Slashdot Mirror

JagsLive writes with a link to a BetaNews story about a US Senator who is questioning whether the deal between Yahoo and Google was brokered with less than honorable intentions on Google's part. The advertising deal came under scrutiny from the Department of Justice recently for potential antitrust violations. The deal has now been delayed in order to allow investigators more time for evaluation. Meanwhile, rumors are circulating that Yahoo will cut as much as 20% of its workforce after an internal memo from CEO Jerry Yang called for "discipline" and said the company was "getting fit" for the long term. For their part, Google has launched a site endorsing the deal and attempting to smooth the way for its approval by providing facts and positive reactions from experts.

theodp writes "Facebook announced it has chosen tax-haven Dublin for its international HQ, but not all are buying COO Sheryl Sandberg's line about local world-class talent being the motivation behind the move. The Irish Times recently reported that Irish subsidiaries owned by US multinationals are opting to convert to unlimited liability status, concealing the financial performance of their Irish operations from public view. They include Microsoft's incredibly profitable Irish subsidiaries Round Island One and Flat Island Company, Google Ireland Holdings, and a subsidiary of Apple Computer. The conversions have occurred as US tax authorities have increased their scrutiny of international mechanisms used by American multinationals to reduce their taxes at home."

An anonymous reader writes "Valleywag says the Jerry Seinfeld ads are over — In a phone call, Frank Shaw confirms that Microsoft is not going on with Seinfeld, and echoes his underlings' spin that the move was planned. There is the 'potential to do other things' with Seinfeld, which Shaw says is still 'possible.' He adds: 'People would have been happier if everyone loved the ads, but this was not unexpected.'"

Paul Boutin writes "A reliable source tells Valleywag that MySQL inventor Michael Widenius, better known as Monty, has resigned from Sun. Sun bought Monty's MySQL company in a billion-dollar deal last January. Brian Aker, who forked the Web 2.0-friendly Drizzle SQL database (and former Slashdot engineer!), remains at Sun." Kaj Arnö and Sheeri Cabral share their thoughts.

nicholas.m.carlson writes "According to these five terms of service and EULA, Google owns any content you create using its Chrome browser and can filter your Gmail messages if it likes. Facebook says it can sell its users' uploaded images as stock photography. YouTube can keep footage of your kids forever, even after you've deleted it from the site. And AOL can ban you for using vulgar language on AIM. Funny, right? That's why Valleywag calls them 'The 5 most laughable terms of service on the Net.'" Reader dlaudel writes, regarding the previously-mentioned Google EULA for Chrome, "According to Ars Technica, Google's EULA for Chrome was just copy-and-pasted from its EULA for other services, a practice that is apparently common at Google."

nicholas.m.carlson writes "According to these five terms of service and EULA, Google owns any content you create using its Chrome browser and can filter your Gmail messages if it likes. Facebook says it can sell its users' uploaded images as stock photography. YouTube can keep footage of your kids forever, even after you've deleted it from the site. And AOL can ban you for using vulgar language on AIM. Funny, right? That's why Valleywag calls them 'The 5 most laughable terms of service on the Net.'" Reader dlaudel writes, regarding the previously-mentioned Google EULA for Chrome, "According to Ars Technica, Google's EULA for Chrome was just copy-and-pasted from its EULA for other services, a practice that is apparently common at Google."

nicholas.m.carlson writes "Remember Knight-Ridder and AT&T's Viewtron from 1983? With a $900 terminal and $12 a month, you could access news from the Miami Herald and the New York Times, online shopping, banking and food delivery, via a 300-baud modem. After sinking $16 million a year into the project, Knight-Ridder shut it down in 1986. That's just the earliest of the 5 newspaper failures on the Web that Valleywag details in this post, writing: 'each tale ends the same way: A promising start, shuttered amid fear, uncertainty, and doubt.'"

nicholas.m.carlson writes "Remember Knight-Ridder and AT&T's Viewtron from 1983? With a $900 terminal and $12 a month, you could access news from the Miami Herald and the New York Times, online shopping, banking and food delivery, via a 300-baud modem. After sinking $16 million a year into the project, Knight-Ridder shut it down in 1986. That's just the earliest of the 5 newspaper failures on the Web that Valleywag details in this post, writing: 'each tale ends the same way: A promising start, shuttered amid fear, uncertainty, and doubt.'"

An anonymous reader writes "George Lucas CGI 'Clone Wars' movie has premiered to reviews ranging from MSNBC's 'Ugly animation and an uninspired storyline drag down the film' to AintItCool's 'I hated the film. HATED IT. REALLY HATED IT.' Critics have noted the animation style, music and slapstick humor had more than a passing similarity to Pixar's Toy Story, and wondered if the introduction of new action figures (sorry, characters) like Baby Jabba Hutt and Jabba the Hutt's Gay Uncle may have taken the franchise a bridge too far. Lucas responding by enforcing an embargo, forcing the reviews to be taken down. While sites like AintItCool.com responded, by then it was just a little too late. Still, the CGI eye candy will make it popular with kids. If the 'Clone Wars' movie can't save the galaxy, can it at least save the franchise?"

theodp writes "If you checked out Google-wannabe Cuil, you learned that mapping search results to relevant images isn't a trivial task. But even Big Dog Google isn't immune to embarrassing graphics gaffes. Readers of Google News were shown that Russian troops are thrusting into the outskirts of Savannah, Georgia, thanks to the Google Maps graphic accompanying a story about Russian incursions into Georgia — the nation-state in the Caucasus, not the Caucasian-pride-ridden state in the southern US. Yahoo! Answers also had some fun with the GA-Georgia mix-up — 'I live in georegia but i dont see rusia no where not even sound but they says theres tanks should i be worrie' (Google cache) — before a spoilsport deleted the question."

theodp writes "Citing expert testimony from a recent House Science Subcommittee hearing on Globalizing Jobs and Technology, The Economic Populist challenges the conventional wisdom that maximizing profits should be a corporation's only responsibility, suggesting it's time for the US to align its corporations to the interests of the nation instead of vice versa. Harvard's Bruce Scott warns that today's global economy is much like the US in the later 19th century, when states competed for funds generated by corporations and thus raced to the bottom as they granted generous terms to unregulated firms. Sound familiar, Pennsylvania? How about you, Michigan?"

Nicholas Carlson writes "These employers (Amazon, Google, Yahoo, etc), and the others hiring for tech's 10 worst entry-level jobs will look good on a resume someday, but for now the only good these jobs promise the world is the pleasant feeling you and I can share knowing we're not the ones stuck in them." The story is really obnoxiously laid out, requiring many many clicks to read very little actual content. Perhaps Valleywag could afford to hire another of tech's worst jobs: the web designer.

Nicholas Carlson writes "These employers (Amazon, Google, Yahoo, etc), and the others hiring for tech's 10 worst entry-level jobs will look good on a resume someday, but for now the only good these jobs promise the world is the pleasant feeling you and I can share knowing we're not the ones stuck in them." The story is really obnoxiously laid out, requiring many many clicks to read very little actual content. Perhaps Valleywag could afford to hire another of tech's worst jobs: the web designer.

Hackajar writes "Valleywag has an interesting post detailing YouTube's new way to deal with copyrighted music videos, removing embed tags and linking it to the official content on site. What's significant here is the lack of video removal by YouTube staff. From the post, "Uploads of music videos from the band by non-official sources now carry a link reading "Contains content from [insert studio here]"". They use a Modest Mouse music video from a third party to illustrate the new change."

nicholas.m.carlson writes help you feel better about your hovel. Vallywag recently compiled a list of the top ten places to work, but the resulting submissions and exploration also provided them with an interesting look at some of the worst places to work. "What makes them so bad? Some offend with exposed fluorescent lights, gray cubicles and a dystopian corporate sheen. But others, with their pseudo-hip graffiti, kindergarten toys and plastic decorations — all in a desperate attempt to seem 'Internet-y' — come off even worse."

nicholas.m.carlson writes help you feel better about your hovel. Vallywag recently compiled a list of the top ten places to work, but the resulting submissions and exploration also provided them with an interesting look at some of the worst places to work. "What makes them so bad? Some offend with exposed fluorescent lights, gray cubicles and a dystopian corporate sheen. But others, with their pseudo-hip graffiti, kindergarten toys and plastic decorations — all in a desperate attempt to seem 'Internet-y' — come off even worse."

theodp writes "Looking to escape your Initech-like surroundings with your next job? Valleywag has culled its picks for Tech's Top 10 Workspaces from Office Snapshots, where you'll find plenty of other Best-Places-to-Work contenders. So how does your Cubicle measure up to the competition?" Pixar, Netflix, and other places. Makes the Slashdot Fortress look like a hovel even though we replaced the dirt floors last month.

Ian Lamont writes "Twitter has established itself in some quarters as a must-have communications tool, and its power to connect and even incite people is hard to deny. But does Twitter have long-term, mainstream potential? Or does a poor revenue model and strong competition mean that it's destined to be a sideline Internet technology, much like podcasting has failed to live up to early hype?"

theodp writes "A recent Amazon SEC filing sheds light on the puzzling departure of Microsoft Sr. VP Brian Valentine in Sept. 2006. Valentine is the Gen. George Patton-like figure charged with pushing Vista developers, who dumped the still not-ready-for-prime-time OS into RC1 status as he bolted for a new gig at Amazon. Having repeatedly assured everyone that Valentine was staying with the company post-Vista, Microsoft backpedaled and explained that Valentine decided to leave since the company had shipped a near-final version of Vista. Not so. Although analysts fell for the PR line, it seems Valentine had actually signed an Employment Agreement way back in June calling for him to be on board at Amazon on Sept. 11 if he wanted to pick up a $1.7M signing bonus, $150K base salary, another $500K bonus, and 400K shares of Amazon stock (now worth almost $30M). Who says you have to shell out $999.95 for MS-Project to come up with accurate planned completion dates?"

jlgolson writes "Yesterday, Rush Limbaugh complained on his radio program about some problems that he was having with his Mac: 'Mr. Jobs, please help me. I know we don't agree on anything ... But can you put me to somebody that can get this going, because I know it's gotta work for most people. What am I doing wrong?' Eventually he shared that he was running into actual problems with Time Machine and Back to My Mac. Can you fix them?"

jlgolson writes "Yesterday, Rush Limbaugh complained on his radio program about some problems that he was having with his Mac: 'Mr. Jobs, please help me. I know we don't agree on anything ... But can you put me to somebody that can get this going, because I know it's gotta work for most people. What am I doing wrong?' Eventually he shared that he was running into actual problems with Time Machine and Back to My Mac. Can you fix them?"

jlgolson writes "Yesterday, Rush Limbaugh complained on his radio program about some problems that he was having with his Mac: 'Mr. Jobs, please help me. I know we don't agree on anything ... But can you put me to somebody that can get this going, because I know it's gotta work for most people. What am I doing wrong?' Eventually he shared that he was running into actual problems with Time Machine and Back to My Mac. Can you fix them?"

NewShinyCD writes "Sources tell Valleywag that startup Ustream.tv is in advanced discussions with Microsoft to acquire the lifecasting service for more than $50 million, but there are other companies in the bidding as well. Ustream is currently raising a very large initial round of VC financing, and Microsoft is attempting to grab them prefunding for a cheap price. Our tipster also mentions that Microsoft would use Ustream as a way to promote its Adobe Flash competitor, Silverlight." Relatedly, Microsoft has also announced their intent to buy Sidekick maker Danger. Financial details of the Danger buyout were not disclosed.

theodp writes "From 1977's lovable Xeroxing Monk to 2007's smug-and-rich SalesGenie pitch man, Valleywag has rounded up videos for its Top 10 most memorable tech-oriented Super Bowl commercials. The commercials are: Apple (1984), Monster (1999), CareerBuilder (2005), GoDaddy (2005), Xerox (1977), E*Trade (1999), Pets.com (2000), Computer.com (2000), SalesGenie.com (2007) and OurBeginning (2000). This year's ads are coming soon." I've always been a fan of the Outpost.com gerbil cannon spot.

henrypijames writes "For months, users of Adobe Creative Suite 3 have been wondering why some of the applications regularly connect to what looks like a private IP address but is actually a public domain address belonging to the web analytics company Omniture. Now allegations of user spying are getting louder, prompting Adobe Photoshop product manager John Nack to respond, though many remain unsatisfied with his explanation."

Miguel de Icaza (Note, this Miguel is not the Ximian developer, just someone whose small life is fulfilled by trolling under someone else's name) writes "Here is a story revealing just how threatened Microsoft is by Google. While senior partners can expect the full chair experience, some lowly staffers who are putting in their notice are being escorted off campus immediately. Why? Because they've put in their notice to join Google. In Microsoft's eyes, Google is Enemy No. 1. Anyone leaving Redmond for the search leader is a threat. Not because they'll scurry around collecting company secrets — as if Google's interested in Microsoft's '90s-era technologies. Departing employees, however, might tell other 'Softies how much better Google is. If an employee is leaving for Amazon.com or another second-tier employer which doesn't make Microsoft so paranoid, they'll probably serve out the traditional two weeks of unproductive wrapping up. So if you're planning on leaving Microsoft for Google, pack up your belongings and say goodbye to friends ahead of time. There'll be no cake and two weeks of paid slacking for you."

FloatsomNJetsom writes "The site Switched.com is taking a look at the slow death of privacy at the hands of social media sites such as Facebook and MySpace with a link to a report on the creepy practice of Facebook employees monitoring what pages you look at and a thought-provoking video interview with social media expert Clay Shirky — who says that social networks are profoundly changing our ability to keep our private lives private. 'Eventually, Shirky theorizes, society will have to create a space that's implicitly private even though it's technically public, not unlike a personal conversation held on a public street. Otherwise, our ability to keep our lives private will be forever destroyed. Of course, that might already be the case.'"

Jordan Golson writes "New York Times gadget reviewer David Pogue got into an email back-and-forth with Valleywag after he was tricked into writing an article by advance misinformation on a pre-launch product. In theory, it's good for reviewers to test and write up products before release day, so consumers can make informed choices. In practice, Pogue and we wish the industry standard would change." Personally I think this is why blogs are great- if a product sells 100,000 units, it only takes a few dozen bloggers to encounter problems for the truth to come out. Of course, that doesn't help you if you want to pre-order.

Jordan Golson writes "New York Times gadget reviewer David Pogue got into an email back-and-forth with Valleywag after he was tricked into writing an article by advance misinformation on a pre-launch product. In theory, it's good for reviewers to test and write up products before release day, so consumers can make informed choices. In practice, Pogue and we wish the industry standard would change." Personally I think this is why blogs are great- if a product sells 100,000 units, it only takes a few dozen bloggers to encounter problems for the truth to come out. Of course, that doesn't help you if you want to pre-order.

Jordan Golson writes "New York Times gadget reviewer David Pogue got into an email back-and-forth with Valleywag after he was tricked into writing an article by advance misinformation on a pre-launch product. In theory, it's good for reviewers to test and write up products before release day, so consumers can make informed choices. In practice, Pogue and we wish the industry standard would change." Personally I think this is why blogs are great- if a product sells 100,000 units, it only takes a few dozen bloggers to encounter problems for the truth to come out. Of course, that doesn't help you if you want to pre-order.

Jordan Golson writes "New York Times gadget reviewer David Pogue got into an email back-and-forth with Valleywag after he was tricked into writing an article by advance misinformation on a pre-launch product. In theory, it's good for reviewers to test and write up products before release day, so consumers can make informed choices. In practice, Pogue and we wish the industry standard would change." Personally I think this is why blogs are great- if a product sells 100,000 units, it only takes a few dozen bloggers to encounter problems for the truth to come out. Of course, that doesn't help you if you want to pre-order.

theodp sends a follow-up to the discussion here a couple of months back about Indiana University librarians and students being forced to use the 'human-powered' ChaCha search engine because IU's President and one of its Trustees were business buddies of ChaCha CEO (and IU alum) Scott Jones. Don't be ridiculous, insisted indignant IU officials. It was ChaCha's ability to fill in gaps in a speech he was writing in 2007 that convinced IU's CIO that the University had to do a deal with ChaCha. What a coincidence, notes Valleywag. The need to fill in gaps in a speech he was writing back in 2005 is what convinced ChaCha CEO Jones that he had to create ChaCha in the first place. Way to anticipate what your customers need before they do.

ahem writes "I saw a link on Valleywag to a story written by Cory Doctorow about what would happen if Google got in bed with the Dept. of Homeland Security. Chilling, well written, but the ending was a bit anti-climactic for my tastes."

theodp writes "Looks like Amazon's high-priced Silicon Valley attorneys will have to endure the 'undue hardship' of awakening early next Thursday morning to defend CEO Jeff Bezos' 1-Click patent in a Video Hearing before the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences. The attorneys' plea for a 1 p.m. ET start time drew a be-there-at-9-or-be-square response from the USPTO. The 1-Click patent has fallen into disfavor lately with USPTO Examiners, who no longer have the same boss who once sent a 1-Click love letter to the WSJ arguing that the merits of Amazon's patent were proven by a contest run by a Jeff Bezos-financed company, an argument that was later rejected by Congress."

theodp writes "In response to Beloit College's 10th Annual Mindset List, which takes a stab at describing the worldview of the incoming Class of 2011 (grew up with bottled water; have always had the World Wide Web), Valleywag's Nick Douglas presages The Mindset of the Class of 2029 (have always been able to use a cell phone on a plane; 'Lord of the Rings' looks fake and the effects are laughable)."

circletimessquare writes "Valleywag.com is reporting on a case of a hacker not covering his tracks. It seems that, via a targeted email, an admin at Fark.com downloaded a trojan, which was used to steal passwords for Fark servers. Notably, these activities were traced to an IP address in Memphis Tennessee, and to a Fox News new-media reporter. As to the veracity of the story, that is bolstered by the fact that the story was greenlit for the front page of Fark. Motive? That could range from Fark being a rumored Fox takeover target, to stealing source code for a competing Fox social networking site. If the story is true, laws have been broken, but perhaps not by the Fox News reporter: it's possible his computer was hacked as well. Whatever the truth, it's a very entertaining read, as it pushes a number of hot buttons."

corewtfux writes with word of a major outage apparently centered on 365 Main, a datacenter on the edge of San Francisco's Financial District. Valleywag initially claimed that a drunken person had gotten in and damaged 40 racks, but an update from Technorati's Dave Sifry says the problem is a widespread power outage. Sites affected include Technorati, Netflix (these display nice "We're Dead" pages), Typepad, LiveJournal, Sun.com, and Craigslist (these just time out).

theodp writes "Touted as a model of successful education by the likes of Bill Gates, Silicon Valley's High Tech High just held its first — and last — commencement ceremony, graduating only 21 students in its brief history. Despite the financial support of the world's richest man, the charter school cited money woes as it voted to shut its doors. Adding insult to the poor HTH kids' injury, the local public H.S. district plunked down $8.6M to snatch up their abandoned school and will turn it over to a brand new crop of kids in the fall."

tgbrittai asks: "According to Paul Boutin they are merely an obstacle to be manipulated or outmaneuvered. According to Steve Wozniak they are pimps. I've known my share of good and bad sysadmins, programmers and every other professional role out there, and I have to wonder: are sysadmins really THAT bad?" Most times sys-admins are overworked and underpaid and have to deal with users who take advantage of their local IT person, tasking them to fix systems that they callously break. Others are truly worth the name "Bastard Operators from Hell". How would you rate your sys-admin and what things did you have to do to make things run smoothly (or not)?

An anonymous reader writes "Google's motto is "Don't Be Evil" — but they sure have an evil non-disclosure agreement! In order to be considered for employment there, you must sign an agreement that forbids you to 'mention or imply the name of Google' in public ever again. Further, you can't tell anyone you interviewed there, or what they offered you, and you possibly sign away your rights to reverse-engineer any of Google's code, ever. And this NDA never expires. Luckily, someone has posted excerpts from the NDA before he signed it and had to say silent forever." At the bottom of the posting are links to a few other comments on the Web about Google's NDA, including a ValleyWag post that reproduces it in its entirety.

theodp writes "Valleywag reports on a new caste system at Google, which will mean compulsory lunch breaks, two additional unpaid 15-minute breaks, limited OT, and e-clock punching for those reclassified as hourly workers starting April 1. Could be worse, though. Google also offers gigs through WorkforceLogic (the company that helped Microsoft deal with its pesky permatemps), which come with a guarantee of unemployment after one year. Guess that's what passes for the Best Employer in the US these days."

theodp writes "A week ago, in his How to Keep America Competitive Op-Ed, Bill Gates touted the Gates Foundation-backed High Tech High as the future of American education. One small problem. Two days earlier, tearful Bay Area High Tech High students — recruited by a Bill Gates video — were told that their school of the future has no future. So would Bill be too embarrassed to lay out his education plan before the Senate Wednesday? Nah. Not too surprisingly though, mentions of High Tech High were MIA in Bill's prepared remarks (PDF), which touted Philly's imaginatively named $65M School of the Future, built under the guidance of Microsoft, as the new school of the future. Committee politicians reportedly embraced virtually all of the suggestions made by Gates."

Petey_Alchemist writes "Silicon Valley gossip rag Valleywag is carrying a story about Second Life being a new spin on the old pyramid scheme. The article, which consists mostly of selections from the report of financial consultant Randolph Harrison, suggests that not only are most people deceived about the amount of money they can make in Second Life, but also about how easily they can withdraw it. It says 'Like the paid promotion infomercials that run on CNBC, sadly SecondLife is a giant magnet for the desperate, uninformed, easily victimized. Its promises of wealth readily ensnare those who can least afford to lose their money or lives to such scam in exactly the same way that real estate investor seminars convince divorcees with low FICO scores to buy houses sight unseen with no money down.'"

miller60 writes "The race by Microsoft and Google to build next-generation data centers is intensifying. On Thursday Microsoft announced a $550 million San Antonio project, only to have Google confirm plans for a $600 million site in North Carolina. It appears Google may just be getting started, as it is apparently planning two more enormous data centers in South Carolina, which may cost another $950 million. These 'Death Star' data centers are emerging as a key assets in the competitive struggle between Microsoft and Google, which have both scaled up their spending (as previously discussed on Slashdot). Some pundits, like PBS' Robert X. Cringley, say the scope and cost of these projects reflect the immense scale of Google's ambitions."

theodp writes "The California Attorney General's Office negotiated a $14.5 million payoff from HP as part of a settlement that calls for the state not to pursue civil charges related to the now infamous spy scandal against the company and its current or former officers or directors (felony criminal charges against five individuals still remain). HP also agreed to maintain the watchdog positions of chief ethics officer and chief privacy officer for five years."

theodp writes "The California Attorney General's Office negotiated a $14.5 million payoff from HP as part of a settlement that calls for the state not to pursue civil charges related to the now infamous spy scandal against the company and its current or former officers or directors (felony criminal charges against five individuals still remain). HP also agreed to maintain the watchdog positions of chief ethics officer and chief privacy officer for five years."

Vainglorious Coward writes "Infoworld is repeating the rumours that Alan 'spam king' Ralsky has been arrested by the Feds. With the file sealed for 72 hours, the article claims the underworld is abuzz with concern that, faced with enough evidence to put him in jail, Ralsky will squeal on his associates. We should know in the next couple of days whether any of the roaches scurrying for cover are going to get stomped."

theodp writes "Google worries go mainstream this week in TIME's cover story, Can We Trust Google With Our Secrets? Touted as an 'inside look' at how success has changed Larry and Sergey's dream machine, the piece offers some interesting tidbits but in the end is pretty much a softball effort that even toes the mum's-the-word line on the relationship between Larry Page and 'blond, blue-eyed force of nature' Marissa Mayer. Guess it's the least Time Warner could do after pocketing $1B of Google's money."