More than 65,000 fled their homes in the past two weeks as Iraqi fighters push into the city's densely populated west.

In early January, IBM announced a roughly $1.6 billion outsourcing deal with Lloyds Banking Group. IBM would pay Lloyds for its data center assets and in return will charge the bank for ongoing management. Today, Lloyds plans to move almost 2,000 members of staff to U.S. tech giant IBM as part of the IT outsourcing deal. An anonymous Slashdot reader shares a report from The Stack: The seven-year deal hopes to save the bank close to $930 million in costs, streamline the business and make its IT services more agile. Lloyds Trade Union (LTU), which represents around 35,000 members of staff, now "derecognized" by the bank, claimed in a newsletter that once the deal is signed the jobs would be "offshored" over a four-year period. It added that most of the 1,961 positions would be cut. "1,961 staff will be transferred to IBM including permanent staff, contractors, 3rd parties and offshore suppliers. However after 4 years, only 193 of the staff transferred to IBM will still be working on the LBG contract," wrote LTU.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

You could soon play PlayStation 4 exclusives like Uncharted 4 and The Last of Us Remastered on your PC. From a report on Engadget: Sony is bringing the PS4 catalog to its streaming game service PlayStation Now, the company said today in a blog post. The announcement is light on details, but we know that every game in the service, including PS4 games, will be part of a single PS Now subscription.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

You could soon play PlayStation 4 exclusives like Uncharted 4 and The Last of Us Remastered on your PC. From a report on Engadget: Sony is bringing the PS4 catalog to its streaming game service PlayStation Now, the company said today in a blog post. The announcement is light on details, but we know that every game in the service, including PS4 games, will be part of a single PS Now subscription.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Scathing broadside against German chancellor came hours after EU urged Turkish president to halt inflammatory rhetoric.

Scathing broadside against German chancellor came hours after EU urged Turkish president to halt inflammatory rhetoric.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: A small yellow robot submarine, called Boaty McBoatface after a competition to name a new polar research ship backfired, is being sent on its first Antarctic mission. Boaty, which has arguably one of the most famous names in recent maritime history, is a new type of autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), which will be able to travel under ice, reach depths of 6,000 meters, and transmit the data it collects to researchers via a radio link. Its mission will be to investigate water flow and turbulence in the dark depths of the Orkney Passage, a 3.5km deep region of the Southern Ocean. The data it collects will help scientists understand how the ocean is responding to global warming. Boaty will travel with the DynOPO (Dynamics of the Orkney Passage Outflow) expedition on the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) research ship James Clark Ross, departing from Punta Arenas in Chile on 17 March. The craft will be sent back and forth through a cold abyssal current that forms an important part of the global circulation of ocean water. In 2019 Boaty McBoatface will be fitted with acoustic and chemical sensors and sent into the North Sea to "sniff out" signals associated with the artificial release of gas beneath the seabed. A future aim for Boaty will be to attempt the first-ever crossing of the Arctic Ocean under ice, which has the potential to deliver a significant change in scientists' ability to observe change in this vital region.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: A small yellow robot submarine, called Boaty McBoatface after a competition to name a new polar research ship backfired, is being sent on its first Antarctic mission. Boaty, which has arguably one of the most famous names in recent maritime history, is a new type of autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), which will be able to travel under ice, reach depths of 6,000 meters, and transmit the data it collects to researchers via a radio link. Its mission will be to investigate water flow and turbulence in the dark depths of the Orkney Passage, a 3.5km deep region of the Southern Ocean. The data it collects will help scientists understand how the ocean is responding to global warming. Boaty will travel with the DynOPO (Dynamics of the Orkney Passage Outflow) expedition on the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) research ship James Clark Ross, departing from Punta Arenas in Chile on 17 March. The craft will be sent back and forth through a cold abyssal current that forms an important part of the global circulation of ocean water. In 2019 Boaty McBoatface will be fitted with acoustic and chemical sensors and sent into the North Sea to "sniff out" signals associated with the artificial release of gas beneath the seabed. A future aim for Boaty will be to attempt the first-ever crossing of the Arctic Ocean under ice, which has the potential to deliver a significant change in scientists' ability to observe change in this vital region.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Easily create plaintext/html e-mail messages with attachments and inline images

Easily create plaintext/html e-mail messages with attachments and inline images