Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Mozilla Launches $300,000 Gigabit Community Fund

Posted by Soulskill on from the give-me-gigabit-or-give-me...-well,-at-least-dsl dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Mozilla has officially launched the Gigabit Community Fund, an organization that seeks to 'advance the development, experimentation and implementation of learning and workforce opportunities enhanced by new, super powerful Internet technologies.' The intent is to provide funding around cities like Kansas City and Chattanooga (and more, as fiber networks spread) for people to build open source applications that take advantage of super-fast fiber connections. 'The new $300,000 fund aims to bring discoveries out of the lab and into the field to help move prototypes to Minimum Viable Pilots and get tools in the hands of users. In each city, two, 12-week pilot periods will run, with up to 10 projects receiving awards between $5,000 and $30,000.'"

14 of 36 comments (clear)

  1. New article from soulskill every 40-55 mins by sliceoflife · · Score: 1

    What is this? Beta Filla? Please refrain from commenting too sensibly in order to attempt to save Slashdot.

    1. Re:New article from soulskill every 40-55 mins by hack++slash · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I have noticed today that the article count is somewhat high for slashdot, usually only a few appear which gives people more time to get stuck into the discussions.

      Even if the beta wasn't on the horizon, increasing the article count would probably dilute the content.

      Dice don't appear to understand that articles != slashdot content. Why else would they force an abomination of a comment system on the slashdot users.

      --
      To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
    2. Re:New article from soulskill every 40-55 mins by dcollins · · Score: 1

      Totally agreed. He's trying to exhaust the "audience's" ability to redirect the conversation.

      --
      We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
  2. Soooo close to endgame... by Anachragnome · · Score: 1

    US5722418
    +
    US5644363
    +
    GoogleGlass
    +
    Acceptance
    =
    ????

    If history is any sort of an indicator, any rights we sell today, our children must buy back with blood tomorrow

    1. Re:Soooo close to endgame... by Ultracrepidarian · · Score: 1

      If you purchased them new, you are allowed to keep them for your own use, but you are not allowed to share them with others, or sell them as used. It's OK to read aloud as long as no one is in earshot. Ooops, that is not current law, just what the publishers would like to see.

  3. Alternative to Beta by computersareevil · · Score: 4, Informative

    Will soon be hosted at AltSlashdot.org or a site linked through that domain.

    It will be for the Nerds, by the Nerds, focusing on the Stuff That Really Matters: The community that makes the comments the best part of Slashdot.

    The name will change to avoid any trademark problems.

    Some have suggested encouraging Bruce Perens to resurrect Technocrat.net for the third time. With all due respect to Bruce, the problem with that is he has shown he is not a reliable host. He has twice deleted that site, the second time without warning. I don't think we want to get burned a third time.

    1. Re:Alternative to Beta by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Man, maximum trolling by Slashdot's own userbase, the likes of which even teh GNAA couldn't accomplish in their wildest dreams! Shit, I would have never predicted this! Good job, fellas, good job - though its sad to see Slashdot die by its own hand.

      On a related note, Rob Malda is saying that you're all a loud but vocal minority of bitches and moaners, and he too is dismissing you as a lunatic fringe.

      I am waiting for the day when I may breathe again, posting under my own username.

      -- Ethanol-fueled

    2. Re:Alternative to Beta by t0qer · · Score: 1

      I miss GNAA and The Turd Report. Truly made -1 reading wildly entertaining.

    3. Re:Alternative to Beta by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Dice is lying through their teeth to the advertisers they hope to attract to Slashdot:
      Take the tour and you'll see how they claim the nerds will stick around and read their ads. They call Beta "newsier" and "nerdier", although they're well aware the nerd "audience" they're selling won't tolerate Beta.
      Advertisers, don't get ripped off! Demand an advertising platform that retains the demographic you want to target!

    4. Re:Alternative to Beta by hairyfeet · · Score: 1

      I look forward to actual nerd topics again, hardware, CPUs, GPUs, file systems, all that good old hardware porn we USED to get before all the "ZOMG yo, gotta see this slashvertisement for our new web 3.0 vertical synergy yo!" bullshit.

      Look we ALL know what happened, okay? And don't blame Tim and soulskill, they are just poor schlubs trying to save their jobs which in this economy? Can't really blame 'em. Its really simple, DICE thought they could make DOUBLE the money by selling slashvertisements AND selling ads, but all the slashvertisements were for crap nobody cared about and the ads were just sad so the old guard started laying low, quality went down, then they got more and more lax with the AC trolls to try to make the thread counts look like /. before they bought it and it went straight down the shitter.

      I've already told the altslash guys I'll be happy to clean up the spammers, deal with the crap, if that is what it takes to get a site where geeks can talk about geek stuff without having the "yo be sure to like my vertical empowerment on FB yo!" bullshit? old hairy will be happy to bust ass for free.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  4. FUCK BETA by FUCK+BETA,+FUCK+DICE · · Score: 2, Informative

    Please post this to new articles if it hasn't been posted yet. (Copy-paste the html from here so links don't get mangled!)

    On February 5, 2014, Slashdot announced through a javascript popup that they are starting to "move in to" the new Slashdot Beta design. Slashdot Beta is a trend-following attempt to give Slashdot a fresh look, an approach that has led to less space for text and an abandonment of the traditional Slashdot look. Much worse than that, Slashdot Beta fundamentally breaks the classic Slashdot discussion and moderation system.

    If you haven't seen Slashdot Beta already, open this in a new tab. After seeing that, click here to return to classic Slashdot.

    We should boycott stories and only discuss the abomination that is Slashdot Beta until Dice abandons the project.
    We should boycott slashdot entirely during the week of Feb 10 to Feb 17 as part of the wider slashcott

    Moderators - only spend mod points on comments that discuss Beta
    Commentors - only discuss Beta
    http://slashdot.org/recent - Vote up the Fuck Beta stories

    Keep this up for a few days and we may finally get the PHBs attention.

    -----=====##### LINKS #####=====-----

    Discussion of Beta: http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&id=56395415
    Discussion of where to go if Beta goes live: http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&type=submission&id=3321441
    Alternative Slashdot: http://altslashdot.org (thanks Okian Warrior (537106))

  5. simple bit speed -- poo by niftymitch · · Score: 1

    Fast is fine but big parts of the internet
    are build on assumptions of many talking
    to many...

    That is P2P not just central hubs that manage
    and control all traffic and also have to source
    all trafic.

    What if Netflix was a P2P service and as part of
    a discount strategy some 60% of you upload
    bandwidth and some N-GB of local storage used
    by Netflix to serve up content.

    Sure encryption and other tricks could be well
    employed to preserve valuable content.

    I have had cause to trace route this and that service
    and it is obvious that traffic does not move via any
    short path but by some management heavy power centric
    path. Perhaps this is necessary for FBI and NSA good reasons
    but if so then these pipes should be nationalized, net neutral,
    bigger, and free to all as the Interstate highway system is.

    Yes businesses can build toll roads for low latency trading
    or other needs but the Nation needs to facilitate P2P
    and the cross sectional bandwidth that it can gain with
    great connectivity.

    Heck the next DOCSIS N+1 standard should embrace
    a local box that can proxy bits as part of a neighborhood
    of P2P servers. Just moving trending video, TV and other
    current traffic to a P2P caching context could give us
    vastly better responsive service.

    And sure I like fast too...

    --
    Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
  6. where does the money comes from? by manu0601 · · Score: 1

    Where does the money comes from? It is an NSF partnership: is it just a NSF grant managed by Mozilla?

  7. Slashdot should apply! by danknight48 · · Score: 1

    for people to build open source applications that take advantage of super-fast fiber connections

    Slashdot, you should apply for this.
    Not only will you get between $5,000 and $30,000. Your beta site would be able to abuse all that "high speed fibre" with non-sense whitespace, videos and pictures!

    All you need now is a "supercomputer" fund, so that all you users can upgrade their PC's to run beta.slashdot, at the same speed as classic.slashdot.
    bloatware.slashdot wouldnt go a miss either, you'd pull in alot of youth with this one...

    Ps, fuck beta.