Slashdot Mirror

fistfullast33l writes "Bloomberg is reporting that a recently unsealed court case by shareholders against Yahoo reveals that Microsoft offered $40 a share for the Internet search company in January 2007 and Yahoo turned it down. We've extensively discussed Microsoft's bid for Yahoo earlier this year for $33 a share, which was rebuffed. Investor Carl Icahn has launched a proxy fight against Yahoo over the spurning of the Microsoft deal." CWmike notes Computerworld's coverage of the revelations: "The complaint places much of the blame on [Yahoo CEO Jerry] Yang, describing him as someone with a 'well-known' antipathy toward Microsoft who acted out of a personal interest to keep Yahoo independent. Something wrong with that? Oh, yeah... public company."

fistfullast33l writes "PSPFanboy, a Joystiq blog, has a great closeup of the new PSP redesign. Photos show the old PSP and the new PSP side by side. Modifications include adding more RAM (up to 64MB), extended battery life, a new UMD loading door, removal of the IR port (Sony really hates infrared), and a redesigned headphone jack to support video output. Sony confirmed that you will be able to play movies and games through the video out, but the games can only be viewable via component, not composite cables. Also, 0okm has some nice pictures of the new PSP internals as well as a manual snapshot showing button layout (the wireless switch was moved) and TV out information." Gamasutra has the news that the slim-line is due out on September 20th in Japan.

fistfullast33l writes "TechPresident, which is covering the use of technology by Presidential Campaigns for 2008, has a very interesting article on how Obama's MySpace page is currently the subject of an underground battle for control by the campaign itself and the volunteer who created it in 2004. Joseph Anthony worked with the campaign initially and grew the site to include over 160,000 unsolicited friends that the campaign could use to reach out to. It currently is the main Obama page in the Impact Channel on MySpace. However, as Obama's campaign became more centralized and formal, the decision was made to attempt to acquire control of the site from Anthony. They asked him for a price, which he offered up as $49,000 plus part of the $10,000 fee paid to MySpace for the Impact Channel. Obama balked at the price, and decided to start afresh rather than pay the money. The fight broke out into the open when Anthony posted a response on his blog to rumors that the campaign was spreading regarding him wanting to cash out. MyDD has more."

fistfullast33l writes "A video posted on You Tube shows three PS3s networked together to perform Real Time Ray Tracing. Keep in mind that PS3 Linux runs in a hypervisor, so the RSX graphics chip is not being used at all. Even more impressive, PS3 Fanboy is reporting that Linux also limits the number of SPEs to 6 at once, so not all the horsepower on each of the PS3s is being utilized. According to the You Tube Summary, IBM Cell SDK 2.0 is being used for the IBM Interactive Ray-tracer (iRT). This apparently was done by the same team that presented a tech demo at GDC 2007 of a Linux PS3 rendering a 3 million polygon scene in real time at 1080p resolution."

fistfullast33l writes "In another case of a government official creating a 'unique' interpretation of science, TPM Muckraker reports on Julie MacDonald, deputy assistant secretary for fish and wildlife and parks in the Department of the Interior in Washington. The Department's Inspector General issued a report today documenting evidence that MacDonald not only overrode opinions of department scientists to benefit lobbyists, and political interests, but also that she shared internal documents with said lobbyists and a friend in an unnamed online roleplaying game. My favorite episode: 'At one point, according to Fish and Wildlife Service Director H. Dale Hall, MacDonald tangled with field personnel over designating habitat for the endangered Southwestern willow flycatcher, a bird whose range is from Arizona to New Mexico and Southern California. When scientists wrote that the bird had a nesting range of 2.1 miles, MacDonald told field personnel to change the number to 1.8 miles. Hall, a wildlife biologist who told the IG he had had a running battle with MacDonald, said she did not want the range to extend to California because her husband had a family ranch there.'"

fistfullast33l writes "According to IGN UK, the next version of Playstation firmware will include a joint venture from Stanford University and Sony called Folding@Home. Similar to the infamous SETI@Home project, Folding@Home will be an idle application that participates in a simulation that 'aims to map the way that genes change shape (or fold), so they can be studied by scientists and, potentially, cure illnesses such as Parkinson's or a variety of cancers.' The application will download a 'work unit' that it will unravel to completion, update Stanford's servers, and then download the next unit and continue." We've previously discussed the client; it will be available as an update at the end of the month, and should appear on your cross-media bar once installed.

fistfullast33l writes "After taking a beating in Gamespot's side by side Comparison of Xbox 360 and PS3 graphics, Playstation 3 owners may finally have something to hold over the 360 fans. Both Gamespot and IGN have previews posted yesterday that talk up the graphics and performance improvements over the 360 version. Load times and texture quality and draw distance have been improved, as well as 'new shaders dedicated to rendering the foreground cleanly with sharper details, so rocky landscapes now have craggy appearances instead of smooth, non-distinct surfaces,' according to IGN. They end with the ultimate hype, 'screens from the PS3 version should approach those from high end PCs running Oblivion, which is an impressive feat.' How is this possible? Gamespot reports that 'Oblivion will make extensive use of the PS3's hard drive by caching multiple gigabytes of data, which seemed to help with load times from what we saw.' While there are no official reports of this making it into the new 360/PC expansion Shivering Isles, a rumor on the Gamespot preview says that 1up might have the scoop."

fistfullast33l writes "A federal judge has ruled that Music Companies can take XM Radio to trial over the XM+MP3 device that allows users to record songs off the Satellite Radio Company's network for playback later. The lawsuit, which was filed last year, asserts that XM is violating the Music publishers' sole distribution rights. From the article: 'XM has argued it is protected from infringement lawsuits by the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992, which permits individuals to record music off the radio for private use. The judge said she did not believe the company was protected in this instance by the act.'"

fistfullast33l writes "The FCC rendered a decision today against a Comcast appeal that centers on integrated security features in set-top cable boxes. The decision comes at the end of a long standing feud between the FCC and cable companies over the matter. The result is that starting July 1st, cable boxes distributed by cable companies must not be tied directly to a cable provider via internal security features. This rule is viewed as the first step in creating a market for set-top cable boxes. Comcast does have the right to appeal and has said they will do so. From the article: 'Several major consumer electronics manufacturers have argued that if set-top boxes weren't directly linked to the provision of cable service, they could enter the set-top market. Consumers could get a cable card from their service provider that they could insert into a set-top box purchased at a consumer electronics store. The cards would ensure that consumers could only access channels that they paid for.'"

fistfullast33l writes "A man from Great Neck, Long Island has been arrested on charges of stealing electronic equipment and selling it on Ebay. The police were tipped off when one of his alleged victims was searching for a replacement GPS device and found a perfect match on eBay — almost too perfect. A quick check of the serial number (note to cyber-criminals: don't post those) showed that it was the exact device that had been stolen." From the article: "Police and prosecutors were hesitant to provide details of how they determined all the devices had been stolen, but at least two of the laptops were stamped 'Property of St. John's University.' Detective Ray Cote noted that the GPS devices specifically had the addresses of the legitimate owners programmed in and police were now contacting those victims to eventually return the items."

fistfullast33l writes "The Associated Press is reporting that today movie studios have approved Sonic Solutions' technology Qflix, which allows people to download movies and burn them to DVDs that include CSS, the method of encryption that protects all pre-recorded DVDs sold today. According to a press release issued by Sonic Solutions, they will be demoing the technology by appointment at the Consumer Electronics Show on January 8th. Apparently the DVDs will also be subject to DRM restrictions placed by download services such as limiting the times a movie can be played back and how many times the movie can be burned. Is this the death of NetFlix as we know it? Interestingly enough, the AP article mentions burning kiosks in the future and the Sonic release mentions Walgreen's as a partner, so maybe DVD burning is coming to a drug store near you. Sonic Solutions is the owner of Roxio, which produces a well-known CD and DVD burning software suite."

fistfullast33l writes "On Christmas Eve, Sony released the Gran Turismo HD demo to the U.S. and Japan Playstation 3s. The downloadable demo is about 650mb in size and I let it download while I was at church for Christmas. The following are my own impressions.

Visually, the game is by far one of the best for the PS3. The graphics really are top notch including some extremely visually impressive effects like the sky reflecting off the roof of your car. The crowds are a little static, but look alive enough to be believable. There are no weather effects, but the shine of the sun off the road is realistic as well. All in all, this is arguably the pinnacle of graphics on the console at this moment, and it sets the standard pretty high." Read on for the rest of this concise review -- and chime in below with comments on any other games of this season that you'd like to praise or pan. "The game is integrated right into the Playstation network, but sadly does not allow you to race against other drivers. Instead, you are limited to time and draft attack trials. However, the gameplay will keep you busy. You are allowed to save your replays and upload your times to the network, but only the top 10 or so are viewable from the track portion of the game. On the main menu there is an option to view where you rank per car. Not surprisingly, the U.S. version definitely had some large gaps between times as of December 25th so if you're really competitive there are some great opportunities to make a name for yourself. I think I was ranked as low as 4000 on some of the tracks as I was just trying to unlock the cars, so there are a lot of competitors out there.

There are 10 cars in all. The IGN article above links to the list if you're interested. You start with the Suzuki Cappuccino and work your way up by beating goal times for each car on the given track. There is only one track, but it's challenging enough that it might take you a few tries initially to beat the times. IGN says it took them about half an hour to unlock the cars, but I turned off a lot of the driving aids such as stability control and automatic shifting so it took me closer to a few hours. Plus, I'm a horrible driver.

From a control standpoint, the game is pretty standard in that you use the buttons to accelerate and brake and the L1 and R1 buttons to shift. The left analog allows you to steer. Contrast this with the F1 Championship Edition demo which uses the Left analog to steer and the Right analog to accelerate and decelerate. I actually prefer the F1 method better as it gives you a little more control over the pace of acceleration, similar to a gas pedal in a real car.

Overall, the game is a lot of fun when you've played out the launch titles and want something that you can show off to your friends. It might not be the most exciting title but it's definitely a challenge for casual gamers and experts alike, and the ability to record your times online adds a bit of fun to the title. Hopefully it will satiate those who need a GT5 fix and there is a rumor that more content will be released later on.

As a side note, my parents wanted to try out the PS3 so I let them play the F1 Championship Edition, Motorstorm, and GT HD demos, and they preferred F1 because it was easier to drive. GT was second hardest and Motorstorm totally confused them as the tracks aren't well defined." Thanks to fistfullast33l for this review.

fistfullast33l writes "In a followup to previous stories on Slashdot, IGN is reporting that TiVo has released a new version of TiVoToGo that now allows subscribers to transfer shows to portables such as the iPod, PSP, and Treo without the need for third-party software such as Videora. The upgrade costs $25 for current subscribers and includes the ability to transfer to desktop PCs as well. To recap, you can now transfer your TiVo shows to your laptop, desktop, and portable, as well as burn them to DVD. Time for me to subscribe to HBO."

fistfullast33l writes "Groklaw has reported that the USPTO has ruled the broadest claims of the JPEG Patent held by Fogent to be invalid. PUBPAT, the organization that requested the review, released the news earlier today. According to PJ, the ruling will be hard to overturn as the 'submitters knew about the prior art but failed to tell the USPTO about it.'"

Slashback tonight brings some corrections, clarifications, and updates to previous Slashdot stories including an update to the Kororaa GPL accusations, BellSouth demands a retraction to NSA story, South Korea rejects Microsft antitrust appeal, Tim Berners Lee continues net neutrality fight, ICANN possibly pressured to nix .XXX domain, another side to Vista Beta2 reviews, and the worst tech IPO in 2 years -- Read on for details.

Kororaa denies GPL violations. AlanS2002 writes "Chris Smart, of the Kororaa Project, has written an update about the accusation that the Kororaa XGL LiveCD is in violation of the GPL. According to Chris, he has been shown no evidence that the nVidia/ATI drivers are derived from any code in the Linux Kernel or that the drivers link to the Kernel. From the best information he has it appears that the drivers make system calls to public interfaces of the Kernel, in the same way that a web browser makes calls to public interfaces of a web server but are not considered to be linked to the web server (they do not link to private functions of the web server). However the Kororaa project has decided to let end users download and install the drivers themselves if need be, which defeats the purpose of continuing to develop their Live CD. As such their will be no Kororaa XGL LiveCD 0.3, however they will continue to make Kororaa XGL LiveCD 0.2 available."

BellSouth demands retraction to NSA story. An anonymous reader writes "CNN reports that BellSouth has moved from strongly denying participation in providing the NSA with calling records to requesting a retraction of the article from USA Today." From the article: "The telecommunications giant sent a letter to USA Today on Thursday asking it to retract last week's story that BellSouth and two other companies helped the NSA compile a massive database of records on domestic phone calls."

South Korea rejects Microsft antitrust appeal. mikesd81 writes "According to MSNBC, the Korean Fair Trade Commission has turned down Microsoft's appeal to separate it's Window's OS and it's media service. The February ruling also included a 34 million dollar fine. Apparently, The commission began investigating Microsoft after a local Internet portal, Daum Communications Corp., filed a complaint with the commission in 2001."

Tim Berners Lee continues net neutrality fight. Kortec writes "As reported by The BCC, Sir Tim Berners Lee has spoken out against the current US bias towards the destruction of network neutrality at the Edinburgh WWW2006 conference. The man behind it all is quoted as saying the two tier system proposed recently on the floor of Congress is not 'part of the internet model,' and that 'the web should remain neutral and resist attempts to fragment it in to different services.'"

ICANN possibly pressured to nix .XXX domain. mobiux writes "Fox News reporting that the US Government allegedly pressured ICANN into denying the .XXX domain, despite orders not to do so. ICM Registry says the e-mails show how the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, a branch of the U.S. Department of Commerce, was subjected to intense pressure to intervene on behalf of the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family, two socially conservative lobbying organizations."

Another side to Vista Beta2 reviews. lordgreg writes to tell us that while Slashdot already talked about Vista Beta 2 Major Problems, which Gary Krakow addressed in his review. DotProject claims to have the other side of Vista Beta2's Major Problems, the users themselves.

Vonage IPO shaping up to be the worst tech IPO in 2 years. fistfullast33l writes "Vonage went public to great fanfare and poor results today, with it's stock price falling 11% by closing time. Analysts have cited the fact that Vonage has yet to post a profit and increasing competition for the lack of interest. 'It's a wildly unprofitable company still selling at a very high valuation,' said Tom Taulli of Newport Coast, California, an IPO analyst. BusinessWeek also discusses growth barriers listed in Vonage's filings, including 'finding enough customer-support staffers and long delays in getting traditional phone companies to let customers take their existing phone numbers [to Vonage].'"

fistfullast33l writes "John Carmack's new cell phone game Orcs and Elves, which debuted at E3 to some fanfare, has led the famous developer to think about expanding his mobile gaming presence. Carmack said in an interview with CNN that he is interested in a massively multiplayer sequel. 'I have absolutely no interest in going and competing with Blizzard in the high end of that market, but a cell phone version might be interesting,' Carmack is quoted as saying. Even more interesting is his comment in the interview that game engines really overlook security. The article indirectly quotes him as saying 'while id Software is especially careful to lock down its game engines, companies that license and make changes to those engines often aren't as focused, which could open the door to disaster.'"

fistfullast33l writes "CNNMoney and Salary.com have ranked the title of Software Engineer the best job in America. Computer IT Analyst also ranks 7th on the list, placing both technology positions in the top 10. From the article: "Designing, developing and testing computer programs requires some pretty advanced math skills and creative problem-solving ability. If you've got them, though, you can work and live where you want: Telecommuting is quickly becoming widespread.""

fistfullast33l writes "Ars Technica is reporting that the VP of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe revealed pricing for the Playstation 3 on a French radio show today. From the article: 'Strict currency translation suggests that American pricing may be in the range of US $605 to $726, but currency exchange alone can't tell the story. Case in point: the Xbox 360. In the United States, the Xbox 360 retails for $399, which is only 320 [euros] in exchange. Yet the Xbox 360 is priced at 399 [euros] throughout most of Europe.' The article goes on to speculate that 'the days of multi-console ownership may be coming to an end for many gamers' based on the Xbox 360 and the PS3 prices."

fistfullast33l writes "In a followup to a previous Slashdot story, Blockbuster has settled a lawsuit with 47 states and the District of Columbia over its No Late Fees advertising campaign. The New York State Attorney General's Office released the following: 'The Attorneys General alleged that the advertising campaign launched in late December 2004 was misleading because it failed to clearly disclose that, seven days after a movie or game's return due date, the consumer would be charged its selling price if the item were not yet returned. The Attorneys General also alleged there was insufficient disclosure that not all Blockbuster franchise stores were participating, leaving customers of those stores wrongly believing that they, too, would not have to pay late fees.' Blockbuster will be refunding customers as part of the deal." Additional commenary available on MSNBC.