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The U.S. Air Force is modifying the fire control software on its AC-130H gunships so the 105mm howitzer and 40mm autocannon can track and shoot at different targets at the same time. Currently, the two weapons can both be aimed at only one target at a time. The AC-130s are also being tested using missiles, like Hellfire. U.S. Air Force operates 25 of these gunships (eight AC-130H "Spectre", and 17 AC-130U "Spooky"). The AC-130U has an additional 25mm autocannon, and always had the capability to track more than one target at a time. Because of their vulnerability to ground fire,...

Blue Coat Systems (BCSI) this morning said it will cut about 10% of its staff under a new restructuring plan. The company currently has a little under 1,500 employees. The company also said it will acquire S7 Software Solutions, a software R&D firm based in Bangalore, India, for about $5.25 million in cash. Blue Coat said it will shift some engineering positions from Sunnyvale (which is where the company is based) and Austin, Texas to Bangalore and other locations. It is closing offices in Riga, Latvia; South Plainfield, New Jersey; and Zoetermeer, the Netherland.

Cisco boffins infiltrate a botnet to find out about online crime By posing as a rogue programmer, Cisco researchers gained a unique insight into the world of botnets and their owners Poor education, a criminal record and a dislike of authority can all turn programmers bad. That's the finding of Cisco researchers who posed as botmasters to enter the world of online crime. "I wanna do what I wanna do, whenever I want," one botmaster told the researchers. By posing online as a rogue programmer, the researchers got him to reveal how he spams thousands of instant messenger users with...

What is it? Where is it? What's it do? ZoneAlarm Firewall

But Beyonce had one of the best hoaxes of all time Rumours of the death of rapper Kanye West in a car crash became fodder for fake anti-malware scams on Tuesday. Users searching for more info on the fictitious fatality (http://www.sophos.com/blogs/gc/g/2009/10/21/kanye-west-died-car-crash-hackers-exploit-rumour/) are liable to get redirected to sites distributing scareware, security researchers warn. The rumour itself reportedly originated on notorious image board 4chan, the seeding ground for the Anonymous campaign against Scientology. Bogus reports, claiming West met his maker in a crash involving two luxury cars in Los Angeles, subsequently appeared in email as well as appearing on social network...

OCEANSIDE, N.Y. (CBS) ― TD Bank's computer system has been on the fritz for days, causing chaos with balance statements. Customers are furious. On Thursday night, TD Bank was scrambling to fix a computer glitch that has millions of customers angry and confused about their account balances. The bank is now promising to reimburse those affected by the frustrating malfunction. "Very frustrating, very aggravating and scary," said Norma Hernandez, whose account registered zero balance. Online computer glitches with direct deposit created a near run on the bank.

You paid for your antivirus software? Why? Good free options have been available for years, mainly from no-name companies. Nervous consumers figure they’re better off buying major brands, like Norton security software from Symantec Corp. Well, here’s a major brand for you: Microsoft Corp.

A judge Tuesday heard arguments in a dispute over software sales that could potentially have repercussions on the secondhand sale of virtually any copyright material. The suit was filed by Timothy Vernor, a seller on eBay, after Autodesk, citing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, asked eBay to remove some of its software products that Vernor had listed for sale there, and later to ban him from the site. Vernor had not illegally copied the software but was selling legitimate CDs of the products secondhand. For that reason, he argued, he was not infringing Autodesk's copyright. Autodesk countered that because it...

Locating unidentified homosexual men on Facebook? There's an app for that. It was created by two students at MIT, who discovered that gay men tend to have more male Facebook friends of their own orientation. The students, Carter Jernigan and Behram Mistree, ran the program on 10 men who were gay, but didn't reveal that information on their profiles. The software predicted that all ten were gay. The software apparent does not work for bisexual people or lesbians. No word on when it will be available for the iPhone.

Posted in ubiwar Tagged intelligence, terrorism SNIPPET: "Friends of this blog and others, Palantir Technologies, are profiled in a new article by Siobhan Gorman in the Wall Street Journal, How Team of Geeks Cracked Spy Trade: From a Silicon Valley office strewn with bean-bag chairs, a group of twenty-something software engineers is building an unlikely following of terrorist hunters at US spy agencies."

Question: Is there a cheap software program ... that will take sound from a downloaded file, video, or audio, and transcript it into text, and do a good job? I'm using Windows XP SP2 and Word 97.

HELP! I'm trying to find a good but not expensive application for editing video. What I mostly want to do is just cut out the commercials from recorded shows.Any help would be greatly appreciated. I've tried several apps and haven't had much luck. Thank You

Microsoft late Tuesday warned of "massive disruptions" to sales of Office, as well as to partners such as Best Buy, Dell, and Hewlett-Packard, if the injunction that prevents it from selling Word 2003 and Word 2007 in the U.S. after Oct. 10 is not set aside. In an emergency motion filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals, Microsoft asked that the injunction imposed last week by U.S. District Court Judge Leonard Davis be stayed, or temporarily put on hold, while its appeal is heard.Artwork: Chip TaylorMicrosoft's move was expected, as it had previously said it would appeal the verdict and...

Firms embracing Software as a Service (SaaS) are not protected from government and civil search and seizure actions and may not be informed if their SaaS data is seized from their provider, according to a researcher studying the issue. "In cloud computing, you will not have the ability to fight seizure before it happens," said Alex Stamos, co-founder and partner of security consultancy iSEC Partners Inc.. "You may not even know. There are no legal requirements for [SaaS providers] to notify you, and in fact, they may be gagged from doing so." Black Hat USA 2009 Get the latest news...

Several open-source software companies and many other allies have banded together in a consortium called Open Source for America to try to persuade the U.S. government to use more of the collaboratively developed software, to participate in its development, and help its practitioners work with the government better. The group includes more than 70 companies, academic institutions, organizations, and individuals. Among them are Linux sellers Red Hat, Novell, and Canonical; software sellers Sun Microsystems, its would-be acquirer Oracle, Mozilla, SugarCRM, Alfresco Software, Pentaho, Revolution Computing, Zmanda, EnterpriseDB, and Yahoo's Zimbra; and open-source allies including Advanced Micro Devices and Google. The...

I have a .VOB file, from a DVD, from which I would like to extract 10 minutes. I am using Avidemux, but find the documentation to be virtually nonexistent. I have a really simple objective: extract a continuous 10 minutes from this original .VOB file. IF this were an audio file, and IF I were using Audacity, the process is simple: I would highlight the section of audio. Then I would - "trim" the audio outside the shaded area - save the result as a new file Or, I could - copy the highlighted section - open a new file...

I'm writing a desktop application that I'd like to deploy onto Windows, Macintosh, and Linux. I'm trying to pick the language that will give me the most conveniences, without setting timebombs that will go off down the road. Here's what I think I know so far: C++ Pros: 1) resulting code runs fastest, provided I am not a bonehead 2) most flexibility in memory management 3) Maximum difficulty in reverse engineering my object code, though there is nothing revolutionary or complex in what I plan to write. 4) Tools are rock-solid. C++ Cons: 1) memory management is the biggest hassle,...

15 Must-Have Web Apps for Students June 28, 2009 in Tips and Tools Welcome! If this is your first time here, you may want to subscribe to get updates in your RSS feed reader. Thanks for visiting! This is a guest post from Karen Schweitzer. For more from Karen, check out her blog about Online College Courses, or follow her on Twitter. College students are increasingly reliant on computers – and, for many of us, that means spending tons of money software that we’d rather not use anyway. The reality, though, is that there are a ton of great, free...

I have been working as an independent professional rewriter and editor for many years and have recently began upgrading my resources and skills to handle science and medical technical papers, etc. I have heard some good things about Stylewriter, but I have also heard it takes a long time to get used to and the settings are difficult to manage. I have also seen online advertisements for a product called White Smoke, that seems much easier to use, but I have no idea of how capable it actually is. I know Free Republic has a great number of writers and...

Note: The following text is a quote: THE BRIEFING ROOM THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secrectary _______________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release April 13, 2009 April 13, 2009 MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF STATE THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY THE SECRETARY OF COMMERCE SUBJECT: Promoting Democracy and Human Rights in Cuba The promotion of democracy and human rights in Cuba is in the national interest of the United States and is a key component of this Nation's foreign policy in the Americas. Measures that decrease dependency of the Cuban people on the Castro regime and that promote contacts between Cuban-Americans...

As world leaders in London put the finishing touches to their G20 communiqué, Michael Osinski was up to his thighs in water on the other side of the Atlantic, retrieving oyster cages at low tide off a misty Long Island. Nowadays, he supplies oysters to some of the best restaurants in Manhattan. But he was following the efforts to reach agreement on tackling the global economic crisis with a deep personal interest. For in his previous incarnation, Mr Osinski played a crucial, if inadvertent, role in stirring up the financial whirlwind that has battered the world. As the top computer...

People like to publish top-10 lists of all sorts. And "reasons to switch to Linux" is no exception. Many of those have been published, and the latest entry is here. However, I think the author completely forgot a very important point. Also, some of the points he makes should be examined a bit more closely and critically. The comments on the original article reflect some valid and some unfounded criticism. Let me just run through those points (italics are quotes from the original 10-point list, my comments are directly below each point) and provide my own take on those: Free: ...

There is no "company" behind this project - it is managed, maintained, developed and supported by a volunteer group and by the users themselves.****************************EXCERPTS AND NOTES**********************You are browsing software for Ubuntu Intrepid (64 bits), you can select other version . Browsing software for Desktop , the following types are available.

Hi everyone, I tried installing a Java applet onto a website today, but the applet seems to be non-functional - a white box with an X in the upper left corner appears. I check, and have a recent version of Sun Microsystems Java installed and running on my PC. Is there some critical piece of enabling code that I'm forgetting? Thanks, TQC

I need some expert technical advice, fellow Freepers, and you have never failed me before. So I will appreciate any insights you can provide. I'm embarking on a project that will require me to make some short but professional looking videos -- incorporating original digital video footage, music, tasteful text, and nice but simple visual effects including soft fades from one clip to another. I am looking for a video editing tool that will enable me to do that. I want it to cost nothing, and give me the capability to make Superbowl ad-quality videos of 2-10 minutes in duration....

Reporter Shahn Mufti was able to purchase a US military laptop that contained restricted U.S. military information, as well as software for military platforms, the identities of numerous military personnel and information about weaknesses and flaws in American military vehicles being employed in the war in Afghanistan.

Nato officials have told the BBC their computers are under constant attack from organisations and individuals bent on trying to hack into their secrets. The attacks keep coming despite the establishment of a co-ordinated cyber defence policy with a quick-reaction cyber team on permanent standby. The cyber defence policy was set up after a wave of cyber attacks on Nato member Estonia in 2007, and more recent attacks on Georgia - so what are they defending against and how do they do it? Tower of Babel Nato's operational headquarters in Mons is a low, drab three-storey building - part of...

My husband wants to know how do you go about publishing a book on-line, where people pay a fee to download the book. I'm completely lost here, so once again I come to my trusted Freepers for advice. You have never let me down before!

SHANGHAI — A court in southern China convicted 11 people on Wednesday of violating national copyright laws and participating in a sophisticated counterfeiting ring that for years manufactured and distributed pirated Microsoft software throughout the world. The men were sentenced by a court in the city of Shenzhen to terms of 18 months to six and a half years in prison, according to court papers released late Wednesday. Microsoft applauded the sentence in a statement released late Wednesday Beijing time, saying they were the stiffest sentences ever handed down in this type of Chinese copyright infringement case. Microsoft has called...

I had a document I had written pages and pages of material on. I plugged in a disk to save it, and made the horrible mistake of sending the OLD version over and replacing the NEW version. I am DESPERATE to get this work back. Does anyone know how to recover an old saved version? I am reasonably certain system restore will not work, that's not what it was designed to do. I have not saved over it in any other way, and I recall some tech geeks telling me it was possible to access old saved versions of a...

License Plates for the Internet - The Blueprints for Obama's Assault on the Internet The report's recommendations emphasize taking away cybersecurity from DHS in order to create a special department to oversee cybersecurity. It recommends ending the division between civilian and national security systems. And calls for establishing "international norms" when it comes to the internet. And it focuses a good deal on identity verification, not just for Federal employees, but for ordinary Americans as well. The report urges a move away from passwords, and toward physical identity verification, via a device that would verify an individual's identity. And calls...

If you don't trust the news media, what options do you have? You can fume about bias or ignore some sources and turn to those whose slant you like. But what if you had a device that objectively flagged questionable elements in online news articles, poking and parsing words and phrases, and letting you contribute your own critiques? A company in Seattle called SpinSpotter has produced software -- a free download -- that tries to do just that. As its creators acknowledge, it still has to overcome some daunting technical and human barriers to live up to its lofty aims....

BATFE Adds Theft To Its Crimes Gun Owners of America E-Mail Alert 8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102, Springfield, VA 22151 Phone: 703-321-8585 / FAX: 703-321-8408 http://www.gunowners.org Friday, October 17, 2008 Coloseum Software Corporation has developed software that will help dealers record all of the information that is unconstitutionally required by the federal government -- and to keep that information in a way that insulates them from bogus prosecutions at the hands of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (aka The Gang). The document that is most often involved in "gotcha" injustices is the Form 4473 which all customers...

I have more than one dvd creating program on my computer. I purchased Nero a couple of years back to create slideshows with our photography, but it constantly seizes up and dies, and I have to start over. Does anyone have a suggestion for a freeware program that's easy to use and would allow me to add music? Does anyone know anything about Slideshow GUI? I downloaded a trial version of Pro Show Gold, and it's VERY easy to use - it's just that our main business is construction related, and well, you know....

Has anyone used or is anyone out Free Republica using Open Office Suite? What has your experience been like? When did it switch from free to member fee based?

BLINK and you would have missed it. The expression of disgust on former US president Bill Clinton's face during his speech to the Democratic National Convention as he says "Obama" lasts for just a fraction of a second. But to Paul Ekman it was glaringly obvious. "Given that he probably feels jilted that his wife Hillary didn't get the nomination, I would have to say that the entire speech was actually given very gracefully," says Ekman, who has studied people's facial expressions and how they relate to what they are thinking for over 40 years. It seems that Clinton's micro-expression...

Welcome to SpinSpotter All the news that's fit to de-spin. Spin doesn't belong in the news. It's like putting motor oil in the mojito. We have tremendous respect for journalists, but who would argue that the media circus isn't out of control? A full 66% of Americans think the press is one-sided. Now there's a website and software tool that exposes news spin and bias, misuse of sources, and suspect factual support. At SpinSpotter, you'll experience the news in a profound new way. Yes, the truth is back in town.

Is there any software available for downloading YouTube and other online video clips to your harddrive? Names of programs and/or url's for such software appreciated.

A criminal gang is using software tools normally reserved for computer network administrators to infect thousands of PCs in corporate and government networks with programs that steal passwords and other information, a security researcher has found. The new form of attack indicates that little progress has been made in defusing the threat of botnets, networks of infected computers that criminals use to send spam, steal passwords and do other forms of damage, according to computer security investigators. Several security experts say that although attacks against network administrators are not new, the systematic use of administrative software to spread malicious software...

My computer crashed, as happens, some of my old familiar software cant go on my new computer. I need photo editing software that puts captions under the photo. Seems simple but I've tried several with no luck. You guys always help so I appeal to your experience!! As always: "Fight the good fight" Don VB

LONDON: European researchers are working on mathematical foundations of programming to create fault free software in the future. People are remarkably tolerant of software that goes wrong, but when it comes to faulty cars or TV sets, they would insist that they be set right without much ado, the researchers said. "The software industry is still very immature compared to other branches of engineering," says Bengt Nordström, computer scientist at Chalmers University, Göteborg. "We want to see programming as an engineering discipline but it's not there yet. It's not based on good theory and we don't have good design methods...

Excerpt - Redmond, WA (AHN) - Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) is pulling the XP operating system from its product line come Monday. The move comes 18 months after the company launched the Vista operating system. Although Microsoft will not sell the XP program any longer, they will still generate revenue from providing support for the software as it will no longer be free. Microsoft will offer extended support packages for XP until at least 2014. ~ snip ~

"For the opening piece in our series on Gates leaving daily life at Microsoft, one goal was to give a clear picture of the Microsoft co-founder's role inside the company, as a gauge of the impact his departure will have," Todd Bishop writes for The Seattle Post-Intelligencer's Microsoft Blog. "As part of that, I went back through the internal e-mails turned over in the antitrust suits against the company, looking for new insights into his personality." Bishop found a doozy, which also happens to illustrate perfectly why Mac users have such disdain for the "Windows experience." If you've ever...

Researchers said Windows XP Service Pack 3 delivers a measurable performance boost when compared to Windows XP with Service Pack 2.Windows XP runs some applications up to 10% faster with the latest service pack installed, a research firm has found. "We were pleasantly surprised to discover that Windows XP Service Pack 3 (v.3244) delivers a measurable performance boost to this aging desktop OS," wrote staff at exo.performance.network, in a blog post. The researchers found that a PC loaded with Microsoft's XP SP3 completed the OfficeBench test suite in less than 50 seconds. A similarly configured system running Windows XP with...

SACRAMENTO – California's first inspection of slot machines at Indian casinos has found widespread software lapses that could be short-changing tribes, the state and millions of gamblers, the state's gambling commission warns in a new report. State inspectors approved just 60 percent of the slots that were examined last year at seven casinos, which included some of the most successful and sophisticated in the nation. But tribal representatives and commission staff members disagreed sharply about the severity of the software shortcomings flagged in nearly 500 machines examined at the casinos, including those operated by the Pala, Pauma and Viejas tribes...

I have a Tablet PC. A Toshiba R15-S829. I bought it new, and it, and all software on it, is legal. Tablet PC's come with a recovery CD, not an unlocked or unbranded version of the O/S. I would like to have an unbranded version of the WinXP/Tablet PC O/S. Historically, Microsoft only sold these to system builders. Now they are selling them to online retailers, also. I have found it for sale on four different retail websites, and marketed as either..."WIN XP PRO TABLET SP2B" or "Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC 2005 W/SP2B". In the Product info sections, it...

THE NEW YORK TIMES March 28, 2008 Santiago Journal Before ’73 Coup, Chile Tried to Find the Right Software for Socialism By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO SANTIAGO, Chile — When military forces loyal to Gen. Augusto Pinochet staged a coup here in September 1973, they made a surprising discovery. Salvador Allende’s Socialist government had quietly embarked on a novel experiment to manage Chile’s economy using a clunky mainframe computer and a network of telex machines. The project, called Cybersyn, was the brainchild of A. Stafford Beer, a visionary Briton who employed his “cybernetic” concepts to help Mr. Allende find an alternative to...

New Genomics Software Infers Ancestry With High Accuracy ScienceDaily (Mar. 27, 2008) — Some people may know where their ancestors lived 10 or 20 generations ago, but the rest of us can learn our distant biological heritage only from our DNA. New genomics analysis software developed by computer scientists at Stanford appears far more adept than prior methods at unraveling the ancestry of individuals. A new paper describes the HAPAA system, which takes its name from "hapa," the Hawaiian word for someone of mixed ancestry. Going back 20 generations the software can identify what continent or broad global region an...

US high-tech companies are being forced to outsource more jobs overseas because of outdated restrictions on immigration, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates told Congress Wednesday. Gates, echoing a longstanding complaint from the technology sector, told a congressional panel that the US immigration system "makes attracting and retaining high-skilled immigrants exceptionally challenging for US firms." "Congress's failure to pass high-skilled immigration reform has exacerbated an already grave situation," Gates said in remarks prepared for delivery to a hearing of the House of Representatives Science and Technology Committee. "As a result, many US firms, including Microsoft, have been forced to locate staff in...

March/April 2008 A Technology Surges In Iraq, soldiers conducting frontline street patrols finally get software tools that let them share findings and plan missions. By David Talbot First Lieutenant Brian Slaughter wanted his comrades to learn from the insurgent attack that could have killed him on May 21, 2004. Before dawn, the 30-year-old had been leading 12 men in three armored Humvees along a canal in Baghdad's al-Dora district when a massive blast from an improvised explosive device (IED) lifted his vehicle off the ground. Concealed attackers followed with a volley of rocket-propelled grenades and machine-gun fire. But the IED...