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Stories · 13,059
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Oracle To Increase Investment In SPARC and Solaris
An anonymous reader writes "The Slashdot community has recently questioned what Oracle will do with Sun hardware if and when Oracle's acquisition of Sun closes. And it seems that speculation about the future of SPARC hardware has been common among Slashdot commenters for years. That said, it seems newsworthy that Oracle is going out of their way with some aggressive marketing directed at IBM to state clearly their plans to put more money than Sun does now into SPARC and Solaris." MySQL is not mentioned in this ad, perhaps because (as Matt Asay speculates) the EU is looking closely into that aspect of the proposed acquisition.
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Google To Offer Micropayments To News Sites
CWmike writes "Google is promoting a payment system to the newspaper industry that would let Web surfers pay a small amount for individual news stories, an idea that could help publishers struggling with the impact of the Internet. The plans were revealed in a document Google submitted to the Newspaper Association of America (NAA), which had solicited ideas for how to monetize content online, a task some publishers have had difficulty with. 'The idea is to allow viable payments of a penny to several dollars by aggregating purchases across merchants,' Google said in the document. Google said it had no specific products to announce yet."
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Microsoft Blasts Google Book Deal
eldavojohn writes "With authors, scholars, the DoJ and publishers ripping apart the Google book deal, it's Microsoft's turn. They're claiming it's frankly an illegal 'joint venture' and not a settlement. According to ZDNet, Microsoft's four complaints against the deal are: 1) Future infringements are covered by the settlement, affecting the exclusive rights of absent class members for the life of their copyrights. 2) The deal gives away to Google vast rights that were not contested in the underlying litigation. The lawsuits dealt with Google's displaying brief excerpts. Instead of compromising on that infringement, the parties instead agreed to give away the rights to display entire books. 3) The publishers who negotiated this deal each have undisclosed side deals with Google, which will likely give them better terms than the class will get. 4) The publishers plan to exclude their own works from the deal. You might recall over a year ago Microsoft's own scanning effort died."
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Foxconn and Hon Hai Both Planning ARM Smartbooks
wonkavader writes "Tuesday was a good day for smartbook news. News articles from Sept. 8 tell us that both Foxconn and Hon Hai are developing ARM-based smartbooks. PC World reports that Foxconn's devices 'use a few different Linux operating systems, including one similar to the Intel-backed Moblin OS and one developed by Foxconn. The company is currently looking into Google's Android mobile OS for possible use as well.' Reuters reports that Hon Hai is also developing them. Hon Hai makes the iPhone and the Wii."
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China Considering Cuts In Rare-Earth Metal Exports
SillySnake sends in a report from the Telegraph on draft plans in China to restrict exports of rare earths. "Beijing is drawing up plans to prohibit or restrict exports of rare earth metals that are produced only in China and play a vital role in cutting edge technology, from hybrid cars and catalytic converters, to superconductors, and precision-guided weapons. A draft report by China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has called for a total ban on foreign shipments of terbium, dysprosium, yttrium, thulium, and lutetium. Other metals such as neodymium, europium, cerium, and lanthanum will be restricted to a combined export quota of 35,000 tonnes a year, far below global needs."
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In the UK, T-Mobile and Orange To Merge
EthanV2 sends in BBC coverage of the merger plans of Orange and T-Mobile in the UK. "T-Mobile and Orange plan to merge their UK businesses, creating a mobile phone giant with 28.4 million customers. If completed, a deal between Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile and Orange owner France Telecom would see a firm with sales of €9.4 B (£7.0 B, $13.4 B). It would be the UK's largest provider, overtaking Telefonica's O2, with about 37% of the mobile market. ... However, it is likely that competition authorities in the UK and EU will probe the deal."
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Asus Plans Dual-Display E-Reader
adeelarshad82 writes "Yet more confirmation has emerged that Asus plans its own e-book reader. An Asus representative in the UK appears to have confirmed this, with the additional details that there may be a value-priced as well as a premium version. The article guesses at the price point for the low-end model — around £100 ($192). Unlike current e-book readers, which take the form of a single flat screen, the Asus device has a hinged spine, like a printed book. This, in theory, enables its owner to read an e-book much like a normal book, using the touchscreen to 'turn' the pages from one screen to the next. Asus showed off a prototype of the device at the CeBIT trade show in March." Reader NeverBotedBush adds, "Asus's e-reader will likely have color touch screens, a speaker, a webcam, and a microphone, along with the capability to make inexpensive Skype calls." The color screen rules out using E Ink technology, so long battery life seems to be unlikely.
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Future of NASA's Manned Spaceflight Looks Bleak
coondoggie writes "Things don't look good for NASA when the report outlining its future begins: 'The US human spaceflight program appears to be on an unsustainable trajectory. [NASA] is perpetuating the perilous practice of pursuing goals that do not match allocated resources. Space operations are among the most complex and unforgiving pursuits ever undertaken by humans. It really is rocket science. Space operations become all the more difficult when means do not match aspirations.' Today the Augustine Commission handed to the White House the Review of US Human Space Flight Plans Committee summary report, after months of expert review and testimony. Many observers expected a bleak report, but ultimately the future of US manned space flight will hinge on how the report's conclusions are interpreted. Keep in mind too that NASA has spent almost $8 billion of a planned $40 billion to develop systems for a return to the Moon."
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Bootstrapping a New Technology?
djk1024 writes "I've just filed for a patent on a new approach to motion capture that is simple, cheap, easy, accurate, and portable. It's RF-based, accurate to 1 mm, and simple enough that a sophisticated hobbyist could build one in a couple weekends from plans and standard electronics. So now what? I quit my job and have been working on this full-time for the past couple of years; now I'm out of money so can't continue development on my own. I'm also not an electrical or RF guy so I can't carry out my own independent development on the electronics. I'm quite frustrated at this point. I've been in the software development field for over 30 years and have gone through a large number of startups, but always just as the head techie, and always as part of a team. This doing it alone sucks. I would love some advice on how best to go forward."
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The New VA Health Plan Is Second Life
theodp writes "Remember when Catbert informed Dilbert that the new company health plan is Google? In another case of life imitating Dilbert, combat veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder are being provided with a US Army-sponsored virtual world in Second Life (slideshow) to help deal with their condition. Developed by USC's Institute for Creative Technologies, it is hoped that the veterans-only virtual world Coming Home and its planned activities will promote conversations that can help reduce PTSD. The Avatar will see you now, Sergeant."
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SOE Also Making a New Star Wars MMOG?
Hand Solo writes 'Ten Ton Hammer has an inside scoop on SOE making a new browser-based MMOG based on Star Wars. Rumor is that it will be run on the Free Realms platform. This is generating a lot of buzz around the net. Quoting: 'Former and current Star Wars Galaxies players can still remember the sting of the 'New Game Experience' that changed the face of that game for everyone. SOE has repeatedly said that they have learned from their mistakes, and plan to not repeat them. If SOE isn't expressly targeting the hardcore segment this time around, they (unlike BioWare) won't have quite the same initial level of expectations to deal with. Don't let us give you the impression that SOE plans to take on BioWare, and their highly anticipated MMOG debut, The Old Republic, particularly given the engine the game is rumored to be based on. More plausible is that it will be based off the Clone Wars CGI animated film, offering a more stylized approach to the universe. "
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Symantec Wants To Use Victims To Hunt Computer Criminals
Hugh Pickens writes "Business Week reports that security experts plan to recruit victims and other computer users to help them go on the offensive and hunt down hackers. '"It's time to stop building burglar alarms to keep people out and go after the bad guys," says Rowan Trollope, senior vice-president for consumer products at Symantec, the largest maker of antivirus software. Symantec will ask customers to opt in to a program that will collect data about attempted computer intrusions and then forward the information to authorities. Symantec will also begin posting the FBI's top 10 hackers and their schemes on its Web site, where customers go for software updates and next year the company will begin offering cash bounties for information leading to an arrest. The strategy has its risks as hackers who find novices on their trail may trash their computers or steal their identities as punishment. Citizen hunters could also become cybervigilantes and harm bystanders as they pursue criminals but Symantec is betting customers won't mind being disrupted if they can help snare the bad guys. "I'm convinced we can clean up the Internet in 10 years if we can peel away the dirt and show people the threats they're facing," says Trollope.'"
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How a Team of Geeks Cracked the Spy Trade
drunken_boxer777 sends us to The Wall Street Journal for a lengthy article on a small tech company, Palantir Technologies, that is making the CIA, Pentagon, and FBI take notice. The submitter adds, "And yes, their company name is a reference to what you think it is." "One of the latest entrants into the government spy-services marketplace, Palantir Technologies has designed what many intelligence analysts say is the most effective tool to date to investigate terrorist networks. The software's main advance is a user-friendly search tool that can scan multiple data sources at once, something previous search tools couldn't do. That means an analyst who is following a tip about a planned terror attack, for example, can more quickly and easily unearth connections among suspects, money transfers, phone calls and previous attacks around the globe. ... With Palantir's software 'you can actually point to examples where it was pretty clear that lives were saved.'"
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Intel's Braidwood Could Crush SSD Market
Lucas123 writes "Intel is planning to launch its native flash memory module, code named Braidwood, in the first or second quarter of 2010. The inexpensive NAND flash will reside directly on a computer's motherboard as cache for all I/O and it will offer performance increases and other benefits similar to that of adding a solid-state disk drive to the system. A new report states that by achieving SSD performance without the high cost, Braidwood will essentially erode the SSD market, which, ironically, includes Intel's two popular SSD models. 'Intel has got a very good [SSD] product. But, they view additional layers of NAND technology in PCs as inevitable. They don't think SSDs are likely to take over 100% of the PC market, but they do think Braidwood could find itself in 100% of PCs,' the report's author said."
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Hosting Data-Transfer Quotas Are Fading Out
miller60 writes "One of the largest Web hosts has scrapped data transfer quotas on all its shared hosting plans, retiring one of the oldest metrics in the hosting industry. With its latest move, 1&1 Internet has gone all-in on 'unlimited' hosting, a controversial practice viewed by many as a gimmick that promises more than it can deliver. Yahoo and Go Daddy have also experimented with unlimited plans, as the shared hosting sector responds to a tough economy, tough competition, and predictions that it will be made obsolete by cloud computing."
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Educause Announces Plans To Sign .edu TLD With DNSSEC
jhutkd writes "Educause (who run the .edu gTLD) announced today that they will deploy DNSSEC and sign the .edu zone by the end of March 2010. This will enable all educational institutions to benefit from deploying DNSSEC via the secure delegation hierarchy starting with IANA's ITAR (a temporary surrogate for the root zone signing), going through .edu, down to schools, and potentially leading all the way down to individual departments. Unlike larger gTLDs like .org, the churn of adding new and deleting old zones in .edu is much lower (due to the fact that there are tight controls on who may register for a delegation). Thus, many of the hassles of adding new DS records and maintenance procedures might be more manageable and help speed DNSSEC's rollout in this branch of the DNS hierarchy."
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UK Royal Society Claims Geo-Engineering Feasible
krou writes "The BBC is reporting that a UK Royal Society report claims that geo-engineering proposals to combat the effects of climate change are 'technically possible.' Three of the plans considered showed the most promise: 'CO2 capture from ambient air'; enhancing 'natural reactions of CO2 from the air with rocks and minerals'; and 'Land use and afforestation'. They also noted that solar radiation management, while some climate models showed them to be ineffective, should not be ignored. Possible suggestions included: 'a giant mirror on the Moon; a space parasol made of superfine aluminum mesh; and a swarm of 10 trillion small mirrors launched into space one million at a time every minute for the next 30 years.'"
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Will You Stream Or Download Your Mobile Music?
mikp writes "In a David-and-Goliath style fight, small music companies are battling it out with established behemoths to see who can own the future of mobile music. Spotify, the Europe-based music streaming company, is about to launch its iPhone app and has plans to develop it for other mobile platforms soon. In a preview, Spotify shows how you can cache songs to your iPhone so that you don't always need a connection but the songs don't remain on your iPhone permanently. Nokia, on the other hand, has just announced two more music phones that will feature Comes With Music, an unlimited music-download service that involves a one time fee, which is part of the price of the CWM phone, and lets you download music for free (and you get to keep it) for a year. The question remains, are people more likely to stream or download music on their mobile phones?"
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UK Plans To Link Criminal Records To ID Cards
Death Metal writes with this excerpt from ComputerWeekly.com about the UK's national ID card scheme: "Privacy advocates have reacted angrily to reports that the government plans to link national identity records to criminal records for background checks on people who work with children and vulnerable people. Up to 11 million such workers could be affected immediately if the plan goes ahead. Phil Booth, national co-ordinator of privacy advocates NO2ID, said the move was consistent with the various forms of coercion strategy to create so-called volunteers for national ID cards. 'Biometrics are part of the search for clean, unique identifiers,' Phil Booth said. He said the idea was patently ridiculous when the Home Office was planning to allow high street shops and the Post Office to take fingerprints for the ID card."
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Japan Plans $21B Space Power Plant
Mike writes "Japan has announced plans to send a $21 billion solar power generator into space that will be capable of producing one gigawatt of energy, or enough to power 294,000 homes. The project recently received support from Mitsubishi Electric Corp. and IHI Corp, who are now teaming up in the race to develop new technology within four years that can beam electricity back to Earth without the use of cables. Japan hopes to test a small solar satellite decked out with solar panels by the year 2015."