Recent Articles
Thanks to DRM, Some Ubisoft Games Won’t Work Next Week
Feb 4, 2012 IT Leave a comment
hypnosec writes “Several of Ubisoft’s biggest titles won’t be playable as of next week thanks to a server move by the publisher and the restrictive DRM that was used in their development. This isn’t just multiplayer either. Because Ubisoft thought it would be a smart plan to use always on DRM for even the single player portion of games like Assassin’s Creed, even the single player portion of that title won’t be playable during the server move. Some of the other games affected by this move will be Tom Clancy’s HAWX 2, Might & Magic: Heroes 6 and The Settlers 7. The Mac games that will be broken during this period are Assassin’s Creed, Splinter Cell Conviction and The Settlers. This move was announced this week as part of a community letter, with Ubisoft describing how the data servers for many of the publisher’s online services would be migrated from third party facilities to a new location starting on the 7th February. The publisher didn’t reveal how long the transfer would take.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Credit Suisse Traders Manipulated IT Systems To Hide $500m Losses
Feb 4, 2012 IT Leave a comment
New submitter Qedward writes with a snippet from ComputerWorld UK: “Two traders at Credit Suisse have pleaded guilty to wire fraud and falsifying data after authorities said they had manipulated the bank’s record systems, as the credit crunch approached, in order to help conceal over half a billion dollars’ worth of losses. The traders admitted to circumventing a mandatory real time reporting system introduced by Credit Suisse, manually entering false profit and loss (P&L) figures as the products they handled collapsed in value. They did so, according to the accusations, under heavy pressure from their manager, who has also been charged.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Google Starts Scanning Android Apps
Feb 4, 2012 IT Leave a comment
eldavojohn writes “A recent blog post has Android developers talking about Google finally scanning third party applications for malware. Oddly enough, Google claims this service (codenamed ‘Bouncer’) has been active for some time: ‘The service has been looking for malicious apps in Market for a while now, and between the first and second halves of 2011, we saw a 40% decrease in the number of potentially-malicious downloads from Android Market. This drop occurred at the same time that companies who market and sell anti-malware and security software have been reporting that malicious applications are on the rise.’ So it appears that they allow the software to be sold even before it is scanned and it also appears that no one has been bitten by a false positive from this software. Apparently Bouncer is not as oppressive as Apple’s solution although given recent news its effectiveness must be questioned. Have any readers had their apps flagged or pulled by Bouncer?”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The IT Certs That No Longer Pay Extra
Feb 4, 2012 IT Leave a comment
snydeq writes “Overall employment in tech is improving, but the certs you could once count on for a job or extra pay are losing their value, InfoWorld reports. ‘Businesses no longer value what are increasingly considered standard skills, and instead are putting their money both into a new set of emerging specialties and into hybrid technology/business roles.’”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Social media takes over the Super Bowl
Feb 4, 2012 Software Leave a comment
For Sunday’s Super Bowl, fans will split their attention between the screens on their TVs, laptops, smartphones and tablets. The big game is going social.
Systems management, cloud services likely in Dell’s software acquisition plans
Feb 4, 2012 Software Leave a comment
Dell's formation of a new software group, which was announced Thursday, could be the forerunner to a string of acquisitions by the vendor, with some observers predicting a focus on systems management and cloud services provisioning.
Take Great Product Photos for Your Online Store
Feb 4, 2012 Software Leave a comment
When you're selling items on shopping sites such as eBay and Etsy, presentation and marketing are just as important as producing a high-quality product. Customers are bombarded with images of goods of all shapes and sizes. Since they can’t try things on or test them out, it's important for you to provide a clear, accurate, and appealing representation. Even if the cashmere scarf you knitted is beautiful in person, no one will want it if it appears out of focus, looks poorly lit, or sits wrapped around your unshaven friend’s neck.
RIM offers free PlayBook to attract Android developers
Feb 4, 2012 Software Leave a comment
Research in Motion is trying to woo developers by giving a free BlackBerry Playbook tablet to coders who port their Android application for its BlackBerry Tablet OS.