Slashdot Mirror

It will definitely be different, and it's got some cool advantages. The announcement from IBM Research labs in Zurich talk about a data storage density 20 times that of today's best magnetic storage. Briefly, tiny V shaped heads make holes 10 nanometers wide in a plastic film - there are a number of interesting stats and potential applications described in the article, as well as some animations (1,2). The story is also reported in The NY Times and C|Net.

CNet. The ads appear to be called "RealPeople" ads. Probably because their now using a RealOS :-)

Linux and the Smile.D Virus keeps us Smiling

That pun would work better if it was actually called the Smile.D Virus.

Symantec and ZDNet appear to call it Simile.D.

http://news.com.com/2100-1040-933822.html?tag=fd_t op

You couldn't be bitching that Intel is trying to ensure no more copyright extensions for media giants like Disney: Intel's Amicus Brief for Eldred vs. Ashcroft

You couldn't possibly bitch that Intel's Andy Grove and Leslie Vadasz have been THE most vocal tech company in the fight to protect our consumer rights against Disney's Michael Eisner pushing the CBDTPA bullshit and and closing the analog hole: Hollywood vs. High-Tech and EFF Applauds Intel's Stand

Perhaps you are disturbed that Intel didn't whore itself to Microsoft in true AMD's Jerry Sanders fashion to help alleviate Microsoft's legal woes AMD chief testifies in Microsoft's favor followed by the very coincidental Microsoft support for Hammer Microsoft To Support AMD's Hammer

As far as marketing and time to market go, I can't think of a more formidable opponent than Intel. Hoping Intel will fail in this arena is futile. And hoping they will fail for ethereal political reasons is absurd. And thinking that a quake demo against a 1.6GHz P4 underclocked to 0.8GHz and memory bandwidth equally underclocked is any indication of "suck ass" performance is pathetic.

You know when you have to tie both hands of your opponent behind their back to give him a fair fight, you've got some serious problems of your own.

Here's the link on for the story on ZDNet. Good to see some mainstream outlets exposing this story.

One Man's Terrorist Is Another Man's Freedom Fighter. I find a few night vision scopes pale to the importance of continuing to seek effective Internet privacy.

Mine that FBI !!

In other news, Microsoft is in trouble over X-Box adverts

You mean like the Direct X release parties when Alex St. John was still working there? Or the "DOS is dead" party? Or the "Midnight Madness" IE release party for 3.0? Or this party for IE5?

And you probably never heard of them because you know nothing about Microsoft, you just know "Oh, it's cool to hate Microsoft and always put 'M$' I'll do that and I'll be |_33+!" Read a book, do some digging. MS (at least used to) have an interesting corperate culture. High intensity with a high burnout rate for sure, but a lot of the industry's best and brightest have worked at Redmond.

</rant>

How ironic. I'm writing a post defending MS on a thread attached to a Mozilla article while using Mozilla 1.0 RC3.

http://forums.com.com/group/zd.News.Talkback/zdnn/ tb.tpt/%40thread%4040166%40forward%401%40D-,D%40AL L/@article@40166?EXP=ALL&VWM=hr&ROS=1&PAGETP=2100& NODEID=1104&SHOST=zdnet.com.com

This group also claimed, during Congressional probes into tobacco company fraud, that cigarettes and tobacco products were not harmful to your health. From this memo by a director of the World Health Organization:

"In addition to creating front groups and contributing funds to groups that have a mission broad enough to carry some of the tobacco industry's goals, the tobacco companies also use publications by allegedly independent think tanks, such as the Virginia-based Alexis De Tocqueville Institution. This group's 1994 report "Science, Economics, and Environmental Policy: A Critical Examination" criticizes the US Environmental Protection Agency's risk assessment methods in 4 areas: environmental tobacco smoke, radon, pesticides, and hazardous cleanup. It dismisses in its first chapter the agency's risk assessment of environmental tobacco smoke, using arguments similar to the tobacco industry's "junk science" arguments described by Ong and Glantz. "

It seems Microsoft is making some strange bedfellows.

Sources:
http://www.smokefreeforhealth.org/studies/YachBial ous.htm

ZDNet Post

I'm sorry to be a party-pooper, but where's the evidence that they take money from Microsoft? The ZDNet article says nothing about that, and the talkback comments (at least the few dozen that I read) provide no evidence along those lines, either. The Register says that Richard Smith says that they take money from Microsoft, though they present no evidence along those lines. Smith's a cool guy and all, and he's got a good track record, but I'm going to need a little more than a second-hand non-credited reference to believe this.

I did a little poking around and a little Googling, but was unable to come up with any evidence on my own.

So, please, could somebody enlighten me?

-Waldo Jaquith

...the Navy is deep into a five-year, $1 billion retrofit of the USS Jimmy Carter...)

Most undersea cables now typically contain eight such strands, or fibers.

For example here is an article on this topic:

Spy agency taps into undersea cable

from May 22, 2001, which talks about "the Navy is deep into
a five-year, $1 billion retrofit of the USS Jimmy Carter,"

Might be wrong on this one, but I don't believe that the Avian Carrier protocol would carry to the moon. There's nothing about this in the spec but I think it can't travel through a vacuum.

You have think tanks such as Alexis de Tocqueville Institution warning government in the Post Sept11 world that Open source is inherently less secure than Closed Source.

And to quote : "Computer systems are the backbone to U.S. national security," said ADTI Chairman Gregory Fossedal. "Before the Pentagon and other federal agencies make uninformed decisions to alter the very foundation of computer security, they should study the potential consequences carefully."

This, coming from a guy whose other papers include a report on The Herald Business Journal which opposes the Govt stance on M$. You can see the rest of the studies done by ADTI here

As long as we have people and institutions which are funded and backed by giants like M$, we are stuck in this moment.

BBC News reports that IBM has signed a major contract to provide GNU/Linux OS computers to Germany's Interior Ministry, which oversees law enforcement ( IBM signs Linux deal with Germany ). A Microsoft spokeswoman was disconcerted by the news, nonsensically stating that, "Any policy that favours one thing over another isn't helpful." Slashdot ( Germany, IBM Sign Major Linux Deal ).

Kuro5hin has a good story on a new report from Taiwan's official news agency that the goverment is pushing a Software Libre program ( Taiwan to start national plan to push free software ). Not only will the program include software development, but also extensive training and education. Most interesting is that the "national education system will switch to Open Source in order to provide a diverse IT education environment and ensure the people's rights to freedom of information." See also, Slashdot ( Taiwan to Start National Push For Free Software ).

Might Taiwan's initiative be related to a ZDNet News report on some of the difficulties Microsoft's licensing practices are creating in Taiwan ( Taiwan: MS may have violated trade laws )? This issue was discussed in depth on Kuro5hin ( Backlash against Microsoft intensifies in Taiwan; MS investigated for price gouging ).

Governments outside the U.S. are increasingly coming to the realization that it makes little sense to send their taxpayer dollars to Redmond, WA, USA as part of a "Microsoft Tax." Use of open source software not only saves the government money, but also helps to develop an indigenous IT industry.

Will the U.S. government realize the benefits of openness as well? Jamie Love, of the Consumer Project on Technology hopes so. He and Ralph Nader have sent a letter to the Office of Management and Budget encouraging the consideration of various policies that, through software procurement, will address quesions of Microsoft's monopoly as well as other issues ( Procurement policy and competition and security in software markets ). While the letter doesn't specifically recommend the adoption of open source software, it clearly a major aspect to consider.

Below are some of the practices Nader and Love want OMB to examine:

• OMB is asked to provide information on federal expenditures for Microsoft products, determine if a software "monoculture" makes the federal government more vulnerable to computer viruses or unauthorized access to federal computers, and to consider a number of strategies to use the US government's purchasing power to promote competition and make Microsoft behave.
• OMB is asked to consider if Microsoft should be required (as a matter of procurement policy) to fully disclose the file formats of its office productivity and multimedia programs, so that the data created in such programs could be reliably read by non-Microsoft software.
• OMB is asked to consider if it should place a cap of the market share for any one vender of PC client software, and have the size of the cap depend upon Microsoft's willingness to open up its interface information, or port its MS Office products to additional platforms.
• OMB is also asked to consider if it would be more efficient to buy code for office productivity products (and release into the public domain), rather than spend billions to lease software.

Ralph Nader said "The federal government spends billions of dollars on software purchases from one company that is continually raising prices, making its products incompatible with previous versions in order to force upgrades, deliberately creating interoperability problems with would-be competitors, and is well known for engaging in many other anticompetitive practices. Would a business that was spending this much money be such a passive consumer? "

James Love said "The US Government could easily solve all of its concerns over the Microsoft's anticompetitive conduct by being a smarter consumer. Taxpayers are spending millions to restrain Microsoft's monopoly, and billions to support the Microsoft monopoly. There needs to be a more coherent strategy."

Copyright (c) 2002 by the Information Society Project. This material may be distributed only subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the Open Publication License, v1.0 or later (the latest version is presently available at http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/). Minor typographical corrections made.

That's great to hear, IBM has quite a history with Germany, after all. With the way they were able to streamline the execution of the Jews, who knows what they'll be able to accomplish today!

I found that C|Net's Skinny Dubaud's review to be much better and extremely short. It also covers the play at New York's Cherry Lane Theater that Mike Daisey is doing, as well as the new F'ed Company book. I learned more in three paragraphs of reviews there than I did with three pages of Katz.

Today we outsource wire tapping.Tommorrow we will outsource the analysis of the wiretaps.Then outsource "crime detection and response systems" and mebbe do away with judiciary. Bah!

What is concerning is that this is the same company that does not think twice about either law or morality when it comes to business. Mebbe with companies as liberal as Verisign we will also be able to buy wire tapping services on ebay. ~!nrk

> One way for small businesses to deal with the problem would be to avoid it by using Paypal. They're a reputable financial institution

Tell me, what color is sky in your world?
Or Let me ask it like This...
What Color Is The Sky In Your World?

...go for Fujitsu's P-2000 Laptop with a 7-hour high capacity battery, DVDROM, and a wireless LAN card.

IMO, pads do and shall always suck, primarily because of the inherent frailty of an exposed screen. Sure, the screens on notebooks fail all the time too, but at least when not used they're folded shut & semi-protected. In this specific comparison, I see no reason to use some frail theoretical webpad when I can rely on existent notebook technology to carry around a computer so fucking small (10.6"(w) x 7"(d) x 1.59"(h)), smaller than the form design for most webpads, that lets me do anything my desktop does.

And everyone seems to bitch about wanting a "more natural" interface. From an anthropological perspective, there is no "more natural", there's just what you're used to -- the human animal can express ideas in multitudes of ways, and when it come to writing what I'm used to is thinking as I type about 90wpm. Writing with a pen on a notepad anymore feels feels like I've got a 25mph governor on a Ferrari. It's infuriating, and it doesn't get any better when you're dealing with some shit handwriting software - I haven't seen a single handwriting recognition program that wasn't a bitch to use and didn't make constant mistakes. Blah blah Graffiti blah blah - Graffiti isn't handwriting recognition software in the true sense of the term. Too many hardware people are obsessed with producing something because they thought of it in a Star Trek wet dream. People LIKE the keyboard. Look at the Blackberry. Look at the new Handspring Treos. How many people still peck at the keyboard with the stylus on their Palm PDAs? We have PDA makers trying to fit keyboards into tiny-ass PDAs & phones, people like them so much. Except for a few niche areas webpads are still a product looking for a market. Except for being bigger and having less battery life, what is a webpad going to do that a good color PDA doesn't? I may be being contrary, but these are serious questions that manufacturers need to consider before going to market with another damned Audrey.

No electronic pad has ever been made so far that didn't suck. Who knows? Maybe I'll be proved wrong, but I think the notebook is always going to be a league ahead of the notepad, and for the reasons above. Until I see a pad that alot of people prefer to notebooks, it's still vapor.

Wow, this will be the first big partnership between IBM and Germany since they helped the Nazi party record and sort all non-aryans, cripples and homosexuals for segregation, internment and slaughter.

Bet you don't see that on their home page.

Big Blue? SolidBlue.

A lot of folks believe IBM provided Nazi Germany with electronic cataloging support which allowed for the Unpopular to be shipped-off to death camps:

• Probing IBM's Nazi Connection
• How IBM Helped Automate the Nazi Death Machine in Poland
• IBM Warns Against Nazi Book

Since its publication in February, Edwin Black's book "IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation" has stirred unprecedented controversy among students of the Holocaust, American enterprise and information technology.

Of course, an informed person might not believe every little thing they read. ;)

..considering the recent bad press over old news.

IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation

Communist software with fascist hardware?

IBM and Germany have been working together for years

BYU is involved in a technology described as "exciting," "cutting edge," and "unbreakable."

It is this "unbreakable" technology that is breaking through countless engineering boundaries.

located at news.com. It's quick and to the point.

" Bertelsmann stepped in on May 17 with $8 million to buy Napster's assets. As part of that agreement, Napster was to voluntarily seek bankruptcy protection and emerge as a wholly owned unit of Europe's second-largest media group. "

A think tank suggests in an upcoming report that open-source
software is inherently less secure than proprietary software, and
warns governments against relying on it for national security.

A think tank suggests in an upcoming report that open-source software is inherently less secure than proprietary software, and warns governments against relying on it for national security.

Full story here.
A gigantic anus here.

And I didn't "pay" for the engine in my car. Get real. See this article.

It says, "Microsoft Windows operating system [is] the second most expensive component after the hard disk."

Of course some people illegally copy windows, but not most.

"Fathammer, which makes a 3D engine that can be customized for use in different games, makes versions for Linux and Pocket PC as well as Symbian OS, and the company also fine-tunes the versions for different hardware platforms.

"We have to put our eggs in all of the baskets," said Ville Vaten, Fathammer project manager"

Source:
http://zdnet.com.com/2102-1104-890948.html

Actually, I believe this article says as much:

The technology could also be applied to other types of chips, according to the patent. For example, though the patent describes in detail how Transmeta's process would work to create a fast chip that's compatible with Intel silicon, the technique could work for "any family of ... computers," even Sun Microsystems' Java technology, the document says.

Some comparisons in his rhetoric and how it has (not) changed...

"I am just a simple caveman..."

Valenti, 1982 - I am not a lawyer; I beg to ask the forgiveness of all of you in the UCLA Law School. If I was smart enough maybe I would have been a lawyer and then I would feel more comfortable about presenting this case. "

Valenti, 2000 - "I am not a lawyer. I wanted to be one; go to Harvard Law School. Ended up at Harvard Business School - if I am arrogant, that's what they taught me - haha. "

"We are a poor industry..."

Valenti, 1982 - "Now, let me tell you something about the high-risk business that we are in. This may be one of the most precarious business enterprises which a man or a woman can enter. Movie making is a high-risk business. Let me cite you some examples. The average film costs $20 million...And 6 out of 10 films do not retrieve their total investment period. Now, what are you going to do right on top of that? There is going to be a VCR avalanche."

Valenti, 2000 - "For the movie business in the Internet era, a threat on opening nights is someone copying the new movie and sending it out over the Internet. An average movie costs $52 million to make. Only two in ten ever profit from theatre sales."

Demonizing the perceived Enemy as "deadly", "pirates", "stranglers", "terrorists", etc.

Valenti, 1982 - "I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.

Valenti, 1982 - "The public interest is at stake here. It is the public interest that you have by solemn oath sworn to serve because what I am talking about and what the rest of these witnesses are talking about is making it possible for a steady stream of quality entertainment to reach people through their television sets....

Valenti, 1997 - "It was a historic meeting...a first-time commitment of full government support at the highest level of the Russian leadership to a long-term plan to decrease surely and radically the deadly hold of pirates on the intellectual property community

Valenti 2002 - "There are more than nine and a half million broadband subscribers now. Once those large pipes and high-speed access subscribers begin to increase, we can be terrorized by what's going on."

Valenti 2002 - "We're fighting our own terrorist war."

But some things have changed...or have they?

Valenti, 1982 - "Now, these machines are advertised for one purpose in life. Their only single mission, their primary mission is to copy coyrighted material that belongs to other people..."

Valenti, 2000 - " Look at Sony-Betamax. The VCR had substantial non-infringing use. For example if you time-shift (tape now and playback later). But the court in Sony-Betamax did not rule on shifting to ten million people. So watch how you cite Sony-Betamax. Napster is not time-shifting - but sharing with anonymous millions."

Interesting.

W

In general, eventually all phones will come heavy with PDA features, as discussed on Cnet here.

He-he, nice way to bring attention to this news item.

i think the whole dot.com bust was basically a self-fullfilling profecy.

The real reason for the dot-com bust was revealed in yesterday's article:

"What we found is a disturbing behavioral trend that violates copyright laws and costs billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs every year," BSA CEO Robert Holleyman said in a statement.

No, the "disturbing behavioral trend" was not bad management or wasteful practices... but software piracy!

the group found that 57 percent of respondents never or seldom pay for copyrighted works they download. And 12 percent admitted to pirating software.' How much do you want to bet that 45 percent gap is freeware and/or open source?

A significant percentage of Internet users knowingly
violate copyright laws.
57 percent of downloaders either seldom
pay or never pay for the copyrighted software
they download. And 36 percent of all Internet users say it is not likely they will ever pay for software they download.
Of all Internet users, 12 percent admit to acquiring unlicensed commercial software.

..." Companies considering a switch to StarOffice or a competing product won't find the move cheap. Gartner estimates that the average cost per user would be about $1,200, which works out to about $800 for labor and $400 for productivity. In contrast, companies upgrading to Office every two years would spend about $550 per user, or $700 every four years. That means many businesses would take eight years to recover their initial investment."

That is from here.

How is a person doing a network install costing their company $800 per machine? What kind of hourly rate is that?

As far as stabilizing, and eventually reducing, prices goes, imho the best long-term approach is a dose of [oxymoron]intelligent legislation[/oxymoron] to foster competition from the tier-one providers on down, and, just as important, to officially define ISPs as common carriers whose responsibility for and control over the net connection ends at your doorstep. Your telephone company no longer dictates the number and type of devices connected to your line; if your ISP treated you the same way, we'd see an explosion of innovation in home automation, etc. in short order. This innovation would spur demand, which would temporarily drive up prices, but at the same time would spur investment and competition to meet that demand, driving down prices in the long run. DDB

Why I love spam

Damn, I think I'd punch that guy in the face.

Whats all this jazz about Amazon running on Linux?

FUD, pure FUD + 10% troll.

Now, read this, this, and this and weep!

>USB2 on the other hand is expected to be in Windows XP SP1

Oh yeah, that'll catch on just like USB 1.0 caught on when Windows 95 OSR2 came out (ffft... yeah, right...).

>Since 99% of all computer users use Windows, USB2 will catch on incredibly fast leaving FireWire in the dust.

Since 99% (as you say) of users already have firewire support why the f*ck would they switch all their stuff to USB 2.0?

>Sometimes you Slashdot folk have to remember that just because you think the technology is better, doesn't mean it will catch on. Hmm, how long has the Gameboy had a black and white screen until they used color?

All the real geeks knew the B/W systems were better because at the time you'd be lucky to play all of Sonic the Hedgehog without replacing the batteries. I could beat Super Mario World 3 times over and the battery light was still bright red.

>So, has Apple made an attempt to turn people away from USB?

And why should they? USB is fine for slow devices like keyboards and mice that need to be cheap, and don't generate a lot of data, and aren't likely to be hooked up without a computer being in the mix.

>not even with OS X which you can tell is aimed at Windows XP with it's XPish interface

Ahahah! I don't even own a Mac and I've never seen OS-X except for glimpses of it on "The Screen Savers" and I can tell you it doesn't look at all like XP.

Why I love spam

by Barry Dennis info@Netweb.com

Am I crazy or what? I love spam! My spam is important to me. In this new age of the Internet, I need the information and opportunities that e-mail marketing provides. So what's the big deal about spam? I think a few well-meaning but uninformed politicians and advocacy groups have decided what's good for us.

In the ancient, pre-Internet days, I used to get all kinds of mail in my U.S. Postal Service mailbox. The mail had stamps on it; later on it had imprinted postmarks of one kind or another. I was in the direct-marketing and mail-order business, so I used my name and address as a quality-control measure, just to see how long the mail would take to actually arrive at my house. As you can imagine, my name found its way to many different lists of one type or another, and I got lots of mail. Depending on the perspective of the recipient, it was called "junk mail" or "file 13 candidates," or "recyclable materials." Individual pieces included catalogs of every type and description, magazine and book club offers, resort vacation packages and credit cards. Can you believe it? Offering me, an entrepreneur, a credit card? Had they lost their minds?

And I loved it.

I loved reading the offers; I learned things and I even bought some things. They say the easiest sale is to a salesperson, and maybe that's true. But I was a tough customer. I only bought what I needed, or in some cases what I wanted, because they convinced me with good copy, attractive product art and presentation, and with offers backed by a guarantee. They convinced me I had made a great decision. They were (and still are) reaching out to satisfy my needs as their research indicated. Now, in addition to my mail at home and at the office, I get e-mails. Lots of e-mails. And for the most part, I love them. They tell me about things I'm interested in, such as services and products that might satisfy some of my needs. They provide information referrals, ideas and food for thought. And e-mails are smart. They don't require a postcard or envelope with postage to get more information--you just click "reply." Or in many cases, click on the "hot link" direct to the e-mailer's Web site.

Look, here's the deal. Spam is the "junk mail" of a few years ago. There is still "junk" mail, although I prefer to think of it as marketing mail--searching for new customers and reinvigorating established clients. My spam is important to me. In this new age of the Internet, I need the information and opportunities that e-mail marketing provides. The Internet is a new marketing channel, an information research assistant, and a replacement for some of those mail-order catalogs I used to request. And man, the response time!

The courts and the Federal Trade Commission long ago thrashed out the framework for people taking their name off mailing lists by using the Direct Marketing Association-maintained "opt out" list. Mailers run their list through the DMA and matches are culled for each person from that list. People don't get what they don't want. But did you know that many of the people on the DMA file have requested catalogs or information by direct mail within a few months of their "opt out?" Why? Because we have grown used to getting information this way. If we need to, we can do the same thing using the DMA, or the Internet Advertising Bureau, or another industry trade group.

So, what's the big deal about spam? I think a few well-meaning but uninformed politicians and advocacy groups have decided what's good for us, and in their zeal, they are trying to establish a new and unwarranted benchmark for the marketing channel we call the Internet, and for one of its components: e-mail.
We really have to fight this intrusion. E-mail is no less commercial speech than other forms of communication; e-mail is a new and--in some cases--a better way of quickly identifying, qualifying and servicing customers. Large catalog marketers are pleased with the growing percentage of Internet-driven business, and they use e-mail to offer specials and other information potentially valuable to their customers, at less expense than mail-only contact programs.

Not everybody has an e-mail address or access to the Internet: Approximately 70 million U.S. households have computers, out of 120 million total, but not all of the 70 million have access to the internet or e-mail. Most businesses do have Internet and e-mail. There are some e-mails I get that I don't want or appreciate: pornography, two credit card offers every day (give me a break!), and some others. But you know what I do?

Hit delete. I hit delete, and I'm free. As for the rest of my spam: Keep it coming!

about the writer
Barry Dennis (domain@netweb.com) is president of Netweb, an Internet and offline marketing and public relations agency.

AT&T Broadband *increased* upstream transfer rates for many customers. They're making it a flat 256kbps across the board. Funny to see how the articles about bow AT&T Broadband is screwing people make big news, but when they increase the piddly upstream cap that people bitch about constantly, nobody seems to care.

Article here

At here.

But the sad fact of the matter is that Comcast is looking to purchase AT&T's cable business. AT&T has also announced that they will be making the cable modem speeds on their network 'uniform'. Which, for previous MediaOne customers like myself, is a raw deal beacuse my upstream will drop for 384kbps to 256kbps. AT&T to make broadband speed uniform It won't really affect me as I don't host a lot of upstream traffic, but I'm still paying the same price. Now I will also be lucky enough to chip in an extra $7/month because I purchased my own modem? And to top it all of AT&T has hinted at an upcoming tiered pricing structure. Let me guess, the prices will stay the same, but the speeds will drop to 1/2 or 1/4 what they currently are. Because, after all, what choice do the customers have? I'm sure I won't mind paying $80/month for the 'service' I have now. Maybe I'll get even luckier and they will start sniffing for NAT setups. Sure, here's another $150/month. I don't mind...

By replacing the file system with SQL Server!