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You are making the false assumption that the car is not also an automated vehicle. Within the next 10 years, all highway travel is likely to be automated..

While it is an assumption it is not false. The article is about a proposal to automate trucks today and what that would mean. In 10 years there may also be some automated passenger vehicles, but it will not be "all highway travel", unless you believe the government is going to pay everyone who needs to use a highway to throw away their perfectly good car. All 253 million of them. Not going to happen. For quite a long time automated vehicles and manned vehicles are going to have to coexist on the roads.

There is no reason a human needs to be sitting behind the wheel of a car for hours up9n hours in any circumstance.

Other than cost and a lot more technology so automated cars can handle the other 99% of the roads in the US, no.

That's some pretty outdated FUD. Solar is already competitive (WITHOUT subsidies) in many markets, and that will continue to grow. From an article on the same site:

In many U.S. states, the cost to purchase solar power is on par with traditionally generated power. Even before adding in government subsidies such as tax credits, solar is currently competitive in more than 14 U.S. states, Deutsche [Bank] stated.

By the end of next year, about 47 states (including Washington DC) will be at grid parity, Deutsche predicted.

Source: http://www.computerworld.com/a...

Rubbish. Solar is already competitive (WITHOUT subsidies) in many markets, and that will only continue to grow. People who say otherwise have outdated information, or an agenda.

Check out this article, linked from the sidebar of the original article:

In many U.S. states, the cost to purchase solar power is on par with traditionally generated power. Even before adding in government subsidies such as tax credits, solar is currently competitive in more than 14 U.S. states, Deutsche [Bank] stated.

By the end of next year, about 47 states (including Washington DC) will be at grid parity, Deutsche predicted.

an MS rep told us that we mustn't activate Windows ourselves. We had to let the end user do it so that they would be forced to agree to the EULA.

How would that work? Unlike Windows 7, Windows 8 automatically performs activation over the Internet during setup.

No, it's apparently compatible with Windows 7 or later. Remember, Office is targeted at business, and most businesses are still using Windows 7, and will be for a considerable time to come.

I believe that's going to change, drastically. Microsoft's path with Windows 10 (free updates from Windows => 7, as long as you do it within a year of release) is going to drive the fastest corporate OS migrations ever--for better, or for worse.

I know we're planning for it. It scares the hell out of us, but the incentive to move forward is so powerful there really isn't any other viable path.

No, it's apparently compatible with Windows 7 or later. Remember, Office is targeted at business, and most businesses are still using Windows 7, and will be for a considerable time to come.

Indeed. As a datapoint from the past, XP mainstream support ended April 14, 2009. Office 2010 was released June 15, 2010 and still supported Windows XP. XP was so wildly popular in businesses at the time, it would be stupid to not support XP on Office 2010.

No, it's apparently compatible with Windows 7 or later. Remember, Office is targeted at business, and most businesses are still using Windows 7, and will be for a considerable time to come.

Microsoft will apparently screw around with consumers by doing things like not back-porting DirectX to older operating systems, but they're not going to risk sales of their bread-and-butter products by unnecessarily tying them to only their newest operating systems.

BTW, I certainly wouldn't consider Windows 10 to be an "OS designed for tablets". I'm a big critic of Windows 8, but Windows 10 has pretty much fixed all that I hated about 8, except for how hideous it looks (IMO).

It was a shortage of computer memory in the $2.4 billion air traffic control system while a U-2 spy plane flew over southwestern US that caused LAX computers to crash and hundreds of flights to be delayed on April 30. “In theory, the same vulnerability could have been used by an attacker in a deliberate shut-down,” security experts told Reuters. Now that the “very basic limitation of the system” is known, experts expressed concerns about aviation cyberattacks.
$2 billion air traffic control system failure blamed on shortage of computer memory

Lockheed Martin, which created the En Route Automation Modernization (ERAM) air traffic control system, claims it conducts "robust testing" on all its systems, yet the lack of altitude information in the U-2’s flight plan caused the automated system to cycle off and on trying to fix the error.

http://www.computerworld.com/a...

This infosys:
http://www.computerworld.com/a...
http://www.computerworld.com/a...
?

This infosys:
http://www.computerworld.com/a...
http://www.computerworld.com/a...
?

Who said anything about the USA? You realise Google has offices all over the world, right?

The context is US employees. The majority of employees are in the US. Name your country with a significant number of Google employees in which Google routinely hires people who do not speak an official language of that country, please.

And who said anything about burning out?

Young people are working long hours, as you said yourself. Those young people are not staying, as the data confirms. You have even just said yourself - abandoning your "because all programmers are willingly OBSESSED" argument - that a lot of Googlers are salespeople, pushed until they can take no more. (Although suggesting that it is expected as if like a bar job is again putting an embarrassingly rosy spin on it - the median age of corporate salespeople is nowhere near 29.)

assumes every employee at Google does software development, which is very far from true

No - it assumes that there is insufficient employees in enough roles which are routinely staffed by such young people marketwide as to pull down the average age without possible accusations of discrimination being made.

Google are low on gender, age, and race diversity compared to nearly every other tech company. Like a few of my friends who walked away from the Google interview process, the moment I started hearing discussions of fitting into the "culture", I saw that it was a business comprised of smart but narrowminded techs who did not really know any better. But it was only later that I found out just how monocultured it is, with fiercely loyal employees contradicting the stories of those who are pushed out. I'm sure you're aware of the statistics your company has released concerning lack of diversity, especially in technical roles as far as race and gender.

You can argue that a company should be allowed to discriminate as it pleases, but it requires some serious intellectual dishonesty to argue that Google is not discriminating on irrelevant factors.

Yeah. Must be the buyers who are braindead, not people like yourself (and CmdrTaco) who can't see what Apple actually does bring to the table.

I fell for the hype and bought a first generation iPhone when Apple knocked $200 off the price. Because, what do you know, at the time they weren't actually selling like hotcakes.

Let's not forget, back then it didn't run apps, couldn't record video, had no stereo bluetooth, didn't do MMS and maxed out at EDGE speeds (when even dumbphones were beginning to ship with 3G). The battery life was lackluster, the reception and call quality was abysmal. Sure, mobile Safari was pretty awesome at the time compared to the competition - when it wasn't constantly crashing, that is.

Fast forward to today and while my phone is still technically an "iPhone", it bears only a superficial resemblance to the original model that I frequently found myself cursing at, back in the day. The battery life is tolerable, reception and call quality is excellent. The screen size has been increased and the pixel density has doubled. The cellular data connection is faster than my cable modem at home. Web pages render in the blink of an eye and Safari only seems to crash on me once in a blue moon. I don't feel like I'm missing out on any essential features - stereo bluetooth, MMS, front facing camera, 1080p video recording, the gang's all here. Heck, it even has a feature of dubious value which I don't even use - a fingerprint reader.

The Apple Watch could have some potential, but you'd be idiotic to believe that potential will be realized on first generation hardware. I've been burned enough times on first generation Apple products (Mac Mini, iPhone and the iPad) that I've decided to sit this one out. But hey, the way I look at it is: the idiots buying this thing today are subsidizing the development costs of the future model I might someday actually want.

Oh, who am I kidding? I loathe wearing a watch and I don't need one to tell me to look at my phone. The damn thing may as well be a pocket pager, for all intents and purposes.

One in five VM's running on Azure runs Linux.

http://www.computerworld.com/a...

No teeth if they refuse to enforce it. California Edison had 400 of their current US Citizen employees train the H1b workers that were replacing them. DoL refuses to take any action on it.

http://www.computerworld.com/a...

For those that like to RTFA, It might have been
http://www.computerworld.com/a...
or
http://www.healthcareitnews.co...

What? Seriously? Did you follow any political news over the past few months? Cause I mostly avoid politics entirely and I bloody heard about it. She completely admitted it here. Hell, she didn't even have an official government address, and apparently never did. And yes, keeping all your email on a private server grossly violates government record laws. The Bush administration apparently did something similar. But of course they did it only "for convenience". The fact that it left them completely in control of their email records never even crossed their mind! /s

This is why I tell folks unless they are doing something where they have to have a mobile computer? Buy a desktop, hell even if they have to have a mobile computer they are often better off buying a cheap desktop AND cheap laptop than trying to do it all on a laptop because of the compromises required for the insane "thin is in" trend we are getting pushed by the OEMs.

Remove the crazy low temps that mobile devices have to hit? You can have a computer that can play Titanfall on an APU that costs just $36 bucks shipped. Spend an extra $16 for the 5350? You can run just about any game out there on low, which means in the real world you can do every task your average user does in a day, from MSO to 1080P video, and have a nice experience doing so. Of course that is what happens when you remove the insane-o temp barriers the mobile devices have, you remove the boat anchor and let the chips really stretch their legs.

But the dirty little secret in the PC biz is as I've been saying for years, which the numbers back up is that for Joe and Jane Average? That first gen C2D or Turion X2 laptop is more than good enough for what they do,surf the web, play FB games, check webmail, we've had multicores for a decade now so more and more are finding they just don't need to replace until the unit wears out. Even Apple's much discussed and lampooned "gotta have the new model!" fanboys seem to be thinning out as they find their last gen Macbooks and iPads do everything they want them to do.

To use a car analogy its like having a Ferrari to drive to the store while the car lot brags " Come buy the new Ferrari, with 20% better gas mileage and 15% more speed!"...we already got more than we need now for the tasks at hand, thx anyway.

For several years, Mozilla was getting about $700,000. a DAY from Google. They were rolling in money, and all they did was screw up the browser more and more.

Source: computerworld.com

Didn't you hear? Microsoft will allow pirates to upgrade to Windows 10. You just won't get support for it.

So California Pacific lays off 500 existing IT workers to replace them with H1B workers who will be paid 2/3 the cost, forces the existing workers to train their H1B Infosys replacements if the u.s. workers want their severance- and forces them to sign NDA's if they want their full severance.

http://www.computerworld.com/a...

And people wonder why millenials are doing poorly in this kind of environment. California Pacific's layoff seems blatantly illegal (how can you say you need H1B's because you can't find american workers with the skill set when you are LAYING OFF EXISTING WORKERS to replace them with H1B's????) but many other companies are doing the same thing by eliminating jobs at site "A" and immediately starting up the jobs at site "B".

Look- if the companies were foreign companies- we might protect workers or at least get lower prices. But as it is we are expected to pay full prices for the product here while the company uses discount labor.

Here is a blatant obvious case-- will someone do something about this? At least the conservative talk radio is finally mad about the issue. In the past it was only the democrats. How many jobs have to go before something is done?

Why enter a field when you are directly competing with people who can go home and live well on $15k a year?

But the rumor is it will be filled with nags complete with the background turning black and daily pop ups bitching and demanding cash.

They started doing that with Vista. Win7 and WIn8 do that as well. so that's not new.

But the rumor is it will be filled with nags complete with the background turning black and daily pop ups bitching and demanding cash.

If this is the case? then we can say Nadella has pulled his first Ballmernator, because he took the chance to get rid of pirates (which is a joke compared to their bottom line, less than 2% of their sales are upgrades and pirates aren't potential sales) and bring everyone onto Windows 10 and instead just created another Vista sized debacle.

You'd think they'd have learned after XBone but if the rumors bear out you can bet your last buck pirated Win 7 will keep climbing and Win 10 will end up the third flop in a row.

I would have thought that by now you'd be able to call someone up and they'd just punch some buttons and a machine would spit you out some custom gears for a reasonable amount of money, but as far as I know that hasn't yet happened. Anyone know different?

If you have the $$$ you can get all sorts of things printed. But while not being a public job-shop, Ford is using 3D printing for prototypes: Inside Ford's 3D Printing Lab, where thousands of parts are made

@ ZorinLynx: "Wouldn't that mean Microsoft should be going after Google, and not Kyocera? Google produces the software, after all."

It would except microsoft knows it doesn't have a legal leg to stand on and the smaller players are easier to extort than the behemoth of Mountain View, California.

@Sylak: "IIRC Google negeoated patent protections/licensing for certain things in android, anything beyond that is the responsibility of the phone manufacturers because it's their software changes"

No, google never negotiated patent 'protection' from Microsoft in relation to Android. Microsoft has refused to reveal what these patents are. but is quite happey to fund Patent Trolls to go after legitimate companies. See :Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols: Patent trolls under attack, but not dead yet.

The regulations are not finalized and not approved. It is like demanding that a company delivers product that isn't finished with development yet (sadly, that is what many companies do). There are still several reliable sources that provide insight as to what the regulations are (e.g. http://www.computerworld.com/a...). As it turns out, there isn't anything new here, just solidifying the rules set forth by the Internet industry decades ago.

If they honestly wanted to add functionality, the Firefox developers could do it in a way that didn't disrupt existing users. Apple did this more or less right with Spaces, Expose, and the Dashboard - I don't use any of them, I never will, and I don't have to to perform the same basic tasks I've been using a Mac for since the 90s. The shortcuts are on the keyboard and in the system preferences but it's difficult to accidentally invoke these things unless you're looking for them. They're unobtrusive.

The frequent buzzwordy trendy chrome-chasing "disruption" designed to draw attention to the changes is one of the reasons I left Firefox - I don't need my browser to "reinvent" itself at random. That happens enough with iTunes, thank you. I need it to get faster, run the add-ons I want, and otherwise not change at all. Firefox isn't really a browser anymore, it's a UX playground with a captive audience that's slowly trickling away to browsers that don't change their core functionality as much, or as often.

Chrome recently tried to push graphical bookmarks on me - an under-handed and unannounced violation of trust that gave me a panic attack. Fortunately the change was easily reverted, but it was a harsh reminder that no browser is safe - developers drunk on kool-aid can and will change whatever they want whenever they want it doesn't matter how strenuously users object or how well-reasoned our arguments are, we're always dismissed as "edge cases" or brushed off with a dismissive "nobody uses a browser that way."

Will the Google cars be smart enough to evade the college kids crossing the street against the red light while buried in their smart phone displays?

Are google cars smart enough to stop at an intersection that has a green light, but also has a policeman with his hand up telling the car to stop?

.
Did you know Google's self-driving cars can't handle 99% of roads in the US?

Yeah, at least with major league OSes like Windows we never have to worry about decade-old bugs. And Windows 8.0 was the model of usability.

Here, let me back up your point with last week's news from the LA Times:

"Michael Hiltzik of The Los Angeles Times reports that Southern California Edison, the local electrical utility, has let go of 500 IT employees by outsourcing jobs to Tata and Infosys who are top users/abusers of the U.S. H1-B visa process; 400 So Cal employees were laid off and 100 'left voluntarily', many with decades of experience. As indicative of a trend this has now become, last year Minnesota-based agribusiness behemoth Cargill said it would outsource as many as 900 IT jobs to Tata.
 
These employees perform the crucial work of installing, maintaining and managing Edison's computer hardware and software for functions as varied as payroll and billing, dispatching and electrical load management across Edison's vast power generating and electric transmission network. The workers I interviewed are in their 50s or 60s and have spent decades serving as loyal Edison employees.
 
"They told us they could replace one of us with three, four, or five Indian personnel and still save money," one laid-off Edison worker told me, recounting a group meeting with supervisors last year. "They said, 'We can get four Indian guys for cheaper than the price of you.' You could hear a pin drop in the room."
 
They're not the sort of uniquely creative engineering aces that high-tech companies say they need H-1B visas to hire from abroad, or foreign students with master's degrees or doctorates from U.S. universities who also can be employed under the H-1B program. They're experienced systems analysts and technicians for whom these jobs have been stairways from the working class to five- or six-figure middle-class incomes. Many got their training at technical institutes or from Edison itself.
 
This worker and the half-dozen others I interviewed asked to remain anonymous because their severance packages forbid them to speak disparagingly about the company."

For the last 10 years, I've mainly only purchased ASUS motherboards, netbooks, monitors, and the occasional router. ASUS is truly massive and makes a lot of good stuff for a long time already. During the netbook era it looked like they were gonna hedge heavily on Linux, then Microsoft leaned on them heavily and they reversed course.

http://www.computerworld.com/a...

My ASUS EEE 10" netbook is fantastic with Ubuntu & Kodi, still, and I paid about $250 for it ages ago.

We're not even over the NSA hard drive hacks and now this?

Next you're gonna tell me Americans shove food up people's ass for freedom. Oh wait they do.

HUGE SPY PROGRAM EXPOSED: NSA has hidden software in hard drives around the world
Is the NSA Hiding in Your Hard Drive?
NSA Has Ability To Hide Spying Software Deep Within Hard Drives: Cyber Researchers
Is Your Hard Drive Hiding NSA Spyware?
The NSA hides surveillance software in hard drives
'Breakthrough' NSA spyware shows deep grasp of makers' hard drives
NSA planted surveillance software on hard drives, report says
NSA secret spying software discovered by Russian researchers
NSA Hackers Infected Hard Drives With Impossible-To-Remove Spyware
NSA Has Planted Surveillance Software Deep Within Hard Drives Since 2001: Kaspersky
NSA program is embedding secret spying software in hard drives in Russia, China, Middle East, allowing agency to eavesdrop on most of worldâ(TM)s computers: report
Destroying your hard drive is the only way to stop this super-advanced malware
Hard drives beware, the NSA is coming for you
Kaspersky fingers NSA-style Equation Group for hard drive backdoor epidemic
There's no way of knowing if the NSA's spyware is on your hard drive
The NSA's Undetectable Hard Drive Hack Was First Demonstrated a Year Ago

"hard drive" isn't even mentioned in the summary. You idiots got misdirected.

The focus should be on the fact that all hard drives from major brands can be fucked with by the NSA and there are no solutions, the focus shouldn't be on some fucking hacking group:

HUGE SPY PROGRAM EXPOSED: NSA has hidden software in hard drives around the world
Is the NSA Hiding in Your Hard Drive?
NSA Has Ability To Hide Spying Software Deep Within Hard Drives: Cyber Researchers
Is Your Hard Drive Hiding NSA Spyware?
The NSA hides surveillance software in hard drives
'Breakthrough' NSA spyware shows deep grasp of makers' hard drives
NSA planted surveillance software on hard drives, report says
NSA secret spying software discovered by Russian researchers
NSA Hackers Infected Hard Drives With Impossible-To-Remove Spyware
NSA Has Planted Surveillance Software Deep Within Hard Drives Since 2001: Kaspersky
NSA program is embedding secret spying software in hard drives in Russia, China, Middle East, allowing agency to eavesdrop on most of worldâ(TM)s computers: report
Destroying your hard drive is the only way to stop this super-advanced malware
Hard drives beware, the NSA is coming for you
Kaspersky fingers NSA-style Equation Group for hard drive backdoor epidemic
There's no way of knowing if the NSA's spyware is on your hard drive
The NSA's Undetectable Hard Drive Hack Was First Demonstrated a Year Ago

Why don't you stupid American fucks sue the NSA and all the American corporations exposed by Snowden.

You Americans idiots bitch and moan about little adware from others while ignoring the biggest exploits developed by your own people.

Fuck off.

HUGE SPY PROGRAM EXPOSED: NSA has hidden software in hard drives around the world
Is the NSA Hiding in Your Hard Drive?
NSA Has Ability To Hide Spying Software Deep Within Hard Drives: Cyber Researchers
Is Your Hard Drive Hiding NSA Spyware?
The NSA hides surveillance software in hard drives
'Breakthrough' NSA spyware shows deep grasp of makers' hard drives
NSA planted surveillance software on hard drives, report says
NSA secret spying software discovered by Russian researchers
NSA Hackers Infected Hard Drives With Impossible-To-Remove Spyware
NSA Has Planted Surveillance Software Deep Within Hard Drives Since 2001: Kaspersky
NSA program is embedding secret spying software in hard drives in Russia, China, Middle East, allowing agency to eavesdrop on most of world’s computers: report
Destroying your hard drive is the only way to stop this super-advanced malware
Hard drives beware, the NSA is coming for you
Kaspersky fingers NSA-style Equation Group for hard drive backdoor epidemic
There's no way of knowing if the NSA's spyware is on your hard drive
The NSA's Undetectable Hard Drive Hack Was First Demonstrated a Year Ago

The NSA bugs all hard drives, there are your END USERS.

Slashdot kept burying the story, while minor Chinese related news gets double exposure.

Obvious NSA American dumb down operation at work.

HUGE SPY PROGRAM EXPOSED: NSA has hidden software in hard drives around the world
Is the NSA Hiding in Your Hard Drive?
NSA Has Ability To Hide Spying Software Deep Within Hard Drives: Cyber Researchers
Is Your Hard Drive Hiding NSA Spyware?
The NSA hides surveillance software in hard drives
'Breakthrough' NSA spyware shows deep grasp of makers' hard drives
NSA planted surveillance software on hard drives, report says
NSA secret spying software discovered by Russian researchers
NSA Hackers Infected Hard Drives With Impossible-To-Remove Spyware
NSA Has Planted Surveillance Software Deep Within Hard Drives Since 2001: Kaspersky
NSA program is embedding secret spying software in hard drives in Russia, China, Middle East, allowing agency to eavesdrop on most of world’s computers: report
Destroying your hard drive is the only way to stop this super-advanced malware
Hard drives beware, the NSA is coming for you
Kaspersky fingers NSA-style Equation Group for hard drive backdoor epidemic
There's no way of knowing if the NSA's spyware is on your hard drive
The NSA's Undetectable Hard Drive Hack Was First Demonstrated a Year Ago

It's already all over the net, even non geek sites are all over it.

You call slashdot a geek site? "News for nerds, stuff that matters" my ass.

HUGE SPY PROGRAM EXPOSED: NSA has hidden software in hard drives around the world
Is the NSA Hiding in Your Hard Drive?
NSA Has Ability To Hide Spying Software Deep Within Hard Drives: Cyber Researchers
Is Your Hard Drive Hiding NSA Spyware?
The NSA hides surveillance software in hard drives
'Breakthrough' NSA spyware shows deep grasp of makers' hard drives
NSA planted surveillance software on hard drives, report says
NSA secret spying software discovered by Russian researchers
NSA Hackers Infected Hard Drives With Impossible-To-Remove Spyware
NSA Has Planted Surveillance Software Deep Within Hard Drives Since 2001: Kaspersky
NSA program is embedding secret spying software in hard drives in Russia, China, Middle East, allowing agency to eavesdrop on most of world’s computers: report
Destroying your hard drive is the only way to stop this super-advanced malware
Hard drives beware, the NSA is coming for you
Kaspersky fingers NSA-style Equation Group for hard drive backdoor epidemic
There's no way of knowing if the NSA's spyware is on your hard drive
The NSA's Undetectable Hard Drive Hack Was First Demonstrated a Year Ago

It's already all over the net, even non geek sites are all over it.

You call slashdot a geek site? "News for nerds, stuff that matters" my ass.

HUGE SPY PROGRAM EXPOSED: NSA has hidden software in hard drives around the world
Is the NSA Hiding in Your Hard Drive?
NSA Has Ability To Hide Spying Software Deep Within Hard Drives: Cyber Researchers
Is Your Hard Drive Hiding NSA Spyware?
The NSA hides surveillance software in hard drives
'Breakthrough' NSA spyware shows deep grasp of makers' hard drives
NSA planted surveillance software on hard drives, report says
NSA secret spying software discovered by Russian researchers
NSA Hackers Infected Hard Drives With Impossible-To-Remove Spyware
NSA Has Planted Surveillance Software Deep Within Hard Drives Since 2001: Kaspersky
NSA program is embedding secret spying software in hard drives in Russia, China, Middle East, allowing agency to eavesdrop on most of world’s computers: report
Destroying your hard drive is the only way to stop this super-advanced malware
Hard drives beware, the NSA is coming for you
Kaspersky fingers NSA-style Equation Group for hard drive backdoor epidemic
There's no way of knowing if the NSA's spyware is on your hard drive
The NSA's Undetectable Hard Drive Hack Was First Demonstrated a Year Ago

It's already all over the net, even non geek sites are all over it.

You call slashdot a geek site? "News for nerds, stuff that matters" my ass.

HUGE SPY PROGRAM EXPOSED: NSA has hidden software in hard drives around the world
Is the NSA Hiding in Your Hard Drive?
NSA Has Ability To Hide Spying Software Deep Within Hard Drives: Cyber Researchers
Is Your Hard Drive Hiding NSA Spyware?
The NSA hides surveillance software in hard drives
'Breakthrough' NSA spyware shows deep grasp of makers' hard drives
NSA planted surveillance software on hard drives, report says
NSA secret spying software discovered by Russian researchers
NSA Hackers Infected Hard Drives With Impossible-To-Remove Spyware
NSA Has Planted Surveillance Software Deep Within Hard Drives Since 2001: Kaspersky
NSA program is embedding secret spying software in hard drives in Russia, China, Middle East, allowing agency to eavesdrop on most of world’s computers: report
Destroying your hard drive is the only way to stop this super-advanced malware
Hard drives beware, the NSA is coming for you
Kaspersky fingers NSA-style Equation Group for hard drive backdoor epidemic
There's no way of knowing if the NSA's spyware is on your hard drive
The NSA's Undetectable Hard Drive Hack Was First Demonstrated a Year Ago

Come on slashdot, stop deleting the NSA hard drive backdoor news submissions, it's already all over the net, even non geek sites are all over it.

You call this a geek site? Stuff that matters my ass.

HUGE SPY PROGRAM EXPOSED: NSA has hidden software in hard drives around the world
Is the NSA Hiding in Your Hard Drive?
NSA Has Ability To Hide Spying Software Deep Within Hard Drives: Cyber Researchers
Is Your Hard Drive Hiding NSA Spyware?
The NSA hides surveillance software in hard drives
'Breakthrough' NSA spyware shows deep grasp of makers' hard drives
NSA planted surveillance software on hard drives, report says
NSA secret spying software discovered by Russian researchers
NSA Hackers Infected Hard Drives With Impossible-To-Remove Spyware
NSA Has Planted Surveillance Software Deep Within Hard Drives Since 2001: Kaspersky
NSA program is embedding secret spying software in hard drives in Russia, China, Middle East, allowing agency to eavesdrop on most of world’s computers: report
Destroying your hard drive is the only way to stop this super-advanced malware
Hard drives beware, the NSA is coming for you
Kaspersky fingers NSA-style Equation Group for hard drive backdoor epidemic
There's no way of knowing if the NSA's spyware is on your hard drive
The NSA's Undetectable Hard Drive Hack Was First Demonstrated a Year Ago

News about some notebook ad middleware that can be disabled at setup (not unlike those toolbar bullshit installations) get front page position.

While NSA malware infiltrating all top hard drive brands in over 30 countries never get to the front page, I watched this news get deleted 3 times from the firehose.

Looks like the NSA/GCHQ psyop team are busy at work after one of the most effective malware got exposed.

NSA malware found hidden in hard drives for nearly 20 years

Russian security software vendor Kaspersky Lab, which this week released a report revealing that thousands of hard drives from 30 nations have been infected by U.S.-government sanctioned malware in existence for nearly 20 years, today said there's no way of knowing if your computer is infected and intelligence agencies are surveilling it.

Once a hard drive or SSD gets infected with this malicious payload, it's impossible to scan its firmware. To put it simply: For most hard drives, there are functions to write into the hardware's firmware area, but there are no functions to read it back. "It means that we are practically blind, and cannot detect hard drives that have been infected by this malware," said Igor Soumenkov, principal security researcher at Kaspersky Lab. The drives in PCs and Macs that were infected by the malware represented more than a dozen major HDD and SSD makers. Kaspersky all but said it was the NSA that created and used the spyware.

Reuters also cited a former NSA employee as having confirmed the latter. Two of the largest drive makers, Western Digital and Seagate, said prior to the report, they had no idea their drives had been targeted. A WD spokesman said the company has not participated in or supported the development or deployment of cyberespionage technology by government entities, adding that "Western Digital has not provided its source code to government agencies." Seagate said its self encrypting drives are supposed to thwart reverse engineering of its firmware. "This is an astonishing technical accomplishment and is testament to the group's abilities," Kaspersky's report stated."

http://www.computerworld.com/article/2885069/theres-no-way-of-knowing-if-the-nsas-spyware-is-on-your-hard-drive.html

News about some notebook ad middleware that can be disabled at setup (not unlike those toolbar bullshit installations) get front page position.

While NSA malware infiltrating all top hard drive brands in over 30 countries never get to the front page, I watched this news get deleted 3 times from the firehose.

Looks like the NSA/GCHQ psyop team are busy at work after one of the most effective malware got exposed.

NSA malware found hidden in hard drives for nearly 20 years

Russian security software vendor Kaspersky Lab, which this week released a report revealing that thousands of hard drives from 30 nations have been infected by U.S.-government sanctioned malware in existence for nearly 20 years, today said there's no way of knowing if your computer is infected and intelligence agencies are surveilling it.

Once a hard drive or SSD gets infected with this malicious payload, it's impossible to scan its firmware. To put it simply: For most hard drives, there are functions to write into the hardware's firmware area, but there are no functions to read it back. "It means that we are practically blind, and cannot detect hard drives that have been infected by this malware," said Igor Soumenkov, principal security researcher at Kaspersky Lab. The drives in PCs and Macs that were infected by the malware represented more than a dozen major HDD and SSD makers. Kaspersky all but said it was the NSA that created and used the spyware.

Reuters also cited a former NSA employee as having confirmed the latter. Two of the largest drive makers, Western Digital and Seagate, said prior to the report, they had no idea their drives had been targeted. A WD spokesman said the company has not participated in or supported the development or deployment of cyberespionage technology by government entities, adding that "Western Digital has not provided its source code to government agencies." Seagate said its self encrypting drives are supposed to thwart reverse engineering of its firmware. "This is an astonishing technical accomplishment and is testament to the group's abilities," Kaspersky's report stated."

http://www.computerworld.com/article/2885069/theres-no-way-of-knowing-if-the-nsas-spyware-is-on-your-hard-drive.html

http://www.pcworld.com/article... http://www.computerworld.com/a...

http://www.pcworld.com/article... http://www.computerworld.com/a... Hardly anyone is rejecting the subscription model. Look at DirecTV or whatever releasing a seperately branded tv box, HBO is ready to move over to subscription. Amazon. It's what people seem to want instead of more for less.

Everyone is part of the maker community. They are saying 1 in 5 developers are working on an IoT project and the definition of developer has become so loose that you are probably already a developer. If you aren't comfortable with calling yourself a developer, call yourself an engineer. Anyone can be an engineer too. If you are unsure if you quality, see if any of the following apply to you.

• Do you know how to click a hyperlink?
• Can you fill out a web form?
• Do you know how to hit a submit form?
• Can you check your email?

If you answered yes to these questions you are probably already eligible to be part of the illustrious maker community and may well be eligible to be part of whatever the next Web 3.5 community that comes up. The folks at Microsoft look forward to satisfying your development needs, which will likely involve using your Raspberry Pi 2 as a companion in a drawer to your PS/2 to USB adapter, VGA cables, two button laser mice that may or may not work, and other remnants of IT past.

Laptops are also cheaper than smart phones. A low-priced touchscreen laptop will be about half the price of a large-screen phone. A dumb phone and a laptop gives you the most computing and screen size for the $$$. But just because you assert that to be the target doesn't mean anyone else sees it that way. The "real" benefit of the iPad is the walled garden. You can tether one to a desk. Put on a corporate app (perhaps for a reception/guest notification) and it's reasonably durable (vs a PC tablet, few of which will survive a worst-case drop 2-feet onto unpadded carpet), and if you need more, it's easy to get another identical one. Actually working on a phone is hard. Much less so on a screen 4x the size (in area, not diagonal). http://www.computerworld.com/a... about $500 for a "decent" touch-screen laptop.

Of course we ran virus scanners, but now they can run for 6 hours straight in prime-time.

Unfortunately virus scanners are mostly scare-tactic marketing to sell software, or in the case of certain large software monopolies, to assuage users that they chose the best OS.

    http://www.computerworld.com/a...

The real problem with them is that virus scanners are of little use against Social-Engineering, which is how we figure the infection got in. An example: user receives an email from known client that contains nothing but the line "click for content!" which is a link to a zero-day exploit. Yes, of course most people do not click. However, occasionally someone will. That's the point of social engineering!

So go ahead, use Windows. But when things inevitably go wrong, you'll just blame "idiot IT policy" or bitchy "users" rather than admitting that it is the weak link in the IT world.

Yes, it has NOTHING to do with the disgusting margin they make on their flash upgrades.

http://www.computerworld.com/article/2685232/why-the-entry-level-iphone-6-has-just-16gb-of-storage.html

Here's an article about a USB-to-Ethernet adapter. Then maybe all you need is a printer with an Ethernet port.

From the 2nd footnote of this post:

There are a handful of consulting firms that rent out big pools of foreign programmers they bring in on H1-B visas.

That is a stunning level of understatement. I'd go so far as to say it is a lie - it is an unimportant technical truth designed to obscure the reality of the situation.

In 2012, all 10 of the top 10 H1B employers were offshore outsourcing companies.
In 2013, 50% of all H1B visas went to offshore outsourcers.

So there may well be only a small number of of these "bad actors" who abuse the H1B system, but they account for the majority of H1B visas.

FWIW -- The way these offshore guys work is that they bring people in to "train up" in preparation for the work moving off-shore, at which point those H1B holders go back home along with the job.

Article from 2009 announcing price cuts to iTunes music, mentions Apple has plans to go DRM free in the future:

http://www.computerworld.com/a...

From same article:

"While iTunes is the most popular digital music store, others have been faster to offer songs without copy protection. Amazon.com started selling DRM-free music in 2007 and swayed all the major labels to sign on in less than a year."

Awfully weird indeed.

Amazon started selling DRM-free music in September 2007

Apple started selling DRM-free music in April 2007 - https://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/04/02Apple-Unveils-Higher-Quality-DRM-Free-Music-on-the-iTunes-Store.html

Ohh, and http://news.cnet.com/2100-1027-998590.html

> April 28, 2003 12:16 PM PDT
Apple unveils music store
...
The songs cost 99 cents each to download, with no subscription fee, and include the most liberal copying rights of any online service to date. Jobs has been an outspoken opponent of so-called digital rights management (DRM) in the past, arguing that limitations on digital music will undermine the market for legitimate content.

Two-thousand-fucking-three.

Article from 2009 announcing price cuts to iTunes music, mentions Apple has plans to go DRM free in the future:

http://www.computerworld.com/a...

From same article:

"While iTunes is the most popular digital music store, others have been faster to offer songs without copy protection. Amazon.com started selling DRM-free music in 2007 and swayed all the major labels to sign on in less than a year."

Awfully weird indeed.