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Microsoft

Submission + - Nuclear Waste

Submitted by Take my taxes, please.
Take my taxes, please. writes: I have a friend who works for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. This person told me that chairman Dale E. Klein (http://interactive.snm.org/index.cfm?PageID=5308& RPID=277) has mandated that the NRC convert its office software systems to Microsoft products (Word, Excel, Outlook, etc.) from Corel's suite, switching over a system that, in my friend's opine, 'works just fine'. This sounds fishy to me. Being that the current systems interact with other proprietary systems within the commission, does this retraining, reprogramming, and extra licensing sound like an efficient streamlining move, or a disruptive mandate to fix what ain't broken so that the organization matches what the new boss is most comfortable with? I feel for my friend, but I feel more for my tax bill.
Republicans

Submission + - GOP Chairman Trying to Bar Ron Paul

Submitted by
Hubbell
Hubbell writes: "Saul Anuzis, Chairman of GOP in Michigan is starting a petition to bar Ron Paul from future GOP debates "because of remarks the Texas congressman made that suggested the Sept. 11 attacks were the fault of U.S. foreign policy.""
Television

Submission + - Cracked before it's even out the door

Submitted by Lord_Ukko
Lord_Ukko writes: The boys and girls have done it again. The new keys for AACS have already been cracked and the discs aren't even on store shelves yet. You can find the story on Ars Technica. Here is the link.
Editorial

Submission + - Why the hate for database music management?

Submitted by
conigs
conigs writes: "One of the things we as geeks often champion is a database file system. We tend to agree that it would offer much more freedom over the antiquated file-folder paradigm. Our files are digital; they can live anywhere. Why should they be limited to existing in one folder/directory (saved searched/aliases/shortcuts/links aside)? If we acknowledge the advantages of a database file system, why do so many people rally against a database music/media library? Music already has a plethora of metadata associated with it, making flexible, on the fly organization possible. Why limit its organization to a rigid folder hierarchy? This issue tends to come about often when discussing iTunes/iPod and how so many people just want to drag their music from their file system and not be bothered by the database.

The general complaints about Apple/iTunes/iPods aside, what do people have against a database music library?"
Businesses

Submission + - Don't suffer with constipation, Isagenix will help

Submitted by
noviorbis
noviorbis writes: "How to beat constipation, IBS, bloating, stomach pain and skin problems while gaining more energy and a flatter stomach at the same time Yes it can be done. It is so amazing, so many people suffer for years from the above mentioned problems, they use products such as Milk of Magnesia, Pepto Biznal and others, and believe they will cure them."
Slashdot.org

Submission + - Skill based immigration better than H1B?

Submitted by ghoul
ghoul writes: Congress is talking about shifting to skill based immigration instead of family based immigration. This should immediately make it easier for Indian and Chinese Engineers and Scientists to immigrate on green cards without needing to go through the H1B no mans land. This is because under the current system they get stuck as the quota are set to be 7% of total from any country in the world irrespective of population size. This means the Vatican gets the same sized quota as China or India. In the new system the losers are Latin Americans who are mostly unskilled labourers (note mostly I know quite a few Brilliant latin american post grads) but used to be able to get in easier as there being a large number of latin american countires each country got 7%. How does the Slashdot community which has strong opinions on H1B feel about this? As these new workers will be on Green cards they wont be beholden to companies and should not depress the market as they wont take any shit from companies. In fact if the green card process can be shortened down to 6 months H1Bs can be abolished all together. Given this if people still feel this is not right are we still talking about protecting jobs or about fear of the stranger? Canada, Britain and Australia seem to be doing very well with these kind of point based systems.
Television

Submission + - When will broadcast TV die?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: This article about how to hook up your PC to your living room TV ends up predicting that "I think in the future, the broadcast stations will all turn off. There is a very limited amount of content on them." The billion+ videos on sites like YouTube, Revver or LuluTV dwarf the broadcast and cable stations that are "numbered in the hundreds." Is the snacky nature of Internet video going to rollover the old school broadcast stations? Or will the low cost of broadcasting to millions give the old stations a perpeptual advantage of the new Internet sites that must pay bandwidth to deliver each and every copy?
United States

Submission + - FAQ: The H-1B battle

Submitted by jcatcw
jcatcw writes: The federal government received, in a single day, far more applications for H-1B visas than the 65,000 alloted. Now, both the Senate and the House are considering raising the cap at the urging of high-tech companies. In the House, a broad immigration bill called the STRIVE Act of 2007, for Security Through Regularized Immigration and a Vibrant Economy, includes a proposal to raise the annual H-1B cap to 115,000 visas at first and to as many as 180,000 visas in the future — figures that could match what the Senate proposes in its reform bill. President Bush has repeatedly voiced support for an H-1B cap increase.
Power

Submission + - Solar-grade silicon - real cheap real soon

Submitted by g8oz
g8oz writes: On May 2nd the judging committee for the MIT Ignite Clean Energy (ICE) Competition announced that RSI Silicon, was the winner of the 2007 Business Presentation Competition. RSI Silicon is a Massachusetts based startup has developed a process for manufacturing solar-grade silicon at a fraction of the cost of current methods. The projected production cost is $7-9 per kg, versus $25-30 per kg via a typical Siemens process plant. The process promises to help deal with the current supply problem the world faces as the demand for solar cells explodes.
Software

Submission + - Start-ups hardest hit by Microsoft patent claims

Submitted by MsManhattan
MsManhattan writes: Microsoft's patent claims will hit start-ups and other small businesses based on the open-source model the hardest, legal experts and open-source advocates say. Even if the company pursues licensing arrangements instead of legal action, as it has indicated it would prefer, "There's no way a small company ... can compete against the patent portfolio of any big company. The very people that Microsoft's trying to collect from are the people least likely to be able to pay them any significant amount of money," says Matt Asay, vice president of business development for open-source developer Alfresco Software Inc. In general, open-source supporters view Microsoft's actions this week as "an attempt to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt and make people hesitant to use open source as an alternative to commercial products" and to mask the lackluster reception for Vista, Office 2007 and other under-performing products. And some have suggested that Microsoft will suffer a backlash effect. Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, notes "The same threat ... Microsoft is holding over open-source users' heads could be turned on the software giant, which itself has used open-source or freely available technology to develop its own commercial products. In fact, there is just as much potential patent infringement in Windows than there is in open source."
Education

Submission + - Hadron Super Collidor - Detailed Profile

Submitted by
davco9200
davco9200 writes: "For those that need their physics a little pre-chewed, the New York Times has a lengthy profile of the Large Hadron Collider (reg. required). The article covers the basics (size = 17 miles, cost = 8 billion, energy consumption = 14 trillon electron volts) and history but also provides interesting interviews the scientists and goes into detail on the expected experiments. There are photos, video and nifty interactive graphic."
Software

Submission + - MIT Media Lab Releases New Programming Language

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Efforts to make computer programming accessible to young people began in the late 1970s with the advent of the personal PC, when another programming language with roots at MIT — Logo — allowed young people to draw shapes by steering a turtle around a screen by typing out commands. But the path to mastering most programming languages has been strewn with obstacles, since students needed to figure out not only the underlying logic but also master a brand new syntax, observe strict rules about semicolons and bracket use, and figure out what was causing error messages even as they learned the program. By contrast, Scratch — a free download at scratch.mit.edu — is easy enough for kindergarten-age children to use.
United States

Submission + - Indian software firms abusing H1B visas?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: It's not a big surprise and is in fact a known fact that a bunch of Indian IT companies, that have opened offices in the US , engage in outright abuse of H1B visas by bringing "highly-skilled" workers from India. From this Times-of-India article, "As the US Senate gets ready to take up the comprehensive immigration reform legislation, the two top law makers — Republican Senator Charles Grassley and Democratic Senator Richard Durbin — said "more and more it appears that companies are using H-1B visas to displace qualified, American workers." The companies the senators sent letters to were Infosys Technologies, Wipro Ltd., Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., Patni Computer Systems, I-Flex Solutions Inc., Satyam Computer Services Ltd., Larsen & Toubro Infotech Ltd., Tech Mahindra Americas Inc. and Mphasis Corp. As if outsourcing of jobs to India wasn't enough, these companies are setting up shops right here in the US to bring in cheap labour resulting in lower wages and displaced American workers.
Wireless Networking

Submission + - Retailers Still Using WEP? Learn Nothing from TJX

Submitted by
SkyDude
SkyDude writes: "Retailers haven't learned from TJX — still running WEP by ZDNet's George Ou — When I blogged earlier this week about TJX's failure to secure their wireless LAN and how it may end up costing TJX a billion dollars, I knew that it was merely the tip of the iceberg with so many retailers still running WEP encryption. As if WEP wasn't already broken enough, WEP is now about 20 times faster to crack than in mid-2005 when TJX's WEP-based wireless LAN was broken and I knew from experience that most retailers were still running WEP. I decided to stroll through town and check on some of the largest retail stores in the country to see how they're doing today. The reason I looked at the large retailers is because they're the big juicy targets with millions of credit card transactions that the TJX hackers love. What I found was truly disturbing and I'm going to tell you what I found. http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=487&tag=nl.e539"

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