Hans Reiser, creator of ReiserFS, a journaled computer file system used by Linux, was handed a prison sentence of 15-to-life Friday, putting a final capstone on a case that began as a murder mystery, and ended with Reiser leading police to a makeshift grave a short distance from where he strangled his wife. common - comments - 30.8.2008
Hans Reiser, creator of ReiserFS, a journaled computer file system used by Linux, was handed a prison sentence of 15-to-life Friday, putting a final
capstone on a case that began as a murder mystery, and ended with Reiser leading police to a makeshift grave a short distance from where he strangled
his wife.
"I wish to humbly apologize to society for my crime," Reiser said in a statement before his sentence was pronounced. "Every
human life is sacred. I took the life of a human being and I'm very sorry for that."
Hans Reiser killed his wife, Nina, at about 4:30
p.m. on Sept. 3, 2006, according to the belated confession Reiser wrote as part of his deal, said prosecutor Paul Hora after the sentencing. He first
punched her in the mouth, cutting his hand, then strangled her to death. He briefly stored the body in the bathroom, then moved it to his car, where
it stayed for two days while he searched for a place to bury her.
Reiser vowed to try to make up to society for what he had done. He said
he was putting Namesys (the company behind ReiserFS) and ReiserFS into a trust fund his children, and that he hoped to earn money while in prison to
make their lives a little more comfortable, "assuming I'm able to get access to a computer and the internet."
Novell is changing the file
system software used by
default in its Suse Linux
operating system, aligning
with rival Red Hat and moving
away from a project whose
future has become entangled
with the fate of a murder
suspect.
Novell
said Thursday that new
versions of Suse Linux
Enterprise will use ext3 as
the default file system,
important foundational
software that manages how data
is stored on hard drives. The
change demotes the current
default, ReiserFS, to a
secondary, though still
supported, option.
ReiserFS has been under the
control of Hans Reiser, a
programmer who this week was
arrested on suspicion of
murdering his estranged wife.
Novell had been considering
its decision well before that
event, however.
"In response to customer
demand, in the next version
Novell will be changing the
default file system in new
installations from ReiserFS 3
to ext3," Novell said in a
statement. "Novell will
continue to support and
improve ReiserFS version
3."
A video clip posted on YouTube
has helped Canadian police in
the investigation of a
nightclub murder.Police in the
southern Canadian city of
Hamilton posted a clip from
club surveillance cameras onto
the popular naff clip sharing
site in an appeal for
information.
The
clip was subsequently viewed
by more the 34,000 people. The
footage showed people arriving
for a Sean Price hip-hop
concert last month. Ryan
Milner, 22, was knifed to
death in a car park after the
concert. On Tuesday a baseball
cap-wearing man seen on the
clip, wanted for questioning,
turned himself into the
authorities. George Gallow,
24, of Hamilton, has
subsequently been charged with
the manslaughter of Milner and
the attempted murder of
another unnamed man, The
Canadian Press reports. It is
the first time police have
used YouTube as a tool in a
criminal investigation.
She isn't accused of homicide, exactly, but a woman in Japan could spend five years in jail on charges related to "murdering" her virtual
husband in revenge for a virtual divorce... betanews.com - 25.10.2008
"Spam King" Edward Davidson, who recently disappeared from the Colorado minimum security facility where he was serving 21 months for tax
evasion and e-mail fraud, was found dead yesterday from a self-inflicted gunshot wound... betanews.com - 25.07.2008
The attorney general has
decided not to take action
against a Muslim juror who
allegedly listened to music
during a murder trial.
Ruhela Khanom, in her
20s, was accused of hiding an
MP3 player and earphones
beneath an Islamic hijab or
headscarf.
She was
discharged from a murder trial
jury at Blackfriars Crown
Court.
The man on
trial, Alan Wicks, was later
jailed for life for murdering
his wife. The attorney
general's office said there
was insufficient evidence.
A statement from the
office of the Attorney
General, Baroness Scotland,
said she had "considered
carefully the papers in this
matter, in particular the
witness statements, and has
concluded that there is
insufficient evidence to
provide a realistic prospect
of proving beyond reasonable
doubt any alleged contempt of
court".
Fans of the soon-to-be-defunct
Alltel Wireless "geeks in shirts" advertising campaign will remember the debut of the 2006 "My Circle" calling plan, where
subscribers could choose 10 friends or family members to include in their "calling circles." Folks who were a little older than the guys who
appeared in the "Food Court" ad from that campaign -- which helped establish Alltel's entire marketing focus thereafter -- will recall that
"calling circles" wasn't a phrase coined by Alltel... betanews.com - 12.02.2009
The BitTorrent-fed set top box by Myka which was promised to be released by April has evoked skepticism in some, but the company persists. Today it has updated its site, complete with a UI walkthrough (on a prototype device) and a new look for its product...with no BitTorrent
logo on it. Last week, BitTorrent told us that Myka had not been cleared to use the BitTorrent logo despite being cleared to use the technology. Myka
appears to have remedied this swiftly and simply. .. betanews.com - 31.01.2009
Google has released a tool that allows Google calendar and Gmail contact data to be synced with iPhone and Windows Mobile devices. Similar to the
Blackberry application Google released last year, Google
Sync integrates a user's Google calendar data with the phone's native calendar. It also works with Google Apps accounts, but administrator
approval must first be granted.
There are currently some limitations to the application. The iPhone, for example, cannot sync more than five
calendars, and contact information cannot hold multiple numbers for fax, mobile, or pager headings, and each contact is limited to 3 email addresses.
Today at day two of GSMA in Barcelona, HTC officially unveiled the sequel to the G1 Android phone, called the HTC Magic. The device will be launched
in Europe on Vodafone this Spring.
Today at day two of GSMA in Barcelona, HTC officially unveiled the sequel to the G1 Android phone, called the HTC Magic. The device will be launched
in Europe on Vodafone this Spring.
Google today announced new additions to Google Earth which include Ocean , Historical Imagery ,
Touring , and Google Mars 3D .
Ocean adds the ability to view undersea terrain, shipwrecks, and related
content that has been submitted by oceanic exploration and science experts and advocates. Historical Imagery sounds like it would be mockups of
historical architecture and landscapes, but it's actually the ability to view previous renderings of the Earth as captured by Google's hardware.
Touring gives users the ability to assemble a guided tour of a certain area suitable for presentations. Mars 3D is the equivalent of Google Earth for
the red planet, featuring high-resolution imagery from Mars' surface.
"In discussions about climate
change, the world's oceans are often overlooked despite being an integral part of the issue, About one-third of the carbon dioxide that we emit into
the atmosphere ends up in the oceans," said Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google. "Furthermore, biodiversity loss in our oceans in the next 20-30
years will be roughly equivalent to losing an entire Amazon rainforest, but this goes unnoticed because we can't see it. This is why today's launch
of Google Earth 5.0 is so important - it gives us an opportunity to change everyone's perspective.".. betanews.com - 02.02.2009
Google has unveiled the next version of its Gmail for mobile.
In a blog post, Derek Phillips, Software
Engineer for the Google mobile team, announced the improvements and changes for Gmail mobile.
"We rearchitected the entire client to push
all the processing to the background, greatly improve the client-side caching scheme and optimize every bottleneck piece of code we came across"
Phillips said.
According to Phillips users should see an overall performance improvement with smoother scrolling and no freezing. Google
have introduced multiple accounts management. If you have both a Gmail and Google Apps email account, you can easily switch between them quickly. You
can now save multiple email drafts in your mobile phone, so that you can pick and choose what you would like to send later. For QWERTY phones there
are new short cuts to help you navigate Gmail mobile and if you run out of signal the new version you can still compose and read your most recent
emails. Also, any outgoing messages will be saved in the outbox on your phone and sent automatically when you're back in coverage.
Overall it's a great improvement for Gmail mobile users. The company also posted a video demonstration of the new features, attached below.
Microsoft's Jonathan Cluts demonstrates one of the technology prototypes that Craig Mundie, the company's chief research and strategy officer, is
showing on college campuses this week.
Chief Executive Eric Schmidt will hit the campaign trail this week on behalf of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama The Wall Street Journal
reports.
The Google chief said in an interview
that "I'm doing this personally," adding that "Google is officially neutral" in the campaign. Schmidt is the second high profile individual to
publically back Obama following Colin Powell's backing on
Sunday. Powell was President George W. Bush's first secretary of state.
On Tuesday Schmidt will appear with Obama at a Florida event,
where they will moderate a panel on the economy. Schmidt said it will be his "first time on the trail." We reported recently that
Google are in talks with the U.S. Justice Department in an effort to head off an antitrust challenge to their proposed advertising agreement. In the
interview with the Wall Street Journal Schmidt said "My sense is, the Justice Department makes judgments on these issues independent of
politics."
Google announced its Q3
earnings report last Thursday which was a lot better than the industry expected.
Editor note: Obama or McCain supporter, we noticed the
following video on YouTube. Pretty interesting rap.
Security researchers have uncovered "critical" security flaws in a version of the Linux kernel used by a large number of popular distributions. The
three bugs allow unauthorized users to read or write to kernel memory locations or to access certain resources in certain servers, according to a
SecurityFocus advisory.
They could be exploited by malicious, local users to cause denial of service attacks, disclose potentially
sensitive information, or gain "root" privileges, according to security experts. The bug affects all versions of the Linux kernel up to version
2.6.24.1, which contains a patch. Distributions such as Ubuntu, Turbolinux, SuSE, Red Hat, Mandriva, Debian and others are affected. The problems are
within three functions in the system call fs/splice.c, according to an advisory from Secunia.
<
Strong>Antivirus firm F-Secure
has developed a graphical tool
for analysing the behaviour of
malicious code.
At a
press briefing in Sydney this
week, Patrik Runald, senior
security specialist at the
Finnish firm, said the tool --
called FS-CSI -- graphically
displays the behaviour of
software.
Runald
explained that the tool first
takes a snapshot of a clean
system, then the malware is
added, and then another
snapshot is taken. He said the
system is far more efficient
than previous tools because
researchers no longer have to
look through hundreds and
thousands of lines of code.
"Instead of looking
at lines of code, we are
looking at a graphical picture
of what the malware has done
to your system. This is
something we have had to do in
the lab to keep up with the
challenge of all the malware
we receive and improve the way
we work," said Runald.
The tool shows which
processes are running, which
files have been created by the
malware and flags all the
network connections that have
been opened... winbeta.org - 05.07.2007
Corel Corporation today
announced the completion of
its acquisition of InterVideo,
Inc., a leading provider of
digital media authoring and
playback software with a focus
on high-definition video and
DVD technologies. Corel
purchased InterVideo for
ฝ.00 per share of
InterVideo common stock
resulting in an aggregate
acquisition price of 赦.6
million in an all-cash
transaction. The acquisition
substantially expands Corel's
presence in the digital media
software market by creating
the industry's broadest
portfolio of digital imaging
and DVD video products. With
the addition of InterVideo,
Corel will deliver
easier-to-use, multi-purpose
high-definition video,
imaging, and DVD creation
products to consumers and
enterprises worldwide while
extending its presence in
fast-growing Asian markets,
such as China, Taiwan and
Japan.
In the midst of a global financial crisis, one company stood out from the crowd yesterday, that company is Google.
Despite the whole world struggling and stock markets taking a battering, the company still managed to report excellent earnings during a conference
call with investors yesterday.
So we wondered, how is it that Google manages to pump out excellent innovations in search, mapping and now
its own web browser and mobile OS. More importantly, what's it like working at Google?
The company is based in Mountain View,
California in the United States. Co-founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who both studied computer science, it employs 10,000 worldwide
and has been named #1 best company to work for by Fortune magazine this year.
Google Plex is the company's HQ where all the magic happens. Dubbed by employees "a country itself", those lucky enough to
work for Google enjoy mixing with fellow geeks.
The company lists 10 reasons to work at Google on its jobs
page but is modest about the impressive benefits at Google plex.
The
company has 17 different cafeterias which serve gourmet food. All food is complimentary including drinks and snacks which leads to the term "Google
16", the amount of pounds you put on when you first start working for Google.
At Google Plex there is a state of the art gym, a lap pool,
ping pong, beach volleyball and a string of different language classes to brush up on your multi-lingual skills. Employee pets are welcome and Google
has supplied a laundry room, concierge, hairdressers and even an on-site doctor. Solar panels, recycled carpets and complimentary public
transportation are just some of the "green" practices Google has adopted. Google is so proud of how it treats employees that it even has its own YouTube channel dedicated to life at Google.
If you're not convinced
it's the best place to work for then check out the photos below courtesy of Frankin Cool. There's also a nice video overview of the companies offerings recorded last year.
Employees enjoy a
relaxing break in a decompression (stress) capsule that is impermeable to sound and light:
ReiserFS creator gets 15-to-life for murder