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Graphics

Adobe Opens the FLV and SWF Formats 262

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the getting-with-the-program dept.
Wolfcat writes to tell us that Adobe announced today that they are opening the SWF and FLV formats via the Open Screen Project. "The Open Screen Project is supported by technology leaders, including Adobe, ARM, Chunghwa Telecom, Cisco, Intel, LG Electronics Inc., Marvell, Motorola, Nokia, NTT DoCoMo, Qualcomm, Samsung Electronics Co., Sony Ericsson, Toshiba and Verizon Wireless, and leading content providers, including BBC, MTV Networks, and NBC Universal, who want to deliver rich Web and video experiences, live and on-demand across a variety of devices. The Open Screen Project is working to enable a consistent runtime environment — taking advantage of Adobe Flash Player and, in the future, Adobe AIR — that will remove barriers for developers and designers as they publish content and applications across desktops and consumer devices, including phones, mobile internet devices (MIDs), and set top boxes."
Cellphones

Submission + - 3G iPhone officially in works for 2008 (computerworld.com)

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Apple Inc. will release a 3G version of the iPhone sometime next year that connects to the Internet at much faster speeds than the current model, AT&T Inc.'s CEO said yesterday, according to reports by Bloomberg.com. At a meeting of the Churchill Club in Santa Clara, Calif., on Wednesday, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said, "You'll have it next year," when asked when a 3G iPhone would appear. AT&T is the exclusive mobile carrier for the iPhone in the U.S.
Cellphones

Submission + - Verizon's "Open Network" is Not Really tha (techcrunch.com)

Submitted by
saccade.com
saccade.com writes: "TechCrunch is reporting that Verizon's "Open Network" is not really so open. Reporter Erick Schonfeld "...asked Verizon whether any of the new apps developed for the bring-your-own devices would also be available to its existing customers who bought their phones through Verizon. The answer for now is, 'No.' Although a spokesperson tells me that they are looking into it. Unless it figures that out, Verizon is not really building an open network. It is building a two-tiered network: One for its preferred customers who play by its rules (i.e., its current 64 million subscribers), and one for the rabble not satisfied with its choice of phones and apps.

...If there is no crossover capability on the apps, then the "open" part of Verizon's network will be barren. The appeal of developing an open app for Verizon would be to gain access to those 64 million subscribers. Nobody is going to go through the trouble of creating apps just for the handful of people who want a CDMA phone that Verizon does not already sell. Making the whole open network even less appealing will be the fact that these phones are not likely to be subsidized by Verizon, and thus far more expensive.""
Cellphones

Submission + - Google Maps GPS simulator now out (appleinsider.com) 1

Submitted by garbletext
garbletext writes: A new version of Google Maps introduced this week includes a beta feature dubbed My Location that was designed to simulate the GPS experience on mobile phones and handheld devices that do not include GPS hardware, like Apple's iPhone. Essentially, the My Location feature takes information broadcast from mobile towers near non-GPS equipped mobile phones to approximate the device's current location on the map down to about 10 city blocks. "It's not GPS, but it comes pretty close (approximately 1000m close, on average)," the Mountain View, Calif.-based search giant explained on its website. "We're still in beta, but we're excited to launch this feature and are constantly working to improve our coverage and accuracy." The My Location feature is currently available for most web-enabled mobile phones, including Java, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and Nokia/Symbian devices.
The Internet

Submission + - The Pirate Bay About To Relaunch Suprnova.org 3

Submitted by kungfujesus
kungfujesus writes: The Pirate Bay crew has been working on this secret project for quite some time now. Back in April they wrote a cryptic post on their blog announcing that something was coming. In a response to this announcement TPB admin Brokep told TorrentFreak: "The past, the present and the future. It's all the same, but one thing's for sure, we will radiate for weeks", today it became clear that he was referring to the resurrection of Suprnova. Article Here
Supercomputing

Submission + - Chinook completes checkers game tree (msn.com)

Submitted by garbletext
garbletext writes: An invincible checkers-playing program named Chinook has solved a game whose origins date back several millennia, scientists reported Thursday on the journal Science's Web site. By playing out every possible move — about 500 billion billion in all — the computer proved it can never be beaten. Even if its opponent also played flawlessly, the outcome would be a draw.
Privacy

Submission + - Fed Panel: Privacy laws at fault at Virginia Tech (nytimes.com)

Submitted by
RickRussellTX
RickRussellTX writes: "A panel of Bush administration officials, including several bureau chiefs, concludes that confusing privacy laws contributed to the Virgina Tech shootings. The report claims that confusion over student privacy and medical privacy laws "has limited the ability of these officials to prevent the kind of violence that occurred at Virginia Tech.""
Privacy

Submission + - Copyright Registrar speaks out on Fair Use

Submitted by Farwell
Farwell writes: Ars Technica talked to Marybeth Peters, the US Register of Copyrights about Fair Use, and not surprisingly, her views on it won't be too popular with anyone other than Big Media. 'People don't really just want fair use, Peters says, they want to "crack a code in order to make fair use of content, but the content, for the most part, they can get in an unencrypted format. But they don't really want that."' Peters also takes aim at the convenience argument: '"Nothing says that fair use says you get to do it in the most convenient form, and the one that is preferable to you. Fair use is really about content, and you shouldn't be hacking through things to get the most convenient format."'
Quake

Submission + - Quake Ported to DS And Full Speed With Wifi Play

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Simon J Hall has updated his port of the Classic First Person Shooter Quake to the Nintendo DS. This release now plays at near full speed and all the levels in the game are now playable and has full support for mods and also wifi network play, via an access point.
Editorial

Submission + - Prehistoric Men Liked Big Behinds, Researchers Say

Submitted by
acgrissom
acgrissom writes: "Continuing with the trend of presumptuous historical reconstruction, Polish researchers claim that cave men from 15,000 years ago were much more interested in a developed posterior than in any other area of the body. This is based on the unearthing of several figurines which show developed posteriors, and which conspicuously lack heads.

http://www.express.co.uk/news_detail.html?sku=1356 "
Unix

Submission + - Hans Reiser up for trial

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: According to German IT news site http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/86524 , Hans Reiser will soon be up for trial.

The content of the link, Babelfished and slightly polished, reads as follows:

The namesake and creator of the file systems ReiserFS and Reiser4, Hans Reiser, will probably have to appear in front of a California court shortly, due to the accusation of murder. Reiser has been behind bars since the middle of October 2006, after his wife Nina at the end of of Septembers living in separation disappeared without trace. In house and car of the Linux programmer traces of his wife's blood were found.

Although the police could not find a corpse, the judge found that there are sufficient reasons to believe that Reiser must have been at least involved in the disappearing of his wife. For example is still missing the passenger seat of Reisers car, which was removed short time after Nina Reisers disappearing. Reisers lawyer assumes now within the next 90 days officially accusation is raised against its mandator.
Windows

Journal Journal: BBC Says Don't Upgrade to Vista.

Journal by twitter

Tim Weber, BBC Business editor, described his Vista upgrade ordeal and warns users not to do it. The Vista Upgrade Advisor underestimated what he needed, it took him more than three hours, cost more than $200 in new parts, broke his web cam and pocket PC and left him with an unstable system. The vendors tell him there will be no drivers and that he should have bought new devices long ago. He summarizes the end result:
The Internet

Submission + - Firefox 3 To Support Offline Apps

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Read/WriteWeb reports that Robert O'Callahan from Mozilla, a kiwi who drives the rendering engine of Mozilla/FireFox, spoke at the recent New Zealand Foo Camp event about how Firefox 3 will deliver support for offline applications. This means you'll be able to use your web apps — like Gmail, Google Docs & Spreadsheets, Google Calendar, etc — in the browser even when offline. Not only does this move suit Google, but it makes Firefox attractive as the browser platform of choice for SaaS providers like salesforce.com. All of which will hit Microsoft where it hurts. Robert O'Callahan turns up in the comments to the article to say that "Yes, Web apps need to be reengineered for this, and no, no-one (including Google) has announced they will do so — although we hope they will!".

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