strangel - Slashdot User

Submission + - New form of Carbon predicted (digitalworldtokyo.com) 1

Submitted by Dave Quantum on Wednesday February 11, 2009 @11:46PM

Dave Quantum writes: Amorphous carbon, graphite, diamond, fullerenes and now ... well, it doesn't have a name yet, but the new form of carbon modeled by Japanese scientists is only the second 3D carbon structure after diamond. The team is currently working on synthesising it, so maybe it'll get a name one day soon. I vote for 'Barry.' :-)

Submission + - Gmail knows your location (pcauthority.com.au)

Submitted by Slatterz on Wednesday February 11, 2009 @10:34PM

Slatterz writes: Hot on the heels of Google's newly released Latitude service, Gmail will now allow users to insert a location signature that tells email recipients where you are sending your email from. The clever trick allows users to tick a box that will automatically insert the location of the senders email with the message. Gmail uses your IP address to work out the location. Though as anybody knows, IPs and ISP proxies can be fickle at the best of times when it comes to this sort of thing.

Submission + - Windows 7 UAC: the good, the bad, the ugly

Submitted by fgaliegue on Wednesday February 11, 2009 @06:44PM

fgaliegue writes: Microsoft has long had a very, very bad security report, which is not very surprising since all OEM distributors make all users administrators by default. So, they tried to "fix it" with Windows Vista and UAC. Vista being the failure that everyone by now knows it is, Microsoft now pushes Windows 7. And with Windows 7 comes another UAC incarnation. Peter Bright, from Ars Technica, has a deep look into this revamped UAC. Basically, UAC is about warning about undue privilege escalation. That's a good thing. The bad thing: gaping holes exist, and Microsoft says it's by design. The ugly: bugs, as in any program can bypass UAC by acting the "correct" way.

Submission + - Fuel cell breakthrough? (technologyreview.com)

Submitted by on Wednesday February 11, 2009 @06:01PM

An anonymous reader writes: Platinum has been the most popular catalyst used in fuel cells to split hydrogen molecules into protons and electrons. There are three major problems with this approach: (1) Platinum is scarce and expensive; and (2) Carbon Monoxide eventually poisons the cell, ending its useful life after only 5000 hours of operation.

Now somebody has discovered a way to use Nitrogen-doped carbon nanotubes instead of Platinum and improve efficiency by a factor of four. Furthermore, the new cell seems to be immune to CO poisoning. Could this be the breakthrough we've been waiting for?

Submission + - Originality, where art thou? (gamerlimit.com)

Submitted by

TG

on Wednesday February 11, 2009 @05:36PM

TG writes: "Originality debates have been thrown around back and fourth all the time. We need to face it. We are in a day and age where being original in games is either unusual, or a hit or miss affair. Being original is a very risky task, and anyone that attempts it is usually met with failure, despite praises to the contrary. We enjoy more of the same no matter how many times we demand originality: we always go back to more of the same.

Most game concepts, ideas, and plots, are all used at one point or another. While yes, the game may be different and neat; it is rarely original. Looking at a newer game like Left4dead. Is it a nice change of pace from zombie games? Sure.

Is it original? No.

Read full story here.
http://gamerlimit.com/2009/02/originality-where-art-thou/"

Submission + - Pioneer Ending TV Production, Leaving Vacuum (tweaktv.com)

Submitted by

truthsearch

on Wednesday February 11, 2009 @05:25PM

truthsearch writes: "Japan's Nikkei is reporting that Pioneer, facing a consolidated loss of 100 billion yen ($1.08 billion U.S.), will end TV development and production entirely. With the loss of the industry leader in plasma technology, it's an open question of who will fill the void. They could sell their latest Kuro technology, giving a competitor new leverage, or spin off a new company. Or is this the end of plasma entirely?"

Submission + - Iowa seeks to remove electoral college (kcrg.com)

Submitted by Zebano on Wednesday February 11, 2009 @05:23PM

Zebano writes: Since changing the US constitution is too much work, the Iowa senate is considering a bill that would send all 7 of Iowa's electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote in a presidential election. This would only go into affect after enough states totaling 270 electoral votes (enough to elect a president) adopted similar resolutions.

Submission + - Why LCDs are the Cool New Displays All Over Again (oreilly.com)

Submitted by

blackbearnh

on Wednesday February 11, 2009 @02:58PM

blackbearnh writes: "Electrophoretic displays, like the E Ink technology used in the Amazon Kindle, are getting all the attention these days. But with many LCD fabrication plants running at half-capacity, or shut down all together, there's a lot that can be done with the existing LCD technologies to create amazing new displays, displays that will be able to beat electrophoretics for power and quality; as well as doing video and color that E Ink can't offer today. That's the argument that Mary Lou Jepsen lays out in a long interview running on O'Reilly's Radar site. Jepsen, who used to run Intel's display division, and then designed the transflective display used in the OLPC XO, has gone on to found Pixel Qi, which intended to take the ideas born in the XO development process, and use them to create the next generation of LCD displays.

According to Jepsen, LCD offers economies of scale that electrophoretics can't touch yet. "Joe Jacobson founded E Ink and it's a phenomenal technology, but they're working on color. They're working on video. When you hit the page turn button, it takes--you have to stop reading until--I have a Kindle and I have to hit the page turn button when I'm three-quarters of the way down the page, and wait for it to refresh while I read the rest of the page. And then if I get stuck on something, then I have to go back. And we really need something with video, or a way to do fast page change and color. And I believe it's actually a lot easier to do that with standard LCD. The screen that we have in prototype in March has the reflectivity about of the electrophoretic technologies, E Ink is one of them, There's about 20 different companies working on that. But in addition, it's got color and video and a price point of LCD. And so I don't know how--and here's the thing; if the electrophoretics could get into high-volume mass production, at Pixel Qi, we'd be right there using the manufacturing processes. But right now, at this moment, the factories of the world are empty. And the deals that can be struck are extraordinary on price. And so if you can find a way to use the fabs that exist to make something, the price that you can hit is really hard to beat compared to developing a new manufacturing plant or technology.""

Submission + - Should MS Provide Inline Upgrades From XP to Win7?

Submitted by

snydeq

on Wednesday February 11, 2009 @12:25PM

snydeq writes: "XP shops that avoided Vista face a clean install of Windows 7, now that Microsoft has announced it will not offer an in-place upgrade mechanism for XP. Some have since decried the decision as a finger in IT's eye, calling for Microsoft to offer inline XP-to-7 upgrades 'if for no other reason than to demonstrate contrition for its myriad Vista sins.' Others, however, point out that inline upgrade paths are immaterial, as IT shops would no-doubt perform clean installs, regardless of whether they do so in concert with new hardware purchases. Yet for smaller shops, the clean-install-only policy may present problems when it comes time to decide whether to buy into Windows 7. Does Microsoft's decision to forgo inline upgrades from XP to Windows 7 make sense for IT, or should it provide a smooth, inline transition for those considering the switch?"

Submission + - Man claims treasure found on Google Earth (cnet.com)

Submitted by

mytrip

on Wednesday February 11, 2009 @10:43AM

mytrip writes: "Some people log onto Google Earth and spy men sitting on the toilet. Others find buried treasures of a different kind.

At least that is the claim of Nathan Smith, a Los Angeles musician. Mr. Smith was noodling around on Google Earth one day, randomly examining parts of the Aransas Pass in Texas. Suddenly, his eyes darted to a shoeprint-shaped outline near Barketine Creek.

His suspicions and, presumably, his vast knowledge of history, were sufficiently aroused for him to believe that what he had found was the wreckage of a Spanish barquentine (think large boat with three or more masts) that supposedly met its final resting place south of Refugio, Texas, in 1822."

Submission + - Does your automobile GPS keep a log file on you?

Submitted by AtariDatacenter on Wednesday February 11, 2009 @01:02AM

AtariDatacenter writes: I recently connected my Garmin Nuvi 205W to my computer and discovered that it maintained an ongoing log of my position at regular intervals. Their customer service confirms that there is no way to permanently disable the tracking feature. All you can do is manually clear out the travel log on a regular basis. Is it a breach of customer's privacy expectations for their automobile GPS to be storing logs on them? Is the legal profession aware enough to start using these in civil or criminal cases? Could someone remotely pull the data from bluetooth capable models?

Submission + - SPAM: Microsoft or Apple: Who's the Faster Patcher?

Submitted by

Amy Bennett

on Thursday March 27, 2008 @02:49PM

Amy Bennett writes: "And the answer is... Microsoft. Researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology analyzed 658 high-risk and medium-risk vulnerabilities affecting Microsoft products and 738 affecting Apple. They measured how many times over the past six years the two vendors were able to have a patch available on the day a vulnerability became publicly known, which they call the 0-day patch rate. What they found: 'Apple was below 20 [unpatched vulnerabilities at disclosure] consistently before 2005,' said Stefan Frei, one of the researchers involved in the study. 'Since then, they are very often above. So if you have Apple and compare it to Microsoft, the number of unpatched vulnerabilities are higher at Apple.'"
Link to Original Source

Submission + - Encrypted Laptop Poses Legal Dilemma 1

Submitted by

Reservoir Hill

on Saturday February 09, 2008 @08:03PM

Reservoir Hill writes: "When Sebastien Boucher stopped at the U.S.-Canadian border, agents who inspected his laptop said they found files containing child pornography but when they tried to examine the images after his arrest, they were stymied by PGP's password-protected encryption program. The government wants Boucher to give up the password, but doing so could violate his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination by revealing the contents of the files. "This has been the case we've all been expecting," says Michael Froomkin, a professor at the University of Miami School of Law. "As encryption grows, it was inevitable there'd be a case where the government wants someone's keys." A grand jury subpoena to force Boucher to reveal the password was quashed by federal Magistrate Jerome Niedermeier. The government has appealed the ruling and law professor Orin Kerr says the distinction that favors the government in Boucher's case is that he initially cooperated and let the agent look at some of the laptop's contents. "The government can't make you give up your encryption password in most cases. But if you tell them you have a password and that it unlocks that computer, then at that point you no longer have the privilege," says Kerr."

Submission + - Ohio University finds key to getting RIAA to stop 7

Submitted by

NewYorkCountryLawyer

on Wednesday October 31, 2007 @03:26PM

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "Ohio University, in Athens, Ohio, has found the key to getting the RIAA to stop inundating it and its students with "settlement" letters. According to the university's student online publication, the university paid $60,000, plus $16,000 per year "maintenance", to Audible Magic, the business partner of the RIAA's all-purpose expert witness Dr. Doug Jacobson, for its "CopySense" filtering software. Once it made the payments, the letters stopped. This of course raises a lot of questions as to the 'disinterestedness' of Dr. Jacobson, whose deposition in the UMG v. Lindor case was the subject of interesting Slashdot commentary."

Submission + - Oracle sues SAP

Submitted by

tqft

on Thursday March 22, 2007 @06:21PM

tqft writes: "According to Oracle SAP has been naughty.

SAP has allegedly been getting and reading all the Oracle support material they can lay their hands on — legal? Maybe. I suppose that is why it is in the courts.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=4708&tag=nl.e589

"Oracle said Wednesday that it has sued SAP "about corporate theft on a grand scale" seeking undisclosed damages. Oracle also argues that the theft formed the basis of SAP's "Safe Passage" program, which is designed to entice Oracle customers to switch to SAP. SAP won't comment until it has reviewed the complaint."
"Oracle brings this lawsuit after discovering that SAP is engaged in systematic, illegal access to — and taking from — Oracle's computerized customer support systems. Through this scheme, SAP has stolen thousands of proprietary, copyrighted software products and other confidential materials that Oracle developed to service its own support customers""

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