Slashdot Mirror

jho writes "This C|Net article talks about how the Linux 2.4 kernel, armed with Firewire, PnP and USB support, will be better equiped to tackle the desktop market. It's a intresting read as far as how Linux is being pushed to the mainstream. Have a look. "

Mark Spencer wrote in to say that since the AOL vs. Microsoft fiasco has begun, the GAIM team has been told they aren't allowed to use the AOL logo and other various terms in their documentation (with certain exceptions), so they have put out a request for new logo in the form of a contest. This comes after AOL has been blocking Microsoft from letting its MSN users send messages to users of its AIM service, and right before IBM unveils messaging software of their own, though that looks to be very business-oriented, as opposed to Joe Random Netuser-oriented.

Mark Spencer wrote in to say that since the AOL vs. Microsoft fiasco has begun, the GAIM team has been told they aren't allowed to use the AOL logo and other various terms in their documentation (with certain exceptions), so they have put out a request for new logo in the form of a contest. This comes after AOL has been blocking Microsoft from letting its MSN users send messages to users of its AIM service, and right before IBM unveils messaging software of their own, though that looks to be very business-oriented, as opposed to Joe Random Netuser-oriented.

Anonymous Coward writes "Compaq is suing eMachines for patent infringement, but the real reason might be that eMachines is invading their sub-$1000 market. Sounds too similar to the Packard Bell story. " (The Packard Bell reference is explained in the linked-to article in case you don't remember Compaq's similar suit against Packard Bell back in 1994.)

james outlaw wrote in to send us a story at news.com that talks about SGIs Linux Plans. We know about their Intel based Linux servers, but according to this article, they plan to lead with Linux, and only offer NT as an add-on. When they start shipping those Visual Workstations with Linux default, I'll definitely start desiring one.

Ray Cromwell writes "Software competition a concern is a major concern, according to Steve Ballmer. Amongst other things, Steve says that the growing amount of development done for the Linux operating system by the work of volunteers developers worldwide is "scary." Ballmer also characterized the free-form Linux community as "somewhat crazy," but said Microsoft now has "a real server competitor." "

ethereal writes "CNET News.com has an article discussing NSI's recent change of heart. However, some businesses can still register names in bulk and pay later, so it sounds like this will only be effective against individual cybersquatters. " NSI has been coming under attack for allowing domain squatting, and so they are going to shift to require payment much sooner. However, some business that meet certain requirements and are reserving a bulk of domains will be able to pay later in a lump sum.

News.com explains that Telstra, Australia's largest phone company is being forced to open their network to competitors. The article explains that Telstra controls 99% of phone lines to Australian homes, and 75% of "the industry's sales", making them ten times as large as their biggest rival. With any luck, prices of local calls will drop quite a bit - I hear my .au friends complain about it all the time. I'm curious to hear what our Australian readers have to think of this.

arielb writes "Be, Inc. is now trading actively on the Nasdaq exchange.. Their ticker symbol is BEOS." They announced at $6 and went up a little.

NoWhere Man noted a story on CNet that that talks about Red Hat and their plans to Create a full blown Linux Portal. They note the fact that RH has job openings in San Fran, as well as the trivia that they recently hired 20 (!) people from Atomic Vision. They note that RH will be competing more directly with VAs Linux.com, and of course, yours truly.

weezer writes "LinuxToday has a nice little article about a Dataquest study that claims that Linux will account for about 24% of the server market by 2003. "

nemoest writes "Intel is planning on slashing the price on Pentium III's by as much as 15% on Sunday. After which, they also plan to also cut the prices on the Xeon, Pentium II and III, and Celron on August 22nd. It looks like they want to try to run AMD even further into the ground with convenient price slashing just as they gear up to release the Athlon. You can read the complete story here on Cnet's news.com. "

About one billion of you wrote with the news that AMD took a operating loss this past quarter, and the COO and heir apparent to the CEO quit. In related news, IDT has declared that they quitting the x86 clone business. Wow-despite lower then expected earnings, Intel has to be pleased by this turn of events.

About one billion of you wrote with the news that AMD took a operating loss this past quarter, and the COO and heir apparent to the CEO quit. In related news, IDT has declared that they quitting the x86 clone business. Wow-despite lower then expected earnings, Intel has to be pleased by this turn of events.

Jelloman wrote to us to say that Audohighway, Cupertine-based company, has said that they have been awarded the patent for "any type of digital audio player used to store and play back downloaded content regardless of the electronic format in which the content is saved." They applied for the patent in 1995, and are saying that with all the players built, they believe they eligible for "compensation agreement". Excuse me while I go smash my head against a wall in frustration.

coug_ writes "Yesterday it was CD-Now and Columbia House. Today, it's Egghead and Onsale. CNet is carrying more details. " So, this is the fourth incarnation of Egghead-flee brick and mortar, then head online, then auctions, now merging.

NoWhere Man writes "Merced's design is complete and are due to go into production mid-2000, but it is expected that McKinley, Merced's successor (due late 2000), will likely be the most popular in Intel's 64-bit chips. "

webslacker writes "Network Solutions is unhappy about it, but what the #$@& can they do? CORE, one of the new domain name registrars, is allowing the "seven dirty words" in your domain names. "

jbiddick wrote in to tell us that CDNOW has merged with Columbia. I guesstimate that Columbia will save $7 Billion in postage by simply not snail mailing me any more crap. We'll see if I need procmail to pick up the slack.

Suydam writes "J. William Gurley, a former venture capitalist turned writer, talks about how Open Source works in his latest "The Rising Impact of Open Source". There's nothing earth-shattering here for the Slashdot audience but it's decent press for the OSS movement and a worthwhile read. " Remember-the PHBs have heard of News.com. Make 'em read this.

fabbe writes "The HTTP 1.1 protocol has been approved by the W3C and IETF. CNET article is here. " Both bodies apparently showed ruthless efficiency getting these standards out there... speeds that make even glaciers jealous.

In yet another decision from the Caldera vs. Microsoft trial, a judge has ruled that Caldera can sue Microsoft for "alleged violations outside the United States", because Microsoft apparently has a global impact. With any luck, the pretrial will start in August. You know, I'm beginning to wonder who has the bigger legal team these days.

Eric Maag sent us a news.com article that talks about another $199 Linux Box (and unlike the last one we mentioned, this one apparently actually does run Linux, and isn't simply taking the name in vain to gain publicity). This might come about as part of a recent prodigy push to add cheap PCs to their roster.

blowdart sent us a news.com story that talks about changes in the super computer export laws to developing nations. Numbers are all over the place, but at least they are up from 2,000 MTOPS (which rendered a dual P3 and the new Playstations as unexportable!)

Wonko42 writes "Netscape is thinking twice about continuing to use Mozilla.org as the main tool to develop Communicator, and well they should. The project has received very little support from the open-source community, and the delays have been astronomical. While Netscape isn't sure that they could undo the open-source status of the browser, they're considering their options carefully. Also, according to the article, Communicator 5.0 is set to ship in December. "

Manuka writes to us with "new information on the Caldera-Microsoft trial. U.S. District Judge Dee Benson ruled against Microsoft on four motions to narrow the scope of the Caldera suit. " This ruling ends motions vis a vis anti-trust, however, there are at least five other motions yet to be considered. This has been one of the first signs of activity since the six month reprieve on the trial.

BlackICE writes "NSI and ICANN are fighting, still. NSI is questioning what authority ICANN really has over them. The agreement with the Commerce Department gives ICANN power over registrars, however 'Amendment 11 is not entirely clear, and that NSI could have jockeyed for language that would put it in a different category from new registrars.' Now it might end up in a long legal battle. "

Mike McCune wrote in to tell us that news.com has an article that says that Three weeks ago, Microsoft had secret meetings with DOJ in attempt to settle case. Here's a WSJ story that requires a subscription, but has more details. Not much data there tho. They still expect a resolution before the end of the year.

UM_Maverick writes "According to this article at news.com, Netscape is going to replace their Excite-powered search engine with Google technology. " Heh. I use my google Slashbox a lot. Linux based search engines are good.

UM_Maverick writes "According to this article at news.com, Netscape is going to replace their Excite-powered search engine with Google technology. " Heh. I use my google Slashbox a lot. Linux based search engines are good.

drama writes "The International Telecommunications Union today gave final approval to a long-awaited digital subscriber line standard that could hasten consumer use of high-speed Net connections." The article has some interesting information. Essentially, they've approved the G.lite standard, which is a lower-cost version, meaning that the consumer can buy the parts at the store, rather then the phone company needing to send people out - does that mean I can have DSL before 2020, please? *sigh*

RelliK writes "news.com has a story about 1GHz Alphas demonstrated at PC Expo. They'll be available by mid-2000. In the mean time, they'll start shipping 750 MHz Alphas 21264 in July. " MMMmmm... alphariffic.

Caballero writes "This article on news.com says that SGI will be supporting Linux on their visual workstation products by the end of the year. " The real key is that while current workstations can boot Linux, they aren't really optimized for it. SGI is putting the effort in to let Linux shine on their hardware. We hope.

redmist writes " MontaVista Software will write a version of Linux called Hard Hat for use on Force Computers "tiny" computers with embedded processors. The project will begin with Intel-based machines and later will include PowerPC machines. MontaVista will focus on "the need for small memory footprint, guaranteed response, high availability, and other key issues that desktop Linux does not provide," the company said. Get the whole story here. "

Karpe writes "You can read it in news.com. Microworkz will sell a $199 computer for surfing the Web. It's called iToaster, and will run Linux." They aren't giving out much real data except that its x86 based, and it won't feature tons of advertising as part of your web browsing experience (as most of the "Free" PCs floating around seem to want).

Karpe writes "You can read it in news.com. Microworkz will sell a $199 computer for surfing the Web. It's called iToaster, and will run Linux." They aren't giving out much real data except that its x86 based, and it won't feature tons of advertising as part of your web browsing experience (as most of the "Free" PCs floating around seem to want).

Richard Finney writes "US Congress expected to mandate censoship in libraries in a CNET News.com article. " Wonder how close Slashdot is to being banned. I think this is great. We really have to prevent the children from learning, as it would be terrible if they started thinking.

Beke sent us the latest update from the MP3 universe. A US Federal Judge has ruled that Diamond's Rio does not fall under the "digital recording device" definition, as defined by the Audio Home Recording Act. This means that the Rio does not have implement a code system to prevent serial re-recording. So, the act does apply to tapes and CDs - but not to hard drives, says Diamond's attorney.

Mistress Nine writes "In order to speed up development time for Netscape 5.0, the Mozilla project is dumping backward compatibility support for some parts of its proprietary DOM, as well as IE4.0's DOM. The staff cited time pressures and compatibility issues as being responsible for them cutting this-however the browser will still be 100% HTML4.0/CSS1/DOM1 compliant, as expected. "

DJ Jose wrote in to note that the Compaq Itsy is making the PR rounds again. We've mentioned this a few times in the past (seems that every few months it gets some new publicity). For those who haven't been here all along, Itsy is a tiny little butt kicking Linux box that I lust after and occasionally have erotic dreams about. But lets not talk about that now.

Denovous writes "WYSE is apparently producing a new Linux thin client based upon the Slackware distribution, instead of Java as originally planned. The client can be started without a network, as the OS resides in 8.5 MB of memory. Check the article out here "

An Anonymous Coward writes "Sony's AIBO entertainment robot sold out in Japan in 20 minutes. They sold 3000 units; that's more than 2 units sold per second!" Sony has been advertising this thing on Slashdot actually so I've browsed the site pretty extensively. I just wish I had the cash to fork out for one of these puppies (rimshot). They look awesome, although I think I want a version that can climb stairs...

GiMP and 200 others wrote "C|Net has this story about the difficulty of getting ADSL from Bell South for linux machines, and the protest from users in the afflicted areas. " This story has been coming up a lot today. Hopefully the negative coverage will force BellSouth to relent.

diogenes write in to send us a CNet article that speculates wildly about the IPO Intentions of Linux Heavyweights Red Hat and VA Linux Systems. Red Hat denies it (as always) and VA Speculates (as always). Mentions Mandrake working at VA and wraps up with a bit about Cygnus. I wonder where Linuxcare fits into all this, but other than that, this a good summary of the picture right now.

paitre wrote in to remind us that the little trial thing between Microsoft and the DOJ is back in session today after a lengthy recess. News.com has a summary of whats going on over there. Fun stuff coming up includes economics wiz's claiming that MS is a monopoly, and MS will try to prove that IE can be seperated from Win98. I'm sure we're all wetting ourselves.

The LoneSmurf wrote in to send us a news.com story that talks about soem company's new technology that they claim will allow gigabits of bandwidth to any outlet in your home. The article talks about the skepticism, but there really isn't much technical stuff in there for us to consider. It sure would be great, although I'm not holding my breath.

Rewbob writes "Rise Technology officially released its roadmap for chips in the sub-$600 PC market and confirmed it will release a chip faster and compatible with Intel's Celeron. Check out the whole story over at news.com. "

Bocephus writes "CNET news.com reports in this story that the RIAA, despite its Secure Digital Music Initiative project, will allow MP3 to continue to exist so that portables like the Rio or Nomad may play MP3s. However, MP3s ripped from new CDs will be unusable if downloaded from the Net. " Yeah, essentially the RIAA is saying that current players can still play ones, even the existing illegal ones, once specs from the recording industry has been made. I wonder how long it's going to take them to figure out that they lost.

Bocephus writes "CNET news.com reports in this story that the RIAA, despite its Secure Digital Music Initiative project, will allow MP3 to continue to exist so that portables like the Rio or Nomad may play MP3s. However, MP3s ripped from new CDs will be unusable if downloaded from the Net. " Yeah, essentially the RIAA is saying that current players can still play ones, even the existing illegal ones, once specs from the recording industry has been made. I wonder how long it's going to take them to figure out that they lost.

Mihg writes "The judge in the Sun/Microsoft case over Java has issued preliminary rulings on 3 of the 10 issues in the trial. (Siding with Microsoft twice.) Basically, the rulings indicate that Microsoft has the right to author their own clean-room versions of Java without Sun's input, but none of their current products qualify as "clean-room." Read more at NEWS.COM "