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Microsoft

Can Microsoft Afford To Lose With Windows 8? 630

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the having-lots-of-cash-helps dept.
snydeq writes with the opinion that Microsoft can afford Windows 8 failing on the desktop. From the article: "Windows 8 is an experiment that may well fail, but Microsoft will cull invaluable feedback for Windows 9 in the process, long before Windows 7 runs out of gas, writes InfoWorld's Serdar Yegulalp. 'Can Microsoft really afford to alienate one of its biggest market segments for a whole product cycle? In a word: Yes. In fact, doing something this risky might well be vital to Microsoft's survival,' Yegulalp writes. 'Microsoft needs to gamble, and right now might well be the best time for the company to do it. The company needs to learn from its mistakes as quickly and nimbly as they can — and then turn around and make Windows 9 exceed all of our expectations.'" Microsoft has managed to weather several OS flops (Windows Me anyone?) thanks to their domination of the market, but with Android gadgets and iPhones becoming pervasive can they pull it off again?

Submission + - All about Sabu (nytimes.com) 1

Submitted by Beeftopia
Beeftopia writes: From the New York Times, a bio of the captured leader of LulzSec. From ninth-grade dropout to master cracker, the article chronicles his origins, his rise to fame and his downfall.
Space

Submission + - LOFAR - Radio Telescope (blogspot.in)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands formally opened LOFAR (Low Frequency Array), the world's largest radio telescope. The all-electronic 'next generation' telescope developed by ASTRON can now offer to astronomers the joint use of a network of antennae that spreads from its core region in the northeast of the Netherlands to distances of thousands of kilometers across Europe. LOFAR uses sophisticated computing and high speed internet to combine all the signals to survey the sky in great detail. The giant telescope will enable scientists to study how distant galaxies take shape, to find out when the early Universe was first lit up, to probe the properties of energetic cosmic particles, to map magnetised structures all across the sky, and to monitor the sun's activity as well as a wide range of variable and explosive celestial objects. It is a pathfinder for the development of a global telescope, the Square Kilometer Array (SKA).
Android

Submission + - Replicant dev interview: Building a truly free Android (techworld.com.au)

Submitted by
angry tapir
angry tapir writes: "While Android is open source, it won't work on a phone without software that generally isn't open source. The Replicant project is an attempt to build a version of Android that doesn't rely on binary blobs for which the source code isn't available to end users, and the software currently works on a handful of handsets. I caught up with the project's lead developer to talk about their efforts to make a completely open source version of Android."
Australia

Submission + - Microsoft settles over Aussie-invented patent (itnews.com.au) 1

Submitted by aztec1430
aztec1430 writes: The Australian inventor behind an eight-year patent battle with Microsoft has welcomed the software giant’s settlement with the Singapore company he founded.

After countless court battles in the US and several overturned judgments, Microsoft and Uniloc this week reached a “final and mutually agreeable resolution”, according to a spokesman for the company.
User Journal

Journal Journal: Linux not suitable for defence systems according to Green Hills Software

Journal by acooks

I'm using QNX at work. It's an interesting OS, but why use it instead of Linux? Well, the argument is that QNX is suitable for safety critical systems, while Linux... maybe? While looking for vendors who offer certifiable Linux distributions, I came across these rants from Green Hills CEO, Dan O'Dowd. He makes a few supertroll statements, like "Windows and Solaris have achieved EAL 4. But to da
Government

RIAA CEO Hopes SOPA Protests Were a "One-Time Thing" 441

Posted by samzenpus from the wishful-thinking dept.
hapworth writes "After posting a controversial op-ed in The New York Times saying Wikipedia and Google 'misinformed' the public about SOPA and PIPA, Cary Sherman, CEO of the RIAA said in an interview yesterday that he hopes the SOPA protests were a 'one-time experience.' He also said that Wikipedia and Google users were duped into thinking SOPA was a bad bill because they assume "if it comes from these sources, it must be true." In another hilarious comment, Sherman blames the Internet for making it impossible for Congress to get out its side of the story, and for not spreading information with the same 'clarity and integrity' of broadcast journalists."

Comment Re:It may be true, however... (Score 1) 144

by acooks (#39144349) Attached to: Developer's View: Real Life Inspirations Or Abstract Ideas?

The credit card companies have designed the system in such a way that they never carry the risk for fraud. It's brilliant - they're basically printing money.

The consumer was "safe" on the old card-not-present system in the sense that the merchant has to refund the payment when the consumer cries fraud to the card company. If enough consumers cry fraud, the payment processing gateway (another middle man) may decide to stop the merchant's transaction processing.

The new MasterCard SecureCode and Visa 3-D Secure mechanism is kind of like paypal in the sense that you have to supply a "go ahead" instruction to the card company, except that the merchant still has your card details. Whether a transaction requires the extra step or not is determined by the merchant, the payment gateway and the card company. This is an attempt to move the fraud risk to the consumer, though the merchant could still leak card details.
Patents

Submission + - European Parliament to exclude free software with FRAND

Submitted by jan.van.gent
jan.van.gent writes: The European Parliament is on the verge to adopt a directive about reform of standards, reform which would introduce FRAND patent licensing terms (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory), an undefined term which has been a direct attack on the fundamental principles of Free and Open source software. The Business Software Alliance (BSA) has been very active before the European Commission proposed the text on trying to get FRAND terms inside the text.
Biotech

Submission + - Russian Scientists Revive Plant From 30,000-Year-Old Seeds (washingtonpost.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: It was an Ice Age squirrel’s treasure chamber, a burrow containing fruit and seeds that had been stuck in the Siberian permafrost for over 30,000 years. From the fruit tissues, a team of Russian scientists managed to resurrect an entire plant in a pioneering experiment that paves the way for the revival of other species. The Silene stenophylla is the oldest plant ever to be regenerated, the researchers said, and it is fertile, producing white flowers and viable seeds. ... 'The squirrels dug the frozen ground to build their burrows, which are about the size of a soccer ball, putting in hay first and then animal fur for a perfect storage chamber,' said Stanislav Gubin, one of the authors of the study, who spent years rummaging through the area for squirrel burrows. 'It’s a natural cryobank.'

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: How do you deal with online photo theft? (thomashawk.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: With a number of people publishing photos online, is it really fair game for organizations to use them to publicize events of clients? Should organizations do more to check the source of these images?
What is the best way to get your out there and avoid these pitfalls.

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