Zuerst kauft Disney Lucasfilm und jetzt das: Rovio spannt «Star Wars» in die Schleuder und spickt Yoda- sowie Chewbacca-Birds ab. Doch trotz Kommerz-Coup: Die Macht ist mit dem Game.
Mitte Oktober hatten sich die SBB und Apple über die Nutzung der schamlos kopierten SBB-Uhr geeinigt, ohne eine genaue Zahl zu nennen. Informanten haben die Höhe des Betrags nun der Presse zugespielt.
Sie warnen Zehntausende vor Blitzkästen im Lande - nun ziehen sich die Radarwarner auf Facebook zurück. Wegen einer Gesetzesänderung können sie künftig bestraft werden.
Im Dezember führt der grösste Schweizer Mobilfunkprovider ultraschnelles Surfen mit LTE ein. Doch die iPhone-Nutzer müssen sich etwas länger gedulden.
Dafür gibts definitiv keine «Medal of Honor»: Sieben Mitglieder einer amerikanischen Elite-Spezialeinheit sind wegen Weitergabe von Geheiminformationen bestraft worden.
Googles Internetangebot war am Freitag in weiten Teilen Chinas nicht erreichbar. Laut einer Google-Sprecherin gab es keine technischen Probleme, die die Probleme erklären könnten.
Würden Sie Ihre Füsse auf eine geheimnisvoll leuchtende Bodenplatte mitten in der Stadt setzen? Genau dies haben Dutzende Norweger getan - und ihr blaues Wunder erlebt.
iPhone oder Android-Smartphone verschwunden, Akku leer: Was aus Nutzersicht nach einem Supergau klingt, kann dank der Gratis-App Lookout glimpflich enden.
Sonic, Harry Potter oder Mario? Unsere drei Teenie-Redaktoren haben aus der Fülle an Games eine Top-10-Liste zusammengestellt.
Das neue iPhone ist schwer zu bauen und verkauft sich offenbar wie blöd: Mit alarmierenden Aussagen sorgt Apples wichtigster asiatischer Partner für Aufsehen.
Viele Promis und Politiker nutzen Twitter, um sich der Welt mitzuteilen. Nun will auch der Papst einsteigen. Er wird seine Tweets aber wohl auf Papier verfassen.
Um herauszufinden, ob gekaufte Filme nicht vor einem zu grossen Publikum gezeigt werden, plant Microsoft eine neue Technologie einzusetzen: Sie zählt die Anzahl Leute vor der Glotze.
Schwarzer Hengst und angebissener Apfel: Der legendäre italienische Sportwagenbauer holt einen der hochrangigsten Apple-Manager an Bord. Was plant Ferrari mit dem Internet-Software-Guru Eddy Cue?
Knapp 20 Jahre nach dem ersten «Doom» ist der Game-Oldie zurück. Alle drei Teile wurden auf eine DVD gepresst. Wir verraten, wie der Kult-Shooter gegen die moderne Konkurrenz besteht.
An anonymous reader writes "A man has initiated a class-action suit against Blizzard over a product used to shore up Battle.net security. Benjamin Bell alleges that Blizzard's sale of Authenticators — devices that enable basic two-tier authentication — represents deceptive and unfair additional costs to their basic games. (Blizzard sells the key fob versions for $6.50, and provides a free mobile app as an alternative. Neither are mandatory.) The complaint accuses Blizzard of making $26 million in Authenticator sales. In response, Blizzard made a statement refuting some of the complaint's claims and voicing their intention to 'vigorously defend' themselves."
Penurious Penguin writes "The Wall Street Journal, in correspondence with Chevron representatives, reveals that back in 2010, Stuxnet reached Chevron, where it managed to infect — but not significantly affect — the oil giant's network. According to a Chevron representative speaking to CNET, the issue was 'immediately addressed ... without incident.' The Stuxnet worm is believed to be the work of the U.S. and Israel, and this report is confirmation that it struck well wide of its intended targets. Chevron's general manager of the earth sciences department, Mark Koelmel, said to CIO Journal, 'I don't think the U.S. government even realized how far it had spread ... I think the downside of what they did is going to be far worse than what they actually accomplished.'"
WOOFYGOOFY writes "The NY Times and Voice Of America are reporting on a study by the U.S. National Research Council (PDF) which was released Friday linking global climate change to national security. The report, which was developed at the request of the C.I.A., characterizes the threats posed by climate change as 'similar to and in many cases greater than those posed by terrorist attacks. 'Climate-driven crises could lead to internal instability or international conflict and might force the United States to provide humanitarian assistance or, in some cases, military force to protect vital energy, economic or other interests, the study said.' If the effect of unaddressed climate change is the functional equivalent of terrorist attacks on the nation, does the Executive Branch, as a matter of national security, have a duty and a right to begin to act unilaterally against climate change irrespective of what Congress currently believes?"
theodp writes "Online education has had a fifty-year road to 'overnight' success. MIT Technology Review calls the emergence of free online education, particularly massive open online courses (MOOCs), The Most Important Education Technology in 200 Years. 'If you were asked to name the most important innovation in transportation over the last 200 years,' writes Antonio Regalado, 'you might say the combustion engine, air travel, Henry Ford's Model-T production line, or even the bicycle. The list goes on. Now answer this one: what's been the single biggest innovation in education? Don't worry if you come up blank. You're supposed to.' Writing about MOOC Mania in the Communications of the ACM, Moshe Y. Vardi worries that 'the enormous buzz about MOOCs is not due to the technology's intrinsic educational value, but due to the seductive possibilities of lower costs.' And in MOOCs Will Eat Academia, Vivek Haldar writes, 'MOOCs will almost certainly hollow out the teaching component of universities as it stands today...But all is not lost, because the other thing universities do is research, and that is arguably as important, if not more, than teaching.' So, are MOOCs the best thing since sliced bread, or merely the second coming of 1920s Postal Course Mania?"
An anonymous reader writes "Car dealers in New York and Massachusetts have filed a lawsuit that seeks to block Tesla from selling its pricey electric vehicles in those states. The dealers say they are defending state franchise laws, which require manufacturers to sell cars through dealers they do not own. Robert O'Koniewski of the Massachusetts State Automobile Dealers Association says, 'Those dealers are investing millions of dollars in their franchises to make sure they comply with their franchise agreements with the manufacturers. Tesla is choosing to ignore the law and then is choosing to play outside that system.'"
drinkypoo writes "We've been following the story that Apple was ordered by a UK court to post an apology to Samsung both in newspapers and on Apple's UK website. After originally posting a non-apology and then hiding a real one, Apple finally complied. Now, PJ over at Groklaw reports on the ruling from the UK court itself, which condemns Apple's conduct in this matter. 'Since Apple did not comply with the order in its estimation, adding materials that were not ordered and in addition were "false," the judges ordered Apple to pay Samsung's lawyers' fees on an indemnity basis, and they add some public humiliation.' The judge wrote, 'Finally I should mention the time for compliance. Mr Beloff, on instructions (presumably given with the authority of Apple) told us that "for technical reasons" Apple needed fourteen days to comply. I found that very disturbing: that it was beyond the technical abilities of Apple to make the minor changes required to own website in less time beggared belief. ... I hope that the lack of integrity involved in this incident is entirely atypical of Apple.'"
An anonymous reader writes "I'm sure most Slashdot readers have had occasion to suffer through a hardware manufacturer's terrible website in search of product documentation. It's often hidden away in submenus of submenus, and if your product is more than a couple years old, you probably have to wade through broken links. One guy has been helping to change that; he runs a site called Tim's Laptop Service Manuals, where he collects by hand materials from many different companies and hosts them together in one spot. Now Toshiba has become aware of his project, and helpfully forced him to remove all of their manuals under a copyright claim."
Hugh Pickens writes "Coffee is the world's favorite beverage and the second-most traded commodity after oil. Now Nick Collins reports that rising global temperatures and subtle changes in seasonal conditions could make 99.7 per cent of Arabica-growing areas unsuitable for the plant before the end of the century and in some areas as soon as 2020. Even if the beans do not disappear completely from the wild, climate change is highly likely to impact yields. The taste of coffee, a beverage of choice among Slashdot readers, will change in future decades. 'The worst case scenario, as drawn from our analyses, is that wild Arabica could be extinct by 2080,' says Justin Moat. 'This should alert decision makers to the fragility of the species.'" Read more, below.
jfruh writes "In the mid-00s, more and more people started learning about Android, a Linux-based smartphone OS. Open source advocates in particular thought they could be seeing the mobile equivalent of Linux — something you could download, tinker with, and sell. Today, though, the Android market is dominated by Google and the usual suspects in the handset business. The reason nobody's been able to launch an Android empire from the garage is fairly straightforward: the average smartphone is covered by over 250,000 patents."
An anonymous reader writes "Via LXer, an article at Phoronix tells of GNOME's plans to eliminate 'fallback mode' (GNOME classic) in the 3.8 release."
schliz writes "Amazon Web Services will unveil its first Australian data centers on Tuesday, ending more than a year of speculation. The move is expected to address enterprises' data soverignty and latency concerns, although local cloud providers argue that data held by U.S. company Amazon would still be subject to the Patriot Act."
An anonymous reader writes "Now that Windows 8 is on sale and has already been purchased by millions, expect very close scrutiny of Microsoft's latest and greatest security features. 0-day vulnerabilities are already being claimed, but what about the malware that's already out there? When tested against the top threats, Windows 8 is immune to 85 percent of them, and gets infected by 15 percent, according to tests run by BitDefender."