Tag: technology

Verizon, Sprint Agree To Pay Combined $158 Million Over Cramming Charges

mpicpp sends news that Verizon has agreed to pay $90 million (PDF), and Sprint another $68 million (PDF), to settle claims that they placed unauthorized charges on their customers’s bills. The process, known as “cramming, ” has already cost T-Mobile and AT&T settlements in the tens of millions as well. Most of the settlement money will go towards setting up refund programs, but Verizon and Sprint will be able to keep 30% and 35% of the fees they collected, respectively. In response to the news, both companies issued vague statements about “putting customers first.” They are now banned from charging for premium text message services and must set up systems to ensure informed consent for third-party charges. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Verizon, Sprint Agree To Pay Combined $158 Million Over Cramming Charges

$9 Open Source Computer Blows Past Crowdfunding Goal

An anonymous reader writes: A team of engineers and artists has launched a Kickstarter campaign for C.H.I.P., a small computer that costs $9. The campaign met and far exceeded its $50, 000 goal on the first day. The device runs an R8 ARM CPU clocked at 1 GHz, 512 MB of RAM, and 4GB of storage. It has built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and runs a version of Debian. The price was enabled by two things: super-cheap Chinese tablets pushing down processor costs, and support from manufacturer Allwinner to make it even cheaper. The team is also building breakout boards for VGA and HDMI connections, as well as one with a tiny LCD screen, keyboard, and battery. Importantly, “all hardware design files schematic, PCB layout and bill of materials are free for you the community to download, modify and use.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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$9 Open Source Computer Blows Past Crowdfunding Goal

MacKeeper May Have To Pay Millions In Class-Action Suit

jfruh writes: If you use a Mac, you probably recognize MacKeeper from the omnipresent popup ads designed to look vaguely like system warnings urging you to download the product and use it to keep your computer safe. Now the Ukranian company behind the software and the ads may have to pay millions in a class action suit that accuses them of exaggerating security problems in order to convince customers to download the software. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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MacKeeper May Have To Pay Millions In Class-Action Suit

Report: Microsoft Considering Salesforce Acquisition

An anonymous reader writes: Bloomberg reports that Microsoft is considering making a bid for CRM and cloud software company Salesforce, after hearing that Salesforce was entertaining an offer from another company. No talks are underway, but Salesforce has started working with investment banks to figure out how it wants to respond to such offers. Salesforce has a market value of about $50 billion, so any sort of acquisition would be a huge business deal. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Report: Microsoft Considering Salesforce Acquisition

Ubuntu 15.04 Received Well By Linux Community

jones_supa writes: Canonical released Ubuntu 15.04 a couple of weeks ago, and it seems that this release has been a success. The community is mostly reporting a nice experience, which is important since this is the first Ubuntu release that uses systemd instead of upstart. At Slashdot, people have been very nervous about systemd, and last year it was even asked to say something nice about it. To be fair, Ubuntu 15.04 hasn’t changed all that much. Some minor visual changes have been implemented, along with a couple of new features, but the operating system has remained pretty much the same. Most importantly it is stable, fast, and it lacks the usual problems accompanied by new releases. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Ubuntu 15.04 Received Well By Linux Community

VA Tech Student Arrested For Posting Perceived Threat Via Yik Yak

ememisya writes: I wonder if I posted, “There will be another 12/7 tomorrow, just a warning.” around December, would people associate it with Pearl Harbor and I would find myself arrested, or has enough time passed for people to not look at the numbers 12 and 7 and take a knee jerk reaction? A student was arrested for “Harassment by Computer” (a class 1 misdemeanor in the state of Virginia) due to his post on an “anonymous” website [Yik Yak]. Although the post in and of itself doesn’t mean anything to most people in the nation, it managed to scare enough people locally for law enforcement agencies to issue a warrant for his arrest. “Moon, a 21-year-old senior majoring in business information technology, is being charged with Harassment by Computer, which is a class one misdemeanor. Tuesday night, April 28, a threat to the Virginia Tech community was posted on the anonymous social media app Yik Yak. Around 11:15 p.m., an unknown user posted ‘Another 4.16 moment is going to happen tomorrow. Just a warning (sic).’ The Virginia Tech Police Department released a crime alert statement Wednesday morning via email informing students that VTPD was conducting an investigation throughout the night in conjunction with the Blacksburg Police Department.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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VA Tech Student Arrested For Posting Perceived Threat Via Yik Yak

Chrome Passes 25% Market Share, IE and Firefox Slip

An anonymous reader writes: In April 2015, we saw the naming of Microsoft Edge, the release of Chrome 42, and the first full month of Firefox 37 availability. Now we’re learning that Google’s browser has finally passed the 25 percent market share mark. Hit the link for some probably unnecessarily fine-grained statistics on recent browser trends. Have your browser habits shifted recently? Which browsers do you use most often? Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Chrome Passes 25% Market Share, IE and Firefox Slip

Hacking the US Prescription System

An anonymous reader writes: It appears that most pharmacies in the US are interconnected, and a breach in one leads to access to the other ones. A security advisory released [Friday] shows how a vulnerability in an online pharmacy granted access to prescription history for any US person with just their name and date of birth. From the description linked above: During the signup process, PillPack.com prompts users for their identifying information. In the end of the signup rocess, the user is shown a list of their existing prescriptions in all other pharmacies in order to make the process of transferring them to PillPack.com easier. … To replicate this issue, an attacker would be directed to the PillPack.com website and choose the signup option. As long as the full name and the date of birth entered during signup match the target, the attacker will gain access to the target’s full prescription history. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Hacking the US Prescription System

NASA Gets Its Marching Orders: Look Up! Look Out!

TheRealHocusLocus writes: HR 2039: the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act for 2016 and 2017 (press release, full text, and as a pretty RGB bitmap) is in the House. In $18B of goodies we see things that actually resemble a space program. The ~20, 000 word document is even a good read, especially the parts about decadal cadence. There is more focus on launch systems and manned exploration, also to “expand the Administration’s Near-Earth Object Program to include the detection, tracking, cataloguing, and characterization of potentially hazardous near-Earth objects less than 140 meters in diameter.” I find it awesome that the fate of the dinosaurs is explicitly mentioned in this bill. If it passes we will have a law with dinosaurs in it. Someone read the T-shirt. There is also a very specific six month review of NASA’s “Earth science global datasets for the purpose of identifying those datasets that are useful for understanding regional changes and variability, and for informing applied science research.” Could this be an emerging Earth Sciences turf war between NOAA and NASA? Lately it seems more of a National Atmospheric Space Administration. Mission creep, much? Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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NASA Gets Its Marching Orders: Look Up! Look Out!