New submitter pjlehtim writes "In a recent interview. Samsung's AV product manager, Chris Moseley, said, 'TVs are ultimately about picture quality. ... and there is no way that anyone, new or old, can come along this year or next year and beat us on picture quality.' Sounds familiar? There must be a change in the perceived role of television in the entertainment ecosystem before the general public starts to care about the smart TVs manufacturers are trying to push. That change is likely to come from outside the traditional home entertainment industry. It's not about technology; it is about user experience, again."
hypnosec writes "It costs developers a total of $40,000 to release a single patch on Xbox Live, making it a difficult platform for smaller developers to grow on. This revelation was made by Tim Schafer of Double Fine Studios — which recently drew a lot of charitable donations as part of a campaign to create a contemporary point and click game. He went on to say that this is just too high a fee for smaller developers to pay, making it hard for them to do well on the platform. This makes sense, since requiring just one patch could massively cut into the profits for a company."
Zothecula writes "The European Space Agency's new Vettore Europeo di Generazione Avanzata — or Vega — launch vehicle lifted off from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, at 10 a.m. GMT on February 13 on its maiden flight. Designed for launching small payloads, Vega is intended to complement Europe's existing family of launchers that includes the Ariane 5 heavy-lifter and Soyuz medium-class launchers. The qualification flight, designated VV01, saw the first Vega successfully carry nine satellites into orbit."
FleaPlus writes "NASA and the White House have officially released their FY2013 budget proposal, the first step of the Congressional budget process. As mentioned previously on Slashdot, the proposal decreases Mars science funding (including robotic Mars missions) down to $361M, arguably due in part to cost overruns by the Webb telescope. The proposal also lowers funding for the in-house SLS rocket and Orion capsule to $2.8B, while doubling funding for the ongoing competitive development of commercial crew rockets/vehicles to $830M. The ranking member of the Senate science committee, Sen. Hutchison (R-TX), expressed her frustration with 'cutting SLS and Orion to pay for commercial crew,' as it would allegedly make it impossible for SLS to act as a backup for the commercial vehicles."
AZA43 writes "Amazon.com has blocked its Instant Video streaming service on BlackBerry PlayBook tablets, in an apparent effort to make its Kindle Fire device more attractive to tablet buyers. And it says Apple is the reason why it blocked the service. But the company hasn't blocked comparable Android tablets from streaming Instant Video, and Android tablets hold a much larger portion of the overall tablet market than PlayBooks. Amazon will likely succeed only in alienating customer with PlayBooks who have already purchased lots of streaming video content."
An anonymous reader writes "Following up on yesterday's story about the Canadian government's internet surveillance legislation, one of the bill's proponents is now accusing those who oppose it of standing with child pornographers. Those against the legislation include: Law professor Michael Geist, Open Media, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the Council of Canadians and many others. 'Public Safety Minister Vic Toews told a Liberal MP he could either stand with the government or "with the child pornographers" prowling online.' Toews is enjoying his Parliamentary Privilege, which grants him the freedom to say pretty much anything he wants without fear of a slander suit."
An anonymous reader writes "Back in early 95 I registered a domain name and built a website for a hobby of mine. Over time the website (and domain) name have built a small but steady stream of traffic but my interest in the hobby is essentially gone and I've not been a visitor to my own site in well over two years. I'd like to sell the site/domain to a long time member who has expressed interest in taking over and trying to grow the site, however I use the domain for my own personal email including banking, health insurance, etc. How have fellow readers gone about parting ways from a domain that they've used for an email address?" More generally, what terms would you like to include (or have you included) in a domain transfer? Old horror stories could help prevent new horror stories.
xmas2003 writes "Several months ago, I posted to Slashdot about being able to see ultraviolet light after cataract surgery. While a lot of the discussion whimsically discussed the best way for 'Captain UV' or 'UltraMan' to use this 'super-power,' there were some people who were skeptical or (incorrectly) said this is Tetrachromatic vision. I've subsequently done more testing using an Oriel Instruments MS257 Monochromator and was able to see color down to 350nm — below the usual ~400nm limit of the visual spectrum. It's also easily demonstrable with a pair of 400nm and 365nm UV flashlights. Some readers who also have UV vision commented this can be quite annoying at black-lit Disney Rides, Halloween Haunted Houses, etc. Fortunately for me, it's just an interesting oddity so far. Along those lines, some interesting related stories about using UV vision during World War II and Star Gazing. Finally, many/most people end up getting vision debilitating cataracts, so my experience having a Crystalens implanted after cataract surgery may be informative."
First time accepted submitter wrldwzrd89 writes "The Document Foundation, the team behind the free and open-source office suite called LibreOffice, has released their latest and greatest version. As is typical with major releases of LibreOffice, there are significant new features making their debut in this version. The component with the biggest upgrade is Calc, which now has support for up to 10,000 sheets per workbook among its new features. Also noteworthy among the new features is support for importing Microsoft Visio files in Impress and Draw. The full feature list is available in a PDF hosted on Dropbox; LibreOffice itself can be downloaded here."
jfruh writes "The CIA's website has been down intermittently since Friday, apparently the victim of a DDOS attack. One of the more interesting questions of the story is whether elements of Anonymous are behind this — a question that even prominent members of the Anonymous movement can't seem to answer with any certainty. Perhaps this is obvious, but it seems that an anarchic, leaderless grouping can be hard to keep tabs on."
HerbieTMac writes "Political science professor Francis Fukuyama builds and flies his own personal surveillance drones. His current model requires ground visibility but he is working on the HAM license that would allow fully remote operation. His YouTube videos (video 1 , video 2) are particularly impressive." I had no idea that Francis Fukuyama had such technical interests.
itwbennett writes "In its 2012 roadmap, the Mozilla Foundation highlights plans to create its own soup-to-nuts mobile platform, known as Boot to Gecko. With this move, the Mozilla Foundation 'is finally shaking off its dependence on browser revenues and treading where Google, with ChromeOS; Canonical, with Unity on Ubuntu; and (most recently) the Plasma community's Spark tablet have already started: the creation of standards-based platforms that rely on robust web applications (in varying degrees) more than native-run apps to provide the user experience,' writes blogger Brian Proffitt. 'I very much think that we are heading for a time when Linux flavors will be identified by environments, not distributions.'"
Struggle to get up in the morning? The Ramos Alarm Clock on Kickstarter might help; it won't stop beeping until you get up and enter a code.
Google+ really is a man's social network.
Hewlett-Packard's Vertica subsidiary has updated its real-time analytics software, giving it a graphical user interface and connectivity to big-data-styled...
As expected, Microsoft has released nine security bulletins today. Security researchers and experts offer guidance on which updates are the most urgent.
This old idea gets new life as mobile strategies gain importance.
Time Warner Cable's streaming cable services are no longer exclusive to the iPad and iPhone.
A bill in the U.S. Senate would require operators of so-called critical infrastructure networks to adopt cybersecurity practices if evaluations by the U.S...
Inkling has a new tool for publishing complex e-books, ideal for educational publishers seeking more than what iBooks Author allows.
AT&T has begun throttling its biggest bandwidth hogs. Now (big surprise) customers are tearing into AT&T with complaints.
Astonsoft's EZOutlookSync makes simple work of synchronizing your contacts, calendars, notes, e-mail, and more. And you can test-drive it free for 30 days.
Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility is approved. Hard disk drive prices will remain high until 2014. A humanoid robot shoots and scores on the ice. Sony Smart Sockets can control power consumption.
Linux got there first, but does Windows do it better?
Hewlett-Packard has released the industry's first all-in-one workstation, the Z1, which the company said Tuesday is the most compact workstation available yet.
The iPad is a single device and still accounts for the lion's share of the tablet market. Apple doesn't face an grave threat from smaller Android devices.
Targeting power users, this new release of the free, open source office productivity suite is built to be 'cleaner, leaner, and more feature-rich'.
VideoLAN introduces its first release candidate for VLC 2.0, and announces plans to port the new version to iOS and Android.
One day, even the trees could be sending and receiving wireless signals with this new tech.
Mozilla plans to ask all certificate authorities to review their subordinate CA certificates and revoke those that could be used by companies to inspect...
Health-care technology and lighting vendor Royal Philips Electronics has reported a possible security breach affecting a portion of its website, the company...
If the leaked pricing for the Galaxy Tab 2 turns out to be true, the poor tablet is doomed to fizzle before it even launches.
Intel on Tuesday introduced the Crystal Forest chipset, which the company hopes will fill a networking gap as it tries to build an integrated technology stack...
Samsung's TV boss is making a classic mistake that Apple's rivals do all too often: He's looking at where the market is, not where it's going to be.
The Document Foundation on Tuesday announced the availability of LibreOffice 3.5, which it described as the third major release of the open-source productivity...
Valentine's Day is also 'I Love Free Software Day,' according to the Free Software Foundation Europe, and there are many ways you can take part.
The video provides a social message about marriage equality and how materialism -- even with Google's help -- can't solve problems of the heart.
Cisco Systems says wireless traffic between now and 2016 is poised to grow an incredible 18-fold.
Customer data from the online Microsoft Store in India was compromised by hackers, but the blame lies with shoddy data security practices.
The only way those factories will treat their workers properly is if people are willing to pay more for products from Apple and many other electronics makers.
Alcatel-Lucent is integrating Wi-Fi with mobile networks with its lightRadio architecture, allowing users to move seamlessly between the two networks and...
The device is expected to be unveiled March 7 and will be available on Verizon Wireless and AT&T, according to one report.
The U.S. Department of Justice today officially blessed the marriage between Google and Motorola after concluding that the merger would not adversely impact competition in the wireless market.
The premiums companies pay to IT professionals on top of their annual salaries or contract rates to acquire a specific, desired skill have been declining for a year, according to research into IT pay premiums conducted by Foote Partners.
Valentine's Day is all about celebrating love and romance in our daily lives, but can you remember the last time you had a meaningful relationship in a video game? Join the PCWorld Editors as they take a light-hearted look at how games can help us learn to love again on this holiday edition of the PCWorld Game On Podcast.
The popular mobile device game comes with new levels exclusive to Facebook, virtual prizes and the ability to send free gifts to your friends and compete for high scores.
Microsoft's disclosure that it will 'include' four Office apps with Windows on ARM has analysts parsing the news.
Cryptome.org, a website dedicated to disclosing confidential information, was compromised last week and was used to infect PCs running Internet Explorer through...
Sony is developing electric wall sockets and plugs that can control power consumption by appliance, user or original power source.
Nokia Siemens Networks is offering carriers new ways to view information about their own performance and translate it into action that may improve subscribers'...
Hewlett-Packard will be showing new smartphone and tablet applications for Apple's iOS and Google's Android that will allow system administrators to remotely...
More than 30 offices across China of a commerce regulatory body are investigating Apple's sales of the iPad in the country, according to the lawyer for the...
In a move to expand its IT automation software to take on development management as well, UC4 Software has purchased Austrian software company Ventum and...
"There's someone for everyone, and for everyone there's someone," says Lou Reed. Turns out he's right--and there's probably a specialty dating site for just about everyone, too, as we found out.
This year, 3D is taking a backseat. Upcoming developments in television are more varied, and offer a lot more mainstream appeal.
Got your "big data" plan in place? If not, you may want to think about implementing one.
The U.S. Department of Justice has approved Google's acquisition of mobile-phone and tablet maker Motorola Mobility for about US$12.5 billion, following the...
A free new service lets IT groups quickly set up basic management of corporate and personal mobile devices running Android or Apple iOS.
The PSP Vita may be out next week, but who needs that when you can have a Game Boy running Android?
The Chinon Swift-7 costs just $160, while the Swift-10 costs $280.
With the last-minute Valentine's Day shoppers increasingly turning to the Internet to make up for lost time, e-commerce companies are doing everything they can to stand out from the pack.
What do security professionals do?