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AMD

Submission + - AMD's 'Frantic Price Cuts' May Pressure Intel

Submitted by kog777
kog777 writes: Price competition is sparking up again between the world's largest chip makers, Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC) and Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD). As Intel took a technological lead late last year, AMD responded with "frantic price cuts" after a weak start to its first quarter, Needham analyst Y. Edwin Mok said in a note to clients on Tuesday.
Republicans

Submission + - Law requires ISPs to record all surfing activity

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A bill introduced last week by Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX) is beginning to raise eyebrows. (...) Under the guise of reducing child pornography, the SAFETY (Stopping Adults Facilitating the Exploitation of Today's Youth) Act is currently the gravest threat to digital privacy rights on the Internet. Given the increasing tendency of people, especially young people, to use the Internet as a primary means of communication, this measure would affect nearly all Americans in ways we are only beginning to understand. Also, given the fact that the Act requires all Internet Service Providers to record the web surfing activity of all Internet users, this amounts to the warrantless wiretapping of the entire Internet.
Slashback

Submission + - Does Losing Weight Make You Happy?

Submitted by
atanas
atanas writes: "Joi Ito posted "Before and After" images of himself on Flickr. He lost 15 kgs (33 lbs.) and is happy with his new, healthier lifestyle. I congratulate him for his effort, and for achieving his goal (I assume this was his goal). But this also made me think: Have you noticed that in almost all "Before and After" images the person looks happier in the "Before" image? They look more slender, fitter, muscular, trimmer in the "After" image, but something seems to have left them... The spark in their eye is gone... http://atanasentchev.blogspot.com/2007/02/before-a fter.html"
Classic Games (Games)

Submission + - The Godfather of (video) Games

Submitted by
fattmatt
fattmatt writes: "After reading Supercade all weekend (sometimes teary eyed remembering back to the "K.C. Munchkin!" tournaments they were held in my basement) I stumbled across this roots article. No matter the latest console wars going on ... my favorite consoles will always be be history..."
Media

Submission + - Canadian copyright group wants iPod taxes

Submitted by
Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward writes: "Unable to define memory as a "recording medium," Canada's Private Copyright Collective goes directly after portable music player devices, memory cards, and anything else that can be used to make private copies. The Private Copyright Collective submitted a proposal to the country's Copyright Board that suggests levies of $5 on devices with up to 1GB of memory, $25 for 1 to 10 GB, $50 for between 10 GB and 30 GB and $75 for over 30 GB are in order to compensate artists and labels for the losses they suffer when people "illegally" copy or transfer music. They are also seeking a new $2 to $10 tax on memory cards. That's right, MEMORY CARDS! The backbone of digital photography has become tangled up in the fight for making sure music artists get every nickel and dime they feel that they deserve."
Software

Submission + - Computers mimicking the brain

Submitted by
Roland Piquepaille
Roland Piquepaille writes: "Researchers at the MIT McGovern Institute for Brain Research have used a biological model to train a computer model to recognize objects in busy street scenes, such as cars or people. Their very innovative approach, which combines neuroscience and artificial intelligence with computer science, mimics how the brain functions to recognize objects in the real world. This versatile model could soon be used for automobile driver's assistance, visual search engines, biomedical imaging analysis or robots with realistic vision. It also have many potential applications for neuroscientists, to design augmented sensory prostheses for example. And the researchers are thinking about a commercial implementation of their technology. Read more for additional references and pictures showing how this computer model works."
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Choosing a USB Hard Drive

Submitted by
PunkOfLinux
PunkOfLinux writes: "I'm looking at getting an external hard drive (USB) for use with my laptop. When I look online, I see so many options that I have no idea where to start. Does anyone here on slashdot have experience with any particular models, or any recommendations?"
Supercomputing

Submission + - World's first Quantum Computer to be demoed

Submitted by
Leemeng
Leemeng writes: "EE Times reports that D-Wave will demonstrate the world's first commercial quantum computer on Tuesday (Feb 13) at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif. If it works, that means it can solve some of the most difficult problems, called NP-complete problems, thousands of times faster than current supercomputers. Initially, D-Wave (Vancouver, B.C.) will lease time on its quantum computer, which will be accessed over a secure Internet connection. Eventually, the company plans to sell quantum computer systems.

Being able to quickly solve NP-complete problems has enormous consequences. A fairly well-known NP-complete problem is the travelling salesman problem, which has real-world implications for logistics. NP-complete problems are present in such diverse fields as medicine, biology, computing, mathematics, and finance. Of immediate concern is quantum computers' potential for cryptanalysis (codebreaking). Specifically, a quantum computer could factor very large numbers in a fraction of the time needed by current computers. That BTW, is just what you need for cracking the RSA cipher and other widely-used ciphers that depend on one-way mathematical functions. Perhaps this will light a fire under quantum cryptography efforts."
The Internet

Submission + - Wrong Phone Number = No DNS = No Income

Submitted by FishinDave
FishinDave writes: The customer service staff at domain registrar Enom.com seems a bit standoffish, to put it charitably. They didn't email pioneering Web publisher Randy "This Is True" Cassingham to warn him that someone had changed the phone number on several of his income-producing Web sites' registry records to "0000000000".

They just shut off DNS to those sites and others registered to Cassingham, and even to a site that listed him only at the technical contact. They didn't bother to email any concerned parties about that, either.

It took several hair-tearing hours for Cassingham to figure out why no one could reach his sites and all his email addresses were down — why his livelihood had suddenly vanished, in other words. After he learned that Enom had cut him off, it took nearly 24 hours more to get his DNS restored.

Enom never responded to Cassingham's desperate communications with a single word of acknowledgement, explanation, apology, or advice.

The phone number was changed by Cassingham himself as he updated obsolete registry information. Like most sane people, he was loathe to put his office phone number in the registry for every con artist and crank to harvest, so he entered a placeholder number until he could get a voicemail flak-catcher. All of his DNS records contain a valid email address that auto-responds to incoming messages with Cassingham's full contact info, including a valid voice phone number.

OK, so Cassingham made a hasty mistake by not waiting until he had a valid voicemail number. More likely, his real mistake was using such an obviously bogus placeholder as "0000000000". Whois records are rife with plausible-looking contact info that doesn't work. Indeed, Cassingham's income would not have been interrupted and his heart slammed into fibrillation had he simply left in place the contact info that was obsolete since he moved in 2003.

But Enom made a bigger mistake by biting the hand that feeds it, without so much as a warning snarl.

Any domain registrar can do likewise to anyone at any time. I wonder how many have.

How do Slashdot readers manage their DNS records for privacy and security? If you manage a registry, what do you do when you discover possibly bogus contact info? What would you do if your registrar pulled a stunt like Enom's?
The Courts

Submission + - PJ at Groklaw is taking a Health Break

Submitted by Conrad Mazian
Conrad Mazian writes: PJ at Groklaw has decided to take a health break:

Health Break
Saturday, February 10 2007 @ 01:56 PM EST

As you know, I have been sick more than once recently. I don't seem to be getting back on my feet the way I'd normally expect, and so after some thought I've decided to take a little break from doing Groklaw, just until I get my strength back. I don't think I can do both at the same time.

I can't predict exact dates, because what I really need is a real vacation and time to just do nothing until I fully am myself again. I've done almost 3,000 articles on pretty much a daily basis, with a lot of time stress, since mid-May of 2003, and I think I'm a bit worn out, between SCO and the ODF thing.

So I hope you'll forgive me while I kick back, put my feet up, and snooze a while. I'll be back as soon as I can. I love doing Groklaw. Meanwhile, you can post here as usual, and if you run out of space, Mathfox will give you more. I know you know the ground rules, and I'll see you as soon as I can. Then I'll hop back on my horsie and we'll start galloping forward again.

Love, PJ

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200702101 3564542
Portables

Submission + - Samsug announces look-alike iphone killer

Submitted by goombah99
goombah99 writes: Samsung unveiled a prototype of their touchscreen phone. It's look, single button front, full-face touchscreen are the essentially identical to the iphone. The screen resolution is sufficiently worse that video viewing will be less of a pleasure, it's thicker, and it lacks Wi-Fi. But it has a slide-out full thumb-board, a 5 mega pixel camera, supports 3G (High-Speed Downlink Packet Access). Web connectivity however lacks the elegant full screen approach with a gestural interface of the iphone. Price, battery life and availability are not known. Read Here and here for first impressions. My impression is that hardware wise it's at the same level as the iphone so, as always, it's the apple polish of the interface that will be the deciding factor. Simultaneously, Microsoft revealed a workmanlike update of it's mobile version.

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