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Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing out a slew of end-of-year financial results from Japanese games companies. Read on for info on Square's excellent and Enix's disappointing results, and find out quite how Konami managed to lose 230 million dollars this year... Perhaps the most surprising results were Konami's loss of 28 billion yen (230 million dollars) for the year, but this was because of the devaluation of a fitness club business (Konami Sports) purchased in 2001 - sales were up 12 percent elsewhere, with Yu-Gi-Oh a high point.

Looking elsewhere, Namco's results were good, with a net profit of 4 billion yen (33 million dollars), partly due to a surprise hit for Taiko No Tatsujin, a drumming game that comes complete with a Japanese taiko drum controller, which has sold over 500,000 copies in Japan.

As for SquareEnix, they reported largely separate financial results for the two halves of the company, due to the recent merger, but Enix had a sharp fall in profits, whereas Square's were a record high. Enix's relatively poor results were blamed on disappointing sales of Star Ocean:Till The End Of Time, which is yet to launch in the US, but was nevertheless expected to do better in Japan, where it's sold a very respectable 500,000 but has already dropped out of the Top 30.

Finally, in a followup to our earlier story, Nintendo's profits came out, and were indeed hit by the sales slowdown and a strong yen, but still managed to reach a group net profit of some 67.3 billion yen (560 million dollars).

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing out a slew of end-of-year financial results from Japanese games companies. Read on for info on Square's excellent and Enix's disappointing results, and find out quite how Konami managed to lose 230 million dollars this year... Perhaps the most surprising results were Konami's loss of 28 billion yen (230 million dollars) for the year, but this was because of the devaluation of a fitness club business (Konami Sports) purchased in 2001 - sales were up 12 percent elsewhere, with Yu-Gi-Oh a high point.

Looking elsewhere, Namco's results were good, with a net profit of 4 billion yen (33 million dollars), partly due to a surprise hit for Taiko No Tatsujin, a drumming game that comes complete with a Japanese taiko drum controller, which has sold over 500,000 copies in Japan.

As for SquareEnix, they reported largely separate financial results for the two halves of the company, due to the recent merger, but Enix had a sharp fall in profits, whereas Square's were a record high. Enix's relatively poor results were blamed on disappointing sales of Star Ocean:Till The End Of Time, which is yet to launch in the US, but was nevertheless expected to do better in Japan, where it's sold a very respectable 500,000 but has already dropped out of the Top 30.

Finally, in a followup to our earlier story, Nintendo's profits came out, and were indeed hit by the sales slowdown and a strong yen, but still managed to reach a group net profit of some 67.3 billion yen (560 million dollars).

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing out a slew of end-of-year financial results from Japanese games companies. Read on for info on Square's excellent and Enix's disappointing results, and find out quite how Konami managed to lose 230 million dollars this year... Perhaps the most surprising results were Konami's loss of 28 billion yen (230 million dollars) for the year, but this was because of the devaluation of a fitness club business (Konami Sports) purchased in 2001 - sales were up 12 percent elsewhere, with Yu-Gi-Oh a high point.

Looking elsewhere, Namco's results were good, with a net profit of 4 billion yen (33 million dollars), partly due to a surprise hit for Taiko No Tatsujin, a drumming game that comes complete with a Japanese taiko drum controller, which has sold over 500,000 copies in Japan.

As for SquareEnix, they reported largely separate financial results for the two halves of the company, due to the recent merger, but Enix had a sharp fall in profits, whereas Square's were a record high. Enix's relatively poor results were blamed on disappointing sales of Star Ocean:Till The End Of Time, which is yet to launch in the US, but was nevertheless expected to do better in Japan, where it's sold a very respectable 500,000 but has already dropped out of the Top 30.

Finally, in a followup to our earlier story, Nintendo's profits came out, and were indeed hit by the sales slowdown and a strong yen, but still managed to reach a group net profit of some 67.3 billion yen (560 million dollars).

PCOL writes "The Washington Post is reporting on testimony before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation by Ronald Scelson, an eighth-grade dropout and self-taught computer programmer from Louisiana, who claims that he sends between 120 million and 180 million e-mails every 12 hours, that he can break sophisticated software filters 24 hours after they are deployed, and that he has no choice but to resort to forging the sender information in his bulk e-mail so he can be anonymous and maintain his connection to the Internet. He added that he obtained all his addresses legally and that AOL gladly sold him the company's entire customer directory which Ted Leonsis, vice chairman of AOL, did not deny." It's a tough life. Here's another story about the Senate committee meeting.

Tim Grube writes "Ubi Soft have put out a press release revealing the next Splinter Cell title in development. It's called Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow (here's more screenshots at Gaminghorizon), and will be released on all next-gen consoles in early 2004." Prominently mentioned is multiplayer co-operative online play, a definite plus for the new iteration of this stealth action franchise.

Matt Solnit writes "What can I say - Dan Appleman never fails to please. In this e-book, he takes a look at 'hijacking' .NET by accessing private members in .NET classes. Private members are, in essence, pieces of code that you don't want other programmers to access. You use them to support your own code, and you make public the pieces that you want to make available to other developers. Typically, a language ensures that a member marked as private is hidden from anyone who doesn't have your source code, but Appleman shows how in .NET it's not so." Read on for more of Matt's review of this guide to tricking private members to do your bidding. Hijacking .NET - Volume 1 author Dan Appleman pages 46 publisher Dan Appleman rating 10 reviewer Matt Solnit ISBN (N/A) summary An eye-opening look at how you can use undocumented and private features from the .NET framework.

In the .NET Framework, it's possible to access a private member of any class -- your own, another developer's, or even the classes in the .NET Framework itself! Appleman demonstrates this with a great example that uses private members to get the list of groups that the current user is a member of -- in a single line of code -- by accessing a private member that is not exposed by the .NET Framework.

Appleman also explains the tradeoffs of using this technique. The code you're using is not documented, and it's not guaranteed to be present in future versions. He describes how to deal with these problems, and how to make the most of the technique while remaining relatively safe.

Once the basic technique is explained, Appleman takes you into how to find out what private members are available, and how to call them. He shows how to use the object browser available in Visual Studio .NET and the Microsoft IL Disassembler, freely available in the Framework SDK, to discover the private members in a class and determine how to call them correctly.

The example is great -- Dan shows you how he used "hijacking" with a collection of private members to develop a FileAccessControlList class that can be used to manipulate ACL's on Windows files. This is a piece of functionality that is not included with the .NET Framework, but developers have a need for all the time. To write the code from scratch would take days, including translating Windows API declarations to C# or another .NET language and poring over MSDN documentation. As it turns out, all the pieces are in the Framework -- they're just not public. Appleman accomplishes the task in under 200 lines of code, all of which is included with the e-book. As a bonus, you get a great introduction to how Windows security works, and how the example could be extended to other ACL-controlled things like Registry keys.

The fact that private in .NET isn't really private is something that isn't well known, and even if you're not interested in security, this e-book is worth a read just to get some insight into what you can do with the .NET framework, and what other people might someday try to do to your code.

As far as the author's writing style, I will say that Dan has a great knack for intuiting what needs to be explained and what doesn't. His laid-back approach makes everything seem fun -- this is a book you could read on a Saturday afternoon in a hammock.

This e-book is not for beginning .NET programmers, but should be easy for intermediate developers to understand. The whole text weighs in at just under 50 pages, and is well worth the cost of $9.95. Sample code is provided in both C# and VB .NET.

This e-book can be purchased and downloaded immediately from amazon.com or through the author's web site.

hondo77 writes "Researchers have reported at Digestive Disease Week (catchy name, eh?) that a human volunteer has swallowed a "video-equipped capsule -- about half the size of a grape" and that they were able to maneuver it. Sure, it's minus Raquel Welch and the rest of the crew but it's a promising start."

oni writes "Here's a story on wired about a Pentagon project called LifeLog. It seeks to record every bit of information that can be had, index it by name, or SSN, or even location, and make the database searchable. Furthermore, '[LifeLog adds] physical information (like how we feel) and media data (like what we read) to this transactional data.'" If you think you can build such a system, apply for a grant. There's also a current AP story about Total Information Awareness.

daemondev asks: "As a software engineer and FreeBSD user, I've had no problem setting up and using the early anti-spam solutions like Spam-Assassin, TMDA and PopFile. I'm reasonably happy with where I am today, but it certainly could still be better! On the other hand, these solutions are not at all appropriate for my mom, who now has a huge spam problem (she really doesn't need all of that Viagra). I'm looking for something that works "out of the box" and doesn't require a lot of in depth knowledge about email and text filters, and which ideally doesn't need to be updated and replaced continuously. She uses Outlook 2000 on Windows ME. Has anyone found a good package that they would trust to stop spam but that's easy enough for their mom to use?"

The big news of this morning is that Microsoft will evidently be licensing the Unix code that SCO carries the rights to. Yahoo! is also carrying a brief WSJ report as well. Additionally, give a read to the OSI position paper on the issue. One thing that is worth noting is that Microsoft does do *some* work with Unix - like the interoperability package - but the other side is that Microsoft deals with intellectual property a lot, and licensing is standard way of dealing with IP claims.

DrEnter writes "Yahoo! is running this USAToday article about automobile electronic data recorder (EDR or "black-box") data being used in civil and criminal court cases. Most owners of cars so equipped don't know they have them, or that they can be used against them. The NHTSA has been investigating EDRs and is collecting public comments to determine if and how these devices should be regulated."

BrianH writes "Looks like a close cousin of everybody's favorite self-destructing video format is making a comeback. Four years after Circuit City and its Hollywood backers pulled the plug on the self-expiring DVD concept, FlexPlay Technologies has introduced the EZ-D...a 48-hour self-expiring DVD disk. The difference? This time around you don't need a special player, and "time extensions" are no longer an option. It looks like Buena Vista has already signed on to the format, so Disney, Mirimax, and all of their other companies should be using this soon. As if that wasn't bad enough, it looks like this works for music and software disks too!" Here's an older story on these technologies.

AEton writes "America Online has announced that it will merge some of AOL Instant Messenger's features with the Playstation 2. Through the 'AIM Talk' service which they plan to offer, any PS2 user with a headset will be capable of voice messaging with any other PS2 or PC user. AOL will also offer PS2 users streaming music and video clips and a new gaming AOL Players Club service. These services will require more hardware: a 40GB drive for the PS2 (new in the United States) will be required to use AOL's software when it is released in early 2004."

Thanks to a multitude of sites for pointing to a new Nintendo press release announcing they're bundling the Gameboy Player with the Nintendo Gamecube system, starting June 23rd. The Gamecube will keep its US price of $149 for this added-value deal. For those unsure about what the Gameboy Player is, the press release explains it's "..a platform less than an inch thick, which acts as a base for the Nintendo GameCube. By simply inserting Game Boy cartridges [GB/GBC/GBA] into a slot in the Game Boy Player, consumers can use their Nintendo GameCube controller to direct action on the TV screen."

As part of the continuing announcement-based madness that is E3, Atari have announced that they're partnering with Turbine Entertainment to make Dungeons And Dragons Online. This is especially interesting since developers Turbine, the makers of Asheron's Call 1 and 2 for Microsoft, have also just announced they're creating Middle Earth Online (previous Slashdot story). Which one are you going to be playing?

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing out a press release at Yahoo stating that Sid Meier's company Firaxis has signed a long-term publishing deal with Atari. This includes the announcement of Sid Meier's Pirates!, a remake of the classic Microprose strategy title, for 2004 release, and another Civilization III add-on pack, Civilization Conquests, for Xmas 2003. Since Atari, formerly Infogrames, purchased Microprose a couple of years back, they've transferred the rights to Silent Service, Colonization, and many more classic Meier titles to Firaxis, and these are also mentioned for possible remakes down the road.

Junky191 writes "With the NVidia GeForce FX 5900 recently released, this new high-end card seems to beat out ATI's 9800 pro, yet things are not as they appear. NVidia seems to be cheating on their drivers, inflating benchmark scores by cutting corners and causing scenes to be rendered improperly. Check out the ExtremeTech test results (especially their screenshots of garbled frames)."

Thorizdin writes "It looks like Sony is making moves that will change gaming, but not just in the handheld market. SOE (Sony Online Entertainment) are bundling their MMO subscription plans so gamers can play all of their premium games for one flat rate ($21.99 US per month), rather than pay for many subscriptions separately. There are some exceptions, though, since the new pricing only applies to SOE-published games, so you won't get Star Wars Galaxies in the bundle." For the record, the specific games included are Everquest, Planetside, Everquest Online Adventures for PS2, the Station Pass (Tanarus, Infantry, Cosmic Rift), and Everquest 2 when it launches.

trub writes "The new Doom III trailer is out now on Gamespot.com (registration required). It's worth it.. don't mean to sound like a fanboy, but 'words can't describe...'" There are also mirrors that don't need registration via PlanetQuake3.net, and a BitTorrent link courtesy Gametab News for this 31mb DivX file. The game has also been officially confirmed for Xbox at E3, and you can check out more E3 news at Slashdot Games.

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing out this press release from Yahoo via Businesswire, stating that actress Shannon Elizabeth will star as "the first original interactive Bond girl to be cast, Serena St. Germaine", in EA's forthcoming James Bond 007:Everything or Nothing game. Now actors are being signed specifically for games (Jean Reno for Onimusha 3, even Bruce Willis for Apocalypse a couple of years back), where will it all end? And what actor/game combination are you secretly yearning for?

Slashback tonight brings you updates, clarifications and even a followup question on recent Slashdot stories on the iLoo, Verizon's pay-phone hot spots, the artificial hippocampus, Google and blogs, patenting smart matter and more -- read on below for the details. I have room for an entire artificial brain in there! The Evil Couch writes "In an update to an older Slashdot story The Guardian has a story saying that the scientists at USC-LA are about to connect a silicon model of the hippocampus to a rat's brain. If it's a successful replacement for the meat hippocampus, they plan on scaling it up and testing it on monkeys and then hopefully humans."

Why not a quarter for 15 minutes of access? amy's robot writes "After announcing plans to do so just last week, Verizon has activated the WiFi hotspots built in to their Manhattan payphones. Here's official info and a FAQ along with a map of the hotposts. The catch: you have to be a Verizon Online subscriber to use them, but they're free if you are."

So the blogs can stop fleeing to the hills. GeekLife.com writes "Dave Winer received a note from Google PR stating 'Just want to be sure you know that there's been no consideration of removing weblogs from our index.' Seems The Register's speculation may have somehow been unfounded."

I'd rather see a patent for smart toothpaste. Wil McCarthy writes "Last week on this forum, there was some heated discussion about my nonfiction book, Hacking Matter , and specifically about the patent application included in the book's appendix. I was accused of the intellectual property equivalent of cybersquatting: patenting a speculative idea and then sitting back and waiting 'for someone to actually do the hard work of inventing a useful product before gouging them for royalties.' In this scenario, my book has a chilling effect on an entire industry, stifling innovation.

What may have been lost in the shuffle is the fact that I'm not 'just' a science fiction writer or science journalist. First and foremost I'm an engineer, and to the best of my knowledge the idea of "wellstone," or bulk programmable matter woven from fibers surfaced with quantum dots, is original to me. The patent merely codifies these facts. Also, notably, the field of quantum dot research is lively and growing, but not at all focused on materials science applications. Thus there is no extant programmable matter industry to be squelched by my efforts.

Nor have I, per the discussion, patented a device which a person skilled in the art could not produce. It's true that some embodiments of the invention require nanometer precision in three dimensions and are thus beyond present-day manufacturing capabilities, but other less capable embodiments could be produced today. I didn't provide a working model to the patent office because I wasn't required to, having filed a Provisional Patent Application prior to the RPA.

As I make clear in the book, my interest is in hastening the arrival of programmable matter as both an industry and a field of inquiry. My partner and I are presently engaged in discussions to fund the development of a prototype quantum dot fiber which would be broadly, programmably self-doping at liquid nitrogen temperatures. We're also quite willing to license the technology to interested parties at non-gouge rates, and any suggestion to the contrary is simply foolish. If my aim is to change the world, what do I stand to gain by stifling development of my own invention?"

Sorting through the evidence. CowboyRobot writes "Edward Tufte (known for his book, Envisioning Information) analyzes the Boeing explanation for the Columbia disaster, pointing out design flaws and how those flaws conceal ambiguity in the report."

Tufte's analyis is the kind that should be applied to many more situations -- he dissects the way reassuring, blandly obfuscated PowerPoint slides can be used to slip through statements that might cause justified concern if spoken in plain language.

Dr. Whonow? Mechanik writes "You may remember the previous Slashdot story about the BBC doing a Flash treatment of one of Douglas Adams's Dr. Who scripts, Shada. Just wanted to let everyone know that Part Two is now available."

Welcome to Stepford. ragingmime writes "The Boston Globe has an interesting story on the Polyphonic "hit song science" technology that Slashdot mentioned a while ago. The Globe mentions specific things that the software measures and give opinions from various people in the music industry. It's an interesting - and kinda creepy - read."

Boilerplate or camera tricks? andrel writes "In his Slashdot interview Michael Robertson answered question 10 with:

I believe that if you purchase a product, you should have the right to change it, move it, or alter it for your own personal needs. The seller should have the right to say that you void the warranty or refuse to support it if you change it, but you should still have right as the purchaser to make that choice. This goes for music, software and personal computers. [emphasis added]

Too bad Lindows.Com doesn't share his values. The license agreement for LindowsOS explicitly prohibits users from modifying it (section 1.1.a.iv for individuals and 1.1.b.iv for businesses). As for voiding the warranty, well according to section 4 there wasn't one there in the first place. The EULA also claims that you may not allow a visiting friend to use your LindowsOS computer, nor may you use it to conduct business(both in section 1.1.a.iii)."

Robertson reads Slashdot; I hope we'll see his reaction to this soon.

Imagine the course of a canoe paddled by Microsoft and SCO. SolipsistX writes "The Seattle Times is reporting that Microsoft now says that the iLoo is not a joke. Apparently, execs killed the project after it became a laughing stock. The announcement yesterday that it was a joke was caused by miscommunication, says Microsoft. Needless to say, this does not help Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing initiative."

Slashback tonight brings you updates, clarifications and even a followup question on recent Slashdot stories on the iLoo, Verizon's pay-phone hot spots, the artificial hippocampus, Google and blogs, patenting smart matter and more -- read on below for the details. I have room for an entire artificial brain in there! The Evil Couch writes "In an update to an older Slashdot story The Guardian has a story saying that the scientists at USC-LA are about to connect a silicon model of the hippocampus to a rat's brain. If it's a successful replacement for the meat hippocampus, they plan on scaling it up and testing it on monkeys and then hopefully humans."

Why not a quarter for 15 minutes of access? amy's robot writes "After announcing plans to do so just last week, Verizon has activated the WiFi hotspots built in to their Manhattan payphones. Here's official info and a FAQ along with a map of the hotposts. The catch: you have to be a Verizon Online subscriber to use them, but they're free if you are."

So the blogs can stop fleeing to the hills. GeekLife.com writes "Dave Winer received a note from Google PR stating 'Just want to be sure you know that there's been no consideration of removing weblogs from our index.' Seems The Register's speculation may have somehow been unfounded."

I'd rather see a patent for smart toothpaste. Wil McCarthy writes "Last week on this forum, there was some heated discussion about my nonfiction book, Hacking Matter , and specifically about the patent application included in the book's appendix. I was accused of the intellectual property equivalent of cybersquatting: patenting a speculative idea and then sitting back and waiting 'for someone to actually do the hard work of inventing a useful product before gouging them for royalties.' In this scenario, my book has a chilling effect on an entire industry, stifling innovation.

What may have been lost in the shuffle is the fact that I'm not 'just' a science fiction writer or science journalist. First and foremost I'm an engineer, and to the best of my knowledge the idea of "wellstone," or bulk programmable matter woven from fibers surfaced with quantum dots, is original to me. The patent merely codifies these facts. Also, notably, the field of quantum dot research is lively and growing, but not at all focused on materials science applications. Thus there is no extant programmable matter industry to be squelched by my efforts.

Nor have I, per the discussion, patented a device which a person skilled in the art could not produce. It's true that some embodiments of the invention require nanometer precision in three dimensions and are thus beyond present-day manufacturing capabilities, but other less capable embodiments could be produced today. I didn't provide a working model to the patent office because I wasn't required to, having filed a Provisional Patent Application prior to the RPA.

As I make clear in the book, my interest is in hastening the arrival of programmable matter as both an industry and a field of inquiry. My partner and I are presently engaged in discussions to fund the development of a prototype quantum dot fiber which would be broadly, programmably self-doping at liquid nitrogen temperatures. We're also quite willing to license the technology to interested parties at non-gouge rates, and any suggestion to the contrary is simply foolish. If my aim is to change the world, what do I stand to gain by stifling development of my own invention?"

Sorting through the evidence. CowboyRobot writes "Edward Tufte (known for his book, Envisioning Information) analyzes the Boeing explanation for the Columbia disaster, pointing out design flaws and how those flaws conceal ambiguity in the report."

Tufte's analyis is the kind that should be applied to many more situations -- he dissects the way reassuring, blandly obfuscated PowerPoint slides can be used to slip through statements that might cause justified concern if spoken in plain language.

Dr. Whonow? Mechanik writes "You may remember the previous Slashdot story about the BBC doing a Flash treatment of one of Douglas Adams's Dr. Who scripts, Shada. Just wanted to let everyone know that Part Two is now available."

Welcome to Stepford. ragingmime writes "The Boston Globe has an interesting story on the Polyphonic "hit song science" technology that Slashdot mentioned a while ago. The Globe mentions specific things that the software measures and give opinions from various people in the music industry. It's an interesting - and kinda creepy - read."

Boilerplate or camera tricks? andrel writes "In his Slashdot interview Michael Robertson answered question 10 with:

I believe that if you purchase a product, you should have the right to change it, move it, or alter it for your own personal needs. The seller should have the right to say that you void the warranty or refuse to support it if you change it, but you should still have right as the purchaser to make that choice. This goes for music, software and personal computers. [emphasis added]

Too bad Lindows.Com doesn't share his values. The license agreement for LindowsOS explicitly prohibits users from modifying it (section 1.1.a.iv for individuals and 1.1.b.iv for businesses). As for voiding the warranty, well according to section 4 there wasn't one there in the first place. The EULA also claims that you may not allow a visiting friend to use your LindowsOS computer, nor may you use it to conduct business(both in section 1.1.a.iii)."

Robertson reads Slashdot; I hope we'll see his reaction to this soon.

Imagine the course of a canoe paddled by Microsoft and SCO. SolipsistX writes "The Seattle Times is reporting that Microsoft now says that the iLoo is not a joke. Apparently, execs killed the project after it became a laughing stock. The announcement yesterday that it was a joke was caused by miscommunication, says Microsoft. Needless to say, this does not help Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing initiative."

deadwood writes "It seems Lucas is creating a Digital Animation studio as a subsidiary of ILM, according to this Yahoo! article.
Lucasfilm Animation is created roughly 17 years after George Lucas sold Pixar to Steve Jobs. I wonder if Episode VII-IX would be a good choice as first projects?"

minesweeper writes "It appears that the 'iLoo,' a portable toilet with Internet access designed by Microsoft, was actually just a hoax issued by its MSN division in the United Kingdom. In addition to receiving press here on Slashdot, the fake release was also covered by The Wall Street Journal, The Associated Press, and Reuters. See a diagram of the iLoo here."

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing out Rockstar Games have announced Max Payne 2: The Fall Of Max Payne, the sequel to the third-person action title from Remedy Entertainment. The press release indicates the game will ship for PC this fall, but doesn't mention when the console versions will come out. This follows last year's announcement that 3D Realms/Apogee and Remedy had sold the intellectual property for Max Payne to Rockstar for around 35 million dollars in cash and shares, for those wondering which bottomless pit Duke Nukem Forever's development budget is coming from.

sknja writes "I am currently a junior in college and am about to begin the last 2 years of a 5-year electrical engineering program. I have a concentration in computer engineering, and a minor in Japanese. Right now, my life revolves around classes, video games, and learning Japanese. Since I am passionate about all three, I want to try and combine the three, my goal being to become an engineer working on game consoles. Since the end of school is drawing near, what steps should I take toward achieving this goal? Do gaming companies ever have co-op or internship positions open?" Is Japanese a practical or useful skill in this context, and how should/do game companies value internships and programming degrees vs. practical experience on game mods?

permeablepdx points to this story in The Oregonian about how to become a spammer. Summary: "Local Oregon boy makes big bucks after learning from the Spam masters."

zymano writes "This yahoo article says that almost everything enterprises once found unique to Microsoft they can now find somewhere else -- without some of the baggage that comes with Microsoft purchases, like ongoing security concerns and mystifying licensing practices and that in a recent survey of CIOs, Forrester Research found that about 25 percent of them were already in the process of replacing Windows servers with Linux."

fusion812 writes "Senate Bill 1579 is proposed Texas state legislation that would require state agencies to consider 'open source software' when purchasing computer software. The bill has been introduced in the Senate, referred to committee, and is awaiting a schedule date for a hearing." Here's some more information from EFF Austin; fusion812 supplies a summary of the bill's provisions as well as a Real Audio sample of the provided testimony, both below. Also, see this report on NewsForge for some juicy quotes.

A sample recording of testimony can be heard here: http://www.Senate.state.tx.us/ram/archive/2003/may /050803StAffpm.ram

More information: Texas Senate Bill 1579
Senate Bill 1579 proposes that, for all new software acquisitions, a state agency shall:
1. consider acquiring open source software products in addition to proprietary software products;
2. except as provided by Subdivisions (4) and (5), acquire software products primarily on a value-for-money basis;
3. provide justification whenever a proprietary software product is acquired instead of open source software;
4. avoid the acquisition of products that do not comply with open standards for interoperability or data storage;
5. avoid the acquisition of products that are known to make unauthorized transfers of information to, or permit unauthorized control of or modification to the state government's computer systems by, parties outside the control of the state government."

An anonymous reader writes "Some of the trial transcript from the FTC action against Rambus hit the stock-chat boards at Yahoo today. As is well known, the FTC is prosecuting Rambus for having been a member of an industry standards-setting group called JEDEC, while at the same time filing patent applications on material they knew would become valuable because of JEDEC's work. JEDEC's rules required Rambus to disclose their patents, which they did not do, hence the FTC brought charges. In the above URL, however, testimony from the chairman of the JEDEC committee that Rambus was attending is revealed. In it, he admits under cross that *he himself* is a patent holder on (get this) a pinout that was adopted by JEDEC as a standard. And, amazingly, he didn't disclose it to JEDEC before it was adopted. In fact, he says he didn't even known he was a named inventor. Good stuff." (You'll need to keep pressing "Next" to get to more of his testimony.)

dolbywan_kenobi writes "GoboLinux is an alternative Linux distribution which redefines the entire filesystem hierarchy. In GoboLinux we have paths such as /Programs/XFree86/4.3/ and /System/Settings/BootScripts/Reboot." By design, GoboLinux is quite a bit different from most Linux distributions, and -- notably -- is a live ISO, always nice.

DrHogie asks: "This is an interesting Op/Ed piece on student loans -- and how they bury the graduate in a load of insurmountable debt. As someone who is considering going back to college to finish his degree, are student loans (and the degree they get you) worth the debt load?" Update: 05/09 5:45 GMT by C :I apologize. The link in this story is bad, and I can't locate the original story on Yahoo. In the meantime, here's a replacement story in the same vein, and an article about student debt and how most college kids are having to work more to offset rising tuition costs. The original question is still valid, however. Is college getting to be too expensive for the average high school graduate?

DrHogie asks: "This is an interesting Op/Ed piece on student loans -- and how they bury the graduate in a load of insurmountable debt. As someone who is considering going back to college to finish his degree, are student loans (and the degree they get you) worth the debt load?" Update: 05/09 5:45 GMT by C :I apologize. The link in this story is bad, and I can't locate the original story on Yahoo. In the meantime, here's a replacement story in the same vein, and an article about student debt and how most college kids are having to work more to offset rising tuition costs. The original question is still valid, however. Is college getting to be too expensive for the average high school graduate?

DrHogie asks: "This is an interesting Op/Ed piece on student loans -- and how they bury the graduate in a load of insurmountable debt. As someone who is considering going back to college to finish his degree, are student loans (and the degree they get you) worth the debt load?" Update: 05/09 5:45 GMT by C :I apologize. The link in this story is bad, and I can't locate the original story on Yahoo. In the meantime, here's a replacement story in the same vein, and an article about student debt and how most college kids are having to work more to offset rising tuition costs. The original question is still valid, however. Is college getting to be too expensive for the average high school graduate?

orrinrule writes "Yahoo! reports that South Africa's environment ministry bans plastic bags." Life's no fun any more.

TheLoneCabbage writes "Texas Rep. Joe Barton has been quoted today in an AP article saying that he is in favor of grounding the remaining fleet of shuttles. 'If we have to stop manned spaceflight for five or 10 years, then so be it.' The fine gentleman from Texas displays his outstanding grasp of statistics and engineering stating that 1 failure in every 62.5 flights is NOT acceptable. According to OpenSecrets.org this may have more to do with Joe's friends than how much attention he paid to his math teachers." There's also an interesting piece on testimony given by the first Shuttle program manager.

Max Tardiveau writes "I had the pleasure of reading Andy Kessler's Wall Street Meat, which has just come out in print. Despite the title, this book is not just for those familiar with Wall Street -- it is in fact very readable, and even enjoyable, by complete financial boobs (like yours truly), and provides some great insights into the world of investment and the stock market, especially as they relate to technology companies." Wall Street Meat author Andy Kessler pages 208 publisher Escape Velocity Press rating Very good reviewer Max Tardiveau ISBN 0972783210 summary An candid insider's view of Wall Street

Wall Street Meat is Kessler's story over the past fifteen years, from starting as a junior stock analyst at Paine Webber, to becoming a well-known technology analyst, to leaving Wall Street and going off on his own. Along the line, Kessler has bumped into many famous and infamous people, and he is very candid about what he thinks of these people (hint : it's usually not good).
In fact, one of the main characters is Frank Quattrone, who was just arrested last week for obstruction of justice and destroying evidence -- making this book rather timely.

Kessler spends a lot of time illustrating the fact that stock analysts are often clueless (and he should know, having been one for a number of years). To me, that was perhaps the most enlightening aspect of the book : I learned that even (very) highly paid analysts can be stupid, lazy, negligent, incompetent, greedy, and even sometimes dishonest (I know how shocking that might be to most of you, hopefully you can recover from that).

I found it interesting to get a behind-the-scene look at the life of analysts : the trips, the meetings with management, the lies and half-truths, etc... Also the bullshit that goes around, the phony rankings, the uninformed guesses. And of course these people get paid to be confident, so even when you don't know, you have to act like you do know.

If you really make it, you can even become a market-maker : someone whose recommendations actually affect your segment of the market. But Kessler makes it clear that this is a trap, and that many analysts have overestimated their power. After all, these stocks represent real companies, and whether these companies make money or not does eventually affect their stock price. Ah, the painful sting of reality.

Kessler follows the evolution of the profession of analyst from 1985 to the late 1990's, and comments at length on how that role has changed. Back in the old days, the commissions were high, research was a serious business. Interestingly, the Internet changed a lot of that, mostly because it made the commissions practically disappear, going from $0.25/share to less than a penny per share in just over a decade.

Kessler makes some interesting points about the unintended consequences of some of the regulations. For instance, during the 1987 crash, a lot of small investors could not get their trades executed because the traders stopped answering their phones. So the SEC put in a regulation to put a system in place that would execute small trades automatically.

That was the first step towards what we now know is inevitable -- a fully automated marketplace where human traders are used only for large or unusual deals. Therefore, in just 15 years, the world of investment and securities trading has undergone a complete transformation.

Another dramatic change during these years was simply the staggering amount of money that became invested in the market. In 1980, there was about $40 billion invested in professionally managed mutual funds. In 1996, that figure was over $1 trillion.

We are all more or less aware of these changes -- this book brings it all to life.

I found the first third of the book to be absolutely spellbinding, and I would heartily recommend the book just for that. The book opens with a few anecdotes that just made me guffaw aloud as I was reading them. The middle of the book was less exciting. There are lots of names being thrown around, which meant nothing to me. The final part of the book makes up for this, however, with a lot of good stories and observations about the late 90's dotcom boom and bust.

Kessler's style is direct, sometimes almost abrupt. No flourishes for this guy. I particularly appreciated the, how shall I put it, frank and honest evaluation of the many people mentioned in the book. It sometimes feels like target practice, but it's a refreshing break from the mutual admiration society.

The book is often funny, mostly fast-paced. There are a few uninteresting passages, and (much to my surprise) even two pages (1-2) repeated almost verbatim at pages 172-173. At $26, it is a bit steep (it comes out at 12.5 cents/page).

Kessler has written a number of columns for the Wall Street Journal. They are very readable, although some of them are now dated. If you want to get a feel for his style, I recommend reading a couple of these columns before you splurge for the book.

Having read it, I feel a bit more cynical about Wall Street, which is probably a good thing. I also feel like I have gotten a good peek into that universe, and it's not pretty -- no wonder so many things have been hitting the fan over the past couple of years.

Overall, I warmly recommend this book. Unless you're allergic to the world of investment, you should enjoy it and learn quite a bit from it.

You can purchase Wall Street Meat from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

An anonymous reader asks: "I'm scanning in user manuals for older lab equipment. I've never used OCR before today, so I installed the Caere Omnipage 9.0 that came with the scanner. I was pretty happy except for a few things. It doesn't seem to want to recognize engineering symbols like the one char +/-,square root, omega, simple equations, it has trouble with super- and subscripts, and it outputs funky Word files. For example, from an 8.5 x 11 original page scanned in at 1 bit at 300 dpi, the output Word file was 10 inches wide, used tons of Omnipage text styles and didn't match the original text's flow. It did do a good job of italicizing headers and recognizing the various sections in a two column page. Googling the news and net just backs up my claims but provides no real solution. A Google search that provides nothing useful looking for best OCR for engineering."

ke4roh writes "Electronic paper comes a step closer," says a Reuters article today. The paper, made by E-ink bends and makes for a higher contrast display, perhaps for e-books and cell phones. It reminds me of Jim Willard's Paper Computer, but their web site is history. Slashdot previously discussed color electronic paper."

As part of our continuing E3 round-up, ahead of its May 14th start in Los Angeles, the biggest new announcement has been from Activision, which released info on its product line-up (press release via Yahoo) this morning. Highlights include the inevitable Doom 3, Peter Molyneux's latest public speaking project, The Movies, and licenses from Spiderman and X-Men to Shrek, plus Disney Skateboarding (which may actually be good, thanks to cult developers Toys For Bob, of Star Control fame.) Otherwise, it seems Tecmo may be showing a new Dead Or Alive at E3, alongside a DoA fashion show, and Ubisoft will show a more promising new 3D Prince Of Persia and the ever-mysterious Uru: Ages Beyond Myst MMOG from Cyan. Here's links to previous E3 coverage at Slashdot Games.

doormat writes "According to this article, Gates says you can choose not to use the new secure PC technology that they're developing. Is that going to be a choice like being a vegetarian, or like choosing not to eat at all?" There's also a short piece about DRM and Linux, which is a follow-up to Linus on DRM.

According to this story from Reuters via Yahoo News, Infogrames is now officially changing its name to Atari worldwide. The French publisher originally picked up the home rights to the Atari name after buying Hasbro Interactive in 2001, and had recently been rebranding much of its line-up (even PC RPGs) with the Atari logo alongside the Infogrames one. Lovable French ruffian and Atari CEO Bruno Bonnell will open the Nasdaq stock exchange on Wednesday morning to herald the new ATAR stock ticker symbol for the company.

According to this story from Reuters via Yahoo News, Infogrames is now officially changing its name to Atari worldwide. The French publisher originally picked up the home rights to the Atari name after buying Hasbro Interactive in 2001, and had recently been rebranding much of its line-up (even PC RPGs) with the Atari logo alongside the Infogrames one. Lovable French ruffian and Atari CEO Bruno Bonnell will open the Nasdaq stock exchange on Wednesday morning to herald the new ATAR stock ticker symbol for the company.

efedora asks: "I have about 650 hours of VHS tape going back about 20 years (no, not my porn collection) and the tape is starting to deteriorate. What are the best options for preserving the contents? Quality is important but not critical, so long as it's close to the original. Very low labor cost/time and simple operation. are important. Is there an easy way to do this?"

"Some of the ideas I've had so far are:

• VHS to VHS tape with an analog 'clean up' box between the VHS machines. This would give me the same number of tapes but should last another 20 years. Quality will degrade.
• Burn DVD's direct from VHS tape. I have software that will do this. Expensive and the DVD's won't even hold a VHS tape if it's 2 hours long. Good quality with no degradation.
• Burn VCD's. I don't know of any simple direct-to-VCD software that will do this so there would be a large labor overhead. Good quality with some degradation. Cheap.
• VHS direct to cheap IDE drives. Good quality with no degradation. Relatively cheap. Probably could use the same technique as burn-to-dvd."

TinoMNYY24 writes "Jesse Jordan, owner of chewplastic.com, was on CNN this morning discussing the RIAA settlement. You can read a poorly spelled transcript of the interview. Jesse is one of the two students at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute that were sued by the RIAA."

DaSpudMan writes "The "Indiana Jones" trilogy, one of the most requested film series for the DVD format, is finally slated for worldwide release Nov. 4 as "The Adventures of Indiana Jones -- The Complete DVD Movie Collection," a box set that will include a fourth disc specifically dedicated to bonus materials."

zzxc writes "InternetWeek.com reports that Microsoft is cleaning up its API and integrating its XML Application Markup Language for its anticipated Longhorn release. An unnamed source says that Microsoft will be slashing the number of API calls from 76k to 8k. In addition, the new graphics device interface, codename Avalon, will use XAML-based scripts instead of a complicated API. Microsoft is planning on including XAML design in the next Visual Studio.net release. CRN is also reporting on this."

ccnull writes "Slashdot readers may recall the Ebay user who was suing Ebay over allegedly libellous feedback. That case has now been dismissed under the CDA, essentially giving Ebay 'common carrier' immunity, much like an ISP. Victory for free speech or perversion of justice? You decide."

Thanks to reader dj_paulgibbs for pointing to this Yahoo story talking about further upgrades to Xbox Live that Microsoft plan to unveil at E3. Yahoo's sources say these include "advanced community features such as voice chat and locater services that operate independently of games in progress", and also mentions a new "Xbox Music Mixer" for audio, as well as the ability to play video transferred from a PC. This is separate to the Xbox Live software upgrade we mentioned last week.

madopal writes "It seems Reuters is reporting that some ex-Palm officials have announced a new gaming platform called Helix. The company is called Tapwave, but there's nothing on their site yet." This article in the San Jose Mercury News has a few more details - apparently, the unit will even feature an analog joystick and trigger buttons, and with its Palm OS organizer functionality, is apparently aimed at an older, more crossover audience than the Gameboy Advance.