hellgate - Slashdot User

Submission + - Ballmer: Linux users owes MS for infringed patents

Submitted by

MadJo

on Friday November 17, 2006 @05:54AM

MadJo writes: "Linux infringes patents of Microsoft, according to Steve Ballmer. And now Microsoft wants compensation for that.

From his keynote of November 16th:
"[Suse Linux has] appropriately compensated Microsoft for our intellectual property, which is important to us. In a sense you could say anybody who has got Linux in their data center today sort of has an undisclosed balance sheet liability, because it's not just Microsoft patents. Because of the way open-source works, there's nobody who's been able to do patent coverage or patent indemnification behind that.""

Submission + - UCLA Student Tasered by Police in Library

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 17, 2006 @05:39AM

An anonymous reader writes: An Iranian-American student at UCLA was tasered on Tuesday by campus police for failing to provide proper identification during a random security check at the school library.

The shocking incident was caught on videotape and has created quite a controversy in the Westwood campus.

Police tasered the student even after he was handcuffed and posed no threat to anyone.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=5g7zlJx9u2E
http://www.dailybruin.com/news/articles.asp?id=389 60

Submission + - Wireless power on the horizon

Submitted by

cLive ;-)

on Wednesday November 15, 2006 @03:39AM

cLive ;-) writes: "The BBC is reporting on developments in the world of wireless power transmission. An MIT team is exploring the idea of transmitting power through resonance (rather than using the pretty inefficient induction method).

"When you have two resonant objects of the same frequency they tend to couple very strongly," Professor Soljacic told the BBC News website. "Consumers desire a simple universal solution that frees them from the hassles of plug-in chargers and adaptors". That's a bit of an understatement!"

Submission + - How durable are USB thumb-drives?

Submitted by burninator on Wednesday November 15, 2006 @02:37AM

burninator writes: "In these experiments we consider an emergency situation in which a memory stick must be urgently sanitised in the field, without a computer. We imagine a solider who is about to be overrun by the enemy, or a diplomat in an international crisis, who have only a matter of seconds to destroy confidential information with whatever equipment is at hand... The photos and videos below record a series of experiments in which we smash, shoot and burn memory sticks, expose them to an over-voltage and cook them in a microwave. The results are discussed in C. D. Schmidt and B. J. Phillips, "Sanitising USB flash memory sticks: how much destruction is enough?" Smart Structures, Devices, and Systems III, ser. Proc. SPIE, S. F. Al-Sarawi, Ed., Dec. 2006"

Submission + - NZ text-speak story false

Submitted by

sambwel

on Monday November 13, 2006 @04:15AM

sambwel writes: "It turns out the story about New Zealand examiners allowing text-speak was as wrong as it seemed. According to this story in The Sydney Morning Herald (one of the many publications around the world that had previously run with the tall tale), we have AP to blame. The new article quotes Bali Haque, deputy chief executive of the New Zealand Qualifications Authority: "If people are expecting they can come up with an exam script full of text and pass, then they're dreaming. Examiners will be expecting the use of the English language in full. I think students are intelligent enough to understand that.""

Submission + - Javac Open Sourced

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 13, 2006 @03:50AM

An anonymous reader writes: Yes, the reference Java compiler from Sun, javac, is available under the GPL v2. See here for the corresponding blog post and here for the OpenJDK project on dev.java.net. You must have an account to view that project though.

Submission + - Sun releases Java SE, ME under the GPL2

Submitted by Simon80 on Monday November 13, 2006 @03:45AM

Simon80 writes: Sun has announced that they're releasing Java SE, Java ME, JavaEE, and cqME (the compatibility test suite for Java ME) under the GPL version 2. They will be seeding 3 communities, one each for SE, ME, and EE, with the code releases, which will be hosted within java.net. About the choice of licence:
Why the GPLv2, the most common open source license, but one that in theory allows anyone to create their own fork? Chu said, "We've chosen this direction because we wanted a license that, especially on the SE side, is the same as Linux, so people can distribute Linux with Java in it. We also believe the license will minimize proprietary forks, because people will need to share innovation back into open source."
There is also a Q&A with Java's creator, James Gosling, about the code release.

Submission + - Google Earth in 4D

Submitted by

Rockgod

on Monday November 13, 2006 @03:43AM

Rockgod writes: "From the article:

Google skipped right past the third dimension and landed directly in the fourth (time) by offering historical maps on Google Earth. Now you can travel back in time — for example, I am looking at the globe of 1790. Don't expect detailed high resolution photography from days gone by, but it's still interesting to see old maps overlaid on the satellite imagery of today.

"

Submission + - Grassroots voice network uses Asterisk

Submitted by

betazack

on Sunday November 05, 2006 @01:45PM

betazack writes: "Asterisk users have leveraged their broadband connections to setup an exclusive P2P voice network. Members of the network are able to make local calls in other cities and area codes using their ordinary telephones. Anyone with a free afternoon can take on this DIY project. Businesses stand to benefit the most, especially those with multiple branches, but they may want to setup a parallel network to avoid any eavesdropping concerns."

Submission + - War based video games "profoundly unhistorical

Submitted by smedley butler on Sunday November 05, 2006 @10:03AM

smedley butler writes: In an article in New York magazine, WWII scholar Niall Ferguson decries the standard FPS & RTS games as 'profoundly unhistorical'; "[space invaders with fancy graphics]". He then goes on to plug "The Calm and The Storm", and argues for a more educational approach to creating war games; he evin predicts kids will demand these educational games instead of textbooks. "When they come to make real strategic decisions, maybe this strategically savvy generation will do a better job than we did."

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