Geek Squad Porn Theft Follow Up

Remember that article awhile back where Geek Squad employees were caught copying porn from customers hard drives? Well, there was fall out from the incident and this supervisor tells his version of the events that eventually led to him being fired.

A couple weeks later, the general manager of Best Buy informed me that the remote scans were phase one of the investigation. Phase two was a physical check of policies and procedures done by corporate geniuses. Phase three was called an "interview" and I will come back to that term in a moment.

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Reviewer Fired For Negative Review Pt. II

They say there is always two sides to every story, right? Well, to be fair, this is the other side of the story we posted earlier. There is even a “no comment” from Gerstmann himself at the bottom of the page.

I'd heard a few people tell that he'd already been skating on thin ice for "unprofessional reviews and review practices." I don't know much about that, though, so I can't say one way or the other. My gut tells me that he got canned for larger reasons. Maybe the Eidos debacle was part of it -- I don't know. But I sincerely doubt that Eidos made Gamespot fire him.

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[H]ardware Round-Up II

Cases & Modding

Cooler Master Cosmos 1000 @ Overclockers Club

Tuniq Tower 120 LFB Heatpipe HSF @ FrostyTech

ETC.

UniBlue SpeedUpMyPC Optimization Software @ Tweaknews

Video

Leadtek WinFast PX8600 GTS @ Think Computers

TiVo Wins Patent Validation

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ruled against EchoStar Communications, a company that recently challenged the validity of TiVo's time-warp patent. The company has to fork over $90 million to TiVo. Ouch.

EchoStar was disappointed in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office decision but said the agency's conclusion won't affect its pending appeal of a court ruling in TiVo's favor. The court decision requires it to pay TiVo $89.6 million in damages for patent infringement and to stop distributing DVRs or to modify features of its products.

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Upside Xbox 360 Makes You Fat & Lazy

Lack of exercise, poor diets and an upside down Xbox 360 kills children. Well, according to this public service announcement from the HSC Health Care System that is. While it may be true that sitting around playing video games all day isn’t the best way to stay trim, I don’t think any company wants to see their console featured in an ad campaign like this:

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Gaming News

Harvey Smith Leaves Midway @ Kotaku

New Guitar Hero 2 Song Pack Hits Xbox Live @ Shacknews

PS3 Outsells Wii In Japan For First Time @ Reuters

Xbox 360 Gets DivX @ Gamerscoreblog

Linux Developer On Trial For Murdering His Wife

A Linux developer is on trial for murder after his wife went missing last year. This ends up being tech news because the guy is responsible for developing the default file system on Suse Linux/openSUSE, Slackware, Xandros, Linspir and others.

Reiser married a Russian woman who advertised in a mail-order bride catalogue. The woman, Nina Reiser, had two children with the developer, obtained citizenship, and filed for divorce. During the couple's separation, she obtained restraining orders and complained that Hans Reiser had shoved her. Nina Reiser also complained of her son, who was 4 or 5 at the time, being exposed to violent video games and movies.

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Arrests Made In Botnet Crackdown

A teenager, believed to be the ringleader international cyber-crime group, was arrested and questioned by authorities yesterday. According to the report, he could face charges which carry a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

The FBI estimates that 1.3 million computers were under the control of "Akill" and more than US$25m (£12.1m) was illegally embezzled. The 18-year-old was detained in New Zealand's North Island city of Hamilton.

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[H]ardware Round-Up

Cases & Modding

Antec P190 + 1200 Super Mid Tower Case @ Modders Inc.

Cooling

Glacial Tech Igloo 571 HSF @ TechwareLabs

Thermalright HR-09 Mosfet Cooler @ OCIA

Video

EVGA e-GeForce 8800 GT KO @ PC Perspective

XFX GeForce 8800GT 512MB Alpha Dog @ Legit Reviews

Spammers Giving Up? Google Thinks So

If only this were true, imagine…a world without spam. It may not be world peace but it would be damn close.

Google won't disclose numbers, but the company says that spam attempts, as a percentage of e-mail that's transmitted through its Gmail system, have waned over the last year. That could indicate that some spammers have gotten discouraged and have stopped trying to get through Google’s spam filters.

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Prosecutors Raid Samsung Securities Office

While the details are kind of vague at this point, Forbes is reporting that prosecutors have Raided Samsung’s Securities Offices in connection with an investigation into bribery allegations.

State prosecutors raided the offices of a Samsung Group financial company Friday, a company spokesman and media report said, amid a probe into allegations the conglomerate created a slush fund to bribe influential figures.

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Reviewer Fired For Negative Review

Fired for a negative review? Fired for giving the thumbs down to something that, in your opinion, deserves it? Wow. Good thing that doesn’t apply here, you know how many times I’d have been fired? A lot. Thanks to everyone that sent this one in.

According to the reports, the layoff came after Kane & Lynch publisher Eidos took issue with the review and threatened to pull its considerable ad contract. GameSpot's front page is currently almost entirely re-skinned with Kane & Lynch imagery.

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