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The Courts

Submission + - Imprisonment without trial proposed in UK (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: According to a BBC article, the head of the UK Association of Chief Police Officers has asked for terrorism suspects to be held "for as long as it takes" to finish an investigation, without being charged, without being given a trial, and with no upper limit to the time this could go on for. I, for one, would be more afraid of the police than of the terrorists if they were given this power.
Operating Systems

Submission + - Will pervasive multithreading make a comeback? (google.com)

Submitted by
exigentsky
exigentsky writes: "Having looked at BeOS technology, it is clear that like NeXTSTEP, it was ahead of its time. Most remarkable to me is the incredible responsiveness of the whole OS. On relatively slow hardware, BeOS could run eight movies simultaneously while still being responsive in all of its GUI controls and launching programs almost instantaneously. Today, more than ten years after BeOS's introduction, its legendary responsiveness is still unmatched. There is simply no other OS (major) that has pervasive multithreading from the lowest level up (requiring no programmer tricks). Is it likely, or at least possible that future versions of Windows or OS X could become pervasively multithreaded without creating an entirely new OS?"
Democrats

Submission + - Why Can't Congress Just Not Send a Bill At All? 1

Submitted by Eldred
Eldred writes: Why do I keep hearing that the Democrats "can't stop the war" in Iraq because they don't have a veto-proof majority. The way I understand it, if they don't send a supplemental spending bill for the war, then the President can no longer spend money on the war and would therefore have to end it? They have a majority. They have "the power of the purse." They can block any war spending bill from passing. So, why can't they just NOT pass a bill and have the war end that way?
Privacy

Submission + - "Search warrants not needed to monitor interne (computerworld.com)

Submitted by
Freedom Party
Freedom Party writes: ""July 09, 2007 (Computerworld) — A federal appeals court has ruled that the government does not need a search warrant to monitor a suspect's e-mail or Internet activity to determine the addresses of e-mails sent by the suspect or the Web pages he is visiting." Another win for the War on Privacy. Yee-haw. :("
Biotech

Submission + - Genome of DNA Pioneer Is Deciphered

Submitted by unchiujar
unchiujar writes: The New York Times reports that the full genome of James D. Watson, one of the discoverers of the structure of DNA in 1953, has been deciphered, marking what some scientists believe is the gateway to an impending era of personalized genomic medicine. Skip to next paragraph A copy of his genome, recorded on a pair of DVDs, is to be presented to Dr. Watson today in a ceremony in Houston by Richard Gibbs, director of the Human Genome Sequencing Center at the Baylor College of Medicine, and by Jonathan Rothberg, founder of the company 454 Life Sciences.
Hardware Hacking

Submission + - New AACS "fix" hacked in a day

Submitted by
VincenzoRomano
VincenzoRomano writes: "ArsTechnica has just published an update to the neverending story about copy protection used in HD DVD and Blu-ray discs and hacker hefforts against it. Quoting the original article:


The ongoing war between content producers and hackers over the AACS copy protection used in HD DVD and Blu-ray discs produced yet another skirmish last week, and as has been the case as of late, the hackers came out on top.
The hacker "BtCB" posted the new decryption key for AACS on the Freedom to Tinker web site, just one day after the AACS Licensing Authority (AACS LA) issued the key.
The article proposes a simple description of the protection schema and a brief look back at how the cracks have slowly chipped away at its effectiveness.
It seems it'll be a long way to an effective solution ... if any.
One could also argue whether all those money spent by the industry in this reace will be worth the results and how long it would take for a return on investment."
Linux Business

Submission + - Dell to sell Novell's version of Linux

Submitted by unchiujar
unchiujar writes: Newsfactor reports Dell's part of the pact with Microsoft and Novell is to purchase SUSE Linux Enterprise Server certificates from Microsoft and establish a program to migrate existing Linux users who are not Dell Linux customers to Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. The deal is geared to companies dealing with a mixture of SUSE Linux and Windows.
Censorship

Submission + - The World's Complicity in Somalia

Submitted by
kingsindian1
kingsindian1 writes: "Democracy Now! is reporting on the growing humanitarian catastrophe in Somalia.
"The UN says that more than 350,000 people have been displaced in Somalia in the past three months, more than anywhere else in the world."
"The escalating war in Somalia has received little attention in the U.S. media especially on broadcast television. Using the Lexis database, Democracy Now examined ABC, NBC and CBS's coverage of Somalia in the evening newscasts over the past three months. The result may surprise you: ABC and NBC has not mentioned the war at all. CBS mentioned the war once. The network dedicated a total of three sentences to the story.""
Space

Submission + - EU Theorists Respond to Tim Thompson

Submitted by pln2bz
pln2bz writes: This past weekend, Slashdot permitted an article that suggested that Electric Universe Theory might have some basis in reality, and a total meltdown on Slashdot's forum ensued. In the past, many Slashdot forum contributors have pointed to Tim Thompson's rebuttal to Don Scott's Electric Sun Hypothesis as a compelling argument against EU Theory. However, just this week, Don Scott has published his own response to Tim Thompson's rebuttal that everybody should take note of. Whether you like it or not, it doesn't appear that Electric Universe Theory is going away any time soon.
Operating Systems

Submission + - Does Dell Have A Linux Problem?

Submitted by
taoman1
taoman1 writes: "Forbes Magazine reports that Dell became a hero to Linux fans worldwide when it announced last week that it would begin selling PCs loaded with the Linux operating system instead of Microsoft's Windows. But a week later Dell may have blown that good will away. Monday the Round Rock, Texas, computer maker announced another Linux deal — but this one is going to anger Linux supporters. That's because many of the people who embrace Linux are very particular about the kind of Linux they want to hug. And Dell's decision to work with Microsoft and Novell to promote Novell's version of Linux is not going to go over well. Is this true?"
IBM

Submission + - New fabrication process promises faster chips

Submitted by unchiujar
unchiujar writes: BBC reports chips could run faster and be more energy efficient thanks to a process from IBM that copies nature's creation of seashells and snowflakes. The process, called airgap, enables trillions of microscopic vacuum holes to be placed between the copper wire in chips to act as an insulator.
Censorship

Submission + - US Censoring Internet?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: It would appear that wikipedia viewers in the US see a "sanitized" version of some articles. For example Shaha Ali Riza (an important part of the Wolfowitz Scandal), both the Background and the Wolfowitz Scandal section are different for users in US locales (generally painting a much better picture of the people involved) than those presented to users in other locales (including, but not limited to, other english language locales such as Australia and the UK).
Sci-Fi

Submission + - Transgenic Cows producing Insulin in Milk,

Submitted by
Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward writes: "A Laboratory from Argentina, produced cows with the gen of insulin in their genome. Alowing them to produce insulin as a precursor in their milk. This is a great news, in the point of view, that no Multinational Laboratory did it before. Thanks"

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