Slashdot Mirror

mdm42 writes "Looks like a theoretical physicist at St. Andrews University in Scotland believes that invisibility may be possible. And its not going to be a potion or a cloak, but will come in the form of a device. " Let's just hope that when the invisible woman arrives, she's played more convincingly than Jessica Alba.

Kranfer writes "Reuters is covering the newest offering from Google: real-time traffic mapping on your cell phone. Now you can check how the traffic is ahead of you, of course as long as you don't cause the traffic incident yourself by checking the local issues on your cell phone while driving. Point your cell phone browser to http://google.com/gmm to get your local traffic maps if you live within one of the 30 U.S. cities where this is available."

Udo Schmitz writes "It's official now. Reuters confirms the rumors that Microsoft wants to take on Apple's iPod and iTunes. From the article: 'Microsoft Corp. said on Friday it plans to release a new music and entertainment player and accompanying software under the "Zune" brand this year, in a belated attempt to challenge the dominance of Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod player ... Microsoft sources said Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's entertainment and devices division, is working with J. Allard, vice president of its Xbox team, on the digital media player/software project.'"

bonch writes "Apple's U.S. notebook market share has doubled to 12% after shipping 1.33 million Macs in the quarter. Apple also shipped 8.11 million iPods, topping analyst estimates, for a net income of $472 million. Remember when Apple was dying?" From the article: "The iPod shipments appeared to calm investors worried that growth in that red-hot business was slowing and Apple's results topped what analysts had said was a conservative forecast. Shares of Apple were down some 24 percent since early May. 'Apple looked good,' said Jane Snorek, technology analyst with First American Funds. 'The PC numbers were great, too.'"

Aviran Mordo writes to tell us Reuters is reporting that Microsoft is announcing a voluntary policy to help guide the development of Windows in the future. The policy, which Microsoft senior vice president Brad Smith said was 'committed to creating a transparent system that allows open competition,' will start by allowing other search engines like Google to be set by default.

andrewman327 writes "Reuters is reporting that hospitals are considering embedding RFID tags in surgical tools to prevent leaving them in patients. After closing a patient, doctors would wave a receiver over the body to look for the chips which would indicate that something was left inside. The biggest current stumbling block is the chip's size, though scientists hope they will continue shrinking as the state of the art advances."

Mr. Jaggers writes "U.K. biotech outfit, PowderMed Ltd., has developed a new method to deliver vaccine using an injector powered by concentrated helium gas. They enclose fragments of virus DNA in tiny gold particles, and use the injector to introduce particles into the body subdermally. Evidently, this has been in the works for some time, but is now ready for human clinical tests. Oh, and this is supposed to be used experimentally to target the H5N1 avian flu, which is also cool, I suppose."

In case you haven't heard, Futurama is coming back — in like 2008, so don't go channel-flipping in hope quite yet. This is the first interview Billy West (who voices Fry, Prof. Farnsworth, Zapp Brannigan, Zoidberg, and other Futurama characters) has done since the announcement. Realize, too, that Billy has also been the voices of Ren and Stimpy and hundreds of other animated characters over the years, and old-school Howard Stern fans will remember that part of his career, too. Ask Billy about anything you like; we'll send him 10 top-moderated questions (and maybe he'll answer a few extra ones of his choice, too). We expect to post his answers Wednesday, the day after Freedom Day's 21st Century predecessor, the 4th of July (which, sadly, is not known for nude hot tub parties). Meanwhile, to tide you over, here's a little MP3 voice montage Billy did in his home studio just for Slashdot.

Slashback tonight brings some clarifications and updates to previous Slashdot stories including: Egyptian blogger Alaa freed from jail, Executive order repeals Kelo decision, Disney's trouble with Pooh bear, NASA engineer fired for opposing shuttle launch, Swedish pirates provide RIAA insurance, open source Java months away, and the net neutrality amendment defeated in committee -- Read on for details.

Egyptian blogger Alaa freed from jail. FleaPlus writes "Egyptian blogger, open source advocate, and Slashdot interviewee Alaa Abd El-Fatah has been released from jail. He had been imprisoned for 45 days after being arrested (along with several others) for taking part in a pro-democracy election reform rally, on charges which included "insulting the Egyptian president." In a blog post Alaa describes the conditions he was subjected to in the jail, as well as his worry about the hundreds of other activists who are still in prison."

Executive order defuses Kelo decision. physicsphairy writes "President Bush has issued an executive order whose effect is to undo the previous Kelo decision of the Supreme Court. From the article: 'It is the policy of the United States to protect the rights of Americans to their private property, including by limiting the taking of private property by the Federal Government to situations in which the taking is for public use, with just compensation, and for the purpose of benefiting the general public and not merely for the purpose of advancing the economic interest of private parties to be given ownership or use of the property taken.' The downside is that what was once affirmed consitutionally is now affirmed only in federal law."

Disney's trouble with Pooh bear. bbernard writes "It seems that the same laws that allow the Mouse to continue generating money for Disney have prevented Disney from taking control of Winny the Pooh. The Supreme Court has denied Clare Milne's bid to get the rights back for Pooh and his buddies. Clare is A.A. Milne's granddaughter, and her court battle was funded by Disney, as she was going to reassign the rights to them. Interesting to see a company foiled by the laws they insisted on in the first place, isn't it?"

NASA engineer fired for opposing shuttle launch. quad4b writes to tell us The New York Daily News reports that Charlie Camarda was has been removed from his post at NASA for questioning the safety of this Saturday's launch. From the article: "Camarda's removal heightened the turmoil over NASA Administrator Michael Griffin's decision to take the 'acceptable risk' of launching the Discovery orbiter despite warnings of potentially fatal blastoff debris. Camarda, who flew aboard the troubled flight of Discovery last July, told colleagues in an e-mail that he was fired from his post as chief engineer at Houston's Johnson Space Center and given another NASA engineering job."

Swedish pirates provide RIAA insurance. An anonymous reader writes "A new insurance company in Sweden is offering a new policy to protect you from the RIAA [Swedish]. For a mere 140 SEK ($19 USD) per year, they will pay all your fines and give you a t-shirt if you get convicted for file sharing. Interesting development in Sweden indeed."

Open source Java months away? bl8n8r writes "A Sun Microsystems Inc. executive said Tuesday said the company is "months" away from releasing its trademark Java programming language under an open-source license. Simon Phipps, chief open-source officer for Sun, said the company is ruminating over two major issues: how to keep Java compatible and ensure no particular company uses market forces as muscle for its own implementation, a move that would threaten Java's "write once, run anywhere" mantra."

Net neutrality amendment defeated in committee. DeathPooky writes "While not the end of the road for net neutrality, the latest vote isn't a good sign. From the article: 'The Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday rejected a network neutrality amendment, handing cable and phone broadband access providers yet another victory over a coalition that has demanded the application of strict nondiscrimination standards against entities that control access to millions of Internet users. The panel voted 11 to 11 to defeat an amendment sponsored by Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), who had backing from Google, Yahoo!, eBay, Amazon, Microsoft and other firms that deliver voice, video, and information services and applications.' All 10 Democrats on the committee, as well as Republican co-sponsor Sen. Snowe, voted for the amendment. The other 11 Republicans voted against."

Slashback tonight brings some clarifications, and updates to previous Slashdot stories including, justice for a stolen sidekick victim, free WebTV test a hit, SUSE 10.1 release postponed, Microsoft loses Office patent appeal, and PayPal fixes their phishing hole -- Read on for details.

Justice for stolen Sidekick victim. chroma writes "Remember the stolen Sidekick from a few days back? When the girl uploaded photos of herself to T-Mobile's service and bragged on IM about having the stolen PDA? Well, after creating a webpage that gathered 400,000 links in less than two weeks, and much runaround from the NYPD, justice has finally been served: the perpetrator has been arrested and the PDA returned. Further information is also available from The New York Times."

Free WebTV test a hit. An anonymous reader writes "Disney has said that their recent ABC free WebTV was a real hit with viewers and advertisers alike. Shows posted on the site received more than 11 million hits in the first month alone. From the article: 'An online exit survey posted the first week of the two-month trial showed that 87 percent of respondents could recall the advertisers that sponsored the episodes they watched. That compares with typical ad recall of about 40 percent for commercials viewed on television, industry sources said.'"

SUSE 10.1 release postponed. An anonymous reader writes "According to a confidential memo, the next release of both the server and desktop versions of SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 will be delayed. The delay is apparently to allow Novell 'to address final issues with our new package management, registration, and update system and also fix the remaining blocker defects.' From the article: 'SUSE has a new update and package management system, which has not worked well in its initial release in the free, community OpenSUSE 10.1 release. Unfortunately, even after a recent set of fixes was released, SUSE's update and new program installation system is still giving many users trouble.'"

Microsoft loses Office patent appeal. xwipeoutx writes to tell us ITNews.com is reporting that Microsoft has lost their appeal in US Federal court over a judgement handed down saying they violated a patent by Guatemalan inventor Carlos Armando Amado. The original judgement stipulated that Micosoft was to pay Amado $6.1 million for violating a patent covering a means to link spreadsheets and databases.

Paypal fixes their phishing hole. Juha-Matti Laurio writes "News.com is providing new information to the previous PayPal XSS hole and reporting that the hole is now fixed." From the article: "By exploiting the flaw, attackers were able to redirect people from a PayPal Web page to an online trap located in South Korea, a representative for the service said. The page actually has a real PayPal URL, but hosts malicious code that presents a message warning members that their account had been compromised. It then redirects them to a 'phishing' Web site."

grammar fascist writes "According to a Reuters article, two Blu-ray players and 'various titles' are expected in stores next week, June 20th. From the article: 'Blu-ray, one of two much-hyped high-definition DVD formats, debuts next week, but the launch is expected to be muted amid device delays and consumer confusion, industry analysts said on Thursday.' On the 20th, Samsung, not Sony, is launching a set-top player (Sony's is due this fall), and Sony is launching a Blu-ray compatible VAIO PC. Sony's fall set-top player will probably cost $1500. No word on the cost of Samsung's player yet, but I wouldn't expect it to be cheap."

Juha-Matti Laurio writes to mention a Reuters report about a fairly worrying case of identity theft. A determined hacker gained access to the U.S. National Nuclear Safety Administration's records and made off with the information for over 1,500 employees and contractors. From the article: "The incident happened last September but top Energy Department officials were not told about it until this week, prompting the chairman of the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee to demand the resignation of the head of the NNSA. An NNSA spokesman was not available for comment."

bitkid writes "Reuters reports that the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected a petition aimed at overturning a FCC decision requiring broadband providers and others that offer Internet telephone service to comply with wiretap laws. According to the court, private networks would not be subject to the wiretap requirements. Just the same, networks connected with a public network would have to comply with the law." From the article: "The court concluded that the FCC requirement was a 'reasonable policy choice' even though information services are exempted from the government's wiretapping authority."

Snowgen writes "Despite this week's earlier story that hinted Google may consider pulling out of China over the topic of censorship, Reuters is now quoting Sergey Brin as saying that 'Google Inc. is committed to doing business in China despite criticism the company has faced for abiding by Chinese government censorship restrictions.'" More from the article: "Brin told a small group of invited journalists: 'I think it's perfectly reasonable to do something different. Say, OK, let's stand by the principle against censorship and we won't actually operate there ... That's an alternative path. It's not the one we've chosen to take right now'."

BStrunk writes "I was reading the news this morning on Reuters, when I stumbled across this article: U.S. Service Personnel Personal Data Stolen In the article, an official violated policy by taking the detailed personal information of thousands of active and reserve troops to his personal home, storing it on a personal computer, that was later stolen. In an age where domestic phone calls are monitored, a government employee was allowed to walk out of a government installation with the data on thousands of American citizens to store on an insecure personal computer? Doesn't that seem strange to you? This is a real failure, in my opinion, in government protection of its citizens. Layers of encryption and protected access was successfully bypassed to make the theft of this information as simple as stealing a home pc. Now, not only do service personnel currently serving have to worry about IEDs and being fired upon, but they are now subject to possible identity theft. A real failure. After this, how could one have faith enough to serve an inept institution?"

andyring writes "Although some trans-Atlantic flights offer WiFi for a fee, JetBlue has won approval from the FCC to provide WiFi on their flights." From the article: "While Verizon's telephone service aboard commercial planes has not done well because of the high cost to use the phones, there has been interest in offering high-speed Internet access in the air to business travelers. The licenses will not mean travelers can soon use their cell phones in the air. The FCC and Federal Aviation Administration are still weighing whether to permit that."

Alien54 writes "The first official studio auction of memorabilia from all five 'Star Trek' television series and 10 movie spinoffs, to be held from October 5 to 7 in conjunction with the 40th anniversary of the original 'Star Trek' series, was announced by Christie's on Thursday. CBS Paramount Television Studios is cleaning out its vaults for the sale, comprising more than 1,000 lots totaling some 4,000 items. Items to hit the block include props, weapons, prosthetics and set dressings unearthed from five Paramount warehouses, as well as many special and spectacular items highlighted in the various shows." Update: 05/21/2006 14:57 GMT by SM Several users have provided us with the direct link to the auction site for easy viewing.

Arthur Dent '99 writes "According to this article at Reuters, the last chromosome in the human genome has finally been sequenced, taking 150 British and American scientists 10 years to complete. The sequenced chromosome, Chromosome 1, is the largest chromosome, with nearly twice as many genes as the average chromosome, making up eight percent of the human genetic code. The Human Genome Project has published the sequence online in the journal Nature, according to the article. It contains 3,141 genes (over 1,000 of them newly discovered), and 4,500 new SNPs -- single nucleotide polymorphisms -- which are the variations in human DNA that make people unique."

An anonymous reader writes "Reuters is reporting that the US government has 'filed a motion on Saturday to intervene and seek dismissal of a lawsuit by a civil liberties group against AT&T Inc. over a federal program to monitor U.S. communications.' More from the article: " In its motion seeking intervention, posted on the court's Web site, the government said the interests of the parties in the lawsuit "may well be in the disclosure of state secrets" in their effort to present their claims or defenses ... A hearing is scheduled for June 21 before federal Judge Vaughn Walker." You may recall a few weeks ago when the DOJ asked the judge to dismiss the case. They've now taken the next step required to quash this legal action.

Assassin bug wonders: "Although the topic of malaria has been discussed on Slashdot, DDT use has not. After having banned DDT (C14H9Cl5)" in 2004, Tanzania has reversed their ban on DDT use. What is the Slashdot community's opinion regarding the use of DDT for mosquito control versus genetically modified mosquitoes?" "Key facts to consider:

• Insects have developed resistance, for every tactic that has been used against them (including biological control, crop rotation, and various chemicals)
• Although the direct effects of DDT on humans might be benign, the effects on wildlife and the environment are well documented
• In some countries, such as India, popluations of DDT-resistant mosquitoes exist
• The fitness (i.e., reproductive success in the wild) of mutant mosquitoes is not well understood."

d'alz writes "A new research states that Alzheimer's disease and other types of dementia can now be defined by a visual test based on images of faces and scenes. Research indicates that when people were asked to pick 'the odd on out' from a set of pictures of scenes and faces, those suffering from Alzheimer had difficulty picking out the odd scene. On the other hand those with semantic dementia had a problem with the faces. From the article: The findings, reported in the Journal of Neuroscience, support earlier research which suggested that different areas in a region of the brain called the Medial Temporal Lobe could be responsible for various aspects of memory and perception."

Pika the Mad writes "Reuters has a concise but interesting article up about how video games will help decide the format war between Blu-ray and HD DVD. According to industry analysts "What Sony and Microsoft decide to announce publicly or to dealers at E3 next week will be key." So this year's E3 could very well be a deciding factor in how you view your movie library for years to come."

UltimaGuy writes to mention a Reuters report, stating that Vista may be delayed again, this time by up to three months. From the article: " The research note, released to clients [by the Gartner Group] on Monday, said the new Windows Vista operating system is too complex to be able to meet Microsoft's targeted November release for volume license customers and January launch for retail consumers. A Microsoft spokeswoman said the company disagreed with the Gartner report and it was still on track to meet its launch dates."

artlu writes "According to Reuters news, Apple has announced the launch of the 17" MacBook Pro. The new MacBook will retail for $2,799, come with iLife '06, and begins shipping next week. Details are not yet on Apple's website, but hopefully these notebooks will be triple booting as well!"

Several readers wrote to note Larry Ellison's comments about launching an Oracle Linux Distro (great! yet another!) and that Oracle has/is also looking at purchasing Novell. The great shake-out continues.

A joint University of California, SFO/University of Pittsburgh study has been released which finds "playing violent videogames can lead young men to believe it is acceptable to smoke marijuana and drink alcohol", Gamasutra reports. Reuters is also carrying the story, with some information about methodology available in that piece. From the article: "Brady and Matthews had a group of 100 male undergraduates aged 18 to 21 play either Grand Theft Auto III or The Simpsons: Hit and Run. In the Simpsons game, players took the role of Homer Simpson and their task was to deliver daughter Lisa's science project to school before it could be marked late. In Grand Theft Auto III, players took the role of a criminal, and were instructed by the Mafia to beat up a drug dealer with a baseball bat."

aardwolf64 writes "In an apparent response to the hearing loss lawsuit against Apple, the company has released an update to the iPod nano and 5th generation iPod that allows the user to set the maximum volume level. Parents can even set a lock code that prevents the volume from going above a certain amount." Apple also has instructions at their site on how to implement the changes

matr0x_x writes "The U.S. has just moved one step closer to banning all Internet gambling sites when the US House of Representatives cleared an anti-Internet gambling bill yesterday. The bill is against a World Trade Organization ruling last August that stated the US must not block online gambling sites based overseas." From the article: " The bill, cleared by voice vote in the House Financial Services Committee, would prohibit a gambling business from accepting credit cards, checks, wire transfers and electronic funds transfers in illegal gambling transactions. Unlawful gambling, under the legislation, would include placing bets on online poker sites, for example, and any other online wager made or received in a place where such a bet is illegal under federal or state law."

JordanL writes "It appears that France is pushing through a law that some feel may force Apple to open iTunes to other players. From the article: 'Under a draft law expected to be voted in parliament on Thursday, consumers would be able to legally use software that converts digital content into any format. It would no longer be illegal to crack digital rights management -- the codes that protect music, films and other content -- if it is to enable to the conversion from one format to another.'"

An anonymous reader writes "A Reuters article explains how, in some ways, the digital future of movie theatres isn't quite here yet. Despite the push for new technology in the projection booth, theaters have been slow to adopt the new and expensive gear." From the article: " Many in the movie industry hope digital cinema will help revive theater attendance, which fell 9 percent in 2005 in the United States. The studios stand to save about $1 billion a year in print distribution costs because they will be shipping digital movies via computer hard drives, satellite and broadband cable, versus old celluloid canisters. But digital deployment is expensive at about $100,000 per screen, and while the studios agreed to foot most of the bill, current equipment does not meet all the technology standards set by the industry."

An anonymous reader writes "Despite the wishes of partisan players like Sony and Toshiba, many consumer electronics manufacturers are opting to support both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discs in upcoming media players." From the article: "Consumer electronics maker LG Electronics and PC maker Fujitsu-Siemens both said on Thursday they would keep their options open after computer giant Hewlett-Packard said last month it would back HD DVD as well as Blu-ray. Bjorn Sehrm, senior director Digital Home of Fujitsu-Siemens, told Reuters: 'We are planning to put both in. We don't take a stand in that fight, and actually we're very sorry that fight is happening.'

College Student writes "Microsoft has officially unveiled 'Origami', a paperback-book sized portable hybrid (laptop & PDA). From article: 'The new machines will connect wirelessly to the Internet and carry full-sized hard drives, but they are not intended to replace current PCs....The new PCs are expected to sell for between $599 to $999, but Microsoft said it is possible to sell one for $500 if the manufacturer selects components carefully.'" More details at the official Microsoft site, and via Channel 9 a look at the system with the UMPC general manager.

An anonymous reader writes "Reuters is reporting that chip giant Intel hopes to get back on track in their continued market share war with AMD when they unveil a new line of chips at their upcoming twice-annual developers forum. From the article: 'AMD, once content to mimic Intel's advances, has set the technological pace in recent years with innovations such as putting two processing cores in a single chip -- moves that have helped it gobble market share from its much-larger rival.'"

gregsblog writes "Today is a historic day at AOL as we announced a software development kit for AOL Instant Messenger. Open AIM will empower you, as the developer, to write custom clients and plugins. For now, lets concentrate on the Open AIM SDK and get into what it can do for you. First, the development kit is written using COM, so plugins and custom clients can be written for Windows in languages like C++, VB, C#, and eventually J-Script. In the near future we will have solutions for LINUX, MAC and Windows Mobile devices. Why is this important? We now have a solution to provide all AIM users and consumers to build their own IM clients and to extend the features of Triton via plugins. Of course all of this is free of charge. How do I get started? Well my team has provided a quick start guide, and tutorials, in addition to numerous coding examples, from the simple to the complex. Our examples are in C++ and C#. What are the limitations? Basically anything goes, with the exception of writing multi-headed clients."

spune writes "Only months after SBC's acquisition of AT&T last November, the newly rechristened telecom has announced that it plans to buy fellow Baby Bell BellSouth Inc, of Atlanta, Georgia for $67 billion. This action by AT&T will consolidate more than half of the original Bell System into a single entity, leaving only Verizon and Qwest as remaining Bell family competitors. Analysts predict this deal will be approved by the FCC with only minor restrictions on the new company, which will serve residences and businesses from California to Florida."

deman1985 writes "A recently released NASA study has shown that the Antarctic ice shelf is shrinking at an alarming rate of 36 cubic miles per year. The study, run from April 2002 to August 2005, indicates that the melting accounted for 1.2 millimeters of global sea level rise for the period. From the article: 'That is about how much water the United States consumes in three months and represents a change of about 0.4 millimeter (0.01575 inch) per year to global sea level rise, the study concluded. The study claims the majority of the melting to have occurred in the West Antarctic ice sheet."

kw writes "Microsoft will introduce a search engine better than Google in six months in the United States and Britain followed by Europe, its European president said on Wednesday. "What we're saying is that in six months' time we'll be more relevant in the U.S. market place than Google," said Neil Holloway, Microsoft president for Europe, Middle East and Africa. That timing would presumably coincide more or less with the launch of Vista."

Astin writes "The PTO has rejected the last of the NTP patents against Research in Motion. On top of this, Judge Spencer has decided that Blackberry service won't be shut down today, but he will issue a decision on the injunction 'as soon as reasonably possible.' RIM CEO Jim Balsillie just said on CNBC that it's 'quite possible' that NTP won't see any settlement from RIM at all now."

CaroKann writes "Reuters is reporting on a Wall Street investment research company, Majestic Research, that is using web crawling techniques to track business performance. Instead of attempting to estimate business conditions by talking to company management, or pounding the pavement visiting stores, this company uses data mining systems to collect real-time sales data and other information on companies that have a web presence. Using this data, Majestic attempts to estimate company earnings more accurately than traditional research outfits."

pcause writes "Reuters reports that the fifth NTP patent has been rejected. What does it say about the US Patent office and software patents that these patents have made it through trials, appeals, etc and only now has the Patent Office decided they weren't any good in the first place?" From the article: "The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has sided with BlackBerry portable e-mail device maker Research in Motion Ltd. by issuing a non-final rejection of a fifth patent at the center of its legal battle with patent holding company NTP Inc. The decision means the patent agency has now issued non-final rejections of all five patents at issue in a BlackBerry patent-infringement case before a federal judge."

Strolls writes "In an release which conjures images of avian borg, a press release tells of plans to release pigeons equipped with cellphones and GPS so that they can "blog" air pollution data. The plan is the brainchild of Beatriz da Costa of the University of California Digital Arts Research Network and is scheduled as part of the inter-Society for Electronic Arts' annual symposium in San Jose in August. Da Costa has previously been involved with RFID roaches."

Hitokiri writes "Now that Google News is out of beta the newspaper publishers are starting to take notice. It's important to note that no legal action has taken place yet, but still, there seems to be a battle on the horizon." From the article: "'They're building a new medium on the backs of our industry, without paying for any of the content,' Ali Rahnema, managing director of the association, told Reuters in an interview. 'The news aggregators are taking headlines, photos, sometimes the first three lines of an article -- it's for the courts to decide whether that's a copyright violation or not.'"

YesSir writes "The New York Post claims that Google is considering an alliance or possibly an acquisition of Napster. Rather then starting their own, Google could jump start their music service with the help of Napster. Napster's share price soared more than 30 percent as a result of the report that they are in discussions with Google." From the article: " The company in January told Reuters that it was not on the block. 'The company is not looking to be sold, the management is not looking to step out. It's simply not true,' a Napster spokesman said on Jan. 23. Last week, Napster, founded by college student Shawn Fanning and was once synonymous with the pirating of music, laid off 10 managers." More information available from C|Net. Update: 01/31 19:16 GMT by Z : A Reuters article has Google denying that it has plans to acquire Napster or start a music store anytime soon.

An anonymous reader writes The US has restored Ukraine to their preferred trade partner status after requiring the country to crack down on piracy. The United States had also imposed 100-percent import duties on $75 million worth of Ukrainian exports since 2002." From the article: "Concern over high piracy rates prompted the Bush administration to suspend Ukraine from the program in 2001. At that time, Ukraine was the largest producer and exporter of pirated CDs and DVDs in Europe, USTR said."

At the recent adult entertainment awards, host Greg Fitzsimmons highlighted the deep relationship between the internet and pornography stating "'The Internet was completely funded by porn,' he said [...] And if it wasn't for the Internet, he added, 'you guys would be completely out of business.' The audience, packed with porn actors and adult entertainment moguls like Jenna Jameson and Larry Flynt, roared with laughter." Now it appears that the adult entertainment industry has chosen to ante up in the DRM battle as well. Some companies have chosen to take sides, like Digital Playground who will be supporting Sony's Blu-Ray. Others, like Vivid Entertainment, seem to think that the answer is diversity and will be supporting both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD.

rts008 writes to tell us Reuters is reporting that a conservative alumni group is working hard to expose 'radical professors'. The group is a creation of 2003 UCLA graduate, Andrew Jones, who stated that he runs the organization on his own with $22,000 in private donations. From the article: "Jones told Reuters he is out to 'restore an atmosphere of respectful political discourse on campus' and says his efforts are aimed at academics who proselytize students from either side of the ideological spectrum, conservative or liberal. 'We are concerned solely with indoctrination, one-sided presentation of ideological controversies and unprofessional classroom behavior,' Jones said on his Web site." The tactics used by Jones and his group are raising quite a few questions, however, offering to pay students for recordings or teaching materials that could provide 'evidence' against professors in question.

imrec writes "Google stock sees a record 8% decline shortly after news concerning the government's request for Google's search logs broke earlier this week." From the article: "'There are potentially concerns that Google could be in the cross-hairs of the Justice Department,' Kessler said. 'Investors are worried about interest rates and inflation and they felt technology stocks like Google, Apple, Yahoo and others were able to withstand these kinds of pressure. But now that ability is in doubt,'"

Anonycat writes "Bill Gates gave an interview at the Consumer Electronics Show, claiming that IBM is the rival company Microsoft has their sights set on. From the article: 'People tend to get over focused on one of our competitors ... We've always seen that ... I'm never going to change the press' view about what the cool company to write about is. That's Google number 1 and Apple number 2 ... [IBM has] four times the employees that I have, way more revenues than I have.'"

Back in 2005 (last week) we sent Opera Software CEO Jon von Tetzchner twelve of your questions. This year (this week), we have his answers. Enjoy!

1) Re:Competing vs Free Open Source Product
by CSMastermind (847625)

Some have suggested that Microsoft should buy the Opera browser. How do you feel about this? If they did, would you plan to continue with work on the browser? Would you ever work for Microsoft?

Jon von Tetzchner:

We have been competing with Microsoft for a long time and I have not felt that they have always fought fairly. I would be disappointed if we were to end up in their hands and I find that very unlikely. I believe a lot of people at Opera would find them selves other work and that would include me.

2) What can we look forward to?
by robyannetta (820243)

I've been pimping Firefox since version 0.7 but have recently moved to Opera because Firefox doesn't natively support some things that Opera does:

local.google.com Native user agent switching
Opera 9's upcoming Acid2 compatibilty
Eye candy and general coolness factors

Can you give us a taste of new, unannounced features we'll see in future versions?

Jon von Tetzchner:

Thanks for using Opera. You have moved from one good browser to another. :)

There is a lot of new things coming in Merlin. We continue focusing on making Opera even smaller and faster, while adding a lot of useful, new features. Some of these features are by request from our user community, so feel free to add your own requests.

A lot of the focus is on improving what we have got. Our users want us to do this and we want to do this. This means that we will continue to focus on making Opera work faster and better with all the sites out there. We will continue to innovate new features that makes your browsing more pleasant. We aim to give you more control over your browsing. The idea is that you should feel the browser has been made for you. This is one of the reasons why we have so many different ways to do the same thing, as people are different and have different ways of working.

We will also work on improving the other parts of the program, such as the mail client, IRC client, RSS, News (nntp), etc. Each of these parts should follow the rule of being small, fast and user friendly.

3) Market growth?
by sheridan3003 (165213)

Do you find that the majority of Opera users are on the IT side of things, and if so how do you plan to get more users who are the "typical user", or only use their computer at work for their assigned tasks? Since IE is embedded when they get their new machine out of the box, how are you introducing Opera to users that probably have a limited understanding that they can have a different browser, or even more than one browser on their machine?

Jon von Tetzchner:

Our goal is to increase our user base significantly. Our user base in general has a higher degree of people which use the Internet extensively. Most of them have tried every other browser before choosing Opera. We consider it very important to focus on keeping our users happy and build from there. There is nothing better than a happy user and we will do what we can to innovate and push the limits to what you can expect in a browser. At the same time we will also try to remove any barriers for new users and make it easy for them to migrate to Opera.

In addition to this we will work on our distribution and marketing, of course, but nothing really beats a happy user that tells his friends and family.

4) Would you sell to Microsoft?
by lilmouse (310335)

Recently someone suggested that MS should simply buy Opera as a web browser for Vista. What do you think of that idea? Would you sell?

Jon von Tetzchner:

I am not interested in selling out to Microsoft. However, if Microsoft is interested in including Opera with Windows, we would be happy to provide them with it. I do believe that would be positive for the web in general.

5) Feature thieves
by tehshen (794722)

Opera has been an innovative browser for some time; it was one of the first to offer popup blocking, tabs (or MDI of some description), sessions, mouse gestures, and so on. However, since then, other browsers have implemented them as well; Firefox has extensions offering mouse gestures and sessions, and popup blocking and tabs are now commonplace. After offering so many features, would you prefer browsers such as Firefox and IE to come up with their own ideas instead of taking them from other browsers, or prefer the sharing of ideas so the web is better off overall?

Jon von Tetzchner:

Although our competitors have opened their eyes to some of our features, many are still only to be found in Opera and we aim to continue adding new ones. I am happy that we are considered the most innovate browser company and that is something we will be working hard to maintain. It is quite flattering that our features are being copied like that and I would prefer us to be in the position of being copied and not the other way around.

6) Google as a search partner?
by furnk (935156)

Can you offer more information on the terms of the recently announced agreement with Google?

What exactly is a "major presence"? Was Google just the obvious choice because of its scope, or is there some flirting going on in the hopes of a more lasting relationship?

Jon von Tetzchner:

Google provides what many people consider to be the best search engine. Our goal is to provide our users with the best solutions available, so Google was a natural choice, although there are other good choices out there.

The latest announcement about our agreement with Google with regards to Opera Mobile and Opera Mini states: "Opera will make Google Search a major part of the browser`s home screen." That means just that. Google search will be easy to find.

Google is an important partner of Opera and we hope to continue our cooperation into the future. Do not read anything more into that. It just means that we will always strive to get good partners for us to provide a strong product and thus increase our market share.

7) One critical thing missing from Opera...
by JaguarSavages (558510)

Better extensions/plugins. Firefox has earned great acclaim for its dynamic extension support. Extensions such as Fasterfox, Adblock, Web Developer, and many others are the sole reason people use Firefox over Opera (or any other browser). I know Opera is working to help unify the Netscape plugin API, but the upcoming version 9 doesn't appear to have anything that can match Firefox's extension capabilities. When will we see Opera support plugin/extensions as powerful as Firefox's?

Jon von Tetzchner:

Opera does have quite extensive extension capabilities today. User Javascipt is one such example. This is something we first used when we made the Bork version of Opera. We have later added this as a user feature and there are already more than 100 scripts available from the developer community. You can find a lot on userjs.org. Many of these script are very powerful.

Our concern with regards to extensions has been security and general usability. We have seen the number of security issues Microsoft has struggled with and many of them have been related to the APIs between the different applications. However, we do see a demand and we do tend to listen to demands from our users.

8) Will Opera ever go Open Source?
by PenguinBoyDave (806137)

I like Opera...in fact, I have stopped using Firefox in favor of Opera for reasons mentioned in someone elses question. Would you ever consider going back to charging for the browser, yet making it Open Source, and offering support for the paid version?

Jon von Tetzchner:

Thanks for choosing Opera. We apprieciate it. :)

We aim to keep Opera free. Our goal is to increase our market share and we have now taken a big step forward by making Opera free without a banner. We have already seen a good increase in downloads and we are adding significant resources to work on Opera in general and on the desktop.

I do not believe that making Opera open source would benefit us all that much. I do not think it has benefitted Netscape much either. I believe that we should work as closely with the community as possible and find ways to enable the community to engage and influence what we do to an even greater extent. I do not think that going open source would make us more efficient.

9) Web developers and Opera "testing"
by bushboy (112290)

I've worked in a few high profile companies in the UK who are all very serious about adhering to web standards, checking all designs in internet explorer, firefox and safari, but I've yet to encounter a company who will ensure that Opera renders page layouts correctly.

What level of market share would you say is required by Opera for web developers to ensure their layouts render correctly ?

Jon von Tetzchner:

IMHO, it is best for web developers to focus on following web standards. This still leaves them with having to code for IE, but most of the time, this will lead to the fastest and best result. I also think that is absolutely necessary as the web evolves from being desktop only to being cross-platform and cross-device.

I believe that web developers should strive to test with as many browsers as possible and that Opera should be part of that as one of the major browsers in the market. Very many sites are already testing with Opera as we do have a significant market share, with between 10 and 15 million active desktop users and more than 20 million mobile deployments so far.

10) Future of free version?
by simetra (155655)

Hi
I love Opera and bought it... several years ago, then a recent upgrade. THEN, you made it free!!!

So, that makes me think, maybe you made the PC version free, and are going to concentrate on the mobile versions, which you probably really make money on. Does this mean that the free PC version will stagnate? Or will future versions be built, with fun new features?

Also... how about a new logo? Or maybe a cross-marketing deal with Oprah?

Jon von Tetzchner:

We are increasing our efforts on the desktop as well as on mobile and other markets. We have big plans for our desktop version, so do not worry, you can expect even more in the future as we are adding programmers to work on the desktop as well as in the core, which benefits all versions of Opera.

No new logo is planned. Our feeling is that the current logo works well and it has been built over years. It is already being used by partners all across the world in promoting the fact that Opera comes with their products.

We have not plans for a cross-marketing deal with Oprah, but maybe it makes sense? :)

11) Bug tracking, developer tools and HTML/CSS/JS
by smurfsurf (892933)

1. Opera Bug Tracking System My experience with Opera's bug tracking system are rather frustrating. I can not check if some bug is already known (describing a bug and creating a test case is time consuming). Also, I reported some things and never ever got any feedback besides an automatic email. I do not know if Opera considers it a bug, if it is not a bug but an error on my side, if someone works on it, if it was fixed, simply nothing comes back. The Opera BTS is a black hole, and since some time now, I do not feel like making the effort to report bugs.

Do you plan to open up the BTS or at least allow the submitter to view the ticket? Or enhance the feedback?

Jon von Tetzchner:

Your feedback is well received. The BTS works very well for internal use, but I can understand that it is not optimal for those that would like to do more than just report an issue. We will discuss this internally and see what we can do. We still want it to be possible for people to register bugs without having to have an account in our system.

2. Developer Tools

How about a DOM Inspector (and a Javascript Debugger)? Firefox's DOM Inspector and XMLHttpRequest Monitor are dearly missing in Opera.

There are some excellent third party tools available (please see nontroppo.org/wiki/WebDevToolbar for a good starting point). We are also actively working on extending built-in solutions and there are some improvements with regards to that in Merlin as well. This is something we take very seriously as more and more people are using Opera to build applications.

3. HTML/CSS/JS

Any word on opacity support? On a Richtext Editing component?

Both are part of Merlin.

12) Norwegian babes
by HonkyLips (654494)

From previous Opera related posts on Slashdot, it has come to my attention that you have some real babes working for you in Norway. Are any of them single and if so, would they be interested in dating a guy who reads slashdot? BTW I use Safari but I can be persuaded to switch...

Jon von Tetzchner:

I must admit to not having total control over who of our employees are currently single and who are not, but I am sure some of our employees are single. However, who they date is clearly up to them.

I believe most people working at Opera read Slashdot either frequently or now and then. We are a very technical bunch.

Happy New Year to everybody at Slashdot! May the new year be very exciting and positive and peaceful!

-- Regards/Vennlig hilsen/Kær kvedja...
Jon S. von Tetzchner
Opera Software

Opera's Vision: www.opera.com/company/vision/

sayanchak writes "Reuters reports that Opera Software has agreed that Google will be the default partner for its mobile Internet browsers. Google will be the default search partner for the mobile browsers, Opera Mobile and Opera Mini." From the article: "Oslo-based Opera Software is a tiny competitor of Microsoft in the Internet browser market, but the fast-growing part of its business is in browsers for mobile phones and other mobile electronic devices."