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Submission Summary: 0 pending, 47 declined, 14 accepted (61 total, 22.95% accepted)

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Microsoft

Submission + - OOXML's "Formula for Failure" (robweir.com)

Submitted by
Xenographic
Xenographic writes: "As Microsoft fights for the standardization of it's OOXML document format, one of it's most touted strengths is the documentation of its formulas. But how good are they, really? According to Rob Weir, OOXML's formula specification is very wrong. In short, there are many locale issues and several numerical functions don't match the mathematical definitions at all. Even if you don't care about OOXML vs. ODF at all, it's probably still worth a read if you're like me and want to know why some of your old Excel spreadsheet formulas never came out right."
Caldera

Submission + - SCO vs. IBM Leaks Exposed

Submitted by
Xenographic
Xenographic writes: "Remember all the fuss about SCO subpoenaing PJ of Groklaw, where they allege that she's funded by IBM because she once got a publicly available document from a volunteer at the courthouse a little before it hit the Court's website? That's nothing. Groklaw has a story evidence that other materials have been leaked in this case — but they weren't leaked to Groklaw, and they weren't leaked by IBM. Information about the sealed materials in question made its way to Maureen O'Gara, who wrote a story based on inside information, displaying a positively uncanny insight into what SCO was planning, including far more than just the sealed document a SCO lawyer read out loud in open court. Interestingly, several witnesses report that Maureen O'Gara did not even attend that hearing, leaving us to speculate about her source."
Microsoft

Submission + - DaVinci Notebooks for Vista Users Only?

Submitted by
Xenographic
Xenographic writes: "Apparently bereft of better ways to sell Vista, Bill Gates plans to digitize the DaVinci notebooks he owns and make them available online. The catch? You'll have to be running Microsoft Vista in order to view them. From the article, "While Gates and Microsoft emphasized the project as opening knowledge and education to the world, only users of Vista will be able to access the 35 pages owned by Gates, who is making the digital version available to British Library for six months. Gates paid $30 million for the manuscript in 1994." One wonders just what manner of DRM is supposed to keep people from copying those pages."
Security

Submission + - DOD Bars HTML Email and Outlook Web Access

Submitted by
Xenographic
Xenographic writes: "In a bid to increase their security, the DOD is now blocking HTML email and barring the use of Outlook Web Access. This coincides with them increasing INFOCON from 5 to 4, indicating that they are experiencing methodical and sophisticated attacks directed at them. Of course, this raises the question of what INFOCON level is required before they ban the use of Outlook and Windows entirely?"
The Courts

Submission + - Six DMCA Exemptions Granted

Submitted by
Xenographic
Xenographic writes: "The US Copyright Office has just announced six new categories of works exempt from the DMCA's prohibition against circumvention of technological measures that control access to the copyrighted works. This is good news for anyone stuck with old computer dongles or games for game consoles that are no longer available, blind people trying to read ebooks, those trying to unlock cellphones, media studies professors, and anyone who was struck by Sony's rootkit. The bad news is that the exceptions are exceedingly narrow due to their limited authority to grant exceptions. For example, the rootkit exception apparently only allows you to circumvent the access controls caused by a rootkit-laden CD, but not to circumvent any usage controls, nor to circumvent the exact same access controls were they on a DVD instead of a CD..."

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