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Finding New Code 158

Posted by Hemos from the trying-to-do-the-search dept.
tabandmountaindew writes "Too much time is wasted re-implementing code that someone else has already done, for the sole reason it's faster than finding the other code. Previous source code search engines, such as google codesearch and krugle, only considered individual files on their own, leading to poor quality results, making them only useful when the amount of time to re-implement was extremely high. According to a recent newsforge article a fledgling source-code search engine All The Code is aiming to change all of this. By looking at code, not just on its own, but also how it is used, it is able to return more relevant results. This seems like just what we need to unify the open-source community, leading to an actual common repository of unique code, and ending the cycle of unnecessary reimplementing."
Games

Game Writing 68

Posted by samzenpus from the more-capes-and-spaceships dept.
Aeonite writes "Billed as the 'first complete guide to writing for games', Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Videogames provides an excellent overview of the ins-and-outs of writing for the videogame industry. As might be expected from a publication of the IGDA's Game Writers' Special Interest Group, the book is dense with information, addressing everything from high-level narrative theory to the specifics of dialogue engine design and game localization." Read the rest of Aeonite's review.
Operating Systems

Gentoo On Server Considered Harmful 372

Posted by kdawson from the not-a-desktop dept.
Siker writes in to point out his blog post — Why Gentoo Shouldn't Be On Your Server — which seems to have stirred up a lot of discussion, including a thread on the Gentoo forums. From the post: "I firmly believe in updating server software only when you need to. If you don't need new features, and things are working, why change anything? If you update anything you will undoubtedly need to update configuration files. You will need to fix things that break in the upgrade process... This is hard with Gentoo. Gentoo wants you to change a lot of stuff. It wants to be bleeding edge."
Patents

Submission + - New Multi-Touch Interface Rivals Apple's iPhone

Submitted by
EMIce
EMIce writes: "The excitement over last week's Apple iPhone debut was tempered a bit for me by Steve Jobs' proclamation that Apple had "filed for over 200 patents for all the inventions in iPhone and we intend to protect them". But an NYU Researcher has recently demonstrated a similar interface at TED, the annual Technology, Entertainment, and Design conference. He states that multi-touch has been around since the 80's and that research in it is booming right now. There is an article at FastCompany and a video on youtube. The demo is breathtaking. So did Apple invent the impressive multi-finger zooming and scrolling that Mr. Jobs so bluntly demonstrated?"
Windows

Submission + - HD and Bluray will not operate on some Vista PCs

Submitted by gerrysteele
gerrysteele writes: The Times http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,204 11-2536050,00.html is carryng an article about how Vista + rights restrictions with HD-dvd and Bluray will be bad for consumers and will leave them unable to legally play the disks that they paid for:

"in an interview with The Times, one of its chief architects said that because of anti-piracy protection granted to the Hollywood studios, Vista would not play HD-DVD and Blu-ray Discs on certain PCs.Virtually none of the PCs that use a digital connection have HDCP. Its up to the content providers to set the level of protection that Vista applies, but theyre likely to be pretty firm on the need to use high-definition content protection [HDCP] when using a digital connection, Mr Marsh said. At the moment HD DVD and Blu-ray Discs certainly require such protection. "

What won't you be able to do today?
Announcements

Submission + - UK Government to Enact Fair Use Law

Submitted by
bobintetley
bobintetley writes: "I (and many other Slashdotters) recently signed a petition to the UK government:
"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to create a new exception to copyright law that gives individuals the right to create a private copy of copyrighted materials for their own personal use, including back-ups, archiving and shifting format."


The UK Prime Minister's office has now responded with an encouraging:
As you may be aware, in December 2005 the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, announced that there would be a review of the intellectual property framework in the UK, led by Andrew Gowers.
The findings of this review have now been published and recommend the introduction of a private copying exception for the purposes of format shifting. This would allow individuals to copy music which they have legally bought on compact disc onto an MP3 player without infringing copyright.
The Government welcomes this recommendation and is currently considering how such an exception should be created in UK law.
"
Sci-Fi

Submission + - HBO making GRRM's Song of Ice and Fire into Series

Submitted by
rtrifts
rtrifts writes: "George R.R. Martin, the #1 NYT best-selling author of the fantahistorical series "Song of Ice and Fire" has sold the film rights to HBO. Variety reports that HBO plans to turn each novel into a season's worth of episodes. [link: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117957532.html?c ategoryid=14&cs=1 ]. The series is to be written and produced by David Benioff (Troy) and D.B. Weiss (Halo). George Martin, who Time Magazine has called "The American Tolkien", will remain involved with the HBO TV series, writing at least one episode and acting as executive producer throughout. Martin is no stranger to Hollywood, having both written and produced the genre series "Beauty and the Beast" and "The Twilight Zone". No news if Weta Digital is to be involved in the production, but New Zealand is confirmed as a likely production location and the casting posts are starting already. link:[ http://grrm.livejournal.com/11326.html%5D
   "
Music

Submission + - Torrent file has 1mil seeds and 1mil leechers

Submitted by
k1b2501tx
k1b2501tx writes: "I noticed today that the file "Billboard Top 100 of 2006" [ http://btjunkie.org/torrent?do=stat&id=6318cb34593 c5e2e7e41cd75556b01a5ea586b5dc63e ] on btjunkie.org has 904019 seeds and 963131 leechers. That means about 2 million people (that's about 0.6% of US's population) are downloading it or have already got it. The traffic generated by this torrent alone is approximately 1.2 Petabytes. RIAA's executives must be having mass heart attacks :)"
The Internet

MySpace to Offer Spyware for Parents 282

Posted by samzenpus from the think-of-the-children dept.
mrspin writes "Following continuing pressure from politicians (and parts of the media), MySpace is planning to offer parents the chance to download software which will monitor aspects of their children's activities on the social networking site. From a business point of view, the move appears to be a highly risky one. The young users of social networking sites are notorious for their lack of loyalty — and history suggests that a change like this could tempt many to abandon MySpace for the 'next cool thing'."
Microsoft

Submission + - Mossberg: Vista Is Worthy, Largely Unexciting

Submitted by
Carl Bialik from WSJ
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes: "Wall Street Journal tech columnist Walter S. Mossberg says Vista is the best version of Windows yet, but doesn't represent a major step forward: 'Overall, it works pretty much the same way as Windows XP.' More from the review: 'Nearly all of the major, visible new features in Vista are already available in Apple's operating system, called Mac OS X, which came out in 2001 and received its last major upgrade in 2005. ... in my tests, some elements of Vista could be maddeningly slow even on new, well-configured computers. Also, despite Vista's claimed security improvements, you will still have to run, and keep updating, security programs, which can be annoying and burdensome. Microsoft has thrown in one such program free, but you will have to buy at least one more. That means that, while Vista has eased some of the burden on users imposed by the Windows security crisis, it will still force you to spend more time managing the computer than I believe people should have to devote.'"
Announcements

Submission + - One step closer to removing Microsoft Office

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: After 10 months of development Docvert 3.0 was released today. This open source web service converts DOC files to Oasis OpenDocument 1.0, and then to HTML, RSS, or any XML format. Try the ODF demo or download the source and install it on your own box. Version 3.0 comes with an MS Word Plugin, FTP/WebDAV upload, and an in-browser document editor.
Mozilla

Submission + - Flash Player now available for Linux

Submitted by Peite Anderson
Peite Anderson writes: Adobe finally made Flash Player available for Linux with the latest version. Although the Flash Player itself is proprietary software, Adobe has made one significant component an open-source program, the ActionScript Virtual Machine that executes JavaScript programs on Web pages called Tamarin. Updated Linux debugger versions of Flash Player 9 (aka debug players or content debuggers) of Flash Player 9 are now available. Additionally, the Linux standalone player (projector) is available for developers who wish to publish projectors on Linux operating systems.
Security

Submission + - MoAB developers used explots against end-uses

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: The Month of Apple Bugs has taken an interesting turn. MOAB-16-01-2007 is a format string vunerability in the IRC client Colloquy. LMH (the MoAB project leader) appears to have actively used this exploit, before any public or private disclosure, against the users of an IRC channel that had recently been critical of LMH's and MoAB's conduct. The accusation, evidence, and the MoAB response can be found here.
User Journal

Journal Journal: Who owns rights to public domain?

Journal by lpq

Saw this article where I read that "a representative for Edgar Rice Burroughs' estate said Disney was acquiring the rights for a live action film" for "John Carter of Mars", released to novel in 1916. At least the first books in the series are in the public domain (copyright expired) and is available for free on the Gutenberg Project. What "rights" does one need to "acquire" to prod

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