Domain: myrealbox.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to myrealbox.com.
Stories · 28
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ESR Advocates Proprietary Software
mvdwege writes "Apparently, Eric Raymond has decided that proprietary software is now a good thing, according to The Register. I must say it is rather revealing how easily he is willing to compromise on this particular freedom. Is his earlier vocal proclamation of the importance of freedom (still visible on his homepage) mere posturing? And if so, how about his vocal support of other freedoms?" -
OpenSSL Receives FIPS 140-2 Validation
Argon writes "Close on heals of NewsForge reporting about Government Agency dragging its heels on OpenSSL validation comes the news that OpenSSL receives FIPS Certification. More details are available at the Open Source Institute site which has been driving the effort to get OpenSSL certified. FIPS 140-2 certification allows software using the certified version of OpenSSL to get into various Government departments previously not possible, thus increasing penetration of Free Software in Government." -
Novell Releasing Hula and 200,000+ Lines of Code
H0ek writes "Seems Novell has announced at LinuxWorld Expo that they will be releasing 200,000+ lines of code to the community in the form of a project named Hula(TM). The project is derived from the Novell NetMail product and provides web-based email and calendaring. Seems our boy Nat Friedman has some info on this, too. If you were fortunate enough to get a MyRealBox email account, you will probably know what NetMail is like." -
PVR's Head-to-Head: MythTV vs. Microsoft MCE
asciimonster writes "AnandTech has completed its second review of set-top box Personal Video Recorders. After checking out the Linux-based MythTV, previously covered here on slashdot, they compared it to Microsoft's Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004. 'Our analysis has proved that though Media Center Edition 2004 is a boxed package that is easy to set up and configure, it looks amazingly beautiful, has great features such as On-Demand content, and is fully supported by Microsoft. However, for the enthusiast, MythTV takes the gold for its greater support for a variety of hardware and software codecs.'" -
GCC Gets Its Own News Site
Marcel Cox writes "In an effort to promote the development of GCC, Mathieu Lacage created a GCC news page similar to the idea of Kernel Traffic. While we are on the topic of GCC, it might be worthwhile recalling two major events that occured during the last month: 1. The tree-ssa branch has been merged into mainline, which among others means the end of G77 and the addition of GFORTRAN, the new GNU Fortran 95 compiler. 2. The second annual GCC Developer's summit took place some 10 days ago in Ottawa." -
Bethesda Gives Away The Elder Scrolls - Arena
Dan L writes "In celebration of the 10th Anniversary of the classic Elder Scrolls PC RPG series (Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind, yada, yada..), Bethesda has offered up the original DOS version of The Elder Scrolls: Arena for free download. Also, there is a rather cool contest to win some original game art, or some top of the line video cards and sound gear." -
Traveling Jobs in IT?
wed128 asks: "I am currently a freshman at Penn State University, studying for a Computer Engineering degree. However, I look at the graduates ahead of me and many of them are cubical warriors. This doesn't really bother me, however i'd like to see the world before being confined to a cube for the rest of my life. Are there any jobs in an IT field where I can travel? How would I go about getting the right contacts regarding this? I have 4 years till graduation, so this isn't a direct plea for a job..." -
IBM's Billy Goat Squashes Worms
fr0z writes "InformationWeek is running a story on "Billy Goat", a novel worm-squashing software developed by researchers in Zurich, Switzerland. IBM says it wants to turn Billy Goat into a product to help guard against computer-network attacks such as those that slowed Internet traffic earlier this month." -
Mysterious Phantom Game Console Unveiled
wishforunity writes "On Sunday, Infinium Labs released a video on their website about the specifications of their upcoming console (as mentioned previously on Slashdot.) It includes footage of the interface that will be used to purchase and rent games online. This thing seems like a beefed up computer in a box shape (deja vu?) You can see the video at Phantom.net." The specs include "custom OS on Windows XPe kernel, up to 3.0GHz processor with 256MB DDR RAM, 100+ Gigabyte internal storage device, on-board RF wireless modules, Dolby Digital 7.1 Surround Sound", and "ordering is expected to begin in October", but there's no software announcements - although the example interface in the video shows games such as Sonic Speedsters and, uhm, Bikini Karate Babes. Update: 08/18 00:57 GMT by S : An interview at Gigex.com has word that the price of the baseline unit will be "below $399", and the compulsory online subscription will be $9.95 per month, with game prices ranging from $2.99 to $50. -
World's Most Advanced Portable TV
Eric Schlaepfer writes "Here's another great toy for your wish list! ICOM manufactures the highly advanced IC-R3 portable scanner/television set. Besides picking up radio stations in the frequency range of 0.495-2450MHz, the IC-R3 also receives regular television signals, amateur television, and wireless security camera signals." -
Cloning Mammoths
Anonym Feigling writes "For your consideration... An article over at the New Zealand Herald discusses some of the challenges a japanes team faces as it attemps to develop a system to create a clone from 20,000 year-old mammoth tissue samples discovered in Siberia. It seems to me that shortly after death, any animal's/plant's "cellular repair mechanisms" (for the lack of a better...) will fail, and thus the probability of finding a single cell with perfectly intact DNA from which to create a clone is pretty well zero. Interesting stuff, but it seems that practical considerations (think code rot) would make it difficult." -
NAI Sending "Sniffer" C&D Letters
RayMarron writes "It seems that NAI's IP lawyers have been billing some hours recently by sending nastygrams asking companies/individuals to stop using their trademarked term 'Sniffer.' Steve Gibson of Gibson Research Corporation has received one. The full text is posted on his news server, and I'm sure one of our readers will post it here. Or visit news.grc.com, grc.news and grc.news.feedback groups. A student at Stanford received one as well and forwarded it to the faculty to handle. Both Gibson (relating a conversation with his IP attorneys) and Stanford's reply seem to agree that 'sniffer' is too generic a term to be a viable trademark and can't be effectively enforced. Is there an IP lawyer in the house?" -
Happy Birthday, Dear DNS
Shloka writes with a snippet from Wired News: "Twenty years ago Monday, two computer scientists at the University of Southern California created a key component essential to the modern Internet. Jon Postel and Paul Mockapetris ran the first successful test of the automated domain name system, or DNS..." -
SMS SPAM to be Banned Down Under?
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Flash Memory And Its future
NETHED writes "C|NET News is running an article about Flash Memory's future. Here is a How Stuff Works link about Flash memory. An interesting read especially considering how small these things are currently. Does the slashdot crowd have a new size benchmark for small sizes?" -
Online Travel Agencies?
dbright asks: "I am currently planning my upcoming honeymoon, and I was wondering if I should try getting my tickets, and/or making travel arrangements online using one of the many available retailers (cheaptickets.com, priceline.com, etc...). I wanted to ask Slashdot readers about experiences with any of these companies, and their thoughts on making arrangements online." -
DIY Bluetooth Headset And Other Inventions
NETHED writes "Circuit Cellar has an blurb about a guy who obviously got sick of waiting for a cheap solution to the BlueTooth cellphone headset. So in true geek tradition, he rolled his own. Here is the description of the toy (which looks bulky as-is, but could be fixed w/ some refining). It actually didn't win any prizes in the PSoC contest, but you have to admit, its pretty cool. There are other honorable mentions like a poor man's O-scope to something that seems to attach to a moth and check its muscle movements. Neat and nerdy stuff for the circuit etching crowd." -
Wanted: Female Game Testers
BaronVonDuvet writes "The BBC is covering this story regarding the lack of female testers for the new Tomb Raider game. Given that there are a number of female gamers (admittedly far fewer than male gamers) why are they having so many problems finding women? Is this a sign that the female gaming market has never really taken off? Is the way men and women approach a game really that different? Are they really interested in finding women testers or is the whole thing a publicity stunt? If you're an interested woman maybe you should get in touch." -
Classic Console TV Ads
superpenguin writes "Here is a site with some TV ads for classic computers/games systems like the Atari and Intellivision, as well as games for those systems. Find out whether Atari basketball or Intellivision basketball plays more like real basketball. Some real gems here. These ads are in Real Media format." -
George Lucas May Be Completely Evil
gabec writes "Sci-fi Wire is reporting a couple rumors about the changes being made to the original Star Wars trilogy for its next release. That being that Natalie Portman may be being inserted into Episode VI: Return of the Jedi and that universally reviled Jar Jar Binks may be being inserted into Episode IV: A New Hope. May The Force forbid." Mind you this is reported as rumor, but it's so unsurprisingly possible... -
Zope 2.5.1 Released
An Anonymous Coward writes: "Zope 2.5.1 was released. The binaries come with Python 2.1.3. Zope nows comes out-of-the-box with PageTemplates, Sessions, VirtualHosting and the ZODB storage is based on the Standalone ZODB module maintained by Pythonlabs. Drop-in ZEO and you get a distributed object oriented database system." -
Clockless Chips
iarkin writes "TechReview is running a very interesting article about clockless chips. Clockless, or asynchronous, chips work very much faster and consume less power than their synchronous equivalents (Intel hade some experiments on these chips back in -97, the results showed that the asynchronous chips were three times faster and consumed only half the power)." -
Slashback: Drives, Pods, OEMs
Slashback tonight with a look at Microsoft's OEM practices, the true nature and size of the Apple iPod, IBM drives (and hard drives in general), and the RIAA's alleged lobbying efforts for a license to invade machines looking for copyright infringement. All below, all now.Drive-n to strong drink and harsh words. Kenneth Yu writes: "You might recall the overwhelming response to a recent 'Ask Slashdot' regarding the abnormally high failure rates of IBM 75GXP Hard drives, and the pulling of all 75GXP from Pair Networks' Servers. A class action lawsuit has been filed by Michael Granido, Jr., on behalf of himself and all others similarly situated. You can view the complaint in PDF format at http://www.sheller.com/IBM_complaint.pdf. This story was initially reported by Tech Report (http://www.tech-report.com)."
Apropos that, jriskin writes: "Storagereview.com has its new reliability database up and running. I have no affiliation with the site, but it only benifits the community to have as many people contribute as possible. The database is a listing of hard drives and whether or not they have failed, when they were purchased, etc. So get over there and put in all your HD data!" Things like this could help eliminate the anecdotal-only nature of many of hardware complaints, especially if people who are happy with their hardware bother to report it.
Falling far from a tree has nothing to do with it. Majik writes "A quick correction - the iPod has *10* gigs of storage, not 5 (or 6 like the Nomad). And with the Firewire interface you can move an entire CD in under a minute. Although I admit I was hoping for more out of the product announcement, it's still pretty darn cool ... "
On the other hand, jchristopher writes: "Love it or hate it, Apple's new iPod digital music player is here. Yesterday, many people commented that "at least it has no copy protection" and praised Apple's attitude toward digital music. Unfortunately, this may not be the case - according to this New York Times article, the iPod does indeed have copy protection - MP3 files copied to the iPod from one Mac to the iPod CAN'T be offloaded onto a different computer. Ouch!" That means (at least without further hacking) it can't be used as a transfer medium between the G3 and work and the iMac kept hidden in your darkest closet, which is sort of a shame considering that it has all the right things built in to be even better than the several portable firewire drives on the market.
Unorginal Equipment Makers. An Anonymous Coward writes: "This is a follow-up on a previous story posted to Slashdot about Microsoft's anti-competitive OEM contracts." It's a report by German journalist Erik Möller (hi, Erik!), who too an extremely thorough look at the details of OEM bundling deals, and what they mean to customers. Möller's conclusion: "No operating system will ever be able to compete with Microsoft Windows on the desktop market as long as OEMs cannot legally install it besides Windows without losing their license."
'Technical meaures' covers a pretty broad swath. Robotech_Master writes "The RIAA has responded to the 'license to virus' story, calling it a false Internet rumor and explaining their side of the story." So the RIAA officially does not want a license to hack, at least on paper.
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Motel 6... Hundred Miles Up
SatelliteBoy writes: "Robert Bigelow, the tycoon behind Budget Suites of America, has founded Bigelow Aerospace. He just announced plans to launch a space station. He claims it can go up within 30 months. Let's see what this costs to visit..." -
SourceForge Server Compromised
justrob writes: "Looks like there was a massive security breach at Source Forge. I wonder if this what caused the 'unscheduled maintenance event' that has left the shell servers unavailable for a week. Here is part of an email I recieved:" (Read more below.)"Dear SourceForge User,
The SourceForge team takes security very seriously. This week, one of our systems was compromised. We have promptly taken the necessary steps to correct this situation.
You have been contacted, because according to our log files, you have used SourceForge during the past week and may have used the system that was compromised. In order to complete the security fix, we are asking all users who used the system to change their password immediately. We've reset your password to a randomly generated string. "
Here's where to go if you think your account might have been compromised.
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USB Hard Drive Recommendations?
Argon asks: "I need a external drive to transfer bulk data between home and office. I already use a CD-RW for backup, so this drive is going to be used -only- for shuttling data. After investigating various solutions (Zip, Orb, CD-RW etc), I finally decided that a USB hard drive seems to be the best solution all around. I found two good solutions (and believe me this information is hard to find), one by Fantom Drives, and the other by Lacie. However, there is very little information on the web about these drives - reliability, using on Linux etc. For example I can't even figure out if the Fantom drives come with an internal power supply. The Lacie drives seem very nice, they come with a built in power supply and look rugged. (Can't USB devices take power from the system instead of a separate power supply?). Does any slashdotter have experience with these drives - comparisons, recommendations?" -
Constructing A Geek House
Tilde~ writes: "Ever since the first time i read about a geek house, i've always wanted to live in one... very badly... to share an internal network with several like minded individuals just seemed like a perfect... What i could never do... was find one. So, for those people out there who are living in the know, how does one go about founding a geek house? And are there any individuals in the atlanta area with the same dream?" -
Do Patents Still Work?
mossmann asks: "With all the fuss over software patents lately, I thought it might be a good time to take a step back and address a more fundamental question: Do patents work? The United States Constitution (Article I, Section 8) states that 'Congress shall have power. . . To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;' In other words: Congress is permitted, but not required, to grant patents so long as they promote progress. Patents are not intended to bestow upon inventors any of the qualities of material property but are granted only to encourage innovation and publication." Good question! Have patents become unnecessary? I wouldn't go as far as abolishing them, but I think it's high time the system was heavily revised. (Read More)"Here is my real question: What if we stopped issuing new patents in the United States: would 'the progress of science and useful arts' suffer? Prior to the advent of the Internet and the success of the Open Source movement, I would have said yes. Now I am not so certain. What do you think?"
Of course, these days, patents are used to prevent innovation more than anything else. I find this rather ironic.
More hilarous than ironic, this gem from Forge illustrates what can happen when the Patent system gets slightly out of control: "Hyperspace communications has been patented and is now my nominee for strangest patent. According to this story on the Register someone has not only "invented" hyperspace but has also figured out how to use it for transmitting data faster than light. My question is, does a fictional work count as "prior art"? To add to this concept Arthur C. Clarke is widely credited with having invented the communications satellite. The infamous band of space in which geostationary satellites orbit is known as "the Clarke Belt" in his honor. However he once said in an interview that he might have patented the idea if it had occurred to him that someone might actually build such devices such a short time after his story."
The big question here is how can you patent something that hasn't been invented yet? It seems that I can conjure up any flight of fancy that might just have a passing chance at becoming truth, patent it and make that idea mine forevermore?
const submitted a question that offers a potential solution: "I'm interested whether the patent madness may be stopped by restricting the number of patents in addition to shortening their time. If only 100 patents will be granted each year for the computing industry, only significant advances will be patented and things like the now infamous one-click patent will not get through the jury of experts in the field. The progressive scheme may be like the following: 1 patent - 10 years; 10 patents - 3 years; 100 patents - 1 year." which would make getting patents more of a competition between implementations, and to compete for the protections offered by patents sounds like a fair way to "promote the progress" in any given market.