Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Monday 20 May 2013


 
  
From the rent-done-been-sought department
girlmad writes "Despite moves by government to get Google, Amazon and Apple to admit they make sales in the UK and US, and therefore should pay tax on these earnings, this article argues these are empty threats and that any taxes paid will get...
 
From the drive-by-juicing department
New submitter GoJays writes "An 18-year-old from Saratoga, California has won an international science fair for creating an energy storage device that can be fully juiced in 20 to 30 seconds. The fast-charging device is a so-called supercapacitor,...
 
From the more-exciting-that-way department
An anonymous reader writes "Having entered my personal details (full real name, home address) to websites with an 'https://' prefix in order to purchase goods, I am still being sent emails from companies (or their agents) which include, in plain...
 
From the spirits-of-the-ancient-ones department
hypnosec writes "IBM is taking its COBOL server platform to the next level by updating the mainframe platform in a bid to extend and enable its mainframes to host cloud based applications and services. The latest update is looking to add XMLS...
 
From the ban-farm-equipment department
First time accepted submitter russotto points out the claim of industry group TechAmerican Foundation (reported by Computerworld) that "wages for the software industry are falling, not rising. Wages fell 2% to $99,000 in 2012." Averages are one...
 
From the that's-a-lot-of-air-to-move department
Nerval's Lobster writes that a survey from the Uptime Institute "suggests something it calls 'green fatigue' is setting in when it comes to making data centers greener. 'Green fatigue' is exactly as it sounds: managers are getting tired of the...
 
From the bedrock-or-pet-rock? department
TechCrunch reports that Yahoo's string of acquisitions may soon include Tumblr: "The Wall Street Journal is now reporting via Twitter that the rumored $1.1 billion cash acquisition deal for social blogging site Tumblr has been approved by...
 
From the bet-he-gets-the-last-laugh department
Velcroman1 writes "The former island home of anti-virus software pioneer John McAfee burned down Thursday afternoon under circumstance he told FoxNews.com were 'suspicious.' It's an odd choice of words from a man whom the Belize police found...
 
From the more-of-a-workhorse-than-a-showboat department
Madwand writes "The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.1, the first feature update of the NetBSD 6 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and...
 
From the dolphins-what-can't-they-do? department
First time accepted submitter The0retical writes "A couple of mine-sweeping dolphins dredged up what is known as a 'Howell torpedo' dating from 1870 to 1889. Only 50 were ever produced, this being the second example known to exist. The...
 
From the eye-of-space-newt-was-called-for department
The Associated Press (as carried by the Washington Post) reports that a living payload of newts and mice has been retrieved after a month orbiting earth in a Russian space capsule at an altitude of 345 miles, far higher than the ISS's orbital...
 
From the siri-what's-the-best-way-to-launch-a-nuclear-missile? department
puddingebola writes with this excerpt from a Bloomberg report: "The Pentagon cleared Apple Inc. (AAPL) devices for use on its networks, setting the stage for the maker of iPhones and iPads to compete with Samsung Electronics Co. and BlackBerry for...
 
From the with-a-calculator-he-could-upload-a-virus-to-the-mothership department
Pirate Bay Founder Gottfrid Svartholm Warg is to be tried starting tomorrow in Sweden, after his indictment last month for computer hacking and fraud. Wikileaks has released several documents related to his detention and the associated charges....
 
From the h-2-g-2-is-a-good-name department
With the kind of cagey phrasing found in many such electronics approval applications, Google describes a device that some are taking to be the successor to its discontinued Nexus Q thus: "The device functions as a media player." From the article:...
 
From the they-just-walked-off-quietly-to-think department
hypnosec writes with report of the possible theft of up to 22 million user IDs revealed by Yahoo! Japan. That scale is massive, but, he writes, "According to Yahoo, the information that was stolen didn't have passwords or any other information...