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Cellphones

Apple Censors Dalai Lama iPhone Apps In China 253

Posted by timothy from the lend-me-a-thousand-garden-shears dept.
eldavojohn writes "Google and Yahoo! have relinquished any sort of ethical integrity with regards to free speech in China but Apple appears to be following suit by blocking Dalai Lama applications in the Chinese iPhone app store. An official Apple statement reads, 'We continue to comply with local laws. Not all apps are available in every country.' A small monetary price to pay for the economic boon that is the blooming Chinese cell phone market but a very large price to pay for that in principles."
Microsoft

New Microsoft Silverlight Features Have Windows Bias 251

Posted by Soulskill from the open-is-as-open-does dept.
An anonymous reader writes with this quote from a story at El Reg about an early look at the Silverlight 4 beta: "There are ... major changes to Silverlight's out-of-browser functionality, a loose equivalent to Adobe Systems' AIR runtime for Flash. Even when fully sandboxed, which means having the same permissions that would apply to a browser-hosted Silverlight applet, out-of-browser applications get an HTML control, custom window settings, and the ability to fire pop-up notifications. ... Unfortunately, some of these features are not what they first appear. The HTML control in Silverlight 4 is not a new embedded browser from Microsoft, but uses components from Internet Explorer on Windows, or Safari on the Mac, which means that the same content might render differently. The HTML control only works out-of-browser, and simply displays a blank space if browser-hosted. Clipboard support is text-only in the Silverlight 4 beta, though this could change for the full release. More seriously, COM automation is a Windows-only feature, introducing differentiation between the Mac and Windows implementations."

Comment Re:Buzzwords (Score 2, Funny) 174

by Steffan (#29606975) Attached to: Open Source Not Welcome At Palm App Catalog

> by Red Flayer (890720) Alter Relationship on Thu October 01, 09:01 AM (#29606869) Journal
>

> > I'm a middle-aged, overweight fat computer bloke

>You're posting on slashdot with a UID less than 890721 No need to restate an obvious truth.

Nice! It took me a second to figure out what your benchmark was...

Comment Re:I cracked my iPhone way faster... (Score 1) 179

by Steffan (#28815559) Attached to: iPhone 3Gs Encryption Cracked In Two Minutes

I Cracked my iPhone the first time I dropped it, 30 seconds flat. But if you read the fine print, it turns out Apples warranty doesn't cover the screen.

On the off chance that you're not trolling, why would you think the warranty would cover accidental damage? If I run my car into a tree during the first 5/50, they're not going to give me a new car because the car was defective.

I think Apple would happily replace the screen if something happened that was a manufacturing defect. If you can convince someone that dropping your phone is the latter, then you have far better debating skills than I.

Comment Re:It's the number of zeros that matter (Score 1) 311

by Steffan (#28743805) Attached to: Of Science and Choice In Online Dating

Finally, they asked me how much I thought it was worth. I told them that I'd pay $500.

Yikes! You are either desperate, a liar, or maybe just really rich ;-)

I really don't understand your argument. You are asserting that:

A) He's desperate to pay $500 to sign up with an agency that wanted $3500 originally? I'd say paying $3500 may be desperate. $500 is just good negotiating. Besides - he never went into detail regarding what the sevice provided. It could easily be worth $500 if they sponsor dinners / meetings / outings, etc.

B) A liar? What is so hard to believe about him *telling* the agency he thought they were worth / that he would pay $500

C) Rich? $500 is not pocket change, but neither [as the sales pitch goes] is it an excessive amount to meet a future wife / husband.

All that said, I don't think *I* would ever pay that much for something so contrived as one of these matchmaking agencies. I am forced to conclude, however, that there are some people for whom this is the best option. That number is probably a very small one though...

Comment Re:This should be a lesson... (Score 2, Insightful) 780

by Steffan (#27962293) Attached to: Hacker Destroys Avsim.com, Along With Its Backups

... we backed up the servers between our two servers.

Nope, backing up a server to another online server is not a backup, it's merely another online copy.

It's the difference between HA [High Availability] and DR [Disaster Recovery].

Unfortunately, they suffered a disaster, not a 'mere' server failure.

All that said, my condolences to the server admin / founder, and especially, to all of the contributors. Thirteen years is a lot of data.
Power

Rainforest Fungus Synthesizes Diesel 244

Posted by kdawson from the gliocladium-roseum dept.
Fluffeh alerts us to a report of a fungus that naturally produces diesel fuel, or something very close to it. "A fungus that lives inside trees in the Patagonian rain forest naturally makes a mix of hydrocarbons that bears a striking resemblance to diesel, biologists announced today. And the fungus can grow on cellulose, a major component of tree trunks, blades of grass and stalks that is the most abundant carbon-based plant material on Earth. ... [T]the paper's authors admit that the technique is far from any sort of industrial production. 'This report presents no information on the cost-effectiveness or other details to make G. roseum an alternative fuel source,' they write." NPR has an interview with the fungus's discoverer.
Communications

Extended Gmail Outage Frustrates Admins 430

Posted by timothy from the pulling-out-doesn't-sound-manly dept.
CWmike writes "A prolonged, ongoing Gmail outage has some Google Apps administrators pulling their hair out as their end users, including high-ranking executives, complain loudly while they wait for service to be restored. At about 5 p.m. US Eastern on Wednesday, Google announced that the company was aware of the problem preventing Gmail users from logging into their accounts and that it expected to fix it by 9 p.m. on Thursday. Google offered no explanation of the problem or why it would take it so long to solve the problem, a '502' error when trying to access Gmail. Google said the bug is affecting 'a small number of users,' but that is little comfort for Google Apps administrators. Admin Bill W. posted a desperate message on the forum Thursday morning, saying his company's CEO is steaming about being locked out of his e-mail account since around 4 p.m. on Wednesday. It's not the first Gmail outage. So, will this one prompt calls for a service-level agreement for paying customers? And a more immediate question: Why no Gears for offline Gmail access at very least, Google?"
Hardware Hacking

Submission + - Fake LED christmas lights?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: I have small kids, so I wanted to get some LED Christmas lights this year (fewer hot/warm and glass objects the better). So I found some GE LED crystal miniature lights at my local Fred Meyer store (Kroger to the rest of you). They look nice, too nice. I was a bit suspicious because they appeared to have a filament in the bulbs, and the bulbs are glass.... I checked the box again, it definitely says 'LED'. It also states the wattage per strand of 50 bulbs is 3.2 watts, my kiliwatt meter is showing about 19watts. I took apart one of the spare bulbs and it definitely _looks_ like an incandescent bulb. Am I just not hip on the latest in LED manufacturing technology or did somebody sell me a $1.99 strand of incandescent lights for $11.95?

This particular set looks like it has licensed the GE logo and are actually from a company called 'Santas Best Craft' in B.C. I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt at the moment since I've not been able to talk to anybody there and that this was a con on the part of a the contract manufacturer that drop shipped them from (you guessed it) China to my local store back in October.

Has anybody else also have so-called "LED" strands? I did purchase a single strand from Phillips last year. It for comparison draws ~5.4 watts for a stand of 70.
Biotech

Journal Journal: Short-term reversal of skin aging in mice

Journal by stemceller
Researchers at Stanford University have temporarily reversed skin aging on mice by blocking the action of a single protein. The finding may eventually enable older people heal as they did when they were younger. However, Howard Chang, MD, PhD, assistant professor of dermatology and senior author of the study, says the study lead to short-term treatments in older people, but cautions it is not a future fountain of yo

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