Tag: deals

Windows 3.1 Glitch Causes Problems At French Airport — Wait, 3.1?

OakDragon writes: Microsoft has tamped down the earth on XP’s grave, steered Internet Explorer toward the nursing home, and is trying to convince everyone Windows 10 is a bright up-and-comer. But in the Paris airport of Orly, a system called DECOR — which helps air traffic controllers relay weather information to pilots — is running on Windows 3.1. That program suffered a glitch recently that grounded planes for some time. The airport actually runs on a variety of old systems, including Windows XP and UNIX. Maintenance is a problem. There are only three people in Paris that work on DECOR issues, and one of them is retiring soon. Hardware is also an issue. “Sometimes we have to go rummaging on eBay to replace certain parts, ” said Fiacre. “In any case, these machines were not designed to keep working for more than 20 years.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Windows 3.1 Glitch Causes Problems At French Airport — Wait, 3.1?

Bluetooth 2016 Roadmap Brings Fourfold Range Increase and Mesh Networking

An anonymous reader writes: The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) has announced its roadmap for Bluetooth Smart in 2016, promising a fourfold range increase in the low-energy, IoT-oriented version of the protocol, along with dedicated mesh networking, a 100% increase in speed and no extra consumption of energy. The last set of upgrades to the protocol offered direct access to the internet and security enhancements. Since Bluetooth must currently contend with attacks on everything from cars to toilets, the increased range means that developers may not be able to rely on ‘fleeting contact’ as a security feature quite as much. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Bluetooth 2016 Roadmap Brings Fourfold Range Increase and Mesh Networking

TV Networks Cutting Back On Commercials

An anonymous reader writes: Cable providers aren’t the only ones feeling pressure from cord cutters. The TV networks themselves are losing viewers the same way. A lot of those viewers are going to Netflix and other streaming services, which are often ad-free, or have ad-free options. Now, in an effort to win back that audience (and hang on to the ones who are still around), networks are beginning to cut back on commercial time during their shows. “Time Warner’s truTV will cut its ad load in half for prime-time original shows starting late next year, Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bewkes said last week on an earnings call. Viacom has recently slashed commercial minutes at its networks, which include Comedy Central and MTV. Earlier this month, Fox said it will offer viewers of its shows on Hulu the option to watch a 30-second interactive ad instead of a typical 2 1/2-minute commercial break. Fox says the shorter ads, which require viewers to engage with them online, are more effective because they guarantee the audience’s full attention.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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TV Networks Cutting Back On Commercials

NVIDIA Releases JTX1 ARM Board That Competes With Intel’s Skylake i7-6700K

An anonymous reader writes: NVIDIA has unveiled the Jetson TX1 development board powered by their Tegra X1 SoC. The Jetson TX1 has a Maxwell GPU capable of 1 TFLOP/s, four 64-bit ARM A57 processors, 4GB of RAM, and 16GB of onboard storage. NVIDIA isn’t yet allowing media to publish benchmarks, but the company’s reported figures show the graphics and deep learning performance to be comparable to an Intel Core i7-6700K while scoring multiple times better on performance-per-Watt. This development board costs $599 (or $299 for the educational version) and consumes less than 10 Watts. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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NVIDIA Releases JTX1 ARM Board That Competes With Intel’s Skylake i7-6700K

Proof-of-Concept Ransomware Affects Macs

sarahnaomi writes: Ransomware, the devilish family of malware that locks down a victim’s files until he or she coughs up a hefty bounty, may soon be coming to Mac. Last week, a Brazilian security researcher produced a proof-of-concept for what appears to be the first ransomware to target Mac operating systems (Mac OS X). On Monday, cybersecurity company Symantec verified the researcher’s findings. “Mabouia is the first case of file-based crypto ransomware for OS X, albeit a proof-of-concept, ” Symantec wrote in a blog post. “It’s simple code, I did it in two days, ” [said] the creator of the malware. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Proof-of-Concept Ransomware Affects Macs

Fury and Fear In Ohio As IT Jobs Go To India

ErichTheRed writes: A company called Cengage Learning now joins the Toys ‘R Us, Disney and Southern California Edison IT offshoring club. Apparently, even IT workers in low-cost parts of the country are too expensive and their work is being sent to Cognizant, one of the largest H-1B visa users. As a final insult, the article describes a pretty humiliating termination process was used. Is it time to think about a professional organization before IT goes the way of manufacturing? Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Fury and Fear In Ohio As IT Jobs Go To India

US Spends $1bn Over a Decade Trying To Digitize Immigration Forms, Just 1 Is Online

Bruce66423 writes: A government project to digitize immigration forms succeeded in enabling exactly one application to be completed and submitted after 10 years of work because of the botched software and implementation. The Washington Post reports: “This project, run by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, was originally supposed to cost a half-billion dollars and be finished in 2013. Instead, it’s now projected to reach up to $3.1 billion and be done nearly four years from now, putting in jeopardy efforts to overhaul the nation’s immigration policies, handle immigrants already seeking citizenship and detect national security threats, according to documents and interviews with former and current federal officials.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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US Spends $1bn Over a Decade Trying To Digitize Immigration Forms, Just 1 Is Online

Badly-Coded Ransomware Locks User Files and Throws Away Encryption Key

An anonymous reader writes: A new ransomware family was not tested by its developer and is encrypting user files and then throwing away the encryption key because of an error in its programming. The ransomware author wanted to cut down costs by using a static encryption key for all users, but the ransomware kept generating random keys which it did not store anywhere. The only way to recover files is if users had a previous backup. You can detect it by the ransom message which has the same ID:qDgx5Bs8H Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Badly-Coded Ransomware Locks User Files and Throws Away Encryption Key

Sprint Faces Backlash For Adding MDM Software To Devices

itwbennett writes: On Wednesday, Sprint customer Johnny Kim discovered an in-store technician adding MDM software to his personal iPhone 6 without prior notice or permission. Kim took to Twitter with his complaint, sparking a heated conversation about privacy and protection. One expert who commented on the issue told CSO’s Steve Ragan that ‘it’s possible Sprint sees the installation of MDM software as an additional security offering, or perhaps as a means to enable phone location services to the consumer.’ But, as Ragan points out, ‘even if that were true, it’s against [Sprint’s] written policy and such offerings are offered at the cost of privacy and control over the user’s own devices.’ (MDM here means “Mobile Device Management.”) Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Sprint Faces Backlash For Adding MDM Software To Devices

Saying "Wasted" On Facebook Can Affect Your Credit Score

JustAnotherOldGuy writes: According to a recent report by the Financial Times (paywalled), some of the top credit rating companies are now using people’s social media accounts to assess their ability to repay debt. “If you look at how many times a person says ‘wasted’ in their profile, it has some value in predicting whether they’re going to repay their debt, ” Will Lansing, chief executive at credit rating company FICO, told the Financial Times. “It’s not much, but it’s more than zero.” According to the Financial Times, both FICO and TransUnion have had to find “alternative ways” to assess people who don’t have a traditional credit profile — including people who haven’t borrowed enough to give creditors an idea of what kind of risk they pose. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Saying "Wasted" On Facebook Can Affect Your Credit Score