Comment Re:Writer (Score 1) 284
Mandriva 2009, which was released last week, already includes a very late release candidate and then will soon provide the update to the final release. Source
Submission + - Most americans have false sense of online security (net-security.org) 1
BaCa writes: More than half of computer users who think they are protected against online threats like spyware, viruses and hackers actually have inadequate or no online protection, according to an independent research study conducted for Verizon. While 92 percent of participants thought they were safe, the scans revealed that 59 percent were actually vulnerable to a variety of online dangers. Ninety-four percent of those surveyed said they would find it helpful to be able to diagnose or check their online security status on a regular basis to make sure their PCs were safe.
Submission + - Microsoft shuts down Santa for being naughty (kirotv.com)
Josh Fink writes: "While Santa might know if you are naughty or nice, but what do you do when Santa is naughty to you over Windows Live Messenger and encourages you to talk about oral sex? Thats right folks. Once again Microsoft has encouraged kids all around the world to speak to Santa again this year via Northpolelive.com, however this time, Santa has had his AI beefed up it seems. From the article: "Microsoft's holiday cheer soured this week when a reader of a United Kingdom-based technology news site, The Register, reported that a chat between Santa and his underage nieces about eating pizza prompted Santa to bring up oral sex." I am beginning to wonder if Microsoft ever bothered to do a QA test, or check words in its Santa response database."
Submission + - Microsoft finally announce IE8 (msdn.com)
dave writes: "After many months of silence on the IE blog, Microsoft have finally announced IE8, they've not yet mentioned any details, just the name and the fact that they're working on it. Al Billings, the person behind the frequent IE7 blogging, now works for Mozilla and has been frequently critical of the IE teams silence."
Submission + - Anti-p2p Tactics Revealed in Leaked Emails (arstechnica.com)
Keeper Of Keys writes: Nearly 700MB of MediaDefender emails have been harvested from an employee's gmail account, revealing, among other things, the anti-p2p company's culpability for the MiiVi filesharing "honeypot" exposed by TorrentFreak in July, with which they have denied thir involvement. The emails, which include correspondence with clients such as Sony/BMG, have been circulated via bittorrent by a group called MediaDefender-Defender, and have now also been posted online for easy reading, ahead of the presumably imminent entrapment lawsuit.
Submission + - Microsoft loses EU appeal
rcasha2 writes: Microsoft has lost its appeal against the EU fine of almost 500m / $700m. Microsoft could still appeal again at the European Court of Justice. More important than the fine, however, is the confirmation of the ruling that Microsoft must share with competitors information needed for interoperability. This ruling could have an effect on such products as Samba, email clients etc.
Submission + - Microsoft vs European Commission: 0-1 (theregister.co.uk)
Depsidee writes: "Microsoft has lost its appeal against European Commission charges of anti-competitive behaviour.
Bo Vesterdorf the softly spoken retiring judge of the Court of First Instance led the judges into the Luxembourg courtroom and invited everyone to sit. He quickly and quietly delivered the verdict, stood and led the judges out again some six minutes later.
The Court found that Microsoft had indeed failed to supply competitors with sufficient information to allow servers to interoperate effectively. It found Microsoft failed to show that these APIs were intellectual property or that giving them away would have a negative impact on its ability to innovate.
On the bundling of Windows Media Player with its operating system the Court of First Instance again upheld the Commission's stance. It ruled that Microsoft had not shown justification for bundling its Media Player to original equipment manufacturers.
Following the original decision Microsoft had to agree to the imposition of a trustee to oversee the company and check it was complying with court demands. A short list was drawn up and Professor Neil Barrett appointed. But the Court of First Instance ruled that this was an obligation too far. Therefore the court annuled the imposition of a trustee.
On the issue of the 497m fine the Court ruled that the Commission was justified in "assessing the gravity and duration of the infringement and did not err in setting the fine".
Microsoft has two months to appeal the decision based on a point of law."
Bo Vesterdorf the softly spoken retiring judge of the Court of First Instance led the judges into the Luxembourg courtroom and invited everyone to sit. He quickly and quietly delivered the verdict, stood and led the judges out again some six minutes later.
The Court found that Microsoft had indeed failed to supply competitors with sufficient information to allow servers to interoperate effectively. It found Microsoft failed to show that these APIs were intellectual property or that giving them away would have a negative impact on its ability to innovate.
On the bundling of Windows Media Player with its operating system the Court of First Instance again upheld the Commission's stance. It ruled that Microsoft had not shown justification for bundling its Media Player to original equipment manufacturers.
Following the original decision Microsoft had to agree to the imposition of a trustee to oversee the company and check it was complying with court demands. A short list was drawn up and Professor Neil Barrett appointed. But the Court of First Instance ruled that this was an obligation too far. Therefore the court annuled the imposition of a trustee.
On the issue of the 497m fine the Court ruled that the Commission was justified in "assessing the gravity and duration of the infringement and did not err in setting the fine".
Microsoft has two months to appeal the decision based on a point of law."
Submission + - Microsoft loses EU appeal (bbc.co.uk)
Neuticle writes: From the BBC: "Microsoft has lost its appeal against a record 497m euro (£343m; $690m) fine imposed by the European Commission in a long-running competition dispute.
Submission + - Beating the RIAA at their own game?
linkedlinked writes: After reading the latest on the court rulings concerning the RIAA, I had the idea to catch the RIAA with their pants down. Someone should release an original 'song' (it could be a random soundclip) under a permissive license on their website, but in the license, explicitly prohibit downloading it for members of the recording industry. Name it after a big-label song. Then, seed a torrent, and watch all your connections for matches against a list of known RIAA IPs, and proceed to prosecute. If it works, the RIAA either pays up (all lawsuit proceeds to EFF?) or is forced to invalidate their own arguements in court to avoid a lawsuit. Can anyone see a reason this wouldn't work?
Submission + - How MS bought an ISO & got Sweden to say YES! 1
Landreth writes: "According to OS2 World.Com Microsoft Sweden bought the Swedish vote by rounding up Microsoft Gold Partners for the final vote regarding OOXML and by that change what should been a clear NO to a clear YES. To quote from the article:
"To be able to vote all you need is to pay the membership fee to SIS and the total cost for this was 17.000 SEK (2444 USD). Of the 23 new companies that showed up this last minute and where the majority hasn't shown any earlier interest, only Google has a clear agenda regarding OOXML and they are against it."
"Jonas Bosson who participated in today's meeting on behalf on FFII said that he left the meeting in protest and so did also IBM's Swedish local representative Johan Westman."
The article can be found at OS2 World.Com."
"To be able to vote all you need is to pay the membership fee to SIS and the total cost for this was 17.000 SEK (2444 USD). Of the 23 new companies that showed up this last minute and where the majority hasn't shown any earlier interest, only Google has a clear agenda regarding OOXML and they are against it."
"Jonas Bosson who participated in today's meeting on behalf on FFII said that he left the meeting in protest and so did also IBM's Swedish local representative Johan Westman."
The article can be found at OS2 World.Com."
Submission + - Microsoft buys Swedish ooxml vote
Sten Düring writes: "Microsoft bought the Swedish vote in favour of making OOXML a standard.
http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.118215 is the main article in Swedish.
A comment in English: http://stupid.domain.name/node/382"
Submission + - GPL violoation. One man War? (sourceforge.net)
JCWDenton writes: "How can one man enforce his GPL-ed code?
From the writer of Media Player Classic:
Recently I've notified about these two products that they use code from the guliverkli project, one of them is free but closed source and not GPLed player (KMPlayer, http://www.kmplayer.com/), while the other is a fully commercial product (http://www.vx30.com/). There are boundled dshow filters, string, toolbars, dialogs, command line switches, etc..., which can be verified easily by just running the applications and taking a look, or a bit harder by analysing the memory dump. Since I have no better idea about what to do now (I got no reply to the email I sent to kmplayer's developer, it would probably be the same with vx30's too...), I'm posting this as a news here. The developements are going slow anyway because of my job and life, but these cases won't inspire me either.
What would your next step be, or how would you assist this developer in need?"
From the writer of Media Player Classic:
Recently I've notified about these two products that they use code from the guliverkli project, one of them is free but closed source and not GPLed player (KMPlayer, http://www.kmplayer.com/), while the other is a fully commercial product (http://www.vx30.com/). There are boundled dshow filters, string, toolbars, dialogs, command line switches, etc..., which can be verified easily by just running the applications and taking a look, or a bit harder by analysing the memory dump. Since I have no better idea about what to do now (I got no reply to the email I sent to kmplayer's developer, it would probably be the same with vx30's too...), I'm posting this as a news here. The developements are going slow anyway because of my job and life, but these cases won't inspire me either.
What would your next step be, or how would you assist this developer in need?"
Submission + - The End f the Blu-ray/HD DVD War (firingsquad.com)
Alan writes: FiringSquad has a new editorial which they discuss the possibility of a shorter Blu-ray/HD DVD war thanks to the Paramount/Dreamworks deal. They present the possibility that the high-definition battle was previously a war of attrition. With the Paramount deal, they believe the ante have been raised and the format war will soon be unsustainable, forcing someone to play their trump card whether it is the studios, the consumer electronics manufacturers, or even the actors, directors, and screenwriters. Interesting possibiility.
Submission + - The Future of Windows 7 (osweekly.com)
dingdong writes: "Now that rumors of Windows 7 are starting to pour, what is the future of Windows 7? What will Microsoft have to do to be successful with this launch? Matt Hartley writes, "If we are to get serious about Windows 7, we need to accept that Vista is basically a better looking Windows Me release. Like Windows Me, Vista has a lions share of improvements, but at the same time, it is a step backwards as vendors apparently were not ready with their hardware during the OS release.
Then there is the problem of Vista further segmenting the Windows users. Some of them baulked at the idea of using Vista as it was costly, along with offering little outside of improved security. At the end of the day, the next release of Windows had better be able to step up to the plate and find itself in a position to recapture the market share it has lost, as small as it may be."
Submission + - A nanosensor to predict asthma attacks
Roland Piquepaille writes: "Asthma is a common illness which affects at least 300 million people worldwide and which is responsible for about 200,000 deaths every year. But asthma attacks could be detected up to 3 weeks before they happen by testing regularly the breath of asthmatics. If the levels of nitric oxide increase, an attack might happen soon. Now, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have created a nanosensor to warn about oncoming attacks. It can be encased into a handheld device that people blow into to determine the nitric oxide content of their breath. These sensors have only been tested in the lab, but human clinical trials are on the way, meaning that they might appear on the market in a few years — and save lots of lives. Read more for additional references and a picture showing the essential parts of this nanosensor."
