existentialentropist - Slashdot User

Submission + - So where are my technology e-books? 1

Submitted by darkeye on Wednesday December 02, 2009 @05:27AM

darkeye writes: With e-ink and e-books coming of age, it would be kind of obvious, that the first adopters of this technology would be tech enthusiasts themselves — who, for the most part, will be reading thick technology books, and also using them as reference. Anyone who has tried to travel with his tech books knows the weight of dead trees in their backpack, and would appreciate all that info in a single e-book, to be read on an e-book reader or on a laptop.

But — where are these e-books? Why is the paper edition still the default? Looking at major online book stores, either you're being forced into proprietary hardware & software like the Amazon Kindle http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Wireless-Reading-Display-Generation/dp/B0015T963C/ref=amb_link_86172951_2?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-1&pf_rd_r=1PQRCJAZ1HS0S6YHSB0G&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=502000191&pf_rd_i=507846 , or you're not offered an e-book at all (Barns & Nobles, http://search.barnesandnoble.com/ , despite having their own e-book reader, the Nook, http://www.barnesandnoble.com/nook/ ), or you're stuck with viewing online and downloading a limited number of inconvenient watermarked chapters for a subscription fee (Safari online, http://www.safaribooksonline.com/ ). Publishers direct online stores usually don't offer e-books at all. It's only InformIT (http://www.informit.com/) that offers you e-books, at about a 20% discount when compared to the paper version.

So where are the e-books? When is it, that the default is going to be the environmentally friendly and convenient way of sharing written information? When are the reduced costs of this form of dissemination shared with the readers themselves?

Submission + - Black Screen of Death not Microsoft's fault (pcpro.co.uk) 4

Submitted by Barence on Wednesday December 02, 2009 @05:00AM

Barence writes: Microsoft says reports of 'Black Screen of Death' errors aren't caused by Windows Updates, as claimed by a British security firm. The software giant claims November's Windows Updates didn't alter registry keys in the way described by Prevx, which said that the Microsoft Patches caused PCs to boot with just a black screen and a Windows Explorer window. Microsoft is now blaming the problem on malware. Prevx has issued a grovelling apology on its own blog.

Submission + - Anti-Piracy Group Refuses Bait, DRM Breaker Goes T (torrentfreak.com)

Submitted by coaxial on Wednesday December 02, 2009 @04:36AM

coaxial writes: In Denmark, it's legal to make copies of commercial videos for backup or other private purposes. It's also illegal to break the DRM that restricts copying of DVDs. Deciding to find out which law mattered, Henrik Anderson reported himself for 100 violations of the DRM-breaking law (he ripped his DVD collection to his computer) and demanded that the Danish anti-piracy Antipiratgruppen do something about. They promised him a response, then didn't respond. So now he's reporting himself to the police. He wants a trial, so that the legality of the DRM-breaking law can be tested in court.

Submission + - Lightning Crashes, from Musical Tesla Coils (chicagotribune.com)

Submitted by heychris on Wednesday December 02, 2009 @02:21AM

heychris writes: You've gotta love the Chicago Tribune's story on Tesla Coil hobbyists from the first sentence. "Under a starry Saturday sky behind a Lake Zurich warehouse, three men unload a small flamethrower, electric cabling, neon-tube "light sabers," about 80 pounds of chain mail and two 7-foot devices that look like monster-movie props." So what does one do with 1.6 million (sorry, not 1.21 giga-) watts and a Tesla coil or two? Play 110dB music, of course.

Submission + - Law enforcement guidebooks leaked

Submitted by

sunbird

on Wednesday December 02, 2009 @01:34AM

sunbird writes: "Buried in comments to a blogger's post about his research regarding Sprint's release of GPS records to law enforcement are the law enforcement guidance manuals issued by yahoo (pdf), facebook (pdf), and myspace. (pdf) Each provides helpful hints for law enforcement regarding the specific data available (some of which may be obtained with a mere subpoena and without any judicial scrutiny), and even sample request language to use in different circumstances. According to the manual, facebook retains IP information about its users for 30 days and has an application called "Neoprint" to deliver a handy packet of information about subscribers, including profile contact information, mini-feed, friend listing (with friend's facebook ID), group listing and messages. There is little oversight of this practice in the U.S. because the Department of Justice does not report the number of pen registers issued, notwithstanding a 1999 law requiring reports, and there is no reporting requirement for court orders issued under the Stored Communications Act."

Submission + - Microsoft to switch focus to Windows 8 in June

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 02, 2009 @12:27AM

An anonymous reader writes: Ars Technica:
Microsoft will be switching internal focus from Windows 7 to Windows 8 in fiscal year 2011. Microsoft's fiscal year starts in July, which is only eight months away. According to Microsoft's roadmaps, the release of Windows 8 is scheduled for release in 2012.

Submission + - Dirt 2 PC Game Demo Released, DX11 vs. DX9 Tested (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid on Wednesday December 02, 2009 @12:22AM

MojoKid writes: The PC demo for Codemaster's upcoming DirectX 11 racing title, Dirt 2 has just hit the web and is available for
download. Dirt 2 is a highly anticipated racing sim, that also happens to feature leading-edge graphics effects. In addition to a DirectX 9 code path, Dirt 2 also utilizes a number of DirectX 11 features, like hardware tessellated dynamic water, animated crowd, dynamic cloth effects, in addition to DirectCompute 11-accelerated high definition ambient occlusion (HADO), full floating point high dynamic range (HDR) lighting, and full screen resolution post processing. Performance-wise DX11 didn't take its toll as much as you'd expect this early on in its adoption cycle.

Submission + - New technique to "revolutionise" astronomy (cosmosmagazine.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 01, 2009 @11:54PM

An anonymous reader writes: There is a frustrating amount of light pollution in the night sky. But a new invention could "revolutionise" the way astronomers see the stars, said an Australian-German collaboration last night.

Submission + - Microsoft delivers Exchange 2010 release candidate (pcauthority.com.au)

Submitted by Slatterz on Wednesday August 19, 2009 @06:06PM

Slatterz writes: Microsoft has made available a release candidate of Exchange Server 2010, the forthcoming version of its widely used email server platform. The release follows the availability of a beta version earlier this year. Available to download now from the TechNet site, Exchange 2010 RC is feature complete, according to Microsoft, and can co-exist with earlier versions such as Exchange 2007 and 2003, making it easier for customers to begin test deployments. The company also said it will be possible to perform an in-place upgrade of pilot deployments once the final version is released, expected later this year.

UK Plans To Monitor 20,000 Families' Homes Via CCTV 693

Posted by timothy on Sunday August 02, 2009 @05:02AM from the words-fail-but-pictures-deliver dept.

metrix007 points out a story in the Sunday Express with more surveillance-camera madness from the UK, where the government now wants to place 20,000 CCTV cameras to monitor families ("the worst families in England") within their own homes, to make sure that "kids go to bed on time and eat healthy meals and the like. This is going too far, and hopefully will not pass. Where will it end?"

Submission + - Google releases open source NX server (techworld.com.au)

Submitted by

wisesifu

on Monday July 13, 2009 @03:34PM

wisesifu writes: "Amid the fanfare of last week's Chrome OS announcement, Google quietly released an open source NX server, dubbed Neatx, for remote desktop display. NX technology was developed by NoMachine to handle remote X Window connections and make a graphical desktop display usable over the Internet. "FreeNX's primary target is to replace the one closed component and is written in a mix of several thousand lines of Bash, Expect and C, making FreeNX difficult to maintain," according to Google."Designed from scratch with flexibility and maintainability in mind, Neatx minimizes the number of involved processes and all code is split into several libraries." Neatx is written in Python, with a few wrapper scripts in Bash and one program written in C "for performance reasons". There has already been some speculation that Neatx will be the default display server for the upcoming Chrome OS. Google insists the release date was just a coincidence."

Submission + - Is Oracle getting ready to kill OpenSolaris? (computerworld.com)

Submitted by

CWmike

on Monday July 13, 2009 @02:35PM

CWmike writes: "People outside of IT seldom think of Oracle as a Linux company, but it is, writes Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols. Not only does Oracle encourage its customers to use its own house-brand clone of RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux), Oracle Unbreakable Linux, Oracle has long used Linux internally both on its servers and on some of its desktops. So, what does a Linux company like Oracle wants to do with its newly purchased Sun's open-source operating system, OpenSolaris? The answer appears to be: "Nothing." Ellison, Oracle's God-king CEO, may have talked Solaris up when he announced the Oracle/Sun deal, but look closer at his proclamation and everything else Oracle has been saying since then. It's the already deployed Solaris distributions, not its open-source twin, OpenSolaris, that gets the praise. OpenSolaris isn't even an after-thought."

Submission + - Microsoft vs. Google: Mutually Assured Destruction 1

Submitted by jmcbain on Monday July 13, 2009 @10:49AM

jmcbain writes: In an op-ed piece for the NY Times, Robert X. Cringely asserts that nothing good will come out of the ongoing war between Microsoft and Google: "The battle between Microsoft and Google entered a new phase last week with the announcement of Google's Chrome Operating System — a direct attack on Microsoft Windows. This is all heady stuff and good for lots of press, but in the end none of this is likely to make a real difference for either company or, indeed, for consumers. It's just noise — a form of mutually assured destruction intended to keep each company in check."

Submission + - NetBSD.org Asking US $60,000 For NetBSD 6.0 (netbsd.org)

Submitted by

Trollaxor

on Monday July 13, 2009 @12:12AM

Trollaxor writes: "Hot on the heels of their NetBSD 5.0 release, the NetBSD organization is gearing up for NetBSD 6.0, due in just under a year ("The sixth major release for the six month of 2010!"). To make that happen, NetBSD is asking its industry partners, users, and anyone with spare change to contribute US $60,000. Matt Thomas, of NetBSD's core group, says the money will allow for "network performance improvements and embedded and realtime optimization," meaning NetBSD can finally move onto specialized hardware, something it has struggled with in the past. So far, they have $40. Do Slashdot readers find $60,000 an appropriate amount to sponsor the BSD family's middle child, or does the price outweigh the upgrade?"

Submission + - Speeding up code with GCC's prefetch extension (mit.edu)

Submitted by

birge

on Sunday July 12, 2009 @11:42PM

birge writes: "In memory-constrained loops where memory must be accessed out-of-order, a relatively little-used extension to GCC can be used to speed up code by as much as several times. Extremely simple to use, the __builtin_prefetch instruction tells the cache mechanism to load a memory location into local chip cache, allowing the programmer to have memory loaded for the next computation in parallel with the current computation."

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