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Linux Business

Submission + - Microsoft attacks Linux at the retail level 1

Submitted by DesiVideoGamer
DesiVideoGamer writes: Over at Overclock.net, a user has posted screen-shots from Microsoft's "ExpertZone" training course entitled "Linux vs. Windows 7". This course is available to BestBuy employees and will make them eligible for a $10 copy of Windows 7 upon completion. In this course, Microsoft presents a number of lies including lack of authorised support, there is no video chat, no support at all for the iPod, and that there is no "parental restrictions" on the Linux platform. I think I now know why when I enter BestBuy, the employees say the odd lies that they do.
Cellphones

Submission + - Nokia fears carriers may try to undermine N900

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Nokia is worried that networks may reject selling the N900, because it won't allow them to mess with the operating system. Nokia has previously showed the N900 running a root shell and it appears to use the same interface for IM and phone functions. Meanwhile, Verizon is claiming that "exclusivity arrangements promote competition and innovation". Is it too late to explain to people why $99+$60/month is not better than $600+$20/month?
X

Submission + - Kernel 2.6.31 to speed up Linux desktop (techworld.com.au)

Submitted by Dan Jones
Dan Jones writes: As the Linux community looks forward to another kernel release, the kernel hackers have been working on improving the memory management so that the X desktop responsiveness is doubled under high memory pressure. The result is an improved desktop experience. Benchmarks on memory tight desktops show clock time and major faults reduced by 50 per cent, and pswpin numbers (memory reads from disk) are reduced to about one-third. Another improvement coming with 2.6.31 is kernel mode-setting support for ATI Radeon graphics cards enabling faster user switching and a more seamless startup experience. Peripheral developments that will also improve the Linux desktop experience include support for the new USB 3.0 specification and a new Firewire stack. Even minor Linux releases have heaps of new features these days!
Security

Submission + - ELF Knocks Down AM Towers To Save Earth, Intercoms

Submitted by ScentCone
ScentCone writes: The ELF (Earth Liberation Front) has claimed responsibility for destroying the primary AM towers used by KRKO in Washington state. From their statement, 'AM radio waves cause adverse health effects including a higher rate of cancer, harm to wildlife, and that the signals have been interfering with home phone and intercom lines.' The poor intercom performance must have been the last straw.
The Military

Submission + - SPAM: Mach 6 test aircraft set for trials

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "The aspiration that jets may some day fly at over six-times the speed of sound took a very real step toward reality recently as the US Air Force said it successfully married the test aircraft, known as the X-51A WaveRider to a B-52 in preparation for a Dec. 2 flight test. The X-51A flight tests are intended to demonstrate that the engines can achieve their desired speed without disintegrating. While the X-51 looks like a large rocket now, its applications that could change the way aircraft or spaceships are designed, fly into space, support reconnaissance missions and handle long-distance flight operations. At the heart of the test is the aircraft's air-breathing hypersonic scramjet system. [spam URL stripped]"
Link to Original Source
Microsoft

Submission + - Court allows Microsoft to sell Word during appeal

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft's motion to stay an injunction has been granted; the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has allowed the company to keep selling Word as it appeals a patent ruling from last month. The injunction had an effective date of October 10, but the motion to stay blocks the injunction until the appeal process is complete. If upheld, the injunction wouldn't stop existing users from using Word, but it could prevent the software giant from selling Word 2003 or Word 2007, the most common versions of Word currently on the market, and would require the company to significantly tweak Word 2010, which is slated for the first half of next year. The victory is a small one for Microsoft; the company still has the whole appeals process to go through. 'We are happy with the result and look forward to presenting our arguments on the main issues on September 23,' a Microsoft spokesperson told Ars. 'Microsoft's scare tactics about the consequences of the injunction cannot shield it from the imminent review of the case by the Federal Circuit Court of Appeal on the September 23 appeal,' said i4i chairman Loudon Owen in response to the court's decision.
Social Networks

Submission + - Facebook Exodus (nytimes.com)

Submitted by suraj.sun
suraj.sun writes: Things fall apart; the center cannot hold. Facebook, the online social grid, could not command loyalty forever. If you ask around, as I did, you'll find quitters. One person shut down her account because she disliked how nosy it made her. Another thought the scene had turned desperate. A third feared stalkers. A fourth believed his privacy was compromised. A fifth disappeared without a word.

Leif Harmsen, once a Facebook user, now crusades against it. Having dismissed his mother's snap judgment of the site ("Facebook is the devil"), Harmsen now passionately agrees. He says, not entirely in jest, that he considers it a repressive regime akin to North Korea, and sells T-shirts with the words "Shut Your Facebook." What especially galls him is the commercialization and corporate regulation of personal and social life. As Facebook endeavors to be the Web's headquarters — to compete with Google, in other words, and to make money from the information it gathers — it's inevitable that some people would come to view it as Big Brother.

"The more dependent we allow ourselves to become to something like Facebook — and Facebook does everything in its power to make you more dependent — the more Facebook can and does abuse us," Harmsen explained by indignant e-mail. "It is not 'your' Facebook profile. It is Facebook's profile about you."

NYTimes : http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/magazine/30FOB-medium-t.html
The Internet

Submission + - How 136 people became "7m illegal file-sharers (pcpro.co.uk) 5

Submitted by
Barence
Barence writes: "The British Government's official figures on the level of illegal file sharing in the UK come from questionable research commissioned by the music industry. The Radio 4 show More or Less examined the Government's claim that 7m people in Britain are engaged in illegal file sharing. The 7m figure actually came from a report written about music industry losses for Forrester subsidiary Jupiter Research — that report was privately commissioned by none other than the music trade body, the BPI. The 7m figure had been rounded up from an actual figure of 6.7m, gleaned from a 2008 survey of 1,176 net-connected households, 11.6% of which admitted to having used file-sharing software — in other words, only 136 people. That 11.6% was adjusted upwards to 16.3% "to reflect the assumption that fewer people admit to file sharing than actually do it." The 6.7m figure was then calculated based on an estimated number of internet users that disagreed with the Government's own estimate. The wholly unsubstantiated 7m figure was then released as an official statistic."
Social Networks

Submission + - At (flame) War with the A33holes on DIGG (facebook.com)

Submitted by
compuglot
compuglot writes: "Attention DIGG users: This automated tool will save you tons of time when writing comments — The InsultMe Insult Generator


Has anyone else noted that DIGG has turned into a trailer park with an increasingly vocal angry collection of hillbillies? Perhaps it's really only a small percentage of the users there, but they keep getting louder at an exponential rate. It's sad really. DIGG was such a cool idea. Tragedy of the Commons, I guess. The intolerance there is palpable now.


Anyway. This is a chronicle of my last DIGG flame war (I closed my account). On the surface there is nothing unusual about it. But at some point they crossed the line of 'business as usual at DIGG' to veiled threats in RL (Real Life). When things get to this point, I think it's time to quit the game."
Biotech

Submission + - Programs for speech analysis?

Submitted by Wingfield
Wingfield writes: I am a researcher with the Bio-music program at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Currently we are analyzing recordings of bonobo apes for evidence of conversational rhythm. This research has many applications, from discovering the evolutionary beginnings of our language to improving something as mundane as public speaking. Every conversation has an underlying rhythm to it; if you have ever watched bad actors you know what it's like to hear no conversational rhythm: awkward, unnatural, and stilted. The bonobo's we are studying, who use vocalizations that can be compared to barks in terms of duration and intensity, have shown very promising signs of conversational rhythm both with each other and with human researchers with whom they interact. However, we are attempting to find ways to represent this in an unambiguous way, through a computer analysis that would not only be more accurate than human ears, but would save us the tedium of spending hours analyzing ten seconds of audio. Enter the slashdotters: Do any of you have any familiarity with a program that may be able to be adapted to fit our needs, such as a program that can detect stresses placed on syllables in speech?
Robotics

Submission + - Robotic Kit for Bobcat Loaders (engineeringtv.com)

Submitted by
Curtis Ellzey
Curtis Ellzey writes: "Robotic Kit for Bobcat Loaders

QinetiQ North America's robotic controller kit (ROCK) temporarily turns a loader from Bobcat into a remotely operated "robot" capable of using more than 37 Bobcat approved attachments. The kit's hardened electronics are rated at 156F to handle the solar load in places like Iraq and Afghanistan and have passed rigorous MIL-STD-810F environmental testing. Cameras include five mounted on the roof, one in the cab and one on the vehicle looking at the load.

The Loader can be sent down-range to handle large, deep-buried IEDs that require actual excavation to dislodge or a bucket to lift and remove. In Afghanistan, where there are reported to be more than 100 million mines, Bobcat Loaders could also be used to remotely render safe mines on building sites. "Other companies have roboticized individual pieces of earth-moving equipment, but until now, no one has created a universal kit that can quickly remotely control any Bobcat SJC-equipped loader used in the rough manner the military requires," said Dr. William Ribich, President of the Technology Solutions Group.

Videos:

Robotic Kit for Bobcat Loaders
http://engineeringtv.com/blogs/etv/archive/2009/08/24/robotic-kit-for-bobcat-loaders.aspx

Roboticizing the Bobcat Loader
http://engineeringtv.com/blogs/etv/archive/2009/08/25/roboticizing-the-bobcat-loader.aspx

Walkthrough of Bobcat Loader
http://engineeringtv.com/blogs/etv/archive/2009/08/26/walkthrough-of-bobcat-loader.aspx

ROCK Kit Software and Hardware
http://engineeringtv.com/blogs/etv/archive/2009/08/27/rock-kit-software-and-hardware.aspx

ROCK Robotic Kit Missions
http://engineeringtv.com/blogs/etv/archive/2009/08/31/rock-kit-applications.aspx"
Education

Submission + - Schooling, homeschooling, and now, "unschoolin 1

Submitted by ciaohound
ciaohound writes: The Baltimore Sun has a story about "unschooling," which is like homeschooling except, well, without the schooling. "...unschooling incorporates every facet of a child's life into the education process, allowing a child to follow his passions and learn at his own pace, year-round. And it assumes that an outing at the park — or even hours spent playing a video game — can be just as valuable a teaching resource as Hooked on Phonics." If you have ever been forced to sit in a classroom where no learning was taking place, you may understand the appeal. A driving force behind the movement is parents' dissatisfaction with regular schools, and presumably with homeschooling as well. Yet few researchers are even aware of unschooling and little research exists on its effectiveness. Any slashdotters who have experience with "unschooling?"

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