Sony is still thrashing about (and finding data they should have removed years ago)
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31021_3-20060773-260.html
Sony: More testing needed before PlayStation relaunch
Sony's breached PlayStation Network may well be offline longer than the company had expected, according to a Sony executive.
In a post on Sony's PlayStation.Blog late yesterday, Patrick Seybold, senior director of corporate communications and social media for the company, said Sony was still performing security checks on the system and that it might not be back up and running in the originally announced timeframe. Part of the problem, Seybold said, has been the hitherto unknown size of a breach of the Sony Online Entertainment gaming network, discovered during Sony's investigation into the PlayStation intrusion.
… Meanwhile, the company said today that on Thursday it removed 2,500 customer names and partial addresses that had been stolen by hackers and posted on a Sony Web site. The names belonged to mostly U.S. customers who had entered a contest in 2001. Sony said the Web site was "out of date and inactive" when discovered and that the company took the page down. CNET reported on Thursday that hackers were planning to break into an unspecified Sony Web site this weekend and post information gleaned from the attack somewhere online.
(Related)
Sony Encourages Linux On Their Phones
"Sony has been in the news a lot lately — from the PSN downtime and the identity theft issue that came with it, to the numerous court cases launched to try and quell the PS3 hacking scene. It may come as a surprise to many, then, that Sony's mobile smartphone division has taken an almost polar-opposite approach — they're actively encouraging developers to create, modify and install customized Linux kernels into their latest lineup of phones, including the Xperia Play, the device that was once known as the 'PlayStation Phone.'"
The changing face of techie education. This is my kind of student project! (Can I get a cut of the profits?)
The Stanford Class That Built Apps and Made Fortunes
The NY Times has a story about a group of students who took a 2007 course in app development at Stanford that turned out far better than any of them expected. Quoting:
"... by teaching students to build no-frills apps, distribute them quickly and worry about perfecting them later, the Facebook Class stumbled upon what has become standard operating procedure for a new generation of entrepreneurs and investors in Silicon Valley and beyond. ... Early on, the Facebook Class became a microcosm of Silicon Valley. Working in teams of three, the 75 students created apps that collectively had 16 million users in just 10 weeks. Many of those apps were sort of silly: Mr. De Lombaert’s, for example, allowed users to send “hotness” points to Facebook friends. Yet during the term, the apps, free for users, generated roughly $1 million in advertising revenue."
(Related)
http://gaming.icrontic.com/article/nea-video-games-are-an-art-form/
NEA: video games are an art form
The US federal government, by way of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), now considers video games a form of art, making a true step toward recognition for the oft under-recognized form.
The NEA is a program under the federal government which has the mission of deciding which grand artistic projects are worthy of receiving Federal funding. Artists around the country can submit applications to the agency for works which will enhance the public good. It allows artists who are creating outside of the commercial art world to work and live, through grants of up to $200k; artists who otherwise would have to either enter the profit-centered world of commercial art, or stop creating (or starve, I suppose).
Still might be fun for my Statistics students to play with...
http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/027205.html
May 07, 2011
University of Texas Releases Faculty Productivity Data
Release of Faculty-Productivity Data Roils U. of Texas, By Audrey Williams June, Chronicle of Higher Education
"How much professors in the University of Texas system earn and how many courses and students they teach were parts of a vast data file that system officials compiled at the request of a newly formed task force on productivity and excellence and released publicly on Thursday. Professors immediately voiced concerns that the information would be used to incorrectly gauge their efficiency on the job. However, system officials stressed that the data in the 821-page spreadsheet, which covers nine institutions, was in draft form and "is incomplete and has not yet been fully verified or cross referenced," according to a statement issued by Anthony P. de Bruyn, the system's director of public affairs. "In its present raw form, it cannot yield accurate analysis, interpretations, or conclusions."
For my Computer Security students. Keep the link, not the software!
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/find-elusive-malware-pc-microsoft-safety-scanner/
Find Elusive Malware On Your PC With Microsoft Safety Scanner
Do emergency scans of your computer with Microsoft’s latest free download. Microsoft Safety Scanner, a portable application that can examine any PC, can’t replace a full-blown anti-virus program, but it is a great tool to have around should infections pop up. Best of all – because it doesn’t need to be installed, you can easily download it on one computer, stick it on a thumb drive and clean up another computer.
… This tool is Microsoft’s answer to scan-only tools such as Malwarebytes and Combofix: tools intended to clean up existing messes, not prevent future ones. As such, this is less something every home user should download than something they should be aware of should something go wrong.
Take note that Safety Scanner cannot update itself. As such, you’ll need to re-download it every ten days if you want to make regular use of it.
The first thing you need to do is head over to the Safety Scanner download page and grab the program.
… The file you will download is an .exe file. There’s nothing to install; you’re ready to start scanning if you’d like.
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