suraj.sun writes "An iPhone-owner whose daughter downloaded $200 worth of 'Zombie Toxin' and 'Gems' through in-app purchases on his iPhone has been allowed to pursue a class action suit against Apple for compensation of up to $5m. Garen Meguerian of Pennsylvania launched the class-action case against Apple in April 2011 after he discovered that his nine-year-old daughter had been draining his credit card account through in-app purchases on 'free' games including Zombie Cafe and Treasure Story. This month, Judge Edward J Davila in San Jose District Federal Court has allowed the case to go to trial, rejecting Apple's claim that the case should be dismissed. Meguerian claimed that Apple was unfairly targeting children by allowing games geared at kids to push them to make purchases. He describes games that are free to play but require purchases of virtual goods to progress as 'bait apps' and says they should not be aimed at children."
gManZboy writes in with a troubling story about tax dollars being used for overseas call center training. "Despite President Obama's recent call for companies to 'insource' jobs sent overseas, it turns out that the federal government itself is spending millions of dollars to train foreign students for employment in some booming career fields--including working in offshore call centers that serve U.S. businesses. The program is called JEEP, which stands for Job Enabling English Proficiency. It's available to college students in the Philippines through USAID. That's the same agency that until a couple of years ago was spending millions of dollars in U.S. taxpayer money to train offshore IT workers in Sri Lanka. Congressman Tim Bishop (D-New York), told about the program on Tuesday, called it 'surprising and distressing.' Bishop recently introduced a bill that would make companies that outsource call centers ineligible for government contracts."
benrothke writes "While Julius Caesar likely never said 'Et tu, Brute?' the saying associated with his final minutes has come to symbolize the ultimate insider betrayal. In The CERT Guide to Insider Threats: How to Prevent, Detect, and Respond to Information Technology Crimes, authors Dawn Cappelli, Andrew Moore and Randall Trzeciak of the CERT Insider Threat Center provide incontrovertible data and an abundance of empirical evidence, which creates an important resource on the topic of insider threats. There are thousands of companies that have uttered modern day versions of Et tu, Brute due to insidious insider attacks and the book documents many of them." Read on for the rest of Ben's review.
An anonymous reader writes "Austrian police have arrested a 15-year-old student suspected of hacking into 259 companies across the span of three months. Authorities allege the suspect scanned the Internet for vulnerabilities and bugs in websites and databases that he could then exploit. As soon as he was questioned, the young boy confessed to the attacks, according to Austria's Federal Criminal Police Office (BMI)."
An anonymous reader writes "Getting access to enough water to drink in a desert environment is a pretty tough proposition, but Eole Water may have solved the problem. It has created a wind turbine that can extract up to 1,000 liters of water per day from the air. All it requires is a 15mph wind to generate the 30kW's of power required for the process to happen. The end result is a tank full of purified water ready to drink at the base of each turbine."
Fluffeh writes "Teller, the silent half of the well-known magic duo Penn and Teller, has sued a rival magician for copying one of his most famous illusions. The case promises to test the boundaries of copyright law as it applies to magic tricks. A Dutch magician with the stage name Gerard Bakardy (real name: Gerard Dogge) saw Teller perform the trick in Las Vegas and developed his own version — then started selling a kit — including a fake rose, instructions, and a DVD — for about $3,000. Teller had Bakardy's video removed with a DMCA takedown notice, then called Bakardy to demand that the magician stop using his routine. Teller offered to buy Bakardy out, but they were unable to agree on a price. So Teller sued Bakardy last week in a Nevada federal court."
miller60 writes "Apple says Greenpeace has wildly overestimated the amount of power it uses in its data center in North Carolina, and used that bad math to give the company a low grade on sustainability. Apple says it uses 20 megawatts of power at its iDataCenter, a fraction of Greenpeace's estimate of 100 megawatts in a new report on energy use by cloud computing providers. Apple says that its huge solar array and biogas-powered fuel cell will supply 60 percent of the facility's power, not the 10 percent claimed by Greenpeace."
An anonymous reader writes "There are over 700,000 ham radio licensees in the USA and about 2 ½ million worldwide. Today, this international community of wireless communications devotees are celebrating World Amateur Radio Day, recalling the advances Amateur Radio Service has made for modern man. Their theme for 2012 is Amateur Radio Satellites: Celebrating 50 Years in Space in remembrance of the launch of the first Amateur Radio satellites OSCAR 1 on December 12, 1961 and the launch of OSCAR 2 on June 2, 1962. Their ranks have included people like Steve Wozniak of Apple and Jack Kilby who invented the integrated circuit, Dr. Karl William Edmark who invented the heart defibrillator, Scott Durchslag, the Chief Operating Officer at Skype, and Dr. John Grunsfeld of NASA and the Hubble Space Telescope. This is the 87th anniversary of the foundation."
Qedward writes in with a link about the gap between the tech side of business and the bean counters. "CIOs are being dismissed by CEOs as too techie and not aligned with business activities. According to recent Gartner survey of 220 CEOs across the world, business leaders expect spending on IT to rise, but without a corresponding rise in the importance of the role of the CIO within the organization. CIOs appear to be failing in the eyes of CEOs in terms of alignment with the rest of the business. The research showed the stereotype of the head of IT being too preoccupied with technical issues to be effective business leaders persists. He said they were perceived as unable to bring a breadth of business perspective to the table."
New submitter blindbat writes "John E. Brennon 'said he was fed up with being harassed by airport security stripped to his birthday suit while in an airport screening lane Tuesday evening and was arrested.'"
New submitter RockoW writes "A few years ago, Apple sold defective computers of the MacBook Pro line. They had the defective Nvidia 8600M GT GPU. In this case Apple refused to take the computer back and issue me a refund. Instead, they promised to replace the 8600M GT boards when they failed, up to four years from the date of purchase. Three years later, the MacBook Pro failed and they refused to replace it. This guy took them to the court and won by their own means."
An anonymous reader writes "A Wired story claims Amazon's cloud now hosts enough companies and traffic to generate 1% of all Internet traffic (and visits from 1/3 of daily Internet users). An amazing number if true. And a little scary for one company to host this much cloud infrastructure."
scibri writes "Ron Fouchier, one of the researchers involved in the controversy over whether to publish research on mutant versions of H5N1 bird flu, has said he plans to submit his paper to Science without applying for an export control license as demanded by the Dutch government. Failing to get the license means he could face penalties including up to six years in prison. Whether the paper falls under export-control laws is unclear. The Netherlands implements European Union (EU) legislation on export controls, which require an export permit for 'dual-use' materials and information — those that could have both legitimate and malicious uses — including those relating to dangerous pathogens. But the EU law allows an exception for 'basic scientific research' that is 'not primarily directed towards a specific practical aim or objective,' which Fouchier says should cover his work."
Last month, in response to Yahoo?s wrongheaded patent infringement lawsuit against Facebook, I wrote about my experience filing patents at Yahoo. Patents I helped to file, ostensibly only for defensive purposes, were turned into blunt weapons to thwart innovation and extort money. Yesterday, Twitter announced their Innovator?s Patent Agreement, an open source contract intended to guarantee patents will only be used defensively, even when sold. The IPA seems to directly address the issues raised in my article. Still, the IPA isn?t perfect, and it needs work to protect the intentions of designers and engineers.
The HTC One S is a sleek, speedy and attractive handset that runs Ice Cream Sandwich. But there are a few design stumbles here that keep the phone from being truly exceptional.
An interactive whiteboard can be a prohibitively pricey addition to any conference room or classroom. But now a company called Interphase is launching an interactive display system that can deliver virtual whiteboarding without expensive, physical hardware.
When Google introduced a controversial dual-class share structure at the time of its IPO in 2004, I had reservations (as you would expect of someone whose specialty is corporate governance). But the founders' passionate advocacy of the need to follow a "long-term, innovative approach" resonated with me. However, its recent proposal to effect a two-for-one stock split by issuing non-voting shares is an abhorrent idea that should be rejected.
Kittehs, dictators and dozens of other notable images flash across the screen in the clever new music video for "Say No More," an incredibly catchy tune by French dance act The Supermen Lovers.
Google CEO Larry Page took the stand on Wednesday during the company's ongoing court battle with Oracle over the use of the Java programming language on Google's Android operating system. Though he responded to questioning with mostly evasive answers, Page fared better than Oracle boss Larry Ellison, who appeared flustered during his appearance in court on Tuesday.
You may not think you?re a designer, but you are. Every day. From the way you mod your bike, to the things you put up on your walls (bedroom, Facebook, whatever), you are creating the world around you. Okay, you say, but I have no idea how to make .That?s where Wired Design comes in.
Here's how to create any vessel (cup, vase, planter) from computer to clay to completion.
Before his 1996 debut .
At first glance, the Nuclear Cowboyz is Evel Knievel for the modern age. But in reality, it is so much more than that.
Remember the days of Java applets, reflecting "lake" image effects and "under construction" banners? A Javascript library replicating the lake effect from the days of Geocities serves as a reminder of just how far the web has come since then.
The next generation of computer networking is coming. The drum is beating this week with some seemingly big moves that could change the way networks work, and, in effect, change the internet itself. So what's this drum circle all about?
After weeks of rumors, Audi has announced plans to purchase Ducati for something in the neighborhood of $1.12 billion. But why does a gigantic auto conglomerate want a tiny bike manufacturer?
The foundations of complex language have been found in colonies of unusual furry animals called hyraxes.
The new Sound Kick is a portable speaker that charges your phone while playing your songs. It hits a sweet spot between compact Bluetooth speaker boxes and a larger, more traditional audio docks.
This edition of the Storyboard podcast goes deeper into the story of James Erwin, a 37-year-old former software manual writer whose reddit post turned into a screenplay.
HTC's One X will go on sale in the U.S. on May 6 at $200, exclusive to AT&T. The U.S. version will sport a dual-core CPU, unlike the European release, which has a quad-core processor.
The Brooklyn MC has been releasing tracks off his upcoming remix album through a Tumblr, pairing each one with a special animated GIF. The latest, which is being premiered by Wired, is a remix of "Love Is Real" by house producer Fred Falke.
A really wonderful thing happened this year: my son discovered hockey. He played on a local Squirts team with a group of kids who all had more skill than him. The first day of practice, he was hugging the boards, barely able to stand on his skates. But, unlike basketball, football, baseball, and a dozen other activities he'd tried before hockey, he kept at it. He begged me to go skate after school. He practiced his stick skills in the driveway with a tennis ball and a couple of old cardboard boxes to represent the framework of a goal. He started watching game recaps just to see what the pros could do.
In yet another unforced error by U.S. troops this year jeopardizing the Afghanistan war, photographs published by the show soldiers posing and grinning with the remains of an Afghan insurgent. Yes, again.
The latest version of Google's Chrome web browser gives Android fans an easy way to skip mobile websites in favor of the full desktop versions.
Some birds launched in the game Angry Birds Space get stuck between two asteroids. Are these Lagrangian points? No, says, Dot Physics blogger Rhett Allain -- and he brings out the equations to show why.
Laundry may be the most Sisyphean of household chores: Unless everyone in your house is stark naked, it's literally never done. That's why, when my son turned 11, I decided he could do his own laundry.
As the father of two girls, I particularly want to ensure that my daughters have books that feature great female characters. I'll readily admit that I didn't pay much attention to that when I was a kid ? I read voraciously, but I know that many of the characters I grew up reading about were boys: James (of the giant peach), Milo (and his phantom tollbooth), Charlie (and the chocolate factory). But there are, in fact, plenty of fantastic, strong female characters these days, as I pointed out in my (non-comprehensive) list of Stories About Girls last year.Here are two more girls to add to that list: Mary Shelley and Ada Byron.
On this edition of HipTrax we take a classic request and pair it with two hot new tracks. If you're a fan of hip-hop, video games or chiptunes, it is not a show to be missed!
Game publishers, retailers and hardware makers say they're all locked in a Mexican standoff. Great. Shoot each other in the head, because gamers and game developers don't need you.
Around here, we're always talking up the positives of geeks. It's a natural thing because that's who we are. And while we always want to root for the geek heroes in books and movies, we have to acknowledge there are some bad apples out there. Here are 10 villainous geeks from the movies.