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Comment Re:It's really Psion's trademark (Score 3, Informative) 234

by Basje (#26229299) Attached to: Netbooks Popular Enough For a C&D From Psion

They did. In europe, both Fujitsu Siemens and MSI registered netbook trademarks of their own: amilo netbook and wind netbook. I'm sure they would have registered netbook if it wasn't already taken

However, many jurisdictions including Europe rule that a registered trademark has to be in genuine use. If it has not seen genuine use, it can be revoked (art 15 and 50 of Council Regulation (EC) No 40/94.

I suspect that is also the reason for the late C&D. This ground for revocation of a trademark can be repaired. However, there is usually a grace period (3 months for a Community Trademark, art. 50 CE 40/94). I would not be surprised to find that Psion started using the trademark again a little over three or six months ago. That would mean they had to wait until now to C&D without risk to their trademark.

NB: although I'm an IP lawyer in Europe, this is _not_ legal advise.
Data Storage

Which OS Performs Best With SSDs? 255

Posted by CmdrTaco from the io-io-it's-off-to-work-we-go dept.
Lucas123 writes "Linux, Vista and Mac OS perform differently with solid state disks. While all of them work well with SSDs, as they write data more efficiently or run fewer applications in the background than XP, surprisingly Windows 2000 appears to be the winner when it comes to performance. However, no OS has yet been optimized to work with SSDs. This lost opportunity is one Microsoft plans to address with Windows 7; Apple, too, is likely to upgrade its platform soon for better SSD performance."

Comment Re:Assembly (Score 1) 962

by Basje (#26071813) Attached to: Best Introduction To Programming For Bright 11-14-Year-Olds?

I learned assembly when I was eleven. BASIC when I was nine. All on a commodore 64.

I know you're joking, but at the same time you're condescending. Unlike my generation, children today are exposed to computers from birth. Given an intelligent and interested kid, there's no reason he or she cannot learn a low level language like asm. For them it's like playing with lego.
Data Storage

Samsung Mass Produces Fast 256GB SSDs 280

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i'm-sure-this-will-be-a-bargain dept.
Lucas123 writes "Samsung said it's now mass producing a 256GB solid state disk that it says has sequential read/write rates of 220MB/sec and 200/MBsec, respectively. Samsung said it focused on narrowing the disparity of read/write rates on its SSD drive with this model by interleaving NAND flash chips using eight channels, the same way Intel boosts its X25 SSD. The drive doubles the performance of Samsung's previous 64GB and 128GB SSDs. 'The 256GB SSD launches applications 10 times faster than the fastest 7200rpm notebook HDD,' Samsung said in a statement."
Image

Slashdot's Disagree Mail Screenshot-sm 251

Posted by samzenpus from the sell-outs dept.
There is no shortage of comments about us selling out or running advertisements as stories. As you might expect there is no shortage of mail with the same theme. What I enjoy most about them is all the different corporate entities and sometimes political parties, that we are supposedly working for. If even half of them were true, I would have a stack of W-2s as long as my arm every year for the tax man. The truth of the matter is, nobody here sits in their Microsoft smart chair, talking on their minion iPhone, while playing in the Google money pool. (If someone knows how to get into the Google money pool, please send me a mail.) Conspiracy theories have been around as long as man, so I guess it should come as no surprise that Slashdot has a few of it's own. Read below to find out who is pulling our strings.
Software

SGI Releases OpenGL As Free Software 167

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the let-my-graphics-go dept.
StoneLion writes "Since its release, the OpenGL code that is responsible for 3-D acceleration on GNU/Linux has been running on licenses that were accepted by neither the Free Software Foundation (FSF) nor the Open Source Initiative. Today, however, the FSF has announced that the licenses in question have been rewritten, the problems resolved, and the code freed. Peter Brown, executive director of the FSF, says, 'This represents a huge gift to the free software community.'"
It's funny. Laugh.

BSOD Makes Appearance at Olympic Opening Ceremonies 521

Posted by CmdrTaco from the beacuse-its-august dept.
Whiteox writes "A BSOD was projected onto the roof of the National Stadium during the grand finale to the four-hour spectacular at the Olympics. Lenovo chairman Yang Yuanqing chose to go with XP instead of Vista because of the complexity of the IT functions at the Games. His comment on Vista? 'If it's not stable, it could have some problems,' he said. Evidently Bill Gates attended the opening ceremony, so he must have witnessed it."
Movies

Lucas Researching Concept For New Indiana Jones Film 272

Posted by Soulskill from the indiana-jones-and-the-search-for-his-dentures dept.
Cycon writes "According to George Lucas, 'The franchise really depends on me coming up with a good idea. And that series is very research-intensive. So we're doing research now to see if we can't come up with another object for him to chase ... hopefully we'll come up with something.' Lucas 'scoffed at the possibility of passing the famed fedora from Ford to Shia LaBeouf,' instead stating, 'if [Harrison Ford] wasn't in it, you'd have to call it "Mutt Williams and the search for Elvis."'"
Technology

The First Paper-Based Transistors 177

Posted by kdawson from the bend-me-shape-me dept.
Roland Piquepaille found news of research out of Portugal that has resulted in the first paper-based transistors (the original article is less informative than Roland's blog). More precisely, they've made the first field effect transistors (FET) with a paper interstrate layer. According to the research team, such transistors offer the same level of performance as 'state-of-the-art, oxide-based thin film transistors produced on glass or crystalline silicon substrates.' Possible applications include disposable electronics devices, such as paper displays, smart labels, bio-applications or RFID tags. The research will be published in IEEE Electron Device Letters in September.
Programming

How To Encourage a Young Teen To Learn Programming? 1095

Posted by Soulskill from the electroshock dept.
Anonymous Hacker writes "I'm in a bit of a bind. My young teenage son is starting to get curious about computers, and in particular, programming. Now, I'm a long time kernel hacker (Linux, BSD and UNIX). I have no trouble handling some of the more obscure things in the kernel. But teaching is not something that I'm good at, by any means. Heck, I can't even write useful documentation for non-techies. So my question is: what's the best way to encourage his curiosity and enable him to learn? Now, I know there are folks out there with far better experience in this area than myself. I'd really appreciate any wisdom you can offer. I'd also be especially interested in what younger people think, in particular those who are currently in college or high school. I've shown my son some of the basics of the shell, the filesystem, and even how to do a 'Hello World' program in C. Yet, I have to wonder if this is the really the right approach. This was great when I was first learning things. And it still is for kernel hacking, and other things. But I'm concerned whether this will bore him, now that there's so much more available and much of this world is oriented towards point-n-click. What's the best way to for a young teen to get started in exploring this wonderful world of computers and learning how to program? In a *NIX environment, preferably." Whether or not you have suggestions for generating interest or teaching methods, there was probably something that first piqued your curiosity. It seems like a lot of people get into programming by just wondering how something works or what they can make it do. So, what caught your eye?
Networking

ICANN Loses Control of Its Own Domain Names 61

Posted by Soulskill from the heal-thyself dept.
NotNormallyNormal writes "CBC picked up an AP story about ICANN recently losing control over two of their domain names on Thursday, June 26. A domain registrar run by the group transferred the domains to someone else. ICANN's press release had this to say: 'As has been widely reported, a number of domain names, including icann.com and iana.com were recently redirected to different DNS servers, allowing a group to provide visitors to those domains with their own website. It would appear the attack was sophisticated, combining both social and technological techniques, but was also limited and focused.' Comcast has had similar troubles lately as well."
Medicine

One in Ten Americans Are Chronically Sleep Deprived 329

Posted by Zonk from the good-thing-no-one-reading-this-works-a-high-stress-job dept.
WirePosted writes "A CDC research study released this past week indicates that the physical and mental health of many Americans is being adversely affected by a lack of sleep. According to the study, a part of the organization's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, one in ten US citizens are consistently failing to get enough sleep every night. Almost 40% of the people surveyed didn't get enough sleep for more than a week every month. The article notes that this trend can have far-ranging implications for health beyond simple fatigue."
Wireless Networking

Cellphones to Monitor Highway Traffic 119

Posted by Zonk from the using-the-fillings-in-your-teeth dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "On February 8, 2008, about 100 UC Berkeley students will participate in the Mobile Century experiment, using GPS mobile phones as traffic sensors. During the whole day, these students carrying the GPS-equipped Nokia N95 will drive along a 10-mile stretch of I-880 between Hayward and Fremont, California. 'The phones will store the vehicles' speed and position information every 3 seconds. These measurements will be sent wirelessly to a server for real-time processing.' As more and more cellphones are GPS-equipped, the traffic engineering community, which currently monitors traffic using mostly fixed sensors such as cameras and loop detectors, is tempted to use our phones to get real-time information about traffic."
Businesses

Submission + - Microsoft Offers to Buy Yahoo for $44.6 Billion (bloomberg.com)

Submitted by penguinbrat
penguinbrat writes: Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer is making the biggest-ever technology takeover after failing to compete with Google in a market that may almost double to $80 billion by 2010. Google's growth has outstripped the pace set by Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft in every quarter since Google's 2004 initial public offering as its search engine won more users.

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