Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
GNU is Not Unix

Submission + - First U.S. GPL Lawsuit Heads for Quick Settlement 1

Submitted by __aajbyc7391
__aajbyc7391 writes: The first U.S. GPL-related lawsuit appears to be headed for a quick out-of-court settlement. Monsoon Multimedia admitted today that it had violated the GPLv2 (GNU General Public License version 2), and said it will release its modified BusyBox code in full compliance with the license. Monsoon Multimedia has stated that it is currently in settlement negotiations with the BusyBox project to resolve the matter without going to court. The product at the heart of the lawsuit, filed by SFLC, is the Hava, a place- and time-shifting TV recorder that is based on Linux and includes BusyBox in its embedded software stack.
Wireless (Apple)

Submission + - Apple smacked: offers $100 refund to iPhone users (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "Apple plans $100 credit for existing iPhone buyers peeved over the company's announcement yesterday it would slash $200 from the price of the high-end iPhone only 10 weeks after its over-ballyhooed introduction. Apple's Chief Executive Steve Jobs in a letter posted on Apple's Web site this afternoon said that the company plans to give a $100 credit to existing iPhone customers. "We want to do the right thing for our valued iPhone customers," Jobs said. "We apologize for disappointing some of you, and we are doing our best to live up to your high expectations of Apple." http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/19133"
Music

Submission + - Judge: use P2P, you're stealing music (electronista.com) 1

Submitted by
JonathanF
JonathanF writes: "If you were hoping judges would see reason and realize that just using a program that could violate copyright law was about as illegal as leaving your back door unlocked, think again: an Arizona district judge has ruled that a couple who hosted files in KaZaA is liable for over $40K in damages just because they "made available" songs that could have been pirated by someone, somewhere. There's legal precedent, but how long do we have before the BitTorrent crew is sued?"
Businesses

Submission + - Dell begins their largest layoff ever. 3

Submitted by cyphercell
cyphercell writes: Dell has begun their largest series of layoffs ever. This morning at about 10:00am more than two hundred employees at Dell's Roseburg Oregon Call center found out that they no longer had jobs. Sparking what appears to be the beginning of year long run of layoffs for the company. http://www.newsreview.info/article/20070802/NEWS/7 0802014

Refuting local suspicions of malice Dell spokesman David Frink states:

... the closure has nothing to do with a lawsuit filed by employees of the Roseburg center in February, claiming Dell violated federal and state wage and hour laws.
http://www.newsreview.info/article/20070213/NEWS/7 0213020

and later says

...plans to reduce employment worldwide by 10 percent at the end of May.


Their plans to reduce employment can be found here:
http://www.statesman.com/business/content/business /stories/technology/06/01/1dell.html

Here are some highlights:

Dell set to shed 8,800 workers...

Dell has 82,200 permanent workers, including 18,000 in Central Texas, and 5,300 temporary workers worldwide. The layoffs are expected to affect both groups...

In its last large-scale layoffs, Dell cut more than 5,000 jobs in Austin after the high-tech bust in 2001.

...many of the layoffs could come in Central Texas, where Dell is headquartered. In a March 29 report to clients, Goldman Sachs analysts said Dell might reduce the work force at its test and assembly facilities in the U.S. and Malaysia.
Software

Submission + - a real telemarketer filter

Submitted by hate-those-telemarketers
hate-those-telemarketers writes: I just had one of those telemarketers call me despite being on the do-not-call list. There's still organizations that don't need to adhere to that list. Having googled the caller-id I came accross http://www.whocalled.us/ that seems to be a very comprehensive database of annoying caller-id's calling. What's even better is that in the "about" tab there's a script for asterisk to check all calls against that database. This is like a IP-list for spammers only for real telephony. Fantastic. I've implemented this and now I wish I weren't on the do-not-call list to see telemarketers deal with the very annoying Telemarket torture script that can be found on this site: http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/Asterisk+Telema rketer+Torture woo-hoo!!!
Privacy

Submission + - Do Not Call Registry gets wake-up call (networkworld.com) 2

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "If you signed up for the federal or your state's Do Not Call Registry a few years ago, you might want to thing about refreshing it. Pennsylvanians this week got a wake up call, so to speak from the state's Attorney General Tom Corbett who kicked off a public awareness campaign designed to remind people what many have forgotten or never knew — that the 2002 law set registrations to expire after five years. That is of course unless you want to start hearing from those telemarketers as you sit down to dinner. Corbett said about 2 million people signed up in the immediate aftermath of the law taking effect and those who do not act by Sept. 15 will have their numbers dropped from the registry on Nov. 1. The Pennsylvania action is a reminder that the National Do Not Call Registry has a five year life span as well. The Federal Trade Commission is set to being a nation campaign in Spring 2008 to remind all US citizens to refresh their federal Do Not Call Registry standing. http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/18066"
Microsoft

Submission + - Massachusetts adopts Open XML (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
willdavid
willdavid writes: "By John Fontana, NetworkWorld.com: The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has added Open XML to its list of approved open documents formats. Critics of Open XML adoption, such as Andy Updegrove, a lawyer, Linux Foundation board member and Massachusetts resident, said Microsoft should not be "rewarded for launching a competing, self-serving standard as a next-best defense against erosion of its dominant position." Massachusetts officials acknowledged the criticism, but said the importance of open formats could not be denied. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/080107-massa chusetts-open-xml.html?page=1"
Google

Submission + - Google shows cell phone prototype to vendors

Submitted by taoman1
taoman1 writes: Google Inc. has developed a prototype cell phone that could reach markets within a year, and plans to offer consumers free subscriptions by bundling advertisements with its search engine, e-mail and Web browser software applications, according to a story published Thursday in The Wall Street Journal.
Privacy

Submission + - UCLA Probe Finds Taser Incident Out Of Policy (ucla.edu)

Submitted by Bandor Mia
Bandor Mia writes: Last November, it was reported that UCLA cops Tasered a student, who forgot to bring his ID, at the UCLA library. While an internal probe by UCLAPD cleared the officers of any wrongdoing, an outside probe by Police Assessment Resource Center has found that the police actions on Mostafa Tabatabainejad were indeed out of UCLA policy. The probe was conducted at the behest of acting UCLA Chancellor Norman Abrams.

From the report:
"In light of UCLAPD's general use of force policy and its specific policies on pain compliance techniques, Officer 2's three applications of the Taser, taken together, were out of policy. Officer 2 did not take advantage of other options and opportunities reasonably available to de-escalate the situation without the use of the Taser. Reasonable campus police officers, upon assessing the circumstances, likely would have embraced different choices and options that appear likely to have been more consistent both with UCLAPD policy and general best law enforcement practices."
Announcements

Submission + - New York Jumps into Open Formats Fray (infoworld.com)

Submitted by
cyrusmack
cyrusmack writes: "Hot on the heels of the bad news regarding the defeat of all open formats bills (erroneously reported by the mainstream media as "ODF" bills), New York has become the latest in an area that has seen a flurry of activity already this year. In the article on InfoWorld, it's pretty clear that this bill is significantly watered down from what other states have attempted to do this year. You can Microsoft will be there in force, just as it has been elsewhere."
Announcements

Submission + - Drive the Ariel Atom for $495 (arielatomexperience.com)

Submitted by
vigmeister
vigmeister writes: "The Ariel Atom (made and sold by Brammo Motorsports in the US) is one of the fastest cars in production today. You'll recognize it (I certainly did) from the latest racing games. Now you can drive it (outside of your living room in the real world) with supervised instruction for $495.
It also comes with this deal described as follows where you can save a bunch of money on the car by booking before the 18th of June and have the fees of the driving event applied to the cost of the car:
"If you decide to purchase an Ariel Atom at the event, or even afterwards, we'll apply the cost of the Ariel Atom Driving Experience as credit to the purchase price of your car! Furthermore, if you think you're going to want to buy an Ariel Atom after the event, you can actually order your Ariel Atom now to avoid a $6,000 price increase scheduled for June 18. Should you decide to cancel your order after the event, we'll give you a complete refund. To take advantage of this offer, go to http://www.arielatom.com/ and use the build, price and buy feature, then submit your order and send us a 25% deposit. Then, after the event you can finalize your options based on your driving experience, and we'll get started building your Ariel Atom right away using pre-June 18 pricing!"
Happy racing!"

Slashdot Top Deals

Many people are unenthusiastic about their work.

Close