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Software

How Wolfram Alpha's Copyright Claims Could Change Software 258

Posted by timothy from the my-patent-app-will-involve-prayer-wheels-and-combinatorics dept.
snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister suggests that Wolfram Research's claim to copyright of results returned by the Wolfram Alpha engine could have significant ramifications for the software industry. 'While software companies routinely retain sole ownership of their software and license it to users, Wolfram Research has taken the additional step of claiming ownership of the output of the software itself,' McAllister writes, pointing out that it is 'at least theoretically possible to copyright works generated by machines.' And, under current copyright law, if any Wolfram claim to authorship of the output of its engine is upheld, by extension the same rules will apply to other information services in similar cases as well. In other words, 'If unique presentations based on software-based manipulation of mundane data are copyrightable, who retains what rights to the resulting works?'"

Comment Re:Not the first time... (Score 2, Insightful) 492

by Eddy Luten (#28881695) Attached to: CentOS Project Administrator Goes AWOL
Just one word came to mind when I read the blurb on the CentOS front page: unprofessional. Seeing a message like that on the site of the developer of my operating system would scare the crap out of me. Commercial software packages go on hiatus sometimes, nobody knows why, but at least they (AFAIK) don't scare their user base away by making a very public announcement about an individual teammate.
Supercomputing

US Supercomputer Lead Sparks Russian Govt's Competitive Drive 74

Posted by timothy from the ever-since-that-damn-satellite dept.
CWmike writes "Russia's launch of Sputnik in 1957 triggered a crisis of confidence in the US that helped drive the creation of a space program. Now, Russia is comparing the US's achievements in supercomputing with theirs, and they don't like what they see. In a speech on Tuesday, Russia's President, Dmitry Medvedev, criticized his country's IT industry almost to the point of sarcasm for failing to develop supercomputing technology, and urged a dramatic change in Russia's use of high-performance computing. Medvedev, at the opening address of a Security Council Meeting on Supercomputers in Moscow, told attendees that 476 out of the 500 supercomputers on the Top500 list were manufactured in the United States. 'Therefore, in general, our situation is very difficult,' he said."
Earth

Submission + - Are Compact Fluorescents Really Green? (inhabitat.com)

Submitted by
Mike
Mike writes: "Ever since An Inconvenient Truth debuted houses, businesses, and even entire nations have switched from incandescent bulbs to more energy-efficient compact fluorescent lamps. However concerns have grown recently over the toxic mercury contained within CFLs, and competing technologies like LEDs and OLEDs are casting a shadow over the bulb's eco merits. An in-depth report explores the current state of the debate and where the future of energy efficient lighting is heading."
Space

Submission + - Transparent aluminium is 'new state of matter' (physorg.com) 2

Submitted by Professor_Quail
Professor_Quail writes: Oxford scientists have created a transparent form of aluminum by bombarding the metal with the world's most powerful soft X-ray laser. 'Transparent aluminum' previously only existed in science fiction, featuring in the movie Star Trek IV, but the real material is an exotic new state of matter with implications for planetary science and nuclear fusion.
Games

Which Game Series Would You Reboot? 1120

Posted by Soulskill from the star-control-please dept.
Franchise reboots are all the rage these days in Hollywood, and the trend is starting to creep into the games industry as well. The Guardian's games blog is running a story discussing a few examples and pondering likely candidates for future reboots. Quoting: "If anything, the concept of the reboot makes more sense in the videogame sector than it does in movies. For a start, games are complex entities, with each new iteration in a familiar series adding many, many hours of fresh narrative content. Entering, say, the Zelda, Resident Evil, Half-Life, Dragon Quest or Metal Gear worlds at this stage must be massively intimidating — even if the developers go to great lengths to make each entry work as a singular, self-contained entity within the canon. Also, videogames are going through a paradigm shift in terms of popular appeal at the moment. The faithful audience of young males has been joined by new demographics brought in by the Wii, PC casual games, and now the iPhone. Many of these people may be vaguely aware of long-running game brands, but won't have a clue about the key characters, sign post events and basic gameplay mechanisms." So, which series (or individual title) would you like to see rebooted?
Media

Submission + - Music industry thrives in an era of file sharing (zeropaid.com)

Submitted by
levicivita
levicivita writes: "Zero Paid analyzes a recent study "Adding up the Music Industry for 2008" by "Will Page, the Chief Economist for PRS for Music, a UK-based royalty collecting group for music writers, composers, and publishers" which found that "total music industry revenues are up 4.7% since 2007 [which] corroborates what many studies have shown, that P2P actually increases music consumption." How is that possible? Will reports that "sales of recorded music fell 6% [...], digital was up 50% while physical dropped 10%, but concert ticket sales grew by 13%.""
Books

U of Michigan and Amazon To Offer 400,000 OOP Books 160

Posted by timothy from the had-no-idea-so-many-people-loved-object-oriented-pumas dept.
eldavojohn writes "Four hundred thousand rare, out of print books may soon be available for purchase ranging anywhere from $10 to $45 apiece. The article lists a rare Florence Nightingale book on Nursing which normally sells for thousands due to its rarity. The [University of Michigan] librarian, Mr. Courant said, 'The agreement enables us to increase access to public domain books and other publications that have been digitised. We are very excited to be offering this service as a new way to increase access to the rich collections of the university library.' The University of Michigan has a library where Google is scanning rare books and was the aim of heavy criticism. (Some of the Google-scanned books are to be sold on Amazon.) How the authors guild and publishers react to Amazon's Surge offering softcover reprints of out of print books remains to be seen."
Science

People Emit Visible Light 347

Posted by timothy from the lots-of-girls-I-know-glow-visibly dept.
An Anonymous Reader writes "The human body literally glows, emitting a visible light in extremely small quantities at levels that rise and fall with the day, scientists now reveal. Japanese researchers have shown that the body emits visible light, 1,000 times less intense than the levels to which our naked eyes are sensitive. In fact, virtually all living creatures emit very weak light, which is thought to be a byproduct of biochemical reactions involving free radicals."
Enlightenment

Submission + - People Emit Visible Light (aol.com)

Submitted by
Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward writes: "The human body literally glows, emitting a visible light in extremely small quantities at levels that rise and fall with the day, scientists now reveal. Japanese researchers have shown that the body emits visible light, 1,000 times less intense than the levels to which our naked eyes are sensitive. In fact, virtually all living creatures emit very weak light, which is thought to be a byproduct of biochemical reactions involving free radicals."
Programming

Submission + - New C++ standard delayed until 2010 or later

Submitted by wandazulu
wandazulu writes: At the end of an article written by the creator of C++ where he talks about removing a feature from the new C++ standard, he drops a bombshell: The new C++ standard (typically referred to as C++0x) has been delayed until 2010 or later. What does this mean? No new C++ features like threads, proper enum classes, or hash tables. C++0x is dead, long live C++1x!.

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