Want a job? Investment banks aren’t hiring right now, but if you’re interested in the new wave of energy exploration (underwater or on wind-swept ridges), in digital tech (like game design and 3D sportscasts) or even in building spaceships, we have some leads for you. Welcome to the PM job fair.
A new report is backing rumors of Voice Dialing support inside betas of Apple’s iPhone 3.0 Software but adds that capability may be just one of several features included in a new Voice Services framework that may also facilitate voice control of the new OS.
If you consider yourself a geek, or aspire to the honor of geekhood, here’s an essential checklist of must-have geek skills.
1. The Meaning of Technical Acronyms
2. How to Reset RAM
3. Identify Keyloggers
4. Surf the Web Anonymously
5. Bypass a Computer Password on All Major Operating Systems
6. Find a Users IP Address on AIM
7. Hide a File Behind a JPEG
8. Crack a Wifi Password
9. Monitor Network Traffic
10. Recover Master Boot Record
11. Retrieve Data off Hard Drive
12. Load Rockbox onto an MP3 Player
13. Unbrick a Smartphone
14. Replace a Laptop Keyboard
15. Rip Streaming Videos
16. Strip Windows DRM
17. Homebrew Hack Game Systems
18. Find a Website IP Address Without Web/Command Prompt Access
19. Bypass School or Work Website Blocks
20. Screw with Wifi Leeches
21. Hexadecimal and Binary Number Systems
22. How to Hot Wire a Car
23. Increase Wifi Range
24. Carrying a Computer Cleaning Arsenal on Your USB Drive
25. Running an Operating System from a USB Thumb Drive
26. Understand What “There’s no Place Like 127.0.0.1” Means
27. Read 1337 At Normal Speed
28. At Least One Fictional Language
29. How to Survive in a Linux Argument
30. Identify Major Constellations
31. Use a Camera in Manual Mode
32. Who Mulder and Scully Are
33. Javascript
34. How to Unlock an iPhone
35. How to Install Mac OS X on a PC
36. Build a PC
37. Tethering a Smartphone
38. Wiring a Home Theater System
39. Replacing a Laptop LCD
40. Make a Laptop Cooling Pad
41. Unleash a Laser Pointer’s full potential
42. Keyboard Shortcuts
43. Soldering Glasses Together
44. How to Execute a Shell Script
45. How to Hack a Pop Machine
46. Turn a Laptop into a Digital Picture Frame
47. How to Mod a Flash Drive Case
48. Do Cool Things to Altoids Tins
49. Convert Cassette Tapes to Digital Audio Files
50. Lock Your Computer with a USB Drive
51. Run Your Own Ethernet Line
52. Set Up a Streaming Media Server
53. Setting up a VPN
54. Turn Webcams into Security Cameras
55. Control Your House Lights with a Computer
56. Play Retro Games without Retro Consoles
57. Put LEDs Inside a Lightbulb
58. Create Music with Keyboard
59. Make Your Office Ergonomic
60. Adding a Third Monitor
61. How to Convert a DVD to x264 (or XviD or DivX)
62. Flash System BIOS
63. How to Irrecoverably Protect Data
64. The Fastest way to Kill a Computer
Add solar panels to your DS and don’t worry about where you left the charger with this fun DIY project.
An anonymous reader writes “China based Skytone famous for making skype headsets have brought out a 0 device, the Alpha-680 netbook running Google Android for its OS. The device has Wi-Fi, Ethernet, USB ports and an SD card slot. After watching the video though, I get a feeling that the boot time is somewhat long. IMO good enough for browsing.” Also on the Android front, ruphus13 points out what the maker claims is the first “fully realized” non-mobile Android device (though I think there were some other non-mobile gadgets on diplay at CES), a set-top box from Motorola based on Android. According to the linked post, it’s “capable of playing DVDs and CDs, transferring music and video to a mobile device, and ripping and storing files” and “will have a full-featured Chrome-like browser.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Hugh Pickens writes “The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has issued an opinion affirming a ruling that will be cheered by digital fair use proponents for allowing a fair use of students’ work when their teachers electronically file students’ written work with the turnitin.com Web site so that newly submitted work can be compared against Turnitin’s database of existing student work to assess whether the new work is the result of plagiarism. The court stepped through the fair use analysis, dropping positive notes that affirm commercial uses can be fair uses, that a use can be transformative ‘in function or purpose without altering or actually adding to the original work,’ and that the entirety of a work can be used without precluding a finding of fair use. Techdirt suggests that all of these points could have been helpful to Google in defending its book scanning efforts, ‘since it could make pretty much the identical arguments on all points.’ Unfortunately Google caved in that lawsuit and settled, ‘denying a strong fair use precedent and making Google look like an easy place for struggling industries to demand cash.'”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
dragoncortez writes “According to this Deseret News article, University classrooms will be obsolete by 2020. BYU professor David Wiley envisions a world where students listen to lectures on iPods, and those lectures are also available online to everyone anywhere for free. Course materials are shared between universities, science labs are virtual, and digital textbooks are free. He says, ‘Higher education doesn’t reflect the life that students are living … today’s colleges are typically tethered, isolated, generic, and closed.’ In the world according to Wiley, universities would still make money, because they have a marketable commodity: to get college credits and a diploma, you’d have to be a paying customer. Wiley helped start Flat World Knowledge, which creates peer-reviewed textbooks that can be downloaded for free, or bought as paperbacks for .”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Geon Lasli writes “Reporters caught up with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in Moscow to get his take on Oracle’s deal to buy Sun Microsystems for US.4 billion. Ballmer was at a loss for words: ‘I need to think about it. I am very surprised.’ According to a source, IBM hadn’t given up on purchasing Sun and was blindsided by Oracle’s move. I guess IBM must be regretting playing tough 2 weeks ago. Unknown to outsiders, Sun had probably found the Oracle lifeboat before they decided to pull the plug on the deal.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
blantonl writes “Brazilians all over the country are using modified amateur radio equipment to communicate with each other using US Military communications satellites — effectively creating their own CB radio network on the backs of the US Military. Recent efforts to crack down have resulted in arrests of some of the users, however the behavior still continues today.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
CrustyFace writes “Cybernit reports that the Starter Edition version of Windows 7 will only allow the user to run 3 applications at once. Targeted at notebooks, this doesn’t seem like such a bad limitation, however it is a bold move from Microsoft, and it will be interesting to see how the operating system sells.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
