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Communications

Submission + - Google, Facebook, Twitter, Others Miss Big Picture (bnet.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: You hear a lot of comparison between companies. Google will beat Microsoft, or Microsoft will devastate Google. Twitter will become the New Google, or the New Facebook, or the New Media. Yahoo will become the New Yahoo. You get the idea. But there are two things that become obvious when you think a moment. One is that all these companies are juggling for a future business landscape dominated by communications. The other is that they're all trying to fit a complex issue into their own undersized boxes. No one tool solves all communications needs, and to pretend they do is to ignore what really needs to be done.
Cellphones

Submission + - Finally - One charger to rule them all.

Submitted by
tomhudson
tomhudson writes: "The Wall Stree Journal is reporting "European Union officials reached a deal with ten of the world's leading mobile-phone makers Monday to introduce a universal charger for smart phones as of next year." No more having to toss a perfectly good charger when the phone dies or you upgrade. It's about time."
Communications

Desktop As a Cellphone Extension? 199

Posted by timothy from the ring-it-on dept.
spaceman375 writes "Like many slashdotters, I've given up on landlines and have only a cell account. The problem: when I am home I don't want to carry my phone on my person, AND I don't want to have to run (possibly up or down stairs) to answer a call. Landlines solved this with extensions. I could go buy an xlink or other Bluetooth-to-POTS solution, but that takes money for equipment. My desktop has Bluetooth, as do my laptop and cell. All I want is a program that can use my cell's Bluetooth to make and receive calls from my Linux PC. I can do this with asterisk or related programs, but that is like buying UPS when I just need a taxi ride. Yet all I can find are programs that either use 'presence' to shift other-sourced calls to my cell, or ways to use a Bluetooth headset when receiving a call on a PC. Has anyone found a way to use their desktop to make and receive calls through their cell via Bluetooth?"
The Courts

RIAA Defendant Moves For Summary Judgment 117

Posted by timothy from the element-of-surprise dept.
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "One thing you don't see too much of in RIAA litigation is a defendant moving for summary judgment, but that is what just occurred in federal court in Westchester, in Lava Records v. Amurao II. The RIAA had brought suit against Rolando Amurao, a middle aged man who knew nothing about file sharing. After haranguing him for 2 years, they dropped the case and sued his daughter, Audrey, who had used LimeWire years ago. When the RIAA moved for summary judgment against Audrey, however, she surprised them with a summary judgment motion of her own, calling for dismissal of the complaint on the grounds that the statute of limitations had run out on the RIAA's claims. The brief filed by her attorney (PDF) also points out some of the other infirmities in the RIAA's case, such as the inadmissibility of its evidence, the legal nonexistence of a claim for 'making available,' and the unconstitutionality of its damages theory. According to sources, the RIAA is unhappy about Audrey's motion, and is preparing a letter to send the Judge asking the Judge not to allow her to make it. Meanwhile, Audrey's father's case, Lava Records v. Rolando Amurao, is on appeal in the US Court of Appeals for the 2d Circuit over the issue of whether the RIAA should have to reimburse Mr. Amurao for his attorneys fees. Although the appeal was fully briefed and scheduled for argument May 19th, the RIAA has been asking for postponements of the argument."

Comment Re:Switzerland and perhaps Estonia! (Score 1) 1359

by Paolone (#28493617) Attached to: Emigrating To a Freer Country?
Well, I'm an Italian expat living in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland and, before coming here, I lived 4 years in Glasgow, Scotland, UK, and before in Milan, Italy (don't move there). I have the following commentary: 1: swiss people are really hard to make friends with (from my experience). 2: the average population is quite xenophobic. As in anti-non-swiss. 3: the average population is quite bigoted as well, except they drink a lot. 4: everything is really expensive (in relative terms). Food and rent first. My telco expenses are three times as much as in Britain but for inferior service. 5: also, you have to pay medical insurance (it's the law, you can't do without it). And, other bits: 6: the F-19 doesn't really exist as such in NATO nomenclature. Your friend is possibly a liar, or F-19 is a name for a local plane. 7: Italy doesn't have any oceanic shores as the Mediterranean Sea, despite being nice and warm, is not an ocean. The nearest oceanic shores are in France or Germany.
Medicine

Doctors Baffled, Intrigued By Girl Who Doesn't Age 599

Posted by kdawson from the fountain-of-youth-or-maybe-it's-a-cataract dept.
phyrebyrd writes "Brooke Greenberg is the size of an infant, with the mental capacity of a toddler. She turned 16 in January. Brooke hasn't aged in the conventional sense. Dr. Richard Walker of the University of South Florida College of Medicine, in Tampa, says Brooke's body is not developing as a coordinated unit, but as independent parts that are out of sync. She has never been diagnosed with any known genetic syndrome or chromosomal abnormality that would help explain why. Brooke's hair and her nails are the only two things that grow, Howard said. 'She has pajamas and outfits that are 10 or 12 years old,' he said."
Java

Automated Migration From Cobol To Java On Linux 195

Posted by timothy from the so-kids-go-ahead-and-code-in-cobol dept.
Didier DURAND writes "Just published an article about our 100% automated migration from IBM mainframe with Cobol to Linux Java: we could convert of our own application (4 million lines of code) through the tools that we developed. Those tools are open-sourced under GPL for other companies to benefit from them. We save 3 millions euros / year after this migration!"
Image

NIH Spends $400K To Figure Out Why Men Don't Like Condoms Screenshot-sm 844

Posted by samzenpus from the as-obvious-as-the-rubber-nose-on-your-face dept.
The National Institutes of Health has given $423,500 to researchers at Indiana University's Kinsey Institute to figure out why men don't like to wear condoms. The institute will also study why men have trouble using condoms and investigate "penile erection and sensitivity during condom application." "The project aims to understand the relationship between condom application and loss of erections and decreased sensation, including the role of condom skills and performance anxiety, and to find new ways to improve condom use among those who experience such problems," reads the abstract from Drs. Erick Janssen and Stephanie Sanders, both of the Kinsey Institute.

Tracking Thieves With 'Find my iPhone' 424

Posted by CmdrTaco from the because-you-can dept.
An anonymous reader wrote in to say "A friend of mine who just got an iPhone 3GS and has Mobile Me just used the "Find my iPhone" feature to track down his lost and subsequently stolen iPhone. This story involves three nerds wandering sketchy streets with a MacBook, and ends with a confrontation at a bus stop."
Censorship

Mass Arrests of Journalists Follow Iran Elections 333

Posted by CmdrTaco from the it's-a-sheikh-down dept.
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Reporters Without Borders is alarmed by the fact that no less than 23 journalists have been arrested in Iran in the week following the elections, making Iran one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a journalist. Online activists are trying to counter this trend by giving advice for helping Iranian protesters. One problem is that Iranian leaders are trying to delegitimize the reform movement by pretending that the reformers are puppets of foreign powers, so special discretion is required for anyone wanting to help the Iranian people."
Politics

Siemens, Nokia Helped Provide Iran's Censoring Tech 280

Posted by CmdrTaco from the well-that's-not-very-nice dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Wall Street Journal has an article about Nokia and Siemens selling the censoring technology to Iran's government. Do you believe that the public relations damage to these companies can persuade them from selling this kind of technology to other dictatorial regimes?" I don't believe there will *be* any PR Damage, and that makes me a little sad.
Medicine

WHO Declares H1N1's Spread Officially a Pandemic 368

Posted by timothy from the didn't-you-see-pandemic-in-concert-with-sepultura? dept.
juggledean writes "The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared a global flu pandemic after holding an emergency meeting, according to reports. It means the swine flu virus is spreading in at least two regions of the world with rising cases being seen in the UK, Australia, Japan and Chile." Whether it's called a pandemic or not, there's a hopeful note in the story about H1N1's spread: "...there were people who believed we might be in a kind of apocalyptic situation and what we're really seeing now with H1N1 is that in most cases the disease is self-limiting."
Space

Junior-Sized Supernova Discovered By New York Teen 154

Posted by CmdrTaco from the so-many-prodigies dept.
Matt_dk writes "In November 2008, Caroline Moore, a 14-year-old student from upstate New York, discovered a supernova in a nearby galaxy, making her the youngest person ever to do so. Additional observations determined that the object, called SN 2008ha, is a new type of stellar explosion, 1000 times more powerful than a nova but 1000 times less powerful than a supernova. Astronomers say that it may be the weakest supernova ever seen."
Earth

Periodic Table Gets a New, Unnamed Element 461

Posted by CmdrTaco from the so-many-ideas dept.
koavf writes "More than a decade after experiments first produced a single atom of 'super-heavy' element 112, a team of German scientists has been credited with its discovery, but it has yet to be named. The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry has temporarily named the element ununbium, as 'ununbi' means 'one one two' in Latin; but the team now has the task of proposing its official name." Slashdotium? Taconium? Man, I shoulda gone into science so I could have named something sweet that kids have to memorize in classes.

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