Comment Let's block the Internet. (Score 1) 216
There. No more torrent packets from your modem. What are you gonna do,
Comment Use Free Smartphone Tethering (Score 1) 438
If you use a Windows phone running an unofficial (meaning not from a regular wireless carrier) ROM from the likes of xda-developers.com, you can tether your smartphone to your PC using USB or Bluetooth without paying extra for those ungodly $60 plans...
And if you own any other kind of smartphone, you could use PDANet (works on any smartphone, but you'll have to jailbreak your iPhone if you use it.) The software's 20 bucks but I hear it's worth it.
But if you plan on being outside of GSM/CDMA coverage areas, you'll need something like HughesNet. The only problem is that it works only if you're stopped.
Submission + - Public security test of Brazilian voting machines
Brazilian voter writes: The Electoral Supreme Court of Brazil approved the realization of public tests to demonstrate the security of the Brazilian electoral process. This is the first public security test of the voting machines used in Brazil. Since 2008 the Brazilian machines uses Linux, as previous noticed in http://politics.slashdot.org/story/08/10/07/0029224/Linux-Based-E-Voting-In-Brazil and http://linux.slashdot.org/story/08/10/14/1829242/Linux-On-Brazilian-Voting-Machines-the-Video . The most relevant contributions will be awarded with values from R$ 2,000.00 (US$ 1,097) to R$ 5,000.00 (US$ 2,745). More details about the test can be found in http://www.tse.jus.br/internet/eleicoes/teste_seguranca.htm (text in Brazilian Portuguese).
Submission + - Chinese man builds home made submarine - video (guardian.co.uk)
Anonymous Coward writes: "Chinese Karaoke technician Tao Xiangli has built a working submarine mainly from oil barrels and scrap. The 34 year old constructed the one man 6.5m long craft in just 2 years and claims it can dive to a depth of 10m. The craft has its own oxygen supply, underwater cameras and pressure monitors. So far it has cost him 30,000 yuan ($4,400) but he hopes that the invention will bring him fame and financial backing. Video here http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2009/sep/11/china-home-made-submarine
Reuters has more here http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSTRE5890TT20090910"
Submission + - Oracle to Increase Investment in SPARC and Solaris
An anonymous reader writes: Slashdot has recently posted articles questioning what Oracle will do with Sun hardware if/when Oracle's acquisition of Sun closes. And it seems that speculation about the future of SPARC hardware has been common among Slashdot commenters for years. All that said, it seems news worthy that Oracle is going out of their way with some aggressive marketing directed at IBM and to clearly state their plans to put more money that Sun does now into SPARC and Solaris:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/10/oracle-to-sun-customers-and-ibm-were-in-it-to-win-it/
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/10/oracle-to-sun-customers-and-ibm-were-in-it-to-win-it/
Submission + - Casino Chips 'Uncopyable' - Apparently
Bigev writes: Melbourne's Crown Casino has had recent problems with counterfeit $1000 chips. Being the good casino that they are, they have gone through a chip redesign, incorporating RFID and holograms. The manufacturer of the new chips, Dolphin Products (sounds tasty!) are quite confident in their product. Their Director of Business Development has said "I would go so far as to say they are uncopyable."
Submission + - Microsoft, CableLabs Enable DIY CableCARD PCs
ericn32 writes: "Yesterday, Engadget HD reported an anxiously awaited announcement from Microsoft and CableLabs removing the OEM-built requirement for PCs using "premium" digital cable tuners, saying that consumers "will now be able to add digital cable tuners with CableCARD to a Windows 7-based PC with Windows Media Center." Of course, you'll need to shell out some cash for a compatible edition of Windows 7, among other requirements.
Microsoft also highlighted new support in Win7 Media Center for switched digital video (SDV) using a compatible adapter from your cable provider (meaning yet another ugly box next to your TV or PC.) SDV is also to be supported in the coming digital cable tuner from Ceton Corp. (now to be released in Q1 2010) and will come to existing ATI tuners in the form of a firmware update that will also remove DRM on certain recorded shows flagged by your MSO.
This is certainly a step in the right direction, though not as big or as far as some hope. Which begs the question: Where is Tru2Way already?"
Submission + - Microsoft Open Source Czar steps down (ostatic.com) 1
ruphus13 writes: Microsoft Open Source Czar, Sam Ramji, is leaving the company and heading back to the valley to work with a Cloud Computing startup. He has joined the CodePlex Foundation as their 'interim' chair, and continues to be very involved in the world of OSS, but let's hope he is not leaving because Microsoft is doing an about-face on its purported love for Open Source, and the initiatives Ramji championed. From the article, "Ramji, whose tenure at Microsoft has been widely followed by and influential toward the open source community, has confirmed that he is leaving the company at the end of September, for a new position in Silicon Valley. He remains the current Interim President of the CodePlex Foundation, though, and told us more about his plans for it and the foundation's future. "I will be leaving Microsoft at the end of September for a similar position at a cloud infrastructure startup in Silicon Valley," Ramji said. He started with Microsoft in early 2008, and has been behind many of the company's open source-related initiatives since then. As Interim President of the CodePlex Foundation, Ramji stresses that the foundation, Microsoft itself, and the CodePlex hosting site are three different, though related things. The initial funding for the foundation comes from Microsoft, for the foundation's first year.""
Submission + - Facebook releases open source Web server (cio.com.au)
Dan Jones writes: Ah the irony. The week Facebook is being asked to cough up source code to satisfy an alleged patent infringement, the company releases an open source Web server. The Web server framework that Facebook will offer as open source is called Tornado, was written in the Python language and is designed for quickly processing thousands of simultaneous connections. Tornado is a core piece of infrastructure that powers FriendFeed's real-time functionality, which Facebook maintains. While Tornado is similar to existing Web-frameworks in Python, it focuses on speed and handling large amounts of simultaneous traffic.
Submission + - First Algae Car Attempts to Cross US on 25 Gallons (inhabitat.com)
Mike writes: "San Francisco recently saw the unveiling of the world's first algae fuel-powered vehicle, dubbed the Algaeus. The plug-in hybrid car, which is a Prius tricked out with a nickel metal hydride battery and a plug, runs on green crude from Sapphire Energy — no modifications to the gasoline engine necessary. The set-up is so effective, according to FUEL producer Rebecca Harrell, that the Algaeus can cross the US on approximately 25 gallons — a figure which is currently being tested on a coast-to-coast road trip."
Submission + - Would you trust an insurance company's "drive- (teensafedriver.com)
ramen99 writes: Our new car insurance company offered us discounts for our teenage driver if we agree to install a "drive-cam" that records driving habits and wirelessly transmits video footage to a "neutral driving coach" for evaluation and comment. While this might be great to monitor a new teen driver, it will also monitor other adult drivers. The insurance company claims that they would NEVER use any information obtained to consider changes in insurance rates, but that really sounds unbelievable. Would you give up your privacy to save some dough? Installation is free, and the camera mounts just under the rear-view mirror, but something seems fishy about this...
Submission + - Alan Turing gets an apology from Prime Minister
99luftballon writes: "The British government has officially apologised for the treatment of Alan Turing in the post war era. An online petition got more than enough signatures to force an official statement and Prime Minister Gordon Brown has issued a lengthy apology.
"Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time and we can't put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him."
"So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan's work I am very proud to say: we're sorry, you deserved so much better.""
Submission + - British Gov't Apologises For Treatment of Turing (number10.gov.uk)
BertieBaggio writes: The British Government has apologised for the treatment of Alan Turing, convicted of 'gross indecency' and sentenced to chemical castration under anti-homosexuality laws in 1952. In a statement responding to a petition (discussed previously) on the Prime Minister's website, Gordon Brown has recognised that the action taken against Turing was "inhumane" and "appalling", and that he [Turing] should be remembered for his contributions to the Allied war effort and to humanity:
It is no exaggeration to say that, without his outstanding contribution, the history of World War Two could well have been very different. He truly was one of those individuals we can point to whose unique contribution helped to turn the tide of war. [...] But even more than that, Alan deserves recognition for his contribution to humankind. For those of us born after 1945, into a Europe which is united, democratic and at peace, it is hard to imagine that our continent was once the theatre of mankind's darkest hour. [...] It is thanks to men and women who were totally committed to fighting fascism, people like Alan Turing, that the horrors of the Holocaust and of total war are part of Europe's history and not Europe's present.
Submission + - Which filesystem do you use on portable media? 1
An anonymous reader writes: Most people use MS filesystems on Disk-On-Keys, and portable hard drives, as these are readable from most machines.
But this way you loose the files' permission information, which many times is very inconvenient(you must agree that having Ubuntu asking you whether to execute or display every text file or image you open from a DOK is annoying).
Using "regular" Linux filesystems like ext keeps the permissions, but may require using the superuser when switching machines (as the UIDs are different).
So does any of you slashdotters have a creative solution for this problem?
Submission + - AMD's DX11 Radeons can drive six 30" displays (techreport.com)
J. Dzhugashvili writes: Eat your heart out, Matrox. Whereas most current graphics cards can only drive a pair of displays, AMD has put some special sauce in its next-generation DirectX 11 GPUs to enable support for a whopping six monitors. There's no catch about supported resolutions, either. At an event yesterday, AMD demonstrated a single next-gen Radeon driving six 30" Dell monitors, each with a resolution of 2560x1600, hooked up via DisplayPort. Total resolution: 7680x3200 (or 24.6 megapixels). AMD's drivers present this setup as a single monitor to Windows, so in theory, games don't need to be updated to support it. AMD showed off Dead Space, Left 4 Dead, World of Warcraft, and DiRT 2 running at playable frame rates on the six displays.
