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Software

Major Australian ISP Pulls OpenOffice 336

Posted by kdawson from the can't-stand-the-competition dept.
thefickler writes "Australia's largest Internet service provider Telstra BigPond has removed OpenOffice from its unmetered file download area following the launch of its own, free, hosted, office application, BigPond Office. The removal of OpenOffice was brought to TECH.BLORGE's attention by a reader, who complained to Telstra BigPond's support department about no longer being able to download OpenOffice updates. The support people were quite open about why OpenOffice was no longer available, i.e. because it was perceived to be competitive with BigPond Office."
Windows

Vista Sales Rate Fell Last Quarter 449

Posted by kdawson from the peaked-too-early dept.
Microsoft is not directly mentioning Vista demand while they brag about how much money they made last quarter, because sales fell. "[Microsoft] shipped approximately 28 million copies of Vista in the latest quarter ended September, or 9.3 million copies per month. Though the Windows developer pointed to 27 percent growth in business licenses and noted that many home users were buying the more lucrative Vista Home Premium or Ultimate editions, the rate represents a decline from the 10 million per month reported early in summer."
Education

Submission + - Marijuana raises psychosis risk? (time.com)

Submitted by Pockets
Pockets writes: (LONDON) — Using marijuana seems to increase the chance of becoming psychotic, researchers report in an analysis of past research that reignites the issue of whether pot is dangerous. The new review suggests that even infrequent use could raise the small but real risk of this serious mental illness by 40 percent.

Doctors have long suspected a connection and say the latest findings underline the need to highlight marijuana's long-term risks. The research, paid for by the British Health Department, is being published Friday in medical journal The Lancet.

"The available evidence now suggests that cannabis is not as harmless as many people think," said Dr. Stanley Zammit, one of the study's authors and a lecturer in the department of psychological medicine at Cardiff University.

The researchers said they couldn't prove that marijuana use itself increases the risk of psychosis, a category of several disorders with schizophrenia being the most commonly known.

There could be something else about marijuana users, "like their tendency to use other drugs or certain personality traits, that could be causing the psychoses," Zammit said.

Marijuana is the most frequently used illegal substance in many countries, including the United Kingdom and the United States. About 20 percent of young adults report using it at least once a week, according to government statistics.

Zammit and colleagues from the University of Bristol, Imperial College and Cambridge University examined 35 studies that tracked tens of thousands of people for periods ranging from one year to 27 years to examine the effect of marijuana on mental health.

They looked for psychotic illnesses as well as cognitive disorders including delusions and hallucinations, bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety, neuroses and suicidal tendencies.

They found that people who used marijuana had roughly a 40 percent higher chance of developing a psychotic disorder later in life. The overall risk remains very low.

For example, Zammit said the risk of developing schizophrenia for most people is less than 1 percent. The prevalence of schizophrenia is believed to be about five in 1,000 people. But because of the drug's wide popularity, the researchers estimate that about 800 new cases of psychosis could be prevented by reducing marijuana use.

The scientists found a more disturbing outlook for "heavy users" of pot, those who used it daily or weekly: Their risk for psychosis jumped to a range of 50 percent to 200 percent.

One doctor noted that people with a history of mental illness in their families could be at higher risk. For them, marijuana use "could unmask the underlying schizophrenia," said Dr. Deepak Cyril D'Souza, an associate professor of psychiatry at Yale University, who was not involved in the study.

Dr. Wilson Compton, a senior scientist at the National Institute on Drug Abuse in Washington, called the study persuasive.

"The strongest case is that there are consistencies across all of the studies," and that the link was seen only with psychoses — not anxiety, depression or other mental health problems, he said.

Scientists cannot rule out that pre-existing conditions could have led to both marijuana use and later psychoses, he added.

Scientists think it is biologically possible that marijuana could cause psychoses because it interrupts important neurotransmitters such as dopamine. That can interfere with the brain's communication systems.

In the U.K., the government will soon reconsider how marijuana should be classified in its hierarchy of drugs. In 2004, it was downgraded and penalties for possession were reduced. Many expect marijuana will be bumped up to a class "B" category, with offenses likely to lead to arrests or longer jail sentences.

__

Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione in Milwaukee, Wis., contributed to this report.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,164 7630,00.html
Space

Submission + - Planet could harbor Life

Submitted by
BlueMorpho
BlueMorpho writes: "Planet of Promise: Small, Rocky World Could Harbor Life

For the first time, astronomers have discovered a planet far, far away that might be similar to Earth. This distant world, which pirouettes around a dim bulb of a star with the unglamorous name Gliese 581, may possibly sport a landscape that would be vaguely familiar to us — a panorama of liquid oceans and drifting continents. If so, there's the chance that it's a home to life — perhaps even advanced life.

http://www.space.com/searchforlife/070517_seti_pla net.html"
Education

Submission + - New Form of Matter Created

Submitted by
eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: "Researchers created a new form of matter which seems to be a cross between a laser and a superconductor. From the article, "The new state is a solid filled with a collection of energy particles known as polaritons that have been trapped and slowed." For those of you who surpass me in physics, the full text of the research is available from the Journal Science."
Security

AACS Revision Cracked A Week Before Release 346

Posted by Zonk from the damned-time-traveling-pirates dept.
stevedcc writes "Ars Technica is running a story about next week's release of AACS, which is intended to fix the currently compromised version. The only problem is, the patched version has already been cracked. From the article: 'AACS LA's attempts to stifle dissemination of AACS keys and prevent hackers from compromising new keys are obviously meeting with extremely limited success. The hacker collective continues to adapt to AACS revisions and is demonstrating a capacity to assimilate new volume keys at a rate which truly reveals the futility of resistance. If keys can be compromised before HD DVDs bearing those keys are even released into the wild, one has to question the viability of the entire key revocation model.'"
The Courts

Diebold Goes 0 For 3 In Massachusetts Case 119

Posted by kdawson from the help-america-litigate-act dept.
beetle496 writes "ComputerWorld reports that last week a judge denied Diebold's request to block ES&S pact with Massachusetts. This is a follow-up to the earlier discussion here after Diebold contended that the state had erred in selecting the machines of its rival, citing accessibility provisions of the HAVA law. Quoting: 'Diebold's request for an injunction to block the execution of the contract with ES&S was rejected... The judge also denied Diebold's request to have an accelerated discovery process and to keep the state's legal team from viewing internal Diebold documents... "The suit is still there, but they went zero for three yesterday," the spokesman said.' The actual accessibility concerns have been discussed over at the TEITAC listserv, including a few telling observations from experts familiar with accessible voting and at least one state insider."
Security

File Sharing — Harmful to Children and a Threat to National Security 342

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the root-of-all-evil dept.
jkrobin writes to mention that a recent report from the US Patent office calls peer-to-peer file sharing harmful to children and a threat to national security. "Interestingly, the report makes numerous references to RIAA and MPAA legal actions against file actions, as well as cites a 2005 Department of Homeland Security report that government workers had installed file-sharing programs that accessed classified information without their knowledge."

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