zephvark - Slashdot User

Submission + - HTC wins patent lawsuit against Nokia (digitimes.com)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy on Friday April 26, 2013 @05:26AM

Taco Cowboy writes: The District Court of Mannheim, Germany, has dismissed a complaint filed by Nokia accusing HTC of infringing patent EP 1581016, covering a communications network terminal for accessing the Internet, according to HTC

The court decided that there is no need for further deliberation on the case after the initial hearing since the basis of the accusation was weak, HTC said in an e-mail statement

To date, of the 24 infringement actions that Nokia has brought against HTC in Germany, two (EP 1329982 and EP 1474750) remain in processing because of concerns over validity, and three (EP 0812120, EP 1312974 and EP1581016) were already dismissed

Submission + - Utility Robots (hubpages.com)

Submitted by sofia30 on Friday April 26, 2013 @05:16AM

sofia30 writes: Robotic systems and robots are continuously evolving and penetrating slowly in many areas of our life. Like in manufacturing line, medical line, security and personal assistance. The humans are becoming habitual for the assistance of the robots in their day to day life.

Submission + - Lawrence, KS to get gigabit fiber - but not from Google (blogspot.com)

Submitted by symbolset on Friday April 26, 2013 @03:21AM

symbolset writes: Just 40 miles west on the Kansas Turnpike from Kansas City Kansas sits Lawrence, KS. With the slow rollout of Google fiber in their neighbour city, it was looking like their 89,000 people were not going to get the gigabit fiber to the home for quite some time.

Up steps Wicked Broadband, a local ISP. With a plan remarkably similar to Google's they look to build out fiber to the home, business, and so on with gigabit speed and similar rates, symmetric bandwidth and no caps. Wicked Fiber's offer is different than Google Fiber's, with more tiers — with cute names. The "Flying Monkey" gigabit plan is $100/month, "Tinman" at 100Mbps is $70/month. They offer TV as well but strangely put Internet streaming and Roku to the fore. They are even using Google's method of installing first in the neighbourhoods with the most pre-registration to optimize efficiency, and installing only where there is enough demand.

It seems Google's scheme to inspire competition in broadband access is working — if Wicked Fiber gets enough subscribers to make it pay. If this succeeds it may inspire similar ISPs near us to step up to gigabit fiber so let's root for them.

Submission + - Btrfs is getting there, but still not quite ready for production

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 26, 2013 @03:07AM

An anonymous reader writes: Btrfs is the next-gen filesystem for Linux, likely to replace ext3 and ext4 in coming years. Btrfs offers many compelling new features and development proceeds apace, but many users still aren't sure whether it's "ready enough" to entrust their data to.

Anchor, a webhosting company, reports on trying it out with mixed feelings.

Their opinion: worth a look-in for most systems, but too risky for frontline production servers. The writeup includes a few nasty caveats that will bite you on serious deployments.

Submission + - WikiLeaks donations by Visa ruled OK in Iceland (techworld.com.au)

Submitted by angry tapir on Thursday April 25, 2013 @09:21PM

angry tapir writes: The three-year blockade against donations to WikiLeaks may have just been chiseled away, in Iceland, by a ruling handed down by the European country's Supreme Court. The verdict says that the Visa subcontractor Valitor had unlawfully terminated its contract with WikiLeaks' donation processor, DataCell, and must re-open the processing of donations to the whistle-blowing site within 15 days or else face a fine of ISK800,000, or US$6,830, per day.

Comment Re:Planks? (Score 1) 694

by zephvark on Friday April 19, 2013 @07:34PM (#43499543) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: What Planks Would You Want In a Platform of a Political Party?

I remember when politicians were built from mohangay

I'm pretty sure a lot of the republicans are still built from mohangay, although I haven't been keeping up with these newfangled slang terms. Who was this Mohan, anyway? /goes off to google... err... we still say "google", right?

Submission + - Apple Confirms Siri Will Remember You For Upto Two Years (bizzlenews.com)

Submitted by ArslanSaeed001 on Friday April 19, 2013 @07:06PM

ArslanSaeed001 writes: Apple has confirmed that Siri collected data will be stored on Apple servers for up to two next-years. However, user can delete data by disabling Siri service on the device.

Submission + - ZombieBreak Room: A Call Of Duty based webseries. (youtube.com) 2

Submitted by forgot_my_username on Friday April 19, 2013 @07:03PM

forgot_my_username writes: Hey, I just wanted to point you guys out to a cool webseries based on Call Of Duty's Black Ops 2 Ascension Zombie Map. "... opening round zombies from the Ascension Map. These are there Stories." Is how it opens, then it proceeds to offer up a Parks and Rec style comedy. Perhaps, the best part is "American Ninja" Michael Dudikoff is playing Tank Dempsey.

I think it is brilliant. Laughed my ass off!

http://youtu.be/AzmjQc4mpH8

Submission + - Your audio amplifier as a stable, efficient, bi-directional power supply

Submitted by plawson on Friday April 19, 2013 @06:23PM

plawson writes: From an article in EDN (http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/electronic-product-reviews/other/4410454/CogniPower-among-the-giants-at-APEC-2013): CogniPower's Predictive Energy Balancing audio amplifier operates on a completely different principle from other switched-mode amplifiers. This new topology offers the efficiency of the most efficient switched-mode amplifiers with the fidelity of a linear amplifier. They enable better sound for cell phones, tablets and portable media players while extending battery life. These amplifiers can be significantly smaller and less expensive than the amplifiers used now. In addition, the technology is scalable from piezo speakers for cell phones to theater speakers. The PEB amplifier is essentially a bidirectional power converter. Once its capabilities as an audio amp are appreciated, it can be operated as a DC/AC or DC/DC converter. Its bidirectionality even allows it to operate as an energy harvesting device. There are many applications for this architecture such as MRI machines, switched-mode power supplies, Point of Load Converters, LED Lighting, Electric Vehicles, Smart Grid, Computers and File Servers, Solar Inverters, AC-AC Converters, etc. How would you apply this technology?

Submission + - Yahoo is going to stop email service in China

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 19, 2013 @04:38PM

An anonymous reader writes: Just got email from my contact in China telling me Yahoo!China is going to stop email service in China.

Submission + - Is NATO forcing Microsoft and NSA backdoors on the French Ministry of Defense?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 19, 2013 @03:32PM

An anonymous reader writes: A few weeks ago April, the French free software advocacy, reported
that a four years contract between Microsoft and the French Ministry
of Defense was concluded in 2009 without any call for tender and seemed to have
neglecting many public procurement principles. April demanded the
suspension of the ongoing renegotiation and transparency about this
issue. This week, The Canard Enchaîné (a French satirical weekly) the
Canard Enchainé shines new light on the file and gives new information
about the reasons leading the army to "capitulate to Microsoft", without the
government services being able to do anything about it. The weekly
newspaper quotes Patrick Bazin, the central director of the Department
of Interministerial Information Systems and Communication (DISIC,
Direction interministérielle des systèmes d'information et de
communication), who campaigns for the renewal of this contract because
of interoperability obligations between allies, to the extent that
"NATO chose Microsoft solutions for its work stations."

Submission + - Ubuntu Touch Beta Images Available for Testing (paritynews.com)

Submitted by hypnosec on Friday April 19, 2013 @03:25PM

hypnosec writes: Canonical has announced the availability of Ubuntu Touch for anyone to download and test. The images, which are now based on the 13.04 Raring Ringtail codebase, are available on isotracker. As of now there are four devices that are supported and there is an image for each one of them – Nexus 7, Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 4 and Nexus 10. Instructions to install Ubuntu Touch have also been provided.

Comment Re:The House? (Score 2) 87

by zephvark on Wednesday April 17, 2013 @08:31PM (#43478637) Attached to: House Panel Backs 'Internet Freedom' Legislation

In the end, both Republicans and Democrats can't help being themselves - politicians. What we need are statesmen and they're always in short supply.

The definition of "statesman" is "a dead politician". While I don't think those are in short supply, I am rarely disappointed when their numbers increase.

Comment Re:Conversion (Score 1) 595

by zephvark on Monday April 15, 2013 @03:00AM (#43449977) Attached to: Is Bitcoin Mining a Real-World Environmental Problem?

Technically, currency is paper money. In that bitcoin isn't made of paper, it's... not currency. In a wider sense, the word "currency" is often used loosely, to refer to anything that can be exchanged for other goods. In that respect, bitcoin is no less "currency" than a paper dollar. How many of us actually use paper bills any more, anyway? Do you not have a debit or credit card?

Comment The PC is dead... again... (Score 1) 1010

by zephvark on Thursday April 11, 2013 @05:10AM (#43420569) Attached to: Windows 8 Killing PC Sales

And this is the year of the Linux desktop! Yay! /cough... Seems like we've heard this news before. Every year for the last 20 or so, no? Hey, phones are fine for quick, casual fiddling around. Linux would be rockstar if they only got the display drivers down pat, but I don't lay out hundreds of dollars for a shiny graphics card just to see its performance turn to mud. Fine, Windows 8 sucks, we knew that already, let's see if Windows 9 actually gets back on track.

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