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IT

Information Overload Predicted Problem of the Year for 2008 146

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the nagging-inboxes dept.
Wired is reporting that information overload is being predicted by some analysts as the problem of the year for 2008. "'It's too much information. It's too many interruptions. It's too much lost time,' Basex chief analyst Jonathan Spira declared. 'It's always too much of a good thing.' Information overload isn't exactly new, but Spira said the problem has grown as technology increases societal expectations for instantaneous response. And more information available, he said, also means more time wasted looking for the right information, whether in an old e-mail or through a search engine."
Software

Do OpenOffice Users Save In Microsoft Format? 620

Posted by kdawson from the compatibility-or-purity dept.
superglaze writes "Looking through an article on the smartphone office suite Quickoffice, I noted a claim by a company executive that OpenOffice users usually save their documents in a Microsoft format, e.g. .doc. Hence the company has no plans to support .odf. I guess I can see the rationale for this — it helps if you're sending a document to an MS-using company — but what's this community's general experience of saving in .odf vs. .doc format?"

Storm Worm Botnet Partitions May Be Up For Sale 192

Posted by Zonk from the if-only-they'd-use-their-powers-for-good dept.
Bowling for cents writes "There is evidence that the massive Storm Worm botnet is being broken up into smaller networks, and a ZDNet post thinks that's a surefire sign that the CPU power is up for sale to spammers and denial-of-service attackers. The latest variants of Storm are now using a 40-byte key to encrypt their Overnet/eDonkey peer-to-peer traffic, meaning that each node will only be able to communicate with nodes that use the same key. This effectively allows the Storm author to segment the Storm botnet into smaller networks. This could be a precursor to selling Storm to other spammers, as an end-to-end spam botnet system, complete with fast-flux DNS and hosting capabilities."
Privacy

U.S. Airport Screeners Are Watching What You Read 484

Posted by Zonk from the just-forget-about-rights dept.
boarder8925 writes "Be careful what you read when you fly in the United States. What you read is being monitored by airport screeners and stored in a government database for years. 'Privacy advocates obtained database records showing that the government routinely records the race of people pulled aside for extra screening as they enter the country, along with cursory answers given to U.S. border inspectors about their purpose in traveling. In one case, the records note Electronic Frontier Foundation co-founder John Gilmore's choice of reading material, and worry over the number of small flashlights he'd packed for the trip. The breadth of the information obtained by the Gilmore-funded Identity Project (using a Privacy Act request) shows the government's screening program at the border is actually a survelliance dragnet."
Games

CA Game Bill Struck Down, Governor Vows Appeal 106

Posted by Zonk from the like-a-bad-tennis-match dept.
GamePolitics has the full story today on the removal of California's violent games law. A judge has found it unconstitutional after a protracted legal battle. The law was originally passed back in 2005. "The bill, championed by then-Assembly Speaker Leland Yee (D) was signed into law by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (left) on October 7th, 2005. The video game industry filed suit to block the law 10 days later. Judge Ronald Whyte issued a preliminary injunction on December 22nd, blocking the California law from its planned effective date of January 1st, 2006. Since then, both sides have been waiting for Judge Whyte's final ruling. Today it has come." The law's sponsor Leland Yee is quite disappointed by the ruling, of course, and Governor Schwarzenegger plans to appeal the decision.
Linux Business

Submission + - Lacking contributions of corporations to OSS

Submitted by
Sargun Dhillon
Sargun Dhillon writes: "William Hurley, or better known as whurley, from BMC software writes about a town much like the open source world where no one gives back. As the open source community is exploding in size it is being taken advantage of some. Open source projects are being used by companies who adequately contribute back to open source, but there are a few evil companies which are not willing contribute back. This is only one more bump that OSS must pass over."
Displays

Using Two Monitors Makes You More Productive? 602

Posted by Cliff from the it's-all-about-the-screen-real-estate dept.
Double Vision asks: "In my job, I work with several software applications at once. I find that constantly switching back and forth wastes a tremendous amount of time and causes me to lose focus. My video card supports two monitors, so I found a discarded monitor in my office and hooked it up. This has made it much easier to do my job. However, we are getting ready to go through an equipment audit, which means I will likely lose my additional monitor unless I can justify keeping it. How can I make this case? Is anyone aware of studies that support my claim that two monitors makes me more productive?"
Graphics

A Look at the Compiz and Beryl Merger 250

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the mind-melds dept.
invisibastard writes to mention that Linux Tech Daily has an editorial on the merger between Compiz and Beryl. "This state of affairs was a shame. Something that was finally getting the general public excited about Linux, the 3D desktop, was wasting time with duplication of effort and fighting. There were concerns about the long term viability of Beryl. The perception in the community overall was, Compiz = old and stale, Beryl = fresh and exciting. This despite the feeling in the Compiz community that the "real work" was being done by David Reveman and Compiz, and there were exciting things with Compiz core (like input redirection, etc...) on the horizon."
PlayStation (Games)

Submission + - PS3 Users to help Folding@home

Submitted by HockeyPuck
HockeyPuck writes: Sony announced on Thursday that owners of any Internet-connected PS3 will be able to participate in a wide-ranging, distributed, scientific experiment led by Stanford University's Folding@home program, which is seeking to better understand a process called protein folding and its relationship to several serious diseases. http://news.com.com/PS3+power+requested+for+resear ch+project/2100-11393_3-6167491.html
Privacy

Submission + - Google to remove identifying data from search logs

Submitted by
darkuncle
darkuncle writes: "Via techdirt: a couple of Google lawyers have announced via the Google Blog that Google will begin removing identifying data from search logs after 18-24 months in an effort to make logs "much more anonymous". This is particularly interesting in light of recent stories about search log data being used in trials. One wonders (as noted by TechLiberation) how data can be made "more anonymous" — either it is, or it isn't. In any case, law enforcement (especially the U.S. government) will probably be less than thrilled with this development (witness pending legislation and general calls by law enforcement for mandatory data retention, both in the U.S. and abroad)."
Security

Submission + - P2P trojan threatens to "kill you," delete

Submitted by
soulxtc
soulxtc writes: "Instead of the proverbial "gotcha letter" via your ISP, a mysterious copyright holder has created a trojan that overwrites all of their program, music, and system files with popular comic book character images warning them not to use P2P or it will "kill them." Have Japanese copyright-holders in fact gone "nuclear" in their fight? It will most certainly only backfire as parents have to soon start consoling their children about how their favorite comic book character is dancing on their PC screen deleting all of their kids files and threatening to "kill them" or "turn them in to the police.""
Software

California Joins Open Document Bandwagon 188

Posted by kdawson from the stretching-the-lobbiests-thin dept.
Andy Updegrove writes "A legislator in California has decided that it's time for California to get on the open formats bandwagon. If all of the bills filed in the last few weeks pass, California, Texas, and Minnesota will all require, in near-identical language, that 'all documents, including, but not limited to, text, spreadsheets, and presentations, produced by any state agency shall be created, exchanged, and preserved in an open extensible markup language-based, XML-based file format.' What type of formats will qualify? Again, the language is very uniform (the following is from the California statute): 'When deciding how to implement this section, the department in its evaluation of open, XML-based file formats shall consider all of the following features: (1) Interoperable among diverse internal and external platforms and applications; (2) Fully published and available royalty-free; (3) Implemented by multiple vendors; (4) Controlled by an open industry organization with a well-defined inclusive process for evolution of the standard.'"
Windows

Submission + - EU warns Microsoft of more fines

Submitted by what about
what about writes: From news.com

Microsoft faces further fines in the European Commission's antitrust case for allegedly setting unreasonable prices for software rivals seeking interoperability information.

The latest formal charges could lead to new fines against the U.S. software giant, the Commission said in a statement Thursday.

The Commission found in 2004 that Microsoft violated European Union antitrust rules by failing to give to other makers of small-business servers the information they needed to compete with some of Microsoft's own products.

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