Die Hoffnung des insolventen Fotopioniers Kodak auf einen erträglichen Bieterwettstreit um seine Patente hat sich laut einem Zeitungsbericht bisher nicht erfüllt. Alle bis zum Wochenende eingegangenen Gebote lägen deutlich unter 500 Millionen Dollar, schrieb das „Wall Street Journal" am Samstag.
Google kümmert sich auch im Jenseits noch gut um seine Mitarbeiter. Stirbt ein Angestellter des Suchgiganten, erhalten hinterbliebene Ehe- oder Lebenspartner zehn Jahre lang Schecks in der Höhe von 50 Prozent des letzten Gehalts des Verstorbenen.
Die US-amerikanische Verbraucherschutzbehörde FTC hat nun der Datenschutz-Vereinbarung zwischen dem sozialen Netzwerk Facebook und der US-Regierung vom November letzten Jahres definitiv zugestimmt.
Im Iran wird das Internet stückweise abgeschaltet. In einem ersten Schritt würden im September 2012 alle Ministerien und staatlichen Stellen vom weltweiten Datennetz getrennt. Das sagte einem Bericht von „Wired“ zufolge der iranische Minister für Telekommunikation, Reza Taqipour, auf einer Konferenz an der Universität in Teheran. Bis 2013 soll das ganze Land an ein nationales Intranet angebunden sein und vom Internet abgekoppelt werden.
Der deutsche Bundesgerichtshof (BGH) nimmt bei illegalen Downloads die Provider in die Pflicht. Laut einem am Freitag veröffentlichten Urteil müssen Internetprovider den Rechteinhabern von Musikstücken die sogenannte IP-Adresse von Nutzern mitteilen, die diese Stücke zum illegalen Download in Online-Tauschbörsen gestellt haben.
Für den Begriff „Disaster Recovery“ gibt es zahlreiche Definitionen. Die Schwelle, ab wann ein Disasterfall vorliegt, muss jedes Unternehmen für sich selbst definieren. Einen gut durchdachten Notfallplan, der alle Aspekte der Geschäftskontinuität einbezieht, sollten jedoch alle haben.
Der US-amerikanische Computerriese IBM hat einem Medienbericht zufolge Interesse an einem Filetstück des kriselnden Blackberry-Anbieters RIM. IBM habe informell wegen einer Übernahme des Firmengeschäfts von Research In Motion (RIM) vorgefühlt, berichtete die Finanz-Nachrichtenagentur Bloomberg am Freitag.
Für die zum Verkauf stehende belgische KPN-Tochter Base gibt es offenbar eine Reihe von Interessenten. Zu den Bietern zählten die Verlagsgruppe De Persgroep, der Kabelkonzern Telenet sowie die Beteiligungsgesellschaften Blackstone und Providence, sagten am Donnerstag mit der Angelegenheit vertraute Kreise. Diese hätten in der vergangenen Woche Gebote unterbreitet.
Mit Demonoid ein weiterer großer Bittorrent-Tracker aus dem Netz verschwunden: Nach einer Serie von Einbruchsversuchen und Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS)-Angriffen gegen die Seite erfolgte vor wenigen Tagen der Zugriff durch die Behörden.
Die Telecom Italia trennt sich von ihrer Tochter Matrix, die das bekannte Internet-Portal Virgilio besitzt. Die Gesellschaft wurde für 88 Millionen Euro an den ägyptischen Milliardär und Finanzinvestor Naguib Sawiris verkauft, berichteten italienische Medien. Sawiris übernimmt auch die Schulden der Gesellschaft.
Reader SternisheFan links to a press release at UCLA, and excerpts from it another bit of Mars news: "For years, many scientists had thought that plate tectonics existed nowhere in our solar system but on Earth. Now, a UCLA scientist has discovered that the geological phenomenon, which involves the movement of huge crustal plates beneath a planet's surface, also exists on Mars. 'Mars is at a primitive stage of plate tectonics. It gives us a glimpse of how the early Earth may have looked and may help us understand how plate tectonics began on Earth,' said An Yin, a UCLA professor of Earth and space sciences and the sole author of the new research."
An anonymous reader writes "Hugo Campos got an implanted cardiac defibrillator shortly after collapsing on a BART train platform. He wants access to the data wirelessly collected by the computer implanted in his body, but the manufacturer says No. It seems weird that a patient can't get access to data about his own heart. Hugo and several medical device engineers are responding to live Q/A on Sunday night on such topics via ACM MedCOMM webcast at ACM SIGCOMM."
New submitter damitr asks: "What is the most ergonomic position if you are working with a laptop or a desktop (with or without wireless keyboard and mouse) for long hours at stretch? Is bean bag for sitting with a laptop a good option? What is the best way to use a desktop without causing tennis elbow and backache/neck problems?"
First time accepted submitter ZombieBraintrust writes "Pumice, the lightweight stone used to smooth skin, is usually found in beauty salons, but on Thursday sailors from New Zealand's Royal Navy found nearly 10,000 square miles of the lava rock bobbing on the surface of the South Pacific Ocean."
redletterdave writes with this snippet from the IB Times: "Five days after NASA's Curiosity rover successfully landed on Mars, the one-ton robot sent another postcard back to Earth, this one a 360-degree doozy. Curiosity's first panorama, albeit black-and-white, gives Earthlings a great high-quality glimpse at the surface on Mars, specifically within the 96-mile Gale Crater."
First time accepted submitter ahree writes "I'm starting up a restaurant with my wife and a few friends and, well, I'd like to support the OS community and hope that this is a way to do it. Simply put, we need to take care of bookkeeping, accounting & payroll and I'd rather not use QuickBooks. I've heard of some options that are open source (GnuCash), some that are cheaper & simpler (WaveAccounting), but I'm wondering what your experience with them (and others) has been like."
theodp writes "Perturbed by a GigaOm item which likened him to 'Darth Vader doing some charity work as he completes the Death Star', Intellectual Ventures CEO Nathan Myhrvold talks about the goals of his 'Global Good'program and fires back at critics in an interview with GeekWire's Todd Bishop. The technology industry is a little too obsessed with 'sending little messages to each other and having fun on a social network' for Myhrvold, who hopes to tackle bigger problems like malaria, polio, and HIV with the help of funding from buddy Bill Gates. 'I don't mean to call Zynga out in a negative way,' says Myhrvold, 'but is Zynga doing God's work? Is Facebook doing God's work? Even setting aside what God's work means, I think it's pretty easy to say, those companies are doing wonderful things, but they are for-profit ventures. It's either tools or toys for the rich.' BTW, if you're ready to do God's work, IV's looking for a Vice President, Global Good."
CuteSteveJobs writes "Australian Attorney-General Nicola Roxon has been forced to back down on her government's unpopular plan to force ISPs to store the web history and social networking of all Australians for two years. The plan has been deeply unpopular with the public, with hackers attacking the government's spy agency. Public servants at the spy agency promoting the scheme been scathing of the government, saying: 'These reforms are urgently needed to deal with a rapidly evolving security environment, but there isn't much appetite within the government for anything that attracts controversy,' but a document on the scheme released under the Freedom of Information Act had 90% of it redacted to prevent "premature unnecessary debate." Roxon hasn't dropped the unpopular scheme entirely, but only delayed it until after the next election."
Shortly after 9 a.m. Eastern time Saturday, Republican candidate Mitt Romney officially announced (via phone app) his selection of 42-year-old Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan as running mate for the 2012 U.S. presidential race. Ryan's selection was announced by the Romney campaign to various media outlets earlier this morning. Ryan is considered popular among a wide range of Republican voters, being a budget hawk who favors less liberal laws concerning abortion. Ryan's lauded popularity among Tea Party voters is mixed; some reports describe him as a Tea Party favorite, others as a far-right imposter.
colinneagle writes with this excerpt from Network World: "The final build of Windows 8 has already leaked to torrent sites, which is giving the propellerheads a chance to dig through the code. One revelation will probably not sit well with enterprise customers: you can't bypass the don't-call-it-Metro UI. Normally, you have to boot Windows 8 and when the tiled desktop UI (formerly known as Metro) came up, you had to click on one of the boxes to launch Explorer. Prior builds of Windows 8 allowed the user to create a shortcut so you bypass Metro and go straight to the Explorer desktop. Rafael Rivera, co-author of the forthcoming Windows 8 Secrets, confirmed to Mary Jo Foley at ZDNet that Microsoft does indeed block the boot bypass routine from prior builds. He also believes that Microsoft has blocked the ability for administrators to use Group Policy to allow users to bypass the tiled startup screen. There had been hope that Microsoft would at least relent and let corporate users have a bypass, if only for compatibility's sake."
morcego writes "Brazil's National Traffic Council (CNT) published Friday a resolution that institutes the National System of Automatic Vehicle Identification (Siniav). According to the Q&A published (Google translation from Portuguese), only 'visible and public' information will be available (vehicle year or fabrication, make, model, combustible, engine power and license plate number), without any personal information about the owner or registration data. This system will be mandatory for all vehicles (cars, trucks, motorcycles, etc) and should cost vehicle owners approximately R$5 (less than US$3)."
New submitter rabok writes "If a Microsoft job posting can be believed, we are set to get a new Xbox on store shelves by March 2014 at the latest. Regardless of when it does eventually arrive, it seems an image claiming to be the output of a Kinect 2 has hit the web by a user on twitter. Kinect 2 is expected to be much more accurate — even able to see individual fingers, read lips, and gauge moods. This image seems to back up that improvement in both depth perception and the ability to distinguish individual fingers."
crookedvulture writes "Most PCs have audio integrated right on the motherboard. There's much to be gained from upgrading to a discrete sound card, though. This look at a couple of sub-$50 sound cards from Asus explores what can be found at the budget end of the spectrum. In blind listening tests, both cards produced better sound than an integrated solution. They also offered superior signal quality, but neither had an impact on gaming performance. The days of hardware-accelerated game audio seem to be behind us, with developers handling positional audio processing in software."
New submitter ottdmk writes "You may recall this recent Slashdot story about Mformation being awarded 147.2 million dollars in a patent suit against RIM. Well, it appears a California appeals judge has disagreed with that verdict. As part of the ruling, if Mformation successfully appeals, the matter will go to a new trial instead of the jury award being restored."