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Software

Submission + - An Alternative Supplemental Bittorrent Protocol

Submitted by Nicole Adams
Nicole Adams writes: Currently, bittorrent clients like Azureus and uTorrent use certain decentralized networks to exchange information about peers to enable torrent downloads even with offline trackers and to improve security. But this alternative bittorrent peer exchange model suggests a different route: so long as bittorrent is a centralized protocol at the core anyway, why not exchange tracker data instead?

Technically, sending/receiving a list of trackers used will result in less overhead than a list of hundreds of peers (as currently employed in the PeerExchange and DHT protocols). Plus, trackers are a much more permanent resource than peers that change by the minute. If it results in faster downloads, less overhead, and no side-effects, why not?
Google

Submission + - Microsoft Attacks Google on Copyright

Submitted by
loid_void
loid_void writes: "In remarks prepared for delivery on Tuesday to the Association of American Publishers, New York Tims reports that the associate general counsel of Microsoft, Thomas Rubin, argues that Google's move into new media markets has come at the expense of publishers of books, videos and software. Mr. Rubin's comments echo arguments at the heart of a 16-month-old copyright lawsuit against Google brought by five book publishers and organized by the Association of American Publishers, an industry trade group. David Drummond, Google's senior vice president for corporate development and its chief legal officer, said in response that Google worked with more than 10,000 publishing partners to make books searchable online and had recently added the BBC and N.B.A. as YouTube video partners."
Sony

Submission + - PS3 Development: Kutaragi's Big Secret

Submitted by
Greg Manelli
Greg Manelli writes: "According to a revealing new interview, PS3 boss Ken Kutaragi was a "stumbling block" to Sony's CEO Howard Stringer. The article describes Kutaragi as a "renegade" who was "notorious within the company for his reluctance to communicate with his bosses or other units." When he went over-budget on the PS3, he kept it secret from Stringer.

The interview also states that CEO Stringer tried to win Mr. Kutaragi's cooperation with patience. "I've had dinner with [Mr. Kutaragi] more times than I've had dinner with my wife, and that's not really healthy," Mr. Stringer says.

All efforts, apparently failed. At a board meeting a few weeks later, Mr. Kutaragi sprang another surprise on Mr. Stringer, suggesting he drop the price of the entry-level PlayStation 3 console by 20%."
Education

Submission + - Interview on a Serious Game with clinical data

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Great interview about a Serious Game that trains working memory, used so far with kids with ADD/ ADHD.

http://www.sharpbrains.com/blog/2007/02/09/add-adh d-and-working-memory-training-interview-with-notre -dames-bradley-gibson/

Bonus: try for yourself Chandler's experiment on inattentional blindness, mentioned in the middle of the article.

Feed Politicians Hold Tele-Town Meets (wired.com)

From feed by wiredfeed
Using the tech that connects thousands of people on a phone call, congress members are holding remote town-hall meetings. A recorded voice invites 35,000 citizens at once to stay on the line for the meeting. By the Associated Press.


Linux Business

Submission + - Linspire, Canonical, Freespire, Ubuntu join forces

Submitted by
sjvn
sjvn writes: "Canonical Ltd., the sponsor of Ubuntu, and Linspire Inc., the developer of Linspire and Freespire, on February 8 announced a technology partnership to integrate with each other's Linux distributions. Linspire/Freespire will be based on Ubuntu, rather than Debian, and Ubuntu will integrate with Linspire's CNR package installer/updater.

http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS7103672739.html "

What Could YouTube Be Worth? 139

Posted by Zonk from the to-the-highest-bidder dept.
An anonymous reader writes "C|Net has a story about the possible cost of YouTube. Sony just paid $65 Million for small-time videosharing outfit 'Grouper'. That site has around 1% of the videosharing market. The article asks, at that price, what might YouTube's 43% be worth?" From the article: "Entertainment analysts have predicted in recent weeks that sites with large followings would command a high price. The Sony deal proved them right. But while the Grouper deal helped establish a benchmark, there is still plenty of confusion about the fair value of online video companies. This is because the typical metrics for measuring a company appear to have gone out the window--just like they did during the bubble years of the late 1990s."

Google is Microsoft's New Open Source 188

Posted by Zonk from the fully-armed-and-operational-battle-station dept.
Robert writes "Steve Ballmer told investors recently that Microsoft's biggest challenge is embracing software-as-a-service business models, as embodied by rival Google Inc. Investing in software as a service and advertising-supported businesses is a challenge like that which the company faced at the dawn of the open-source movement. To paraphrase him heavily, the takeaway was: Yes, we're investing a lot, but it's riskier, long-term, not to do so. We have a lot of cool stuff coming up and, yes, we are also playing catch-up on a couple of fronts. His speech came a month after Microsoft revealed that its R&D budget for fiscal 2007, which ends mid-2007, would rise to $6.2bn." From the article: "We've got to make this transition, which our industry is making, from software as a product to software as a service ... If you want to be a leading software company, you've got to be a leading software-as-a-service company."

Microsoft Launches Linux Labs Website 275

Posted by Zonk from the getting-the-message-out dept.
mjdroner writes "ZDNet is reporting that Microsoft is launching a website to 'share the activities of its internal Linux laboratories.' Microsoft says its goal is to foster communication with those who use open-source. The article also mentions that Microsoft runs a 300-server Linux installation to test open-source products." From the article: "Customers will be able to submit requests to Microsoft employees. For example, a person could ask how to best test the use of Linux desktops working with Microsoft's directory software. In addition, Port 25 will do video interviews with Microsoft employees with experience in the open-source or Unix world, Hilf said."

Google Music Store Inches Closer? 282

Posted by Zonk from the launch-it-already dept.
smallguy78 writes "Forbes is once again reporting on Google plans to launch its own competitor to iTunes, a Google music store. From the article: 'The music industry is broadly unhappy with the fixed pricing and lack of subscription options at the market-leading iTunes Music Store and likely to support alternative services.'" We have touched on this subject previously. This most recent report would seem to indicate the launch will happen sooner rather than later.

Plans For .xxx Domain For p0rn Scrapped 361

Posted by Hemos from the back-to-surfing-google-images dept.
William Robinson writes "ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) has once again scrapped the plan for a new internet "domain" .xxx for pornography. Supporters of the .xxx address suffix argued that it would have helped to protect children and others from accidental exposure to internet pornography, particularly if stronger filters were used to screen out explicit material from other internet domains. Pressure from conservative Christian groups in the US, which has a veto over the internet addressing system, led the organisation last year to put off introducing a new ".xxx" domain for pornography on the internet. That drew international complaints that the US exercised too much power over the internet and added to a European-backed movement to shift control of the online medium to an international group."

Microsoft Blogger Robert Scoble Goes to Google 51

Posted by Zonk from the busy-business-day-for-a-saturday dept.
Brian Puccio writes "Possibly as a result of their recent purchase by Chinese national interests, Robert Scoble, (in)famous Microsoft blogger and evangelist, has decided to go work for Google: 'I just got off the phone with Larry Page. He's offered me a job to run Google's PR department and I've decided to take him up on it. Why? Because I finally realized that Steve Gillmor is right. Microsoft Office is dead and I wanted to be at the company that is the future of everything... My first project will be to convert the Scoble Dashboard over to a Linux box.'"

ICANN Meeting Puts Off XXX Domain Again 157

Posted by Zonk from the porn-still-easy-to-find dept.
An anonymous reader wrote to mention an International Herald story about a recent ICANN meeting on the proposed .XXX domain. Australia, the U.S., and the EU have moved to block the idea, with most commentators surmising this will prevent the concept from ever moving forward. From the article: "Some people maintain that a triple-x domain name, and the ability to enforce rules to qualify for it, would rein in an out-of-control Internet phenomenon. In registering, a company could have to abide by ratings agency standards, require proof of age for entrants, maybe even pay for Internet filtering research. The company pushing the idea, ICM Registry, also argues that dot-xxx would be good for customers of pornography sites, assuring them of certain business benchmarks, like being free of adware or computer viruses."

The .XXX Saga Continues in Wellington 302

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the site-your-sights-on-pr0n dept.
netrover writes "CircleID is reporting on the latest developments on the .XXX top-level domain as the related ICANN meeting is currently underway in Welligton, New Zealand. From the article: 'The .XXX TLD was widely expected to receive its final approval at the ICANN's last meeting held in Vancouver about 4 months earlier but the discussion was unexpectedly delayed as the organization and governments requested more time to review the merits of setting up such a domain.' But as it has been reported, it appears the discussions at ICANN Wellington are in limbo once again."

Sudo vs. Root 327

Posted by CmdrTaco from the security-comes-first dept.
lessthan0 writes "In Mac OS X, the root account is disabled by default. The first user account created is added to the admin group and that user can use the sudo command to execute other commands as root. The conventional wisdom is that sudo is the most secure way to run root commands, but a closer look reveals a picture that is not so clear." The article is about OSX but the debate is a little older ;)

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