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There are some hints here.

I wrote about this here some years ago. Toshiba wants to sell movies on your chip from kiosks. They think they can put this together with SD, because of the onboard security. Unfortunately that's not going to work unless they can get 64GB SDXC chips under $5. Actually, that last isn't as unlikely as it sounds the way things are going, and then they might as well sell you the chip with the video instead of separately. Best would be for them to figure out a home server that can securely host the movies you bring home on chips, but will still serve the video streams to any of your Toshiba Media Network enabled TVs or set-top boxes.

The processor tech required for HD is getting low power enough to put inside the LCD TV, and this media makes a good format for transportable video. And Sony loses a media format war, again.

On the upside, your SDXC enabled SLR should have the bandwidth to take several hours of 1080p if they can bump the processor speed high enough to handle it. You'll want the backpack style battery though. Think of it as home movies with lens effects.

From what I've seen, Microsoft Research is a pretty fun place to be. Lots of freedom, high salaries, and very little chance of your work being turned into an actual product, so you don't have to worry about being an accessory to Microsoft's dubious business practices.

Here's an interesting interview with Simon Peyton-Jones (one of the designers of Haskell, and these days, a Microsoft Research employee who mainly works on GHC). His words seem to confirm this impression:

Microsoft has a very open attitude to research, and thats one of those things I got very clear before we moved. They hire good people and pretty much turn them loose. I dont get told what to do, so as far as my work on Haskell or GHC or research generally is concerned, the main change with moving to Microsoft was that I could do more of it, as I wasnt teaching or going to meetings etc.

Microsoft have stuck true to their word. I also get new opportunities [that were not available to me at university], as I can speak to developers inside the [Microsoft] firewall about functional programming in general, and Haskell in particular, which I never could before. Microsoft are completely open about allowing me to study what I like and publish what I like, so its a very good research setup its the only research lab I know like that. Its fantastic its like being on sabbatical, only all the time.

Well, not a storage company, but: Counterpane Sold to BT

Plus, then you know for sure that someone is checking on the security of the certificates because that's 50% of their job.

Don't be so sure:
http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;50110485 they [at least the UK] seem to be fairly adept at losing things, if they screw up big time you still pay for it.. when a company screws up bad enough at least people might have a chance to look elsewhere- no, I think the solution here is to make use of that horrible trait of human nature- greed, well at least enlightened self interest that is... let people deliver a headshot to these companies in court everytime there's a major screw up and things will improve... I think in this case we shouuld be careful with how much power we give the feds, it may seem like a great idea at the time, a lot of things do but idiots like Bush make it very clear that the less power we give these twits the better.

here

I think the dude who invented Haskell had a pretty good insight in this interview where he was asked about teaching functional programming for a first programming class:

I don't know - I don't actually have a very strong opinion on that. I think there are a lot of related factors, such as what the students will put up with! I think student motivation is very important, so teaching students a language they have heard of as their first language has a powerful motivational factor. On the other hand, since students come with such diverse experiences (some of them have done heaps of programming and some of them have done none) teaching them a language which all of them aren't familiar with can be a great leveler. So if I was in a university now I'd be arguing the case for teaching functional programming as a first year language, but I don't think itâ(TM)s a sort of unequivocal, "only an idiot would think anything else" kind of thing!

Teach new students some sort of bizarro language so the ones who have been programming for years will be on the same level as everyone else.

It was from this interview: http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;1974033854;fp;;fpid;;pf;1

You certain about that? Cause that's what this guy in the UK thought.

i'm pretty sure those are the number of cores:

(1) Supports up to 32 cores.*
(2) Supports up to 64 cores.*
(3) Supports up to 64 cores.**

when Microsoft says their next Windows Server release, Windows Server 2008 R2 (server variant of Windows 7), will support 256 processors, they mean "logical processors," which they define as # of physical CPUs * # of cores per CPU * # of active threads per core.

so Windows Server 2008 current supports 64 logical processors, but that's only 8 CPUs * 4 cores * 2 threads. however, Windows Server 2008 R2 will in fact support 64 physical processors when it comes out.

Slashdot is not exactly going to be a sympathetic crowd here.

1. Send husband's hard-earned money to your own foreign account
2. Ignore warnings and claim you're helping a Nigerian prince
3. Play victim and make it public
4. ...
5. Profit!

4. Find out it was really Microsoft who scammed you.

I _knew_ there was some way we could win /. sympathy here! ;)

Maybe she works for microsoft

This is what the Opposition Broadband Minister said:

"Like anything in life it's about finding the right balance between the basic freedoms we all expect to have in a democracy like ours while at the same time wanting to protect minors from exposure to material we prefer they didn't see. We think the arrangements that we had in place when we left office struck that balance. We'll watch the government's trials of this and we are prepared to consider what comes out of those trials. But our presumption is this cannot and will not work, it's very heavy-handed." http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;879301684;fp;4194304;fpid;1;pf;1

As for Conrad, I can't believe this guy. This is his testimony at a senate estimates hearing:

Senator Conroy: I trust you are not suggesting that people should have access to child p-rnography.
Senator Ludlam: No. That is why I was interested in asking about the law enforcement side of it as well.

actually, in Soviet Russia, the military pwns the NSA.

(from an article in yesterdays /. about RedHat CEO: "Earlier in the year I was in Russia and RHEL is the most secure operating system certified by the Russian military, therefore there are applications for the Russian military and government that can only run on RHEL. The ironic thing about that is the reason it is so secure is because SE Linux, the core security technology for Linux, was written by the NSA in the US." )

First the military, then the education system, next government ... then business?

Too bad this is actually just one potential filter to be used in a government mandated filtering system, with no complete opt out. Every ISP in Australia will be required to provide a 'clean feed' that filters out illegal and inappropriate material. http://nocleanfeed.com/ http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;1399635276 The great firewall of China is being rebuilt in Australia

What I have not seen mentioned is the following, planned by the same government:

A great firewall will be erected around Australia. Australians will not have the option to opt out of 'illegal' content.
If you are Australian, take ACTION NOW!!! I've already contacted the current local (Liberal) member and Senator Conroy. This firewall, if it is to work at all, will slow speeds by up to 75% and will cripple the communications of an entire nation. The solutions needed to make sure that corporate VPNs and other tools keep working is non-existent. This is not a hoax. Please let the tech community be able to tell them what we think.

http://www.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/76ya5/australians_will_be_unable_to_optout_of_the/
http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php?id=1399635276&eid=-255
http://nocleanfeed.com/takeaction.html This is being discussed on Whirlpool but NEEDS TO HIT THE MEDIA TODAY!

While you are a true hero for posting a link to the printer friendly version, it didn't actually send me there. Perhaps this link will do it, although if they're smart they'll make you go to the article before displaying the print version.

I beg you to use this link instead of flipping thru all 8 pages

Here's the full story.

You got it - Linux is getting big in the Philippines. The school system has started using it.

link

link2

http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;625432195;pp;2;fp;;fpid;

You could also just convert the PowerPoint file into a movie file, then use an iPhone to play it, pausing on each frame. Looks liek that;s exactly what this guy did:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=366966

again people forget about that... http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;1017393246;fp;16;fpid;1;pf;1

I just finished reading the "The A-Z of Programming Languages" series on Computerworld (found out about it in here), and now the next article in the series just came up and it's a chat with the creator of Yacc.
Coincidence?

And for those that want to read the interview, it can be found here.

You have no references (other than Slashdot chatter) and I believe you are wrong.

Even the BBC has flatly stated that intelligence agencies employ such a remote surveillance technique. MI5 and FBI both are declining to fix this so-called misapprehension when asked by the press.

We are also talking about the same FBI that will infect target PCs with spyware through popular Internet sites like MySpace.

With respect to cellphones, there is no reason to believe that network operators in today's surveillance landscape (eavesdrop at will and avoid the consequences) would avoid exercising control over phones' firmware, turning them into bugs.

Let's recap, so that's: invisible (1), silent (2), mind reading (3) with ray guns that make you hear voices.

George Orwell was an optimist.

1.
http://www.engadget.com/2006/12/20/researchers-develop-metamaterial-with-negative-refractive-index/
2.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080109104244.htm
3.
http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;1172900547;fp;16;fpid;1

Here is a real eye opener: Bjarne Stroustrup cited the JSF coding standard as an example of C++ usage: "Also, embedded systems programming is a major area of use and growth of C++; for example, the software for the next generation US fighter planes are in C++ (see the JSF++ coding rules on my home pages)." http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;408408016;pp;5;fp;16;fpid;1

I particular like the following statement in the JSF++ coding rules that the creator of C++ holds up as an example of how to use C++:
AV Rule 208 C++ exceptions shall not be used (i.e. throw, catch and try shall not be used.)

Rationale: Tool support is not adequate at this time.

First, read the printable version of the article on one page. The original version is one paragraph per page, surrounded by ads and related dreck.

There's really nothing new there. It's the usual Strostrup stuff. He's still in denial about C++ being the cause of most of the buffer overflows, system crashes, and security holes in the world.

The fundamental problem with C was the "array=pointer" concept. If array sizes were carried along with arrays, we'd have far less trouble. Even FORTRAN has conformant array parameters. That should have been fixed in C++, but it wasn't, and as a result, we had two more decades of buffer overflow problems. This isn't a performance issue, by the way; Modula 3 got it right, but Modula 3 disappeared for non-technical reasons - Compaq bought DEC and closed down the software R&D operation.

C++ is also the only language that has hiding ("abstraction") without memory safety. C has neither; almost all later languages (Java, Delphi, all the scripting languages) have both. C++ stands alone in this unsafe place. Nobody ever repeated that mistake. So subtly incorrect calls to objects can result in the object overflowing.

Yes, some of these problems can be papered over with templates. The C++ committee is full of templateheads, focused on template features that few will use and fewer will use correctly and productively. That crowd is still struggling to make auto_ptr work.

http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;408408016;fp;16;fpid;1;pf;1

It's always cool to see this kind of interview. It's even cooler when you can read it all on one page rather than 8.

I suggest that anyone who uses C++ or is interested in the history of programming read this. Some of it is a bit banal, like how they chose the name, but some of it is really intersting. RTFA for once, you lazy clods!

Print Version of the same article http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;408408016;fp;16;fpid;1;pf;1

Here is the contest website and a longer article.

The US is a net importer of agricultural produce.

Softwar e is booming as an economic phenomenon. I'm not as confident as you though that it's a ball which will stay in US hands in the long term.

Robert Tappan Morris (Morris Worm author and computer science pioneer) != Robert Moore (Idiot Perp from the article).

http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;193960399;fp;16;fpid;1;pf;1

Don't you think we're missing the larger picture here?

HP Admits To Selling Infected Flash-Floppy Drives
Hybrid devices for ProLiant servers pre-infected with worms, HP says:

A security analyst with the SANS Institute's Internet Storm Center (ISC) suspects that the infection originated at the factory, and was meant to target ProLiant servers. "I think it's naive to assume that these are not targeted attacks," said John Bambenek, who is also a researcher at the University of Illinois.

"To be safe, yes, you should scan every piece of hardware," he said. "Certainly with devices distributed by corporations."

http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;314715708

- How about THEY should scan every piece of hardware?

- COMMUNIST China sending infected hardware - who'd thunk?
- Can you just imagine their FIRMWARE?

- Sure you can.

Counterfeit Chips Raise Big Hacking, Terror Threats, Experts Say
Counterfeit Chinese Chips Raise Big Hacking and Terror Threats - The Manchurian Chip:

This past January, two brothers from Texas, Michael and Robert Edman, appeared in court to face federal charges of selling counterfeit computer equipment to, among others, the Air Force, Marine Corps, Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Energy, numerous universities and defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/4253628.html

http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=482520&cid=22708174

U.S.
Farewell Dossier:

Counterintelligence Response:
Another result was that the United States and its NATO allies later "rolled up the entire Line X collection network, both in the U.S. and overseas." Weiss said "the heart of Soviet technology collection crumbled and would not recover."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farewell_Dossier

- So, Communist China produces computer components for the U.S. (world) inserting truncated, obsfucated microcode, when run with sister-cards that, upon boot, combine to executable, then retrieve from the WWW a logic bomb, which upon download, sits in your "bad boot blocks", hidden, until whatever event that it's needed, where it can do anything from start bon fires (burn your graphic cards) all over the country (world), or, possibly to provide easy access in the form of a "lockable "dutch door" to [insert nightmare here] knowing lazy U.S. companies will fail to even "batch check" hardware from the factories - relying on good ol stupid Americans who flinch at the mere mention of the word "conspiracy".

CLASSIC.

So, is this where I now get attacked for looking skyward?

You're wrong. Details here .

For some odd reason, the submitter has linked to the third page of a three page article. To no one's surprise, the editors did not catch this. Here is the link to page 1
http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;270726757;pp;1;fp;4194304;fpid;1

The link on the summary is for the third page of the article. Here's the link to the first page.

Is there a reason why the summary doesn't link to the full interview?

I like how you reference a random opinion on another discussion site as fact. Nice.

OK, fair enough. Let's see what Aaron J Seigo, "one of KDE's lead developers, and best known personality", has to say.

With the 4.0.0 release we were addressing three audiences:

• The device integrators like ASUS;
• third-party application developers who won't do anything until there is a stable release; and
• our user base that is into bleeding-edge technology.

That's the classic role of a beta release, no? I trust this is an adequate source, and suitable support rather than my first, admittedly non-authoritative link?

I didn't take the time in the first post to find a better link because I thought KDE 4's current state of development would be well-known to /. readers. And again, I wasn't attempting to denigrate KDE 4 in any way - I have great admiration for the technology, and look forward to trying it out at the 4.1 release.

I like how you reference a random opinion on another discussion site as fact. Nice.

OK, fair enough. Let's see what Aaron J Seigo, "one of KDE's lead developers, and best known personality", has to say.

With the 4.0.0 release we were addressing three audiences:

• The device integrators like ASUS;
• third-party application developers who won't do anything until there is a stable release; and
• our user base that is into bleeding-edge technology.

That's the classic role of a beta release, no? I trust this is an adequate source, and suitable support rather than my first, admittedly non-authoritative link?

I didn't take the time in the first post to find a better link because I thought KDE 4's current state of development would be well-known to /. readers. And again, I wasn't attempting to denigrate KDE 4 in any way - I have great admiration for the technology, and look forward to trying it out at the 4.1 release.

Don't want to see five pages of ads? Here's the one page, for-print version:
http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;1111810628;fp;2;fpid;4;pf;1

Someone should have told these students that they could get one of these and not have to peddle.

Yes, it is a safe bet that M$ bought the NASDAQ fanboys.

Other stock exchanges using and/or moving to linux? ;-) My pleasure:

New Zealand stock exchange moves from Windoze back end to Red Hat:
http://www.oracle.com/customers/snapshots/nz_exchange.pdf

Tokyo (number 2 in the world) moving to linux:
http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release.do?id=775707

Chicago Mercantile Exchange moved years ago...;-):
http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;101366230;fp;16;fpid;0

Et cetera, et cetera! (Google is your friend!)

Many of the major free GPL licensed programs are now available in both Windows and Linux versions. In the past they were only available for Linux/Unix users. If a small business wanted to they could replace Microsoft Office and most of their other commercial applications with free GPL licensed alternatives and still keep Windows. Here are a few examples:

• OpenOffice
• KOffice will soon be cross platform
• Thunderbird
• Firefox
• GIMP for Windows
• AbiWord

Some exercise professionals recommend that instead of sitting on a chair at work, you sit on a Swiss ball. Then your core muscles have to work moderately hard to keep you stable. I haven't tried it but it's said to be fairly tiring to do it all day long.

If you prefer to just burn some energy, there's always the desk treadmill.

• While the industry is distracted by the ongoing tussle between Microsoft and OpenOffice.org over document formats, the KDE project is quietly preparing the next generation of its own office suite, KOffice, for Linux, Windows , and Mac OS X.

I hope that was some sort of joke, but in case it wasn't, here you go:

http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;20982 2754;fp;16;fpid;1

http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;30684 2912;fp;4194304;fpid;1 Does windows vista have the same level of security than that? I would say that if they don't find that many bugs into the 6 first months, It doesn't mean it's more secure, it just show you that they aren't able to found vulnerabilities before hackers. So then when we know that redhat is the one who found the most vulnerabilites and they have "that" level of security. I believe that finding a lot of bugs into the first 6 months is a good thing. Because if they don't find it... your computer have a hole that is just waiting for someone to use it. Is AIDS not dangerous unless you found you have it?