Slashdot Mirror
Domain: iwon.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to iwon.com.
Stories · 48
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AT&T Quietly Introduces $10/Month DSL
prostoalex writes "As part of the deal with the FCC to approve the AT&T/BellSouth merger, AT&T started selling, but not advertising, a $10-per-month DSL service in 22 states, AP has learned. 'The service provides download speeds of up to 768 kilobits per second and upload speeds of up to 128 kbps, matching the speeds of the cheapest advertised AT&T plan, which costs $19.95 per month in the nine-state former BellSouth area and $14.99 in the 13 states covered by AT&T before the acquisition.'" -
Price Optimization Software Big in Retail Business
prostoalex writes "Even if you spent only a single day in an economics class, you're probably familiar with a concept of supply and demand. The Associated Press is running an article on retailers employing mathematical models for price optimization, where some products are priced higher to generate higher margins, and some are discounted to generate larger volumes even at the expense of per-product margins. DemandTec, Oracle and SAP are some of the companies producing those mathematical models for retailers around the country, with AP listing some of the pricing optimizations employed currently." -
Price Optimization Software Big in Retail Business
prostoalex writes "Even if you spent only a single day in an economics class, you're probably familiar with a concept of supply and demand. The Associated Press is running an article on retailers employing mathematical models for price optimization, where some products are priced higher to generate higher margins, and some are discounted to generate larger volumes even at the expense of per-product margins. DemandTec, Oracle and SAP are some of the companies producing those mathematical models for retailers around the country, with AP listing some of the pricing optimizations employed currently." -
$100 Laptop Repriced at $175
prostoalex writes "The $100 laptop introduced by Nicholas Negroponte as part of the One Laptop Per Child program will end up costing $175, Associated Press says. The demand for the program is apparent as 'seven nations have expressed interest in being in the initial wave to buy the little green-and-white "XO" computers — Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, Pakistan, Thailand, Nigeria and Libya — but it remains unclear which ones will be first to pony up the cash.'" -
Stallman Convinces Cuba to Switch to Open Source
prostoalex writes "It's a big victory for Richard Stallman in North America, as Cuba decided to adopt open source software on the national level. Both Cuba and Venezuela are currently working on switching the entire government infrastructure to GNU/Linux operating system and applications, the Associated Press reports from Havana: 'Both governments say they are trying to wean state agencies from Microsoft's proprietary Windows to the open-source Linux operating system, which is developed by a global community of programmers who freely share their code.' The AP article doesn't mention the distro used for government workers, but says that the students are working on a Gentoo-based distro." -
Consumers Look For More Utilitarian Cellphones
hdtv writes "The Associated Press has an article about new generation of US consumers, who shun the mobile devices packed with features in favor of simpler devices that get the job done. One would think that as cell phones evolve into cameras, e-mail readers, Web browser and music players, mobile users would be happy with the device that fulfills their digital needs, but according to AP, 'a J.D. Power & Associates survey last year found consumer satisfaction with their mobile devices has declined since 2003, with some of the largest drops linked to user interface for Internet and e-mail services.'" -
VOIP Cell Phones Coming Soon
prostoalex writes "Associated Press reports on the latest cell phones with WiFi support demoed at this year's CTIA Wireless 2006 conference. New models fall back to WiFi hotspot when the user is at home, at work, or cellular signal gets too weak. Biggest surprise? The cell phone conversation is not dropped when the switch between cellular network and WiFi hotspot takes place." -
A Day in the Life of a Nigerian Scammer
prostoalex writes "The media made a Nigerian scammer's career look too easy. Get online, introduce yourself as a corrupt government official willing to take the money out of the country, and wait for the wire transfers from victims to start rolling in. So, the Associated Press takes us through a day in life of Nigerian scammer. It's a life that takes place in Internet cafes with aged screens and free Webmail accounts. However, by the end of the article the AP talks about some people who have made a good career out of it - three cars, two houses. That is, until the next crackdown comes along." -
Viacom Launches Podcast-Only Radio Station
prostoalex writes "Figuring out it couldn't get any worse, Viacom is turning an underperforming talk radio station in San Francisco into podcasting central. KYOU Radio performed so poorly in the ratings that it would not even show up on the official Arbitron radio rankings for the city of San Francisco. Now the Web site of the station owned by $56.5 billion corporation features a hip young look and claims to be the Open Source Radio. Visitors can upload the podcasts of their own in MP3, AIFF, AVI or WMA formats (no OGG support by someone who's so accepting of open source)." -
Low-Cost Simputer Fails to Win Indians' Interest
prostoalex writes "The Associated Press looks at the Indian low-cost Simputer project and registers it as a failure. Picopeta sold 2,000 units over the past year, while Encore Software sold 2,000 Simputers. Only 10% of the devices were bought for rural areas, which the device was originally designed for. The reason? The companies need to sell quite a few simplistic monochrome devices to allow for the low price tag of $200. Meanwhile, anyone can buy a powerful device with a color screen for $199 from a major vendor." -
Ask Jeeves Bought for $2 billion
RMX writes "CNet's reporting that Ask Jeeves is being bought by InterActive Corp for $2 billion. Ask Jeeves (ask.com, excite.com, iwon.com) and InterActive Corp (expedia, ticketmaster, match.com, citysearch). This marks a nice comeback for Ask Jeeves, whose stock was quite a roller coaster ride during the 2000-2003 .com crash. Are the good times back?" -
Burst.com and Microsoft Settle
prostoalex writes "Microsoft and Burst.com announced a tentative settlement, where Microsoft will pay Californian company $60 mln for allegedly stolen multimedia streaming software. Robert X. Cringely provided the recap of the court case back in 2003 (and Slashdot discussion ensued). According to Burst claims, Microsoft entered a non-disclosure agreement with the company to learn about Burst's multimedia streaming technology. Later the technology, for which Burst has 37 patents, has been found in Windows Media Player. When aksed to present the archives of the e-mails and all communications within the company for the trial, Microsoft somehow presented all the documents that preceded before the deal and the documents that followed it. The e-mails during the 35 weeks that negotiations were held mysteriously disappeared. In court Microsoft claimed the e-mails were erased from employee's desktops, e-mail servers and server backups. The technology was not interesting to Microsoft, lawyers insisted, so the electronic trail of communications was erased." -
Business Press Pays Attention To Blog Industry
prostoalex writes "Right after Business Week named WebLogs, Inc. one of the five Net companies to watch in 2005, the Associated Press has a feature on SixApart, the company behind Movable Type, Typepad and (after acquisition) LiveJournal. The article talks about the company starting to 'think big' after being approached by venture capitalists, and has some stats on the blog industry in general." -
Undisclosed Markets to Participate in IPTV Trial
prostoalex writes "Associated Press has the story that three communications corporations are doing test trials of IP-based television in undisclosed markets. From the article: "SBC Communications, the dominant local phone company from the Midwest to California, is deploying a full-blown IPTV system that it plans to launch by year-end in at least a few undisclosed markets. Verizon Communications plans to offer some interactive IP-based features on top of a conventional digital cable service... BellSouth has expressed doubt about whether a cable rollout makes financial sense, the company sees enough potential to trial IPTV technology in undisclosed markets." Currently about 1 mln Europeans get their television via phone line." -
Google Moves Into Video
prostoalex writes "Google will start indexing previously aired content from ABC, PBS, Fox News and C-SPAN and offer it as part of its Web search. No fancy speech-to-text recognition, just the closed captioning provided by the television networks, and no direct links to videocontent either." Right now, most of the channels are SF Bay area stations, but obviously more will be coming along. I saw a demo of this about six months or so ago - it's pretty cool, and interesting to see how far it has come. -
Scalable Enterprise Buzzword Solutions
prostoalex writes "Need a scalable enterprise solution? You're in luck, as those three buzzwords have become so prominent in the technology industry, that they can describe pretty much anything, according to Associated Press. The article later goes on to blame Microsoft and Apple for 'dumbing down' the product descriptions in order to appeal to non-tech-savvy audiences. 'High-tech companies don't release products anymore, they provide solutions. And those solutions don't simply run a program or play a song. Instead, they enable experiences, optimize agility or make people's passions come alive', the AP article states." -
First BitTorrent Arrest in Hong Kong
prostoalex writes "Associated Press says a 38-year-old was arrested in Hong Kong for uploading Daredevil, Red Planet and Miss Congeniality via a BitTorrent client. Hong Kong laws provide for a maximum of 4 years in prison and $6,400 fine for every copy distributed without copyright owner's permission." -
Amazon Sales Record
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AP Reports Young People Use The Internet
prostoalex writes "You read a lot of stories about older generation either adopting or having troubles with Internet. But some people in this world cannot imagine their everyday life without Internet. The kids who went to school during the early days of the Web are now going to colleges and are demanding broadband, downloading music, sharing photos and posting to Web logs, Associated Press says. Most of the everyday tasks, like homework and job search, have migrated to the Web as well. According to the latest data, 188.5 million Americans and more than 1 billion people globally are online." -
Shawn Fanning Is Back Into Digital Music
prostoalex writes "News.com has a lengthy 3-page article on Shawn Fanning's new venture, Snocap. After years of development the company is coming out of the stealth mode and has apparently already secured a distribution deal with Universal Music, promising to turn file-sharers into loyal paying customers overnight. Both News.com and Associated Press are skimpy on the details, but apparently Snocap will market the technology that will (a) sniff out the files shared illegally and (b) fill the peer-to-peer networks with licensed content and serve as a clearing house for the ventures who want to license digital music, but don't want to deal with gazillion of music labels." (We mentioned Snocap last in January.) -
Meet Millionaire Spammer Jeremy Jaynes
prostoalex writes "Associated Press profiles Jeremy Jaynes, charged with sending out unsolicited e-mail messages, who just got a 9-year jail term recommendation from the state jury. With the help of 16 'high-speed' lines (Associated Press probably meant T1s) Jaynes would send out 10 million e-mails a day. His best month in terms of gross income netted him $750,000. Acccording to the article, 'In a typical month, prosecutors said during the trial, Jaynes might receive 10,000 to 17,000 credit card orders, thus making money on perhaps only one of every 30,000 e-mails he sent out. But he earned $40 a pop, and the undertaking was so vast that Jaynes could still pull in $400,000 to $750,000 a month, while spending perhaps $50,000 on bandwidth and other overhead, McGuire said. "When you're marketing to the world, there are enough idiots out there" who will be suckered in, McGuire said in an interview.'" -
SCO Puts a Cap on its Legal Expenses
prostoalex writes "The SCO Group reached an agreement with the lawyers to limit the litigation expenses to $31 million until the IBM lawsuit is resolved. The company already paid $12 million to Boies Schiller & Flexner LLP, Kevin McBride and Berger Singerman, which provide legal services to the company." -
FCC Insists Feds Should Regulate VoIP
prostoalex writes "FCC Chairman Michael Powell insists federal officials should be the only ones regulating VoIP, as trusting the Internet phone regulations to states would result in patchwork of conflicting legislature. Powell is a strong proponent of VoIP (and a Skype user), and considers it the technology that ignites (not competes with) telecom industry. Research shows that fewer than 1 mln Americans use VoIP today, but that's expected to increase 12x by 2009." -
Sun and Kodak Settle Out of Court
prostoalex writes "The patent dispute between Eastman Kodak and Sun Microsystems in regards to three patents that EK claimed Sun was violating with Java, came to an end. Thursday afternoon Associated Press announced the companies settled out of court with terms of the deal unclear yet. Before Eastman Kodak was looking for $1.06 billion in damages." -
Hollywood afraid of Microsoft
prostoalex writes "Associated Press claims that media industry has been quietly avoiding Microsoft and trying to keep the movie and music industries to their own. However, these days there's little chance of doing business without Microsoft and the movie studios are afraid of digital piracy more than they're afraid of Microsoft. The biggest fear? Microsoft will use its desktop PC monopoly to charge Hollywood outrageous fees and basically own the movie industry. Microsoft refutes the accusations, saying that it's only interested in selling more copies of Windows and applications for its platform, and providing movie content would promote the platform. Also noteworthy that among the four video-on-demand services that New York Times reviewed recently two that got the journalistic acclaim (StarzTicket and CinemaNow) are run by technology companies - Real Networks and Microsoft." -
Northface University - Computer Science in Half the Time?
prostoalex writes "Associated Press runs a nationwide story on Northface University. The school, founded by a pair of venture capitalists and former technology chief found a niche with its highly intensive curriculum and corporate software development specialization. For example, a BSCS degree can be completed in a little over 2 years, and it comes with IBM's WebSphere and Microsoft's MCSD certification. Northface is also promoting its corporate partnerships, which allow current students to feel more secure about future employment. Grady Booch from IBM is quoted to be 'jazzed up' about the program, although there are many who oppose such approaches to college education." -
What's Your Browser Start Page?
prostoalex asks: "I was just reading an Associated Press story on the most popular Web destinations, where it's noted how the companies are vying for user's attention to become an access point to the Internet. Slashdot's readership is probably not the one to stick to the start page provided by their ISP or their browser manufacturer. What's your browsers start page? A third-party site like Google or Yahoo!? A customized page like My Yahoo! or My MSN? Personal Web site or local HTML file with your favorite bookmarks? about:blank?" -
Using RFID To Prevent Mad Cow Disease
prostoalex writes "Associated Press suggests that the United States might be on the move to create a centralized animal database that would track all sorts of information about the farm animals, including their origins. RFID technology comes into play, apparently, with cheap tags that could be assigned to animals right after birth and special scanners capable of retrieving the RFID and fetching the data from the centralized database." -
Using RFID To Prevent Mad Cow Disease
prostoalex writes "Associated Press suggests that the United States might be on the move to create a centralized animal database that would track all sorts of information about the farm animals, including their origins. RFID technology comes into play, apparently, with cheap tags that could be assigned to animals right after birth and special scanners capable of retrieving the RFID and fetching the data from the centralized database." -
Using RFID To Prevent Mad Cow Disease
prostoalex writes "Associated Press suggests that the United States might be on the move to create a centralized animal database that would track all sorts of information about the farm animals, including their origins. RFID technology comes into play, apparently, with cheap tags that could be assigned to animals right after birth and special scanners capable of retrieving the RFID and fetching the data from the centralized database." -
China, Russia, U.S. To Build 100MBps Network
prostoalex writes "Gloriad (Global Ring Network for Advanced Applications Development), a scientific data network, will unite academic institutions in China, Russia and the United States with a 100 MBps link. National Center for Supercomputing Applications received a $2.8 mln grant from NSF, and both Russia and China will match this amount to contribute to network build-up. Later this year, as the Associated Press article notes, a new plan will be launched to move the international network to 10 GBps capacity." -
FCC Approves Highway Radiosystems
prostoalex writes "According to iWon/AP, the FCC has approved a range of radio frequencies to be used on US highways for transmitting important traffic information. The technology is still 5-10 years away from being implemented in cars and on the roads, but the FCC has set aside a special area of the spectrum instead of sharing the frequencies with other applications and devices. As for uses, there's currently a test running at an intersection in McLean, Va., where sensors can automatically warn a motorist when another car is approaching, thus helping to avoid a collision." -
Qwest Launches VoIP Trial
prostoalex writes "Qwest Communications International, a local phone operator covering 14 Northern and Western United States, launched its first Voice-over-IP trial in Minneapolis/St.Paul area. 'The future of voice communications will be based on the Internet', Qwest's CEO was quoted as saying." Also in the news: some vague plans by AT&T to use VoIP as well. -
Yahoo! Develops Anti-Spam Architecture
prostoalex writes "Yahoo!, the owner of one of the largest e-mail systems in the world, is said to be developing a cryptographic product that will be offered freely to mail servers. 'Domain Keys,' according to the Reuters article, would require the message sender to authenticate in order for message to come across a trusted e-mail network. The idea has been around for ages, however, it required someone from the big league like Yahoo! to step in." While Yahoo! isn't the first name that comes to mind when I think of trusted email, it's still a step in the right direction. -
US Broadband ISPs Expect Price Cuts
prostoalex writes "US broadband providers are trying to avoid the price wars, but the cost of DSL and cable hookups is still headed down with major promotions from players like Comcast and Yahoo/SBC. Currently there are 22 million US subscribers, 2 million of which subscribed during the past three months. It looks like the prices for broadband Internet are headed towards $20-30/month range, although most operators prefer to lock you into a yearly contract or provide special price for the first several months only." -
New Linux TPC-H Record Set
prostoalex writes: "New TPC-H world record for performance and scalability of database software on Linux platform has been set. The winner - Oracle 10g running on a four-node Lenovo Cluster Server DeepComp 6800, each with four Intel Itanium 2 1.3 GHz processors. Oracle also emphasizes that it's 3.5 times more performance than similar IBM DB2 benchmark. TPC-H benchmarks are available at TPC Web site." -
First Napster 2.0 Review
prostoalex writes "Matthew Fordahl from Associated Press is trying out Napster 2.0, which, according to the review, has some serious stability issues. At least for Fordahl the software 'repeatedly crashed during installation and brought down the entire computer with it.' They also have this picture of this Samsung Napster-branded digital music player." -
First Napster 2.0 Review
prostoalex writes "Matthew Fordahl from Associated Press is trying out Napster 2.0, which, according to the review, has some serious stability issues. At least for Fordahl the software 'repeatedly crashed during installation and brought down the entire computer with it.' They also have this picture of this Samsung Napster-branded digital music player." -
Massachusetts Adopts Open Standards Strategy
prostoalex writes "The state of Massachusetts at a meeting of state information officers adopted a broad-based strategy to move to open standards. The strategy does involve Linux among other open standard solutions, while moving away from Microsoft-based platforms is one of the decisions. State Administration and Finance Secretary Eric Kriss insisted that decision was made on technical grounds and had nothing to do with antitrust investigation of Microsoft by the state of Massachusetts." -
Fuel Cells To Appear In Laptops In 2004
prostoalex writes "The overhyped fuel cells will finally be delivered to the portable computing market. Toshiba and NEC will incorporate fuel cells into the laptops by 2004. Sony, Hitachi and Casio are expected to follow the suit. The tests show a fuel cell lasting 10 hours. With the form-factor of a Bic lighter, it allows the laptop user to carry a few extra cells in the laptop bag all the time. Battery prices are expected to run at about $200." -
Mozilla/QT needs developers!
strredwolf writes "They need developers to port Mozilla to TrollTech's QT. The origional port is since 0.9.9 and hasn't been updated since. We need that Mozilla for the iPAQ or Zaurus!!!" -
The Internet Society Will Manage .org
ahpeterson writes "The ICANN board just decided to hand control of the .org domain over to the Internet Society. You can read more about their bid here. Whee, no more VeriSign in .org!" -
When Alcohol And Airplanes Make A Good Mix
gilgsn writes "Both for the economy and the environment, as suggested in this Iwon Money article. The Brazilians use sugar cane alcohol to fuel their modification of a single engine crop duster called the "Ipanema." The company projects a 25 percent increase in revenue from the new alcohol planes and increased income to convert existing gasoline-fueled Ipanemas to alcohol. With the threat of war for the U.S. and a subsequent raise in oil prices, this might be of some interest for our general aviation." -
New Alloy Stronger Than Fe And Ti
SoCalChris writes "According to this article on MSNBC.com, researchers at CalTech have discovered a new alloy that is stronger than steel and titanium, can be cast in a mold like plastic, and sharpened like glass. The first plans for the new alloy are to be used in golf clubs, baseball bats, skis, and cell phone covers." -
Power Plants On Rails for California
SoCalChris writes "According to this article on Wired.com, the Sierra Railroad is planning to use diesel train locomotives to produce power for California. Each of the 48 engines are expected to produce 2.1 megawatts of power for a thousand hours each year. Another key advantage to this plan is that since the "PowerTrains" are mobile, they can be taken to the areas that need power the most, so it doesn't have to be routed across the state through our power grid." -
Slashback: Spambots, Retroism, VoIPhooey
Slashback -- another round of updates and errata for your reading pleasure follows. So read on for more information on spambots, Flash memory for your slightly-outdated Apple systems, Linux (not quite) running on the GP32, publicity (including a security problem) from Mozilla, and more.Let's find the spamsters and turn them over to Hormel. Neil Gunton writes: "Further to my previous article about stopping Spambots with Apache, Perl, MySQL and ipchains, it appears that the spambots have evolved somewhat. They seem to come in using a search engine to find promising pages, and then spoof the User-Agent field and generally try to behave as much like a real person as possible. Here is an update to my original article. This is something that anyone who runs a website and dislikes spambots should be aware of..."
If I ever have children I might let it go at that. jamie writes: "'If I ever have children,' says Rich Dreher, 'I would want them to see and touch one of the very first 'real' personal computers, not some simulation of an Apple in a window on a Pentium VIII running Windows 2012.' Over the last few months he's put together a CompactFlash/IDE adapter card for the Apple //e and IIgs, and now he's taking orders. The largest hard drive that ProDOS supports, as flash RAM, costs $14! Seeing the card really brought back memories..."
We mentioned this a while ago, before the pressing need of Apple ][ owners was quite so evident.
What's a little $80 million mistake among friends? Sinjun writes: "In what is believed to be one of the first prison sentences given to the creator of a virus, David L. Smith of the infamous Melissa plague recieves 20 months in federal lockup. I would have thought he would recieve more, seeing the massive amount of money lost by corporate America resulting from Melissa. Oh well, this is the precedent that has been set."
Smith should be grateful that his victims weren't allowed to each pluck one hair from his body per Melissa message received.
But what about the GBA? bobbydigitales writes: "A while back someone suggested porting linux to Samsungs GP32 handheld games console. As I own one, I did a bit of 'googling' and found a post from a guy at Samsung about a problem he was having with his linux port to the s3c2400x chip (this constitutes most of the GP32's hardware). It seems he finished his port as he sent me all the patches and instructions needed to compile the kernal for the s3c2400x.
As I dont have any experience porting linux i thought I'd share this information with the world and see if anyone could offer help and/or suggestions on how to proceed. Here are the files and info.
Samsung have completed the following drivers:
- LCD
- Serial
- USB Host (with mouse driver),
- Sound
- Keyboard
- Network (not actually on the GP32 chip)
Things that are missing:
- bootloader,
- SmartMedia Card driver"
I knew I should have ordered a few. Alex Law writes "Only days after Slashdot's article about Creative Labs great deal on VoIP Blasters, it appears that they are no longer in production or available from Creative's web site. Shame; mine arrived yesterday, and we were all quite impressed."
From the Mozilla front: Lots of good reports and an oops. The good stuff -- reaper20 writes "With 1.0 around the corner, it seems like the folks over at Mozilla.org have their hands full. Between interviews and last minute security bug fixes, it seems like the Mozilla is poised for the big push to 1.0. David Hyatt brings up the IE Advantage, and the death of user-experince based browsers. Mozilla.org itself has stood firm on some of these marketing driven issues - yet some changes have caused some interesting developments in the Mozilla community. The recent context menu revisions and personal toolbar recommendations by Netscape have caused a bit of controversy. (Bugzilla entries ommitted for obvious reasons)
Recently, the mozilla/browser and Chimera projects have been started to address certain usability problems and the desire for OS X native widgets. With Galeon and other Mozilla derivatives getting better and better, it seems that Mozilla 'proper' will serve as a platform for derivative browsers customized for the target platform. Lots of standards-compliant clients each tailored to user needs, sounds like what web was originally designed for."And the oops -- An Anonymous Coward writes: "An Israeli software firm has discovered a flaw in Netscape and Mozilla software that allows code hidden in a Web page to read files from the user's PC. The bug is a more serious variant of one patched in Microsoft's Internet Explorer in February."
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Latest WinWorm Spreads Via ICQ And Outlook
mgooderum was among the many to write in about yet another snippet of malice making the Windows desktop rounds: "The latest email virus -- 'Goner' -- is apparently running around this morning (AP news story on Iwon here - no login needed). The virus is a typical worm that spreads via attachments and user's address books. It appears as a message with an attachment that starts: 'How are you ? When I saw this screen saver I immediately thought about you...' Goner is apparently non-destructive other than the normal DoS issues with the load from it forwarding itself everywhere. What's moderately unique are two features. One is its ability to replicate via ICQ as well as the usual Outlook and Outlook Express. Two is its small size -- it has a packed form that is only 159 bytes. Symantec has details here; McAfee has details here." Update: 12/04 21:57 GMT by T : That should read 159 kilobytes. And as many posters have pointed out, "destructive" is in the eye of the beholder. -
Space Shuttle Launch Delayed
