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Microsoft

Submission + - GameStop drops Microsoft's Zune (www.cbc.ca)

Submitted by Maow
Maow writes: GameStop, which operates in Canada and other countries through its EB Games brand, has decided to stop selling Microsoft Corp.'s Zune digital music player because of a lack of demand.

Microsoft earlier this month announced it had sold two million Zunes since their launch in November 2006 ... Apple in its most recent quarter sold 10.6 million iPods, or more than five times Microsoft's cumulative total over a year and a half.
Robotics

Submission + - Biped walking robots that walk like man (tudelft.nl)

Submitted by
ErrorBase
ErrorBase writes: "Since the start of the Delft Biorobotics Laboratory research has been done on the development of walking bipeds, based on the principle of passive dynamic walking. Flame is our first fully 3D walking robot with electric actuation. Similar as in the previous model, Maxon DC motors are used to actuate several joints: two sagittal ankle joints, two sagittal knee joints, two sagittal hip joints and one lateral hip joint (for sideways foot placement)."
Programming

Submission + - G++ STL Gets Smoked! 1

Submitted by
smilindog2000
smilindog2000 writes: "How fast do you think your carefully coded STL based algorithms really are? If they rely on set, multiset, map, or multimap, then probably not so fast. A new DataDraw benchmark shows STL based code running about 4X slower and using 80% more memory than raw C code created by the GPL'ed DataDraw database generator. Does speed still count? The guys behind DataDraw think so."
Businesses

Submission + - After You, it's .Me now - Web turns inwards! (pluggd.in)

Submitted by
sinha
sinha writes: "The .Me domain will be launched in another few days and the booking has already started. Web 2.0 was first about YOU (i.e. YouTube, "You" were the Time's person of the year in 2006), but suddenly the web has turned inwards and now, its all about .ME!"
Microsoft

Submission + - New York Asks for Open Formats-Microsoft Responds

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: On Tuesday May 20th, New York State published on its website a scathing rebuke of Microsoft's format position and recommended use of ODF. http://www.oft.state.ny.us/News/E-RecordsStudyAnnouncement.pdf The next day (Wednesday) Microsoft came out with an announcement that it will meet one of New York State's recommendations by offering native support for Open Document Format. http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2008/may08/05-21ExpandedFormatsPR.mspx Why did Microsoft heed this particular government's call, when it has ignored so many others? There are some theories on Groklaw: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080520200012132 Any others?
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Couple trys to name baby '@'

Submitted by linuxwrangler
linuxwrangler writes: A Chinese couple has applied to name their baby @. The Chinese often use an English-like pronunciation of '@' with a pronounced 'T' which is similar in Mandarin to "love him". It is not-yet known if the government, which recently banned use of Arabic numerals, foreign languages, and non-Chinese symbols in names, will accept baby @.
Announcements

Submission + - Scientists claim to have broken the speed of light (breitbart.com)

Submitted by GnarlyDoug
GnarlyDoug writes: German scientists claim that they have broken the speed of light barrier while researching quantum tunneling. In effect they claimed that some photons traveled a greater distance than other photons in the same amount of time, and thus moved faster than the speed of light. Personally I'll wait to see what happens when their tests are peer reviewed and duplicated, but it's interesting.
Software

Submission + - Skype goes dark, may be offline until Friday (computerworld.com)

Submitted by jcatcw
jcatcw writes: Skype is blaming software issues for a lengthy outage that may last for more than 24 hours. Some users claims there's a log-in authentication failure. "Those that are in stay in and those trying to sign in can't get in," according to Tom Keating. In what maybe an implicit acknowledgment, the company is recommending that users leave their client software active.
The Internet

Submission + - For Videotron, Unlimited Access now means 100Gb

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Canadian Internet access provider Videotron just sent a letter to all its "Extreme High Speed Unlimited Internet Access" customers announcing that, as of October the 1st, unlimited would mean 100Gb/month.

Over limit Gbs will cost 1.50$CA each.

The Videotron.ca Web site still advertizes the package as unlimited.
The Internet

Submission + - Vatican edits Wikipedia article on IRA man (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A new internet tool shows how a Vatican computer was used to edit a web entry about Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams, American researchers have claimed. They said news reports alleging Mr Adams's fingerprints and handprints were found on a car used during a double murder in 1971 were edited. The Wikipedia page on Gerry Adams says it is "currently protected from editing until August 17, 2007 or until disputes have been resolved".
Networking

Submission + - TJX Security Breach described (techdirt.com)

Submitted by
Bunderfeld
Bunderfeld writes: "I was reading over at TechDirt and saw this story, thought everyone else would find it enlightening

"...The breach was apparently perpetrated by using poorly secured in-store kiosks, which were on the corporate network and not behind firewalls. Attackers stuck USB keys in the kiosks and loaded software that allowed them to be controlled remotely, and used as gateways onto the network.""
Debian

Submission + - Debian turns 14 today!

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Debian, one of my long time favorite Linux distributions turned 14 today. Without the Debian project there would be no Ubuntu. Debian was begun in August 1993 by Ian Murdock, as a new distribution which would be made openly, in the spirit of Linux and GNU. Debian is pronounced /de.bi.n/. It comes from the names of the creator of Debian, Ian Murdock, and his wife, Debra. Happy 14th birthday Debian!
Announcements

Submission + - Watermarking to replace DRM? 3

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: News.com has an article on the announcement of Microsoft and Universal to introduce watermarking technology into audio files. The technology could serve several purposes including tracking file sharing statistics and insertion of advertisements into audio tracks. The article goes on to suggest that watermarking could possibly replace DRM in the near future.
Security

Submission + - No RealID? You'll Need a Passport (cnn.com)

Submitted by mmurphy000
mmurphy000 writes: According to CNN:

Americans may need passports to board domestic flights or to picnic in a national park next year if they live in one of the states defying the federal Real ID Act.


Note that these are the same passports which are already shipping with RFID tags.

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The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny ..." -- Isaac Asimov

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