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Fear of Snakes May Have Driven Pre-Human Evolution 553

Posted by Hemos from the snakes-on-a-plane dept.
Krishna Dagli writes "An evolutionary arms race between early snakes and mammals triggered the development of improved vision and large brains in primates, a radical new theory suggests. The idea, proposed by Lynne Isbell, an anthropologist at the University of California, Davis, suggests that snakes and primates share a long and intimate history, one that forced both groups to evolve new strategies as each attempted to gain the upper hand. Early primates developed a better eye for color, detail and movement and the ability to see in three dimensions — traits that are important for detecting threats at close range. Humans are descended from those same primates. "

Dick Tracy's New Linux Box? 161

Posted by timothy from the could-potentially-are-key-words dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Zypad is a new arm-wearable computer right out of Futurama. It can run Windows CE or Linux and has a 400 MHz CPU, 64MB Flash memory, 3.5 inch screen. The Zypad leaves the user's hands free — it has no keyboard, just a touchscreen and navigation keys. Voice recognition is 'being developed.' It turns on only when you look at it, so it saves power. It has GPS and Bluetooth/WLAN/GSM connectivity. Price: 1000 Euro." Too bad it's not yet available for sale — that screen looks more useful than the one on IBM's Linux watch from 2000.

Rosen Believes RIAA is Wrong about P2P Lawsuits 287

Posted by CowboyNeal from the setting-the-record-straight dept.
Newer Guy writes "Former RIAA head Hilary Rosen now believes that the RIAA is wrong by pursuing their lawsuits of individuals for using P2P programs. In a blog post, she writes that she believes the lawsuits have 'outlived their usefulness' and states that the content providers really need to come up with their own download systems. She also is down on DRM, calling Apple's DRM 'a pain.'"

Another Google Tool To Take On PayPal? 219

Posted by Zonk from the cha-ching dept.
An anonymous reader writes to mention a ZDNet post about another possible product in the grand Google vision. The product, Google Checkout, may be an attempt to go after PayPal. From the article: "Since we know Google is behind its registration, what is Google Checkout going to be? I think it will be a shopping cart system to help websites accept payment for their items online. The money site owners make will be deposited into a holding account at Google -- just like AdSense works. Isn't this starting to sound a lot like PayPal? Who knows, they could even offer a Google branded Mastercard "debit card" like PayPal's ATM/Debit Card -- after all, the domain googlemastercard.com is registered to Google too."

People Suck at Spotting Phishing 317

Posted by CmdrTaco from the no-doubt-here dept.
JohnGrahamCumming writes "Initial results at SpamOrHam.org show that people don't fare well when trying to spot spams and phishes. This blog entry shows some actual spams and phishes that people fell for, as well as genuine messages that they think are spam." The thing about these s[cp]ams is that they must work sometimes. When I see the messages, I can't fathom 'how'.

Rockers Sue Sony Over Download Royalties 360

Posted by Zonk from the mp3-breakage dept.
Ohreally_factor writes "According to an AP article, groups Cheap Trick and The Allman Brothers allege that Sony is paying them less than what they deserve for music downloaded from popular download sites such as iTunes. Because Sony counts such sales as the equivalent of a physical phonorecording sale, they deduct costs for packaging (20%) and breakage (15%) from the artists' royalties, just as they would if they were selling CDs through more traditional means. Seeing as how there is no physical packaging, nor physical inventory that might suffer breakage, one wonders how Sony will defend against these charges."

The Pirate Bay is Here to Stay? 956

Posted by Zonk from the arrr-me-hearties dept.
vitaly.friedman wrote to mention a Wired article about The Pirate Bay, a file-sharing crewe out of Sweden that thumbs its nose at the MPAA just for kicks and has yet to be shut down. From the article: "The Pirate Bay's legal adviser, law student Mikael Viborg, said the site receives 1,000 to 2,000 HTTP requests per second on each of its four servers. That's bad news for the content industries, which have fired off letter after menacing letter to the site, only to see their threats posted on The Pirate Bay, together with mocking replies. Viborg said that no one has successfully indicted The Pirate Bay or sued its operators in Swedish courts. Attorneys for DreamWorks and Warner Bros., two companies among those that have issued take-down demands to the site, did not return calls for comment."

MS Thinks OOo is 10 Years Behind 736

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the one-office-to-rule-them-all dept.
greengrass writes "In a recent interview with IT Wire, general manager of business strategy for the Information Worker Group at Microsoft, Alan Yates expressed the opinion that Open Office is at the same level that MS office was around 10 years ago. Supposedly only suitable for the single desktop, isolated user. After all, it doesn't even have an e-mail client!"
User Journal

Journal Journal: Hostile

Journal by grazzy

Is it just me or has slashdot turned extra hostile the last couple of months? The trolls seems to be wakening from the winter-sleep or something...
User Journal

Journal Journal: oh yes 1

Journal by grazzy

oh yes, oh yeees. i finally reached karma: excellent.

i was hovering about ~12-15 for a couple of years, and with one of my last comments i have reached it.

i belive it has alot todo with me posting my anti usa-comments as a ac....

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