Dev.SN

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

The Register has a run-down of some notable -- and expensive -- errors made by Steve Ballmer while he was the CEO of Microsoft.

But this [the acquisition of Nokia] wasn't the first time one of Ballmer's plans cost Microsoft some serious coin. In fact, on several occasions during his tenure he bet big on the wrong idea when he probably should have known better, ultimately costing the company millions or even billions in the process.

While it's true that Ballmer's 14 years in the corner office left Microsoft a more profitable and more valuable company than when he first became chief exec, his legacy also includes a series of bad gambles that didn't pay off. Here we remember a few of the biggest ones – and time will tell whether Nadella can avoid similar mistakes.

---

Original Submission

"The Mighty Buzzard" writes:

blah blah blah

crutchy is awesome

fruit noodley noot[sic]

---

Original Submission

While public consultation about bill C-51 is still ongoing in Canada, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) is requesting new power to enable the interception and decryption of electronic conversations.

Suspected child predators, drug traffickers and extremists allegedly planning attacks or to join ISIS are escaping the eyes of the law because of increasingly impenetrable encryption and other digital roadblocks, according to top secret RCMP files reviewed by a CBC News/Toronto Star investigation.

The article also refers to an episode where the RCMP spent a considerable amount of money to install equipment to tap into a person of interest's conversations, only to notice that the communications could not be decrypted.

In late 2014, the Mounties spent two months and $250,000 to engineer a custom tool to intercept the target's communications only to discover all of it was encrypted and unreadable.

Anonymous Coward writes:

Der Spiegel reports:

[Approximate Translation:] An Airbus A321 Lufthansa with 109 passengers on the flight from Bilbao to Munich nearly crashed when the misguided on-board computer took control.
 
The cause of the incident on November 5 last year was sensors that iced up during the initial climb after takeoff and fed false data to the aircraft's guidance system. Then, the computer began a steep descent; the aircraft's altitude plunged 1000 meters per minute. For several minutes the pilot could not stop the crash with his own control commands. Only by turning off the on-board computer did the crew manage to get the aircraft back under control and land safely in Munich.

This kind of thing would give me nightmares as an aircraft engineer. With the era of self-driving cars dawning, is this a glimpse of things to come on the ground as sensors come into contact with real-world wear & tear, weather, and randomness?

---

Original Submission

Bits hit an all time high! [Continued...]

martyb writes:

The scoop - on first opening the submit stories page, there was NO 'Reviews' topic to select.

---

Original Submission