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Dutch Blackbox Voting Pwned 353

Posted by kdawson from the playing-chess-at-the-polls dept.
An anonymous reader writes, "In a just-published report (PDF, in English, cached here), the Dutch we-don't-trust-voting-computers foundation (Dutch and English) details how it converted a Nedap voting machine, of a type used in Holland and France, to steal a pre-determined percentage of votes and reassign them to another party. The paper describes in great detail how 'anyone, when given brief access to the devices at any time before the election, can gain complete and virtually undetectable control over the election results.' As a funny bonus, responding to an earlier challenge by the manufacturer, the researchers reflashed a voting machine to play chess. The news was on national television (Dutch) last night and is growing into a major scandal. 90% of the votes in the Netherlands are cast on these machines and national elections will be held in a month." Please create mirrors for the 8.1-MB PDF and post their URLs. You might also try John Graham-Cumming's l8r.org service to tell you when the slashdot effect subsides from any of the mirrors.

Why is OSS Commercial Software So Expensive? 718

Posted by Cliff from the not-cost-competitive dept.
An anonymous reader asks: "Our startup honestly wanted to use OSS products. We do not want to spend time for any OSS bug fixing so our main requirement was -official support for all OSS products-. We thought were prepared to pay the price for OSS products, but then we got a price sticker shock. Now behold: QT is $3300 per seat. We have dropped the development and rewrote everything to C# (MSVS 2005 is ~$700). Embedded Linux from a reputable RT vendor is $25,000 per 5 seats per year. We needed only 3 seats. We had to buy 5 nevertheless. The support was bad. We will go for VxWorks or WinCE in our next product. Red Hat Linux WS is $299. An OEM version of Windows XP Pro is ~$140. A Cygwin commercial license will cost tens of thousands of dollars and is only available for large shops. We need 5 seats. Windows Unix services are free. After all, we have decided that the survival of our business is more important for us then 'do-good' ideas. Except for that embedded Linux (slated for WinCE or VxWorks substitution), we are not OSS shop anymore." Why are commercial ports of OSS software so expensive, and what would need to happen before they could be competitive in the future?

Is PC World Still Worth the Subscription? 110

Posted by Cliff from the IT-mags-in-today's-wired-world dept.
alexwcovington asks: "I've subscribed to PC World magazine since 1996, but my subscription is up for renewal this year, and I'm not sure if I need it anymore. I love reading the Stephen Manes rants and hoarding back issues in my closet, but I find myself getting virtually all the hard information I used to turn to PC World for from the Internet. What's the relevance of a print IT publication in modern times?"

Apple Goes After the Term 'Podcast' 419

Posted by Zonk from the lots-of-frustrated-casters-out-there dept.
Udo Schmitz writes "Earlier this year, Apple went up against companies using the word 'pod' in their product names. Now, Apple is going after the term 'podcasting'. Wired has the complete text of Apple's cease-and-desist letter to Podcast Ready." From the article: "Robert Scoble -- whose own company, PodTech, may be at risk in this witch hunt -- has weighed in on the issue by suggesting that the tech community as a whole adopt other terms like "audiocast" and 'videocast' (or alternately, 'audcast' and 'vidcast') to describe this type of content, while other folks feel that fighting Apple and generating a ton of negative press for Cupertino is the best solution. Our take? Apple should be happy that its golden goose is getting so much free publicity, and if it isn't, we know of several companies that probably wouldn't mind if zencast, zunecast, or sansacast became the preferred terminology."

What Could YouTube Be Worth? 139

Posted by Zonk from the to-the-highest-bidder dept.
An anonymous reader writes "C|Net has a story about the possible cost of YouTube. Sony just paid $65 Million for small-time videosharing outfit 'Grouper'. That site has around 1% of the videosharing market. The article asks, at that price, what might YouTube's 43% be worth?" From the article: "Entertainment analysts have predicted in recent weeks that sites with large followings would command a high price. The Sony deal proved them right. But while the Grouper deal helped establish a benchmark, there is still plenty of confusion about the fair value of online video companies. This is because the typical metrics for measuring a company appear to have gone out the window--just like they did during the bubble years of the late 1990s."

End of Win 98 Support May Boost Desktop Linux 581

Posted by timothy from the not-sure-about-the-demographic-overlap dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft kills off support for Windows 98 and Windows ME today, and ZDNet is reporting that the move will boost demand for Linux on the desktop. Unlike two years ago — when support for Win98 was extended because Linux was seen as a serious competitor — this time it seems there is no turning back."

Microsoft Ponders Windows Successor 320

Posted by samzenpus from the child-of-my-child dept.
InfoWorldMike writes "Before Vista is even out of the gates, a Microsoft exec was talking Wednesday about Windows' replacement at a VC conference. Speaking at The Venture Forum conference, Microsoft's Bryan Barnett, a program manager for external research programs in the Microsoft Research group, said multicore architectures are of particular interest when weighing what to put in future operating systems at the company. "Taking full advantage of the processing power that those multicore architectures potentially make available requires operating systems and development tools that don't exist largely today," Barnett said. Well, with Vista in the pipeline as long as it has been, you must admit it is not surprising Microsoft is taking the long-term view. And it won't be built overnight: There is no timetable for a Windows successor right now. But early work on this effort has not yet been organized, with five or six small projects afoot in various places throughout the company, Barnett said."

Who is Going to Buy SkyOS? 118

Posted by Cliff from the does-it-pique-your-curiosity dept.
An anonymous reader wonders: "With the huge amount of operating systems available (numerous free and non-free Linux distros, Windows, Mac OSX, BSD, etc) who would buy SkyOS? An OS that was once free will now become a commercial operating system with the release of version 5.0. Although 'Porting applications from POSIX operating systems is an easy task', applications will still have to be ported since SkyOS 'isn't based on any other operating system'. This leads me to wonder...is there something about this operating system that I'm missing? Has anyone out there tried SkyOS and why would anyone pay for SkyOS with all of the alternatives out there with tonnes of software easily available?"

Pirate Party Comes to the U.S. 543

Posted by CmdrTaco from the emo-kids-want-their-free-tunes dept.
Spy der Mann writes "Wired news has published an interview with the Pirate Party of the U.S., which was formed a week after the raid on Pirate Bay. The group patterns itself after Piratpartiet, the Swedish political party associated with The Pirate Bay, and says it wants to reform intellectual property and privacy laws."

The Biggest Game Dev You've Never Heard Of 85

Posted by Zonk from the busy-little-ninjas dept.
simoniker writes "Japan-based game developer Tose has 1,000 employees, and has created 1,100 game SKUs since 1979 (including Final Fantasy GBA versions, though they can't mention it in this interview!), but they're basically unknown, because they're 'game development ninjas', and 'refuse to put [their] names on the game'. Odd stuff."

The Simpson's Movie Confirmed 334

Posted by Zonk from the not-a-joke dept.
bagsc writes "BBC News reports Twentieth Centruy Fox confirms The Simpsons are going to the movies! Should hit theatres in 2007." From the article: "A 25-second trailer for the film has been shown to US audiences at screenings of Ice Age: The Meltdown, promising to introduce 'the greatest hero in American history'. It then cut to Homer Simpson, wearing only his underwear, who admitted: 'I forgot what I was supposed to say.'"

Apple releases iPod 1075

Posted by CmdrTaco from the well-thats-not-very-exciting dept.
The BrownFury writes "At an invitation only event Apple has released their new MP3 player called the iPod. iPod is the size of a deck of cards. 2.4" wide by 4" tall by .78" thick 6.5 ounces. 5 GB HDD, 10 hr battery life, charged via FireWire. Works as a firewire drive as well. Works in conjunctions with iTunes 2. Here are Live updates". No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.

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