Slashdot Mirror
Domain: yahoo.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to yahoo.com.
Stories · 5,662
-
EA Announces Battlefield 2, Console Versions
Thanks to GameSpy for its interview with Electronic Arts exec Scott Evans regarding the official announcement of a PC sequel to the popular team-based FPS, Battlefield 1942, hot on the heels of the recent news of a separate PlayStation 2-based follow-up, Battlefield: Modern Combat. This title is "bringing modern-day warfare to the series as well as a completely new engine", and Evans notes: "Each side will bring military hardware to the battle appropriate to their nationality. For example, the Chinese forces have a really cool mix of Soviet and homebrew technology that much of the world knows nothing about." He ends by addressing bias concerns: "It's important to remember that Battlefield is politically neutral... It's not just a game about the U.S. versus a Middle Eastern coalition." -
EA Announces Battlefield 2, Console Versions
Thanks to GameSpy for its interview with Electronic Arts exec Scott Evans regarding the official announcement of a PC sequel to the popular team-based FPS, Battlefield 1942, hot on the heels of the recent news of a separate PlayStation 2-based follow-up, Battlefield: Modern Combat. This title is "bringing modern-day warfare to the series as well as a completely new engine", and Evans notes: "Each side will bring military hardware to the battle appropriate to their nationality. For example, the Chinese forces have a really cool mix of Soviet and homebrew technology that much of the world knows nothing about." He ends by addressing bias concerns: "It's important to remember that Battlefield is politically neutral... It's not just a game about the U.S. versus a Middle Eastern coalition." -
TCP Vulnerability Published
Bob Slidell writes "According to Yahoo!, there is a critical flaw in TCP that affects everyone and everything. The article is scant on details and long on fear, hopefully someone will post more details on this." The advisory has more information, and is long on details but only moderate on fear. -
New Darth Vader Costume Revealed in upcoming DVDs
Jethro73 writes "Whether you love or hate the Special Edition only release, you should be excited to see the new Darth Vader costume on the upcoming Trilogy DVD set. Here are some more details on the upcoming DVD set." -
OSRM Declares Linux Free of Copyright Violations
tmu writes "According to a recent press release, the Linux 2.4 and 2.6 kernels are free of any code that violate copyrights. OSRM, the new startup formed by Daniel Egger and including groklaw founder Pamela Jones, completed a 6-month review of all code in both kernels. They must be pretty confident of the results, because they're offering product liability insurance to both developers and users." -
Is Sun's Niagara Server Viagra?
argonaut writes "Ace's Hardware has an in-depth article on Niagara -- Sun's upcoming parallel server processor with 8 cores and 4 threads each. The article discusses the chip's radical architecture and what kind of performance can be expected from it in traditionally thread-heavy server applications like web hosting, databases, and other multi-user applications. Given the recent cancellation of the UltraSPARC V, it seems this is going to be Sun's new direction for its in-house CPU design efforts. Furthermore, both Intel and IBM are working on other highly parallel processors and AMD is expected to eventually introduce a dual-core Opteron. So, will more threads prop up Sun's performance?" -
Money That Grows On Trees
parvez1 submits this piece about a process that uses plants to soak up and accumulate contaminants - and gold - from near gold-mining sites. Then the plants are harvested for their metal content. The plants aren't bio-engineered - he's taking advantage of the natural tendency for certain plants to accumulate heavy metals. -
Audio Players for the Vision Impared?
Panz asks: "Over Easter my 86 year-old grandmother asked my parents to help her buy a CD player. Normally, there would just be a technology barrier to overcome. Unfortunately, my grandmother has macular degeneration which prevents her from using traditional consumer electronics. What, if any, low-vision friendly CD/MP3/audio players are available? Is there such a thing on the market?" What CD/MP3 players have interfaces suitable for people who have less-than-stellar eyesight? Features that would be nice to have would be backlit displays, and larger than normal text displays. -
Small Electronic Logic Blocks - eBlocks
eBlocks writes "eBlocks are small low-cost electronic devices that can be easily interconnected for a wide variety of applications such as: detecting motion, light, water, sound or magnetic fields; triggering a buzzer, a light, an electronic relay or a lock. Devices can communicate wirelessly or can be controlled remotely via the internet or a telephone. The eBlocks technology has been developed by a professor at U.C. Riverside who is looking for inspiration on its best uses. Try out the simulator. Suggestions and comments welcome!" -
A Video Studio Over Ethernet - Can it be done?
mikejz84 asks: "I am working on a design for a college campus TV station. Right now I am trying to find a way to do live events on campus. The link at most would be about a mile and a half. I was thinking microwave, but want something easier. Our campus has a gigabit ethernet backbone, I am wondering if there are any solutions for remote-to-studio links that would work over ethernet and still have very hight quality video? Idealy, I would like to have it where I can send straight DV across Ethernet Live." -
BayStar Cashes Out of SCO Stock
Kurt Wall writes "According to Yahoo! Finance, BayStar, the company that funded SCO to the tune of $50,000,000, and then later changed the terms of the deal, has requested that SCO redeem the 20,000 shares of preferred stock issued in return for the funding. The reason? BayStar states that 'SCO has allegedly breached Sections 2(b)(v), 2(b)(viii) and 3(g) of the Exchange Agreement.' Naturally, SCO thinks it has done nothing of the sort." -
National TV Turn Off Week
beforewisdom writes "Next week (April 19th - 25th 2004) is National TV Turn Off Week in the USA. Among the many benefits claimed by tvturnoff.org is that 90% of the people who participate in a TV Turnoff Week successfully reduce the amount of television they watch permanently." -
Mandrakelinux 10 Official Released
boklm writes "Two months after the Mandrakelinux 10.0 Community release, the enhanced and polished 'Mandrakelinux 10.0 Official release' has been announced. Download ISOs are available today for Club members and packs are also avaible on MandrakeStore." As Shipud puts it, "USB2 support... vive 2.6.3 !!" -
California Violent Gaming Bills Fail To Advance
Thanks to Reuters/Yahoo for its article discussing the failure to progress of two California violent videogame bills, since they "failed to clear a committee of California's state Assembly, killing them for 2004 unless the committee changes its mind." However, "One bill, which would expand the definition of 'harmful matter to children' to include certain types of violent games, received a favorable 5-1 vote, while the second, regulating how some games are displayed in stores, got a 3-1 vote" - but "both needed 7 votes in favor to be approved." Bill sponsor Leland Yee has released a statement claiming: "I am deeply disturbed that money ruled the day here in Sacramento... Rather than protecting our children and giving our parents a tool to help raise healthy kids, the multi-billion dollar entertainment industry was allowed to shoot down necessary legislation." -
Microsoft Announces Three More Critical Vulnerabilities
weekendwarrior1980 writes "Microsoft warned that three 'critical'-rated flaws in the Windows operating system and other programs could allow hackers to sneak into personal computers and snoop on sensitive data. The flaws could allow attackers to break into PCs running Windows in several ways and then use the system to run malicious programs and steal or delete key data. These latest security flaws affect the latest versions of Windows, including Windows NT 4.0, Windows 98, Windows 2000 , Windows XP, as well as software for networked computers such as Windows NT Server and Windows Server 2003." Their bulletins are available for these vulnerabilities. Techweb has a pretty good summary. -
Intel Launches DRM-Enabled CPUs for Phones and Handhelds
squidfrog writes "AP reports, 'The next generation of Intel Corp. microprocessors for cell phones and handheld computers will, for the first time, include hard-wired security features that can enforce copy protection and help prevent hackers from wreaking havoc on wireless networks.' Or more ominously, 'The same technology also can be used to ensure that content such as music or movies is used in a way dictated by the copyright holder. A purchased song, for instance, would not play unless it's sure that it's authorized and running on secure hardware.'" Intel has a press release. -
Those Eureka Moments
Phoe6 writes "If you're one of those insufferable people who can finish the Saturday New York Times crossword puzzle, you probably have a gift for insight. The puzzles always have an underlying hint to solving them, but on Saturdays that clue is insanely obtuse. If you had all day, you could try a zillion different combinations and eventually figure it out. But with insight, you'd experience the usual clueless confusion, until--voilà--the fog clears and you get the clue, which suddenly seems obvious. The sudden flash of insight that precedes such "Aha!" moments is characteristic of many types of cognitive processes besides problem-solving, including memory retrieval, language comprehension, and various forms of creativity. Although different problem-solving strategies share many common attributes, insight-derived solutions appear to be unique in several ways. PLoS Biology explains the Neural Basis of Solving Problems with Insight. The Complete Research Article is here." -
Forbes Reviews Google's Gmail [updated]
An anonymous reader submits "Forbes.com has what looks to be the first hands-on review of Google's forthcoming Gmail service. Aside from the 1-gigabyte storage, the searching features sound pretty useful for what the writer calls 'email packrats' which I think fits me pretty well. But I can't say I agree with the writer's opinion that privacy fears, as discussed this Slashdot thread, about the Gmail service are 'overblown.' Still and all, I'm curious to try it myself and see what I think." Update: 04/13 00:55 GMT by T : notEA writes "A California state senator is drafting legislation to block Google from releasing Gmail. Seems kind of silly, since all anti-spam filters read your messages anyway." -
USTR Critical Of Japanese TD-CDMA Licensing
News for nerds writes "Yahoo Asia reports that the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) said in its annual report that the Japanese government has so far refused to issue experimental licenses to certain U.S. companies to test the new TD-CDMA technology. It attacks China and S. Korea along the line. The funny thing is, according to Impress Internet Watch, the Japanese government states that no U.S. companies had actually applied for the license so far. ITmedia also reports the Japanese government didn't deny foreign application, while criticizing the government for too narrow bandwidth of TD-CDMA that can be monopolized easily. Is this the precursor of another wave of pressure onto technology from Japan?" -
Netsky Worm Variant Attacks P2P Services
ee_moss points out this Washington Post article (via Yahoo!), excerpting "The latest variant of the Netsky worm directing infected computers to launch Web-based attacks against music- and file-trading Web services such as Kazaa, taking down at least one company's Web sites in the process. The worm, the 19th version of a bug that made its debut in February, is also targeting some Web sites that offer computer programs designed to illegally break or bypass copyright controls on software programs." -
Russian Group Plans Manned Mars Mission By 2011
weekendwarrior1980 writes "A group of Russian space experts on Friday announced an ambitious plan to send a six-man crew to Mars within a decade, a project it said would cost only $3.5 billion. Russian space officials dismissed the project as nonsense. They plan to have 6 people explore Mars for months before returning to Earth. The Mission would take 3 years, and would depend on fully equipped spacecraft containing its own garden, medical facilities etc." -
Mars Rovers Still Going Strong, Mission Extended
Loconut1389 writes "The Mars rovers' missions have been extended from 90 days to about 250 and have been upgraded with some new software to give them extended single run distances as well as other features. Yahoo has a similar article, also at Reuters. I think it's great that these initially plagued robots are doing more than expected and are still going strong, mostly thanks to engineers figuring out how to make the most of the software and hardware onboard and figuring out how to diagnose an unfunctioning, unresponding machine millions of miles away. The whole project amazes me and I'm happy for NASA to be getting some good news for a change." -
Personalized Moon Crash
Ich Bin Zu writes "Do you want to create your own crater on the moon? CNN has an article about a company putting a personalized moon crash for sale on ebay. The bid opens with $6 million which will enable the highest bidder to stuff up to 10kg worth of stuff on a space craft and lob it to the moon. The condition of the cargo is not guaranteed as it crashes on the moon at 4000 mph." -
Scotts Testing Genetically Modified Grass
Caseyscrib writes "There is an article on Yahoo! News that talks about how Scotts is testing a genetically modified version of creeping bentgrass, popular on golf course greens and fairways, that will be resistant to a common weed-killing chemical. Environmentalists have long opposed bioengineered crops of any kind, and fear that '...if it was to escape onto public land, we wouldn't know how to control it.' It is now in the final stages of approval." -
Build Your Own Steadicam
John Jorsett writes "Always wanted to film one of those cool 'walking' sequences, where the camera stays rock-steady as you trudge along? Well, so did Johnny Chung Lee, except he didn't want to lay out major cash for a professional Steadicam rig, so he built his own for $14. He further claims you can do it in about 20 minutes if you know what you're doing. What more could a cheap, impatient Spielberg wannabe ask for?" -
Suicide Caught on Surveillance Tape Appears Online
Jason writes "Reuters reports (and News.com mirrors) that the video of a man who shot himself after his girlfriend broke up with him has appeared online under the heading of 'Introducing: The Self-Cleansing Housing Projects.' It goes on to say that the police officers receive no training to deal with privacy issues." -
Hidden Messages in Spam
randomwalker writes "There was an extremely interesting presentation at the Blackhat Windows Security Conference in January by Dr Curtis Kret entitled Nobody's Anonymous. In his presentation he showed how information about spammers can be determined. In addition he showed that some spam is being used as a covert communication channel. This presentation demonstrates how to apply data forensics to spam in order to identify the sender of specific spam messages. Some senders can be identified by name, while others can be distinguished by attributes such as preferences, nationality, religion, and even left-handedness. Four spam categories are provided that classify spam by function, including List Makers, Scams, and Covert Communication channels. The examples provided include full-disclosure case studies: a phishing gang that targets bank customers with malware and impersonations, and an IRC group that uses spam as a covert communication channel." -
Suggestions for an Ergonomic Mouse?
pawul13 asks: "I've seen lots of articles and suggestions on ergonomic keyboards (and I have the excellent kinesis version, which helps tremendously), but what about mice? I'm currently experiencing a lot of pain, but only in my 'mouse' wrist. I have a semi-ergo Logitech, but it's not doing it. Does anyone have suggestions for the best ergo mouse (Trackball, optical, whatever, it doesn't matter)?" There was a similar question from January, but it may have been too limited. -
Train Your Own Replacement
An anonymous reader writes "Yahoo reports on how some employers are asking the workers they're laying off to train their foreign replacements - having them dig their own unemployment graves. 'Almost one in five information technology workers has lost a job or knows someone who lost a job after training a foreign worker, according to a new survey by the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers.' It looks like a real dilemma where if you refuse to hire your replacement, you are fired without severance and are ineligible for unemployment benefits, and if you quit, you don't receive severance and are ineligible for unemployment." -
Privacy Complaint Against Google's GMail Service
CRCates writes "Privacy groups in the UK have filed a complaint against Google over its new Gmail service. Privacy groups said they were concerned about Google's ability to link a user's personal details, supplied in the Gmail registration process, to Web-surfing behaviour through the use of a single cookie for its search and mail services. " -
The New Linux Speed Trick
Brainsur quotes a story saying " Linux kernel 2.6 introduces improved IO scheduling that can increase speed -- "sometimes by 1,000 percent or more, [more] often by 2x" -- for standard desktop workloads, and by as much as 15 percent on many database workloads, according to Andrew Morton of Open Source Development Labs. This increased speed is accomplished by minimizing the disk head movement during concurrent reads. " -
TV, ADHD and Doing Useful Things
WebGangsta writes "USAToday (and others) are reporting that too much TV, at an early age, can cause ADHD in children. They say that there should be no TV watching for children under 2. Every added hour of watching TV increased a child's odds of having attention problems by about 10%. Kids watching about three hours a day were 30% more likely to have attention trouble than those viewing no TV. The researchers accounted for many factors beside television that might predict problems concentrating, but the TV-attention link remained. I imagine that in 10 years we'll be seeing studies about how too much Internet/computer/video game use will also result in ADHD. See PEDIATRICS magazine for more information." -
Satellite To Test Relatively
dude_from_munich writes "Einstein proposed in 1916 that space and time form a structure that can be curved by the presence of a body. Scientists are finally planning to put Einstein's theory of relativity to test after a project delay of 44 years." -
States Link Databases to Find Tax Cheats
The IRS and state revenue agencies are increasingly linking every database they can get to their tax records to find clues about your finances. -
Advanced Mobile Phone Tech in Japan
jonknee writes "MobileTracker notes that Japanese researchers at NTT DoCoMo are busy working on a technology to make mobile phones tie in with your senses. This should be a part of 4G technology, which with the way things are going here, may never come to the US. A sidenote about 4G technology, download speeds are 100 megabits per second!" -
NY Holds Spam Scam Contest
evilquaker writes "The state of New York's Consumer Protection Board is running a contest they call 'Spam and Bologna'. Their goal is to help educate the public, so fewer people will fall for Nigerian scams (and others) in the future. The contest is actually to find the most outrageous example of an email scam, and ends in one month. Yahoo! News provides some more information." -
Loud Metallic Noise Heard at ISS
Z4rd0Z writes "Russian Cosmonauts at the International Space Station today heard a loud drumlike noise for the second time since November. The sound seemed to be coming from the same place as before. In February a space walk to find the source of the sound was cut short." -
SCO Changes Tune, Again: Linux Now Just a Riff on Unix
dr3vil writes "eWeek publishes an interview with SCO's Darl McBride and Chris Sontag about the IBM lawsuit. SCO now claim that Linux is a 'nonliteral implementation' of Unix, and compare their claim to those involving Harry Potter rip-offs and Vanilla Ice versus David Bowie and Queen." And ronaldb64 writes "Yahoo Business has a nice summary of the last couple of months of stock movement of SCO, and the reasons why. It contains quotes from business analysts ('Win or lose, the outcome is at least a couple of years away' - 'In the interim, we know the company is going to burn through its cash balance.'), the lack of interest in SCO licenses, the effect the license purchase of EveryOne Ltd. had, and its continuing battle with Novell. The explanation given by pro- and contra-SCO activists is interesting: the pro-SCO group (in the form of SCO CFO Robert Bench) says it is because SCO has been laying low lately, the contra-SCO group (in the form of Eben Moglen) says it is because investors are beginning to understand how weak SCO's case is." -
Gateway To Close All Retail Stores
John Lazzaro writes "Looks like Gateway is throwing in the towel and closing all of its remaining retail stores, according to a Reuters/Yahoo! report." The story notes: "Gateway's stores, which will be closed on April 9, have long been criticized by analysts and investors as an expensive drag on cash flow because of lease costs and the difficulty of managing inventories", and goes on to suggest: "...with [the acquisition of] eMachines, Gateway doesn't necessarily need the added distribution channel the stores gave the company. In addition to selling Gateway's wares over the phone and via the Internet, eMachines PCs are sold at major retailers such as Best Buy." -
Study Says Massachusetts Best State For Technology
Anonymous Coward writes "The Milken Institute (site is cnn/msnbc/wapo dotted it seems) has released a study claiming MA is the best state for technology while Texas has dropped to 26th. I'm curious on everyone's thoughts on this. It seems to me Arizona and Austin are most attractive because of the low cost of living and lots of open space. I just don't see (in my job hunting) very many start-up or expansion in the states they list at the top. Lots more at Google News." Reader footh adds a link to a PDF of the results. -
SBC Park Plans A Giant 802.11 Hotspot
Numeric writes "Baseball games won't be as boring at SBC Park, home of the San Fransico Giants, because they are offering "one of the largest hotspots", according to this Yahoo article. SBC Communications provides DSL and wireless connectivity to business and consumers. I wonder if Minute Maid Park will offer free orange juice or even better Citizen Ball Park could offer free money! Its nice to see the staduim sponsor offering more than just the name sake of their business." LostCluster writes "The San Jose Business Journal adds the details that the WiFi access will be called SBC's Freedom Link, and and be based on 121 access points spread across the park. Access will be free during the 2004 season, but will cost $7.95 per day or $19.95 per month starting next year." -
The Subtle Tyranny Of Spreadsheets
pipingguy writes "I found this link on a CAD-related mailing list which questioned the current state of spreadsheet usage. Since using spreadsheets is often only one step away from PowerPoint mastery, I thought it worthy of submission." An excerpt: "The second distortion caused by conventional spreadsheets is more subtle. It's described in a 1980s paper, written by university researcher Jeffrey Kottemann and others concerning what they called 'Performance, Beliefs, and the Illusion of Control.' The paper described an experiment in which subjects were asked to perform a planning task using different tools, some of them with elaborate what-if capability and others without it." Yup, it's a ZD/Yahoo link, but it raises good questions." -
PHP5 Co-Creator Interview
mandozcode writes "I came across an interesting interview with PHP co-creator Zeev Suraski at Open Enterprise Trends on the latest upgrades for PHP5's First Release Candidate (just released a week or so ago). Sounds like lots of improvements to help make it in the enterprise, including better bundled support for SQLlite and XML. Also encouraging, looks like Zend is getting more millions in VC investment." -
Study: MP3 Sharing Not Serious Threat To CD Sales
pkaral writes "The two distinguished gentlemen Strumpf and Oberholzer-Gee have most likely made RIAA executives choke on their lunches. Those two economists at Harvard and UNC-Chapel Hill have done the research and the math on how much CD sales are actually hurt by P2P sharing. The answer: A whopping one CD per 5,000 files downloaded. Needless to say, RIAA are already trying to discredit the study." -
Gates: Hardware, Not Software, Will Be Free
orthogonal writes "That's small-'f', not capital-'F' free: according to Bill Gates, "Ten years out, in terms of actual hardware costs you can almost think of hardware as being free -- I'm not saying it will be absolutely free --...." Gates expects this almost free hardware to support two of the longest awaited breakthroughs in computing: real speech and handwriting recognition. He further predicts -- ugh! -- that software will not be written but visually designed." -
Google Updates Its Face
whereiseljefe writes "About 12:00 am Central Time, at least when I saw it, Google changed it's face. Before it was a simplistic search engine, with a minimal front page, and now has become even more so. Those pretty tabs we have become accustomed to are now gone, and in the search results, the "summary" section at the top is now a faded blue bar (see here with a search returning ads). And the ads are a little more low key. Nice to know they are cutting back on their interface rather than adding spastically like Yahoo." Other folks noted that they've added Froogle and Local Directory pages have now been given links on the front page. Which is good, since inclusion in the main page tends to mean ready for prime time. -
A High-tech Wheel of Fortune
tcp writes "The BBC is reporting that the London police have detained three people, for allegedly beating the roulette wheel at a London casino. Using a cell phone, a computer and a laser scanner, they were able to predict where the roulette ball would land, winning more than 1.5 million dollars in the process. This technique was not new, and as I recall was the plot of a movie once. The suspects have not been charged yet. The UK has been behind in bringing their gambling laws to deal with new hi-tech threats unlike the US and Las Vegas." -
Mobile Wifi Backpack
ruzel writes "Julian Bleecker's web site TechKwonDo describes a project that is a wifi base station in a backpack. 'WiFi.Bedouin is a wearable, mobile 802.11b node disconnected from the global Internet. It forms a WiFi "island Internet" challenging conventional assumptions about WiFi and suggesting new architectures for digital networks that are based on physical proximity rather than solely connectivity.' The motivation is essentially subversive but what other uses are there for a device like this?" -
Ballmer On Microsoft's Search Goofs
An anonymous reader writes "AP reports on CEO Steve Ballmer's regret over Microsoft's failure to get into the search market early on. Best quote? 'I want to make sure (a user) can't get through ... an online experience without hitting a Microsoft ad.' Nice to see they're still user-oriented." -
Comcast Signs Deal To Acquire TechTV
FPCat writes "Comcast has purchased TechTV. They plan to merge the station with G4. Maybe they'll stop showing Robot Wars and put some decent shows on instead. In either case, with Leo Laporte no longer hosting The Screen Savers, I expect big changes on the station..." (Of course, at this point they've only agreed to buy.)