number of people within the company who can access the customer database, is probably a lot larger than the number who actually need to access the customer database. Limit access to the e-mail database to people who actually need it. Second, in any cases where different employees really need to have access to the list, try giving them different versions of it, where each version is "seeded" with spamtrap addresses at Hotmail and Yahoo Mail. If the spamtrap addresses that start receiving spam are all ones that were used to seed one particular employee's copy of the list, then you've found the source of the leak. That won't stop the spam being sent to addresses that have already been stolen, but it could prevent further leaks from happening.

The SEC recently announced that they would suspend trading of companies whose stocks had been the target of spam campaigns to manipulate the price. Perhaps AmeriTrade could do something similar -- once a stock is identified as being promoted in spams sent to AmeriTrade customers, any customer attempting to buy that stock would be presented with a message saying that AmeriTrade was blocking the transaction for security reasons. (If this runs afoul of some SEC regulation that a brokerage has to let you buy any stock you want any time you want, then at least display a big warning when AmeriTrade users try to buy it through their system, saying that the stock has been the subject of a fraudulent promotion scheme and is an extremely high-risk buy.) However, while this would remove the incentive for stock spammers to target AmeriTrade customers, it's also really just covering up a symptom of the problem, rather than addressing the problem itself, which is that a spammer was able to steal the customer information from AmeriTrade's database in the first place.

But whatever they do, AmeriTrade should stop blowing off the people who complain about the spam, with messages about "dictionary attacks" and "botnets". When customers create specialized spamtrap addresses to detect if their e-mails ever get leaked, those are the tech-savvy customers who (a) know what they're doing, and (b) hate spam more than most people, and giving them misleading information is just poking a stick in their eye. Not a smart move when AmeriTrade has been leaking private customer information and is based, as their name indicates, in the most litigious country in the history of the world.

destinyland writes "Sony just announced a whopping 34 titles that are upcoming for the PlayStation 3. Despite record losses for the game group, their stock shot to a five-year high and they promised to eliminate 80% of their operating loss within one year. Analysts think that Sony's plan for that might include eventually lowering prices for the PS3." The 'Gamers Day' event featured a great deal of new information about Sony products and services, including the new PSP Store. Joystiq had some hands-on time with highly anticipated titles like LittleBigPlanet and Heavenly Sword.

nevillethedevil writes "Bloomberg is reporting that Vonage may have found a way around the current patent issues they have been facing with Verizon and others. They are applying technological solutions to a legal problem, changing the way that Vonage's communications software operates at a basic level to ensure that they no longer infringe on patent claims. 'Vonage's new technology can be installed through software downloads and shouldn't be costly to deploy, Citron said. The company will continue to appeal the court decision that requires it to pay Verizon damages for infringing patents on technology that translates Internet-based calls to standard lines.'"

theodp writes "The NY Times reports that three CNET journalists whose records, as well as those of their relatives, were scrutinized by pretexting investigators working for HP intend to sue the company for invasion of privacy. HP, who paid $14.5M to settle a lawsuit filed by the CA attorney general in connection with the spying, reportedly offered each reporter $10,000, roughly enough to cover legal bills. The CNET reporters have been banned from covering HP or its see-no-evil CEO, who BTW was rewarded with $20.33M in 2006 despite skipping his reading assignments."

ajakk writes "The U.S. Supreme Court, in a unanimous opinion, overturned the decades old test for determine whether a patent is obvious. The Court ruled that the Court had looked at obviousness in a "narrow, rigid manner." This should allow patents to be more easily invalidated because they are obvious."

fusconed writes "Bloomberg reports that the Russian government is proposing to build an underground tunnel between Russia and Alaska for transporting goods, electricity and natural resources. The tunnel would be twice as long as that between the UK and France. The $10 — $12b cost is not something to be overlooked, but Russia claims the benefits would pay it off in 20 years. It would take 10 to 15 years to build, but being an Alaskan, it sounds good to me!"

Bloomberg reports that Sony may be considering a new SKU for the PS3 with a larger hard drive. This follows closely on the heels of the announcement of the Xbox 360 Elite and the 120 gig Xbox HD. No other details are provided, in a story primarily about news of increased profits as PS3 sales continue to rise. " Chief Executive Officer Howard Stringer targets an operating profit margin of 5 percent by March 2008, about double the current margin. Tokyo-based Sony confirmed today that it will only sell a more expensive version of its PlayStation 3 game console in North America, a strategy it adopted for the European market to bolster margins. 'Profit margin will probably exceed 5 percent if Sony doesn't lower the price of PlayStation 3,' Hitoshi Kuriyama, an analyst at Merrill Lynch & Co. wrote in a report dated yesterday. He rates the stock a buy. Shares of Sony gained 28 percent this year, compared with a 0.8 percent advance in the Nikkei 225 Stock Average."

reporter writes "According to a disturbing report just published by Bloomberg, 'As the Kremlin gears up for the election of Putin's successor next March, Soviet-style controls are being extended to online news after a presidential decree last month set up a new agency to supervise both mass media and the Web.' However, unless the Kremlin pursues Chinese-style/Turkish-style blocking of the Internet-Protocol addresses of web sites like 'The Economist', even the Kremlin cannot control the online media. If Putin pulled the plug on an anti-Putin web site inside Russia, the anti-Putin web site could simply be migrated offshore to a server in, say, the United States."

Bloomberg is reporting on the publisher scramble for Wii titles, prompted by the console's explosive popularity since its launch late last year. Though the article focuses on EA's initial coolness on the console, they certainly weren't the only company that initially missed the bus. "Electronic Arts wasn't the only publisher slow to see Wii's appeal. New York-based Take-Two Interactive Software Inc., maker of Grand Theft Auto games, had no Wii titles when the player was released and now plans to have three this year, said spokesman Jim Ankner. Activision Inc., based in Santa Monica, California, plans to release six Wii games this year, giving the second-largest publisher a total of 11, said spokeswoman Maryanne Lataif." Though that's great news for Wii gamers, the question is: how many of these titles are going to be 'shovelware'?

WY writes "Bloomberg reports on the quirky world of Japanese hybrid car hackers: 'Toyota Motor Corp. says its Prius gasoline-electric hybrid car gets about 55 miles to the gallon, making it one of the most fuel-efficient cars on the road. That's not good enough for Takashi Toya.' He managed to reach as high as 115 MPG. He is one of about 100 nenpimania, Japanese for mileage maniacs."

roscoetoon writes to tell us Bloomberg is reporting that Microsoft is in talks to buy DoubleClick. Seen as a move to compete against the Google advertising engine Double Click owners Hellman & Friedman are seeking a $2 billion payday. "The purchase would give Microsoft tools to battle Google Inc. for ads that appear on Web sites. DoubleClick works with advertisers to create online campaigns, such as streaming video clips to promote New Line Cinema's movie "The Number 23." The New York-based company's Dart technology monitors the performance of Internet ads for marketing companies."

thefiremonk writes "Bloomberg reports that U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton has issued a permanent injunction against Vonage. The goal: to stop allowing customers to make calls to standard phone lines. 'U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton approved Verizon's request for a block today in Alexandria, Virginia. Hilton said he won't sign the order before a hearing in two weeks on Vonage's request for a stay. A jury found March 8 that Vonage infringed three patents and should pay Verizon $58 million.' Does this spell doom for the already troubled Vonage? "

DesertBlade writes "Bloomberg is reporting that, at one point, Microsoft had considered an Apple/iPod partnership before it released its own MP3 player. Microsoft was apparently displeased with MP3 players partnerships they had already made, notably the Creative and Dell models. This information came from court documents introduced in an antitrust lawsuit from Iowa. From the article: 'Microsoft had been working with partners on music devices for at least a year before Apple introduced the iPod in 2001 and catapulted to a dominant position in the market. Microsoft and its partners failed to come up with compelling hardware and had difficulty getting software to properly connect music collections on computers with their devices.' If this Apple/Microsoft partnership was formed how would this have changed the Microsoft and Apple dynamics?"