Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Censorship

Submission + - Scientists Threatened For "Climate Denial"

Forrest Kyle writes: A former professor of climatology at the University of Winnipeg has recieved multiple death threats for questioning the extent to which human activities are driving global warming. From the article, "'Western governments have pumped billions of dollars into careers and institutes and they feel threatened,' said the professor. 'I can tolerate being called a sceptic because all scientists should be sceptics, but then they started calling us deniers, with all the connotations of the Holocaust. That is an obscenity. It has got really nasty and personal.' Richard Lindzen, the professor of Atmospheric Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology...recently claimed: 'Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves labelled as industry stooges. Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science.'"
Intel

Submission + - Intel's Top Dog Ate His Own Homework

theodp writes: "Top Intel execs — including Chairman Craig Barrett, CEO Paul Otellini, and sales chief Sean Maloney — are believed to have deleted e-mails relevant to an antitrust lawsuit filed by AMD. Otellini reportedly was under the impression that IT was responsible for backing up his e-mails, so he didn't need to retain them. Intel has admitted to a series of mistakes in preserving e-mail, including the failure of some employees to comply with a company directive to perform manual document retention procedures."
Google

Submission + - Making Sense out of Census Data with Google Earth

mikemuch writes: "Irman Haque has developed a mashup of Google Earth with data from the U.S. Census Bureau, called gCensus. The app uses the XML format known as KML (Keyhole Markup Language), which can create shapes and colors on the maps displayed by GE. Haque had to build custom code libraries (which he's made available as open source) that could generate KML for the project. He also had to extract the relevant data from the highly counter-intuitive Census Bureau files and store them in a database that could handle geographic data. gCensus lets you do stuff like create colorful overlays on maps showing population ages, race, and family size distributions."
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Wii Tops January Sales

haddieman writes: Nintendo's Wii topped January sales numbers by a large margin according to Seattle P-I.

From the article:

Sales of the Nintendo console came in at 436,000 units, followed by Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 at 294,000 units, and Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 3 at 244,000 units, according to preliminary NPD Group data cited by Microsoft. Sony's seven-year-old PlayStation 2 remained a formidable competitor, selling slightly less than 300,000 units in the U.S., according to the data.
Enlightenment

Submission + - Video Games Train A Better Surgeon!

Phooey42 writes: "Reuters is reporting today that Surgeons who play video games are more skilled at laparoscopic surgery. From the article, "Playing video games appears to help surgeons with skills that truly count: how well they operate using a precise technique." It continues to say that, "Out of 33 surgeons from Beth Israel Medical Center in New York that participated in the study, the nine doctors who had at some point played video games at least three hours per week made 37 percent fewer errors, performed 27 percent faster, and scored 42 percent better in the test of surgical skills than the 15 surgeons who had never played video games before." Sounds like every hospital needs a Wii with Trauma Center: Second Opinion."
Windows

Vista Security — Too Little Too Late 483

Thomas Greene of The Register has a fairly comprehensive review of Vista and IE7 user security measures. The verdict is: better but not adequate, and mostly an attempt to shift blame onto the user when things go wrong. From the review: "[Vista is] a slightly more secure version than XP SP2. There are good features, and there are good ideas, but they've been implemented badly. The old problems never go away: too many networking services enabled by default; too many owners running their boxes as admins and downloading every bit of malware they can get their hands on."

Red Hat Software

Submission + - Eric S. Raymond switches from Fedora to Ubuntu

kRemit writes: Eric S. Raymond announced that he switched from Fedora Core to Ubuntu Edgy Eft for his workstation on the Fedora dev mailing list (https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list /2007-February/msg01006.html), because of numerous issues ranging from dependency-hell to the "culture of Fedora" — especially the apparent decision to give up the struggle for desktop-marketshare.
Robotics

Submission + - Bill Gates: A Robot in Every Home

icehart85 writes: Imagine being present at the birth of a new industry. It is an industry based on groundbreaking new technologies, wherein a handful of well-established corporations sell highly specialized devices for business use and a fast-growing number of start-up companies produce innovative toys, gadgets for hobbyists and other interesting niche products. But it is also a highly fragmented industry with few common standards or platforms. Projects are complex, progress is slow, and practical applications are relatively rare. In fact, for all the excitement and promise, no one can say with any certainty when — or even if — this industry will achieve critical mass. If it does, though, it may well change the world. Of course, the paragraph above could be a description of the computer industry during the mid-1970s, around the time that Paul Allen and I launched Microsoft. But what I really have in mind is something much more contemporary: the emergence of the robotics industry, which is developing in much the same way that the computer business did 30 years ago.
Operating Systems

Submission + - Eric S. Raymond Ditches Fedora/Redhat for Ubuntu

exeme writes: Eric S. Raymond has had a major dummy spit on the Fedora-devel mailing list, announcing that he is ditching Fedora/Red Hat after 13 years of use for Ubuntu. Reasons sighted include governance problems, problems with RPM and Fedora's lack of interest in the Linux desktop market. Eric even mentions Ubuntu parent company Canonicals recent deal with Linspire and it's Click n' Run software which will soon make proprietary codecs and legal DVD playback available to Ubuntu users, for a price.
Censorship

Submission + - YouTube permanently bans Gisburne, changes story

mijkal writes: "YouTube has told atheist member Nick Gisburne that he is now permanently banned from the site. This stems from his posting of a video slideshow of quotes from the Quran. Originally YouTube said it was because of 'inappropriate content', but now it has changed its story and is claiming copyright infringement because it has a soundtrack (nevermind that hundreds of lip-synch videos as well as official music videos readily available on YouTube). Had Nick known this was the reason to begin with (YouTube admits it made a mistake), he wouldn't have reposted the video (or encouraged others to do the same). YouTube has decide to evoke the DMCA and its '3 strikes' policy, and is trying to reassure us all that the content has nothing to do with the banning of a certain unnamed account, but rather because of recurring copyright infringement. YouTube is also covering its tracks by changing the reason the videos were removed. All of his videos from all of his accounts have been removed, and anyone who's spent some time on YouTube and seen Nick's videos should clearly see this policy is not routinely executed, so why is Gisburne being unfairly targeted here? Given the context, it seems Gisburne is being treated rather harshly by the YouTube censors. (And just to nip this in the bud, yes, YouTube has the right to censor; and we all have the right to call YouTube on it when we feel its unfair and YouTube can change its policy or we can move on; no one's equating this with government censorship.)"
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft blunder: we're sorry for serving malware

Slinky Sausage writes: "One for the "can't imagine Google ever doing this" files... Microsoft has admitted to and apologised for serving malware via its Windows Live Messenger software and MSN website network.

The Windows-only malware slipped under the radar disguised as a banner ad. Microsoft has now pledged to review its processes for accepting advertising to ensure other undesirables don't use Microsoft ad space for malware distribution.

APCMag.com has screenshots of the malware download in action."
The Courts

Submission + - Warez Leader Faces 10 Years in Jail

Lennart writes: From the article:

After spending nearly 3 years in a detention center fighting his extradition from Australia, a leader of notorious warez group 'DrinkorDie' was yesterday arraigned before a U.S. District Court to face charges of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and one count of actual criminal copyright infringement. If found guilty he faces 10 years in jail & $500,000 fine.

Slashdot Top Deals

If a subordinate asks you a pertinent question, look at him as if he had lost his senses. When he looks down, paraphrase the question back at him.

Working...