Slashdot Mirror

phanki writes "The Arecibo Observatory is gearing up to map the universe soon. This article talks about the university getting a set of new radio recievers to complete the background work for the mapping process. So very soon we may have the map for the Andromeda !"

wcbrown writes "AP reports that Wal-Mart is entering into the online DVD rental arena, currently dominated by Netflix. Wal-Mart is starting out with 13,000 titles, six distribution centers, and competitive pricing. With a seriously tremendous infrastructure and expansive will, Wal-Mart stands poised to overtake Netflix. To say the least, that's not going to be good for business."

In the interest in preserving your clicking finger, we've rounded up several related Ask Slashdot questions into one, for your browsing pleasure. Today's installment features a return to wireless apartment complexes, enclosures for outdoor wireless equipment, and the search for the Best Wireless PDA.

Which 802.11b-enabled PDA?

Kent Brewster asks: "I've retired my Palm 7 due to sudden lack of all-you-can-eat service and lots of free WiFi in the area. Right now, I'm looking at HP's iPAQ h5455, Toshiba's e750, Palm's Tungsten C, and Sharp's as-yet-to-ship Zaurus 5600. What I'm after is the best possible mobile Web experience first and PDA functions second. Opinions, please?"

802.11b Issues for Apartment Complexes? (Revisited)

johaninroseville asks: "I am in the planning stages to build a wireless network to provide an apartment complex with last mile Internet access. There are about six hundred units, but only one to two hundred interested people. For those curious as to the general layout of the apartments, here is an overhead picture.

My experience with radio frequencies, antennas, and especially how well radio waves can penetrate walls etc is rather limited. My game plan is to get a feed into the POP / MDF, and have a rather strong omni antenna mounted on the roof of that building. The coverage of that omni antenna will provide the links to the seven APs that will probably be needed, mounted on the rooftops around the complex. The seven IDFs, (or APs or what ever you want to call them) will each have a Point-to Point connection to the big omni antenna. Hardware used for the seven IDFs is planned to be: directional antenna (for link to omni in POP) connected to bridge, bridge connected to AP, AP connected to a sectored panel antenna that will provide end-user access (to their PCMCIA/PCI/CF/USB Cards, or to their access point).

My biggest questions are what antennas to use? What strength? How well can the radio waves from an omni antenna and/or a sector antenna penetrate multiple walls, if at all? How far can one of these antennas cover, and then penetrate walls?

I would appreciate any help at all in this matter. Maybe somebody has done something similar, or have some useful links."

Ask Slashdot last covered wireless apartment complexes about a year ago, and it would be interesting to note if any of the new technologies, introduced in the interim, will make this job any easier.

Outdoor Enclosures for 802.11b Equipment?

And finally, this question from ETEQ: "I need to operate a small amount of networking and wireless equipment (Router, Cable Modem, and 802.11 access point) in an outdoor setting, but the problem is that I live in Minnesota, where temperatures can drop far below freezing and stay that way for weeks (not to mention frequent heavy snow)... Are there any outdoor enclosures that can be purchased on a Home or SOHO budget?"

Opusthepenguin writes "There's an interesting article from the AP via Excite about the popularity of massively multiplayer games in Korea. There are 2.2 million people in S. Korea playing MMOGs in a country of 48 million, versus 700,000 in a country of 300 million for the US. Are the social ills discussed in the piece specific to Korea, or is this something other regions of the world should be concerned about as MMOGs grow in popularity?" We also recently ran a story on how far ahead Korea is in terms of broadband infrastructure compared to the US.

Aavidwriter writes "Peter Wayner asks Michael 'Monty' Widenius of MySQL, 'When will RAM prices make disk drives obsolete for database developers?' From Monty's answers, it sounds like hard drives may be nothing but backups before long." From experience, I'd wager that RAM failure rates are less than hard drive failure rates, so it might also mean more stability from that perspective.

lawrencekhoo writes "The Chronicle of Higher Education has an interesting article about the Gottman Institute's (a.k.a. the love lab) work on modeling the dynamics of marital conversations. These models are described in John Gottman et. al.'s recent book The Mathematics of Marriage: Dynamic Nonlinear Models (MIT Press). Should be an interesting read for anyone who ever wondered if human interactions could be mathematically modeled."

Lemuel writes "Tivo has finally pre-announced its music and photo pictures for the Tivo 2. Users will be able to play MP3s and view photos that come from their computer. It will also be possible to program the Tivo via a web site. An official announcement is due in January. There will be revenue associated with these items. Only the remote programming sounds interesting to me, but I'm glad for anything that would keep Tivo afloat."

LazySiow writes "Having looked at Australia's pioneering efforts in cappedband services, AT&T Broadband and Comcast are considering applying download caps of their own. Since the two approved a merger proposal last week, they will be the largest broadband provider in the States, and will not only affect a large percentage of of users, it will set a large and potentially unstoppable precedent for caps all around the country."

Ruger writes "The Supreme Court of the United States will "decide if public libraries can be forced to install software blocking sexually explicit Web sites," according to this article from the Associated Press. US lawmakers have passed three laws to 'protect' children from Internet pornography, but the Court struck down the first and blocked the second from taking effect. 'A three-judge federal panel ruled the Children's Internet Protection Act violates the First Amendment because the filtering programs also block sites on politics, health, science and other non-pornographic topics.'" Our previous story on this ongoing case will bring you up to speed on the issues.

n8willis writes "...Just saw this AP article on Excite news: the FCC has just approved the first upgrade in broadcast radio technology in decades. It allows "CD quality" digital signals to be simulcast by stations along with their traditional analog feed. The tech comes from some company called iBiquity, and unlike Sirius or XM satellite radio, there will be no charge for listening. Some radio buff want to tell us what they know about this concept?" And wiredog writes "The Federal Communications Commission has voted 4-0 to reject a $26 billion merger between satellite TV providers Echostar Communications and Hughes Electronics.

Ruger writes "AP News is carrying this story about IBM opening a new plant in upstate New York. What's most interesting about the story is that IBM will be producing .1 Micron Chips rather than the usual .25 or .18 produced by Intel and other chip makers, or .13 Micron chips they currently make for their PowerPC chips."

Anonymous Being of Power writes "According to a New York Post Article, Macworld New York may be held once again in Boston due to rising costs and lower attendance."

scaramush writes: "The AP is reporting that Steffi Graf has won her lawsuit against Microsoft for hosting nude doctored photos of her. Although Microsoft had removed the images when they appeared in June, MS declined to sign a formal agreement that they would not appear again. This is the second loss for MS in this case. Scary precedent."

bahamlabs writes "Sony is is attempting to venture into the online gaming market with what is now the most popular computer game of all time, "The Sims"." It'll be interesting to see how both the console version of the game, and the online version deal with expansion and customization- the two things that allowed The Sims to become among the most entertaining games ever.

Richard Evans writes "Focus on Broadband Wireless Internet Access has an article [cached by google ] on the potentially catastrophic interference to Communications Users Of The 2.4 GHz Band e.g. Wi-Fi, DECT and Bluetooth by a new lighting technology called RF Lighting."

screenbert asks: "My employer has just dropped a bombshell on me. He's offered $50,000 in training over the next year to each person in our group. Yes per person. Normally I wouldn't think twice about it, but he's having legal draw up contracts that will require us to pay for the training if we leave. I'm not really happy with my current employer due to changes company-wide. I've worked for companies in the past that had programs like this, but never with that kind of money, usually 5-10K. Should I take the training and stick it out for the 3 years, or just put it off?" That's a lot of money to drop in training, but given that it's always wise to keep up your skill set, might this be worth it.

provell writes "An ad for the U of Phoenix online education program caught my eye the other day. I know the concept of online education isn't a new one but it seems to be growing more prevalent with each passing year. As an IT consultant at the age of 18, I didn't give myself much chance for college and I don't get much time in town to take part time courses. With the burst of the E-Bubble, I'm starting to notice an increase in hiring standards. Is a BS a necessary bargaining chip for the IT industry and are online undergrad programs widely accepted/adequate? Any thoughts/experiences would be much appreciated."

michael_cain writes: "Multichannel News is reporting that the FCC has ruled that cable companies providing high-speed data service do not need to provide access to competing ISPs. Depending on whom you believe, this should lead to either (a) more rapid rollout of cable modem service since the cable companies don't have to share the revenues or (b) cable companies limiting the content and services you can reach over their IP infrastructure." And an Anonymous Coward writes: "Excite is running an article indicating that the FCC has exempted cable internet companies from having to share their lines to competition. Unlike telephone companies, cable companies are required only to share their lines when specifically told to by the government. As a condition of the AOL Time Warner merger, that company was forced to offer its consumers a choice of Internet service providers on its high-speed lines. Thursday's vote, classifying cable Internet as an "information service" rather than a telecommunications service that is subject to the open-access provision, makes sure that cable companies won't have to share anytime soon."

An anonymous reader noted that "Excite is reporting that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is taking up a case to decide the question may police look at a suspect's email and instant messages without first obtaining a court order. The defendant, a former police officer, is also claiming his Fourth Amendment privacy rights were also violated. The outcome will only affect Pennsylvania but the issues at hand may eventually reach the US Supreme Court." Umm... Duh?

An anonymous reader noted that "Excite is reporting that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is taking up a case to decide the question may police look at a suspect's email and instant messages without first obtaining a court order. The defendant, a former police officer, is also claiming his Fourth Amendment privacy rights were also violated. The outcome will only affect Pennsylvania but the issues at hand may eventually reach the US Supreme Court." Umm... Duh?

A number of written that the sky is fallen because Google is allowing sponsored rankings. Of course, if you read the article it's the sponsored links on the right side of the page - where the ads have always been.

GreyPoopon writes: "I'm sure somebody has already sent this in, but what the heck. According to Excite, it looks like a summary of the comments on the Microsoft settlement only show 5 of the 47 released by the Justice Department in support of the settlement. Does this mean that Judge Kollar-Kotelly will rely on only these 47 to make her decision?" The comments that the DOJ describes as "major" are now published; the procedure the DOJ wants to follow for publishing all of the 30,000 comments received is contained in a court filing. (The Federal Register, if you don't know, is a dead-tree, daily publication of the doings of the U.S. Federal Government. The Department of Justice is arguing that there are simply too many comments to publish on paper, despite the legal requirement to do so.)

GreyPoopon writes: "I'm sure somebody has already sent this in, but what the heck. According to Excite, it looks like a summary of the comments on the Microsoft settlement only show 5 of the 47 released by the Justice Department in support of the settlement. Does this mean that Judge Kollar-Kotelly will rely on only these 47 to make her decision?" The comments that the DOJ describes as "major" are now published; the procedure the DOJ wants to follow for publishing all of the 30,000 comments received is contained in a court filing. (The Federal Register, if you don't know, is a dead-tree, daily publication of the doings of the U.S. Federal Government. The Department of Justice is arguing that there are simply too many comments to publish on paper, despite the legal requirement to do so.)

An Anonymous Coward writes: "Excite is running an article about how New York is suing McAfee over what it considers a restriction of free speech because McAfee does not allow customers from publishing reviews without prior approval from McAfee. From the article: 'In one instance, Network Associates demanded a retraction of an unfavorable review published in the online and print magazine Network World, citing a clause on its Web site that prohibits product reviews without permission, the lawsuit alleged.'"

Slashback this evening brings you news and updates on several previous stories, including (not limited to) @home service, Linuxgruven, and some followups to Slashdot book reviews.

More news you can use on the @home front. Anubis333 writes: "After a while talking with customer support, I have learned that Comcast@Home (Soon to be ATT Broadband) has instituted a network-wide cap on user upload to 15KB! (Thats not much more than dialup) Also, they have now capped Usenet news access. What am I paying 50 dollars a month for again? More info on usenet here.

Upon even longer hold times, I found out that when Comcast switches over to ATT the cap will be set to 128KB and the usenet caps will be lifted, also they will support more groups. The full change over will be complete by the end of Feb. Any users in the Savannah Ga. Area, they will start here Jan. 15 and end in early feb. Call support for exact local dates if interested."

Yessir, about oh, yea big by a few more inches ... Dave contributed a link showing a side-by-side comparison of the current Apple laptop line, including the new bigger iBook. Shame about the resolution, though ...

By their fruits ye shall know them. zsazsa writes: "According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon has sued James Hibbits and Michael Webbs, the two founders of Linuxgruven for deceptive business practices. He alleges that interviewers were actually salespeople paid to enroll job applicants in training programs costing up to $3,150."

Would the FSF call Sun "GNU-minded"? maitas writes: "It seems that Sun has removed Solaris for Intel from its free download list. It's really sad to see a company that promotes its 'GNU minded' culture to go back on the few good things it had made. They even removed the Solaris source code from their site! Sad, sad, sad."

That them thar' book larnin' Stardance points to an interview at Salon with Steve Grand, in which the "designer of the artificial life program 'Creatures', talks about the stupidity of computers, the role of desire in intelligence and the coming revolution in what it means to be 'alive.'" You may remember Grand's book Creation: Life & How to Make It, reviewed on these pages. Speaking of reviews, several readers have contributed links to the New York Times' review of Lawrence Lessig's new book.

BubbaJoeBob writes: "I just read this thread over at the AVSForum that jeffm7 was able to upgrade his UTV 40GB drive to a WD 100GB drive. Other users are reporting that they were also successful using the WD 120GB drive." And aside from ending up with an apparently useless original drive, this sounds much less painful and involved than various homebrewed TiVO upgrades; according to posters on this thread, it's nearly plug-and-play (with a necessary download step in the middle).

Anonymous Coward writes "For those anti-corporate tech-heads out there, Excite is running an article about how companies are taking over the net through the use of the courts, trademarks and deep pockets. From the article, 'Big corporations have a significant and growing presence on the Internet. In March, just 14 companies controlled 60 percent of users' online time, down from 110 companies two years earlier, Jupiter Media Metrix found.' A final thought from the article, 'This is the last remaining communications medium that allows the small person to participate,' said Barbara Simons, past president of the Association for Computing Machinery. 'To lose that would be a great tragedy.'"

Anonymous Coward writes "For those anti-corporate tech-heads out there, Excite is running an article about how companies are taking over the net through the use of the courts, trademarks and deep pockets. From the article, 'Big corporations have a significant and growing presence on the Internet. In March, just 14 companies controlled 60 percent of users' online time, down from 110 companies two years earlier, Jupiter Media Metrix found.' A final thought from the article, 'This is the last remaining communications medium that allows the small person to participate,' said Barbara Simons, past president of the Association for Computing Machinery. 'To lose that would be a great tragedy.'"

An anonymous submitter sent in: "A CERT Advisory describes a buffer overflow vulnerability in implementations of login derived from System V, which includes among Solaris 8 and earlier and AIX 4.3/5.1. "An exploit exists and may be circulating." Vendors are testing fixes." There's a Reuters story as well.

The_THOMAS (and many others) writes: "A day after major anti-virus firms waffle on their support for 'Magic Lantern', and nine days after Thomas C Greene of The Register tried to throw cold water on it's existence, the FBI Confirms the 'Magic Lantern' Project Exist. Welcome to a Brave New World!"

sydney writes: "Earthlink has decided to go out and buy the remains of OmniSky's wireless network. According to this story, Earthlink has included these plans under its 'Earthlink Everywhere' initiative. Funny thing is, they even admit the wireless, constant streaming idea isn't going to take off anytime soon. The price of stocks even fell 40 cents. At least though, old OmniSky customers will have an ISP again, for now anyway."

sydney writes: "Earthlink has decided to go out and buy the remains of OmniSky's wireless network. According to this story, Earthlink has included these plans under its 'Earthlink Everywhere' initiative. Funny thing is, they even admit the wireless, constant streaming idea isn't going to take off anytime soon. The price of stocks even fell 40 cents. At least though, old OmniSky customers will have an ISP again, for now anyway."

burntfungus writes "War Driving on Vacation with your kids. A drive from Los Angeles to San Luis Obispo's Gum Alley (yes, it's bubble gum on the wall), then on to San Francisco. Hundreds of 802.11b Access points available for mapping with Netstumbler. Some in the middle of nowhere."

Omega Prime writes: "The BBC has an article about the latest advances in E-Paper. That is, flexible display media that is both cheap and reuseable. The possibilities for this are endless, Can you say Holodeck wallpaper?" There's also an AP article. Do you ever get the feeling that electronic paper is going to be just around the corner for a long, long time?

thumbtack writes: "In the neverending story of the @home saga it's being reported (on the Excite Portal which is not going under) that AT&T has broken off their bid to purchase Excite@home assets. They cite a number of significant contractual breaches and other violations by the bankrupt broadband Internet access company. In another related story Comcast and Cox say they have inked separate $160 million dollar deals to continued service while they develop their own networks. AT&T say that as of Tuesday morning they have moved 500,000 of their subscribers over to their network."

thumbtack writes: "In the neverending story of the @home saga it's being reported (on the Excite Portal which is not going under) that AT&T has broken off their bid to purchase Excite@home assets. They cite a number of significant contractual breaches and other violations by the bankrupt broadband Internet access company. In another related story Comcast and Cox say they have inked separate $160 million dollar deals to continued service while they develop their own networks. AT&T say that as of Tuesday morning they have moved 500,000 of their subscribers over to their network."

David Harris writes: "A bankruptcy court ruled today that the @Home network will be shutdown at midnight, unless the company reaches new deals with its cable partners and creditors. The decision is a victory for bondholders, owed $750 million by Excite@Home, whose motion asked the court to shutdown the network on grounds that AT&T's $307 million offer to acquire @Home's broadband network is not adequate and fair value for the network could only be found if a shutdown was forced." Read about it on excite.com, while you can. CNet has a good analysis of where things stand. 45% of the cable modem users in North America! Ouch.

paradox writes "Reuters is reporting that scientists have found a massive black hole 40,000 light-years away that could change the way scientists think about black holes. The mass of this particular black hole is 14 times the mass of the sun, compared to the typical mass of 3 to 7 suns."

jgaynor writes: "The FCC on Thursday voted to remove the existing restriction on how many frequencies a single wireless provider can own in any one location. While this is a blow for consumers who want more cell bandwidth and services like data or video - they could end up getting hosed as this might knock some smaller players out of the market and decrease competition, raise prices, etc. Excite has coverage; CBS Marketwatch does too."

bgood writes "'What, a swallow, carrying a coconut? ...' The Department of Animal Ecology at the University of Lund in Sweden uses a modern low-speed wind tunnel specially crafted for bird experiments. The birds are trained to fly in the 'test-section' and the tunnel can be tilted up or down to simulate ascent and descent. This link contains plenty of detail, complete with bird pictures. For those of you who yearn to build your own (non-bird-compliant) wind tunnel, you can find instructions in this Scientific American article."

bgood writes: "O'Reilly Network has an interesting article on authentication for wireless networks. The author discusses both the technical aspects, specifically NoCatAuth, and the overall context of why someone would choose (or not choose) to monitor or track the use of their wireless network. While geared towards network neighborhoods, the article definitely has applicability in more formal settings."

viking099 writes "File swapping programs such as Morpheus, Grokster, and Kazaa (all based on the same software from FastTrak) have grown over 480% in the past 4 months, and are set to break the 1.57 million concurrent connection record that Napster set." So who exactly is surprised by this?

systmc asks: "I'm trying to decide between using WinVNC or a KVM extender at a customer's site. I'd like to use WinVNC but I'm concerned about it's CPU usage on a WinNT system (with an inactive client connected CPU usage was at around 8%, even with Raw encoding. PCAnywhere was about 0.5%). Does anyone have experience tweaking VNC? If hardware winds up being necessary, what KVM Extender would you recommend?"

flatt writes: "The US Government picked NeuStar, the managers of the upcoming .biz registry, to manage the .us registry today. NeuStar has made a press release and there's an AP article over at Excite about it. Finally a country code that I'll register in." This has been brewing for a long time, and has been criticized as a giveaway.

donheff asks: "The General Services Administration (where I work) recently released a certificate arbitrator module (CAM) under an open source license drafted by GSA and Mitretek. GSA and Mitretek will serve as the license reviewers and will modify it as appropriate. I was not involved in drafting the license but may poke my nose into future developments. I am interested in what Slashdot readers think of the terms and conditions of this agreement and what they think belongs in Government open source licenses. Full text of the license is available here." Word of warning, the previous link is in .DOC format, so you may want to fire up those converters. It's nice seeing the Government finally trying to embrace Open Source, however are there any "gotcha!"s in this license that we should worry about?

bgood writes: "According to this story on Excite@Home, the UK's Royal Mail has released a series of "interactive" stamps. Included in the series: A scratch-and-sniff stamp, a stamp with a hologram, and another that shows an electrically-charged particle when warmed by finger heat. The stamps commemorate 100 years of the Nobel Prize and Britain's achievements. The Royal Mail describes the stamps here."

bgood writes: "According to this story on Excite@Home, the UK's Royal Mail has released a series of "interactive" stamps. Included in the series: A scratch-and-sniff stamp, a stamp with a hologram, and another that shows an electrically-charged particle when warmed by finger heat. The stamps commemorate 100 years of the Nobel Prize and Britain's achievements. The Royal Mail describes the stamps here."

karnal asks: "Since we all listen to a lot of music (who doesn't), I wondered if anyone could help me on this. I've been looking to buy a new speaker system, after growing tired of my current setup. I've recently bought the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz and I'm looking for a good set of speakers. Should I go the 4.1 route? Personally, I think I'd be happy with 2.1. I'm looking for low noise, decent power, and excellent sound quality. I've looked at the VideoLogic Sirocco Crossfire, but at 449$ a set, I wouldn't want to be dissappointed. Anyone test any outstanding speakers lately?"

An anonymous user sent in a minor bit of news about Ontario and a patented cancer test. The part I found interesting was the price comparison between the patented and non-patented tests - $3000, per test, solely due to the government-granted monopoly. Wow.

kenny asks: "There was a front page Wall Street Journal article last month (Aug. 17--sub. required) about local municipalities like Tacoma, Wash. and Coldwater, Mich. building out public fiber-optic networks through tax-free bond issues and run like local utilities. My question is what's been people's experience with municipal broadband networks? It seems like it's made people happy, and if the internet is like a public utility and if companies are dragging their feet about providing service, why shouldn't municipalities take it upon themselves to deliver service for their constituents?"

"Universally, it seems, people get better service and prices when such networks are implemented. It also forces telecom companies operating in the area to offer better service and prices as well, in short, to compete. But it's also increased companies' lobbying efforts against such municipal activity and it's not hard to see why such companies like AT&T Broadband, Charter Communications (controlled by Microsoft), and Qwest don't like it."

Not many municipalities are saavy enough to think about deploying this sort of infrastructure, however. For those in that situation, what kind of lobbying efforts must a municipality put together before village/town/city officials will take notice? If the government does notice, what kind of arguments should be made to convince them that it might be worthwhile to make such an undertaking?