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Domain: blaireau.net
Stories and comments across the archive that link to blaireau.net.
Stories · 7
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Transit Method Reveals Many Extrasolar Planets
eldavojohn writes "You might recall not too long ago the first photo of an extra solar planet or, more recently, the mapping & speculation on these planets that lie outside our own solar system. Long since those first few spotted in the 90s, we're now starting to find them in droves due to the popularity of a method that relies on the planet passing directly between the viewer on earth and the star that it orbits. Be sure to check out Space.com's list of the most interesting extra-solar planets. Will we ever find Earth 2.0 candidates?" -
Microsoft's IIS is Twice as Likely to Host Malware?
eldavojohn writes "According to Google, Microsoft's server software is at least twice as likely to host viruses or malware. The reason why? 'Google reports that IIS is likely used to distribute malware more often than Apache because many IIS installs are on pirated Windows versions which aren't configured to automatically download patches. (Even pirated Windows versions can automatically receive security fixes, however.) Our analysis demonstrates how important it is to keep web servers patched to the latest patch level,' Google notes." -
Jeremy Allison On Why DRM Will Never Work
eldavojohn writes "At the ZDNet site, Jeremy Allison (a well-known employee of the Google corporation) goes on a hilarious rant against Digital Rights Management. He compares the access restriction technology with underwear gnomes & Star Trek while ending with: 'Believing in a DRM business model is like joining Star Fleet security, putting on your red shirt, and volunteering to beam down to the new unexplored planet with Kirk, Spock and McCoy. Someone will be coming back from that mission, it's just not likely to be the security guard. Always a true engineer, Scotty had the good sense to stay safely on board the ship.'" -
'Eolas' Browser Plug-in Patent Case Rises Again
eldavojohn writes "A legal battle that has been around since 1999 and seemingly ended in 2005 now rears its head again. In a confusing move, the USPTO 'reissued a Microsoft patent last week covering the same concepts outlined in the Eolas patent and with wording mirroring that of the Eolas patent. With both companies holding identical patents, the USPTO will now play King Solomon and decide which parent gets custody of the baby.' Both the Microsoft & Eolas patents are available online." -
EMI, YouTube Strike Music Video Deal
eldavojohn writes "Despite initial complaints of copyright infringement, EMI is now striking a deal with YouTube. Perhaps they've noticed that Warner's deal has boded well or they've finally come around to free marketing? From the article, "EMI and YouTube have agreed to work together to develop ways in which EMI-owned recordings can be incorporated into user generated content by YouTube users. News of the deal comes just 10 days after EMI agreed to be taken over by private equity group Terra Firma for £2.4bn." YouTube is slowly building a cadre of friends on the playground while Viacom continues to bully the new kid." -
Next Windows To Get Multicore Redesign
eldavojohn writes "A Microsoft executive announced that the next Windows will be fundamentally redesigned to handle the numerous cores of present and future processors. The article notes that the NT technology underneath Vista has been able to take advantage of multiple processors since 1993, and can now handle 32 or 64 cores. And since Microsoft completely rewrote the 20-year-old GDI/GDI+ model for Vista, what more can (or should) they parallelize? It will be interesting to see how Microsoft tackles the race conditions and deadlocks that come with pervasively multithreaded software and in the past complicated attempts (like that of BeOS) to utilize multiple CPUs. Do you think it's it a smart move to further complicate an operating system to take advantage of multiple cores, or should Microsoft stick to its knitting while applications take advantage of (possibly) more resources?" -
New Jersey Sues YouTube Over Crash Video
eldavojohn writes "The New Jersey Turnpike Authority (NJTA) has sued YouTube and a number of other video sites for showing footage of a car crash that happened on the turnpike and was, therefore, property of the turnpike. The NJTA requested the footage be removed under the DMCA — which YouTube complied with — unfortunately, the video was copied to several other sites. The NJTA still seems to be targeting YouTube since YouTube 'did not try to prevent the very same video from being uploaded again by users immediately after it was purportedly removed.' We'll have to watch this closely and see if, even after you take down material violating the DMCA, you are at fault to any extent for people who already copied said material."