It is no secret that the MPAA and other anti-piracy organizations track down alleged pirates by uploading fake torrents. Up until now it was always unclear where those files came from, and how to identify these files. The admin of btjunkie.com has released patterns & IPs that incriminate certain groups based out of Las Vegas.
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Aglassis writes
"NASA investigators have determined that a software update performed in June of 2006 may have doomed the 10-year-old spacecraft. Apparently the software error caused the solar arrays to drive against a mechanical stop which then forced the spacecraft into safe mode. Unfortunately, after that the spacecraft's radiator was pointed at the sun which overheated the battery and destroyed it. Contact was lost with the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft in November 2006. NASA will form an internal review board to determine formally the cause of the loss of the spacecraft and what remedial actions are needed for future missions."
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saccade.com writes
"During my last hotel stay, I thought it was a pretty strange that it took two browser re-directs before the hotel's Wi-Fi would show me the web page I browsed to. Picasa developer Michael Herf noticed the same the thing and dug a little deeper. He discovered: '...their page does some tracking of each new page you visit in your browser, outside what a normal proxy (which would have access to all your cookies and other information it shouldn't have, anyway) would do. This "adlog" hit appears to also track a "hotel ID" and some other data that identifies you more directly. Notably, I've observed these guys tracking HTTPS URLs, and of course you can't track those through a proxy.' Herf notes the Internet service provider, SuperClick, advertises that it 'allows hoteliers and conference center managers to leverage the investment they have made in their IP infrastructure to create advertising revenue, deliver targeted marketing and brand messages to guests and users on their network...'"
Herf was on his honeymoon when he did this sleuthing. Now that's dedication.
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UnknowingFool writes
"SCO filed a motion to allow it to change its claims against IBM. Again. A brief recap: In December 2005, SCO was supposed to finally list all claims against IBM. This was the Final Disclosure. In May 2006, SCO filed its experts reports to the court which discussed subjects beyond those in the Final Disclosure. Naturally, IBM objected and wanted to remove certain allegations. Judge Wells ruled from the bench and granted IBM's motion: SCO's experts cannot discuss subjects that were not in the Final Disclosure. Now, SCO wants to amend the December 2005 Final Disclosure to include other allegations."
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LAS VEGAS--Dell will be knocking on your door.
That's because the Round Rock, Texas-based PC maker has decided to put an increased emphasis on services for consumers. At the Consumer Electronics Show on Tuesday, for example, Dell unveiled a service called Dell DataSafe. When consumers buy a new computer, they can upload the data from their old computer to the DataSafe site. Dell will then load the data on your new computer or you can do it at home.
"We have to make sure we address the post-sales experience issues and the presales issues," Ro Parra, senior vice president of the home and small-business group, said in an interview here at CES.
The company is also considering coming out with a service in which Dell would automatically and remotely tune up your PC, sources said.
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One of the private investigators hired to ferret out the source of a news leak at Hewlett-Packard has been charged with federal identity theft and conspiracy.
Bryan Wagner is accused as masquerading as an unidentified journalist in order to obtain the reporter's private phone records, according to a copy of a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California.
Wagner, along with Patricia Dunn, the former chairman of HP, and three others have already been charged in California with four felonies, including identity theft.
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Online auctioneer eBay has agreed to buy sports ticket reseller StubHub for $310 million in cash, the companies said on Wednesday, confirming an earlier report the deal was imminent.
In a statement, eBay said the agreement has an estimated total price of $310 million, which will include StubHub's net cash at the time of the deal's closing. The final amount will be determined based on a formula at the time the deal closes.
The acquisition is expected to close in the first quarter of this year, subject to pending approvals by regulators and StubHub shareholders. More details will be revealed at the time of eBay's fourth-quarter conference call on January 24, it said.
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Cisco Systems has filed a lawsuit against Apple accusing the company of infringing its iPhone trademark, the networking company said Wednesday.
The suit also accuses the iPod maker of using a front company to try to acquire rights to the name.
Cisco accused Apple in a suit filed in United States District Court for the Northern District of California of willingly infringing its trademark when it announced the new iPhone at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco on Tuesday.
Cisco said in the complaint that Apple had attempted to get rights to the iPhone name several times, but after Cisco refused, the company created a front company to try to acquire the rights another way, according to the lawsuit (click for PDF).
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LAS VEGAS--Time Warner said top U.S. retailers will stock its proposed new DVD, which merges two competing formats on one disc, in a step toward getting consumers to pay more for better pictures and sound.
Best Buy, Circuit City Stores and Web seller Amazon will support the format, studio executives said Tuesday.
The new DVD is Warner Bros.' solution to the battle for DVD technology between Sony's Blu-ray and Toshiba's HD DVD--formats that both hold many times the storage capacity of current DVDs, and are roomy enough for high-definition movies.
Consumers are holding off on purchases while the standards debate continues, analysts say.
Warner Bros.'s new disc, called Total HD, is expected to hit stores in the second half of this year. It said the decision to merge the two formats could spur sales and adoption.
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Water-cooler sessions at SAP are expected to become more intense in the next month as the world's largest business applications vendor debates the future of its chief executive officer.
With his contract set to expire at the end of the year, there has been much debate over whether CEO Henning Kagermann would seek another term. But a partial solution will be floated next month, when the supervisory board for the software behemoth meets on February 15.
At the meeting, Hasso Plattner, SAP's co-founder and the chairman of its 16-member supervisory board, will propose that Kagermann's contract be extended through the end of 2008, SAP spokesman Steve Bauer said Tuesday.
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Eastman Kodak said on Wednesday it will sell its medical imaging business for up to $2.55 billion, a key step in the photography company's strategy to focus on digital products and services.
Onex Healthcare Holdings, a unit of Canada's Onex, will pay $2.35 billion in cash for the Kodak unit and up to $200 million in future payments if it achieves certain returns on the investment.
Shares in Kodak rose more than 2 percent in early trading as the deal ended months of investor concern over whether it would succeed in selling the unit.
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