Slashdot Mirror

natet writes "The Japan Patent Office once again shows it knows technology. They recently informed Amazon that unless Amazon can show them differently, they will reject the "One-Click" patent on the grounds of prior art. " So there are sane patent offices out there. On an almost completely offtopic and unrelated note, Hemos and I are planning on being in Japan for the Tokyo LinuxWorld in a few weeks, so I'll see you guys there. Bring translators and we can talk about anime ;)

Ninkasi writes: "Here is a rather alarming article from Yahoo which claims that Microsoft has a backdoor password into IIS web servers running FrontPage 98 server extensions. Here's another brilliant example of how closed source development models are a threat to security and privacy on the Internet." The article says that Microsoft "plans to alert customers as soon as possible with an e-mail bulletin and advisory published on its corporate Web site." This is really just too perfect. Update: 05/14 07:48 PM by T : Actually, it is too perfect -- guess this particular possibility for built-in backdoors is old news. Sorry.

jamner writes "A Yahoo Daily News article mentions that computer users may soon be able to work on screens with displays that give the appearance of being three dimensional. The company is Deep Visual Imaging at www.actualdepth.com and their products page." They accomplish it by layering LCDs, so while its not going to fake a true 3d workspace, the depth would still add substantially to many applications (well, it would make quake cooler, and I'm sure desktop apps could benefit, but I suspect the medical industry has more important uses).

jamner writes "A Yahoo Daily News article mentions that computer users may soon be able to work on screens with displays that give the appearance of being three dimensional. The company is Deep Visual Imaging at www.actualdepth.com and their products page." They accomplish it by layering LCDs, so while its not going to fake a true 3d workspace, the depth would still add substantially to many applications (well, it would make quake cooler, and I'm sure desktop apps could benefit, but I suspect the medical industry has more important uses).

dertx writes: "Just found a wire article about a recent crackdown on 400 CyberCafes in Tehran by the Iranian government. Apparently now anything enabling internet access in Iran must be 'registered' with an obviously state-run trade union. I guess this is cheaper to implement than China's site filtering system."

rst2003 asks: "Is it possible (in theory) to do sub-pixel rendering (e.g. cleartype) on a CRT monitor using a triangular dot matrix instead of a 1x3-aspect rectangular one? If so, has it been done? I'm fairly sure it's not been done by Microsoft or Adobe, but is it available on X?"

Beowu1f writes: "Found an AP story on yahoo with a few snippet comments from the Iowa Attorney General, AOL, RealNetworks, Norton and a law professor. The article is relatively plain, talking about how rivals are getting pissed at the snowballing of features into XP, .NET and Hailstorm, saying it's the same as what MS did with IE, etc. etc." The article quotes David Farber, too. I don't mind that most Linux distros come with CD-burning software, IRC clients, a great paint program, etc. -- but then, they're independently written and optional.

m_e_henry asks: "Linksys and Net2Phone have recently introduced a product that is a 4 port DSL router which also has an RJ-11 (phone) jack. You plug an ordinary phone into this box and it routes outgoing phone traffic over the Net2Phone IP network. Very cool. It is an easy way to use Net2Phone's service in a way that is very familiar. Unfortunately for those in Europe, there are currently no plans to release this product here. So my question is if anybody knows a way to make it look like I am in the US, even though I am in Europe. Can I set up some sort of VPN connection with the States so that the Linksys router thinks that I am on a machine in the US? Is there an easier way? I have not been able to find a consumer-oriented product similar to the Linksys/Net2Phone offering but available in Europe." Any clues as to what limits this device from working in Europe and if it's possible to work around such limitations until such a product is offered in these markets?

LazyBoy points to this story on Yahoo which says that Red Hat won't be bundling Netscape with its distribution once Mozilla 1.0 is out. And since the (very nice) .9 is out, with .9.1 on the horizon, that shouldn't be all that long from now. Rather cool that the long-heralded failure of Mozilla is proving to be exaggerated, even with a lot of other good browser projects in the ring.

RickMuller asks: "I'm interested in molecular graphics, a field entirely dominated by OpenGL. I would love to see something more web-friendly come along. I've worked with VRML and Java3D, and have been very puzzled why these technologies didn't become ubiquitous. Now there are new 3D efforts by Adobe and Macromedia (the Adobe Atmosphere download is available as a beta-download and is way cool!). The press is heralding this as the 3D web revolution. Why should these technologies succeed when VRML or Java3D failed?"

Joby Walker writes: "The jury in the Rambus v. Infineon case has found Rambus guilty of fraud in regard to their actions within JEDEC. Infineon was awarded $3.5M in punitive damages, but that has been reduced by the judge due to Virginia Law." Rambus says they'll appeal.

Isaac-Lew sent in this story about a professor at the University of Virginia who heard rumors that his students were cheating and took action - he wrote a program to search through all the papers, identify common phrases, and flag the cheaters. Now a large chunk of the class is facing possible expulsion for plagiarism.

The Night Watchman writes: "According to article on BBC news, scientists have determined that low doses of radiation can indeed cause alterations in human DNA that are then passed down to future generations. Apparently there was an 'unexpectedly high increase' in genetic mutuations in children born in the area after the Chernobyl disaster." This may shake up the scientific community, which has relied on studies of Hiroshima survivors to evaluate the long-term consequences of radiation exposure.

toybuilder writes: "Magnequench holds a key patent on high-power neodymium-iron-boron (Nd-Fe-B) magnets that they claim is worth almost 1/2 of the world's permanent magnet market. These magnets are in use everywhere including motors in CD/DVD drives and in actuators in camcorders. They are suing a whole lotta companies including Compaq and HP. You can see the AP newswire at Yahoo or read the company's press release."

DonJ writes: "This is a good article that explains a lot about how Perl can play a big part in developing Web Services. It will show you a no-nonsense approach to using SOAP::Lite, Perl's window into SOAP Web services. The Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) is the basic messaging protocol for Web services, so this is a need to know."

Carved writes: "Reuters via yahoo is reporting the excavation of what might be the largest dinosaur bones ever found- so big they needed helicopters to move the giant vertebrae. They think it makes up the backbone of a large Alamosaurus, which is believed to be the largest land animal ever to exist. Dinosaurs rule."

duffbeer703 asks: "I'm a computer consultant who is currently working on a project to enhance computing and network resources in Central Asian universities. One of the problems that we have encountered is a lack of documentation and manuals written in local dialects. Most of these countries (Kazakstan, Tadjikistan, Mongolia) were former Soviet republics and have signifigant numbers of people who speak Russian or English. Other, more remote scohols primarily speak local languages. Does anyone know of places that reprint technical books (mainly C, Perl, Unix and TCP/IP) into less-common languages?"

shroom writes: "Microsoft has dropped the Office XP subscription plan, at least for the near future. Wonder if this means they were getting too much heat from IT managers, or if they have something else up their sleeve."

t0qer writes: "Everyone knows about mame the multiple arcade machine emulator. Recently there has been a new addition to the mame lineup called Kaillera which is a net enabled version that allows you to play any mame game with anyone around the world. It's client/server based which makes for some very good performance. Linux server is available."

ackthpt writes "Graduate college and you may gain an email address for life. This story in the Associated Press Get that ordinary 'grad' email or get the prestige of 'alumni' email address. Great for keeping in touch with your college buds, or "Schools can also be sure they'll get the latest e-mail addresses of their alums to send newsletters, invitations to events, perhaps even pitches for financial gifts." That 'financial gifts' is probably the kicker, after working with a 'college development office' for years, I learned how valuable it can be to shorten the distance it takes to reach out and touch someone. Of course, there's still the anonymity of that old ivy-covered-standby, Hotmail.U ;-)" Plus if you don't like your fellow grads, its easier to mass filter!

JLF asks: "I chair a local leadership seminar (Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership) for high school Sophomores from Eastern Indiana where we try to introduce the students to a variety of viewpoints on several current events or issues. One issue we want to cover at this year's seminar is copyright law, and more specifically, Napster. I've done some research thru Google and found several leads for experts/speakers who are, for lack of a better term, anti-Napster, but I'm having trouble finding sources of pro-Napster sentiment who can make a strong point in favor of the file-trading that goes in through Napster. So I'm wondering if the Slashdot community might be able to suggest some places I could look for good arguments in favor of Napster ('good' as in it goes beyond the basic 'free music rulez!' argument), or even better, someone in the area (the seminar is being held at Ball State U. in Muncie, IN) who might be good to contact about speaking at the seminar. The format we use is very relaxed, each speaker gives a short (2-4 minute) intro about his-or-herself and then we open the floor up to questions from the students for about 45 minutes. Thanks!"

Dare Obasanjo contributed this piece about a subject that probably only a very few people have ever taken the time to consider, or had to. Below he asks the musical question "Why aren't you using an Object Oriented Database Management System?"Update: 05/04 02:11 PM by H :This is also running on K5 - yes, that's on purpose, and yes, Dare, myself and Rusty all know. *grin*

Why Aren't You Using An Object Oriented Database Management System?

In today's world, Client-Server applications that rely on a database on the server as a data store while servicing requests from multiple clients are quite commonplace. Most of these applications use a Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) as their data store while using an object oriented programming language for development. This causes a certain inefficency as objects must be mapped to tuples in the database and vice versa instead of the data being stored in a way that is consistent with the programming model. The "impedance mismatch" caused by having to map objects to tables and vice versa has long been accepted as a necessary performance penalty. This paper is aimed at seeking out an alternative that avoids this penalty.

What follows is a condensed version of the following paper; An Exploration of Object Oriented Database Management Systems, which I wrote as part of my independent study project under Dr. Sham Navathe.

Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to provide answers to the following questions

• What is an Object Oriented Database Management System (OODBMS)?
• Is an OODBMS a viable alternative to an RDBMS?
• What are the tradeoffs and benefits of using an OODBMS over an RDBMS?
• What does code that interacts with an OODBMS look like?

Overview of Object Oriented Database Management Systems

An OODBMS is the result of combining object oriented programming principles with database management principles. Object oriented programming concepts such as encapsulation, polymorphism and inheritance are enforced as well as database management concepts such as the ACID properties (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation and Durability) which lead to system integrity, support for an ad hoc query language and secondary storage management systems which allow for managing very large amounts of data. The Object Oriented Database Manifesto [Atk 89] specifically lists the following features as mandatory for a system to support before it can be called an OODBMS; Complex objects, Object identity, Encapsulation , Types and Classes ,Class or Type Hierarchies, Overriding,overloading and late binding, Computational completeness , Extensibility, Persistence , Secondary storage management, Concurrency, Recovery and an Ad Hoc Query Facility.

>From the aforementioned description, an OODBMS should be able to store objects that are nearly indistinguishable from the kind of objects supported by the target programming language with as little limitation as possible. Persistent objects should belong to a class and can have one or more atomic types or other objects as attributes. The normal rules of inheritance should apply with all their benefits including polymorphism, overridding inherited methods and dynamic binding. Each object has an object identifier (OID) which used as a way of uniquely identifying a particuler object. OIDs are permanent, system generated and not based on any of the member data within the object. OIDs make storing references to other objects in the database simpler but may cause referential intergrity problems if an object is deleted while other objects still have references to its OID. An OODBMS is thus a full scale object oriented development environment as well as a database management system. Features that are common in the RDBMS world such as transactions, the ability to handle large amounts of data, indexes, deadlock detection, backup and restoration features and data recovery mechanisms also exist in the OODBMS world.

A primary feature of an OODBMS is that accessing objects in the database is done in a transparent manner such that interaction with persistent objects is no different from interacting with in-memory objects. This is very different from using an RDBMSs in that there is no need to interact via a query sub-language like SQL nor is there a reason to use a Call Level Interface such as ODBC, ADO or JDBC. Database operations typically involve obtaining a database root from the the OODBMS which is usually a data structure like a graph, vector, hash table, or set and traversing it to obtain objects to create, update or delete from the database. When a client requests an object from the database, the object is transferred from the database into the application's cache where it can be used either as a transient value that is disconnected from its representation in the database (updates to the cached object do not affect the object in the database) or it can be used as a mirror of the version in the database in that updates to the object are reflected in the database and changes to object in the database require that the object is refetched from the OODBMS.

Comparisons of OODBMSs to RDBMSs

There are concepts in the relational database model that are similar to those in the object database model. A relation or table in a relational database can be considered to be analogous to a class in an object database. A tuple is similar to an instance of a class but is different in that it has attributes but no behaviors. A column in a tuple is similar to a class attribute except that a column can hold only primitive data types while a class attribute can hold data of any type. Finally classes have methods which are computationally complete (meaning that general purpose control and computational structures are provided [McF 99]) while relational databases typically do not have computationally complete programming capabilities although some stored procedure languages come close.

Below is a list of advantages and disadvantages of using an OODBMS over an RDBMS with an object oriented programming language.

Advantages

1. Composite Objects and Relationships: Objects in an OODBMS can store an arbitrary number of atomic types as well as other objects. It is thus possible to have a large class which holds many medium sized classes which themselves hold many smaller classes, ad infinitum. In a relational database this has to be done either by having one huge table with lots of null fields or via a number of smaller, normalized tables which are linked via foreign keys. Having lots of smaller tables is still a problem since a join has to be performed every time one wants to query data based on the "Has-a" relationship between the entities. Also an object is a better model of the real world entity than the relational tuples with regards to complex objects. The fact that an OODBMS is better suited to handling complex,interrelated data than an RDBMS means that an OODBMS can outperform an RDBMS by ten to a thousand times depending on the complexity of the data being handled.
   
   
2. Class Hierarchy: Data in the real world is usually has hierarchical characteristics. The ever popular Employee example used in most RDBMS texts is easier to describe in an OODBMS than in an RDBMS. An Employee can be a Manager or not, this is usually done in an RDBMS by having a type identifier field or creating another table which uses foreign keys to indicate the relationship between Managers and Employees. In an OODBMS, the Employee class is simply a parent class of the Manager class.
   
   
3. Circumventing the Need for a Query Language: A query language is not necessary for accessing data from an OODBMS unlike an RDBMS since interaction with the database is done by transparently accessing objects. It is still possible to use queries in an OODBMS however.
   
   
4. No Impedence Mismatch: In a typical application that uses an object oriented programming language and an RDBMS, a signifcant amount of time is usually spent mapping tables to objects and back. There are also various problems that can occur when the atomic types in the database do not map cleanly to the atomic types in the programming language and vice versa. This "impedance mismatch" is completely avoided when using an OODBMS.
   
   
5. No Primary Keys: The user of an RDBMS has to worry about uniquely identifying tuples by their values and making sure that no two tuples have the same primary key values to avoid error conditions. In an OODBMS, the unique identification of objects is done behind the scenes via OIDs and is completely invisible to the user. Thus there is no limitation on the values that can be stored in an object.
   
   
6. One Data Model: A data model typically should model entities and their relationships, constraints and operations that change the states of the data in the system. With an RDBMS it is not possible to model the dynamic operations or rules that change the state of the data in the system because this is beyond the scope of the database. Thus applications that use RDBMS systems usually have an Entity Relationship diagram to model the static parts of the system and a seperate model for the operations and behaviors of entities in the application. With an OODBMS there is no disconnect between the database model and the application model because the entities are just other objects in the system. An entire application can thus be comprehensively modelled in one UML diagram.
   
   

Disadvantages

1. Schema Changes: In an RDBMS modifying the database schema either by creating, updating or deleting tables is typically independent of the actual application. In an OODBMS based application modifying the schema by creating, updating or modifying a persistent class typically means that changes have to be made to the other classes in the application that interact with instances of that class. This typically means that all schema changes in an OODBMS will involve a system wide recompile. Also updating all the instance objects within the database can take an extended period of time depending on the size of the database.
   
   

Who is currently using an OODBMS to handle mission critical data

The following information was gleaned from the ODBMS Facts website.

• The Chicago Stock Exchange manages stock trades via a Versant ODBMS.
  
  
• Radio Computing Services is the world's largest radio software company. Its product, Selector, automates the needs of the entire radio station -- from the music library, to the newsroom, to the sales department. RCS uses the POET ODBMS because it enabled RCS to integrate and organize various elements, regardless of data types, in a single program environment.
  
  
• The Objectivity/DB ODBMS is used as a data repository for system component naming, satellite mission planning data, and orbital management data deployed by Motorola in The Iridium System.
  
  
• The ObjectStore ODBMS is used in SouthWest Airline's Home Gate to provide self-service to travelers through the Internet.
  
  
• Ajou University Medical Center in South Korea uses InterSystems' Cachè ODBMS to support all hospital functions including mission-critical departments such as pathology, laboratory, blood bank, pharmacy, and X-ray.
  
  
• The Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland uses an Objectivity DB. The database is currently being tested in the hundreds of terabytes at data rates up to 35 MB/second.
  
  
• As of November, 2000, the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) stored 169 terabytes of production data using Objectivity/DB. The production data is distributed across several hundred processing nodes and over 30 on-line servers.

Interacting With An OODBMS

Below are Java code samples for accessing a relational database and accessing an object database. Compare the size of the code in both examples. The examples are for an instant messaging application.

1. Validating a user.
   
   Java code accessing an ObjectStore(TM) database
   
import COM.odi.*;
import COM.odi.util.query.*;
import COM.odi.util.*;
import java.util.*;

try {

//start database session
Session session = Session.create(null, null);
session.join();

//open database and start transaction
Database db = Database.open("IMdatabase", ObjectStore.UPDATE);
Transaction tr = Transaction.begin(ObjectStore.READONLY);

//get hashtable of user objects from DB
OSHashMap users = (OSHashMap) db.getRoot("IMusers");

//get password and username from user
String username = getUserNameFromUser();
String passwd = getPasswordFromUser();


//get user object from database and see if it exists and whether password is correct
UserObject user = (UserObject) users.get(username);

if(user == null)
System.out.println("Non-existent user");
else
if(user.getPassword().equals(passwd))
System.out.println("Successful login");
else
System.out.println("Invalid Password");

//end transaction, close database and retain terminate session
tr.commit();
db.close();
session.termnate();
}
//exception handling would go here ...


   Java JDBC code accessing an IBM's DB2 Database(TM)
   
   import java.sql.*;
import sun.jdbc.odbc.JdbcOdbcDriver;
import java.util.*;


try {

//Launch instance of database driver.
Class.forName("COM.ibm.db2.jdbc.app.DB2Driver").newInstance();

//create database connection
Connection conn = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:db2:IMdatabase");

//get password and username from user
String username = getUserNameFromUser();
String passwd = getPasswordFromUser();

//perform SQL query
Statement sqlQry = conn.createStatement();
ResultSet rset = sqlQry.executeQuery("SELECT password from user_table WHERE username='" + username +"'");


if(rset.next()){
if(rset.getString(1).equals(passwd))
System.out.println("Successful login");
else
System.out.println("Invalid Password");
}else{
System.out.println("Non-existent user");
}

//close database connection
sqlQry.close();
conn.close();

}
//exception handling would go here ...

   There isn't much difference in the above examples although it does seem a lot clearer to perform operations on a UserObject instead of a ResultSet when validating the user.
   
   
2. Getting the user's contact list.
   
   Java code accessing an ObjectStore(TM) database
   
   import COM.odi.*;
import COM.odi.util.query.*;
import COM.odi.util.*;
import java.util.*;


try {

/* start session and open DB, same as in section 1a */

//get hashmap of users from the DB
OSHashMap users = (OSHashMap) db.getRoot("IMusers");

//get user object from database
UserObject c4l = (UserObject) users.get("Carnage4Life");
UserObject[] contactList = c4l.getContactList();

System.out.println("This are the people on Carnage4Life's contact list");

for(int i=0; i <contactList.length; i++)
System.out.println(contactList[i].toString()); //toString() prints fullname, username, online status and webpage URL

/* close session and close DB, same as in section 1a */
}//exception handling code
   
   Java JDBC code accessing an IBM's DB2 Database(TM)
   
   import java.sql.*;
import sun.jdbc.odbc.JdbcOdbcDriver;
import java.util.*;


try {

/* open DB connection, same as in section 1b */
//perform SQL query
Statement sqlQry = conn.createStatement();
ResultSet rset = sqlQry.executeQuery("SELECT fname, lname, user_name, online_status, webpage FROM contact_list, user_table" + "WHERE contact_list.owner_name='Carnage4Life' and contact_list.buddy_name=user_table.user_name");

System.out.println("This are the people on Carnage4Life's contact list");


while(rset.next())
System.out.println("Full Name:" + rset.getString(1) + " " + rset.getString(2) + " User Name:" + rset.getString(3) + " OnlineStatus:" + rset.getString(4) + " HomePage URL:" + rset.getString(5));

/* close DB connection, same as in section 1b*/
}//exception handling code

   
   The benefits of using an OODBMS over an RDBMS in Java slowly becomes obvious. Consider also that if the data from the select needs to be returned to another method then all the data from the result set has to be mapped to another object (UserObject).
   
   
3. Get all the users that are online.
   
   Java code accessing an ObjectStore(TM) database
   
   import COM.odi.*;
import COM.odi.util.query.*;
import COM.odi.util.*;
import java.util.*;

try{
/* same as above */

//use a OODBMS query to locate all the users whose status is 'online'
Query q = new Query (UserObject.class, "onlineStatus.equals(\"online\"");
Collection users = db.getRoot("IMusers");
Set onlineUsers = q.select(users);

Iterator iter = onlineUsers.iterator();

// iterate over the results
while ( iter.hasNext() )
{
UserObject user = (UserObject) iter.next();

// send each person some announcement
sendAnnouncement(user);

}

/* same as above */

}//exception handling goes here

   
   Java JDBC code accessing an IBM's DB2 Database(TM)
   import java.sql.*;
import sun.jdbc.odbc.JdbcOdbcDriver;
import java.util.*;

try{
/* same as above */

//perform SQL query
Statement sqlQry = conn.createStatement
();
ResultSet rset = sqlQry.executeQuery
("SELECT fname, lname, user_name, online_status,
webpage FROM user_table WHERE
online_status='online'");

while(rset.next()){

UserObject user = new UserObject
(rset.getString(1),rset.getString
(2),rset.getString(3),rset.getString
(4),rset.getString(5));
sendAnnouncement(user);

}


/* same as above */
}//exception handling goes here



List of Object Oriented Database Management Systems
Proprietary

• Object Store
• O2
• Gemstone
• Versant
• Ontos
• DB/Explorer ODBMS
• Ontos
• Poet
• Objectivity/DB
• EyeDB
  
  Open Source
• Ozone
• Zope
• FramerD
• XL2

Conclusion

The gains from using an OODBMS while developing an application using an OO programming language are many. The savings in development time by not having to worry about separate data models as well as the fact that there is less code to write due to the lack of impedance mismatch is very attractive. In my opinion, there is little reason to pick an RDBMS over an OODBMS system for newapplication development unless there are legacy issues that have to be dealt with.

Mr_Person writes "Dell Computer will recall about 284,000 notebook batteries due to a flaw in batteries incorporated in Inspiron 5000 and 5000(e) notebooks. The flaw causes the batteries to produce excessive amounts of heat, in fact, at least one notebook has even gotten to the point of catching on fire!" I thought the worst part of Dell Laptops was the fact that they broke all the time, and that they billed me for months after I shipped them the laptop back claiming they never got it. Maybe you could use Dell Laptops as an alternate heat source, what with rising gas prices *rimshot*

Mr_Person writes "Dell Computer will recall about 284,000 notebook batteries due to a flaw in batteries incorporated in Inspiron 5000 and 5000(e) notebooks. The flaw causes the batteries to produce excessive amounts of heat, in fact, at least one notebook has even gotten to the point of catching on fire!" I thought the worst part of Dell Laptops was the fact that they broke all the time, and that they billed me for months after I shipped them the laptop back claiming they never got it. Maybe you could use Dell Laptops as an alternate heat source, what with rising gas prices *rimshot*

Meltr writes: "Yahoo has a story about how Apple is using non-GPL'd open source software, making proprietary extensions, and giving nothing back to the community. 'Apple simply found a source of cheap high-quality systems software that it could make its own without needing to give back so much as a bug fix, let alone useful software projects.' Good stuff." Inflammatory, but some of it is hard to deny. On the other hand, there is Darwin on x86 already, and Apple would probably be as happy selling boxes destined to run Yellow Dog Linux as OS X.

Meltr writes: "Yahoo has a story about how Apple is using non-GPL'd open source software, making proprietary extensions, and giving nothing back to the community. 'Apple simply found a source of cheap high-quality systems software that it could make its own without needing to give back so much as a bug fix, let alone useful software projects.' Good stuff." Inflammatory, but some of it is hard to deny. On the other hand, there is Darwin on x86 already, and Apple would probably be as happy selling boxes destined to run Yellow Dog Linux as OS X.

Sachin Karol links to this Time Asia report about the Simputer. A snippet from the article: "It's not a PC, but rather a microcomputer, a "Simple Inexpensive Mobile Computer." In short, a Simputer. It's the latest attempt to reach a kind of techno-humanist grail: a computer priced and designed for the billions of people who have yet to set foot in the wired wards of the Global Village. A computer, say its creators, for the masses." (Read more.)

A week ago, the prototype Simputer was successfully demonstrated at Bangalore's National Institute of Advanced Science. Here are some pictures from an earlier demonstration of Simputer prototypes; there is a section on the Simputer site which is supposed to show details about the architecture, but which promises more information by September of last year; there is information about the guts of the machine in the FAQ, though.

Sounds like a potentially useful tool, but how much impact do you think such a computer could have on the other problems faced by rural Indians? How much of the balance can be swung by such a device?

Isldeur was the first of many to note that SGIs now open source Journaling File System "XFS" has announced the release of version 1.0. It, Reiser, the new ext format continue to be an area of debate, but regardless, Journaling file systems are nice to eliminate those slow fsck boot ups, and to protect all your pr0n when you lose power and realize that you plugged the UPS into your stereo by mistake (not that I've done that. No sir.)

Handulschteim writes: "As if nobody could have guessed, the Internet community has continued to circumvent the entertainment industry. According to this Reuters article, HavenCo has joined the action. It might be great marketing for them. But it might also be the beginning of the end if they attract the ire of their closest neighbor and its American buddies." (ruebarb contributes a link to the same story featured on MSNBC.) Since ISPs are going to face increasing pressure from the various 4-letter acronyms, it seems like the obvious next step for the the entertainment factories to lobby for would be a ban on all encrypted traffic for which no key is in escrow for easy policing.

quakeaddict writes: "I guess it was inevitable. According to this story IBM is spending 25% of their considerable R&D budget to build self healing servers. One memorable quote: "Most important, Wladawsky-Berger said, the machines will be so simple that they will be no more difficult to operate than a kitchen appliance. That should reduce the need for highly skilled workers who are in increasingly short supply." I hope I can make enough for early retirement!" Of course, "IBM plans to develop failproof servers" is a bit like "Ford Plans to develop fuel-sipping flying cars," but the more intelligence built into machines, perhaps the better overall.

SEWilco writes: "MSN is expecting to increase its users by 10% in a deal with Baby Bell Qwest. Although the MSFT press release does not specifically state it, according to Mercury News and Reuters/Yahoo a later conference call confirmed that Qwest.Net will be replaced by MSN service. MSN said it will 'strike deals with companies that own their own infrastructure rather than wholesalers' in a PC World article pointed at by a recent DSL discussion. You can't strike a much bigger deal than this, unless you get all of a Baby Bell's voice customers too." A few readers have written in unhappy that they're about to become MSN customers, too.

ParticleGirl writes "This morning, congress called for a federal ban on human cloning. The associated press has an article. This follows the International Cloning Ban which took effect last month. This is research into human cloning for any reason, this is "importing a clone" ...a kid born of cloning overseas can't come into the U.S.? And other weird stuff." If god is all powerful, then can't this just be another way he works? Personally I don't care if there's a god or not: I want clones. I wanna grow spare hearts in a vat. I wanna have a brainless clone in a tube in case I blow out my liver drinking whiskey. And as soon as we get really good with the genetic engineering, I want my own half height clone to mow my lawn.

orn writes: "Reuters is reporting that IBM has made a step toward using carbon nanotubes as the next best thing since sliced silicon wafers. They created a process that could potentially be turned into a manufacturing method to make extremely small transistors. Yahoo has a copy of the article. We all know that small transistors means higher speeds! Yum!" The NY Times has another article about the same technology, which we've mentioned before.

DerFeuervogel writes: " This article at Yahoo describes how the Baby Bells may have already won the battle of who controls the Internet. Am I the only one who finds this disturbing?" Congress is busy working to let the Bells off the hook, clearing the way for them to finish demolishing the competing carriers such as Covad and Northpoint. Five years from now, there will be about five companies providing high-speed internet access in the United States.

JoeSilva writes: "I immediately thought this cheaper and faster process for manufacturing composite materials could really lend a hand to the goals of HyperCars a-la the Rock Mountain Institute folks, and Reusable Space Launchers a-la X-33/VentureStar, Roton, and others. The RMI folks have been advocating use of carbon fiber composites, but have noted that Aluminum has seen some favor with the Auto manufacturers, and one reason for that has been cost. The X-33 program was set way back due to a manufacturing failure in making what they claimed was the worlds largest carbon fiber composite fuel tank...in fact I recall reading that there was no AutoClave in the world big enough for the tank size for VentureStar. The X-33 was a smaller scale test vehicle...not a launcher. The new process can make whole boats and airplane fuselages."

adubey asks: "We all know and love the GNU General Public Lisence. Some have argued that the availability of a standard lisence such as GPL along with hard lobbying work by Richard Stallman and others are both among the many forces that helped push free software forward. However, there is still a big laundry list of things holding free software back. Included on this list are restrictive employment contracts that forbid many developers from contributing to free software projects, even if some contributions could help them on the job. Rather than simply write off these people as being stupid for signing one-sided contracts, could we do something to pursuade managers to be more open to free software development? What if there was a standard contract available, between employers and employees, that spefically gave employees the right to contribute to free software projects so long as it benefits the company they work for?" An interesting idea and one that I hope will spark some interesting discussion. Would such a thing be the answer to this problem?

"Now, IANAL, but is it possible to have some type contract that says it would override any previous IP agreement? In other words, allow companies to keep current contracts in place, but overrides previous contracts in the one key detail that it will allow developers to release enhancements to free software packages, so long as the enhancements were developed for the benefit of the company (even if the enhancement - say a bug fix in gcc - is never released in itself)"

Slashing back tonight are bits and pieces on optical transistors; a genuine linux toaster; words from Nintendo's president on the real status of the Gamecube; and another potentially nice push in the world of digital archives. Please enjoy.

Larry Ellison, watch your back. meforpc writes: "More on LTSP (Linux terminal server project): Riverdale (www.riverdale.k12.or.us/linux) decided to make a 'poster child' to get the word out on their project; to do this Bryan Grimshaw made a Linux machine inside of a toaster oven. The idea behind the toaster is to show the ease of setting up a Linux terminal/server network. It's really cool and looks great. (I want one)."

"Oooh, that's one hot system! If you sell it, I hope the buyer doesn't get burned. Might this sort of thing have a Dark Side? Nice rack -- Smmmmmokin'!" Sigh. I've stopped now. The worst pun you can come up with will be rewarded with an official Slashdot groan of derision :)

Soon all will be optical. BdosError writes: "Scientists in Japan seem to have developed an optical transistor, as explained in this article, which I snipped from the Rapidly Changing Face of Computing newsletter. This could go nicely with the optical switching technology mentioned earlier, as it would eliminate the need to convert the electrical signals to/from optical. Plus, it would be a huge benefit for building fast systems which generate less heat in general.

Let's have no comments about the possibilities for a Beowulf cluster."

Well ... no more comments. But actually, why not? This sounds like a good thing for clustered research computers, no?

Of course, we'll see what hits shelves ... TheZalm writes: "The article about Gamecube being in danger is a misrepresentation of the facts. Hiroshi Yamauchi said only that he would reconsider his launch plan, and possibly place a small delay on the launch. See this article at IGN."

Of course, that's what Sega repeatedly said about the Dreamcast, too. The gamecube sounds cool, so I hope it arrives, but it's obviously coming into a hotly contested market.

Commemorating the banal and the momentous. fizban writes: "According to this AP news story, CNN plans to spend the next few years digitizing its entire video archive and making it available to the public over the internet. Excellent! Just think of the multimedia reports the kids of tomorrow will be able to make for their class projects..."

The article skirts the issue of licensing and payment; hopefully CNN will see fit to make at least some of its content free, but I'd be surprised it that's more than a sampling.

The progress may be mind-numbingly slow, but thanks to things like Project Gutenberg, ibiblio and the Internet Moving Image Archive, more and more free content is arriving for us to read, watch and use. ("And, he groused, "it would be nice if all images made with our tax dollars would be available online as well.")

Boban Acimovic writes "According to this story on the Yahoo Financial News", IBM is going to buy Informix Database Software for $1 billion in cash. The main players in database leader struggle will be Oracle and IBM after this acquisition." That's in the commericial space - obviously SleepyCat, PostGres and MySQL and others aren't going away. And it appears that the other parts of Informix will be staying around as a seperate biz, so we should continue to see their support for OSS ^[?] .

Boban Acimovic writes "According to this story on the Yahoo Financial News", IBM is going to buy Informix Database Software for $1 billion in cash. The main players in database leader struggle will be Oracle and IBM after this acquisition." That's in the commericial space - obviously SleepyCat, PostGres and MySQL and others aren't going away. And it appears that the other parts of Informix will be staying around as a seperate biz, so we should continue to see their support for OSS ^[?] .

PenguinRadio writes: "Yahoo Australia is reporting an unmanned U.S. aircraft recently flew from the US to Australia, smashing an endurance record for remotely controlled aircraft. The Global Hawk reconnaissance jet arrived in Adelaide 14 minutes ahead of schedule after a non-stop flight of more than 23 hours. The Air Force has some pictures and more news on their site as well." Update: 04/24 7:26 AM by michael : This is a follow-up to our story a few days ago.

Just when you thought nothing else stupid could be patented, Wahfuz noted a story running about a company called Pumatech who has apparently patented storing a checksum of a webpage to determine if it has updated or not. I guess from now on everyone who wants to detect changes in web pages will need to store full copies of the pages in question, because I'm sure nobody thought of anything so complex as piping it through md5 and saving the output.

Help Needed asks: "I recently purchased a Sony MDH-10 Data Drive, and am intrested in getting this drive to read the Audio Tracks as raw data, but all it shows is Okb for each track (similar to looking at a CD). Now, I understand the basic structure of the Disc, the TOC, the music format (ATRAC1, MDLP is ATRAC3), and the way the MO reads. What I am interested in is hacking the MD Data Drive to allow it to read from an Audio Disc. I know it can be done, but am unsure of how to access the firmware of the drive (currently prevents access to write to the tracks). You can go to my webpage to read a short explanation of my idea."

Help Needed asks: "I recently purchased a Sony MDH-10 Data Drive, and am intrested in getting this drive to read the Audio Tracks as raw data, but all it shows is Okb for each track (similar to looking at a CD). Now, I understand the basic structure of the Disc, the TOC, the music format (ATRAC1, MDLP is ATRAC3), and the way the MO reads. What I am interested in is hacking the MD Data Drive to allow it to read from an Audio Disc. I know it can be done, but am unsure of how to access the firmware of the drive (currently prevents access to write to the tracks). You can go to my webpage to read a short explanation of my idea."

AltGrendel writes: "The US Air Force is sending a radio controlled spy plane on a test flight from Califonina to Australia. Details from Yahoo are here. I like the bit about the early flight termination due to a bad command, maybe someone will hack the control signals and fly it to their home?"

tie_guy_matt asks: "I was in our stockroom at work trying to get connectors so I could reproduce a circuit board that I broke (oops!) I wanted to get a 20-pin connector that I could use on a wirewrap board. The guy in charge of the stockroom said that they no longer make that type of connector for wire wrap boards. Companies are starting to produce more and more surface mount chips and less and less DIP chips. Ever try to solder a sufrace mount chip onto a homemade circiut board? There is only one company left that makes wire wrap stuff: OK Industries. If this company goes under we may no longer be able to make home made Z80 computers from parts we bought from Digikey. Are hobbiest starting to have trouble finding the parts they need? Will very small companies now have to spend a lot more money to make prototypes? Is this yet another example of how big companies are squashing the little guy?"

Jethro73 writes "There is an article on Yahoo! about how Workers are mired in e-mail wasteland. They say employees waste an hour a day managing e-mail. This page at Cisco claims employees spend two hours per day, but cite a 15% increase in worker's productivity despite that." A few weeks ago I blew up my laptop and lost all my mail filters. When I got everything back up, I discovered that over 70% of my email is junk (compared to 25% after all my filters were in place). Filtering my mail is the only thing that makes reading my email possible. Well, that and ignoring any message complaining about Karma :)

Jethro73 writes "There is an article on Yahoo! about how Workers are mired in e-mail wasteland. They say employees waste an hour a day managing e-mail. This page at Cisco claims employees spend two hours per day, but cite a 15% increase in worker's productivity despite that." A few weeks ago I blew up my laptop and lost all my mail filters. When I got everything back up, I discovered that over 70% of my email is junk (compared to 25% after all my filters were in place). Filtering my mail is the only thing that makes reading my email possible. Well, that and ignoring any message complaining about Karma :)

Slashback items tonight on India's satellite launch, a bi-coastal EFF-organized protest (yes, will involve leaving your cubicle, basement, silo, remote farm, etc.), Apple not falling far from the tree, and the death of Indrema. Read on below :)

Show your truuuuueee colors ... h0mee writes: "Howdy! This has already been posted on slashdot, but we still need more volunteers showing up at the protests. This protest is being organized by the EFF against federally mandated censorware in schools and libraries. The protests are occuring on this friday in the SF Bay Area and the NYC areas. I'd like to remind slashdot readers on the completely cynical side that even small groups of protestors showing up will have big impacts, as the FCC will be caught completely off guard by hordes of angry geeks showing up- this protest can make a difference! Please check out the EFF's protest page on this for more info for coordination and ridesharing, or this rant on craigslist for SF bay locals. Show your geek pride, and help us distribute Clue to the FCC!"

Hey, stop looking at me! And no feeling, either! In response to CmdrTaco's recent post about Apple moving yet again to block the makers of Apple-reminscent themes, WillAdams writes:h "The response, and the original letter are up at http://www.macthemes.org.

They'd like a lawyer..."

Sounds fair. Soon lawyers defending Open Source will take over as the heros of the software world. "Didn't there used to be programmers, too, dad?"

Up in the air, Junior Birdman w00ly_mammoth writes: "After an aborted attempt, India has launched a satellite rocket. Signals from it were picked up in Canada. The Geo-synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle, or GSLV-D1, is capable of giving the nation communication and military capabilities, according to western analysts. The US has been concerned about this development for a while. This could also rattle the aerospace industry, since it marks an entry into the lucrative satellite launch market."

(Invent your own aphorism involving ashes, phoenixes and plant life.) impaler writes: "Games Mania has a story with three people's views on the death of indrema. They interview Mark Collins (author of Linux Game Programming), Clinton Ebadi (me / that lamer that does nothing useful), and Steve Baker (of TuxKart fame). All three offer different opinions on why indrema went down."

Speaking of games, ryants writes: "OpenGL.org is reporting that NVidia's GeForce3 meets or beats the functionality available in DX8 via OpenGL extensions. This bodes well for Linux gaming." Take your grains of salt, head out back, and play some TuxKart;)

PenguinRadio writes: "The Washington Post is reporting that NASA is readying the X-43 space plane for a 10 second test flight, after which is will plunge into the ocean and not be recovered. The X-43 is an unmanned aircraft (there are three of them) that is used as a testing bed for hypersonic aircraft and may lead to a commercial version in about 20 years or so. Anybody got an extra wet suit?" See also the Reuters article on the same subject, and our previous story about an Australian version.

robb_c sent us this story about new high-efficiency power systems for portable devices - high-efficiency solar cells plus some sort of fuel cell system to store energy. Very nice, if it works, doesn't cost some ludicrous amount to manufacture, and doesn't explode when you drop it.