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Either I don't get your 'humor' or you are plain stupid, referring to German speakers as nazi's.

Anyway, this techweb article tells you how productive Germans are in the open source world. Now it may be true that open source programmers don't make up as much of the slashdot gang as they used to, but there probably still are quite a lot of German slashdot readers.

Not sure if anyone's mentioned this yet, but TechWeb is reporting that Micron PC is holding off on introducing Pentium IV systems with Rambus but will be shipping Athlon DDR systems immediately...

Interesting as their parent company is heavily supportive of DDR-SDRAM and are currently being sued by Rambus...

Also, Rivest, Shamir, and Adleman *did* invent RSA. I'm not sure what you're implying.

Complements of a lead from "JC's", here is an interesting article about Intel and DDR. Rambus always impressed me as an idea looking for a problem. Given Intel's switcheroo, it may be a problem looking for a wastebasket.

A TechWeb article from late July (Click 'about mayo', and then mayo in the news) states that the new version does not use any MSFT software. Not quite the same thing as saying that it's written from scratch, and it's not from the horse's mouth, but there it is.

The Internet protocols are currently being redesigned for deployment in space. TCP/IP doesn't handle intermittent connections or long delays well enough. See this article where the father of the Internet, Vince Cert, says "TCP/IP (is not) an attractive option." The WAP protocols do handle these issues quite well, however.

BTW - Where did you get your space TCP/IP info? The Betamax manuals..? ;-)

Remember the famous last words of Socrates, "I drank what?"

In particular:

"There are several ways companies can leverage their IP to create a distinct market advantage, Gross said. Companies should not only protect unique parts of their current technologies, but "patent in paths where their technology is headed," he said, thereby creating a competitive advantage."

"Gross also suggested that companies create patents with "an eye on infringement," to make sure that a patent can't be infringed and to make a company aware if one of its patents is being infringed upon. If a company feels it has the best technology or method in its field, it should not only patent that technology or method, but also the second-, third-, and fourth-best methods to ensure a competitive advantage, he said."

Please, America, feel free to screw up your own high-tech industries in the legal equivalent of the "Unix wars", but leave the rest of us out of it (i.e. don't try to push laws on us via WIPO, hoping nobody will notice).

In May, toysmart.com asked permission from the Federal Trade Commission to sell off its customer list to a third party, arguing that selling its directory was similar to a company acquiring the information in an acquisition.

Kogut countered that it was not an acquisition, or even a sale of 100 percent of the company's assets. Instead, only a portion of its assets was involved.

For those of you that have fogotten, IBM demonstrated a PowerPC chip running at 1 Ghz way back in 1998 (the chip ran at 1 GHz when cooled to 25 degrees Celcius, at room temperature it ran just at just under 500 MHz). Check out CNET's take on the event: IBM joins the 1,000-MHz club.

The 1 Ghz PowerPC IBM demonstrated way back in 1998 was partially hand tooled. This chip broke many of the processes IBM uses to automate production of the PowerPC. Check outwhat the EE Times said about the chip at the time: IBM's 1-GHz processor taxes current EDA tools.

More recently, TechWeb states some of IBM's plans for the PowerPC: IBM Preps SOI-Based PowerPCs.

To see what is available today, and what is coming in the short term future, look at IBM's product page for the PowerPC at: http://www.chips.ibm.com/products/powerp c/.

IBM intends to have out 700MHz PowerPCs for its RS/6000 line by early next year for its RS/6000 line. It would make very little sense for Apple to not start shoving these into new Macs when they become available.

IBM has had very little trouble scaling the PPC up as it needs to for its line of servers. I really wonder why Motorola seems to be having so much trouble in the MHz race.

OTOH, I remember 3rd party benchmarks that showed a Motorola PPC at 350 MHz smoking an Intel x86 at 500 MHz at Photoshop. And this was back in the day when x86 had MMX and PPC had no Alti-vec. FYI, the MMX instructions allowed the Intel box (running NT) to perform one or two tests slightly faster than the Apple box running Mac OS. Given this type of history, I can see Motorola being arrogant enough to think it doesn't need to keep up the MHz. But its time for Motorola to wake up and smell the coffee.

On a related note, there is a rumor that Palm is going to drop the 68k Motorola series in favor of the StrongARM series mostly because of the MHz.

Motorola better get some MHz action in a hurry. Despite an overall faster chip, eventually a double/triple clock speed advantage will catch up. I doubt a 1GHz T-Bird does much slower than a .5 GHz PPC, especially given Apple's slower bus.

FBI's Carnivore To Undergo University Review

The final review team will include ... Donald Kerr, the FBI's Laboratory division assistant director ...

Sounds like this is gonna be real objective.

A pointless political stunt and a waste of taxpayer's money.

I'm not saying that hotspot isn't impressive, but it isn't anywhere near native code yet.

And becuase of this, I refuse to even acknowledge Sun sponsored benchmarks - they're rigged. So don't respond with Sunworld, Javalobby, or Sun.com benchmarks.

I guarantee you some MBA from Namco is going to file suit against MAME in the next few weeks

That's a pretty safe bet, considering that it already happened over two years ago:
Anti-Piracy Forces Target Arcade Classics, TechWeb, April 22, 1998

I believe that MAME was never directly attacked - they couldn't prove that MAME in and of itself was illegal (a la Sony vs. Bleem), so their lawyers got very busy sending "cease and desist" notices to every site hosting ROMs for MAME.

A few games have been liberated - the original copyright holders have given permission for the ROMs to be distributed. However, I've never heard of these games before, and I suspect that the majority of people get their ROMs from so-called "underground" sites.

The main source I had used for ROMs gave a 10-day warning before removing them from their server - more than enough time to mirror their entire collection to my hard drive... And no, I'm not going to set up a mirror site, so please don't ask. :=]
________________________

This article is far more interesting - the future looks cheap for thin film displays!

I found a page on sgi.com giving a bit on the difference between VPro/Intel and VPro/Irix.

Thechweb's article says that any mailer using MSIE(4+) HTML renderer is vulnerable...
--

Razorfish Studios countersue IAM.com
Why Intel have to like RAMBUS
Detailed packet analysis of Realnetworks/Netscape's spyware.

(rejected)

I wonder how many people submitted that. I put mine in about an hour after this TechWeb article came out.

It'd be cool to see some cut-away of the slashdot experience. Like, are the posters the ones who hit reject or accept? Is there an early team that does some filtering? Is one nay enough to reject an article, or do a few people look it over?
-----

There are a number of companies that now sell cell phone jamming devices. I've seen some models that a very compact and fit into a small area of your briefcase.

Of course, these devices are only sold outside of the US and are completely illegal to operate in the US.

The first commercial one that I'm aware of was developed in 1998, here is an article about it.

I've got one of those Intellimouse Explorers (the huge silver ones with the superfluous tail light and like three extra buttons; well, what the hell, here's a http://www.microsoft.com/Mouse/explorer.htm link) and sites that won't let you back out are an incredible annoyance. See, two of the buttons on there serve as Forward/Back (respectively) while browsing the web, and after about 20 minutes of using them, I was hooked. You wouldn't believe how simple (and remarkably intuitive) to navigate with your thumb. Now if I could just find a good use for those buttons in Half-Life... I mean, sure, it's easy enough to hold down the back button and select the page before the offending site, but that would require moving my cursor over six or so linear inches of desktop space. Isn't that just a little bit unreasonable? No? Ah well.

http://www.techweb.com/wire/stor y/TWB20000630S0011

This spells it out a bit clearer that both Gateway and AMD agree it's a Gateway issue - either the motherboard or power supply.

Originally Gateway said it's be fixed by July 10th, but that has more recently changed to July 18th. Given the specificity of the date, I assume that they now know what the issue is, and are waiting either for rev'd motherboards from Jabil, or for a shippment of an appropriately spec'd power supply.

Interestingly AMD's web site:

http://www1.amd.com/athlon/power

Lists 52 approved power supply for 900MHz ATX, but only 37 for 1GHz ATX...

Use a service like Service Metrics to investigate the colos response-time from various points around the country so that you know its weaknesses. (I think there's a freeware version of this these days too.) Also talk to other customers to find out what they think.

"Exodus Acquires Service Metrics For $280M"

Geez.

http://www.techweb.com/w ire/finance/story/INV19991105S0003.

For all of you monkeys that said MS could not appeal the restrictions that take place in 90 days, here's an article on Techweb on how MS is appealing Jackson's refusal to stay the restrictions. Enjoy.

Yes! There is some very 'out of the box' thinking going on in Africa these days!

======
"Rex unto my cleeb, and thou shalt have everlasting blort." - Zorp 3:16

Now, about those figures... look here, here and since some fans even feel they are directly harming metallica, they've setup a site to pay lars back.

I eagerly await your response.

I would argue that it is hard to comment or report upon something without actually viewing what it is that is to be commented on. So even those posters who merely posted the entire document could be said to be furthering disscussion on the document.

At least one 9th Circuit judge disagrees with you. Judge Ronald M. Whyte, who is also the judge in the Sun v. Microsoft case, ruled against H. Keith Henson for doing precisely this--posting the entirety of a short document on a Usenet newsgroup to discuss its ramifications. A Wired article discusses this. It was Henson's contention that the document, NOTS 34, demonstrated illegal practice of medicine by the Scientology cult.

Judge Whyte was roundly criticized in a Wall Street Journal article for "Pecksniffian literalness" and for having "turned copyright law on its head."

The document, NOTS 34, is discussed, along with many other such documents, at Dave Touretzky's NOTS Scholars Page, and a description of the earlier parts of the trial is at Ron Newman's old page while the jury trial for damages is transcribed at Sten-Arne Zerpe's page. Incidentally, Judge Whyte dismissed trade secret claims in this litigation based on Internet distribution, as well as similar claims in other cases.

I also came across the MPEG4, Web3D collaboration 'movement'. Check it out here

For all of you who are confused about MPEG (Moving Pictures Experts Group), check here .

4) Consider researching/finding a radio plugin card that works under your OS of choice. Set it up such that a simple tap of a key starts/stops recording. With a decent radio station (that doesn't voice over the start and finish of songs) this could be an excellent source of free music for distribution via CD or server.

moderate above UP! Listen, it won't be long before $50 buys a credit card sized drive holds 4 *years* of *.mp3 recordings.. Gnapster and freenet plus exploding bandwidth will make a milennia of *.mp3 available for sharing.. deal with it!

http://www.techweb.com/wire/stor y/TWB19990824S0011
http://wired.com/news/print/0,1294 ,35079,00.html

anyway, i'm dying to record direct from radio.. does anyone know of a TiVO like device for grabbing broadcast radio signals and converting 'em to *.mp3?

(btw - yes, artists are getting royally screwed between corporations and "pirates".. it is a very bad thing .. stopping this abuse is up to us individuals.. currently i don't rip (no time) but when i start, i'll definately pay lars (it's the ethical thing to do.)

TechWeb has a review of Netscape 6, preview 1. It's not very flattering. Some quotes:

"Netscape 6 PR1 is far from ready for prime time, however. It's not even close-- yet."

"If things remain the same, AOL might succeed at doing to Netscape Navigator and the ever-popular Lizard (Mozilla) what Microsoft (stock: MSFT) and its Internet Explorer were never able to do -- kill it."

Harsh words -- but in line with many people's experiences that have posted here on Slashdot in the past.

It will be interesting to see if they can get the problems worked out and make it a competitive browser.

--

CGI

(1) (Computer Graphics Interface) A device independent graphics language
for display and printing that stemmed from GKS.

(2) (Computer-Generated Image) A picture created in the computer. See
computer animation.

(3) See CGI script.

http://www.techweb.com/encyclopedia/defineterm?t erm=cgi

According to http://www.techweb.com/wire/stor y/TWB19990112S0011, just over 9 million DVDs were sold in '98, an increase of 600% over the year before.

Presume the same increase for 1999, giving 9 million * 6 = 54 million DVDs. What does a DVD cost these days? $20? A bit more? Figure printing, packaging, and media costs, and profit's probably $20 or less. So, 54 million DVDs * $20 each is roughly $1.1 billion.

Someone is seriously screwed up in the head if they expect anyone to believe that even though blank DVDs cost more than pre-recorded ones, somebody (a whole industry of somebodies, from the looks of it) has managed to turn a profit selling over twice as many DVDs as the entire motion picture industry, even with the help of country codes and other monopolistic advantages?

I would certainly like to see the chain of reasoning that supports the MPAA's claim, especially starting from the same figures I've got. Further, even if this were true, the MPAA has the gall to say that this piracy is due to DeCSS, and that everyone who apparently bought two pirated DVDs would have been willing to pay full price, so the MPAA in fact lost a sale, which also is a false assumption.

Frankly, I'd be surprised if they lost a tenth of what they claim, in all the years since DVDs have been for sale.

Just did a quick search, and found out that GVPP isn't exactly new (the article mentions that it was invented in 1992):

http://www.techweb.com/wire/news/1997/09/0913visio n.html

Seems the price has gone down "a bit" since '97 though:

The modules measure 40 mm2, have 100 pins, and can handle 20-MHz video signals. The chip is priced at $960. On a card with a socketed GVPP and 64 kilobytes of Flash RAM, the price comes to $1,500.

$6 sounds much better to me :)

There's an article over at TechWeb that says intel plans to have a 1GHz p3 out by the 8th. And HP announced it will be the first to ship a 1GHz machine. I hope they didn't sacrifice quality for a good press blurb. But then again, I'd love to see them steal more market share from Intel.

There's an article over at TechWeb that says intel plans to have a 1GHz p3 out by the 8th. And HP announced it will be the first to ship a 1GHz machine.

Here is some possibly interesting (though somewhat old) info on a port to Linux of Microsoft's Media Player...

One of the important implications of claiming there are "continents" on the web is that each continent, with its own culture and habits and (most important) patterns of use may end up with different structural design from the others.

For instance, Bill Joy of Sun argues in this Techweb piece that there are "six webs," each with different uses and needs.

Whether you call them webs or continents, will they remain associated? Will there be new means of accessing each one? How long will the web model last? Will Internet architecture develop layers to meet the varying needs of the different communities that wish to be online, but not in a cookie-cutter way?

In other words, beyond the "cultural" differences on the web (which sometimes mirror, sometimes amplify and often usefully distort cultural differences in society), what will the physical implications be, in terms of how we connect?

A. Keiper
____________________
The Center for the Study of Technology and Society

One of the important implications of claiming there are "continents" on the web is that each continent, with its own culture and habits and (most important) patterns of use may end up with different structural design from the others.

For instance, Bill Joy of Sun argues in this Techweb piece that there are "six webs," each with different uses and needs.

Whether you call them webs or continents, will they remain associated? Will there be new means of accessing each one? How long will the web model last? Will Internet architecture develop layers to meet the varying needs of the different communities that wish to be online, but not in a cookie-cutter way?

In other words, beyond the "cultural" differences on the web (which sometimes mirror, sometimes amplify and often usefully distort cultural differences in society), what will the physical implications be, in terms of how we connect?

A. Keiper
____________________
The Center for the Study of Technology and Society

In this case, a class action lawsuit is a surefire winner. There's no reason those bozos had to store credit card data in the database.

I wish I had some moderator points. It was called Netshow. I've used (and since uninstalled) it too. I can't believe that the top scored post in this discussion is a vaporware claim. Admittedly, it looks like they've since pulled it from their site, but check out this Techweb article from 1998.

Techweb transcribed the pricing a little more precisely than I:

The 500- and 700-MHz TM5400 versions will list for $119 and $329, respectively. The 333- and 400-MHz TM3120 devices will list for $65 and $89, respectively.

--LP

one by cnet, pretty thorough, and
one by techweb with more details than the other articles, and
one from Infoworld

--LP

The following Techweb article goes along way to explaining what Transmeta is doing. Have fun!

--Peter Olson aka Mr. Freakybig

You also wouldn't believe the number of redhat owners that continue to do so well after they've been off linux. Or Solaris admins, for that matter...

I'm confused as to what you mean here. I'm not too familiar with redhat owners who are well off linux. Seems vaguely contradictory. Maybe just vague.

... as stated by Microsoft itself ...

Because microsoft is such a good source of accurate information?

... If gaming was the only objective, they would have never implimented all the security, added directory services, file and printer sharing, so-called "zero management" / remote administration, ...

Microsoft's implementation of security, if you'll read the article for this post, is severely lacking. Other features sound like old (very old) news for what is suppose to be a brand-new OS. And what about the promised scalability?

Sorry, but this OS wasn't designed just to play Quake.

That's too bad. It might have been useful... :-)

Yeah, isn't that called HAL, or the Hardware Abstraction Layer present in NT4 and W2K? Virtualize everything and put the hardware behind a complex API and then make damn sure the kernel is stable.

It's unfortunate that microsoft doesn't like to fully share it's APIs with the outside world. Plus, even when there are good open alternatives, ms keeps insisting on using proprietary technologies for too many things, including it's video (think active-x; then try openGL).

That's also false - a recently leaked report indicates they intend to break MS up into several "baby bills".

How do you know? Open-sourcing is as much an alternative as baby-billing. The recent 'leak' has not been substantiated, so, it's just a rumor.

Chicken Little & Microsoft

In the end, it's nothing that spectacular: it's about identifying public and and unencrypted secret key data in a stream of bits with lots of other data. Although it seems as if nobody has thought about this kind of attack before, other forms of attack, based on additional characteristics of the key (for example, that it is contained in an OpenPGP packet), were certainly known, and it is quite likely that systems designed to be immune against this kind of attack (i.e., by employing tamper-proof hardware or storing critical key material on a strongly protected separate server) will resist the new (old) one as well.

Of course, only few people in the modern e-commerce world care about security on their sites, so some media attention, although a bit late and a bit exaggerated, is always a good thing.

If linux had anything to do with this, it would be nice if the players knew.

We could at least get a stable real player out of the deal, or maybe even an updated windows media player for linux. (windows media player is a very good media client app, despite anyone's hatred of Micro$oft. I'd happily use it under linux if it was available)

According to TechWeb it is the Sun E10000 that keeps on crashing, not the NT Servers.

``Business-to-business Internet marketplaces are becoming the next red-hot E-commerce market. A flurry of year-end, big-ticket deals last week shows that major players such as Andersen Consulting, Ariba, and SAP are banking on huge volumes of business transactions moving to the Web next year.''

Think this report may be just a tad biased?

Nah, couldn't be.

I'm sure Sentator Schumer could care less about your petrified Natalie Portmans.

I'm sure Sentator Schumer could care less about your petrified Natalie Portmans.

So there 8-P

Inprise takes the Blackdown jdk port, adds the things they need to implement JBuilder and give it away, and gives the jdk back to Sun. Cool.

Sun totally disses blackdown by ignoring them in the press release, not giving them any info about what Inprise was doing, and so far at least not offering to share the code.

After years of promising an open java standard, Sun once again withdraws java from the standards process.

When RMS calls for an open source alternative, Sun proudly states that it can't be done because the current public spec doesn't describe enough of the system
( http://www.techweb.com/wire/stor y/TWB19991208S0022)

I'd say Sun as pretty much shown their true colors this week.