SSD Makers Bait-and-Switching Cheaper Components; Google Threatens to Oust Indie Musicians from YouTube

Teaching Creationism as Science in Public Schools Banned in UK | Amazon Unveils 'Fire Phone' To view a web version of this message, click here Send this message to a friend SSD Makers Bait-and-Switching Cheaper Components Hacker Puts Code Spaces Hosting Out of Business Google Threatens to Oust Indie Musicians from YouTube Amazon Unveils 'Fire Phone' Teaching Creationism as Science in Public Schools Banned in UK Hot Comment: "As someone with Asperger's Syndrome this would be a godsend..." From the Vault: Yet Another 'People Plug In Strange USB Sticks' Story Watch It: Homemade Lego-Based Rubik's Cube Solver Poll Booth: I typically start my workday ... Sponsored Resource: Build a Smarter Networking Strategy SSD Makers Bait-and-Switching Cheaper Components A disturbing trend is taking place among SSD manufacturers. First Kingston and now PNY have been caught launching SSDs with one hardware specification, and then quietly changing the hardware configuration after good reviews were published. Sound Off>> Hacker Puts Code Spaces Hosting Out of Business Code hosting service Code Spaces was hit by a well-orchestrated DDOS attack, which the company has seen before. But this time, the attacker managed to delete all the service's hosted customer data and most of the backups, giving Code Spaces no choice but to shut down its business. Sound Off>> Google Threatens to Oust Indie Musicians from YouTube In a statement to the Financial Times and reported by the BBC, Google has confirmed that it will remove the music videos of independent artists unless they sign up for its upcoming subscription music service. Many independent musicians and labels have refused to do so because of the "highly unfavorable terms". Sound Off>> Amazon Unveils 'Fire Phone' Amazon's newly launched Fire Phone runs a modified version of Android, and it will launch exclusively for AT&T's network. The screen is a 4.7" IPS LCD, with an emphasis on brightness. It runs on a quad-core 2.2GHz processor with 2GB of RAM, and an Adreno 330 GPU. Sound Off>> Teaching Creationism as Science in Public Schools Banned in UK The UK government has banned the teaching of creationism as a valid scientific theory in all existing and future public schools, stating that "The requirement for every academy and free school to provide a broad and balanced curriculum in any case prevents the teaching of creationism as evidence based theory in any academy or free school." Sound Off>> Godsend "As someone with Asperger's Syndrome this would be a godsend for me. There are many times where my adrenaline level is far above what is needed for the situation. It is extremely frustrating when most of my body is in full fight/flight response and there is a small voice in the back of my head saying "chill out dude, it's not that important". The problem is that the adrenal response usually overrides the cognitive response and bad things happen. I just hope it does not impact the good things about autism such as the heightened ability to find and keep track of details." --by jklovanc Read More>>    Yet Another 'People Plug In Strange USB Sticks' Story Three years ago, Bruce Schneier blogged about how he's tired of stories like this: "Computer disks and USB sticks were dropped in parking lots of government buildings and private contractors, and 60% of the people who picked them up plugged the devices into office computers." He noted, "People get USB sticks all the time. The problem isn't that people are idiots... The problem is that the OS trusts random USB sticks." Read More>> Homemade Lego-Based Rubik's Cube Solver There may be faster and slicker Rubik's Cube solvers, but this one that Timothy Lord spotted at Maker Faire Bay Area 2014 is a lot more elegant. And it was built by a 12-year-old. See it in action.   Watch the Video>>   I typically start my workday ... There is no typical. Before 6 a.m. Between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. Between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. Between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. Between 5 p.m. and midnight Between midnight and 5 a.m. What is a "workday"? Cast Your Vote>>   Build a Smarter Networking Strategy Rather than just email and files, businesses today send vast amounts of data, virtual systems, and real-time traffic such as voice and video. This report analyzes how top performing businesses improve network and application performance and also looks at how one organization built their own smarter global network. Learn More>>  Follow Slashdot on Twitter and Facebook. To unsubscribe, click here or send an email to: unsubscribe-213087@elabs10.com To ensure delivery of this newsletter to your inbox and to enable images, please add slashdot@newsletters.slashdot.org to your e-mail address book or safe senders list. Slashdot | 594 Howard Street, Suite 300 | San Francisco, CA 94105 To view our Privacy Policy click here.