Comment Know your meme (Score 1) 184
In Soviet Russia military networks hack you!
Ask Slashdot: What Will IT Departments Look Like In 5 Years? 184
Lucas123 writes "As consumerization of IT and self-service trends becomes part and parcel of everyone's work in the enterprise, the corporate data center may be left behind and IT departments may be given over to business units as consultants and integrators. 'The business itself will be the IT department. [Technologists] will simply be the enabler,' said Brandon Porco, chief technologist & solutions architect at Northrop Grumman. Porco was part of a four-person panel of technologists who participated at a town hall-style meeting at the CITE Conference and Expo in San Francisco this week. The panel was united on the topic of the future of IT shops. Others said they are not sure how to address a growing generation gap between young and veteran workers, each of whom are comfortable with different technologies. Nathan McBride, vice president of IT & chief cloud architect at AMAG Pharmaceuticals, said he's often forced to deal with older IT workers coming on board who expect his company to support traditional email like Outlook when it uses Google Apps.' Sooner or later, IT departments are going to change. When do you think that will happen, and how will they be different?"
Oslo Needs Your Garbage 202
lister king of smeg writes in with news that Oslo is running out of garbage which it burns to generate heat and electricity. "Oslo, a recycling-friendly place where roughly half the city and most of its schools are heated by burning garbage — household trash, industrial waste, even toxic and dangerous waste from hospitals and drug arrests — has a problem: it has literally run out of garbage to burn. The problem is not unique to Oslo, a city of 1.4 million people. Across Northern Europe, where the practice of burning garbage to generate heat and electricity has exploded in recent decades, demand for trash far outstrips supply." Back in October we told you about a similar garbage shortage facing Sweden.
Comment Apple did not invent pinch to zoom (Score 2) 404
There's more than one way to implement pinch-to-zoom:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waSXkJBKT1s
Fast forward to 2:22: Pinch to zoom as demonstrated by Sony back in 2001; six years before Apple applied for the 7864163 patent.
As this apparently doesn't qualify as prior art; Apple can't claim infringement either.
So specific implementation details must matter. The general idea cannot be what Apple claims ownership of. The idea has been around for a long long time (Minority Report from back in 2002 being yet another example) and hardly qualifies as novel.
Ultra-Orthodox Jews Rally For a More Kosher Internet 430
Hugh Pickens writes "Michael Grynbaum writes that 40,000 ultra-Orthodox Jewish men filed through the gates of Citi Field to discuss the dangers of the Internet. For the attendees, many of whom said they came at the instructions of their rabbis, it was a chance to hear about a moral topic considered gravely important in the Hasidic community: the potential problems that can stem from access to pornography and other explicit content on the uncensored, often incendiary Web. Schlomo Cohen, 24, said he came to Citi Field because the rally was a good way to remind his community to keep temptation at bay. 'Desires are out there,' said Cohen. 'We have to learn how to control ourselves.' The rally was sponsored by a rabbinical group, Ichud Hakehillos Letohar Hamachane, that is linked to a software company that sells Internet filtering software to Orthodox Jews. Those in attendance were handed fliers that advertised services like a 'kosher GPS App' for iPhone and Android phones, which helps users locate synagogues and kosher restaurants. 'No one here is a Luddite who denies the manifold benefits that technology has brought to mankind as a whole,' says Eytan Kobre, spokesman for the event. 'But at a certain point, a mature, thinking individual stops and says, "I've got to make a cost-benefit analysis [of] what ways it is enriching my life, [and] in what ways it is undermining it."'"
French Court Calls Free Google Maps Unfair Competition 238
jfruh writes "A French court has ruled that Google is unfairly subsidizing its free mapping products, making for unfair competition with paid services. This might seem ridiculous, but keep in mind that Google started charging for use of its mapping API once the free version had come to dominate the market."
IBM Snags Patent On Half-Day Off of Work Notifications 163
theodp writes "The USPTO appears to have lowered the bar on obviousness, awarding a patent to IBM Tuesday for its System for Portion of a Day Out of Office Notification. 'Out of office features in existing applications such as Lotus Notes, IBM Workplace, and Microsoft Outlook all implement a way to take a number of days off from one day to many days,' acknowledges purported patent reformer Big Blue. 'Yet, none of these applications contain the feature of letting a person take a half-day or in more general terms, x days and x hours off.' Eureka! And yes, the invention is every bit as obvious as you can imagine."
Comment Re:Give me a break (Score 5, Insightful) 542
If we're throwing around knock-off accusations, Android used to look like this until the iPhone came out, and then Android suddenly started looking and behaving a lot more like iOS, right down to the pinch-zoom gestures that originated with the iPhone.
Please stop perpetuating this myth. There was no mad rush to change Android after the iPhone was announced. Feel free to look up Dianne Hackborn yourself; her word should carry a lot more weight than a picture carefully crafted by some Apple apologist.
It's no surprise at all that Apple is going to try to hinder competitors' efforts to ride the coattails of its design work.
Oh God, please stop repeating Jobs tiring drivel. It serves no purpose, and only make you look like a tool. Let Apple do their own dirty marketing. Apple has no noble agenda, they're fighting increasingly dirty to protect their bottom-line, abusing the patent system to hinder competition, attempting to subvert the work of W3C threatening the very openness of the web.
Their actions are hurting the industry. Yet, you can still find people on a technical forum like this feeling the need to support their actions, modded +5 Insightful no less. I'm appalled.
Apple Granted Patent For Slide To Unlock 622
generalhavok writes "The United States Patent & Trademark Office has approved Apple's patent on the slide to unlock gesture used on iOS devices. Interestingly, this patent was earlier dismissed in Europe due to prior art. With many Android phones using a similar slide gesture, it will be interesting to see how this new patent will affect the patent wars between Apple and Android vendors."
Comment Re:Vlingo does it better. (Score 1) 402
I don't remember when and why I added you to my friends list, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't because of THAT
;-)
Comment Re:Purely out of curiosity (Score 5, Funny) 692
Android speech-to-text actually works pretty well. I'm using it now to write this and I find bark bark shaddup I find that it bark bark shut up damnit bark bark don't make me come down there I find that bark bark okay that's it I'm coming down there argh crash thud bark bark bark bark bark bark
Ask Slashdot: Is Reverse DNS a Worthy Standard For Fighting Spam? 301
drmartin66 makes it to the front page with this question: "Last weekend I installed a new spam filter server for a client, and enabled connection rejection if the sending server did not have a Reverse DNS record. Since then, I have had a number of emails rejected from regulator bodies that do not have a Reverse DNS record, and are refusing to have one created for their email server. What is your opinion of Reverse DNS records? Are they (or should they be) a standard, and required? Or are they useless for spam fighting?"
Lawsuit Claims Windows Phone 7 Spies On Users 136
jfruhlinger writes "Microsoft wants to emulate the success of the iPhone, but they probably didn't want to follow in Apple's footsteps this way: a class action lawsuit claims that Windows Phone 7 is collecting location data on users, even when they request that it stop. But a look at the internals shows that Microsoft might not be acting as Big Brother-ish as it appears."
Acer CEO Declares a Tablets Bubble 692
retroworks writes "According to a story in Digitimes, Acer chairman JT Wang is predicting the end of 'tablet fever.' 'Commenting on tablet PC's impact on the notebook industry, [Acer chairman JT Wang] pointed out that tablet PC fever is already starting to cool down and consumers are also being attracted by notebooks again with Intel's Ultrabooks and Microsoft's Windows 8 the major attractions.' Back to the old model then... PC and laptop sales, driven by Windows upgrades?"
Submission + - Apple Scores Meaningless Dutch Court Victory Again (osnews.com)
Taagehornet writes: "[T]he Dutch court has just banned the sales of all Galaxy S, SII and Ace smartphones in the entire European Union. The judge has ruled that Android 2.x violates Apple's 868 patent which covers scrolling through photos on a touchscreen. Only this one patent is violated — the complaints about two other patents as well as the design patents has been thrown out. In other words, the judge did not agree with Apple that Samsung is copying Apple's design. The injunction only covers the Galaxy smartphones, since they run Android 2.x; Android 3.0 does not violate the patent in question, and hence, sales of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 can continue. In fact, only the Gallery application violates the patent in question, and Samsung has already stated it is going to replace this application on all new Galaxy smartphones from now on — sales won't even be interrupted. In other words — two patents thrown out, design stuff rejected, and only one patent complaint upheld which will cause no harm to Samsung. Apple just scored a meaningless victory."
