- Voter Unease With Obama Lingers Obama maintained a lead of 47%-41% over McCain in a Journal/NBC poll, but voters voiced concerns about the Democrat's background and values. The key question in the contest isn't over any single issue, but the focus has turned to the Democratic candidate himself: Can Americans get comfortable with Obama?
- States Slammed by Tax Shortfalls States are being forced to slash spending and cut jobs in order to close a projected $40 billion shortfall in the current fiscal year. That gap is the result of broad economic weakness at the state and local levels that could cause pain throughout this year and into 2010, a report found. (Report)
- Housing Bill Close to Becoming Law A sprawling bill that reaches deep into the U.S. housing industry is close to becoming law. The bill, which began seven months ago as a modest attempt to help struggling homeowners, will now likely touch a vast array of borrowers, lenders and investors.
- Microsoft's Johnson Heads to Juniper Microsoft executive Kevin Johnson, who headed online efforts and led the bid to buy Yahoo, is leaving to run Juniper Networks. Microsoft plans a reorganization.
- Qualcomm, Nokia End Patent Fight Qualcomm and Nokia agreed to end their legal battles over patent licensing, a deal that could bring big benefits to both companies and affect other players in the cellphone industry.
- Credit Suisse Returns to Profit Credit Suisse reported solid second-quarter earnings, with investment and private banking both contributing to the bank's return to profit after a loss in the first quarter.
- Investment Banks Rush to the Gulf Western investment banks rushing to the oil-rich Persian Gulf are struggling to compete with local, entrenched players for mandates, and fees are shrinking amid brisk competition.
- Oil Drop May Be Tied to SemGroup The collapse of SemGroup, a private oil-marketing firm, may have played a role in the recent drop in oil prices.
- Major Arms Systems Face Cuts The Navy wants to curtail plans for a series of high-tech destroyers in the latest sign that budget pressures are reining in some of the defense industry's most ambitious weapons systems.
- Renault to Retrench Renault's net profit rose 37% and the French automaker reaffirmed its operating-margin forecast but said it will cut jobs and scale back production due to high costs, unfavorable currencies and slowing demand.
- Obama arrives in Germany ahead of key speech U.S. presidential contender Barack Obama arrived in Germany Thursday for the latest leg of an international trip intended to bolster his foreign policy credentials.
- F1 chief wins court case over orgy Formula One chief Max Mosley has won a privacy case against a British tabloid newspaper over a story alleging he attended a five-hour sex session involving Nazi role play, court officials said Thursday.
- Jankovic on course to top tennis rankings Jelena Jankovic is still on course to claim top spot in the women's world rankings after a 7-5 6-2 victory over American Vania King in the WTA tournament in Carson City, California.
- Kashmir: Grenade attack kills five Five people, including three children, were killed Thursday in a grenade attack on a bus stand in Srinagar, police said.
- LeBron James to sit out pre-Olympic game U.S. basketball star LeBron James has suffered a pre-Olympic injury scare at the team's training camp in Las Vegas and will miss Friday's warmup game against Canada.
- Earpiece girl, 8, ejected from tennis tournament An eight-year-old girl was ejected from a junior tennis tournament in New Zealand when officials discovered she was wearing a hidden radio earpiece to receive instructions from her father.
- 'Weather's nice, wish you were here.' Is the postcard pas... "The email of the species is deadlier than the mail." So wrote the British actor and novelist Stephen Fry.
- Dolly's wrath brings heavy rain, flooded streets Tropical Storm Dolly churned through southern Texas early Thursday, leaving a trail of battered buildings and flooding.
- Protester glues himself to British PM A protester who wanted his message to stick managed to superglue himself to the British prime minister Tuesday evening.
- Credit Suisse returns to profit Read full story for latest details.
- Ballmer's memo on Johnson's departure CEO Steve Ballmer's message to Microsoft employees on the departure of senior executive Kevin Johnson and a divisional reorganization.
- Nokia, Qualcomm settle patent dispute The mobile phone giant and chipmaker enter into a 15-year licensing agreement that settles all patent litigation between the two companies.
- Intel storage chips point to SoC future The world's largest chip company wants to build system-on-chips based on the x86 instruction set, and the first fruits of that project are set to be released.
- Intel quad-core mobile chip coming: Is it overkill? Intel is slated to roll out it first quad-core mobile processor in August.
- Marquiss Wind Power snaps up Cirrus Technologies A pair of start-ups specializing in small-scale wind turbines merge.
- Click fraud harder to detect, but rate stays flat Bogus clicks on ads, which can make money for Web sites but cost advertisers, were no more common in the second quarter. But click fraud is getting more sophisticated.
- Pairing your cell with Bluetooth? Buyer beware If a new hands-free driving law has forced you to buy a Bluetooth mobile phone headset, this advice from the U.S. government can help protect against getting "bluesnarfed."
- Google App Engine sort of getting Perl support Google today supports only the Python language in Google App Engine. But one Googler is working on an unofficial--so far--expansion that could use Perl, too.
- Kevin Johnson to leave Microsoft for Juniper No successor has been named for Johnson, who has been president of Microsoft's Platforms and Services Division and is leaving to become CEO of Juniper Networks.
- Defense asks for dismissal of MySpace case Lawyers for Lori Drew, a Missouri woman who allegedly harassed a 13-year-old neighbor who later killed herself, say prosecutors are using a flawed and vague law.
- Why is it So Hard to Wake Up in the Morning? It’s not necessarily laziness that makes people hit the “snooze” button in the morning. Most likely, your body clock is mismatched with the demands of your life. Your clock is controlled by the suprachiasmatic nucleus, a part of the brain that controls the body’s biological rhythms.
- Japan feeds animals recycled leftovers With animal feed and fertilizer prices at record highs, Japan's food recycling industry is seeing greater demand than ever before for pellets for pigs and poultry made from recycled leftovers.
- The death of HAL: Robots won't want to destroy us after all A scenario where Cylons take over the world is very unlikely, according to one Artificial Intelligence expert. A "collective" consciousness that helps humans is far more likely.
- You're Not as Pretty As You Think: Mirror Experiments People were asked to identify pictures of themselves amid a lineup of distracter faces. Participants identified their personal portraits significantly quicker when their faces were computer enhanced to be 20 percent more attractive. When asked to choose between enhanced and actual images, they chose the enhanced image as the real thing.
- Total Solar Eclipse on August 1: Where, How to See It The path of totality will sweep across northern Canada into central Russia and Mongolia before ending in China, and experts are urging safe viewing practices among skywatchers.
- Vimeo BANS Video Game Clips. ಠ_ಠ People flocked to Vimeo for HD videos when Stage 6 shut down; where will the gamers go now?
- How to Make a Fun & Profitable Website in Minutes.. [COMIC] The reddit + digg + funny pics semi blogspam-ish combo works everytime..
- Microsoft Drops Player Fees On Games For Windows Live Games For Windows Live is "now offering completely free online multiplayer" service, Microsoft said in a statement posted on the service's Web site. The company previously charged a monthly fee of $7.99. However, the emergence of several free online gaming services may have prompted Microsoft to drop the monthly charge.
- Facebook Connect Coming To iPhone This Fall oday at the f8 conference Benjamin Ling revealed that Facebook will be releasing a Cocoa framework for the iPhone that will allow application developers to integrate with Facebook Connect. The framework is expected to be released sometime in the fall, and will take the form of an SDK that can be used by developers of iPhone applications. Facebook C
- How to Build Your Own Speakers: Step-by-Step Guide Forget those mass-produced stereos—the road to top-quality sounds begins in your house, not at Best Buy. TONS OF PHOTOS
- Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's Full Memo to the Troops Abo... Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's Full Memo to the Troops About New Reorg — Here is the full memo Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sent out to the troops about the big changes in its organization, including the departure of Platforms and Services Division President Kevin Johnson, in which he addresses Apple, Yahoo, Google and more:
- Why We Still Need the iPhone App Black Market (Matt Bucha...
Matt Buchanan / Gizmodo:
Why We Still Need the iPhone App Black Market — A year ago, we said that no iPhone SDK meant no killer apps. It came, and the apps are here in staggering numbers. But many of the amazing apps and concepts we grew to love as unofficial apps aren't here, and only about 100 of the 900+ apps …
- Microsoft's Latest Web Stumble: Kevin Johnson Out (Kara S...
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Microsoft's Latest Web Stumble: Kevin Johnson Out — Kevin Johnson (pictured here), the point person for Microsoft's failed bid to buy Yahoo, is leaving the company to run Juniper Networks. — As the president of its Platforms and Services Division, the smooth Johnson has been trying …
- Microsoft Announces Reorganization of Windows and Online ... Microsoft:
Microsoft Announces Reorganization of Windows and Online Services Business — Platforms & Services Division to Split Into Two Groups and Report to CEO Steve Ballmer. — Microsoft Corp. today announced that the Platforms & Services Division (PSD) will be split into two groups …
- Liveblogging the Facebook Developer Conference (Michael A...
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Liveblogging the Facebook Developer Conference — The TechCrunch team is on site at the Facebook Developer conference, and we'll be live blogging the news. Mark Zuckerberg's Keynote starts at 1:30 pm PST. — Facebook's press release is here. — Live Coverage
- Facebook Announces "Great Apps" ... (Justin Smith/Inside ...
Justin Smith / Inside Facebook:
Facebook Announces “Great Apps” and “App Verification” Certification Programs for Good App Developers — As speculated earlier this week, Facebook is announcing two new programs today that will give greater visibility within the News Feed and possibly other communication channels for applications that …
- Ubuntu man challenges open source to out-pretty Apple (Ga... Gavin Clarke / The Register:
Ubuntu man challenges open source to out-pretty Apple — OSCON Billionaire, cosmonaut and founder of the fast-growing Ubuntu Linux distro Mark Shuttleworth dreams impossible dreams. — No, not a return to the stars. He believes in something that's far harder for mortal open source engineers to achieve.
- Google Launches Knol, The Monetizable Wikipedia (Jason Ki...
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Google Launches Knol, The Monetizable Wikipedia — Today Google has launched Knol, its Wikipedia alternative that holds authors accountable for the articles they write. Each article is created by a team of authors who receive attribution, and are allowed to take part in a rev-share for AdSense ads on their page.
- Amazon.com Announces Second Quarter Sales up 41% to $4.06... Business Wire:
Amazon.com Announces Second Quarter Sales up 41% to $4.06 Billion; Sales Growth Accelerates to 31% in Media and to 58% in Electronics and Other General Merchandise — SEATTLE—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN - News) today announced financial results for its second quarter ended June 30, 2008.
- FCC Reaches Tentative Deal To Approve XM-Sirius Merger (A... Amy Schatz / Wall Street Journal:
FCC Reaches Tentative Deal To Approve XM-Sirius Merger — WASHINGTON - A tentative deal has been reached by a majority of commissioners at the Federal Communications Commission to approve the merger of Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. and XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc., a FCC source close to the review said Wednesday.
- Police Director Sues AOL For Critical Blogger's Name Pippin writes "Memphis Police Director, Larry Godwin, is suing AOL for the names of the authors of the Enforcer 2.0 blog. The blog is rumored to be authored by a Memphis police officer, and is critical of the department, Godwin, and some procedures. Godwin is actually using taxpayer dollars for this and is interestingly, the complaint is sealed".Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Inside Apple's iPhone SDK Gag Order snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Tom Yager takes a closer look at Apple's iPhone SDK confidentiality agreement, which restricts developers from discussing the SDK or exchanging ideas with others, thereby leaving no room for forums, newsgroups, open source projects, tutorials, magazine articles, users' groups, or books. But because anyone is free to obtain the iPhone SDK by signing up for it, Apple is essentially branding publicly available information as confidential. This 'puzzling contradiction' is the 'antithesis of the developer-friendly Apple Developer Connection' on which the iPhone SDK program is based, Yager contends. 'You'll see arguments from armchair legal analysts that the iPhone developer Agreements won't stand up in court — but those analysts certainly won't stand up in court on your behalf.' Anyone planning to launch an iPhone forum or open source project should have 'a lawyer draft your request for exemption, and make sure that the Apple staffer granting it personally commits to status as authorized to approve exceptions to the iPhone Registered Developer and iPhone SDK Agreements,' Yager warns."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Researchers Create Highly Predictive Blacklists Grablets writes "Using a link analysis algorithm similar to Google PageRank, researchers at the SANS Institute and SRI International have created a new Internet network defense service that rethinks the way network blacklists are formulated and distributed. The service, called Highly Predictive Blacklisting, exploits the relationships between networks that have been attacked by similar Internet sources as a means for predicting which attack sources are likely to attack which networks in the future. A free experimental version is currently available."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Next Generation CPU Refrigerators Iddo Genuth writes "Researchers at Purdue University are developing a miniature refrigeration system, small enough to fit inside laptop computers. According to the researchers, the implementation of miniature refrigeration systems in computers can dramatically increase the amount of heat removed from the microchips, therefore boosting performance while simultaneously shrinking the size of computers."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Attack Code Published For DNS Vulnerability get_Rootin writes "That didn't take long. ZDNet is reporting that HD Moore has released exploit code for Dan Kaminsky's DNS cache poisioning vulnerability into the point-and-click Metasploit attack tool. From the article: 'This exploit caches a single malicious host entry into the target nameserver. By causing the target nameserver to query for random hostnames at the target domain, the attacker can spoof a response to the target server including an answer for the query, an authority server record, and an additional record for that server, causing target nameserver to insert the additional record into the cache.' Here's our previous Slashdot coverage."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Google's Knol, Expert Wiki, Goes Live Brian Jordan and other readers sent in word that Google has taken the wraps off Knol, its expert-written challenger to Wikipedia. (We discussed Knol when it was announced last year.) Wired has an in-depth look. Knol's distinctions from Wikipedia are that authors are identified by their real names (and verified), and that they can share in ad revenue if they choose to. The service initially features a lot of medical articles, which is interesting considering that Medipedia also launched today. This medical wiki is backed by Harvard's and Stanford's medical schools.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Ubuntu Is Hyper-Active At OSCON ruphus13 writes "Ubuntu and Canonical have been very active at OSCON this year. They showcased a new distro, announced improvements to their code-hosting platform, and made Mark Shuttleworth available for a couple of talks and panel sessions. Quoting: 'Ubuntu Netbook Remix, a complete distribution designed to run on Atom-based Netbook PCs. The main difference that sets it apart from its big brother Hardy Heron is the Ubuntu Mobile Edition (UME) Launcher, a user interface created specifically for use on the teensy screens and keyboards of today's popular ultra-portable computers.' Canonical also announced Version 2.0 of Launchpad, their code-hosting platform. Enhancements include 'a planned API that'll allow third-party applications to authenticate, query and modify data in the massive Launchpad database, without a user needing to manually access the system via a browser.' Mark Shuttleworth went on to state that Linux's market share will grow when it has better eye-candy than Apple's."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Which Open Source Video Apps Use SMP Effectively? ydrol writes "After building my new Core 2 Quad Q6600 PC, I was ready to unleash video conversion activity the likes of which I had not seen before. However, I was disappointed to discover that a lot of the conversion tools either don't use SMP at all, or don't balance the workload evenly across processors, or require ugly hacks to use SMP (e.g. invoking distributed encoding options). I get the impression that open source projects are a bit slow on the uptake here? Which open source video conversion apps take full native advantage of SMP? (And before you ask, no, I don't want to pick up the code and add SMP support myself, thanks.)"Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- EC2 Vs. App Engine Vs. GoGrid Vs. AppNexus snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Peter Wayner delves into the ill-defined realm of 'cloud computing,' providing a deeper look at four shared services: Amazon EC2, Google App Engine, GoGrid, and AppNexus. Offering wildly divergent amounts of hand-holding at various layers in the stack, the services simplify your workload but force you into a set, 'ball-and-chain-computing' routine that you may not prefer. Sure, the services allow you to pull CPU cycles from thin air whenever you need to, but they can't solve the deepest problems that make it hard for applications to scale gracefully, Wayner writes. He describes these 'clouds' as an evolving experiment, rife with potential but 'far from clear winners over traditional shared Web hosting.' The sobering look at the trend includes a QuickTime tour of each service — EC2, App Engine, GoGrid, AppNexus (those links all .MOV)."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Google Blogger "Hosts 2% of World's Malware" Barence writes "Google's Blogger service is responsible for 2% of the world's malware hosted on the Web, according to a new report from security firm Sophos. The company claims hackers are setting up pages on the free blogging service to host malicious code, or simply posting links to infected websites in other bloggers' comments. 'Blogger accounts for around 2% of malware,' according to Sophos's senior technology consultant, Graham Cluley. 'It's head and shoulders above the rest [of the blogging services].'" Sophos believes that Blogger is favored because, being part of Google, it gets spidered early and often.Read more of this story at Slashdot.