Slashdot Mirror

D-Fly writes "MSNBC is running an article, quoting a lot of anonymous PC manufacturing executives, about how Intel uses its "Intel Inside" branding campaign to gouge PC manufacturers. Apparently everyone's favorite IC monopolist adds about 6 percent to the price it charges for chips, then gives the money back to companies for advertising purposes. If they screw up--ie the Intel logo is too small, they use a single non-Intel processor in the machine, Intel keeps the money Saw it on Ars "

dwlt sent us linkage to an FGN article which says that Nintendo is rumored to be working on a portable besides the game boy. Apparantly Miyamoto was yapping about working on games for it. Apparently it has 3d capabilities and stuff. Sharp looking page too.

A new monthly column Brave GNU World has started, with the mission to inform everybody about new GNU software. Apparently dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda does not completely delete the contents of you hard-drive. You should use shred instead. Paul Smith wrote in to plug a Free lecture by Richard Stallman which is going to be held tomorrow - Tuesday 23 March at 7pm at the Commonwealth Institute in London. Finally, jbc wrote in with "In his latest 'Ask Tim' piece, Tim O'Reilly talks about the differences between himself and RMS in terms of how they view OSS/FSF licensing issues." null -> zero (*blush*)

Knish wrote in to let us know that the Intel-FTC suit has already been settled. Details are still very sketchy, but we will post more updates as they are known-all that is currently known is that both sides have submitted motions to withdraw the matter. Apparently, there are still "other issues" to settle, but the main ones are taken care of. Update: 03/08 02:40 by CT : Knish sent us more information on the settlement.

Knish wrote in to let us know that the Intel-FTC suit has already been settled. Details are still very sketchy, but we will post more updates as they are known-all that is currently known is that both sides have submitted motions to withdraw the matter. Apparently, there are still "other issues" to settle, but the main ones are taken care of. Update: 03/08 02:40 by CT : Knish sent us more information on the settlement.

Idris Samawi writes "QPL 1.0 Released The new license for the Qt Free Edition just announced by Troll Tech". The release includes a few quotes, but a dearth of information about the actual license. I'm curious though. Two free desktops are an amazing feat!

Psarchasm asks: "Recently I've begun looking into PKIs (Public Key Infrastructures). And with all the pros I've found (desktop security, IPSec/VPN, digital signatures, running our own Certificate Authority - I seem to have run into a rather unfortunate con. I can't find an Open Source PKI initiative. Is there any work being done on an Open Source CA server? How about a PGP Key Server? Would it be possible to implement something semi-secure in a closed environment with a combination of PHP3/SQL/LDAP for a PGP Key Server?"

Stradivarius writes "CNN has an interesting article about the CIA's prediction that there will be serious Y2K issues around the globe. "

D-Fly writes "The Australian government is trying to withdraw from public view a secret report which, among MANY other interesting things, recommends that laws be changed so that Aussie spy agencies can legally "hack" (their terminology) their way into private computer systems. I recommend that you read the report. It reflects a lot of the same motivations and goals you would see among US intelligence services. It's just that you rarely see this kind of stuff go public."

strredwolf writes "I just heard about this one through ABCNEWS: Intel's being sued in a seperate antitrust case for not releasing the technical specs on upcomming chips to competitors such as AMD, IDT, and Cyrix. I guess Microsoft no longer feels alone in being under goverment scrutiny. "

Master Switch writes "Microsoft won a six month repreive from Caldera's case against them. They initially asked for 3 months, but due to scheduling conflicts, the judge gave them six. Estimated potential damages are 1.6million if Caldera should win the case " Update: 02/19 03:19 by S : That should say 1.6 billion.

Isaac-Lew wrote in that Sierra has recalled all 50000 copies of their NFL Football Pro '99 game, and the company's presided apologized: "I want to apologize to all our loyal customers for releasing a product before it was ready," They will be offering a full refund and a free game to anyone who bought this game. Is this the end of the proprietary software industry as we know it?

VinceV sent us a link to a new site he's started up called Control-Escape.com which aims to be a help site for novice linux users making the migration from those less known alternative OSs from Redmond. jedgar wrote in to announce the Feb. Edition of DaemonNews and FreeBSD 'zine, and Squeezer wrote in to say that the feb. issue of Ext2 is out. (Mention one, ya gotta mention 9 more. Sheesh *grin*) Several other folks wrote in to note that The GNOME Project has released 0.99.5. Justin Clarke wrote in to show us Rioport.com which is Diamond's new site to connect Rio owners with legal MP3s. danmil noted another Slashdot reference in the mainstream- this one is in a NY times story. Now we have a few funny bits not for the Moral and Pure: the_gimp sent us a link to what is probably the most amusing patent in recent memory. Glad that's patented. Don't want that technology uncontrolled. Somewhat related, behhl sent us a site that was bound to happen- AdultLinux. You can guess what it's for. And lastly, for the strangest bit of the day, Hans sent us a link to Furniture Porn. Fear. And hide your children.

Isaac-Lew wrote in to tell us about the Tiger Woods playstation CD, which apparently has southpark's "spirit of christmas" mpeg on it in PC format if ya happened to stick it in your computer instead of your playstation. It got recalled. Guess Santa & Jesus doing battle is just to much for the kiddies to handle.

steve wallach wrote in to send us something a tad on the strange side. It's the Church of Mentos and its exactly what it sounds like. They learn from the teachings found within those terrible commercials.

general_re writes "Found an article on abcnews about Diamond countersuing the RIAA over the release of Rio. I wonder if this is just legal maneuvering or if they really think they have a case? Anyway, I say more power to 'em...why wait for the net and the free market to kill record companies if you can get it over with quicker..."

sherman1 writes "Yet again Corporate America goes after the little guy. Andrew Neise, the sole programmer for Fresh Soft Inc is being sued over his freeware "AntiGen" program that was made to help the users of the Internet rid themselves of the Back Orifice trojan. Sybari Software is sueing Fresh Soft for violating their copyright on the word "antigen""

Stradivarius writes "San Francisco based BitJazz Inc. has developed a lossless compression technology derived from quantum thermodynamics, which it calls "condensation". Unlike many other approaches which work one scan line at a time, their algorihm finds implicit patterns in the entire image, yielding an average compression ratio of 2.5. "

Psarchasm wrote in to note that NetStat has recieved a makeover, no MCI, but 15 other spots are generating good net traffic reports. Mike Evans wrote in to send us a link to RFC2441, A tribute to Jon Postel by Danny Cohen. An anonymous reader wrote in to send us an article where you can read about a biochemist who is now in legal trouble for distributing genetically altered seeds that grow Oranges containing THC. He designed them because cops confiscated his car 15 years earlier. Bill Bumgarner wrote in to say that A Sherlock Plugin for searching Slashdot is now available. Bob McCown sent us a link to an interesting Pen Based Computer. Another anonymous reader wrote in to send us a link to an excellent Linux Introduction Series over at Avault on Penguin Games. Nick sent in an oldy but goodie, a link to the Unix Haters Handbook. It comes with its own Unix Barf Bag.

JPelorat writes "Ya know those stupid motivational posters you see in waiting rooms and other depressing places? I swear, if I see one more platitude about 'Happiness', I'm gonna hit someone. And then I saw these 12 replacements. Much better than the real ones. Hang one of these on your cube and enlighten your co-workers... " Those are quite amusing. I need a really expensive color printer now so I can make some posters. Course I don't have a cubicle, but my sofa will look nice.

Pierce writes " This is a few days old, but I don't remember it making an appearance... "Software drivers for American Megatrends MegaRAID(R) controllers are now available for the latest release of the Red Hat Linux operating system, version 5.2." "

Kanoot writes "I got the following message from a StarOffice representative this morning... "The beta testing of StarOffice PreFinal has been closed and generated very useful input for the Final version. As StarOffice 5.0 will ship very soon we have discontinued shipping out the PreFinal. The StarOffice 5.0 for Linux is scheduled for release beginning of November." "

Kanoot wrote in to send us a link to a techweb article that talks about Satellites getting ready for a meteor shower. Says that opinion is divided- this could either be no big deal, or it could knock down communications all over the world.

Pierce sent us a link to a story over at Yahoo where you can read about An UltraSparc version of Linux. Sun actually has some fairly inexpensive ultra's these days. And this company will apparently build UltraSPARC Linux boxes for you. Not bad.

Nick writes "California joins Washington and Nevada in the list of states making it illegal to send spam using a fake return address. California ISP's may sue for $50/e-mail sent, up to a $25k maximum fine! (Plus attorney fees). You can read it here. "