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Linux Business

Linux Reaches 1% Usage Share 414

Posted by kdawson from the hitslink-confirms-it dept.
je ne sais quoi writes "The April data is out for the Net Applications 'market share' survey of operating systems (more accurately referred to as a usage share). For the first time, Linux has reached 1%. This past month the Linux share increased by 0.12% which is well above the average monthly increase of 0.02%. Historically, the Net Applications estimate of market share has been lower than that of other organizations who measure this, but the abnormally large increase reported this month brings it closer to the median estimate of 1.11%. For other operating systems, Windows XP continued its slow decline by 0.64% to 62.21%, whereas Vista use is still increasing to 23.90%, but its rate of adoption is slowing. That is, this month's increase of 0.48% is well below the 12-month average increase of 0.78% and down from the peak rate of increase of 1.00% per month on average in January-February 2008. The total Windows share dropped to 87.90%. Mac OS use decreased slightly to 9.73% from 9.77%, but usage share of the iPhone and iPod Touch combined increased by 0.1%."
Censorship

Iranians Outwit Censors With Falun Gong Software 171

Posted by kdawson from the routing-around-it dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that since last year more than 400,000 Iranians began surfing the uncensored Web using software created for the Falun Gong, a spiritual movement that has been suppressed by the Chinese government since 1999. More than 20 countries now use increasingly sophisticated blocking and filtering systems for Internet content, according to Reporters Without Borders, including Iran, China, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Syria. The creators of the software seized upon by Iranians are members of the Global Internet Freedom Consortium, based largely in the United States and closely affiliated with Falun Gong. Interestingly enough, the United States government and the Voice of America have financed some of the circumvention technology efforts, and a coalition is organizing to push for more Congressional financing of anti-filtering efforts, bringing together dissidents of Vietnam, Iran, the Uighur minority of China, Tibet, Myanmar, Cuba, Cambodia, Laos, as well as the Falun Gong, to lobby Congress for the financing. 'What is our leverage toward a country like Iran? Very little,' said Michael Horowitz, a fellow at the Hudson Institute. 'Suppose we have the capacity to make it possible for the president of the United States at will to communicate with hundreds of thousands of Iranians at no risk or limited risk? It just changes the world.'"
It's funny. Laugh.

Let's Rename Swine Flu As "Colbert Flu" 607

Posted by kdawson from the or-maybe-a-treadmill-on-the-virus-surface dept.
Bruce Perens writes "The World Health Organization will no longer refer to Virus A(H1N1) as 'Swine Flu,' citing ethnic reactions to 'swine,' for example among middle-eastern cultures who feel that swine are unclean. Or, is it because meat packers are concerned that people might stop eating pork in fear of the virus? WHO suggests that the public select a new name for the virus. I suggest that we all start calling it The Colbert Flu, after the comedian and fake pundit who asked his audience to stuff a NASA poll so that a Space Station module would be named after him. What can we do to make the name stick?"
Space

Scientists Discover Exoplanet Less Than Twice the Mass of Earth 201

Posted by Soulskill from the it's-so-small dept.
Snowblindeye writes with this excerpt from the European Southern Observatory: "Well-known exoplanet researcher Michel Mayor today announced the discovery of the lightest exoplanet found so far. The planet, 'e,' in the famous system Gliese 581, is only about twice the mass of Earth. The team also refined the orbit of the planet Gliese 581 d, first discovered in 2007, placing it well within the habitable zone, where liquid water oceans could exist. Planet Gliese 581 e orbits its host star — located only 20.5 light-years away in the constellation Libra ('the Scales') — in just 3.15 days. 'With only 1.9 Earth-masses, it is the least massive exoplanet ever detected and is, very likely, a rocky planet,' says co-author Xavier Bonfils from Grenoble Observatory. Being so close to its host star, the planet is not in the habitable zone. But another planet in this system appears to be. ... The planet furthest out, Gliese 581 d, orbits its host star in 66.8 days. 'Gliese 581 d is probably too massive to be made only of rocky material, but we can speculate that it is an icy planet that has migrated closer to the star,' says team member Stephane Udry. The new observations have revealed that this planet is in the habitable zone, where liquid water could exist. '"d" could even be covered by a large and deep ocean — it is the first serious "water world" candidate,' continued Udry."

Comment Re:Kill the GIL! (Score 1) 234

by MilenCent (#27368437) Attached to: Project Aims For 5x Increase In Python Performance

Psyco is such a nice tool; add just a couple of lines of code, and suddenly 90% of Python programs become multiple times faster on Intel processors... assuming it's single-threaded, of course.

Psyco's been lagging a bit behind lately though, and little progress has been made on shortening that list of features it doesn't support. The main reason for this has been the developer going on to work on PyPy, a subset of Python in which a Python interpreter itself can be written. The ultimate goal appears to be another massive-speedup JIT compiler, although I'm not sure how it gets there from here.

Comment Re:The medium is NOT the message (Score 1) 249

by MilenCent (#25781879) Attached to: How To Build a Web 2.0 Government?

The problem with accessible government is that no-one's interested. Even where there are dedicated TV channels (e.g. in the UK) hardly anyone watches them. Why's that? Because the work of government is almost 100% pure tedium. No-one wants to watch what happens in committee meeting - even if that's where the laws are actually made, nor do are they prepared to sit through hours of televised debate.

This is, strictly speaking, not true. It's not that no one is interested, it's that almost no one is.

And that's not practically the same thing, either. Transparency makes it so the good journalists and bloggers, those who actually somehow like sifting through all that tedious data, can, and then report the upshot to us. Transparency allows the press (when it's working correctly, which one could argue, I admit, it isn't right now) to do its job.

But it is not true that this necessarily renders everything down into sound bites. There's a world of differences between insightful commentary and five seconds of video.
Role Playing (Games)

Submission + - devnull Nethack Tournament Turns Ten

Submitted by
MilenCent
MilenCent writes: "The devnull Nethack tournament turns ten years old in two days! Register to play on November 1. In addition to being an excellent excuse to play NetHack, the tournament servers also provide "challenges," minor additions to the game that players can accept for a special trophy or refuse to just play the basic game. Returning challenges from prior years are the Kingdom of Loathing challenge (requiring that players visit KoL and play their Nethack-themed subdungeon), the Grue challenge (containing many Zork references), and the Pac-Man challenge (with a special maze-like dungeon level). Every year a new challenge is added, but players aren't told what it is! They must figure it out in game.
Every year, a player called marvin tends to win the "Best of 13" trophy by winning 13 games in a row (yes, IN A ROW), but last year some other players were finally beginning to give him a run for his money. Who will take the prize this year?"
Robotics

AI Taught How To Play Ms. Pac-Man 167

Posted by Zonk from the way-better-than-i-can dept.
trogador writes with the news that researchers are working to teach AIs how to play games as an exercise in reinforced learning. Software constructs have been taught to play games like chess and checkers since the 50s, but the Department of Information Systems at Eotvos University in Hungary is working to adapt that thinking to more modern titles. Besides Ms. Pac-Man, game like Tetris and Baldur's Gate assist these programs in mapping different behaviors onto their artificial test subjects. "Szita and Lorincz chose Ms. Pac-Man for their study because the game enabled them to test a variety of teaching methods. In the original Pac-Man, released in 1979, players must eat dots, avoid being eaten by four ghosts, and score big points by eating flashing ghosts. Therefore, a player's movements depend heavily on the movements of ghosts. However, the ghosts' routes are deterministic, enabling players to find patterns and predict future movements. In Ms. Pac-Man, on the other hand, the ghosts' routes are randomized, so that players can't figure out an optimal action sequence in advance."
Censorship

AT&T Silences Criticism in New Terms of Service 298

Posted by CowboyNeal from the say-no-evil dept.
marco13185 writes "AT&T's new Terms of Service give AT&T the right to suspend your account and all service "for conduct that AT&T believes"..."(c) tends to damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries." After cooperating with the government's violations of privacy and liberties, I guess AT&T wants their fair share. AT&T users may want to think twice about commenting if they value their internet service."
Patents

Microsoft Seeks Another OS-Level Adware Patent 195

Posted by kdawson from the why-share-the-revenue dept.
theodp writes "Microsoft has just published a patent application for advertising triggered by sequences of user actions, which describes how to interrupt game playing, music listening, and photo viewing with pop-up ads ('the components may be integrated directly into the operating system'). So will this ad technology get a free pass from Windows Defender?"
Nintendo

Miyamoto Speaks, Nintendo Ditching the Hardcore? 314

Posted by Zonk from the strange-week-to-be-a-nintendo-fan dept.
After Nintendo's very ... different ... press conference, you may be wondering what's going on. In a roundtable discussion with Nintendo, folks like Eiji Aonuma and Shigeru Miyamoto discussed Zelda, Mario Galaxy and WiiFit , giving some context to the message the company had on Wednesday. The balance board begged the question from the people there, is Nintendo ditching the hardcore? According to the Nintendo folks, not at all: "Aonuma believes that control can be pick-up-and-play, but that doesn't necessarily mean a game overall has to be easier. But he still states that his 'goal was always to appeal to...a vast audience.' One attendee pushed the issue further, asking if all Zelda games from now on are going to cater to the more casual crowd--will we ever again need a strategy guide to complete a Zelda game? Aonuma says that judging by Japanese sales so far, accessible 'stream-lined play has been effective,' but he wants to see how Western audiences react to the new Zelda before making a final decision on future games' difficulty levels. Aunoma also hopes to venture into new territory and create a wholly original game at some point in his career." For a lengthy treat, check out Kotaku's series of interview clips with Mr. Miyamoto.
Security

FBI Data Mining For More Than Just Terrorists 130

Posted by Zonk from the my-secret-health-and-auto-insurance-fraud-ring-is-doomed dept.
jcatcw writes "Computerworld reports that the FBI is using data mining programs to track more than just terrorists. The program's original focus was to identify potential terrorists, but additional patterns have been developed for identity theft rings, fraudulent housing transactions, Internet pharmacy fraud, automobile insurance fraud, and health-care-related fraud. From the article: 'In a statement, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the report [on the data mining] was four months late and raised more questions than it answered. The report "demonstrates just how dramatically the Bush administration has expanded the use of [data mining] technology, often in secret, to collect and sift through Americans' most sensitive personal information," he said. At the same time, the report provides an "important and all-too-rare ray of sunshine on the department's data mining activities," Leahy said. It would give Congress a way to conduct "meaningful oversight" he said.'"
United States

DOJ Accidentally Gives Lawyer Wiretap Transcript 319

Posted by Zonk from the terry-gilliam-to-make-the-movie dept.
good soldier svejk writes "'It could be a scene from Kafka or Brazil. Imagine a government agency, in a bureaucratic foul-up, accidentally gives you a copy of a document marked "top secret." And it contains a log of some of your private phone calls. You read it and ponder it and wonder what it all means. Then, two months later, the FBI shows up at your door, demands the document back and orders you to forget you ever saw it.' That is what happened to Washington D.C. attorney Wendell Belew. His lawsuit takes on special significance given today's Sixth Circuit Court ruling that surveillance victims can only sue the DOJ if they can prove they were affected."
The Almighty Buck

Sprint Drops Customers Over Excessive Inquiries 386

Posted by Zonk from the just-a-bit-harsh dept.
theodp writes "The WSJ confirms earlier reports that Sprint Nextel is terminating the contracts of subscribers who call customer service too much (registration required). The 1,000 or so terminated subscribers called an average of 25 times a month — 40x times higher than average — according to a company spokeswoman, who also noted that a large number of calls from these customers were related to billing issues."

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