iComp sends this quote from El Reg: "PayPal, Google Wallet and other online payment systems face higher transaction fees from MasterCard in retaliation for their refusal to share data on what people are spending. Visa is likely to follow suit. The amount that PayPal has to pay MasterCard for every transaction will go up as the latter introduces new charges for intermediated payment processors. This change is on the grounds that such processors don't share transaction details, which the card giants would love to get hold of as it can be used to research buying patterns and the like. Companies such as PayPal allow payments between users, so the party (perhaps a merchant) receiving the money doesn't need to be registered with the credit-card company. PayPal collects the dosh from the payer's card, and deducts a processing fee before passing the cash on to the receiving party. MasterCard would prefer the receiver to be registered directly so will apply the new fee from June to any payment that is staged in this way."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes "A smart aleck journalist for UK's Guardian newspaper has turned the tables on Google by compiling data on 39 of the company's terminated projects, summarized in a table and bar graph. The mean lifespan of the doomed products turns out to be almost exactly 4 years, which led Mr. Arthur to conclude that your data would be safe with Google Keep — until March 2017, give or take a few months. Of course, this assumes that Keep is destined to be one of those products and services that wouldn't be Kept, or rather 'didn't gain traction with users' in the familiar lingo of Google marketing."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Hi,

I've been trying to run Windows Update on my Mother's laptop today but have been met with Error 0x80070426 and upon investigation found out that Windows is no longer activated.

I have been onto http://www.microsoft.com/genuine/validate (using IE) and gotten the response: Windows validation was interrupted. Unable to determine whether Windows is genuine.

Any help is greatly appreciated. :)

Diagnostic Report (1.9.0027.0):
-----------------------------------------
Windows Validation Data-->
Validation Status: Genuine
Validation Code: 0
Cached Online Validation Code: N/A, hr = 0x80070426
Windows Product Key: *****-*****-VRCTY-3V3RH-WRMG7
Windows Product Key Hash: l2HYuM058SkcIU57PqWaCOL7rEU=
Windows Product ID: 89576-OEM-7332141-00054
Windows Product ID Type: 2
Windows License Type: OEM SLP
Windows OS version: 6.0.6002.2.00010100.2.0.006
ID: {7F5D59A6-313C-410F-92F4-B1E194DEC76D}(3)
Is Admin: Yes
TestCab: 0x0
LegitcheckControl ActiveX: Registered, 1.9.42.0
Signed By: Microsoft
Product Name: Windows Vista (TM) Business
Architecture: 0x00000000
Build lab: 6002.vistasp2_gdr.120824-0336
TTS Error:
Validation Diagnostic:
Resolution Status: N/A

Vista WgaER Data-->
ThreatID(s): N/A, hr = 0x80070002
Version: 6.0.6001.18000

Windows XP Notifications Data-->
Cached Result: N/A, hr = 0x80070002
File Exists: No
Version: N/A, hr = 0x80070002
WgaTray.exe Signed By: N/A, hr = 0x80070002
WgaLogon.dll Signed By: N/A, hr = 0x80070002

OGA Notifications Data-->
Cached Result: N/A, hr = 0x80070002
Version: N/A, hr = 0x80070002
OGAExec.exe Signed By: N/A, hr = 0x80070002
OGAAddin.dll Signed By: N/A, hr = 0x80070002

OGA Data-->
Office Status: 100 Genuine
Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007 - 100 Genuine
OGA Version: N/A, 0x80070002
Signed By: N/A, hr = 0x80070002
Office Diagnostics: 025D1FF3-364-80041010_025D1FF3-229-80041010_025D1FF3-230-1_025D1FF3-517-80040154_025D1FF3-237-80040154_025D1FF3-238-2_025D1FF3-244-80070002_025D1FF3-258-3

Browser Data-->
Proxy settings: N/A
User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Win32)
Default Browser: C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe
Download signed ActiveX controls: Prompt
Download unsigned ActiveX controls: Disabled
Run ActiveX controls and plug-ins: Allowed
Initialize and script ActiveX controls not marked as safe: Disabled
Allow scripting of Internet Explorer Webbrowser control: Disabled
Active scripting: Allowed
Script ActiveX controls marked as safe for scripting: Allowed

File Scan Data-->

Other data-->
Office Details: <GenuineResults><MachineData><UGUID>{7F5D59A6-313C-410F-92F4-B1E194DEC76D}</UGUID><Version>1.9.0027.0</Version><OS>6.0.6002.2.00010100.2.0.006</OS><Architecture>x32</Architecture><PKey>*****-*****-*****-*****-WRMG7</PKey><PID>89576-OEM-7332141-00054</PID><PIDType>2</PIDType><SID>S-1-5-21-1350306601-2444216408-4263714874</SID><SYSTEM><Manufacturer>Dell Inc.</Manufacturer><Model>MM061                           </Model></SYSTEM><BIOS><Manufacturer>Dell Inc.</Manufacturer><Version>A17</Version><SMBIOSVersion major="2" minor="4"/><Date>20070613000000.000000+000</Date></BIOS><HWID>14313507018400FA</HWID><UserLCID>0809</UserLCID><SystemLCID>0409</SystemLCID><TimeZone>GMT Standard Time(GMT+00:00)</TimeZone><iJoin>0</iJoin><SBID><stat>3</stat><msppid></msppid><name></name><model></model></SBID><OEM><OEMID>DELL  </OEMID><OEMTableID>M07    </OEMTableID></OEM><GANotification/></MachineData><Software><Office><Result>100</Result><Products><Product GUID="{90120000-0030-0000-0000-0000000FF1CE}"><LegitResult>100</LegitResult><Name>Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007</Name><Ver>12</Ver><Val>6944EF5DFF0FD86</Val><Hash>mn+cONeqmSDBEcN8iHSQyF64jMY=</Hash><Pid>89388-707-6042934-65903</Pid><PidType>14</PidType></Product></Products><Applications><App Id="15" Version="12" Result="100"/><App Id="16" Version="12" Result="100"/><App Id="18" Version="12" Result="100"/><App Id="19" Version="12" Result="100"/><App Id="1A" Version="12" Result="100"/><App Id="1B" Version="12" Result="100"/><App Id="44" Version="12" Result="100"/><App Id="A1" Version="12" Result="100"/><App Id="BA" Version="12" Result="100"/></Applications></Office></Software></GenuineResults>  

Spsys.log Content: 0x80070002

Licensing Data-->
Software Licensing service is not running.

Windows Activation Technologies-->
N/A

HWID Data-->
HWID Hash Current: OgAAAAEABQABAAIAAQABAAAAAwABAAEAJJS0NyKfWFBy8jZ2jNDqTtDZNJ8c2vL0jBQgpoRArFYqhQ==

OEM Activation 1.0 Data-->
N/A

OEM Activation 2.0 Data-->
BIOS valid for OA 2.0: yes
Windows marker version: 0x20000
OEMID and OEMTableID Consistent: yes
BIOS Information:
  ACPI Table Name    OEMID Value    OEMTableID Value
  APIC            DELL          M07    
  FACP            DELL          M07    
  HPET            DELL          M07    
  BOOT            DELL          M07    
  MCFG            DELL          M07    
  SLIC            DELL          M07    
  SSDT            PmRef        CpuPm

Faction-fighting among Bridge and Tunnelers

The IT boss for the city of Hoboken, New Jersey – one of New York's closest and most underrated neighbors – is facing 15 years in the Big House after pleading guilty to harvesting the emails of the mayor and her staff to inform their political rivals.…

Why? He didn't say – yet

Julius Genachowski, chairman of the US Federal Communications Commission, announced at a Friday-morning meeting that he will step down from his position as referee in a number of ongoing telecommunication battles, one of the hottest being internet control versus internet freedom.…

redletterdave writes "After a French civil court ruled on Jan. 24 that Twitter must identify anyone who broke France's hate speech laws, Twitter has since refused to identify the users behind a handful of hateful and anti-Semitic messages, resulting in a $50 million lawsuit. Twitter argues it only needs to comply with U.S. laws and is thus protected by the full scope of the First Amendment and its free speech privileges, but France believes its Internet users should be subject to the country's tighter laws against racist and hateful forms of expression."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

When publishing the OpenGL performance results yesterday showing Windows 8 generally leading with a performance advantage over Ubuntu Linux, there was the usual large portion of the Linux community in disbelief. For proving a point, here are now results showing the Windows 8 Intel OpenGL performance compared to Ubuntu Linux when testing the KDE and Xfce desktops.

New submitter rwise2112 writes "German engineering company Bosch said Friday that it is abandoning its solar energy business, because there is no way to make it economically viable.'We have considered the latest technological advances, cost-reduction potential and strategic alignment, and there have also been talks with potential partners,' Bosch CEO Volkmar Denner said. 'However, none of these possibilities resulted in a solution for the solar energy division that would be economically viable over the long term.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Tegra is the future for Nvidia

Tegra is Nvidia's future

Something you know, and something you ought to lock in a cupboard

Apple is now offering two-factor authentication to Apple ID users.…

Paltry traffic ruled no compensation for lost fees

Headline-scraper Meltwater has lost another court case, this time in the US. The Associated Press brought the case in a federal court, with Judge Denise Cote arguing that the service had stolen an unfair advantage over its rivals by refusing to take out a license for headlines and excerpts.…

GCC 4.8 has been officially released today as the annual major update to the GNU Compiler Collection...

girlmad writes "Intel's Pentium processor was launched 20 years ago today, a move that led to the firm becoming the dominant supplier of computer chips across the globe. This article has some original iComp benchmark scores, rating the 66MHz Pentium at a heady 565, compared with 297 for the 66MHz 486DX2, which was the fastest chip available prior to the Pentium launch."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Kickass Torrents, H33T and Fenopy are censored following a High Court order

CWmike writes "Lossless audio formats that retain the sound quality of original recordings while also offering some compression for data storage are being championed by musicians like Neil Young and Dave Grohl, who say compressed formats like the MP3s being sold on iTunes rob listeners of the artist's intent. By Young's estimation, CDs can only offer about 15% of the data that was in a master sound track, and when you compress that CD into a lossy MP3 or AAC file format, you lose even more of the depth and quality of a recording. Audiophiles, who have long remained loyal to vinyl albums, are also adopting the lossless formats, some of the most popular of which are FLAC and AIFF, and in some cases can build up terabyte-sized album collections as the formats are still about five times the size of compressed audio files. Even so, digital music sites like HDtracks claim about three hundred thousand people visit each month to purchase hi-def music. And for music purists, some of whom are convinced there's a significant difference in sound quality, listening to lossy file formats in place of lossless is like settling for a Volkswagen instead of a Ferrari."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

CWmike writes "Lossless audio formats that retain the sound quality of original recordings while also offering some compression for data storage are being championed by musicians like Neil Young and Dave Grohl, who say compressed formats like the MP3s being sold on iTunes rob listeners of the artist's intent. By Young's estimation, CDs can only offer about 15% of the data that was in a master sound track, and when you compress that CD into a lossy MP3 or AAC file format, you lose even more of the depth and quality of a recording. Audiophiles, who have long remained loyal to vinyl albums, are also adopting the lossless formats, some of the most popular of which are FLAC and AIFF, and in some cases can build up terabyte-sized album collections as the formats are still about five times the size of compressed audio files. Even so, digital music sites like HDtracks claim about three hundred thousand people visit each month to purchase hi-def music. And for music purists, some of whom are convinced there's a significant difference in sound quality, listening to lossy file formats in place of lossless is like settling for a Volkswagen instead of a Ferrari."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

CWmike writes "Lossless audio formats that retain the sound quality of original recordings while also offering some compression for data storage are being championed by musicians like Neil Young and Dave Grohl, who say compressed formats like the MP3s being sold on iTunes rob listeners of the artist's intent. By Young's estimation, CDs can only offer about 15% of the data that was in a master sound track, and when you compress that CD into a lossy MP3 or AAC file format, you lose even more of the depth and quality of a recording. Audiophiles, who have long remained loyal to vinyl albums, are also adopting the lossless formats, some of the most popular of which are FLAC and AIFF, and in some cases can build up terabyte-sized album collections as the formats are still about five times the size of compressed audio files. Even so, digital music sites like HDtracks claim about three hundred thousand people visit each month to purchase hi-def music. And for music purists, some of whom are convinced there's a significant difference in sound quality, listening to lossy file formats in place of lossless is like settling for a Volkswagen instead of a Ferrari."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

CWmike writes "Lossless audio formats that retain the sound quality of original recordings while also offering some compression for data storage are being championed by musicians like Neil Young and Dave Grohl, who say compressed formats like the MP3s being sold on iTunes rob listeners of the artist's intent. By Young's estimation, CDs can only offer about 15% of the data that was in a master sound track, and when you compress that CD into a lossy MP3 or AAC file format, you lose even more of the depth and quality of a recording. Audiophiles, who have long remained loyal to vinyl albums, are also adopting the lossless formats, some of the most popular of which are FLAC and AIFF, and in some cases can build up terabyte-sized album collections as the formats are still about five times the size of compressed audio files. Even so, digital music sites like HDtracks claim about three hundred thousand people visit each month to purchase hi-def music. And for music purists, some of whom are convinced there's a significant difference in sound quality, listening to lossy file formats in place of lossless is like settling for a Volkswagen instead of a Ferrari."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

CWmike writes "Lossless audio formats that retain the sound quality of original recordings while also offering some compression for data storage are being championed by musicians like Neil Young and Dave Grohl, who say compressed formats like the MP3s being sold on iTunes rob listeners of the artist's intent. By Young's estimation, CDs can only offer about 15% of the data that was in a master sound track, and when you compress that CD into a lossy MP3 or AAC file format, you lose even more of the depth and quality of a recording. Audiophiles, who have long remained loyal to vinyl albums, are also adopting the lossless formats, some of the most popular of which are FLAC and AIFF, and in some cases can build up terabyte-sized album collections as the formats are still about five times the size of compressed audio files. Even so, digital music sites like HDtracks claim about three hundred thousand people visit each month to purchase hi-def music. And for music purists, some of whom are convinced there's a significant difference in sound quality, listening to lossy file formats in place of lossless is like settling for a Volkswagen instead of a Ferrari."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.