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NASA's shuttle PCs sold with sensitive data intact, insert WikiLeaks joke here
Let this be a warning for John and Jane Q. Public (always a cute couple, those two) to always wipe sensitive / secret data from your hard drives before selling a computer. Or better yet, take out the drive entirely and physically destroy it. That's what we'd expect from our government entities, but an internal investigation found that a number of PCs and components from NASA's shuttles had been sold from four different centers -- Kennedy and Johnson Space Centers, and Ames and Langley Research Centers -- that "failed sanitization verification testing," or weren't even tested at all. In Langley's case, while hard drives were being destroyed, "personnel did not properly account for or track the removed hard drives during the destruction process." Meanwhile at Kennedy, computers were found being prepped for sale that still had "Internet Protocol information [that] was prominently displayed." Helluva way to start a shuttle launch retirement, eh?
Apple's temptation to overuse iAds
Dave Johnson over at Bnet has written up an interesting post about iAds; he says that Apple's new advertising program is reason enough to ditch your iPhone. Why? Because even Apple, he hints, isn't big enough to stay away from the billions of dollars that it will probably end up bringing in with iAds. The service seems made for free apps, but Johnson argues that, with a platform-level solution for advertising, there's nothing to stop these things from showing up in paid apps either. And I've even had the thought this week that, once Apple gets a taste of advertising revenue, what's to stop it from going even further? Why not include iAds in the actual OS homescreen? Heck, why not include them in OS X? The next Leopard isn't $30 -- it's free, but you'll see an "emotional and interactive" iAd on your menu bar until you activate it. Of course, this is the slippery slope argument, which is a fallacy. Just because Apple has implemented an official advertising system doesn't mean it will one day be using advertising to supplement its OS sales. Moreover, I definitely don't agree with Johnson that it's time to get rid of your phone. However, there's certainly going to be a temptation for Apple here. Google makes $23 billion from advertising already, and even with all its money in the bank, Apple might be surprised at just how popular iAds becomes. [via DF] Update: The original headline on this post expressed an image that was not intentional. Our apologies for any misunderstandings.
British Parliament member says we need to stop playing games
Boris Johnson, a journalist and member of British Parliament, recently spoke out against video games in all shapes and forms, stating "as the strobing colours die away and the screen goes black, you listen to the wail of protest from the offspring and you know that you have just turned off their drug," later going so far as to call these kids "addicts." We wouldn't be so quick to label these kids as addicts, instead choosing to label said children as nothing other than "brats" and perhaps offering a solution in "beating some sense into their backsides." Perhaps we're horrible people or have no idea how to be proper parents, but we can honestly say, during our youth, that nothing of the sort occurred between us and our parental units.Boris attempts to further strengthen his argument by reinforcing the addict stereotype of children who cry and crave video games, one which we would have to wholeheartedly disagree with. Anything, when looked at in a certain way, can be considered addicting, including the Tylenol we take for our head aches. Of course, he could just be incredibly out of touch with today's youth. Also, who's to say that these kids don't behave this way with everything else in their life, crying at a lack of chocolate or when they are denied purchase of a certain toy whilst shopping with their parents? We cannot begin to assume what is going through this man's mind, but we know we do not agree with it. What say you, lovely Nintendo faithful, in response to his claims? Is he just a British version of our good friend Jack Thompson, choosing to attack gaming as a drug instead of violent games and their affect on youth?
