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November 30th, 2009Uncategorized
By now, we've seen plenty of people fired thanks to their online antics on social networks like MySpace or Facebook, but this latest story takes that idea and puts something of a twist on it. According to Canwest News Service, Crystal Bell was a worker at a Canadian spa who logged in to Facebook one morning back in November before heading to work. She had a message waiting in her inbox from her boss -- a message indicating that she'd been fired. Thinking her boss was kidding she went to work anyway. As it turns out, it wasn't a joke.
Bell lives in British Columbia and is a frequent user of the site -- in fact she actually found the job and was hired over Facebook. In that light it's somewhat more fitting that her employment was also terminated through the service, but that still makes it rather distasteful. Now, of course, there's a legal debate stirring about how appropriate or inappropriate that action was, but that's a discussion that will surely take some time to settle. Until then we'll go ahead and label this as rude. -
November 29th, 2009Uncategorized
Air travel just became even more stressful, as a recent government study reveals that the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) air-traffic control system faces significant threats from cyber-terrorists. According to the Wall Street Journal, the FAA plans to modernize its control systems over the next 15 years, thanks in part to $20 billion of funding, but the technological adaptations are apparently exposing vulnerabilities to hackers.
The FAA uses two technical support systems -- an administrative system, primarily used for corporate purposes, and an operational system, which is used for air-traffic control. Although FAA spokesperson Laura Brown told the WSJ that one network cannot be used to access the other, security tests revealed 763 "high risk" administrative weaknesses.
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November 28th, 2009UncategorizedThe Internet is definitely hopped up on a Twitter high at the moment, and, now that Oprah is included, many say the site has reached its high-water mark. It seems that with everyone and their mother (near-literally) flooding Twitter, the site will soon lose its appeal to the early adopters and tech-savvy folks that made first made it a hit. From there, we'd think, the site's popularity could only foresee a long, slow slide to the bottom. Despite all that, though, the site's founders are saying that Twitter is absolutely not for sale.
Biz Stone and Evan Williams, creators of the site, appeared on 'The View' yesterday to talk Twitter with Barbara Walters and co. Rumors were swirling about a number of companies wanting to buy up the king of microblogging sites, but, when asked about them, Stone said: "No. We are not for sale." This flies in the face of numerous recent reports about Apple being in the final stages of designing a $700 million takeover of the site. Our advice? Take the money and run, sons. -
November 27th, 2009Uncategorized
If the rare event that something goes wrong on a space shuttle mission, NASA is ready with a rescue plan that would undoubtedly make many Hollywood directors and tough boy actors piss their pants.
Picture this, if you will...
The main shuttle mission, Atlantis, experiences another foam incident, and the heat shield is damaged beyond repair. Upon acknowledgment of the problem, NASA scrambles a four-person astronaut rescue team, which must prepare for launch in the span of a few days. Normally, as you know, launches are complex affairs that require months of preparation. But no bother. The Endeavour lifts off successfully and the rescue team screams into space In fact, Endeavour is put on a T-Minus seven day liftoff count once the Atlantis launches anyway, so it's technically ready to go from minute one.
Once in orbit, the rescue team shuttle captain must pilot his craft to within a few dozen yards or the ailing shuttle. Once there, the robot arm is sent out to grasp the gimped shuttle, thereby serving as a life line for the crew. On board the rescue craft are extra spacesuits and gear, so that the entire seven-person Atlantis crew can spacewalk to Endeavour over the course of a few days.
Endeavour, now packed to the gills, must then return home. As for Atlantis, she will be given a proper scuttling by a crew back at mission control. Using a remote control system, they will ditch the shuttle in the Pacific, and try to recover its debris later.
The Endeavour crew must then check their ship for damage, and hope beyond hope that there isn't any. There's no other shuttle on the pad, you see, and the ISS is at an orbit that will be unreachable for either shuttle during this mission (Note: Other missions have had the ISS as a backup plan due to shared orbits and other such details).
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November 26th, 2009UncategorizedIf you've ever watched an episode of 'Mystery Science Theater 3000,' you know that many of science-fiction's predictions prove to be incredibly ridiculous and inaccurate. Thankfully, the learned sci-fi enthusiasts at Neatorama have compiled a Top 10 list of sci-fi gadgets and expeditions that actually have come to fruition, and of who, exactly, first articulated those prescient glimpses into the future.
We love the list, its obscure references and its wide breadth of knowledge on the subject, but we did notice one error, and one particularly glaring omission. The list credits Woody Allen with first thinking of a robotic dog in his 1973 film 'Sleepers,' but Ray Bradbury describes a 'Mechanical Hound,' which can differentiate between 10,000 scents, in the classic 1953 novel 'Fahrenheit 451 -
November 25th, 2009Uncategorized
SproutBox is a 3-month program for Web entrepreneurs. It picks four startups per cycle and brings them to their offices (called “The Box”) in Bloomington, Indiana. Once there, the startup and its entrepreneurs work with several SproutBox teams in order to build the product, promote, add users, and foster a community.
The startups SproutBox is most interested in are Web companies with subscription-based models, although they are listening to pitches from any company with a web, mobile, or desktop focus. Startups have several months to get their applications together - they’re not due until August 8th.
SproutBox, understanding that some entrepreneurs may be skeptical of the model, already has two projects out of the pipeline: DecideAlready, a group decision collaboration tool, and CheddarGetter,a online subscription billing service in beta. While different tools, both have a similarities in design and interface.
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November 24th, 2009Uncategorized
Online sales at Argos have reached £1.1bn for the year ending February 2009, with that channel now representing 26 per cent of all sales at the retailer.
According to Home Retail Group, parent company of Argos, web sales for the online and catalogue business saw a 22 per cent increase from £900m the previous year.
Some £700m of all online sales at Argos were generated through its Check & Reserve service and also rose from the £500m posted in the previous year.
However, total group sales were down one per cent to £5.89bn, with a decrease of 4.8 per cent for like-for-like sales at Argos. The group's Homebase unit reported that sales decreased by 10.2 per cent.
"In a particularly difficult trading environment, we have managed our costs and cash very effectively to limit the impact on profits. This focus has put us in an even better position to trade through another tough year while further improving our competitive position,” said Terry Duddy, Home Retail Group chief executive.
“We will continue to develop our broad product range, benefit further from our advantaged sourcing operations and invest in our multi-channel operations to strengthen our position as the UK's leading home and general merchandise retailer," said Duddy.
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November 23rd, 2009Uncategorized
New research forecasting the global biometrics market through 2012 has been released by RNCOS. The report, called Global Biometric Forecast to 2012, gets into subjects such as identifying key regions such as North America and Asia-Pacific and biometric modes such as iris recognition for growth as well as potential issues that must be attended to for the market to grow at its expected compound annual growth rate of 20% each year.
Further, the report identifies specific industries it expects to be the major consumers of biometric technologies in the coming years. Specifically, it expects the financial and health care industries to be topping out that list.
