Green Light - Slashdot User

Submission + - Powdered sized RFIDs

Submitted by

WeAreTrackingYou

on Friday February 23, 2007 @11:42AM

WeAreTrackingYou writes: "According to this AP Story scientist at Hitachi have built RFID tags that are the size of powder crystal i.e. 0.002 inches by 0.002. However the only problem is that these RFID tags need a external antenna. Next time you go to Mega Lo Mart you might get sprinkled with this pixie dust er powder-sized RFID tags so that they can serve (track) you better."

The Next-Gen Consoles and Power Consumption 85

Posted by Zonk on Friday February 23, 2007 @11:41AM from the whirring-living-room-friends dept.

Ant writes "This HardCOREware review reports that the current video game console war takes an interesting twist as the power consumption levels of each of the three new consoles (Nintendo Wii, Sony Playstation 3 (PS3), and Microsoft Xbox 360) were explored. Video game playback, DVD playback, and other console functions were tested. One of the most interesting stats were the console idle power usage: 'Wii - 1.3 watts, Wii (Connect 24 On) - 9.6 watts, Xbox 360 - 2.5 watts, PlayStation 3 - 1.9 watts. Nothing significant here; you're looking at spending about $0.20 USD a month to keep the PS3 plugged in, which isn't much. The Wii requires 10 Watts to run Connect24 (which will connect to Nintendo's online service and notify you of system updates) racking up a cost of about $1 a month which is nothing too significant, but still about 5X more than if it were just turned off. Turn Connect24 off, and it's back down to normal.'"

Submission + - Power Consumption On Next Gen Consoles

Submitted by

fistfullast33l

on Friday February 23, 2007 @11:33AM

fistfullast33l writes: "(Via IGN) Hardcoreware.net has a feature up comparing power consumption in the newest consoles and also a newer custom built PC. The reviewer covers everything from in-game use to idle use and movie playback (excluding the Wii, of course). The result? Surprise, surprise, the Wii is generally the most power friendly, consuming only 17W (not a typo) on average during gameplay, compared to 193W for the PS3 and 185W for the Xbox 360. The PS3 is considerably power hungry when powered on and idle(at the XMB), consuming 173W compared to 13.5W for the Wii. The Wii ends up using 5X more power in standby with Connect24 on than when it's off, but as the article points out, it's only about $1 a month compared to $0.20 a month."

Consumer Revolt Spurred Via the Internet 309

Posted by Zonk on Friday February 23, 2007 @11:31AM from the power-to-the-pocketbook dept.

sas-dot writes "UK's newspaper Independent outlines the brewing consumer revolt being fomented on the web. 'Consumer militancy' is becoming ever more common, as individuals join forces on the internet to fight back against the state and big business. Businesses from banks to soccer clubs have been the target of these groups, in each case facing the fury of consumers who feel they have been wronged. For example, 'A mass revolt has left the high street banks facing thousands of claims from customers seeking to claw back some of the £4.75bn levied annually on charges for overdrafts and bounced cheques. More than one million forms demanding refunds have been downloaded from a number of consumer websites. The banks are settling out of court, often paying £1,000 a time.' Are these kinds of organized 'advocate mobs' going to be the future of internet activism?"

Submission + - Best Open Source Automated Testing Tools?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 23, 2007 @11:30AM

An anonymous reader writes: As a software test engineer, I've found that one of the most common client questions involves automated testing. They typically want to know how much of your testing is going to be automated (so that they can presumably get their money's worth out of you and the hardware they bought for you). It's often difficult to tell the customer that there are certain applications for which automated testing (not at the unit level) has only limited appropriateness, and they never want to pay for testing tools. I've visited opensourcetesting.org to try getting an idea of some of the best tools for testing web applications, and gotten some good ideas. Anyone have any favorite OSS load/integration testing automated tools that are easily configurable and usable by a test team with reasonably good (but not expert) Linux skills?

Submission + - Massachusetts Data Protection Bills

Submitted by

Larry Greenemeier

on Friday February 23, 2007 @11:27AM

Larry Greenemeier writes: "Companies doing business in the Bay State may soon face stiff penalties for wayward security practices as Massachusetts is now considering legislation that would place these companies on the hook to pay for any costs associated with a data breach of their IT systems."

Submission + - Yahoo! patent Web 2.0

Submitted by

MattSparkes

on Friday February 23, 2007 @11:11AM

MattSparkes writes: "Yahoo! have filed a patent that allows users to "Customise a webpage template to display data drawn from other sources." Needless to say, this covers almost every Web 2.0 sites out there, including our very own Slashdot. Yahoo! was granted the patent on the basis of work that took place in the late 1990's at the height of bubble 1.0. So could Yahoo! now ask for royalties from various Web 2.0 companies?"

Submission + - Where the heck is Etch?

Submitted by

sjvn

on Friday February 23, 2007 @11:08AM

sjvn writes: "The latest and greatest version of Debian, Etch, was supposed to be released on Dec. 4, 2006. Almost two months later, though, according to the Feb. 17th Release Critical Bug Report memo to the Debian Developers Announcement list, there are still 541 "release critical" bugs... What's happening here?

http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS2327436222.html"

Submission + - Developments in the Julie Amero case

Submitted by Arrogant-Bastard on Friday February 23, 2007 @10:58AM

Arrogant-Bastard writes: Julie Amero has a new attorney who is requesting a postponement of sentencing. Steve Bass of PC World has summarized the case. There are at least two blogs covering this: State v. Amero and Julie Amero. The latter is run by Julie's husband, Wes Volle, and is accepting donations to help with her defense. Please spread the word, and please contribute: this woman is facing 40 years in prison over pop-ups.

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