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Linux Business

Submission + - All OEMs Now Ship Desktop Linux (computerworld.com)

Submitted by blitzkrieg3
blitzkrieg3 writes: Computer World has an article about how all major original equipment manufacturers are now shipping desktop Linux. This after HP decided to put Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop on their Compaq dx2390 desktop. From the article:

With this move, HP finally followed Dell, which was the first major OEM to make desktop Linux available as a pre-load, Lenovo and Asus into the desktop Linux revolution. In fact, with HP coming aboard, the first stage of the Linux rebellion is done.

The Register has a more detailed writeup here
PC Games (Games)

Submission + - AMD says PhysX will die

Submitted by
bigzarelli
bigzarelli writes: "In response to EA and 2K Games announcing that they will license Nvidia PhysX across all of their worldwide studios earlier this week, Godfrey Cheng, Director of Technical Marketing in AMD's Graphics Product Group, has said that PhysX will die if it remains a closed and proprietary standard. "There is no plan for closed and proprietary standards like PhysX," said Cheng. "As we have emphasised with our support for OpenCL and DX11, closed and proprietary standards will die.""
iMac

Submission + - Mac Book Pros Might Suffer NVIDIA Failures (theinquirer.net)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Inquirer has taken an electron microscope to a 15" Macbook Pro bought off-the-shelf from a California retailer to test whether the bump material that joins the chips to the circuit board is similar to that which is alleged to be the cause of many failing NVIDIA parts this summer for which they have already taken a $200M charge.

NVIDIA is currently stating that the bumps are not bad, while The Inquirer points out that there is evidence disputing some of NVIDIA's past statements on the topic. In September a lawsuit seeking class-action status was filed against NVIDIA claiming that its executives concealed the original problems for at least 8 months.
Microsoft

Submission + - Apple more closed than Microsoft (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by
Anti-Globalism
Anti-Globalism writes: "When we gave respondents in our recent annual barometer survey the opportunity to comment on some deliberately controversial issues, 549 of them provided an opinion on the question of whether Apple or Microsoft could be considered more closed. OK, we admit this was a bit leading as survey questions go, but the responses were nevertheless very interesting, not least because most of the criticism was levelled at Apple. When we analysed the feedback, while 21% said Microsoft was more closed, and 24% said there wasn't anything to choose between the two, the majority, 55%, gave the prize for lack of openness to Apple."
Software

Submission + - Chandler PIM reaches 1.0, loses financial support (chandlerproject.org)

Submitted by TuringTest
TuringTest writes: I was surprised to learn that Chandler, the open-source Personal Information Manager (covered on Slashdot after releasing some stable versions), has silently reached its 1.0 milestone this summer only to (or maybe because of) having its financial support removed at the end of 2008. Chandler inherits organization concepts from Lotus Agenda and is a brainchild of Mitch Kapor (of Firefox, EFF and Lotus fame). It shares an approach to unified information representation with recent PIMs like MIT's Haystack and KDE's Nepomuk. What happened to the persistent universal data storage that object-oriented desktops and metadata filesystems were never able to provide? Did it finally arrive as a userland application, and nobody cared?
Censorship

Submission + - wikipedia unblocked in china

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: wikipedia unblocked in china
Privacy

Submission + - YouTube to Begin Using Video Fingerprinting (lawbean.com)

Submitted by
Spamicles
Spamicles writes: "YouTube will begin testing video recognition technology in conjunction with Time Warner and Disney. Testing will begin next month in hopes that the software, designed to recognize copyright content in videos, will be ready to roll out later this year, the company said. Google, which now owns YouTube, had agreed to implement some kind of technology to identify copyright content on its site so it can remove pirated content or negotiate with owners for a license."
Censorship

Submission + - Yahoo censors Flickr images in Germany (flickr.com)

Submitted by janoc
janoc writes: Apparently not only China is censoring Flickr. Flickr has recently introduced filters to filter out images deemed inappropriate. Unfortunately, the filters are now forced also on the German users (together with Singaporeans and Korean users). Photos marked "moderate" or "restricted" are invisible even to their own authors if they happen to be in one of the restricted countries. However, users from elsewhere can still see them just fine if they disable the "Safe search" feature in preferences — this option is not available to Germans anymore. There is a large discussion about this issue going on here: link.
Software

Submission + - Bush names anti-open source lobbyist as counselor (pressesc.com)

Submitted by
Citizen Pain
Citizen Pain writes: "President Bush today appointed as his counselor a man who received $820,000 from Microsoft to lobby during negotiations over its antitrust settlement as well as to oppose the use, especially within the government, of "open source" systems such as Linux. Enron also paid him $700,000 in 2001 alone to lobby on the "California energy crisis" and thwart efforts to re-regulate the Western electricity market through price controls."
Patents

Submission + - Nokia Countersues Qualcomm (lawbean.com)

Submitted by
Spamicles
Spamicles writes: "Nokia, the world's largest mobile phone maker, has filed a patent infringement countersuit against Qualcomm Monday. Nokia filed the lawsuit in a Texas district court, and it is seeking damages and injunctive relief. Nokia stated that it believes the Qualcomm patents are not valid, as the alleged inventions have been patented or published by other companies before Qualcomm. It also said it does not believe Nokia's products infringe any of the patents."
Privacy

Submission + - Small-scale file sharers in Sweden "immune"

Submitted by t-n_dmkr
t-n_dmkr writes: A verdict today in the Appeal Court in Gothenburg, makes small-scale file sharers "immune". The 45-year old man who was accused of sharing four music files on DC++, was fined 20000SEK (~2000), instead of the prison sentence the prosecutor had demanded, which means that the police are not permitted to demand details of the addresses behind IP addresses and cannot carry out house searches.
The small-scale file sharers can now only be convicted if they go to the police and turn themselves in. Only if the file sharer could get a prison sentence are the police allowed to take further action.
The article in english. An article in swedish, another article in swedish.

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