Slashdot Mirror

prostoalex writes "Search for Paul Maritz and you're most likely to find Microsoft references. However, next month his new venture, PiCorp will start distributing Web-based software applications that might compete directly with Microsoft offerings. Former Microsoft exec also has an opinion on the future of software industry: '"The strength of the PC is also its weakness," Maritz says. "People don't want a single dedicated computer. They don't want their whole lives bound up in one piece of hardware. People want to get access wherever they are, from whatever device they're using."'"

cyclomedia writes "Late on 22nd June 1996 Quake was uploaded to cdrom.com's archives in the form of 7 1.44MB floppy disk images. Though it wasn't until the 23rd that everyone realised (or at least, that's my excuse for being a day late with the news submission). Cue much aggravation on the newsgroups as eager downloaders experienced glorious 2 FPS gameplay."

You submitted questions for Håkon Wium Lie on June 20. Today we have his answers, not only to the (+5 moderated) questions we sent him, but to a bunch of others he thought would also be interesting to answer.

 > Where... by bcat24
 >
 > Do you think the W3C development process is too slow? I know that
 > you guys want everything to be perfect, but it seems to take far
 > longer than necessary. CSS 3 shows promise and I wouldn't want it
 > to die a slow death in standardization.

No, I don't think W3C is too slow. W3C isn't the bottleneck, browsers are. The dominant browser on the web hasn't been updated for years, and it doesn't make sense for specifications to get too far ahead. Rather, the CSS Working Group in W3C has focused on specification maintenance and achieving interoperability between implementations. This work is not so glamorous and some people — even within W3C — would prefer if they concentrate on new specifications. However, I think the focus on interoperability (which has resulted in CSS 2.1) has been crucial to the success of CSS.

CSS3 is a set of specifications that are developed more or less independently of each other. The best way to push a specification forward is to implement it. In the past year, we've seen some encouraging CSS3 implementations come along. For example, Mozilla supports multi-column layouts, Opera supports media queries, Prince supports cross-references and Safari supports borders and backgrounds. A few years from now, I think a select group of CSS3 modules will be interoperably supported in all browsers.

 > Why is CSS such a good idea but a pain to use?
 > by rar
 >
 > CSS is clearly very useful for separating style from content. But
 > apparently people tend to have problems when using it for layouts.
 > Would you say this is because people have not yet understood how to
 > properly do layout in CSS, or is it CSS that is lacking in this
 > area? What can be done to improve the situation? --- Would the web
 > benefit from HTML and CSS being complemented with some kind of
 > "layout language"?

I think layout and style should be tackled by the same language and the two are intertwined. Trying to split the two is like splitting the HTML specification in two, one specification describing inline elements and the other describing block elements. It's not worth the effort.

I think CSS is capable of describing beautiful and scalable layouts. The CSS Zen Garden has been a eye-opening showcase of what is possible today. If MS IE had supported CSS tables, another set of layouts would have been possible. So, there is still lots of potential in the existing CSS specifications which should be the next milestone. Beyond that, the CSS Working Group has started work on a new CSS3 module for advanced layout. Feedback is welcome.

 > CSS Evolution!
 > by eieken
 >
 > Is the wave of webpages designed completely in CSS what you
 > intially intended when you came up with CSS? Do you see that
 > changing? Is that good or bad?

I saw a clear need for a web style sheet language when proposing CSS in 1994. I also wanted CSS to fully describe the presentation of a web pages -- not just add some styling. All in all, I think it has turned out quite well. It has taken longer than I expected, but the scale -- due to the growth of the web -- is more than anyone could imagine.

I used "I" too many times in the previous paragraph. It's important to realize that CSS is a community effort rather that one man's work. Bert Bos joined me early and we worked out the initial designs on a whiteboard during the summer of 1995. The www-style mailing lists and the W3C CSS Working Group have also been crucial in ensuring the success of CSS.

If you're interested in the history of web style sheets, you'll find plenty of material in my PhD thesis on the subject.

 > Two questions (cut to 1.5 by editor Roblimo)
 > by Dolda2000

 > If you were allowed (perhaps by court order, which wouldn't be
 > unthinkable) to force Microsoft to do one (1) change in Internet
 > Explorer, what would that be?

I would force them to support one (1) single web page before shipping IE7, namely Acid2. By using a tiny amount of resources to get Acid2 right, Microsoft can save web designers and users endless amounts of frustration in the future. It would also be an honorable thing to do. This is what Microsoft's W3C representative wrote in 1998:

Microsoft has a deep commitment to working with the W3C on HTML and CSS. We have the first commercial implementation of HTML4, we were the first vendor anywhere to implement even portions of CSS, and we have put a tremendous amount of energy into seeing CSS mature to Level 2. We are still committed to complete implementations of the Recommendations of the W3C in this area (CSS and HTML and the DOM).

May I have one (1) more change? Please? Then I would make IE7 support TrueType downloadable fonts. Microsoft's record in fonts isn't that bad. They made their core fonts available for anyone to use, and IE supports downloadable fonts. Unfortunately, only the proprietary EOT format is supported. A few lines of code would be sufficient to support zipped TrueType fonts as well, and this would unleash a new wave of typography on the web. (To protect yourself, make sure you use a browser where author style sheets can be turned off — Shift-G in Opera). > As a bonus question: What do you think of Slashdot's CSS? ;)

The new design looks great! The style sheets behind the scene are more complex than what the average web page needs. But, we wouldn't expect anything average from Slashdot, would we?

> 6)  Opera
 > by taskforce
 >
 > Opera 9.0 seems to offer a lot of decent additions to Opera's
 > standards pool. How satisfied are you personally with the work the
 > team has done on implementing standards, and is there anything in
 > there you feel is superflous and anything you would have preferred
 > to see which wasn't in there?

I'm very proud of the standards support in Opera 9. Acid2 is an obvious favorite of mine and seeing that smiley face makes me very happy.

Among the more experimental features is support for Audio in HTML5. Web applications can now make sounds in a sensible way! Combined with the canvas element, developers can create Flash-like content without resorting to a proprietary format.

Having support for Bittorrent is also great. From a technical point of view, it makes much sense. Also, it's a political statement of sorts.

During the development of Opera9. Geir Ivarsøy, who founded Opera with Jon von Tetzchner, died after fighting cancer for years. Geir did a spectacular initial CSS implementation in Opera, thus convincing me to join the company. In music, the 9th is legendary. Beethoven, Schubert, Bruckner and Mahler all did 9 symphonies. Opera 9 was Geir's last symphony.

> Included styles, aliases
 > by Spy der Mann
 >
 > I always wanted to have "included" substyles or "aliases" in my
 > CSS definition, to save redundancy.
 >
 > (For includes)
 >
 >     .class1 { color:#ff0000; }
 >     .class2 { background-color:#ffffff; }
 >     .class3 { include:class1,class2;font-weight:bold; }
 >
 > (For aliases)
 >
 >     @alias color1 #ff0000;
 >     @alias color2 #ffffff;
 >     @alias default_image url('/img/image1.jpg');
 >
 >     .class1 { color:color1; }
 >     .class2 { background-image:default_image;background-color:co lor2; }
 >
 > This way we could change colors or images for a whole webpage
 > by editing a reduced number of lines.
 >
 > Had you considered any of these ideas in the past? If so,
 > why were they rejected?

Yes, aliases and constants have been considered. As David Wheeler noted, "Any problem in computer science can be solved with another layer of indirection."

CSS is already an indirection. Instead of putting properties and values directly on elements, it associates properties and values with selectors. What you (and others) are proposing is to add another layer of indirection. By doing so, one could possible write shorter, more manageable style sheets. However, there are also some downsides. It requires a new syntactic construct (@alias) and implementations must be able to remember a list of aliases. What if aliases are defined in one style sheet and referenced in another -- should that work? If so, what if the first style sheet isn't available?

For CSS1, the downsides of aliases were considered more significant than the benefits.

 > Definition of pixel
 > by Sara Chan
 >
 > The word pixel meant "picture element", but CSS redefined it
 >to mean something quite different (a particular subtended angle
 >of view [w3.org]). This causes confusion: CSS pixels are not pixels.
 >(Indeed, I have seen misinformed comments on Slashdot due to
 >that confusion.)
 >
 > My question is this: why call the subtended angle a "pixel", instead of
 >something else (e.g. "subangle")? If CSS wanted to use the subtended
 >angle for something, that is fine, but calling it a pixel seems to follow
 >the approach of Humpty Dumpty "When I use a word, it means just
 >what I choose it to mean".

In most cases, a CSS pixel will be equal to a device pixel. But, as you point out, the definition of a CSS pixel will sometimes be different. For example, on a laser printer, one CSS pixel can be equal to 3x3 device pixels to avoid printing illegibly small text and images. I don't recall anyone ever proposing another name for it. Subangle? Personally, I think most people would prefer the pragmatic "px" to the non-intuitive "sa".

> Vertical CSS Support
 > by infestedsenses
 >
 > As a developer who works with CSS every day, I find one
 > complication that continues to bother me in my daily work.
 > Support for CSS has always been good on the horizontal scope,
 > but vertical positioning has always been quite complicated.
 > Alone the procedure to affix a footer to the bottom of a screen
 > in dependance of the amount of content is unnecessarily difficult,
 > spawning hackish solutions such as "footerStickAlt"
 > [themaninblue.com]. Centering an object in the dead center of a
 > page also requires strange procedures such as this one [wpdfd.com],
 > which still aren't ideal (try making the viewport really small). The old
 > table method provided much easier methods for this. What are your
 > thoughts on this and do you see improvement following in future
 > CSS revisions?

Indeed, the CSS formatting model allows more control horizontally than vertically. This is due to (typically) having a known width, but an unknown height. As such, the height is harder to deal with.

However, CSS2 fixed positioning allows you to place content relative to the viewport (which is CSS-speak for window) instead of the document. For example, by setting position: fixed; bottom: 0 on an element, it will stick to the bottom. This works in Opera, Safari and Mozilla-based browsers. IE6 doesn't support it, however. It remains to be seen if IE7 will support it.

> About Microsoft...
 > by Chabil Ha'
 >
 > With MS's next browser release (IE 7), you mentioned in other
 > interviews that their decision to not supprt CSS2 was more a political
 > decision than a mechanical one. Aside from their obvious desire to
 > dominate the world, what politics do you think are in play that make
 > them not want to conform to the standard, and what do you think would
 > change that landscape so that they would have some initiative to
 > fully support it?

Great question. It's quite clear that Microsoft has the resources and talent to support CSS2 fully in IE and that plenty of people have reminded them why this is important. So, why don't they do it? The fundamental reason, I believe, is that standards don't benefit monopolists. Accepted, well-functioning, standards lower the barrier of entry to a market, and is therefore a threat to a monopolist.

From that perspective, it makes sense to leave CSS2 half-implemented. You can claim support (and many journalists will believe you), and you also ensure that no-one can use the unimplemented (or worse: buggily implemented) features of the standard. The only way to change the equation is to remind Microsoft how embarrassing it is to offer a sub-standard browser. And to use better browsers.

Another reason for not making a IE too good is that it will compete with Windows. A modern browser is an application platform; the combination of HTML, JavaScript, CSS and DOM allows developers to target the web instead of Windows, Linux, or Mac.

> From linvir
 > How long since you last used Linux?

I'm using it right now. Ubuntu on a IBM Thinkpad X41 is the environment I live in. Ubuntu rocks -- especially with Opera on top! (And Emacs right underneath.)

 > From Rob T Firefly (844560)
 > Why the curly brackets?

The initial CSS proposal didn't use them, instead relying on newlines to separate statements. TimBL didn't really like that and I therefore borrowed the curly braces from the C programming language. The syntax for comments came along as well. I think it works quite well.

 > why not XML?
 > by slashdot.org
 > Simple question (hopefully simple answer ;-)): why
 > did you not use XML?

The simple answer is that the development of CSS preceded XML by a year or so. However, if XML had been available, would we have used it? Probably not. And I suspect Brendan Eich of JavaScript fame would answer the same way on behalf of his language.

XML is a great syntax for structured data, but not suitable for all languages. Still, I think the SGML-based syntax for the FOSI style sheet language.

 > Padding
 > by Anonymous Coward

 > Why was the decision made to make padding apply outside
 > of the width of a 'box', rather than inside, which would seem
 > to make more sense?

It makes sense in some situations, but not in others. For example, when a child element is set to width: 100%, I don't think it should cover the padding of its parent. The box-sizing property in CSS3 addresses this issue. Ideally, the issue should have been addressed earlier, though.

> by nuzak

 > why not float:

 > DSSSL had this sort of thing solved before HTML even existed,
 > let alone CSS. But scheme is too scary and icky, and the W3C
 > believes in a principle of least power, so CSS has to be fully declarative,
 > static, and crippled until patched later.

You're wrong about DSSSL -- it didn't support floating text (as in having text wrap around images) at all. And the DSSSL specification only became publically available around 1996, years after HTML.

> by MagicM

 > How frustrating is it to write a specification knowing
 > that you're at the browser vendors' mercy?

That's part of the game. I don't think any specification has a birthright to be fully supported by all browsers. There should be healthy competition between different specifications. I believe simple, author-friendly specifications will prevail in this environment.

Microformats are another way of developing new formats. Instead of having to convince browser vendors to support your favorite specification, microformats add semantics to HTML through the CLASS attribute. And style it with CSS.

> New standards
 > by iamsure
 >
 > In your work at Opera, you have clearly paved a path that includes
 > going beyond the W3C standards. Whether it is WhatWG
 > implementations, or new functionality specific to Opera (2dgame),
 > you are pushing into new territory. Can you explain why W3C isn't
 > sufficient, and why efforts at Opera to expand beyond the standards
 > differ from Microsoft's embrace/extend model?

It's a fair question. The WhatWG was set up when it seemed as if W3C didn't care much about browsers anymore. That has definitely changed and work items from WhatWG are now channeled into W3C (e.g., XMLHttpRequest).

At Opera, we sometimes include experimental features before they have been standardized. When this happens they are labeled as such, but we still try to document them. For example, we support some Opera-only CSS properties for XML. If these features gain traction, we are happy to work with other organizations to standardize them. If they don't become popular, the features will most likely disappear.

 > Beyond HTML
 > by pr1000

 > How far can CSS be taken beyond the web page--that is,
 > have generalized or non-web specific features for such things
 > as page formatting or type setting? Do you plan/wish/hope to
 > take it farther than it currently is?

Yes, I think it's possible to take CSS further in several directions. I'm eager to see CSS being used in paper-based publishing and I joined the board of YesLogic — which makes the Prince XML to PDF converter — to make sure they added my favorite features. Bert and I used Prince to generate PDF from HTML and CSS sources for the third edition of our book. W3C just published a new Working Draft which describes features for printing, e.g., footnotes, cross-references, and even generated indexes.

For mobile units, I think Media Queries will be important. For example, they can express that large images should not be sent to mobile devices.

Another great opportunity for CSS is Web Applications. Just like documents, applications need to be styled and CSS is an intrinsic component of AJAX. The "AJAX" name sounds great, but allow me to propose a few alternate spellings that I find more accurate:

• AJACX: Asynchronous JavaScript, CSS and XMLHttpRequest
• ADJACS: Asynchronous DOM, JavaScript and CSS
• ADHJACS: Asynchronous DOM, HTML, JavaScript and CSS
• AJAHCS: Asynchronous JavaScript, HTML and CSS
• AJACS: Asynchronous JavaScript, HTML and CSS

Opera, Mozilla and Safari developers are collaborating in the WHAT WG and in W3C to make sure we have interoperable specifications for AJAX. I mean, ADHJACS.

 > by crush

 > Is the difficulty of producing a layout that consists of
 > three or more columns of equal height justification for
 > adding some new feature to the specification to make this easier?

I don't think so. CSS2 defines a table layout that can be used for this purpose. The problem is, and I'm repeating myself here, that the dominant browser doesn't support it. Adding yet more features to the specification wouldn't help.

 > How come, we um, lie?

Right. My name is, um, a bit troublesome to pronounce in English. But I'm a nice person who generally tells the truth. I often tell non-Norwegians that my first name is pronounced "howcome". That's close, but not quite. It does make for a great email address like howcome@opera.com, though.

So I may be a Lie, but I'm just a little white one :-)

Ant writes "Neatorama mentions Steven Hilton's Software War Map that depicts "the epic struggle of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) against the Empire of Microsoft. It was updated in 2006."

VikingThunder writes "The San Francisco Chronicle reports that AT&T has revamped its privacy policy, in an effort to head off future consumer lawsuits, with changes taking effect this Friday. AT&T is introducing a new policy that gives it more 'latitude' when it comes to sharing your browsing history with government agencies. Notable changes include notification that AT&T will track viewing habits of customers of its new video services Homezone and U-Verse, which is forbidden for cable and satellite companies, as well as explicitly stating that the customer's data belongs to the company: 'While your account information may be personal to you, these records constitute business records that are owned by AT&T. As such, AT&T may disclose such records to protect its legitimate business interests, safeguard others, or respond to legal process.'"

The New York Times reports that laser eye surgery — now performed on nearly a third of every new class of midshipmen — is transforming Naval careers. Navy doctors are performing these operations with "assembly-line efficiency," allowing older pilots to continue flying, and those who might otherwise have been disqualified to pursue flight school. The number of procedures has reportedly climbed from 50 to 349 over the past five years. The Navy uses a different procedure than that used on civilians — grinding the cornea rather than cutting a flap — out of fears that the flap could come loose in supersonic combat.

The New York Times reports that laser eye surgery — now performed on nearly a third of every new class of midshipmen — is transforming Naval careers. Navy doctors are performing these operations with "assembly-line efficiency," allowing older pilots to continue flying, and those who might otherwise have been disqualified to pursue flight school. The number of procedures has reportedly climbed from 50 to 349 over the past five years. The Navy uses a different procedure than that used on civilians — grinding the cornea rather than cutting a flap — out of fears that the flap could come loose in supersonic combat.

Nurgled writes "After teasing us for months with betas and snapshots, Opera Software have finally released version 9.0 of their web browser. The new version features correct ACID2 rendering, native support for the SVG Basic profile, a built-in BitTorrent client, support for Microsoft's designmode and contenteditable extensions, per-site configuration, Atom support, Web Forms 2.0 support, Canvas support (and some Opera-specific extensions), NTLM authentication, some support of parts of CSS3 and lots more. The full changelog is available." p14nd4 adds "And for you *nix users, it hasn't hit their .deb repository quite yet, but there are regular installers available for the major players, including a fixed Ubuntu installer and an x86 Solaris version."

Reporter writes "The Australian state government called for the army to be deployed against the invasion of toxic toads! Battalions of imported cane toads are marching relentlessly across northern Australia and the West Australian government wants soldiers to intercept the environmental barbarians. From the article: "The toads, Bufo Marinus, were introduced from South America into northeast Queensland state in the 1930s to control another pest: Beetles that were ravaging the sugar cane fields of the tropical northern coasts. But the toads now number in the millions and are spreading westward through the Northern Territory, upsetting the country's ecosystem in their wake. Cane toads have poisonous sacs on the back of their heads full of a venom so powerful it can kill crocodiles, snakes or other predators in minutes." More information about cane toads at Wikipedia."

RockDoctor writes "Stories about 'wiped' hard drives appearing on eBay (and other channels) and being stuffed with personably-identifiable data are legion; rarer are spy planes having to land on enemy territory, but it happened in 2001 to a US spy plane over an un-declared enemy (China, and that's a topic in itself). Dark Reading reports the development of a technique to securely wipe a hard drive in seconds, and which is safe for flying. (The safe for flying criterion rules out things like fun with packing the drives in thermite. Also thermiting the drives may not erase the platters to the standard required, which is moderately interesting itself."

schmiddy writes "An article from Wired mentions the surprising number of discoveries that have been made entirely by accident. In an older article, The Discovery Channel's site points out a different subset of inventions that happened by accident. A much older article from PBS goes into more depth on the subject of accidental discoveries, and gives a great quote from physicist Joseph Henry: 'The seeds of great discoveries are constantly floating around us, but they only take root in minds well prepared to receive them.'"

Mictian writes "University of California professor Shuji Nakamura, the japanese inventor of the bright green, white and blue GaN LEDs and a blue laser, has been awarded the 2006 Millennium Technology Prize. While blue LEDs are considered cool and thus needful things by most nerds, Nakamura adapted his blue LEDs to make a blue laser in the mid 90s. The next generation optical storage formats, HD-DVD and BluRay, are of course both based on blue laser. Also, his white LEDS need far less energy than normal incandescent lamps and can thus provide plenty of opportunity for energy-saving in the industrialized world. But probably the most significant future application for Shuji Nakamura's invention comes in the form of sterilizing drinking water, since the the water purification process can be made cheaper and more efficient with the use of ultraviolet LEDs. This can improve the lives and health of tens of millions people in developing countries."

Mictian writes "University of California professor Shuji Nakamura, the japanese inventor of the bright green, white and blue GaN LEDs and a blue laser, has been awarded the 2006 Millennium Technology Prize. While blue LEDs are considered cool and thus needful things by most nerds, Nakamura adapted his blue LEDs to make a blue laser in the mid 90s. The next generation optical storage formats, HD-DVD and BluRay, are of course both based on blue laser. Also, his white LEDS need far less energy than normal incandescent lamps and can thus provide plenty of opportunity for energy-saving in the industrialized world. But probably the most significant future application for Shuji Nakamura's invention comes in the form of sterilizing drinking water, since the the water purification process can be made cheaper and more efficient with the use of ultraviolet LEDs. This can improve the lives and health of tens of millions people in developing countries."

Mictian writes "University of California professor Shuji Nakamura, the japanese inventor of the bright green, white and blue GaN LEDs and a blue laser, has been awarded the 2006 Millennium Technology Prize. While blue LEDs are considered cool and thus needful things by most nerds, Nakamura adapted his blue LEDs to make a blue laser in the mid 90s. The next generation optical storage formats, HD-DVD and BluRay, are of course both based on blue laser. Also, his white LEDS need far less energy than normal incandescent lamps and can thus provide plenty of opportunity for energy-saving in the industrialized world. But probably the most significant future application for Shuji Nakamura's invention comes in the form of sterilizing drinking water, since the the water purification process can be made cheaper and more efficient with the use of ultraviolet LEDs. This can improve the lives and health of tens of millions people in developing countries."

fuzzybunny writes "The Register reports that British and Dutch scientists located a previously undetected word on the Antikythera Mechanism which seems to confirm its nature as a tool for astronomical prediction. This device is one of the world's first known geared devices; while its purpose is still not 100% clear, according to the article, 'Athens university researcher Xenophon Moussas is reported as saying the "newly discovered text seems to confirm that the mechanism was used to track planetary bodies."'"

grammar fascist writes "After just less than 13 years, the first comic on the World Wide Web, Doctor Fun, has come to an end. Thanks for all the laughs, Dave. From Dave Farley's page at ibiblio: 'Doctor Fun is over. As promised, I somehow managed to finish 520 weeks or ten full years, even if it took a bit longer than ten years to get there. All of the old cartoons will stay right here as long as ibiblio wants to keep hosting them.'"

bariswheel writes "The controversial genius developer/writer/entertainer Paul Graham writes an insightful piece on Why Startups Condense in America. Here's the skinny: "The US allows immigration, it is a rich country, it is not (yet) a police state, the universities are better, you can fire people, work is less identified with employment, it is not too fussy, it has a large domestic market, it has venture funding, and it has dynamic typing for careers. Inquire for details within."

Reverse Gear writes "CNN has two commentaries about net neutrality with quite opposing viewpoints. Craig Newmark discusses how the legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives would efficiently remove net neutrality, while Mike McCurry writes about how the big companies should pay their fair share for the physical upgrade of the internet. From Newmark's commentary: 'Telecommunication companies already control the pipes that carry the Internet into your home. Now they want control which sites you visit and how you experience them. They would provide privileged access for themselves and their preferred partners while charging other businesses for varying levels of service.'"

MasaMuneCyrus writes "After over seven years of debating, the International Astronomical Union announced that it expects to announce the official definition of a planet in September. After many-a-deadlock, they handed the task of deciding exactly what a planet is to a new committee, which includes historians and educators. 'They wanted a different perspective from that of planetary scientists,' said Edward Bowell, an astronomer at Lowell Observatory who is also vice president of the IAU's Division III-Planetary Systems Sciences group. If all goes according to plan, the wording will be proposed in their 12-day General Assembly meeting in Prague."

anaesthetica writes "According to the Washington Post, an increasing tide of fraud in internet dating is prompting lawyers and lawmakers to examine possible regulations and consumer protections. Wire fraud scamming, plane ticket ripoffs, fraud perpetrated to fund trysts, fake "date bait" messages -- these are just a few of the issues the courts are beginning to deal with. Dating websites were immunized from lawsuits over false statements by the recent Communications Decency Act. Other attempts to regulate internet dating, such as the 2005 'mail-order bride' legislation, are already being challenged in court, but an increasing number of states are sponsoring their own legislation."

1up is running a piece looking at the ESRB, and its role in politics. They assert the organization may be gaming's last defense against politicians seeking to censor games to increase their own political capital. The article discusses the Hays Code governing movies, and the limits on speech the comic book industry placed on itself as the result of similar pressures. From the article: "Ultimately, the best way to prevent the demise of gaming is to make use of the democratic process. Despite what the Internet would like to believe, mere emails and forum posts don't have much clout. Rather, posted letters to representatives (written on actual paper) are the best way to let politicians know your opinion -- the beliefs that they've been elected to represent."

Random Hall writes "Dr. Kent Boklan, a former NSA employee and current Director of Security Research for Razorpoint Security Technologies, has described how he recently deciphered a message encrypted by Confederate Army General Edmund Kirby Smith on 14 September 1862."

alex writes "A Russian rocket will launch a 1/3 scale model of of the Bigelow inflatable space station a week from Friday, according to The Space Fellowship. This prototype will carry a thousand personal objects donated by Bigelow Aerospace employees. If all goes well, another prototype should go up by September, and non-Bigelow-employee enthusiasts might be able to contribute their own garbage--err, personal items--to the project. (Via Futurismic)"

BBCWatcher writes "Mike McCurry, former Clinton Administration Press Secretary turned telecommunications industry lobbyist, reacts to his many new critics in the battle over Net Neutrality: "There are millions and millions of good Democrats who get paid by corporations," he said, "and I think every time we bash corporations, we just turn off people who are in the middle of the political spectrum." Among others, top political blogger Markos Moulitsas Zúniga responded swiftly to McCurry's latest assertions: "What a dishonest piece of sh[..] McCurry has become. This is an anti-corporatist jihad, is it? Is that why we are aligned with Microsoft, Google, and eBay? And when did the Christian Coalition and the Gun Owners of America join the 'left'? What a pathetic attempt to marginalize those of us working for net neutrality....McCurry is now a sad, sad, pathetic man.""

Many readers have submitted news that The Pirate Bay is back online, operating for now as "The Police Bay." Writes one anonymous submitter: "Pirate Bay got new hardware, moved the servers abroad and used recent backups. So the only bad side-effect of this police raid is that hundreds of clients of the ISP PRQ still have not got their servers back from the police. When the police did the raid on Wednesday, they took Pirate Bay from Bankgirot's secure server room. Then they also took all the servers in PRQ colocation facility STH3, effectively disabling a lot of small companies. The connection between PRQ and TPB? - Same owners, nothing more, this is beginning to become a huge scandal in Sweden with coverage on TV and all newspapers 4 days in a row."

Last year, I reviewed the original Das Keyboard, the all-black, all-the-time keyboard from MetaDot, and found it disappointing. MetaDot was kind enough to pass on an example of their next generation keyboard for comparison. The upshot is that the new version is quite a bit better than the original: it's now equal in keyfeel to the best keyboards I could find at local superstores, which dampens my major complaint. It's still a cool-looking but questionably useful all-black, and is still more eye-candy than finger-food. Just the same, this unique product now bears more consideration. (Read on for the rest of my review.)

A switch of switches:

The packaging may be nothing special, but it's much more graphically appealing than the plain cardboard box in which my sample of the original Das Keyboard arrived -- it wouldn't even look out of place in an Apple store. I was happy to see Larry Ewing's iconic rendering of Tux on the outside of the box, too, alongside old-style MacOS (really! But it does also work fine with Mac OS X) and Windows XP icons. Considering that it's a USB keyboard, a pretty mature technology, there's no surprise that it's Linux compatible, but I still enjoying seeing a penguin on the box; I consider Ewing's penguin marketing genius. I wish more companies with products just as easily Linux compatible would take advantage of the freedom they have to advertise this.

Now, on to the keyboard itself: it's still black-all-black. The only labeling is the printed "Das Keyboard" in the upper left corner, and a sticker with the usual regulatory and manufacturing information on the underside ("Designed in Austin, TX"). And if it matters to you, the current iteration of the keyboard is made in the Czech Republic, rather than China as was the previous version.

However, Das Keyboard is no longer a dead ringer in for a black-painted classic IBM Model M board; the lines have been made a bit straighter overall, and there's now a slightly rebated edge on left and right sides where the Model M is straight. Viewed from the side, the "dish" of the keys is now quite a bit shallower than that of a Model M design as well. That sounds like bad news for those of us fixated on older keyboards for their superior hand-feel, but since we're not quite in the realm of IBM-style clackityclack keyswitches anyhow, that difference is fairly subtle. And there's one nice thing about the new board's design I'd like to see in more keyboards: the "F" and "J" home keys are more deeply cut than the rest of the keys on the keyboard (by something close to a millimeter); this makes it easy to get one's hands realigned in (on rather on) the dark.

Noise aside, the new Das Keyboard is now equipped with mechanical keyswitches (made by Cherry, as is the keyboard itself) rather than the typical membrane assembly found in most keyboards nowadays and one of the things I wasn't keen on in the original. It's a good change. The new version is actually fairly pleasant to type on, and for touch typists of moderate or greater proficiency, the unlabeled keys should be no problem. I'm still skeptical of the advantage of all-black keys to those trying to learn to type (or improving their speed), but the keyfeel is no longer a distracting liability, so I'd upgrade claims on that front from "silly hokum" to "an open question."

According to a company representative, the new key switches are rated for "50 million key strokes instead of 30 million key strokes"; I'm sure somewhere around keystroke 29 million I'll sigh with relief. Such numbers are pleasant to know about and hopefully reflect a reasonable methodology, but I suspect no keyboard's keycaps are going to last long enough to keep up. Still, the new keyswitches are far more responsive, and -- at least comparing the particular examples I have of the old and new versions -- far louder. It reminds me in fact of middle generations of the Dell "QuietKey" board (which were never quiet, despite the name). So if you must type around any light sleepers, perhaps you should treat them to some warm milk before bedtime. And though I prefer the slightly deeper dish of the old version, it's an easy trade for the new one's improvement in keyfeel.

Small bonus: the new one's USB cable is a few inches longer than the old. That's about all there is to say about the connection.

The long and short:

Das Keyboard is still not my ideal keyboard, and you pay a bit more than my budget deems reasonable for the novelty of a keyboard that looks like an ideal prop for the next misunderstood-teenage-hacker movie (about $80 from ThinkGeek). But I can type reliably on the new version, which I simply never managed to do on the old, so they're doing something right. Given the improved key response, I can even imagine buying into -- or at least reconsidering -- the claims of improved typing speed or confidence as a result; I've certainly surprised myself by tapping this out with less temptation to look at the keys than I usually have (and that's after quite a few years and a few thousand hours of at least desultory tapping at both computer keyboards and actual typewriters), so for one with more self-discipline than I have, the all-black keys might be useful enough to try out.

On a five-star scale then, where I'd probably probably give the old version only one, but I'd award this one two and a half stars.

For Bonus points:

The previous version of Das Keyboard was (except cosmetically) a clone of the Keytronic 3600 series; I'll shoot some subscription pages to the first reader to point (in the comments below) an otherwise identical keyboard, but with factory-labeled keys. Note: I don't know that such a thing exists, but have fun looking.

IO ERROR writes "For decades, intelligence agencies have been sending secret messages to their agents in the field using shortwave numbers stations broadcasting encrypted messages for all to hear and puzzle over. Now someone is putting numbers stations on VoIP telephone numbers for anyone to call, and posting messages to Craigslist to alert the recipients to the existence of their messages. One of them went up last month and now a second one has appeared. Will there be a third? Who's behind them? And can you crack the code?"

Slashback tonight brings some corrections, clarifications, and updates to previous Slashdot stories, including a short history of Honda's ASIMO. Also, Intel bows out of the embedded processor market, Microsoft's USB giveaway fizzles, CSIRO gets close to a WiFi win, lawmakers target MySpace again, and the New York Times weighs in on net neutrality. Read on for details.

A Short history of Honda's ASIMO. Ant writes to tell us that Honda has posted a short overview of the evolution leading up to the ASIMO. The history showcases the progress Honda has made in robotics over the last 20 years. It contains drawings, photographs, specifications, and other information about each prototype.

Intel bows out of the embedded processor market. markrages writes "Embedded.com is reporting Intel is withdrawing from the embedded processor market. From the article: 'The company will stop producing the 8051, 251, 8096/196, 188/186, i960, all versions of the 386 (including the 386EX) and 486.'" The product change notification is also available from Intel's site.

Microsoft USB giveaway fizzles. An anonymous reader writes "If you thought you could get something for nothing from Microsoft. Think again. NetworkWorld is reporting that Microsoft is backing down from the free USB drive marketing promotion they launched last February."

CSIRO close to WiFi win. Trapped Database Adm writes "Australian IT reports that Leonard Davis of the U.S. District Court for the eastern district of Texas issued a Markman opinion, providing 'strong support for CSIRO's position in its patent infringement test case.'" From the article: "The CSIRO claims its patent relates to several wireless standards, and the technology covered by its patent is a standard feature of most notebook computers and many other devices. Many technology companies are refusing to pay up, however."

Lawmakers target MySpace again. ardyng writes "It appears Congressman Michael G. Fitzpatrick,(R-Penn) has introduced a bill to the U.S. House of Representatives that would ban minors from accessing social networking websites such as Myspace, as well as any site that 'allows users to create web pages or profiles that provide information about themselves and are available to other users; and offers a mechanism for communication with other users, such as a forum, chat room, email, or instant messenger. The Bill, H.R. 5319, also known as the 'Deleting Online Predators Act of 2006', is still in its infancy, but in its current form, would forbid libraries from allowing access to such sites as well." (That description would also include the site you're reading now.)

New York Times weighs in on net neutrality. KarmaOverDogma writes "The New York Times' Adam Cohen provides an argument in favor of neutrality on the World Wide Web. Cohen succinctly provides a brief history of the World Wide Web, its creator Tim Berners-Lee's vision of how it should operate, why he designed that way, and the forces moving to create a tiered pricing system of access. From stifling creativity and competition to free speech and innovation, Cohen shows why strange bedfellows have come to favor enforcing the 'Democratic Ethic' of the internet by Legislation."

ItsIllak writes "Alternate Reality Games [ARGs] have been bubbling under for the past 10 years now. Usually completely homebrew or attached to big budget productions, they have been used to create buzz around a game, product or movie. Perplex City have bucked that trend. Their ARG is completely independent of anything else, its entirely self contained. With fresh ideas on income generation and a $200,000 top prize to whomever finds the real life buried treasure - is this the future of an entirely new form of entertainment?"

An anonymous reader writes "Samsung has announced they'll be manufacturing solid-state laptops, with an eye for a June release in Korea. Everything you wanted from a laptop: faster boot times, quicker storage access, less noise, longer battery life. Laptop Logic has the story." From the article: "Now to the features of this laptop: Celeron M 1.2GHz, 12.1-inch screen, 512MB DDR2, Wireless LAN 802.11b/g, Digital Multimedia Broadcasting TV, and measuring 2.5 pounds. Price? $3,700 and only available in Korea in June."

automatix writes "Microsoft's new competitor to the omnipresent JPEG format has been shown at WinHEC and is discussed on CNET. The Windows Media Photo format has many promises associated with it. The program manager is claiming 'We can do it in half the size of a JPEG file.'. While 'the philosophy has been that licensing should not be a restriction', it is interesting that the specification requires a click-through agreement to even read it."

Oxygen99 writes "BBC News is reporting on some amazing effects of a drug called Zolpidem on patients suffering from persistent vegetative state. Apparently the drug, usually used to treat insomnia, activates dormant areas of the brain that can make patients aware of their surroundings and even hold conversations. This raises several interesting points including the diagnosis of PVS and the attendant ethics of the associated life support, as well as the way the brain responds to injury and damage."

chaffed asks: "I've been tasked with translating a security analysis report for our powers that be and ultimately for our auditors. The manager's are not technically savvy, but they aren't PHBs, either. To what depth should one descend into Information Security and Technology topics? More generally, how would a technical person relate to a non-technical person? Should all technical terms be defined or just cryptic ones? What assumptions are reasonable to make about the reader (Non-Technical Managers)? What physical format should an analysis take, bulleted points or in depth discussion?"

dponce80 writes "With concerns over privacy at an all-time high, it's refreshing to hear that Swiss company VectroTel is making a secure mobile phone. The X8 encrypts secure calls (the unit is also able to make regular calls) with a virtually unbreakable 128-bit key, itself generated through a Diffie-Hellman exchange. While transmission does get somewhat delayed, communication is secure."

simoniker writes "As part of a wide-ranging interview with EA Los Angeles' Neil Young, the exec has been talking about how EA's collaboration with Steven Spielberg is working, commenting: 'Well, he doesn't like come into work, grab his lunch and set down for the day. Basically, it's probably best described as a writers' table on a TV show... it's Stephen, [Looking Glass veteran] Doug Church, who's producing his first game, me, a couple of the designers, Ryan Church [no relation to Doug], who did the walkers for War of the Worlds...' Young also commented of Spielberg: '...he's pretty conversant in the medium. He plays a lot of games.'"

An anonymous reader writes "Geekzone is reporting that Microsoft is introducing a new business model for 'pay-as-you-go computing.' From the article: 'The pay-as-you-go computing model enabled by Microsoft's FlexGo technology allows customers to have a fully featured PC at home by paying only for the time as they use it through the purchase of prepaid activation cards or tokens. Microsoft has been running trials of the program in Brazil for more than a year and will soon be expanding to select markets in India, Russia, China and Mexico.'" This makes me giggle, because it's basically the return of time-sharing; in the past it was for for mainframe systems, but I suppose the same concept behind the mainframe idea would be true in developing countries today with PC systems.

jacoplane writes "You may remember Rob Pike from his Slashdot interview. Since his interview, his two-dimensional text editors have experienced many improvements and ports including license improvements. A port to Inferno has been around for awhile. Recently a standalone version has been made for Windows based on the Inferno port. Linux users are in luck as the native port is now legally distributable."

jacoplane writes "You may remember Rob Pike from his Slashdot interview. Since his interview, his two-dimensional text editors have experienced many improvements and ports including license improvements. A port to Inferno has been around for awhile. Recently a standalone version has been made for Windows based on the Inferno port. Linux users are in luck as the native port is now legally distributable."

jacoplane writes "You may remember Rob Pike from his Slashdot interview. Since his interview, his two-dimensional text editors have experienced many improvements and ports including license improvements. A port to Inferno has been around for awhile. Recently a standalone version has been made for Windows based on the Inferno port. Linux users are in luck as the native port is now legally distributable."

Toxictoy writes "Imagine having a disease that is so controversial that doctors refuse to treat you. Individuals with this disease report disturbing crawling, stinging, and biting sensations, as well as non-healing skin lesions, which are associated with highly unusual structures. These structures can be described as fiber-like or filamentous, and are the most striking feature of this disease. In addition, patients report the presence of seed-like granules and black speck-like material associated with their skin. Sound like a bad plot for a Sci-Fi channel movie? Think again - it could be Morgellon's Syndrome."

lerhaupt writes "I've setup a howto for streaming your MythTV recordings to your 3G cell phone. In involves getting your myth box to convert recordings to 3gp format and then setting up Apple's Darwin Streaming Server to handle streaming the videos from a webpage it sets up. "

CaliforniaCCW writes "Hopefully everyone here remembers the case of Adrian Lamo, a so-called 'gray hat' hacker who plead guilty to one count of computer crimes against Microsoft, Nexis-Lexis and the New York Times in 2004. He got a felony conviction, six months detention in his parents' home, and two years of probation. Today, as a condition of his probation, he must provide a sample of his DNA in the form of a blood sample, something which he has refused to do. Should convicted felons on probation have privacy rights over their DNA? Or is a blood sample like a fingerprint, something that everyone should provide to their government?"

Dipster writes "The Japan Atomic Energy Agency has announced that its JT-60 Tokamak has almost doubled the previous record for sustained plasma production, which is now sits at 28.6 seconds. It is believed that once 400 seconds can be achieved, a sustained nuclear fusion reaction will be possible. While 28.6 seconds is a long way from 400, it raises hopes for what will be possible from the ITER reactor, expected to be finished in 2016."

The Walking Dude writes "BBC News asked Frank Abagnale if technology is driving the old-school conman into extinction. 'Mr Abagnale really ought to know', as the 2002 movie Catch Me If You Can was based on his life. He served five years of a 12 year prison sentence for check fraud before being offered a job with the FBI. 'There may, after all, be life in the old con yet.'"

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."

Magnifico writes "USAToday is reporting on the National Security Agency's goal to create a database of every call ever made inside the USA. Aided by the cooperation of US telecom corporations, AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, the NSA has been secretly collecting phone call records of tens of millions of Americans; the vast majority of whom aren't suspected of any crime. Only Qwest refused to give the NSA information because they were uneasy about giving information to the government without the proper warrants. The usefulness of the NSA's domestic phone call database as a counterterrorism tool is unclear."

Jamie adds: Traditionally, the devices which record dialed phone numbers are called pen registers, and trap-and-trace devices. The ECPA provided some legal privacy protection. It was controversial when Section 214 of the Patriot Act amended 50 USC 1842 to allow the FBI to record this information with minimal oversight. The Department of Justice has been required for some time to report to Congress the number of pen registers and trap-and-traces, though in recent years [PDF, see question 10] it declared that information classified.

If anyone has information about how the NSA, as opposed to the FBI, has been involved in domestic phone number collection, please post links in the discussion.

In related news, the National Security Agency has closed down an inquiry into the so-called "Terrorist Surveillance Program," a separate program from this one, by refusing to grant security clearance to the lawyers in the Department of Justice. The NSA and the DoJ are both established under the executive.

adamp writes "Shadowrun has officially been confirmed as a squad-based FPS for the PC and Xbox 360. From the look of the trailer released at Microsoft's Press event yesterday, it's not the game we know and love. Fasa Interactive has decided to rewrite the universe in an attempt to not make anyone angry. It's currently not working."

hotsauce writes "NASA administrator Griffin on a visit to Indian space facilities in Bangalore has signed an agreement to explore the moon with the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). This agreement will see NASA instruments on a 2008 Indian moon mission, and further cooperation is being explored. An Indian paper has a different take on the visit. Interesting answer by Griffin on NASA outsourcing to ISRO."

NickFitz writes "The BBC reports that a UK programmer collapsed with Deep Vein Thrombosis after an eight hour programming session. The potentially life-threatening condition is more commonly seen in air passengers on long haul flights, but this should serve as a warning to many Slashdot readers (including me) that screen breaks aren't just for resting the eyes."

houseofmore writes "After many years of development, Bram Moolenaar, creator of Vim, today announced version 7 of the widely used editor. New features included spell checking in up to 50 languages, intelligent completion, tab pages, extended undo branches and much more. Downloads available here for Unix, Windows, Mac and more."