Slashdot Mirror

A reader submitted: "Sony has set back the release of the Playstation 2 due to component shortages. The Europe release date has been reset to Nov. 24th, but a US date has not been confirmed." We've been seeing a lot of conflicting submissions over the last few days -- and conflicting information from Sony. But what it looks like now is that the initial release, for the U.S., is set for Oct. 26th, and the number of the machines to be shipped has been scaled back by half.

Glen Davis writes: "A Russian inventor has created motorized shoes! The shoes weigh 2 pounds apiece, and work by means of foot-long pistons which trigger a plate attached to the shoe's sole. Single strides are up to 13 feet long, and wearers can attain speeds of up to 25 mph! The shoes are gas-powered." (BBC article with pictures here, submitted by Ave.)

WhiskeyJack writes "At the cutting edge of body art, student Erik Sprague of Albany New York has turned himself into a human lizard. His parents must be awfully proud. :) " Surgically split tongue. Ridge implants in his forehead. Green scales. And then there's me: scared to put on a rub-on tatoo ;)Update: 12/21 08:26 by H : For the not-so-squeamish, Zorro sent us some shots and pictures of the lizardman. Forked tongue, indeed.

Ender, Duke_of_URL writes "According to this story the Arizona Democratic party will conduct internet voting in conjuction with paper-based voting for the March 11th primary." Ok so its only a primary, but its a step. Does anyone besides me think online voting is the best thing in the universe? Anyone qualified out there still worrying about ballot stuffers?

StainlessSteelRat writes "It's a shock to me, but my favorite green man has become the spokesfrog for the v-chip. He will be, "Explaining the v-chip's purpose, its practical applications and the rating system that works with the device," to the same people that can't seem to get their VCR's to stop flashing 12. " My childhood has been ripped away-the question I have, is the V-chip what's at the end of the rainbow connection?

whimsy writes "A senior Compaq executive credited Microsoft Tuesday with making computers easier to use, more reliable, and less expensive." It interesting to see how Compaq has been scrambling the past few days to not look like a "victim". This relates to John Rose, Compaq official, who's the next witness in DOJ trial currently going on. The article talks a little about the history of Compaq and Microsoft, as well as some of their disagreements.

VanL writes " Looks like episodes 7,8, and 9 are not to be. Lucas told Vanity Fair that he plans to quit after the prequels are done." Related news for Dutch Trekkies below. In a related story Merijn Broeren wrote in to tell us " More geeky news for Dutch viewers. There will be a Star Trek Movie marathon next week (16 January), an all night Trek fest, with 4 shows after each other. The first three you can choose between the 8 old movies, then in three rooms at once the new Insurrection. 1400 trekkies will attend!" More info in Dutch (which I can't read).

VanL writes "Scientists have just found a way to grow a carbon lattice on glass. So what? Well, the possible applications for this new technique include super-flat, super-light monitors without the drawbacks usually associated with LCDs. See more here. "

Well this is a bit off topic for typical Slashdot news, but I think it's interesting. this story tells us that 4 of the main voices on the Simpsons have demanded raises, including Dan Castellaneta (Homer) and Hank Azaria (who actually has a career outside the show).

Warren E. Downs has written an awesome editorial on the future of openness, Microsoft's monopoly, the browser integration issue and more. the following was written by Slashdot reader Warren E. Downs

The Problem of Integration By Warren E. Downs Systems Engineer
In the last few years, and especially in the last few months, Microsoft Corporation has come under increasing fire for monopolistic practices. While people are trying to define what is or isn't a monopoly, however, many have overlooked an important underlying issue: Where should the Operating System be separated from it's applications? While there has been some debate on this issue, most of it has focused on extremes.

On the one hand, Microsoft points out the desirability of integrating new features into operating systems and the past precedent for doing so. (See Microsoft's article on integration, and this news article about their latest attempt to halt the DOJ investigation). On the other hand, the U.S. Department of Justice is working to stop the integration of Internet Explorer into Windows. The average person, looking at this situation, might concede that, yes, it is desirable to have these features integrated into the OS. Never mind all the companies put out of business by such action.

I believe both sides are overlooking something. Yes, I agree, it is nice to have disk compression, defragmentation, virus scanners, browsers, speech recognition, etc. built into the OS. What isn't so nice is that, at least in Microsoft's case, users lose the freedom to choose alternatives. Oh, you say, but people can always choose Netscape as their browser. It's not that hard to download and install.

You're right-- Netscape (or your choice of speech synthesis, disk compression, etc.) are easy enough to install, but when you do install them, you'll notice they are never as integrated as Microsoft's solution. Never quite as full featured. There's a reason for that, and it has nothing to do with the technical feasibility of integration. It's called Legal Precedent.

In the case of disk compression, remember a company called Stac Electronics? Back in the days of DOS, their product, Stacker was _the_ disk compression for DOS. There was a competing product called DoubleSpace. Then it was bought by Microsoft. Then it was integrated into DOS. (Specifically, Microsoft modified DOS so it could load DoubleSpace _before_ loading the remainder of DOS. This meant you no longer had to maintain two copies of config.sys and autoexec.bat. This is a great feature-- if only Stac Electronics could have added it to their product.

Oh, now I remember! They did! They reverse engineered the proprietary interface between DOS and DoubleSpace, and modified Stacker so it would interface with DOS in the same way that DoubleSpace did. The only problem? Microsoft sued them. And now, about the only reference you hear to Stacker, is in relation to DoubleSpace.

Now, obviously, if a company wants to make a profit selling software, it can't just let people go around reverse engineering things, can it? In the hardware arena, reverse engineering is common. Take a look at the Intel processor clones produced by AMD and Cyrix. They were able to reverse engineer the "interface" between Intel hardware and the software that runs on it. Of course, a large part of that interface was documented, otherwise software developers wouldn't be able to use it. (Of course, there's no guarantee of equal access to documentation, what with all the NDA's-- Non Disclosure Agreements-- Intel requires people to sign).

My point is, however, it is possible to make Intel-compatible processors without having to copy the circuit traces using a microscope (which would definitely be illegal under U.S. law). But the line between legal reverse engineering of software and piracy of software is much thinner. Tracing the execution of an OS with a debugger doesn't suddenly halt when you move from an application into the OS. Furthermore, how do we determine where the applications end and the OS begins? What was once an application-- DoubleSpace disk compression-- is now part of the OS.

This is an issue I feel should be further studied by knowledgeable, unbiased, computer scientists. But I do have an immediate solution. I don't think we should restricting Microsoft from including new technology into the OS-- This would be unfair to Microsoft, but far worse, would restrict other OSs from integration, if it did become law. Take a look at the speech recognition being integrated into OS/2. Unix, too, has it's share of integration taking place. For example, KDE, a Desktop Environment for X-Windows, includes an integrated browser in much the same way as Microsoft. The difference is, the interface between KDE and the OS is documented. The interface between IE and Windows is not documented.

My solution to this problem is to require Microsoft to document the interfaces between any module (read DLL or collection of DLLs) and the other modules of the OS. After all, if Microsoft can easily interchange components of it's OS, it's only fair that others be allowed to do so as well. Just think what this would do for us. As users, we would have the choice of which Memory Management module, Disk Compression module, Browser module, etc., we wish to use. We would not be forced into only once choice by Microsoft's proprietary interfaces. (This assumes someone writes alterate modules, of course, but with the interfaces documented, I predict there would be a flood of new innovation in the area of alternate modules for Windows).

For Microsoft's part, it might appear they would get the short end of the deal. But, in the long run, it would be better for Microsoft and everybody. Having open interfaces between software modules is like having unrestricted trade between nations. It opens up competition. Microsoft's modules would have to get better to compete with all the other choices of modules out there. And as long as they were better, Microsoft would still get a healthy share of the market. But innovation wouldn't be stifled, as it is presently.

If Netscape wanted to make their browser a plug-in replacement for Internet Explorer, they would have to modify it heavily to support all the interfaces that IE does-- adding COM interfaces for other programs to make use of Netscape for the Win98 help browser, for instance. But, if Netscape (or some other company) was successful in doing this, we would have alternatives to using IE-- and they might even be better.

Now a few comments from Rob...

The major issue that I see is that Microsoft currently documents much of their APIs, and will try to use that to prove that they already are doing this sort of thing. The problem is that they design the API, and control both ends of it.

For example, when OLE came about a few years back, Microsoft Compilers were the first to support them. What office application suite supported them first? Office 4 of course. Microsoft created a spec, and because of their control of the operating system, it became defacto. And because they designed the spec, they had the first products to support it. And the rest is history.

This is happening with other specs as well- DirectX and Direct3d seem like a good example. Microsoft releases the first apps that support these standards, and integrates them into the OS so everyone has it. Can any other game company do that? Of course not.

If these APIs and specs are developed by a third party, and MS was split into seperate entities that had no special access to these third parties, the future would look much brighter.

What do you guys think?

Kyle Geddes wrote in to let us know that Apple turned a profit last quarter. I guess that new years resolution that none of you chose a few weeks back may come true anyway. Steve "Egoman" Jobs is quoted as saying "Returning Apple to sustainable profitability is the company's No. 1 objective for fiscal 1998, and we believe we're making great progress toward that goal". It's about time. Read this infobeat story for more.

Kyle Geddes writes in with another great example of how technology is making our lives better. Kyle writes "The city of Los Angeles wants to help find Fido by implanting a microchip under its skin. It will do the same thing for your cat. In a city housing the world's best-known pet cemetery, the council added a new service for animal lovers Wednesday. The council approved a pilot scheme to implant tiny identification microchips to be placed between the shoulders of a cat or dog adopted from one of the city's pet shelters. The city will recover the cost of the chips by raising shelter adoption fees from $74 to $89 for dogs and from $50 to $65 for cats. See InfoBeat for the full story." Now if I only could get those things implanted in people I don't like so I can figure out where I don't want to be.

Brace yourself:Hong Kong has followed up the Success of its tomagotchi toy with the virtual lover. You take them on dates and write them letters. Judging by the huge flurry the recent Asia Cararre story we posted raised, a lot of our readers may actual want one. I know I do. But go read more if you're into this sort of thing.