Slashdot Mirror

YDdraig writes "To conform with some French and German laws, Google has removed listings for over 100 sites which it believes to be anti-abortion, pro-Nazi, white supremacist or anti-semitic. They're not keen to talk about it either, saying merely: 'As a matter of company policy we do not provide specific details about why or when we removed any one particular site from our index.'" Noted from Declan's articles: This is Google.de and Google.fr, and is done to be in compliance with those countries laws. Because, of course, not being able to talk about something makes it less attractive right? And drugs being illegal makes it less attractive for kids too, right? *sigh* Update: 10/24 13:55 GMT by H : Thanks to Declan for providing the linkage to his News.com original story which has more links then the ZDNet UK one.

mmol_6453 writes "In a move that beat Orange's showing off the first Microsoft-based smartphone by a day, Symbian has signed on Samsung. Quoth the article: 'Symbian now licenses its smartphone software to all five top mobile makers, and its OS has beaten both Palm and Microsoft in the European handheld device market'"

Harry Erwin writes "This article seems to suggest Microsoft is now considering charging for security. I don't mind vendors like Counterpane Internet Security selling security services, but I would prefer operating system vendors to treat security as part of the core functionality of their products, if only because effective security has to be designed into the operating system from the start. This proposal would create a two-tier Internet and probably make things worse rather than better. Security is like public health and education--if you think it's expensive, consider the alternative."

ahecht writes "On Thursday, Palm's Solutions Group's CEO Todd Bradley announced that 3 new handhelds will be released in October. Within 24 hours, pictures of all three handhelds have leaked out on the web. The first to be released, the sub-$100 Zire, can be seen here. The second handheld, previously known as Oslo, now has the name Tungsten T, and features OS 5 and built in bluetooth (pictured here). The third handheld is the Tungsten W, pictured here, which is a GPRS smartphone (although it does not have a built-in speaker or microphone). Zire will be released October 7th, while both Tungsten models will be released on October 28th." Could just be rumors or fakes, but it seems reasonable.

Ch_Omega writes "Nokia have announced a new cameraphone in the, traditionally low-cost, 3xxx-series. Surprisingly enough, it seems to have the same functionality as the Nokia 7650, as well as tri-band, MMC-expansion slot, and abillity to capture video as well as still images. The new smartphone has been given the name Nokia 3650, which, according to this article indicates that it will be much cheaper than the 7650, while actually being superior feature-wise!"

jukal writes "From ZDNet "Red Hat and IBM have expanded a partnership, with Red Hat bringing its top-end version of Linux to all four of IBM's server lines and with IBM's services and software divisions supporting Red Hat's software. "" The NYTimes also has a version of the story, as does the News-Observer.

Mike S. writes "Mozillazine has pointed users to this story at ZDNet UK which breaks the news about a privacy bug discovered in in all Mozilla builds up to and including 1.2a as well as browsers based on Mozilla such as Netscape 6/7, Chimera and Galeon. The bug allows a web site to track where you're going when leaving the site whether you use a link, a bookmark or type a URL into the address field. This page has a demonstration of the bug and instructions on patching it via a user.js file."

Mike S. writes "Mozillazine has pointed users to this story at ZDNet UK which breaks the news about a privacy bug discovered in in all Mozilla builds up to and including 1.2a as well as browsers based on Mozilla such as Netscape 6/7, Chimera and Galeon. The bug allows a web site to track where you're going when leaving the site whether you use a link, a bookmark or type a URL into the address field. This page has a demonstration of the bug and instructions on patching it via a user.js file."

cybaea writes: "The creator of Black & White is experimenting with new work on group minds - but unlike the Borg, the characters in the new game are already descending into bar brawls, reports ZDNet UK, quoting Richard Evans (famous for the AI engine in Black & White). My favourite quote: '[AI] Characters [in the game] even have the ability to dynamically create their own language, constructing simple sentences on a word by word basis.'"

dnxthx writes "According to this ZDNet article the design of the Playstation 3 chip is nearly complete. The PS3 chip will have near "supercomputer capabilities" --- including 1 TFLOP. Reportedly, this chip is being engineered with Linux in mind."

Jonathan Bennett writes "Here's the first actual review (as opposed to speculation) of Motorola's FreeCharge hand-operated mobile phone charger. Only works with Motorola phones for now, but other devices on the way. "

Jonathan Bennett writes "Here's the first actual review (as opposed to speculation) of Motorola's FreeCharge hand-operated mobile phone charger. Only works with Motorola phones for now, but other devices on the way. "

PDAJames writes "This article has an interesting take on Microsoft's claims on OpenGL technology. An IP lawyer says that Microsoft could make things difficult for OpenGL if they feel like it, basically. "

PDAJames writes "There's a new interview with Marcelo Tosatti online. He talks about what it's like to be kernel maintainer after nine months on the job and identifies the biggest problems with the kernel now. He also defends UnitedLinux against Mandrake's criticism. He would, since he works for Conectiva..."

bnoise writes "'European administrations should share software resources, a report published by IDA says'. IDA stands for 'Interchange of Data between Administrations' and is an European Commission initiative promoting the use of ICT in the exchange of information between EU administrations. The report extensively (147 pages) describes and comments Open Source Software licenses and promotes the use of source sharing among administrations and beyond. Its 'Legal Framework analysis' section alone is worth reading if you (still) don't know what license to choose for your next software development. Also from one of the authors: 'Study into the use of Open Source Software in the Public Sector' (June 2001)." ZDNet has a summary of the report, and the report is also available in non-PDF formats.

An anonymous roward writes "This interview at ZDNet UK has Dave Kirk talking about how Nvidia's Cg programming language will bring movie-making and game-writing together. 'This is a big step towards convergence -- not films and movies and games being the same, but the way people create them being the same. Artists can use the same skills on both. Cg is almost guaranteed to be efficient in hardware, and any Renderman program can be translated to Cg, by hand or by a tool that someone's developing. Once that happens, all the moviemaking can take place in Cg.'"

Atryn asks: "We are seeing more and more stories on KPNQwest's bankruptcy in Europe. Being on the other side of the pond, can anyone explain the ramifications of this large fiber backbone being shut down?" Slashdot originally covered this story back when the bankruptcy was announced. Now, a A 3-week stay of execution has been granted to the network. It will remain on until sometime in July, while the parent company tries to sell off its assets. As to the repercussions of the bankruptcy, ZDNet UK has some thoughts on the matter. Do you agree with them? Would you mind offering a few of your own? Update: 06/14 10am EDT by C :When this article was originally posted, 2 days ago, KPNQwest did indeed have an estimated three-week lifespan. Of course, that estimate has been cut down severely by recent events.

Atryn asks: "We are seeing more and more stories on KPNQwest's bankruptcy in Europe. Being on the other side of the pond, can anyone explain the ramifications of this large fiber backbone being shut down?" Slashdot originally covered this story back when the bankruptcy was announced. Now, a A 3-week stay of execution has been granted to the network. It will remain on until sometime in July, while the parent company tries to sell off its assets. As to the repercussions of the bankruptcy, ZDNet UK has some thoughts on the matter. Do you agree with them? Would you mind offering a few of your own? Update: 06/14 10am EDT by C :When this article was originally posted, 2 days ago, KPNQwest did indeed have an estimated three-week lifespan. Of course, that estimate has been cut down severely by recent events.

Atryn asks: "We are seeing more and more stories on KPNQwest's bankruptcy in Europe. Being on the other side of the pond, can anyone explain the ramifications of this large fiber backbone being shut down?" Slashdot originally covered this story back when the bankruptcy was announced. Now, a A 3-week stay of execution has been granted to the network. It will remain on until sometime in July, while the parent company tries to sell off its assets. As to the repercussions of the bankruptcy, ZDNet UK has some thoughts on the matter. Do you agree with them? Would you mind offering a few of your own? Update: 06/14 10am EDT by C :When this article was originally posted, 2 days ago, KPNQwest did indeed have an estimated three-week lifespan. Of course, that estimate has been cut down severely by recent events.

tit4tat writes: "Caldera chief executive Ransom Love confessed to ZDNet UK that "[Caldera is] not moving Open Unix [i.e., the former SCO Unix] onto Intel's 64-bit platform...." I suspected that Caldera bought SCO just to kill SCO Unix, even though they denied it at the time. Now, the first Unix I ever knew is about to be no more. "

Alan Cox is one of the world's most famous Linux kernel hackers. Lately he's been speaking out quite a bit on issues like copyright law, software patents, and the future of Linux, and has generally become a bit more politically active, at least in the public eye, than he was in the past. Slashdot interviewed Alan back in 1999. Lots of things have changed since then, but our interview procedure hasn't; one question per post, we send 10 of the highest-moderated ones to Alan, and post his answers verbatim as soon as he gets them back to us.

ScooterComputer writes "According to Bloomberg and a bunch of others, Apple is suing Sorenson over their licensing a codec to Macromedia for Flash MX, for 'developing, marketing, or licensing any version of the compression software used in QuickTime to competitors.' For years we have seen finger pointing going on between Apple and Sorenson as to WHY the Sorenson codec can't make it to the Linux platform... and things usually end with Apple saying it is Sorenson's fault. Well, I'd say Apple lied. So, can we all just start putting big pressure on Apple again to release QuickTime for Linux?" (Reminder to Apple users to visit Slashdot's Apple section for more Apple-related news.)

Broue Master writes "According to a UK ZDNet article, 3Com is commercializing a firewall into a NIC aimed at desktop and servers." Interesting idea, although it'll be interesting to see if the idea catches on.

Jim Norton writes "The Inqwell and ZDNet are reporting that the Aberdeen group, who recently published a report attacking the Athlon XP's processor rating system, was funded by Intel to produce the report. The articles also mention that AMD claims they were never contacted for information regarding this issue." From the benchmarks that various outfits have done on the new AMD chips, their model number is actually pretty conservative.

An Anonymous Coward writes "On Monday Richard Stallman gave a speech at the Cambridge University (UK) Computer Lab. Over at ZDNet UK they have a transcription of the speech - the most eloquent discussion of the subject I have yet seen. Software patents victimise developers, he says, but there are ways to get around them. The best part is his comparison of writing software to writing symphonies: 'Oh Beethoven,' they would have said in 1800 if there had been patents on music, 'you're just bitching because you've got no ideas of your own.'"

An Anonymous Coward writes "On Monday Richard Stallman gave a speech at the Cambridge University (UK) Computer Lab. Over at ZDNet UK they have a transcription of the speech - the most eloquent discussion of the subject I have yet seen. Software patents victimise developers, he says, but there are ways to get around them. The best part is his comparison of writing software to writing symphonies: 'Oh Beethoven,' they would have said in 1800 if there had been patents on music, 'you're just bitching because you've got no ideas of your own.'"

An Anonymous Coward writes "On Monday Richard Stallman gave a speech at the Cambridge University (UK) Computer Lab. Over at ZDNet UK they have a transcription of the speech - the most eloquent discussion of the subject I have yet seen. Software patents victimise developers, he says, but there are ways to get around them. The best part is his comparison of writing software to writing symphonies: 'Oh Beethoven,' they would have said in 1800 if there had been patents on music, 'you're just bitching because you've got no ideas of your own.'"

Peter Judge writes: "Corporate Anthems are once again online at ZDNet UK. Last year, the Corporate Anthems page exposed a big bunch of amusing songs composed for corporate promotion. However, the music files had to go offline due to bandwidth limits. Now, ZDnet UK has stepped in, to host the anthems in all their glory. We hope to flush out and publicise new ones, and will be updating the chart in the coming weeks, according to the 'popularity' of different tracks. We have included more lyrics -- transcribed with some effort (and several lines which surely can't be for real)."

Peter Judge writes: "Corporate Anthems are once again online at ZDNet UK. Last year, the Corporate Anthems page exposed a big bunch of amusing songs composed for corporate promotion. However, the music files had to go offline due to bandwidth limits. Now, ZDnet UK has stepped in, to host the anthems in all their glory. We hope to flush out and publicise new ones, and will be updating the chart in the coming weeks, according to the 'popularity' of different tracks. We have included more lyrics -- transcribed with some effort (and several lines which surely can't be for real)."

James writes "At CeBIT, Olympia has been showing off its Soundbug - a gadget that can turn almost any flat surface into a soundboard. It's only gonna cost £29.99 (around $45, i guess), but it sounds like there's some seriously cool science behind it."

richjones writes: "There's a new interview with Alan Cox up. I think he's right on the money with how Linux is going to spread into businesses, but he seems to think Internet applications are going to be big with consumers... I can't really see it... but he's Alan Cox, so he must know :)"

james writes "Eric Raymond reckons Windows will be obsolete because people won't be able to afford it soon." Owning the OS gives MS too great of an advantage. They'd sell the client for 5 bucks if it meant that they could still control Office, the server market, and the zillions of other markets that their OS monopoly lets them crush.

Dj writes "Microsoft have been found to be rigging a ZDNet poll". Apparently they didn't dig on the idea of .NET losing. Of course as anyone knows, never trust an online poll because this sort of stuff is obviosly happening all the time. I just wonder how many comments posted around the net are posted with the same goals in mind.

dbolger writes: "ZDNet has this brief, but interesting article about how the amount of spam we recieve in our inboxes has increased 650% since this time last year. Nice to know that that anti-spam legislation passed a while back is having an effect (not)." For PINE users, just remember the magic spell: "m s r f a."

dbolger writes: "ZDNet has this brief, but interesting article about how the amount of spam we recieve in our inboxes has increased 650% since this time last year. Nice to know that that anti-spam legislation passed a while back is having an effect (not)." For PINE users, just remember the magic spell: "m s r f a."

Reader samjam sent in an interesting piece about his dream handheld PC, sort of a cross between a subnotebook and a wireless web pad, with the kitchen sink thrown in. Mmmmm, light-emitting polymers. I can't decide if this kind of thing is right around the corner or just a fantasy - after all, normal notebook computers sell, and at a nice high premium - and web pads are less than successful - why would anyone spend the money to develop a device like this? samjam writes: "My dream handheld is not available though some things come close. The technology is becoming available.

Though it may take a few months, here is what I would put together if I had the chance. Including Bluetooth, IButtons, solar panels and light emitting polymer screens...

For links to other linux handhelds, try linuxdevices.com.

My ideal handheld is the size of an A4 pad of paper, so I have to hold it on my left forearm with the fingers of my left hand curled over the end. A4 gives me plenty of screen space for watching real TV, reading real books, writing real emails, browsing real web pages and doing some real showing off.

The front cover is a solar panel, but I can't decide if the cells should be on the inside or the outside to help charge it while I use it or while I'm not using it. Hard one that.

The screen is not heavy-breakable LCD but LEP (brief technical primer, more on Google) or perhaps Xerox Electronic Paper seemingly available under the name Gyricon, pictures here and slight details here.

The choice of processor doesn't bother me much; I'd like to think there are many versions available of my handheld by many manufacturers (to drive the price down) and so many processors will be available but let's pretend the first release will run on a Transmeta just to keep excitement running high.

60 GB or so should be plenty of disk space, 2.5" IDE to keep weight down.

Input via stylus or sticky finger of course, with support for Graffiti, as used on the Palm and many others, also Quickwriting as featured on Slashdot as well as regular handwriting recognition (take your pick) and other pluggable input modules with popup keyboard for those times when you just can't manage to input a tilde (~) or backtick (`) properly.

Connectivity will be provided via a multitide of USB ports (where real keyboards can be plugged), Bluetooth (useless link) in action (good link), wireless ethernet as well as perhaps as many as 4 PCMCIA slots for things that change a lot like GPRS adaptors &c, or radio and TV tuner cards. Yeah! Why not add some Compact Flash while I'm at it? And boring 100 base T ethernet.

In fact I'm going to use the mobile phone card, along with my sound system to make the whole thing into a mobile phone for voice, not just data access. Talking of phones, the built in web cam can be used for video conferencing with (for example) Gnophone.

Better stick some firewire ports on there, too, for good measure, along with a few IRDA ports pointing in a few different directions for those more subversive inter-classroom networks as well as controlling my grannies telly to show off. And talking to my old non-bluetooth mobile which I can't afford to upgrade cos I spent it all on my handheld.

It will have integrated Ibutton support for security and authentification, maybe even built into the BIOS.

What more do I need? Oh yes, an Operating System. Pick your own.

I shall be running Linux with Ximian Gnome because it looks cool (and Bill Gates was nearly right, eye candy counts for a lot if only not to distract you by means of ugliness). I will be running redhat because I find up2date (or redhat channels of RedCarpet) invaluable effort-free way to remove those exploits, and I will finally get round to playing with Rebol.

The first thing I will need to develop is some network scavenging software to grab internet connectivity where it can for syncing imap folders and news, updating "offline web pages" [yikes! MS concept there]. Code to hi-jack available SMTP relays (*cough*). Does this smell a bit like Jini or something like it? I'll need to register my changing location for Gnophone so callers can find me. Perhaps the first thing for company visitors in the future will be to checkin their Ideal Handheld to the company network.

I will load all my favourite books into it as well as the entire classical Mormon works, copies of conference talks Doctrines of Salvation, Journal of Discourses etc, along with the Bible, Book of Mormon, and all of Project Gutenberg.

What will you do with yours? Have I missed any gizmos out? Or gadgets even?"

mutantcamel writes "Eddie Bleasdale, the director of NetProject has been offering £10,000 to the first hacker to infect his Linux machine with a virus for the last two years, and so far no one has hit the jackpot. He's re-announced his challenge to virus writers following a Gartner report which told IT depts. not to trust MS server software because of recent worm attacks on their servers, but a Microsoft exec said yesterday that the hugely successful worm attacks were due to 'tardy' sysadmins."

S. Allen writes: "According to this article, Fujitsu will release the specifications to their RT-Linux based humanoid robot next week to encourage development and research. The article states, 'The software used to program Hoap-1 will run on RT-Linux -- a version of the open-source operating system that is designed for robotic applications, as well as data acquisition and systems control functions. Simulation software will let users test their code before letting it loose on Hoap-1'"

Steve Nakhla writes: "According to this article, Excite@Home has begun snooping users' downloads in order to find copyrighted or pirated material. Violators have their access cut off. As an Excite@home user, this alarms me. What exactly is their definition of copyrighted? Doesn't the New York Times copyright their online articles? Can I not view them any more for fear of violating Excite's policies?"

A reader writes "Now that SCO Forum has been rebadged as Caldera Forum, I decided to duck out of it this year. But according to this interview, Ransom Love doesn't want to make too many changes. The same cannot be said for Linux and Unix though, where it looks like he's pretty much given up on Linux on the desktop except as a thin client with Tarantella. Coincidentally, there's an accompanying interview with Doug Michels, where he talks about life post-Unix. Seems like the two companies are pretty tight. " Update: 08/17 6:29 PM by M : Jason Perlow wrote in with his review of OpenUNIX 8.

A reader writes "Now that SCO Forum has been rebadged as Caldera Forum, I decided to duck out of it this year. But according to this interview, Ransom Love doesn't want to make too many changes. The same cannot be said for Linux and Unix though, where it looks like he's pretty much given up on Linux on the desktop except as a thin client with Tarantella. Coincidentally, there's an accompanying interview with Doug Michels, where he talks about life post-Unix. Seems like the two companies are pretty tight. " Update: 08/17 6:29 PM by M : Jason Perlow wrote in with his review of OpenUNIX 8.

Prior Restraint writes "According to this ZDNet article, Tony Goodhew, a Microsoft program manager, implies that MS will license C# in such a way that Ximian won't be able to implement the ECMA standard." This comes on the heels of Ximian's announcement of working on .Net aka Mono ^[?] .

A reader writes "Bruce Perens is rounding up luminaries including Brian Behlendorf and Laurence Lessig to meet IBM, HP (where he now works) and other companies that have made money from Open Software. Perens says he wants them to give up patent rights for some of their software. I'd say fat chance, but HP is bankrolling the meeting, which will follow LinuxWorld. See the story here."

moon_unit_one writes "Linus Torvalds apparently doesn't think much of the Mach mirokernel and says so in his new autobiography called Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary. See what he says in this ZDNet UK article." The age old mach debate resurrected once again. Anyone have the old Minix logs with Linus? Thats a fun one too.

Anonymous Coward writes "Just when we thought we were safe in Europe, it looks as though patents for business processes could be voted through after all. Check this link."

An anonymous reader sent in linkage to a story talking about HP ditching WinCE for Linux on their Jornada handhelds. As cool as that would be, I'm gonna seriously doubt that its gonna happen. But if they did, I'd have to buy a jornada.

rafa writes: "Caldera seems to have some interesting plans for UnixWare, the operating system they acquired from SCO. Using SCO's Linux Kernel Personality software, they can run Linux software on UnixWare. This might also be used in AIX 5L, according to Ransom Love." The Caldera folks have been talking about this for a long time; what remains to be seen is whether enough customers are interested in the hybrid commercial / Free software system to pay the premium for it. The article quotes Ransom Love as downplaying the touted features of 2.4, saying, "It will probably take another three years to build a [truly enterprise-ready] Linux kernel."

Bilz writes "ZD Net UK has posted an article on Nvidia's upcoming NV20 video chip. According to them, they state that during complex 3D scenes the card performs up to 7 times faster than a GeForce 2 Ultra."

Submissions about the P4 flow in like the tides, so here's a batch of them. Rooster sent us the Hot Hardware take. TBM sent us Ace's extensive comparison of the P4 and K7. Piete submitted a fairly negative review of the chip (between the RDRAM thing, the motherboard thing, and the fact that the chip just isn't much faster for normal use, that's not surprising). Slashdot Minion sent in Hard OCP and Sharky Extreme's respective reviews (including 200fps Quake).

cyber-vandal writes "According to this story on ZD in the UK, Sun is considering switching from Linux to Solaris, even though Solaris doesn't actually run on the MIPS architecture." "Ok guys, we bought this company that seems to be doing ok and we want to drive it into the ground as fast as possible. Suggestions?"