Slashdot Mirror

rbochan writes "Allegations in an article over at CNET propose that alternate browsers such as Firefox and Opera impede law enforcement and investigation efforts because they "use different structures, files and naming conventions for the data that investigators are after", which can "cause trouble for examiners.""

It doesn't come easy writes "Bruce Schneier (of Counterpane Internet Security) suspects Microsoft doesn't want the recently Trusted Computing Group published best practices document: Design, Implementation, and Usage Principles for TPM-Based Platforms to apply to Vista. The reasons are mostly speculation at the moment but Bruce implies further investigation will be forthcoming..."

notdanielp writes "A robotic Lunar Penguin explorer could be hopping around on the moon by 2009, said Raytheon on Tuesday, as it unveiled the concept lander at an aerospace conference. The unmanned lunar device, in development for two years, is 3 feet tall and weighs approximately 230 pounds. It "hops" by reigniting small propulsion engines ... President Bush last year refocused the space program on sending people to the moon, Mars and beyond. Raytheon said the Penguin could be a robotic precursor to future manned space missions and that it was being proposed to NASA."

indie1982 writes "BBC News online is reporting that Creative has been awarded the patent for the interface that many MP3 players use. The patent covers the way files are organised and navigated on a player using a using a hierarchy of menus, a system that Creative's own Nomad jukebox and Apple's iPod range use." Commentary also available at CNet. Reports trend towards an attempt to capitalize on Apple's mistake. From the BBC article: "Creative said the patent applied to its players, as well as some competing products such as the Apple's iPod and iPod mini. The patent covers how files on a music player are organised. Creative was one of the first companies to produce MP3 players but has lost out to Apple which dominates the market. The Creative announcement is the latest salvo in its self-declared war against Apple. "

Mictian writes "Apple Computer is planning to hold a major press conference next week (September 7th) in San Francisco and the rumours say that it will be the unveiling of a new iPod cellphone (NYT). The phone would incorporate the popular iTunes software, be built by Motorola and marketed by Cingular Wireless. The companies have declined to confirm or deny the report, which would fit Apple's past pattern of being secretive to maximise the splash on announcement day."

rocketjam writes "CNET reports that researchers from the University of Arizona and other universities have concluded that the Arctic will likely see ice-free summers within a century due to the increasing rate of global warming. The melting will raise ocean levels worldwide, flooding coastal areas where a substantial proportion of the world's population live. The increasing rate of ice melt is already having an impact on people and animals in the Arctic. Currently, researchers cannot foresee any natural forces that will counteract the trend."

camelcai writes "Microsoft's suit against Kai-Fu Lee and Google is based off of the thought that in some circumstances people can't avoid sharing or relying on trade secrets from their former employer when moving to a competitor. In MS's filing it says: 'Lee's conduct threatens to disclose or Lee inevitably will disclose Microsoft's trade secrets to Google and/or others for his and/or Google's financial gain in the course of working to improve Google search products that compete with Microsoft, and in the course of establishing and building Google's presence in China to compete with Microsoft's efforts in China.' According to CNET, thanks to this increasingly popular legal argument, defectors might face a lawsuit even if they did not sign agreements not to compete or not to disclose confidential information."

CNET has a good look at the financial plans for gaming giant Electronic Arts. They've spent big money preparing for the shift to next-generation systems, as well as their exclusivity contracts with major sports leagues. An interesting commentary on one of the movers and shakers in the industry. From the article: "The stakes for EA and the entire game industry will be huge in the coming months. Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo all intend to deliver new game consoles over the next year, forcing game makers to spend big to prepare their titles for the new platforms. EA spent $633 million on research and development in fiscal 2005, which ended June 30. That's 20.2 percent of its total revenue, 24.1 percent more than it spent the year before on R&D, and 57.8 percent more than it spent two years ago. In the current fiscal year, some analysts estimate the company's R&D spending could go as high as $725 million."

museumpeace writes "CNET is reporting that Sun Microsystems turned on its Grid computing utility, hosting large ERP applications for its employees to test out the server infrastructure and user acceptance of the Computing-as-metered-utility model. General availability is scheduled for October. The rates? "Sun is offering processing and storage in a pay-as-you-go arrangement of $1 per CPU per hour, delivered via an Internet connection". Sun is still retooling its Thin Client interfaces and support SW. Experts quoted in the article wonder if Sun can make any money this way." Slashdot also covered the original announcement back in February.

inditek writes "C|Net's News.com reports that Terrasoft Solutions, the vendor that sells and contributes to the development of Yellow Dog Linux has found, and continues to look for, some hardware alternatives based around the PowerPC now that Apple is moving to Intel chips. They say Apple's move makes for a good opportunity and more open space for a chip they think has a lot of life left in it." team99parody also writes "This is great news for customers like the US Navy who rely on Linux-on-PowerPC for important tasks like sonar imaging systems."

inditek writes "C|Net's News.com reports that Terrasoft Solutions, the vendor that sells and contributes to the development of Yellow Dog Linux has found, and continues to look for, some hardware alternatives based around the PowerPC now that Apple is moving to Intel chips. They say Apple's move makes for a good opportunity and more open space for a chip they think has a lot of life left in it." team99parody also writes "This is great news for customers like the US Navy who rely on Linux-on-PowerPC for important tasks like sonar imaging systems."

An anonymous reader writes "Richard Menta from MP3 Newswire recently posted an article that describes how the Net has shifted his tastes from main stream radio artists to indie acts he discovered online. Slashdot has run a number of articles dealing with the struggles of independent artists and how the net is helping them. Between the recent payola scandal and the incursion of Big Radio into podcasting the major labels are pushing hard to monopolize what they can. The good news is that Big Music is much slower adjusting to the changes brought about by technology than Little Music and the sky is looking rosier for the independent artist. In a July article, CNET also discussed how things are looking much better for the independents."

jondaw writes "Businesses want to save money and boost IT efficiency. Can open-source software do the trick? Cnet attempts to answer this open ended question and provides a number of good case studies and examples."

virgil_disgr4ce writes "The VESA standards group is designing a new display interface standard to replace both VGA and DVI. The new standard promises better bandwidth and interoperability for a ' broad application within computer monitors, TV displays, projectors, PCs and other sources of image content.'"

BSDForums writes "FreeBSD is hoping to move beyond the server and desktop market by providing expanded wireless support. FreeBSD developer Scott Long said that 'one of the primary reasons for improving wireless support is to give companies the tools to put FreeBSD into their wireless devices. The guy at FreeBSD who is adding wireless support is under contract from wireless companies to do the work.'"

theodp writes "CNET reports on this weekend's Bar Camp, an open-source alternative to O'Reilly Media's A-List Foo Camp, which CEO Tim O'Reilly explains employs a "Bozo filter" to exclude undesirable attendees.

WillCodeForRaisins writes "CNET News is reporting that Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications is planning to create "virtual reality" High-Definition 3-D TV which will allow you to smell and even touch objects in the 3-D space. This national research project is meant to be part of a larger vision under which Japan aims to promote "universal communication," a concept whereby information is shared smoothly and intelligently regardless of location or language. Imagine watching a football game on a TV that not only shows the players in three dimensions but also lets you experience the smells of the stadium and maybe even pat a goal scorer on the back. How are they planning to do this? Ummm... looks like wait and see."

pavelvp writes "A small wireless Internet service provider in Idaho and a wireless equipment start-up claim to have set a new record for transmitting data across a wireless link this week. Microserv Computer Technologies, based in Idaho Falls, and Trango Broadband Wireless, a fixed-wireless broadband equipment maker, announced that they transmitted data over unlicensed wireless spectrum 137.2 miles." This unverified record would beat the previous record holders from the DefCon WiFi Shootout covered earlier on Slashdot.

randomjohndoe writes "IBM has taken the next logical extension of booting Linux from a flash drive. Researchers were recently able to boot Knoppix from an iPod and run an x86 virtual machine in VMware, which provided an easy way to encrypt the whole operating environment. The tests were conducted on a 60GB iPod photo using Knoppix."

prostoalex writes "The slot machines of the future won't be dumb one-armed bandits anymore, CNet reports. New generation of slot machines, to be deployed in major Vegas casinos, will feature server-based gaming with games, new features and, most important, the odds being downloaded from a central server location, not determined by internal machine algorithm any more."

Slashback tonight with more on the Microsoft start page project vis-a-vis Google's similar one, a wee $40 million slap on the wrist for Amazon over shopping-cart patent infrigement, new animals for the CodeZoo, and a strong denial that WikiPedia has announced a more stringent editorial policy. Details on these stories and more, below.

What's done is done, and in a certain order. MSN.com general manager Hadi Partovi writes:

"A few days ago I read your Slashdot post about start.com.

Thank you for the promotion :-). Meanwhile, I wanted to make sure you know that the work we've been doing on the start.com project actually predates the Google personalized page. I manage a tiny incubation team that has been building start.com since November, and it was first live on the Web in February, 3 months before Google released their personalized page. Of course we are missing some capabilities that Google has, and vice versa. It's a tight competition. But I'm emailing you because our team takes a lot of pride in its innovation. You may point out at a lot of place where Microsoft is following competitors, but if you track the functionality and UI changes that the companies have made over the past 6 months, this has clearly been a place where Google has been following Microsoft's lead.

(Our main engineer on the project has written a bit more about this to respond to your post.)

Anyway, I'm not sending this to be defensive. Heck, I have a lot of work to do to bring an innovation culture to the MSN organization and in many areas we have our work cut out for us. But I guess I want my small incubation team to get credit for being the leading innovators on this one small product :-)"

Thanks for the note!

Always clean out the trashcan. dotpavan writes "The Register and Cnet have this report about Kai-Fu Lee not cleaning his recycle bin at his previous workplace and now MS has stumbled upon some interesting document, which shows that Google anticipated the MS move, and had planned top put him on a leave of absence or have him as a consultant to thwart any attempt of MS getting him back."

Amazon Settles Patent Suit For $40M theodp writes "In today's SEC filing, Amazon.com disclosed it will pay $40 million to settle an e-commerce patent infringement lawsuit that was reported earlier on Slashdot. The terms of the settlement also provide for dismissal of all claims and counterclaims and grant Amazon a nonexclusive license to Soverain's patent portfolio."

29+36 more = 65 vector drawing apps. Anonymous Coward writes "There were many useful comments made for 29 Vector Drawing Programs. After incorporating most of them, the revised column has 65 Vector Drawing Programs."

And each after its own kind. chromatic writes "As seen on the O'Reilly Radar and announced at OSCON 2005, CodeZoo now lists Python and Ruby components. CodeZoo is a human-edited directory of useful, well-maintained, and redistributable software components in various languages. (Slashdot previously covered CodeZoo's launch.)"

The chair recognizes Mr. Wales for a point of clarification. brajesh writes "There has been news on Slashdot and others about Wikipedia announcing tighter editorial control. It seems that everyone jumped the gun. Jimmy Wales, a founder of Wikipedia, has clarified his stance on the idea of freezing stable content on Wikipedia. Apparently, [Jimbo writes] 'I spoke in English, and this was translated to German. Then the German was translated back to English, and then translated again into the Slashdot story.' Also, 'There was no "announcement." We are constantly reviewing our policies and looking for ways to improve, but we have not "announced" anything. We don't even really work that way ... if you know how Wikipedia works, it's through a long process of community discussion and consensus building, not through a process of top-down announcements.' This has also been covered on Ars Technica."

Google Earth not a security risk after all. mister_tim writes "In a follow-up to yesterday's story about ANSTO's request that Google censor images of Australia's only nuclear reactor, the Australian government has now come out and said that Google Earth poses no security risk. Australia's Attorney General has come to the view, also noted by many /. readers, that the Google images have been available for several years from other sources and add nothing to the existing publicly available data. Chalk this one up as a victory for common sense."

pwnage writes "According to CNET, Microsoft's newest licensing model for the next-generation XBox will effectively lock out 3rd-party accessory manufacturers who don't enroll in Microsoft's licensing and royalty program. The new console will employ hardware security mechanisms to ensure that only products created by developers willing to fork over cash to Microsoft can connect to and work with the console. Is Microsoft shooting itself in the foot by making traditional 'approved product' licensing mandatory for 3rd-party developers? Or will companies line up by the dozens to tithe to King Bill? Finally, will Sony follow a similar strategy to eke additional revenues out of its PlayStation 3?"

swimgeek writes "Texas Instrument's Indian branch has succeeded in developing a single chip which combines the functions usually performed by multiple chips in a GSM cellphone. By doing so, cellphone costs can be dramatically reduced, thus making cellphones more affordable in developing economies. Nokia has been contracted to make the initial sets, with market launch in as soon as 9 months. More coverage here and here."

tonyquan writes "Yahoo announced today that its search engine passed Google's for overall capacity, with 20 billion documents and images indexed versus 11.3 billion for Google. Observers had previously pegged Yahoo's index at just 8 billion items. The growth is due to a recent expansion effort. More info can be found on the Yahoo! Search blog and at CNet."

museumpeace writes "When /. discussed a story about microbes that could break down water as a hydrogen source, many commentors went off on a tangent joking about runaway germs eating the oceans. Now, prof Joe Kirschvink and students at CalTech propose that indeed, the worst iceage ever, which nearly ended life on earth 2.3 billion years ago, was the result of algae evolving the ability to break down water and flooding the atmosphere with oxygen. The absence of oxygen consuming organisms at that time is said to have lead to destruction of atmospheric methane which had hitherto warmed the earth. The professor concludes: 'We haven't had a Snowball in the past 630 million years, and because the sun is warmer now it may be harder to get into the right condition. But if it ever happens, all life on Earth would likely be destroyed.'"

CNet.com is running an article looking into the fairness of the virtual currency exchange. From the article: "...according to two of the leading experts in the economies of these virtual worlds, getting a fair price in the exchange of real dollars for fantasy coins can be a crapshoot. Turns out it's hard to find reliable data about the dollar/virtual currency exchange rates in a pretend world where there's no Alan Greenspan setting interest rates and scolding everyone about irrational exuberance."

markmcb writes "It seems that teachers may have a new way to boost classroom participation using a device called a clicker. A clicker is a small handheld device that allows its user to wirelessly respond to various prompts selected by a teacher. So when a teacher wants opinions on topics that people tend to shy away from like sex, religion, and politics, the question can be asked and the students can answer anonymously via the clicker. Everything from a simple poll to a graded quiz can be conducted using the device. In the age of cell phones and wireless computers such a technology is likely to be well-received by students, but one can't help but wonder if such a device will breed less assertive graduates who lack the will to stand up and voice their opinion on sensitive issues."

markmcb writes "It seems that teachers may have a new way to boost classroom participation using a device called a clicker. A clicker is a small handheld device that allows its user to wirelessly respond to various prompts selected by a teacher. So when a teacher wants opinions on topics that people tend to shy away from like sex, religion, and politics, the question can be asked and the students can answer anonymously via the clicker. Everything from a simple poll to a graded quiz can be conducted using the device. In the age of cell phones and wireless computers such a technology is likely to be well-received by students, but one can't help but wonder if such a device will breed less assertive graduates who lack the will to stand up and voice their opinion on sensitive issues."

hggs writes "According to Stephen Toulouse at Microsoft, because of the possible virus threat that targets Monad the shell will not be included in Windows Vista. CNet is reporting that, even though Monad is not to be included on Vista, it will be included on a major server operating system for servers from Microsoft. Codenamed Longhorn server, that edition is due out by 2007." Update: 08/06 04:45 GMT by Z : As Mr. Toulouse states here, the submission here adds one and one and gets three. Monad hasn't been in Vista for about two months. The CNet article is clarifying a previous report stating that Monad could potentially be the first source of viruses in an OS which incorporated it. The interesting news about Monad in the server edition was obscured by the factually incorrect submission, which at first blush seemed to make sense. Mea Culpa.

hggs writes "According to Stephen Toulouse at Microsoft, because of the possible virus threat that targets Monad the shell will not be included in Windows Vista. CNet is reporting that, even though Monad is not to be included on Vista, it will be included on a major server operating system for servers from Microsoft. Codenamed Longhorn server, that edition is due out by 2007." Update: 08/06 04:45 GMT by Z : As Mr. Toulouse states here, the submission here adds one and one and gets three. Monad hasn't been in Vista for about two months. The CNet article is clarifying a previous report stating that Monad could potentially be the first source of viruses in an OS which incorporated it. The interesting news about Monad in the server edition was obscured by the factually incorrect submission, which at first blush seemed to make sense. Mea Culpa.

An anonymous reader writes "Cnet News.com is reporting that Google is no longer talking to Cnet reporters. In an article about the search company looking for new executive chefs, the article states: 'Google representatives have instituted a policy of not talking with CNET News.com reporters until July 2006 in response to privacy issues raised by a previous story.' Apparently, Google was angered by an article published earlier by Cnet where all sorts of personal information about Google CEO Eric Schmidt was included. The information was obtained from Google searches."

An anonymous reader writes "Cnet News.com is reporting that Google is no longer talking to Cnet reporters. In an article about the search company looking for new executive chefs, the article states: 'Google representatives have instituted a policy of not talking with CNET News.com reporters until July 2006 in response to privacy issues raised by a previous story.' Apparently, Google was angered by an article published earlier by Cnet where all sorts of personal information about Google CEO Eric Schmidt was included. The information was obtained from Google searches."

chill writes "Remember when Indymedia hard drives were seized as part of an international 'criminal terrorism investigation'? Rackspace pulled the whole hard drive and shut down a dozen websites, and the Slashdot community cried 'Say it ain't so!' It ain't so. The documents have been unsealed and CNet is reporting that Rackspace made a mistake. The government wanted only copies of logs, not entire hard drives. It seems the week of downtime wasn't really necessary. Oops!"

SimilarityEngine writes "Intel is planning to terminate production of its 910GL, 915GL and 915PL chipsets by the end of August, as part of a shift in focus towards higher-spec products, possibly with support for new FSB architectures, multi-core processors and a host of other much-requested features relating to virtualisation and security."

maotx writes "Even with the uproar caused by the recent DNS attacks, a recent study shows that roughly 10% of 2.5 million DNS servers show that they are still vulnerable to DNS cache poisoning. To put that a little bit more in perspective, of that 10% discovered, 230,000 were identified as potentially vulnerable, 60,000 are very likely to be open to this specific type of attack, and 13,000 have a cache that can definitely be poisoned." From the article: "The use of DNS cache poisoning to steal personal information from people by sending them to spoofed sites is a relatively new threat. Some security companies have called this technique pharming."

An anonymous reader writes "Cisco warned customers today that someone had broken in and stolen an untold number of passwords and usernames that its customers and employees use to login at Cisco.com, according stories at News.com and Washingtonpost.com. Cisco says the problem is unrelated to flaws in its hardware, but both stories note that Cisco's latest troubles are likely fallout from their legal battles with researcher Mike Lynn, who last week revealed major flaws in Cisco routers. There is also a growing thread at Nanog where network admins are complaining of not being able to get new passwords."

Art Vanderlay writes "Yahoo is launching the much anticipated ad network for small Web publishers today, intended to strengthen its hand against rival Google, a source familiar with the plan told CNET. The service will undoubtedly turn up the heat in Yahoo and Google's ongoing rivalry to dominate Web advertising. Syndicated search revenue for Google was $630 million, of Google's $1.38 billion in revenue in the second quarter of 2005."

PingXao writes "The BSA, RIAA and MPAA successfully lobbied the U.S. Congress to include DMCA-like provisions in the recently approved CAFTA treaty, according to CNet. Among other provisions, Chapter 15 of the treaty requires treaty signatories to allow software patents, extend Copyright protections to 70 years after the author's death, and make it illegal to produce 'circumvention devices' for protected works."

theodp writes "The NY Times looks at Microsoft's newly acquired passion for patents and wonders: What would Thomas Jefferson think if he were around to visit Microsoft's campus, seeing software patents stacked like pyramids of cannonballs? Jefferson might also be shocked by Microsoft's summer crop of patent apps, which includes Creating a note related to a phone call, Adding and removing white space from a document and Identifying when baseball is exciting. Gotta meet that quota of 60 fresh, nonobvious patentable ideas a week!"

theodp writes "The NY Times looks at Microsoft's newly acquired passion for patents and wonders: What would Thomas Jefferson think if he were around to visit Microsoft's campus, seeing software patents stacked like pyramids of cannonballs? Jefferson might also be shocked by Microsoft's summer crop of patent apps, which includes Creating a note related to a phone call, Adding and removing white space from a document and Identifying when baseball is exciting. Gotta meet that quota of 60 fresh, nonobvious patentable ideas a week!"

theodp writes "The NY Times looks at Microsoft's newly acquired passion for patents and wonders: What would Thomas Jefferson think if he were around to visit Microsoft's campus, seeing software patents stacked like pyramids of cannonballs? Jefferson might also be shocked by Microsoft's summer crop of patent apps, which includes Creating a note related to a phone call, Adding and removing white space from a document and Identifying when baseball is exciting. Gotta meet that quota of 60 fresh, nonobvious patentable ideas a week!"

theodp writes "The NY Times looks at Microsoft's newly acquired passion for patents and wonders: What would Thomas Jefferson think if he were around to visit Microsoft's campus, seeing software patents stacked like pyramids of cannonballs? Jefferson might also be shocked by Microsoft's summer crop of patent apps, which includes Creating a note related to a phone call, Adding and removing white space from a document and Identifying when baseball is exciting. Gotta meet that quota of 60 fresh, nonobvious patentable ideas a week!"

theodp writes "CNET reports on Amazon.com's latest attempt to make inroads into consumers' wallets, a patent-pending online marketplace where consumers search and pay for Web services. The patent application describes a world in which Amazon collects fees from Web Service Providers who charge $500/month for AAA Street Maps, $200/month for driving directions, and $0.01/use for weather and human genome maps." From the article: "Amazon also notes its marketplace technology seeks to address the lack of easy-to-use methods for collecting consumers' Web services payments, as well as to provide Web services companies with ways to manage and monitor their offerings. In its role as an intermediary for the marketplace, Amazon would collect a fee from companies providing the service."

DaHat writes "Following up on last weeks report that Microsoft filed suit against Google for the hiring of former Microsoft executive Kai-Fu Lee, today Superior Court Judge Steven Gonzalez granted a temporary restraining order barring Lee from violating his noncompete agreement by performing the work that he was hired for by Google."

visination.com wrote to mention a news.com article which runs down some of the basics on MS's new Operating System. From the article: "Among the key features of Vista as it currently stands are: security enhancements, a new searching mechanism, lots of new laptop features, parental controls and better home networking. There will also be visual changes, thanks to Avalon, ranging from shiny translucent windows to icons that are tiny representations of a document itself. On the business side, Microsoft said Vista will be easier for businesses to deploy on multiple PCs and will also save costs by reducing the number of times computers will have to be rebooted."

WindozeSux writes "The new Microsoft browser, Internet Explorer 7 will only be available for users of Windows XP. However, due to the fact the that a large amount of Windows users do not own Windows XP, IE7 is expected to boost the amount of Firefox users. From the article: 'Improvements in Firefox, along with IE 7 restrictions, could lead to a dramatic increase in the open-source browser's market share, according to Dotzler.'"

lord_rob the only on writes "According to news.com, IBM has begun participating in the open-source Java project Harmony and intends to contribute code to the initiative, according to a Big Blue executive. At this point, IBM's participation is limited to thoughts on design, but the company has plans to contribute code to the project in the future." From the article: "We really like to see the community get started, and they're still working out the rough edges of what they want to deliver. And we didn't want to disrupt that,"

Ant writes "CNET News.com says 'The typical office worker is interrupted every three minutes by a phone call, e-mail, instant message or other distraction. The problem is that it takes about eight uninterrupted minutes for the brains to get into a really creative state. The result, says Carl Honore, journalist and author of "In Praise of Slowness," is a situation where the digital communications that were supposed to make working lives run more smoothly are actually preventing people from getting critical tasks accomplished.'"

MacDaffy writes "Microsoft's General Manager of Platform Strategy, Michael Taylor, continues Microsoft's press blitz against Open Source in general and Linux in particular in a CNET Interview. He says of Linux: 'You can build it, design it, and it will work great. The trouble begins when you want to add things to it...(due to) the brittle nature of the platform, when you do that, other things break.'"

team99parody writes "An 'Active Denial System' weapon that 'fires a 95GHz microwave beam at rioters to cause heating and intolerable pain in less than five seconds' is scheduled for service in Iraq in 2006 according to CNET and the print version of New Scientist. It was recently tested on people playing the part of rioters at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico where they asked the subjects to remove glass and contact lenses to protect their eyes. Hopefully real rioters will get the same courtesy. Police and the Marines are working on portable versions. Sandia Labs also has a nice writeup on this system with pictures of smaller versions of the weapon."