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Networking

Why Is Connectivity So Cheap In Stockholm? 443

Posted by timothy from the umlauts-defy-gravity dept.
lpress writes "Symmetric, 100 Mbps service in Stockholm, costs $11/month. Conditions in every city are different, but part of the explanation for the low cost is that the city owns a municipal fiber network reaching every block. They lease network access to anyone who would like to offer service. The ISPs, including incumbent telephone and cable companies, compete on an equal footing."
The Courts

What the Pirate Bay Verdict Could Mean For Google 408

Posted by Soulskill from the google-trends-should-be-interesting-to-watch dept.
explosivejared writes "Forbes is running a story discussing the verdict in the Pirate Bay case and its implications on file sharing, specifically with regard to Google. The article points out what most people on Slashdot already realize: Google provides essentially the same service that the Pirate Bay does. The Pirate Bay case may be far from over, accounting for appeals, but the Pirate Bay's assumption of being unchallengeable was shattered. The article raises the question of whether or not Google is untouchable in the matter. The story is quick to point out how the situation resembles a futile game of cat-and-mouse, but given how the Pirate Bay's confidence was ultimately broken, is Google beyond reproach?"
The Courts

Appeals Court Says RIAA Hearing Can't Be Streamed 208

Posted by timothy from the may-not-is-more-like-it dept.
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has overturned a lower court order permitting webcast of an oral argument in an RIAA case, SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum, in Boston. As one commentator put it, the decision gives the RIAA permission to 'cower behind the same legal system they're using to pillory innocent people.' Ironically, the appeals court's own hearing had been webcast, via an mp3 file. The court admitted that this was not an appropriate case for a 'prerogative writ' of 'mandamus,' but claimed to have authority to issue a writ of 'advisory mandamus.' The opinion came as a bit of a surprise to me because the judges appeared, during the oral argument, to have a handle on the issues. The decision gave me no such impression. From where I sit, the decision was wrong in a number of respects, among them: (a) it contradicted the plain wording of the district court rule, (b) it ignored the First Amendment implications, and (c) there is no such thing as 'advisory' mandamus or 'advisory' anything — our federal courts are specifically precluded from giving advisory opinions."
Supercomputing

Creating a Low-Power Cloud With Netbook Chips 93

Posted by timothy from the but-what's-the-wattage-equivalent-cfl dept.
Al writes "Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University have created a remarkably low-power server architecture using netbook processors and flash memory cards. The server design, dubbed a 'fast array of wimpy nodes,' or FAWN, is only designed to perform simple tasks, but the CMU team say it could be perfect for large Web companies that have to retrieve large amounts of data from RAM. A set-up including 21 individual nodes draws a maximum of just 85 watts under real-world conditions. The researchers say that a FAWN cluster could offer a low-power replacement for sites that currently rely on Memcached to access data from RAM."
Privacy

Wikipedia Opts Out Of Phorm 98

Posted by timothy from the phorm-of-their-objection dept.
ais523 writes "Wikipedia (and other websites run by Wikimedia) have requested to opt-out from Phorm; according to the email they sent, they 'consider the scanning and profiling of our visitors' behavior by a third party to be an infringement on their privacy.'" Another reader points to this post on techblog.wikimedia.org which includes a confirmation from Phorm that those sites will be excluded.
Movies

Submission + - Columnist Fired for Reviewing Pirated Movie

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "Roger Friedman, an entertainment columnist for FoxNews.com, discovered over the weekend just what Rupert Murdoch means by "zero tolerance" when it comes to movie piracy. On Friday, the film studio 20th Century Fox — owned by the News Corporation, the media conglomerate ruled by Mr. Murdoch — became angry after reading Friedman's latest column, a review of "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," a big-budget movie that was leaked in unfinished form on the Web last week. Friedman posted a minireview, adding, "It took really less than seconds to start playing it all right onto my computer." The film studio, which enlisted the FBI to hunt the pirate, put out a statement calling Friedman's column "reprehensible" while News Corporation weighed in with its own statement, saying it asked had Fox News to remove the column from its Web site. "When we advised Fox News of the facts," the statement said, "they promptly terminated Mr. Friedman.""
User Journal

Journal Journal: Global Geek Achievements System? 1

Journal by drinkypoo

While thinking about the Slashdot achievements system (I can't help it, I'm a gamer) I suddenly had a flash back to the Geek Code and I thought to myself, wouldn't it be great to implement [something like] that as a scoring system? I mean, I know this is a pretty twisted value of great because it goes completely against the whole point of the thing, so that's probably the wro
Government

Submission + - Data.gov to launch in May

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: In late May, 2009, Data.gov will launch in an attempt to, in the words of U.S. CIO Vivek Kundra, "make sure that all that data that is not private that is not restricted for national security reasons can be made public" through data feeds. This appears to be a tremendous expansion on (and official form of) third-party products such as Sunlight Labs API. Though of course, it is still a far cry from "open sourcing" the actual decision-making processes of government.
Sun Microsystems

Submission + - What tech dies if IBM buys Sun? (infoworld.com)

Submitted by
GMGruman
GMGruman writes: "It appears that IBM is just about to conclude a deal to buy Sun Microsystems. So, what does that mean about the vaunted technology that Sun is known for, such as Solaris, Java, and Sparc? And what about MySQL, the open source database that Sun bought last year that might be considered a competitor to IBM's own database technology? InfoWorld's Paul Krill surveyed industry insiders to get their bets on which Sun technologies will survive if and when IBM swallows Sun. Among their predictions, Java appears safe but dev tools are probably toast. http://www.infoworld.com/t/tech-industry-analysis/fate-suns-products-in-air-312"
Sun Microsystems

Submission + - A look at Sun's Legacy (rackserverdeals.com)

Submitted by
rackserverdeals
rackserverdeals writes: "Quentin Hardy, Forbes' Silicon Valley Bureau Chief, put out a video feature about Sun's Legacy. Including their open source roots, powerful workstations, servers, Java, public-key cryptography, etc.

"Sun played a key role in the growth of the internet... not just for the hardware. The Java software language, first popular code that worked independent of any particular hardware or operating system came out of Sun. Without it, it's almost unthinkable that we could have the myriad number of machines that make up the Internet we have today."

It was neat to see clips of Andy Bechtolsheim demoing some of Sun's first workstations. His return to Sun to develop the new line of x86 servers, including the first 8 socket Opteron server seemed promising. Unfortunately, that wasn't enough to save Sun as commodity hardware ate into their market. While some people just think of Sun as the company that hates Linux, it's going to be sad to see them go. If there is a merger, hopefully it won't be the disaster some other large tech mergers have been."
Government

Submission + - Thai gov't sets up snitch on fellow citizen site (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: In a move that would make the old eastern German Stasi green with envy, the Thai government has modernized a system that allows citizens to snitch on fellow citizens. "Internet users are being urged to show their loyalty to the king by contributing to a new website called protecttheking.net, which has been set up by a parliamentary committee. On the site's front page it is described as a means for Thai people to show their loyalty to the king by protecting him from what it calls misunderstandings about him. It calls on all citizens to inform on anyone suspected of insulting or criticising the monarchy." An large unknown population of political prisoners are currently being held for 3 to 15 years in Thai prisons for being interpreted as insulting the monarchy.
User Journal

Journal Journal: King of Thai No 2! 1

Journal by timothy

Time to go eat a late dinner, at the deliciously perfect King of Thai No. 2 at 346 Clement St (between 4th Ave & 5th Ave) San Francisco, CA 94118 ... maybe I'll eat there tomorrow as well. It's delicious, cheap, open late, and close enough to the beach that I might walk there afterward.
Intel

Submission + - ARM: heretic in the church of Intel, Moore's Law (computerworld.com) 1

Submitted by ericatcw
ericatcw writes: For 30+ years, the PC industry has been as obsessed with under-the-hood performance: MIPs, MHz, transistors per chip. Blame Moore's Law, which effectively laid down the Gospel of marketing PCs like sports cars. But with mobile PCs and green computing coming to the fore, enter ARM, which is challenging the Gospel according to Moore with chips that are low-powered in both senses of the word. Some of its most popular CPUs have 100,000 transistors, fewer than a 12 MHz Intel 286 CPU from 1982 (download PDF). But they also consume as little as a quarter of a watt, which is why netbook makers are embracing them. It's "megahertz per milli-watt,"that counts, according to ARM exec Ian Drew, who predicts that 6-10 ARM-based netbooks running Linux and costing just around $200 should arrive this year starting in July.
Cellphones

Submission + - First Open Source Smartphone Discontinued (bernerzeitung.ch) 1

Submitted by
TuxMobil
TuxMobil writes: "Bad news for freerunner fans, development of the first Open Source smartphone will be discontinued. OpenMoko executive director Sean Moss-Pulz told at OpenExpo in Bern (Switzerland) that the number of staffs will be reduced to be able to stay in business. OpenMoko had high intentions: the offspring from Taiwanese electronic manufacturer First International Computer (FIC) wanted to produce an Open Source smartphone. Not only with Open Source software pre-installed, but with free drivers and open specifications of the hardware components. This would give programmers as well as users complete freedom. Up to now the manufacturer has produced two models, the first has been sold 3,000 times and the second one has been bought 10,000 times. Both models were targeted primarily to developers. From the beginning OpenMoko had to fight with different problems. The smartphones came into market with a huge delay. Some series came with construction defects. Also changes in the team slowed down the development. Software development for the current smartphone will be continued but with less resources Moss-Pultz told. He still hopes the community will support the Freerunner: "Buy the Freerunner, help to correct bugs and write new programms". http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/20/1551200 http://mobile.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/25/1751228 http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/16/0037221 http://mobile.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/24/1739200"

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