FullMetalJester - Slashdot User

Submission + - Last-Minute Senate Amendment to appease RIAA

Submitted by Rodrigo on Tuesday July 24, 2007 @12:05AM

Rodrigo writes: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has found the time to forget about fighting that pesty Iraq War and focus on the issues that really matter: making the influence of the RIAA and MPAA a mainstay in our college campuses. The EFF has put a call to arms against the proposed Senate amendment to the Higher Education Act. The amendment aims to force certain schools to police their network or risk losing federal funding for student aid. Naturally, this policing will come at the school's expense and through "technology-based deterrents," which raise privacy concerns. Please call your representatives and make sure they know what they're voting for under Senate Amendment 2314.

Re-Vote Likely After E-Vote Data Mishandling 172

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday July 18, 2007 @07:36PM from the technology-makes-life-easier dept.

davecb writes "A California judge is likely to order a Berkeley city initiative back on the ballot because of local officials' mishandling of electronic voting machine data. A recount was not possible because the city failed to share necessary voting records, a violation of election laws. In a preliminary ruling Thursday, Judge Winifred Smith of the Alameda County Superior Court indicated she would nullify the defeat of a medical marijuana proposal in Berkeley in 2004 and order the measure put back on the ballot in a later election."

Feed WSJ Notices That The NAB Has An Agenda (techdirt.com)

From feed by techdirtfeed on Monday April 23, 2007 @09:52PM

It's been pretty clear for some time that the National Association of Broadcasters' opposition to the merger of XM and Sirius isn't based on any concern for the public, as it would like you to believe, but rather is an attempt to get the government to bolster its struggling business because it doesn't want to compete in the marketplace. We've pointed out before that it's that behavior that rankles us in this case, rather than any real desire to see a merged XM-Sirius. What the NAB is doing -- the astroturfing, the paid shills, the conflicts of interest, the not-so-independent research, and most of all, the utter hypocrisy -- is representative of so many other entrenched industries that will do anything and everything they can to avoid having to actually compete in the marketplace. With all that in mind, it's nice to see people starting to catch on that the NAB's self-serving agenda means it really shouldn't have any part in the debate about the XM-Sirius merger, as The Wall Street Journal did over the weekend. As an editorial in the paper put it:

"No one knows whether the public will ever really take to the pay model, but it's not the role of the government to help the NAB smother a fledgling competitor in the crib... Telecom policy should not be about picking winners and losers but about encouraging investment and innovation. For that to happen, what's most important is competition among technological platforms: cable, telephone, wireless and satellite (for now). Policy makers and regulators would do better to focus less on static models of market share within one platform and more on making sure rival platforms continue to exist. Consumers will happily take care of the rest."

That cuts to the heart of the issue: the NAB wants the government to give it, in essence, a subsidy to protect its business -- just as it's tried to do so many times before, with so many other technologies. Blocking this merger won't block anticompetitive behavior from XM and Sirius, it will empower anticompetitive behavior from the NAB's terrestrial radio membership.

Submission + - Cable-Ready HDTV Tuners Come To The PC

Submitted by MendonDave on Monday April 23, 2007 @09:50PM

MendonDave writes: Free to air HDTV can be brought in to a PC with any number of TV Tuner products currently on the market. However, tuner cards or external USB tuners that support local and non-subscription cable driven HDTV channels have been non-existent until the recent release of tuners like the 5th generation LG ATSC / NTSC chipset. The Autumnwave OnAir USB HDTV Creator is a new tuner that recently hit the street is capable of pulling in both analog (NTSC) and digital (ATSC)signal and Digital Cable (QAM 64/256) via direct cable connection. 1080i image quality with this product and a capable monitor is exceptional.

Feed Drug Company Sales Visits Influenced Doctors, Study Finds (sciencedaily.com)

From feed by sdfeed on Monday April 23, 2007 @09:13PM

Almost half of sales visits by pharmaceutical company representatives advocating the use of the drug gabapentin led to doctors stating that they intended to increase their prescription of the drug or recommend it to colleagues, according to an analysis of a survey completed by the doctors shortly after the visits.

Submission + - NASA Releases 3D Images of Sun

Submitted by SunnyGa on Monday April 23, 2007 @08:45PM

SunnyGa writes: NASA released the first three-dimensional images of the sun Monday, saying the photos taken from twin spacecraft may lead to better predictions of solar eruptions that can affect communications and power lines on Earth

Submission + - Why are T1 lines still expensive?

Submitted by badfrog on Monday April 23, 2007 @04:51PM

badfrog writes: Over the last 10 years, DSL and cable modem has upped its speed (although in some instances only slightly) and dropped its price. However, the price of a T1 has stayed almost exactly the same. If you had asked me 10 years ago, I would have predicted any geek that wanted to would have fiber or their own T1 line to the house by now. What is with this sad state of affairs that a 'business class' 1.544Mbit connection is hundreds of dollars more than a 6Mbit cable connection? Is it a legitimate case that a high upload rate should increase cost so significantly?

Submission + - Daylight Saving change: no power savings

Submitted by Brett on Tuesday April 03, 2007 @02:40PM

Brett writes: Results from energy companies are coming in, and the word is that moving Daylight Saving Time forward three weeks had "no measurable impact" on power consumption. The attempt by the US Congress to make it look like they were doing something about the US energy crisis has been exposed as the waste it is, but the new DST is probably here to stay. Letting the bill expire would mean re-patching a lot of systems again next year. So much for saving energy.

Submission + - Macromedia and 64bit

Submitted by

colin_faber

on Tuesday April 03, 2007 @02:32PM

colin_faber writes: "As I find my self yet again wasting the first part of my day reviewing emails, I find my self asking; why hasn't Macromedia gone forward with 64bit support for their flash player yet. Almost a year ago the same question was raised, and many of you had very logical and valid arguments. Most of which revolved around the fact that the overall 64bit community was very tiny.

Well a year later the prominence of 64bit based personal computers has grown dramatically. With the release of Intel's Core2 Duo mobile chips and AMD's mobile offerings, 64bit is within reach of the common user.

Additionally larger companies such as Microsoft are actively working to roll out 64bit versions of their operating systems into the main stream. So I ask again, what is Macromedia waiting for?"

Submission + - Breaking 104 bit WEP in less then 60 Seconds

Submitted by

collin.m

on Tuesday April 03, 2007 @02:04PM

collin.m writes: "Erik Tews with the help of two others published a new attack on WEP called: Breaking 104 bit WEP in less then 60 Seconds.

Like the older attacks on WEP this attack uses sniffed IVs in order to break/compute/crack the WEP key. The nice thing about this attack is that it only needs between 40.000 and 85.000 unique IVs (older attacks needed between 250.000 and 1.000.000 in order to succeed). This all ready reduces the overall attack time since one needs to capture less packages. But the attack also uses a new/other attack on RC4 that further improves the speed. The paper gives an average of 3 seconds (crack time) on 1.7Ghz Pentium-M. The attack even works with 5000 keys so it should be usable on a PDA or SmartPhone.

Paper
The Tool and more Information"

Submission + - Best Buy Acquires Speakeasy

Submitted by originalhack on Tuesday March 27, 2007 @09:55AM

originalhack writes: Sorry folks, it's not April 1 yet. Speakeasy is being gobbled up by Best Buy.

Submission + - Creationism - Muslim Style!

Submitted by Ohiosan on Tuesday March 27, 2007 @09:51AM

Ohiosan writes: Once the specter was raised, it was bound to happen. Yahoo! News recently reported that a Muslim scholar in Turkey sent a book describing an Islamic view of creation to various schools in France. This prompted the Education Ministry to take the topic of science and evolution under review.

With many Christian conservatives pushing Creationism / Intelligent Design in the US, it will not be long before other religions try assert the views in the classroom as well. How far will it go before we have a battle royale of competing views being taught in the classroom?

Submission + - Linux-based Hardware/Software Dev Kit for $70

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 27, 2007 @09:44AM

An anonymous reader writes: LinuxDevices reports: Atmel is shipping the least expensive hardware/software Linux development kit we've come across in LinuxDevices.com's seven-year history. The $70 Atmel Network Gateway Kit 100, based on Atmel's AVR32 RISC architecture, includes a tiny SBC (single-board computer), a full Linux port/toolchain, and supports "most serial communication protocols. According to Atmel, the Atmel Network Gateway Kit 100 (ATNGW100) is suitable for routers, POS (point-of-sales/service), navigation, multimedia, and printers.

Submission + - Air conditioning failure threatens state computers

Submitted by

coondoggie

on Tuesday March 27, 2007 @09:39AM

coondoggie writes: "Here's one you don't hear about every day: A massive air-conditioning failure at a Florida office complex in Tallahassee is threatening to disrupt state government computer traffic statewide today.A least 11 buildings have lost air-conditioning so far because a chiller plant at the Capital Circle Office Complex in Tallahassee began leaking Monday night, according to a Pensacola News journal story. The lack of cool air threatens to overheat the government's servers, and officials are warning that the state's main web page will be out of service periodically throughout the day.The state Emergency Operations Center is also located at the complex, but its functions will not be interrupted, the story said. A recent study from Forrester Research said management of heat in data centers became a major challenge in the previous two years which might have produced immense Internet data centers. Those data centers produce tremendous amounts of heat. http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/1295 5"

Submission + - Sexy Machines -- Yeah Baby!

Submitted by

jcatcw

on Tuesday March 27, 2007 @09:33AM

jcatcw writes: "Computerworld's Lucas Mearian found the common denominators in the design of cars, computers and music systems. HP got lessons from BMW and starting making less symmetrical servers and storage arrays. Now when an IT manager looks down a row of systems, they give off a "piano keyboard" effect — always in play. Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun and chief architect, takes many of his design ideas from the stereo systems of his youth. Coming full circle, IBM's design team helps design music systems for automakers. Slideshow."

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