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Slashback: Mutuality, Transport, Spyware

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the goodbye-for-now-alabama dept.

Slashback with more unintentionally odd clip art in Microsoft work for fire, Las Vegas monorail progress, the resolution of SonicBlue and TiVo's legal dispute, and more. Read on for the details.

Well, while we were switching things around here at the ad agency ... An anonymous reader writes "While looking around on Microsoft's site checking out the new Tablet PCs I noticed something very out of Place. In one of their Flash Demos for the Tablet PC there is an Apple Powerbook 1400! To see it for yourself, the flash is located here (then "Tablet PC Overview Demo," then "Tablet PC," then "Powerful") The first computer is really that Powerbook! Pic here."

What about to the legal brothels? Sacarino writes "Back in April, Slashdot ran a story about the Monorail project Las Vegas was embarking upon. It would appear that things are progressing nicely. "It's ugly" critics will be put to shame, the designers did a great job of making it non-obtrusive. (if that's possible in Vegas) Soon you too will pile off the airplane, trudge onto the monorail, then run into the casino to spend that money....ahh, Vegas."

Out of court, out of mind. Enry writes "SONICblue and TiVo have dropped the patent infringement lawsuits they filed against each other. The press release reads: "We believe our energies are better spent expanding the market for Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) rather than fighting each other. Both sides believe in the merits of their respective positions, but the overall success of the DVR category is what is most important to the companies at this time." Take that, AdAge!"

Sounds like a nice way to watch movies. For those intrigued by a 640x480, QWERTY-keyboard color, clamshell-case PDA as embodied by the Zaurus 5600, patrickoehlinger writes "Just found news and pictures about the new Sharp Zaurus SL-C700 released in Japan. With a 640 x 480 pixel display, a small design and a great keyboard! Golem.de has a article with pictures, but it's in German."

Would the BBC spy on you? An anonymous reader writes "The previous discussion on RedSheriff on slashdot was extremely confusing as well as mostly off-topic. The fact is, the BBC is downloading spyware to your machine when you surf their site. Very disappointing and surprising. I suggest e-mailing them to let them know what you think. The problem and remedies are covered in Google groups: "

7 of 264 comments (clear)

  1. BBC and spyware by Slashdotess · · Score: 5, Informative

    Well, it's unfortunate but a lot more sites are doing that, as far as I can see. I always get gator popups here at sparknotes for example and it's a pain to click no all the time.

    Well, I guess my 2 cents wont get very far =/

    1. Re:BBC and spyware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      An extremely effective solution I've found is to set up Internet Junkbuster proxy (at http://www.junkbuster.com/ijb.html) on your own computer. On Windows systems, you can have it run as a service. Have your web browser use the proxy, and whenever you see an annoying ad, just add it to the blockfile. The proxy automatically rereads the block file if it's updated while it's running, so changes take effect immediately. Just a couple seconds ago, it blocked a potential x-10 ad :P

    2. Re:BBC and spyware by doorbot.com · · Score: 5, Informative

      If you used Mozilla on your Windows box you wouldn't have that problem... I just tried it for myself and no popups or Gator installs.

    3. Re:BBC and spyware by Moonshadow · · Score: 5, Informative
      The Proxomitron is another such solution, and offers such nifty features such as inline ad filtering/right-click unlocking/prevention of annoying javascript/anything else you can do with a regex. Definintely a recommended tool.

      Strangely enough, though, I've been using Phoenix for a while now, and have had no problem with popups. :D

  2. BBC privacy policy by elvum · · Score: 5, Informative

    The BBC mentions their use of RedSheriff in their privacy policy. RedSheriff have their own privacy policy.

  3. No legal brothels in Las Vegas, sorry... by weave · · Score: 5, Informative
    A common misunderstanding is that prostitution is legal in Las Vegas. It's not. It's only legal in counties where the population is less than 400,000 -- which is all Nevada counties except for two. One is Clark County where Las Vegas sits, the other is where Reno is.

    Sorry, you'll just have to drive out to the ole ranch there ya city slicker!

  4. Re:redsheriff and Java VM sandbox by jon_eaves · · Score: 5, Informative

    They're not.

    It's a Java applet that's like a cgi traced image. It's used for user tracking. It's not any more sinister than WebTrends or any of the other post-processing tools.

    Caveat: I worked for the company that wrote the first version of this software that was used by Red Sheriff.