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Security

Adobe Security Updates For Flash and Shockwave 58

Posted by timothy from the if-you'd-rather-not-live-on-that-particular-edge dept.
nlewis writes "Adobe has finally released updates for their Flash and Shockwave Players. These updates should, in theory, address the security issues outlined in this security bulletin. This issue has been mentioned here previously. Don't expect an update to the equally flawed Acrobat Reader until sometime tomorrow, though."
Government

China Bans Games That "Glorify Gangsters' Lives" 172

Posted by Soulskill from the let's-buy-jack-thompson-a-plane-ticket dept.
As we discussed in June, China has been working on plans to impose further restrictions on the games that can be sold or publicized within its borders. The Chinese government has now begun implementing those plans, starting with games that involve gangs, saying, "These games encourage people to deceive, loot and kill, and glorify gangsters' lives. It has a bad influence on youngsters." According to a Xinhua news agency, "The ministry ordered its law enforcement bodies to step up oversight and harshly punish those sites that continue to run such games."
The Courts

Australian Website Bans ... Australians 247

Posted by timothy from the only-ones-who-could-in-a-place-like-this dept.
Nazlfrag writes "Earlier this month the blog and discussion forum ZGeek was sued for $42 million AUD over a user's comment. The plaintiffs are aspiring movie producers who claim to have lost a movie deal due to a 9/11 conspiracy discussion thread. Even though the initial lawsuit has been thrown out, and the company complied with lawyers' demands by taking down the offending posts, it is believed the plaintiffs will file suit again. In addition to suing the forum, in an Australian first they have been granted an injunction to force the ISPs to disclose the IP addresses of the two posters involved. Due to the risk of incurring even greater legal costs the company is closing its doors in Australia, and will ban their fellow countrymen from posting there again."

Comment They should fix this right away (Score 2, Insightful) 288

by Null Nihils (#28442773) Attached to: Has Google Broken JavaScript Spam Munging?

This can easily be fixed, and should be right away. If Google is turning JavaScript into text output, they can easily parse that output (just like the spammers currently are) and see if the text contains an e-mail address. And if it does, they should omit it from search results (unless the address was originally plain text and not obfuscated, in which case they can assume the author wants it searchable).
Programming

Splash, Splatter, Sploosh, and Bloop! 100

Posted by samzenpus from the wouold-you-like-some-ottamottapia-with-that dept.
Acoustic Bubble writes "Researchers at Cornell University have developed the first algorithm for synthesizing familiar bubble-based fluid sounds automatically from 3D fluid simulations, e.g, for future virtual environments. The research (entitled 'Harmonic Fluids') will appear at ACM SIGGRAPH 2009 in New Orleans in August 2009. Check out some videos of falling, pouring, splashing and babbling water simulations (computed on a Linux cluster)."
America Online

Time Warner Confirms Split With AOL 94

Posted by Soulskill from the no-plans-for-coaster-hall-of-fame dept.
ausekilis writes "Many outlets are reporting that Time Warner has confirmed plans to spin off AOL. All that's left to deal with are a few financial hurdles, such as buying out Google's 5% stake in AOL. The interesting part of the story is that both AOL's CEO and Time Warner's CEO said effectively the same thing, that AOL will be better off as an independent unit, as opposed to 'a cog in the Time Warner wheel.' Interesting to note that when they originally merged, the idea was for AOL to be a one-stop shop for all your internet goods. Makes you wonder what would have happened if Time Warner had invested in AOL as an exclusive media outlet for movies, TV, music, etc. Perhaps AOL would have regained some speed and become the prominent household name it once was, instead of being that company who sent us all the free coasters."

Comment No Thanks (Score 1) 554

by Null Nihils (#27994437) Attached to: Mozilla Preparing To Scrap Tabbed Browsing?
I often have about 50 tabs open in Opera, and I can handle them just fine. Right now I have about 25 tabs open. Most of them are documentation (eg. mysql, posix threads) or work-related (lua binding tutorial, stackoverflow threads) or news (Slashdot!).

In Notepad++ I also have lots of tabs open. I need lots of tabs in order to do my work; I always have lots of things on the go. I like to have as much information layed out as possible, with everything I have worked on recently open and "stacked" much like papers or books would be on a real desktop. I guess I'm a very spacial thinker.

A few times I lost my Opera or Notepad++ sessions, and then I felt very lost.
Security

Adobe Confirms PDF Zero-Day, Says Kill JavaScript 211

Posted by timothy from the kpdf-has-better-panning-anyhow dept.
CWmike writes "Adobe Systems has acknowledged that all versions of its Adobe Reader, including editions for Windows, the Mac and Linux, contain at least one, and possibly two, critical vulnerabilities. 'All currently supported shipping versions of Adobe Reader and Acrobat, [Versions] 9.1, 8.1.4 and 7.1.1 and earlier, are vulnerable to this issue,' said Adobe's David Lenoe said in a blog entry yesterday. He was referring to a bug in Adobe's implementation of JavaScript that went public early Tuesday. A "Bugtraq ID," or BID number has been assigned to a second JavaScript vulnerability in Adobe's Reader. Proof-of-concept attack code for both bugs has already been published on the Web. Adobe said it will patch Reader and Acrobat, but Lenoe offered no timetable for the fixes. In lieu of a patch, Lenoe recommended that users disable JavaScript in the apps. Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Network Security, said of the suggestion in lieu of patches, 'Unfortunately, for Adobe, disabling JavaScript is a broken record, [and] similar to what we've seen in the past with Microsoft on ActiveX bugs.'"
Government

Robo-Arm Signatures Are Legal, Gov't Buys One 154

Posted by Soulskill from the precedent-set-by-the-governator dept.
AndreV writes "It's endlessly comforting to know a recently designed and implemented long-distance robotic signing arm can produce signatures legal in both the US and Canada. The aptly named LongPen replicates the handwriting from a person writing in a remote location — with the unique speed, cadence and pressure of a human pen-stroke. It started as an idea from author Margaret Atwood to help free her from grueling, multi-city, multi-country book tours, but the hard stuff was done by a bunch of Canadian haptic gurus, whose design took into consideration many factors of the human arm and how we write. How it works: from the author-end, data protocols are set up, and the pen pressure is measured on a special tablet. The data streams to the robot, while algorithms smooth out all the missed points. Complex math operations were used to help the mechatronic limb repeat the hand's motions without unnecessary jerking, and programmers had to 'scale time' or 'stretch time' by breaking down the movements, essentially tricking the eyes into thinking the robot is writing fast. It was recently adopted by the Ontario Government to sign official documents. It helps criminals sign books, too."
It's funny. Laugh.

After Monty Python Goes YouTube, Big Jump In DVD Sales 281

Posted by timothy from the causation-may-have-something-to-do-with-correlation dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Apparently it with the release of all of Monty Python's material on YouTube, their sales have blown through the roof on Amazon.com. It is too bad there isn't any proper news article about this, but I think it bodes well for those who champion free content. More importantly, it forces the MPAA's feet into their mouths." Not every performer (or group of performers) has the decades-strong appeal of Monty Python, but this is a great thing to see. The linked article claims that the sales increase in the Python DVDs is 23,000 percent; there are probably some other ways to figure the numbers, but a big increase is easy to see.
Education

Texas Board of Education Supports Evolution 344

Posted by Soulskill from the reasons-to-say-the-word-texas-in-a-dubious-voice dept.
somanyrobots writes with this excerpt from the Dallas News: "In a major defeat for social conservatives, a sharply divided State Board of Education voted Thursday to abandon a longtime state requirement that high school science teachers cover what some critics consider to be 'weaknesses' in the theory of evolution. Under the science curriculum standards recommended by a panel of science educators and tentatively adopted by the board, biology teachers and biology textbooks would no longer have to cover the 'strengths and weaknesses' of Charles Darwin's theory that man evolved from lower forms of life. Texas is particularly influential to textbook publishers because of the size of its market, so this could have a ripple effect on textbooks used in other states as well."
Supercomputing

Roland Piquepaille Dies 288

Posted by kdawson from the in-memoriam dept.
overheardinpdx writes "I'm sad to report that longtime HPC technology pundit Roland Piquepaille (rpiquepa) died this past Tuesday. Many of you may know of him through his blog, his submissions to Slashdot, and his many years of software visualization work at SGI and Cray Research. I worked with Roland 20 years ago at Cray, where we both wrote tech stories for the company newsletter. With his focus on how new technologies modify our way of life, Roland was really doing Slashdot-type reporting before there was a World Wide Web. Rest in peace, Roland. You will be missed." The notice of Roland's passing was posted on the Cray Research alumni group on Linked-In by Matthias Fouquet-Lapar. There will be a ceremony on Monday Jan. 12, at 10:30 am Paris time, at Père Lachaise.
Internet Explorer

IE Market Share Drops Below 70% 640

Posted by timothy from the probably-too-late-to-open-source-ie dept.
Mike writes "Microsoft's market share in the browser dropped below 70% for the first time in eight years, while Mozilla broke the 20% barrier for the first time in its history. It's too early to tell for sure, but if Net Applications' numbers are correct, then Microsoft's Internet Explorer will end 2008 with a historic market share loss in a software segment Microsoft believes is key to its business."

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