jqpublic13 writes “The City of Detroit, Michigan, is suing Comcast’s local subsidiary citing a 2006 agreement which the City says violates the constitutions of both the United States and the state of Michigan. They claim that a federal act from 1984 supersedes the local agreement. Comcast has 20 days to respond.”
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pjfontillas writes “Yusuf Mehdi, Senior Vice President of Microsoft’s Online Audience Business Group, has recently announced: ‘One of the principles we have here at Bing is to constantly experiment and learn. We do this to ensure we are keeping pace with new social and technology trends, and can continue to deliver great value for our customers and advertisers. As part of this “test-and-learn” mentality, we will be retiring the Bing cashback feature, which means that the last day you can earn cashback will be July 30, 2010.’ From the look of the comments, Microsoft has at least 35 saddened users. eWeek does a follow-up attempting to explain the situation in more detail.”
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An anonymous reader writes “The MorphOS Team has released version 2.5 of its PPC computer-only operating system. The new version extends its support of the PPC Mac range to include the eMac, which was the 2002-2006 Mac model consisting of a CRT monitor and computer in a single housing. MorphOS previously and continues to support the PPC Mac mini, as well as the Pegasos and Efika niche computers (all discontinued but available second-hand). MorphOS includes a web-browser and TCP/IP stack and a few traditional baseline OS-associated apps among its features. Further software is available from a range of online repositories. MorphOS 2.5 comes on a bootable 30-minute demo LiveCD ISO which may also be installed. The ISO is available for free download by anyone. The 30 minute limit is removed by online purchase of registration/key-file which is available for a limited period for the sum of 111 euros to celebrate the launch of this version.”
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RobHart writes “ABC (the Australian Broadcasting Commission) has reported extensively on a bright spiraling light that was seen in Eastern Australia just before dawn. They have just broadcast a report from an Australian astronomer who has suggested that the light was probably the successful Falcon 9 launch, which would have been over Australia at that time on its launch trajectory.”
Update: 06/05 22:20 GMT by T : Setting aside the literal exhaust fumes, reader FleaPlus says It’s “interesting to look at the reactions from those in Congress who control the purse-strings for NASA (one of SpaceX’s biggest customers). The successful launch was congratulated by Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL and former astronaut) and Rep. Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL), both praised and criticized by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) due to the successful launch being a year later than previously predicted, and blasted by Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) for merely replicating what ‘NASA accomplished in 1964,’ who added that the company’s success ‘must not be confused with progress for our nation’s human spaceflight program.’”
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ainandil writes “Engineering mistakes, while frustrating, seldom definitively alter the end user’s life. Not so in Cripple Creek Colorado — MaryAnn and Jim McMahon thought their money troubles were over when they hit an $11 million jackpot at a casino Tuesday. Before paying the jackpot, the Wildwood Casino turned the machine over to the Colorado Gaming Division for inspection. A glitch was found, aha! The Wildwood Casino blamed a slot machine malfunction for the $11 million jackpot. Total actually won by the McMahons? $1627.82.”
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crimeandpunishment writes “It may only be a temporary glitch, but it’s one that’s providing some pleasure for internet users in China. Previously blocked websites, including ones with pornography, are suddenly accessible in China. The country has a long history of cracking down on online pornography. One analyst says it’s far more likely that this is a glitch, not a change in internet censorship policy.”
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Nemilar writes “The Wall Street Journal is running a pair of articles asking whether the internet is making humanity smarter or dumber. The argument for ’smarter’ is that the internet is simply a change in the rules of publishing, and that the bad material is thrown away; the second story critiques the ‘information overload’ aspect of the internet, claiming that we have traded depth of knowledge for velocity and span. What do you think? Does the internet make you stupid?”
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An anonymous reader writes “Defining and diagnosing autism has been a controversial process — but maybe a little less so now. Children with autism have a different chemical fingerprint in their urine than non-autistic children, according to new research. The difference stems from a previously documented difference in gut bacteria found in autistic individuals. The possibility of a simple pee test matters because currently, children are assessed for autism through a lengthy testing process that explores a child’s social interaction, communication and imaginative skills. Being able to identify the condition earlier and at a lower cost could leave more time and money for treatment.”
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InfosecWarrior writes “Adobe issued an alert late Friday night to warn about zero-day attacks against an unpatched vulnerability in its Reader and Flash Player software products. The vulnerability, described as critical, affects Adobe Flash Player 10.0.45.2 and earlier versions for Windows, Macintosh, Linux and Solaris operating systems. It also affects the authplay.dll component that ships with Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.x for Windows, Macintosh and UNIX operating systems.”
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Nunavut writes with news that a number of hardware companies have banded together to battle the fragmentation of the mobile Linux market. ARM, Freescale Semiconductor, IBM, Samsung, ST-Ericsson and Texas Instruments are forming Linaro, a nonprofit organization that plans to focus on “low level software around the Linux kernel that touches the silicon, key pieces of middleware that enable new markets and tools that help the developer write and debug code.”
“Linaro’s chief goal is to reduce the time that it takes to bring a new ARM-powered product to market with Linux. This effort is largely neutral with respect to what software environment and components individual vendors choose to run in user space. Linaro will not compete with existing platforms such as MeeGo and Android. Instead, it will attempt to improve the shared underlying software components that allow those platforms and others to run on ARM SoCs. In principle, this could actually reduce fragmentation at the lower levels of the Linux stack.”
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