Slashdot Mirror

securitas writes "Reuters' Daisuke Wakabayashi reports that Microsoft will 'cut the price of its Xbox game console by a third in Japan, undercutting rival Sony Corp's recently reduced PlayStation 2 price ahead of the holiday shopping season.' The price cut takes effect on Nov. 20 when it will be reduced to 16,800 yen (US$155) from 24,800 yen (US$228). The cut comes a week after Sony's 20 percent cut in its PS2 price to 19,800 yen (US$182), which takes effect Nov. 13. (Gamespot brief) Does this hint at a holiday price cut for North America, too?" We mentioned price cut rumors for Xbox in Japan a couple of weeks back.

securitas writes "The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will hold its first hearings on Internet telephony and VoIP regulation on Dec. 1 and plans to regulate VoIP by late 2004. A public comment period will follow the Dec. 1 meeting. Some say that it is overly ambitious to regulate VoIP by 2004, especially since FCC Commissioner Michael Powell does not have a strong reputation for clarifying complex issues - instead he has a reputation for confounding them. More at Internet.com and InternetWeek . FCC press release (PDF1|DOC1) and attached letter (PDF2|DOC2) to VoIP proponent Senator Ron Wyden, who sits on the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee."

securitas writes: "Reuters reports that Nokia is considering a takeover of Psion (mirror at Forbes), to gain control of the Symbian operating system. Psion is the second largest shareholder in Symbian with a 31.1 percent stake. Nokia holds 32.2 percent. The move is seen as a tactic to fight off Microsoft and dominate the lucrative and growing mobile phone software market. Symbian is currently owned by Ericsson, Nokia, Panasonic, Psion, Samsung Electronics, Siemens and Sony Ericsson. The report originates in the London newspaper, Business. What does this mean for the Symbian OS, which is currently an open OS?"

securitas writes "BBC Technology reports on the psychology of virus writers and the work of security researcher Sarah Gordon, who has been studying this area for 20 years. ''The stereotype that virus writers are all young teenage boys with no social life, hiding in their basement is not accurate,' she said. In contrast, she said, most virus creators are typical for their age, are on good terms with friends and family and are often contributors to their local community.' The story is an interesting contrast to a previous BBC report about why people write viruses."

securitas writes "The Cartoon Network is about to premiere a new series of animated shorts based on the Star Wars prequels. The series comes from Genndy Tartakovsky (Samurai Jack, Dexter's Lab) and debuts Friday Nov. 7 at 8PM Eastern Time. One correction: The USA Today article is incorrect in saying that 'Clone Wars marks the first animated series to involve any of the saga's leading characters.' That distinction goes to Nelvana's Droids, which followed the adventures of R2D2 and C3PO."

securitas writes "Intel is contemplating using metal instead of silicon in future chips for the 'transistor gate, which controls whether a transistor is on or off' and the 'dielectric, an insulating layer below the gate,' which are respectively made of silicon atoms and silicon dioxide. 'Millions of minuscule switches that make up silicon chips leak electricity when they're supposed to be shut off. To compensate, engineers have increased the current, driving up power consumption, decreasing battery life for portable devices and generating more heat.' AMD has also experimented with metal instead of silicon. By moving to metal AMD and Intel expect to reduce electricity leakage. More from AP via SeattlePI and the Miami Herald." Update: 11/05 15:25 GMT by T : Read on below for some information from Intel on why this is a good thing.

gManZboy writes "Following up on the Intel news that about using metal in chips -- here's an explanation from Shekhar Borkar (Intel Research Fellow) about why heat, power, and sub-threshold leakage, not transistor size, are the real challenges to Moore's law. Apparently, in order to make chips much faster, we're going to have to pump more electricity in then anything else in our houses -- and they'll soon be as hot as a nuclear reactor -- no, really."

securitas writes "After the technology industry's so-called nuclear winter that has resulted in thousands of lost jobs over the last three years, the New York Times' Steve Lohr reports that technology spending is finally increasing (Google / mirror). Much of the investment in hardware and software is spurred by the natural corporate replacement cycle, but the positive change offers a glimmer of hope for techies everywhere. IBM CEO Sam Palmisano says that IBM plans 'to add 10,000 workers in fields of emerging demand over the next year.' Based on IBM's current Linux advertising campaign and market projections, this will probably mean hiring staff who are knowledgeable about Linux and open source software. Is this just a blip as some analysts believe, or is it the beginnings of a resurgence for the technology sector?"

securitas writes "Motorola launched its A760 Linux and Java smartphone in China today. The dual-mode GSM/GPRS phone uses a version of MontaVista Linux, Motorola's i250 chip for communications, Intel's 200 MHz PXA262 chip (based on the XScale PXA250) for computing with 256 MB RAM, and software that includes a personal information management application, digital camera, a video player, MP3 music player, and an instant-messaging tool. The A760 is the first of Motorola's Linux-based phones. Eventually Motorola plans to use Linux in most of its phones."

securitas writes "ITBusiness has an interview from the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference where Bill Gates says 'You don't need perfect code to avoid security problems.' Instead he suggests that users acquire and properly configure firewalls and make sure that they keep their software patches up-to-date. Considering that Microsoft says it is focused on security, the comments from the Chief Software Architect aren't inspiring, especially beacuse the underlying attitude seems to contradict the idea of well-written, secure code. What kind of message does that send to the developers who work for Gates?"

securitas writes "The New York Times asked 11 prominent people to write about a device that they'd like to see invented (Google). Contributors include John Perry Barlow, Scott Adams, William Gibson and Bill Joy, among others. There are some intriguing ideas and some that are way out there, but lots of fun for geeks everywhere."

securitas writes "If you had any doubts that you are overwhelmed by the volume of information in your life, a new Berekley study (PDF) shows that five exabytes of data were created in 2002, twice the 1999 total. That's five million terabytes of data, or 500,000 Libraries of Congress, which works out to about 800 MB of data for each of the 6.3 billion people on the planet. Of note is that 92 percent of the new information was stored on magnetic media, which may create an interesting problem for historians and archaeologists of the future. The study was conducted by University of California-Berkeley's School of Information Management and Systems professors Peter Lyman and Hal Varian. More at CNet, Infoworld, ByteAndSwitch and The Register."

securitas writes "CNet's Michael Kanellos reports on start-up Antelope Technologies' plans to launch its Modular Computing Core (MCC) next week. The 'full-fledged Windows [XP] computer that measures 3 inches by 5 inches' is based on the IBM Meta Pad, which Antelope Technologies licensed from IBM. Priced at $3,970, it's expected that the MCC will be primarily for corporate fleets, where mobility is a requirement. Antelope's MCC was previously mentioned on Slashdot, and it seems that the company has beat competitor OQO to real product status. Will the Nimbel V5 be next?"

securitas writes "The New York Times' Steve Lohr reports on a fundamental shift taking place in Silicon Valley in the post-dotcom era: the geeks are back in charge. New start-ups and companies that survived the bubble 'are based on innovation and are run by people with deep technical skills.' These companies have real technology and a solid technical base that have historically been the bedrock of Silicon Valley - something that was temporarily forgotten during the dotcom bubble. Profiled companies include Tellme Networks (speech recognition), InterTrust (DRM - digital rights management), VMware (virtual machines) and Scalix (Linux e-mail servers)."

securitas writes "What's smaller than a breadbox? Or a toaster? Or a teddy bear? The New York Times has just discovered mini-ITX based computers (Google /CNET mirror, minus the pictures). It's a nice overview of the mini-ITX scene and suggests that small form computers are a hot growth area while the traditional PC business languishes."

securitas writes "The first users of Microsoft's Office 2003 are weighing in and the response is mixed. The new Outlook has received a favorable response, but the mantra seems to be there's little reason to upgrade unless you absolutely need the new features. Meanwhile, Bill Gates dismissed the open source competition. One of the new features - self-destructing documents - seems to have caused some confusion, because 'Microsoft says the new feature is not designed to remove all traces of a file' and MS spokesman Mike Pryke-Smith says, 'The message will still be in various places', so emails will not cleanly self-destruct. A related issue is the permissions technology called Information Rights Management, which may shut out Mac users. PC World has a detailed review of Office 2003 which sums things up well."

securitas writes "The Department of Defense has launched Phase I of its delayed IPv6 interoperability test (mirror) in a six-month project dubbed Moonv6. It is the largest North American IPv6 test ever and its goal is to evaluate IPv6 for 'network-centric military operations.' Phase II was originally scheduled to begin in January 2004 but may be delayed due to the late start of the current test. 'IPv4 addresses are 32 bits long, enough for around 4 billion unique addresses.' In contrast, the IPv6 address length is '128 bits, or 340 billion billion billion billion unique addresses.' Experts hope this will solve a predicted IP address shortage as more devices are created to use the Internet."

securitas writes "Jupiter Research has issued a report that says businesses that choose to stay with Microsoft products may end up paying anywhere from 10%-40% more than if they chose another solution. Software Assurance clients will see the lowest costs and SA-have-nots will see the highest costs. The rationale is that Microsoft's strategy of integrating server and client software, as it has done with the new Windows Server 2003 and Microsoft Office 2003 suite, will force costly upgrades and licenses. Ultimately the goal is to transform Office into a platform instead of a collection of applications. Analyst Joe Wilcox says, "Microsoft argues that increased integration will cut down ongoing costs, maintenance and what not, but whether that will be the case has yet to be seen. The increased acquisition costs, though, are pretty clear." This leaves the door open for other office suites like Corel WordPerfect, Sun StarOffice and OpenOffice. More on costs and integration at Jupiter/Wilcox's Microsoft Monitor Blog."

securitas writes "The New York Times Business section published a longish profile of P2P VoIP startup Skype, founded by the people that brought you P2P file-sharing client Kazaa. Previously the domain of geeks everywhere, this is significant if only because it seems to signal that VoIP is starting to garner mainstream consumer interest and serious business interest. The article discusses Vonage and a Daiwa Securities telecom report that says Skype 'is something to be scared of, and is probably set to become the biggest story of the year.' Critics dismiss it as hype. But Skype faces a potential court battle with the FBI. 'Because traffic over Skype is strongly encrypted and distributed over wide-ranging sources, it could hamper authorities' ability to wiretap.' An FBI spokesman says, '... it is something that we are looking into.' Of course last week's Minnesota federal court ruling that exempts VoIP from traditional telecom legislation doesn't hurt the case for VoIP. The text of the ruling is expected to be available this week. Read the previous Slashdot stories on Skype and the Vonage vs Minnesota case for some background."

Slashback tonight brings updates on the recent Google hiccup, LookSmart and the FBI's note-snooping in the Adrian Lamo case, as well as (at long last!) a list of the theaters whose seats will soon be smooshed for far longer than usual under the weight of those dedicated enough to sit through 10 hours of Lord of the Rings. Read on below for the details.

Microsoft thinks LookSmart looks less smart. securitas writes "Internet search company LookSmart was dropped by Microsoft's MSN service today. MSN has decided not to extend its licensing contract with LookSmart beyond January 2004. The news is devastating for LookSmart since, 'Microsoft accounted for approximately 65 percent of listings revenues, and all of LookSmart's licensing revenue in the second quarter of 2003,' according to a company press release not listed on LookSmart's site. The move comes after LookSmart recently launched its own Overture-style pay-per-click service and indicates Microsoft is close to launching its new search engine technology designed to unseat Google for the search crown. All of this is against the backdrop of acquisitions by rival Yahoo. More coverage at SearchEngineWatch and a Reuters mirror at CNN Money."

They could have fixed this if they'd googled for an answer ... powerg3 writes "This follow-up, explains the Google wackiness posted yesterday. Here's the quote from the Google Weblog: '...when a spam result comes up in a search, Google not only blocks the spam, but every result after it. This means that for searches where spam results manage to rise to the top, very few -- sometimes zero -- results will be returned....It's pretty amazing that such a serious bug made it past Google's tests. It will be interesting to see how quickly it's fixed.'"

Pardon me, mum, can I borrow your hard drive? AndreL writes "The Guardian has an update about the BBC's digital archive plans. They're considering using P2P technology to avoid bandwidth bottlenecks. The bad news: because of technical, financial, and legal problems nothing will happen until 2006 at the earliest."

Please arrive in costume if at all. KTecumseh writes "The list of theaters showing the extended editions of LOTR as been revealed. You can check out the list at the official website, and before you look, pray that you live somewhere close by to take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime experience. For those that can not make the full 10-hour saga, they are also showing the first two extended additions on different dates, but who wants to miss out on an entire theater of sweaty LOTR fans."

Shamus Arrigan asks plaintively "There is no mention of these ticket sales in any other country. Does anyone know when and where these tickets will be sold at? (Canada especially)"

Wait, are you fellas press? Dangnabbit! ccnull writes "Good news from the inquest against hacker Adrian Lamo. According to a paragraph in a Washington Post column (buried about 3/4 of the way down the story), the FBI appears to be backing off from pursuing reporters' notes in the case. Relevant quote: 'A Justice Department official says the FBI agent "acted out of turn" by not seeking approval from the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan and Attorney General John Ashcroft's press office. "The agent did not follow standard procedures," the official says. "We're just not going to pursue it. It is the policy of the Justice Department to exhaust all other means before seeking information from members of the media."'"

Eh, what's a few orders of magnitude? Grant hayes writes: "It seems the decimal point in the Mono story you ran is being a bit ambitious. We should be reading Mono 0.28, not Mono 2.8. Check the link below as well as links there to other Mono resources; I see 0.28 throughout." Here's the Mono site -- guilty as charged. Thanks for the correction.

Geartest.com writes "PalmOne (AKA Palm) launched three new handhelds today: The Tungsten T3, Tungsten E and Zire 21. Without going on at length about the features of every model, the T3 has 64 MB RAM, a 320x480 display that rotates from portrait to landscape mode, a software writing area that slides out of the way when you aren't using it, built-in Bluetooth, a voice recorder, and Palm OS 5.2.1 that runs on an Intel XScale 400 MHz processor, which Sony dropped from the top-end CLIE in favor of its own silicon. InfoSyncWorld reviews the Tungsten T3, Tungsten E and Zire 21. PalmInfocenter also has a T3 review. ZDNet UK has a Tungsten T3 preview. And the Detroit Free Press has an overview of all three devices."

securitas writes "The New York Times reports that Internet provider SBC Communications has refused to identify computer users accused by the RIAA of file-sharing copyrighted material. SBC is the largest high-speed DSL provider with over 3 million subscribers. It continues to refuse a response to the 300 subpoenas served by the RIAA despite a ruling against Verizon earlier this year. 'We are going to challenge every single one of these that they file until we are told that our position is wrong as a matter of law,' said James D. Ellis, general counsel for SBC. He continues, '...We've got a long heritage in which we have always taken a harsh and hard rule on protecting the privacy of our customers' information.' Mirrors in Tuscaloosa and Lakeland."

securitas writes "For those that follow these sorts of things, the 2003 Hugo Award Winners list has been released (PDF). Robert Sawyer's 'Homonids' won Best Novel, fan favorite Neil Gaiman won Best Novella for 'Coraline', Geoffery A. Landis won Best Short Story for 'Falling Onto Mars', Buffy the Vampire Slayer's 'Conversations with Dead People' won Best Short Form Dramatic Presentation and predictably 'The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers' won Best Long Form Dramatic Presentation. You can get all the details at the Torcon 2003 Hugo Awards section."

securitas writes "The New York Times is carrying a Reuters story about Linux as the software of choice for consumer electronics. At the world's largest consumer electronics show, the IFA trade fair 'the first Linux products are already on show and more will come soon, companies said.' The reason? Linux is freely available, widely embraced and profit margins in the consumer electronics business are one or two percent at best. The math is simple. The industry push comes from the members of the Consumer Electronics Linux Forum (CELF), that includes Sony, Philips, Matsushita/Panasonic, Hitachi, Sharp, Samsung, NEC, IBM, LG, Thomson/RCA and Toshiba. The CELF was previously discussed on Slashdot. Mirrors at Silicon.com and CNet News."

securitas submits this painfully well-linked piece: "eWEEK reviews the RIM BlackBerry 7230 color handheld, Research In Motion's latest combination wireless e-mail/phone/PDA, and the first BlackBerry to feature a full-color display. The tri-band GSM/GPRS J2ME device features a 240-by-160-pixel, 65,000-color display, 16 MB flash +2 MB SRAM, an Intel 386 32-bit chip, SMS, an HTML browser (missing from the preceding BlackBerry 5810), a claimed 4 hours talk/10 days standby removable/rechargeable lithium-ion battery, POP3/IMAP/Exchange/Notes wireless e-mail for up to 10 accounts with file attachment management, security via Triple DES encryption, USB sync/recharging and the usual organizer functions. RIM squeezes it all into a 4.8 oz/136g, 4.4x2.9x0.8 inch/11.3x7.4x2.0 cm package (tech specs at RIM). The BlackBerry 7230 is exclusive to T-Mobile USA until 2004 and costs about $400. With this release, RIM is moving the BlackBerry into the prosumer/consumer market to expand its customer base beyond enterprise users. The release comes amid speculation of BlackBerry doom following RIM's recent patent ruling loss and ahead of the highly anticipated Handspring Treo 600, its direct competition (which includes the MS Pocket PC Phone Edition Smartphone and the Palm Tungsten W). More at Wired News, E-Commerce Times, InfoWorld and Forbes/Reuters."

securitas writes "The New York Times published a story about Intermagnetics -- a company that plans to use 'superconductors as valves on the electric-utility power grid, letting their temperature rise to choke off the flow of power,' a day before the largest blackout in North American history. The timing couldn't have been better. On the day of the blackout, Intermagnetics announced a $6 million contract from the Department of Energy to develop and install superconductor 'valve' prototypes by 2006 in the Niagara Mohawk distribution system. Considering that one of the leading theories for the cause of the cascading blackout is a surge in the Niagara Mohawk power grid, this announcement seems incredibly timely."

securitas writes "In case you can't wait until September to find out what it's like, Walt Mossberg reviews the Sony Clie UX50 (as previously discussed). He likes it, but with reservations. The keyboard lacks predictive text (unlike the Handspring Treo and RIM BlackBerry) and the Clie Mail e-mail software can't read graphical e-mails and has poor attachment support. The audio player only reads files from a particular directory. He likes the 802.11b WiFi and loves the 450x320 screen. The biggest problem? The $700 price tag ($600 for the non-wireless UX40 model) - equivalent to a low-end laptop - especially since it doesn't come with a Memory Stick. If you can read it, here's a Japanese Clie UX50 review and PalmInfocenter press release rewrite."

securitas writes "The President's Commission on the U.S. Postal Service's final report (PDF) has recommended that the USPS and the Department of Homeland Security develop sender identification technology for all U.S. mail. The commission said Intelligent Mail could bolster security and let consumers track the progress of all mail they send, which has been a top consumer demand in surveys. The report released July 31 reads, "Each piece of Intelligent Mail will carry a unique, machine-readable barcode (or other indicia) that will identify, at a minimum, the sender, the destination, and the class of mail... Intelligent Mail will allow the real-time tracking of individual mail pieces." Privacy advocates like the EFF and Center for Democracy & Technology are understandably concerned. The Final Recommendations are available in PDF format. More at Direct Marketers News and pro-privacy/civil liberties magazine Counterpunch." Jamie adds: This confuses me, because I read a news story in late 2001 which matter-of-factly explained that authorities would be contacting recipients of letters which went through a particular post office around the same time as an anthrax envelope. The implication, which I haven't seen any discussion of then or since, is that records are kept of every letter's travels through every post office. Anyone know anything about that? Update: mec does.

securitas writes "One of the most challenging business problems is trying to figure out how to make money on the Internet, especially with content. Louis Borders believes that Internet users will pay for online content and explains in an interview the how and why. He is founder of Borders Group, a $3.4 billion company that is the second-largest bookseller in the USA, as well as the billion-dollar online grocer and dotcom flameout, Webvan. Borders thinks he has found the answers and has just launched KeepMedia, an online newsstand subscription service. As someone who has had spectacular success and failure in his career, Borders' latest venture will be an interesting one to watch."

securitas writes "Martin Taylor was recently appointed as Microsoft's open source and Linux strategist and is responsible for Microsoft's open source and Linux test lab, mentioned on Slashdot last week. Taylor says his goal is to change Microsoft's competitive strategy by pursuing a fact-based approach instead of continuing the previous discredit-and-undermine strategy that was characterized by calling open source and Linux software 'a cancer, un-American and bankrupt' among other things. Taylor says he plans to focus on (and fund) studies that 'will highlight Microsoft's advantages in areas such as security, feature-completeness and total cost of ownership.'"

securitas writes "Debian founder Ian Murdock says that Linux is a process, not a product. He also says that the product mentality 'misses the entire point of Linux and the open-source development model.' Because Linux is made up of many different components developed on independent timeframes, Murdock posits, to refer to Linux as a product is to strip it of its dynamism and closes its inherently open nature. Instead, he says that Linux should be viewed as a shared platform and infrastructure technology, and that business models should reflect that or else Linux risks becoming proprietary, closed and just another cookie-cutter piece of software."

securitas writes "Microsoft has deployed Linux and other open-source software in test labs used by business customers to experiment with Microsoft's products. The products include Linux, Apache, MySQL and Open LDAP directory-access software on Intel-based computers, according to Martin Taylor, who is in charge of Microsoft's Linux competitive strategy. He said the goal was to learn 'what can you do and how can you do it' using open-source software in a competitive analysis. This step comes after Microsoft's recent admission that Linux is Microsoft's biggest threat after economic conditions. Mirrors at CMPnetAsia and InternetWeek." It'd be cool to see some patches come from Redmond, but that's probably wishful thinking.

securitas writes "The NY Times has a nice feature about the diverging estimates of the costs of spam (Google). The estimates vary widely from $10 billion to $87 billion per year for American workers, and even more for global costs. Critics say that research firms' estimates vastly overstate the actual cost of spam. Public institutions like Indiana University have to be sensitive to the First Amendment rights of the spammers. And at companies like Nortel Networks, security architect Chris Lewis says that the real economic burden is the 10 to 15 percent - 5,000 to 10,000 messages a day - of the spam that still gets through, which costs the company about $1 in lost productivity per message. The costs can be much higher if a top executive is upset or mad about spam. "If someone in senior management gets spammed," Mr. Lewis said, "it could take 20 or 30 hours of everyone's time, up and down the chain." A chart of the per user amount of spam and the time spent processing it, as well as the varying estimates of the per user cost of spam are included in the article."

securitas writes "CNet Asia reports that China is building a 2000-processor supercomputer based on the AMD Opteron 64-bit CPU. The new supercomputer will run a Chinese-designed Linux operating system. Based on current standings, the resulting 10-teraflop machine will make it the third most powerful supercomputer in the world. The Red Grid project is being built by Dawning Information Industry and China's National Research Centre for Intelligent Computing Systems. The Red Grid/Dawning 4000A is expected to be complete by June 2004. But China has competition - weighing in at 40 teraflops, the Cray Red Storm AMD-based 10,000-Opteron supercomputer built for Sandia National Labs will become the supercomputer heavyweight next year. More at Infoworld , InternetNews and Yahoo."

securitas writes "Palm has released its latest PDA, the Tungsten T2. The T2 features a Texas Instruments 144MHz OMAP 1510 ARM processor, 32MB SDRAM (29.5 available), 320 x 320 transflective TFT display, wireless communications including Bluetooth, email client, SMS, and web browser, Palm OS v5.2.1, and MP3, video playback, and photo software. It will set you back $399. You can read more about the Palm Tungsten T2 and get tech specs (PDF) at the Palm site. Press release here. More at CNet, PC World, Infosync, the Register and the Inquirer. I'm not sure how many people will buy this product instead of waiting for its newly acquired Handspring Treo 600."

securitas writes "The NY Times recently ran an article about locating and tracking users of 802.11b WiFi networks in three dimensions using triangulation (Google) with multiple base stations. The goal is to create context-aware networks that can allocate bandwidth and provide location-based services such as uploading relevant information to a PDA. The article can be seen in a new light when coupled with the growth in workplace surveillance of employees by corporate executives (Google / short version at IHT) and the associated practical, ethical and legal problems. Interlink Networks 802.11 wireless detection and tracking white paper (PDF)." (This seems as good a place as any to mention Kensington's handheld 802.11 detector; they claim it to be the only such device on the market today. This is the cheapest detector I've seen; have the others all disappeared?)

securitas writes "eWEEK has two related articles on the growth of open source software. The first article is about the growth of desktop Linux, featuring Lotus and the Open Source Applications Foundation (OSAF) founder Mitch Kapor, who says (among other things) that call centers will be where the next wave of growth for desktop Linux happens and that 10 percent of global desktops will be Linux in a few years. He bases his statements on a report by Eazel and GNOME Foundation co-founder Bart Decrem entitled 'Desktop Linux Technology and Market Overview' (PDF) mentioned last week. The second story is about open source software growth in the government sector where government agencies like the U.S. Census Bureau have embraced OS software for projects like the State and County QuickFacts site. Based on Perl, Apache, MySQL and Linux, the site gets 200,000 page views a day."

securitas writes "Today Yahoo announced it plans to buy search technology company Overture for $1.63 Billion. The move is seen as a way to compete with rivals like Google and MSN, especally in the paid search and advertising category. This takeover occurs following this article about Google and Overture's race to secure partners for its paid search advertising. Other reoprts at CNN Money, ZDNet/CNet, AP via the Washington Post, Reuters, Bloomberg and Dow Jones via Yahoo. Press release at Overture and Yahoo."

securitas writes "ExtremeTech just published a step-by-step how-to guide on hacking the Nomad Zen and Nomad Jukebox to upgrade the hard drive in each type of MP3 player. So if a 60 GB hard disk isn't big enough for you (20 GB on the older models) here's how to mod your Nomad."

securitas writes "After having its funding cut off by Congress a decade ago, the SETI program has just received a NASA five-year grant (Google link) to participate as a lead team in the NASA Astrobiology Institute, which investigates the origin and future of life in the universe. For more information, see the Astrobiology Institute's announcement and the NASA press release."

securitas writes "Both eWEEK's review of FreeBSD 5.1 and ExtremeTech's BSD overview and roundup (single page) will be of interest to BSDers and anyone else who wants to explore their open source OS options. The review of FreeBSD 5.1 says it lacks the stability of v4.8 but adds features that some may find useful (for example, more processor architectures are supported) so it shouldn't be considered for critical deployments yet. And the BSD round-up speaks for itself."

securitas writes "The Christian Science Monitor reports on technological change in Estonia, where an enlightened post-Soviet era government believes the Internet is essential for life in the 21st century and backs that up with legislation declaring Internet access is a human right. Estonia is a country where hot, running water was a luxury a decade ago. It's now a place where farmers have broadband Internet, 80% of the people use online banking, Internet usage and broadband penetration rates are comparable to Western Europe, and the government conducts most business (meetings, votes, document reviews, etc.) virtually through a system of networked computers. Not bad for a country that only 10 years ago was a crumbling, bankrupt mess with a network infrastructure to match."

securitas writes "The NY Times reports on the rapid growth of voice-over-IP telephony (VoIP) in sub-Saharan Africa and the battles it is waging with the government monopolies/ILECs. VoIP upstarts are taking market share from the government telcos, making it vastly more affordable to make a phone call since they don't charge the usual exorbitant tariffs and excessive user fees. Governments have responded by shutting down these operations, seizing equipment and cutting off service to lines they suspect of using Internet telephony. Part of the boom is related to the wait times for getting a phone line (Ghana Telecom has a backlog of 300,000 line requests), poor quality of service (50% of time you get a busy signal instead of a dial-tone) plus the willingness to trade voice quality for basic service. Foreign companies are now setting up VoIP call centers and multinationals like gold giant Newmont Mining plan to use VoIP for communications in and out of Africa. Some observers call Accra the next Bangalore, predicting a boom for the region that may make sub-Saharan Africa a major technology hub. This fits nicely with Kofi Annan's drive to use the Internet and wireless networks to change the lives of the poor."

securitas writes "You read it correctly - Mars. China has announced it intends to accelerate its Mars program, using experience and expertise from its fledgling lunar program. Following China's proposed Moon missions, the first phase would send a Mars orbiter to examine and survey the Red Planet; the second phase will involve wheeled robotic probes like China's Mars Explorer roving vehicle prototype, used to collect and analyze rock samples; and the third phase will involve returning spacecraft from the planet and establishing a permanent automated base on Mars. This puts the China-India space race and the China-USA space race in a very different light and clearly indicates that China plans to play with the big boys of Mars exploration."

securitas writes "London-based military historian and commentator Gwynne Dyer writes about Asia's developing space race with plans from China and India to land people on the Moon, previously mentioned on Slashdot in China's case. In April India announced it will send an unmanned probe to the Moon by 2005 and a manned mission by 2015. Critics say it's a waste of time and money for India to pursue the goal. Meanwhile, Russian space experts are quietly helping China in what is seen as a growing alliance and a somewhat alarmist op-ed piece from the Washington Times worries about China's 21st century space dominance and monopolization of strategic resources like H3, used in nuclear fusion."

securitas writes "Handspring unveiled its final product before being acquired by Palm: the Treo 600. It runs Palm OS 5.2 on a Texas Instruments ARM processor with 32MB of RAM, has a 160 x 160 color display, comes in GSM and CDMA versions, includes a digital camera plus various camera applications and supports Good Technology's Goodlink e-mail software, competition to RIM's BlackBerry. Of course it also comes with a keyboard, SMS capability, MP3 player, Web browser and Secure Digital/MMC memory-card expansion slot. Measuring 4.41 inches x 2.26 inches x 0.87 (LxWxD) and weighing about 6 ounces, analysts say that the Treo 600 is what clinched Palm's takeover of Handspring. The only problem that they forsee is a seriously crowded market for PDA/mobile phone combinations. Availability for the Treo 600 is this fall. Images at eWeek, SFGate or Reuters. Streaming movies from Handspring (QuickTime dial-up 56k| QuickTime dsl/cable 300k)." Reader Michael Ducker points out this longer article at TreoCentral as well.

securitas writes "Declan McCullagh interviews Bruce Sterling about Total Information Awareness (renamed Terrorist Information Awareness and raising concerns) or 'Poindexter's nutty scheme' as Sterling thinks of it. He predicts TIA will destabilize the government and lead to internal KGB-style coups. Whether you agree with him or not it makes for thought-provoking reading."

securitas writes "The NY Times writes about an after-school program that teaches teenagers how to hack, attack and defend systems. There doesn't seem to have been the same uproar as the virus-creation course at the University of Calgary (see previous Slashdot thread), even though the participants in Tiger Team (the name of the program) are younger than the university students."

securitas writes "Soon Star Wars behind-the-scenes webcam goes live when shooting for Episode III begins in Australia. 'The webcam will be moved every day, shooting live for 12 hours and then replaying in a loop while the cast is sleeping.' Of course it's only free until next week when you will have to join StarWars.com's newly relaunched site to view the cam as part of a package of services that includes online chats, outtakes and deleted scenes." I'm not sure if it's worth $20, but it's worth something....

securitas writes "The NY Times reports that a pair of Microsoft researchers are challenging the federal policy on funding supercomputers. Gordon Bell and Jim Gray argue that the money would be better spent on massive storage instead of ultra-fast computers because they believe today's supercomputing centers will be tomorrow's superdata centers. They advocate building cheap Linux-based Beowulf clusters (PCs in parallel) instead of supercomputers." NYTimes free reg blah blah.

securitas writes "The NY Times and Bloomberg are reporting that Qualcomm is touting an expected 6 million Indian subscribers using CDMA by year end. But the facts seem to fly in the face of that with Reliance experiencing technical problems and delays with the launch of India's first CDMA network, covered on Slashdot late last year. Part of the problem is that the GSM operators won't allow Reliance's traffic on their networks, not to mention a court challenge and no approval by regulators. Is this just a hopeful diversion from the loss of the Iraq contract, where MCI chose GSM? How does a country where the per capita annual income is $390-$420 (depending on whose number you use) expect people other than the elite to afford mobile phone service, even if the handsets and service charges are heavily subsidized? Forbes discussed the problem of affordable mobile phone service in Africa where incomes are similar. Is this another wireless/fibre optic bubble akin to the one we saw a few years ago?"