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Cablevision buyout makes Altice the fourth-largest US cable operator

Cablevision , an iconic US cable TV company founded in 1973, has been purchased by France’s Altice for $17.7 billion. The sale has been approved by shareholders and is expected to go through in the first half of 2016. “Nearly half a century later, the time is right for new ownership of Cablevision and its considerable assets, ” said CEO James L. Dolan. Not included in those assets, however, is Cablevision’s Madison Square Garden company — the Dolan family will keep the downtown New York arena, along with Radio City Music Hall and the Rangers and Knicks pro sports franchises. It’s also holding onto AMC Networks, the home of Mad Men , Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead . Altice was a company little known in the US until it purchased regional cable group Suddenlink for $9.1 billion in May. In Europe, the family-owned company provides internet, pay-TV and mobile phone offerings. “The acquisition of Cablevision represents Altice’s next step in the US market, ” said CEO Patrick Drahi.” That’s an understatement — with the Cablevision acquisition, Altice is now the fourth-largest cable TV provider in the US. Filed under: Home Entertainment , Internet , HD Comments Source: Cablevision Tags: Acquisition, Altice, Cable, Cablevision, France, hdpostcross, ISP, Knicks, MadisonSquareGarden

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Cablevision buyout makes Altice the fourth-largest US cable operator

Amazon’s $50 Fire Tablet Is The Impulse Buy That Never Ends

Every product Amazon makes is designed to sell you something else. It’s an open secret. That’s why the company could lose money on the Kindle Fire—yet still reap a profit . Now, Amazon is introducing the most irresistable moneysuck yet: a $50 tablet. Read more…

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Amazon’s $50 Fire Tablet Is The Impulse Buy That Never Ends

Finnish Diver Finds German WWII Submarine Near Estonia

jones_supa writes: A wreck of a German submarine, presumed lost more than 70 years ago, has been discovered near the Estonian coast. The submarine, which dates back to the Second World War, was found by Finnish diver Immi Wallin in July. The U-679 was apparently the last lost German u-boat in the Gulf of Finland. It was presumed destroyed by depth charges in January, 1945. However, the wreck was found in its own patrol zone, sunk by an underwater mine. After the wreck was discovered, the first dive down to its 90-metre grave was undertaken by a six-person group on September 10. The mission was to investigate the condition of the submarine and photograph it. Wallin says that she believes the submarine had remained lost due to the great depth at which it was destroyed. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Finnish Diver Finds German WWII Submarine Near Estonia

Politiwoops uploads its 1.1 million-tweet collection to the Internet Archive

Twitter may have revoked Politiwoop’s API access but that isn’t stopping the political watchdog from preserving its already-sizeable collection of online gaffs and retractions from elected officials . Politiwoops, which archived the deleted tweets of politicians in 35 countries worldwide, announced on Wednesday that it will upload its collection of 1.1 million formerly-deleted tweets to the Internet Archive for perpetual preservation. This move follows the publication earlier this month of an open letter penned by 17 international rights groups — including the EFF, Sunlight Foundation and Human Rights Watch — urging Twitter to reverse its decision. That letter has since been endorsed by more than 50 more rights groups from across the globe. “Social networks should take into account international norms about transparency and the right to information, ” Arjan El Fassed, director of Open State Foundation, said in a statement. “When politicians turn to social networks to amplify their views, they are inviting greater scrutiny of their expression.” However, to date, Twitter has refused to review the decision. [Image Credit: AFP/Getty Images] Filed under: Internet Comments Source: Open State , Internet Archive Tags: Human Rights Watch, Internet Archive, politics, politiwoops, Social networks, Sunlight Foundation, twitter

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Politiwoops uploads its 1.1 million-tweet collection to the Internet Archive

Buy items right from their Facebook pages with the new Shop section

Facebook is on its way to becoming a one-stop shop for all of your social networking, selfie, news, disliking and retail therapy needs. Select merchants will now feature a Shop section on their Facebook pages, allowing customers to purchase items without leaving the site. The new section is made in collaboration with digital commerce company Shopify , and at first the Shop addition will be available only to Shopify retailers (at no additional charge). It’s designed with mobile devices in mind, since that’s where most of Facebook’s users are, Shopify says. “Existing Facebook Store apps don’t work on mobile devices, which is how most people now use Facebook, ” Shopify writes . “As well, existing Facebook Store apps only add a tab to your page, while the new Facebook Shop section appears as a larger section on your main Facebook Page…. Finally, the new Shop section includes a subscribe button that lets people get notified when you add new products.” Facebook and Shopify have been testing out the Shop function over the past few months. So far, Facebook doesn’t take a cut from sales secured via Shop. [GIF credit: Shopify] Filed under: Internet , Facebook Comments Via: Wired Source: Shopify Tags: facebook, shop, Shopify, shopping

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Buy items right from their Facebook pages with the new Shop section

Google sues SEO company over harassing calls selling “Front Page Domination”

Getting companies’ names to show up higher in search engine results is the field of the lucrative business known as search engine optimization, or SEO. There’s a range of SEO practices, from “white hat” ones that are endorsed by search engines, to “black hat” practices that, while they may not be illegal, violate search engine rules. Now Google is taking a rare legal action against one Southern California SEO company it says went too far and broke the law. In its complaint (PDF) , Google says that Tustin, California-based Local Lighthouse has bombarded consumers with “incessant, unsolicited automated telephone calls” since mid-2014, making “false guarantees of first-page placement in Google search results.” Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Google sues SEO company over harassing calls selling “Front Page Domination”

Nine of World’s Biggest Banks Create Blockchain Partnership

An anonymous reader writes: Nine major banks, including Barclays, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, and JP Morgan have teamed up to bring Bitcoin’s blockchain technology to financial markets. “Over the past year, interest in blockchain technology has grown rapidly. It has already attracted significant investment from many major banks, which reckon it could save them money by making their operations faster, more efficient and more transparent.” Leaving aside the question of whether banks actually want to become more transparent, they’re funding a firm dedicated to running tests on how data can be shared and collected through the blockchain. “The blockchain works as a huge, decentralized ledger of every bitcoin transaction ever made that is verified and shared by a global network of computers and therefore is virtually tamper-proof. … The data that can be secured using the technology is not restricted to bitcoin transactions. Two parties could use it to exchange any other information, within minutes and with no need for a third party to verify it.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Nine of World’s Biggest Banks Create Blockchain Partnership

Malicious Cisco router backdoor found on 79 more devices, 25 in the US

ZMap.io The highly clandestine attacks hitting Cisco Systems routers are much more active than previously reported. Infections have hit at least 79 devices in 19 countries, including an ISP in the US that’s hosting 25 boxes running the malicious backdoor. That discovery comes from a team of computer scientists who probed the entire IPv4 address space for infected devices. As Ars reported Tuesday, the so-called SYNful Knock router implant is activated after receiving an unusual series of non-compliant network packets followed by a hardcoded password. By sending only the out-of-sequence TCP packets but not the password to every Internet address and then monitoring the response, the researchers were able to detect which ones were infected by the backdoor. Security firm FireEye surprised the security world on Tuesday when it first reported the active outbreak of SYNful Knock. The implant is precisely the same size as the legitimate Cisco router image, and it’s loaded each time the router is restarted. It supports up to 100 modules that attackers can tailor to the specific target. FireEye found it on 14 servers in India, Mexico, the Philippines, and Ukraine. The finding was significant, because it showed an attack that had long been theorized was in fact being actively used. The new research shows it’s being used much more widely, and it’s been found in countries including the US, Canada, the UK, Germany, and China. The researchers wrote: Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Malicious Cisco router backdoor found on 79 more devices, 25 in the US

HP To Jettison Up To 30,000 Jobs As Part of Spinoff

An anonymous reader writes: Hewlett-Packard says its upcoming spinoff of its technology divisions focused on software, consulting and data analysis will eliminate up to 30, 000 jobs. The cuts announced Tuesday will be within the newly formed Hewlett Packard Enterprise, which is splitting from the Palo Alto, California company’s personal computer and printing operation. “The new reductions amount to about 10 percent of the new company’s workforce, and will save about $2.7 billion in annual operating costs.” The split is scheduled to be completed by the end of next month. “The head of the group, Mike Nefkens, outlined a plan under which it is cutting jobs in what he called ‘high-cost countries’ and moving them to low-cost countries. He said that by the end of HP Enterprise’s fiscal year 2018, only 40 percent of the group’s work force will be located in high-cost countries.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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HP To Jettison Up To 30,000 Jobs As Part of Spinoff