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Windows

Submission + - OEM Vista Activation Tested

Submitted by
VistaVic
VistaVic writes: "Ever since Microsoft first announced plans for an updated user license on the retail versions of Windows Vista, debate has been raging as to what would happen with the OEM versions. OEM operating systems are popular with enthusiasts because of their lower prices but if Microsoft would not allow them to transfer the license to a new PC (or a heavily upgraded PC) then the OEM license wouldn't be of much use. PC Perspective has taken one of the early OEM versions that was released last week and put the activation to the test and found that indeed they could move the license to another PC after activation, but it required a call Microsoft's activation center."
Announcements

Submission + - Scientist Develops Caffeinated Baked Goods

Submitted by Zephyros
Zephyros writes: The AP is reporting on a scientist who has found a way to get caffeine into donuts, bagels, and other baked goods without the bitter flavor. Each piece has as much caffeine as two cups of coffee. No word on when or where they will be available, but for those of us that just don't get the same kick from the morning cuppa that we used to, this may be another tasty delivery vector to look forward to for that jump-start.
Music

Submission + - Dutch might implement a tax on music downloads

Submitted by
sheean.nl
sheean.nl writes: "The Dutch technology news-site Tweakers.net is reporting that the two major Dutch parties are considering implementing a "compensation-fee" (Dutch) on downloads of music via the internet.

According to the parties, record companies should accept that music is being downloaded from the internet without being paid for. As a compensation measure, a levy could be put on all internet subscriptions.

Dutch politician Van Dam (Labour party) considers the fight against the illegal spreading of music-files via the internet a lost one. "We must be realistic." Van Dam is interested in the idea of compensating musicians and authors for their loss of income. A prerequisite is that record companies accept that music is being spread via the internet and must thus reduce the use of DRM and other security measures.

The Christian-Democrats also consider the idea. According to Christian-Democrat Van Vroonhoven, many internet-users are using their connection to download files from the internet without paying for it. Because of this, she too is in favour of this proposal, as long as users no longer have to pay for separate downloads as well.

The two parties are currently still working on forming a coalition after the elections of last November."
Programming

Submission + - Geronimo Beans and the EJB Query Language

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The EJB Query Language (EJB QL) allows you to write queries without any knowledge of the relational schema governing the entity beans. This tutorial explains core concepts of the EJB QL with the help of an example Web application using an entity bean that you'll deploy on the Apache Geronimo application server.
Programming

Submission + - Designing the "Ultimate" Plugin Model

Submitted by Lucy Krawski
Lucy Krawski writes: Plugins are an important part of any system or platform, allowing end-users to freely extend and modify the behaviour of a system in whatever way they choose — if they're rightly implemented. "The Ultimate Plugin Administration Interface" is attempting to create a spec for a plugin model that implements some of the more advanced features that allow a plugin system to check for updates to plugins, automate the upgrade process, allow for clean and unified installs/uninstalls of plugins and/or all associated data. It seems like an ambitious project, but I'm not sure just how well the ideas will translate into code in the real world. If it works it could be the beginning of a very interesting open source plugin model for future projects, that might minimize compatibility issues and address some of the inherent difficulties in extending platform functionality.
Privacy

Submission + - Goodbye PDF Tracking

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The PDF tracking company "RemoteApproach.com" silently vanished this week. Last year, in a storm of press, they announced their flagship product, which Adobe destroyed a few months afterwards with the introduction of inbuilt blocks on tracking. All this week, their domain has had no DNS records... The domain owners homepage carrys an ironic picture of the back of him; walking away...

Even more Ironic perhaps, is that this tracking was promoted as a copyright protection tool (which it kindof actually is), and Adobes removal of this from their own PDF product is more or less the exact same criminial offence against the DMCA that Adobe themselves complained about when they had Dmitry Sklyarov thown in jail for... you guessed it... removing copyright protection from PDF files...
Space

Submission + - The Mystery of Saturn's Atmosphere

Submitted by
eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: "Scientists are being forced to rethink theories on why Saturn's upper atmospheric temperature is hotter than can be explained by absorbed sunlight. From the article, "This unexplained 'energy crisis' represents a major gap in our understanding of these planets' atmospheres," the scientists write. "We need to re-examine our basic assumptions about planetary atmospheres and what causes the observed heating.""
Education

Submission + - Professors want to ban Wikipedia

Submitted by
Inisheer
Inisheer writes: "History professors at Middlebury College are tired of having all their students submit the same bad information on term papers. The culprit: Wikipedia — the user-created encyclopedia that's full of great stuff, and also full of inaccuracies. Now the the entire History department has voted to ban students from using it. Other professors agree, but note that they're also enthusiastic contributors to Wikipedia. Read the full story here"
Windows

Submission + - What Content Will Be Crippled When Output in Vista

Submitted by
NSIM
NSIM writes: "Given all the badly informed speculation/FUD that's been on Slashdot about DRM in Windows VISTA, I though the following QnA from Chris Lanier at Microsoft might be of interest as it covers exactly is and is not supported and contrasts it with the way XP works today.

The article can be found at:

http://msmvps.com/blogs/chrisl/archive/2007/01/25/ 519180.aspx"
Announcements

Submission + - LiMo Foundation launched

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Motorola, NEC, NTT DoCoMo, Panasonic Mobile Communications, Samsung Electronics, and Vodafone announced today the official launch of the LiMo Foundation. The Foundation aims to provide an API specification, architecture, references to open source code, new source code-based reference implementation components (to be developed and contributed by Foundation members) and specifications for referenced third party software, all to be used in a Linux-powered mobile device.
The Courts

Submission + - Canadian company joins iPhone trademark row

Submitted by
Z0mb1eman
Z0mb1eman writes: "Canadian newspapers are reporting that a Toronto company has been using the iPhone brand for voice-over-IP services since 2004, before Appple applied for the iPhone trademark.

"There's no confirmed reports that Apple will launch iPhone in Canada," [Comwave president Yuval Barzakay] said in an interview. "And there's no trademark designation on their iPhone logo. So we're not quite sure where they're headed with that."

It will be interesting to see how this will affect Apple's iPhone rollout in Canada, for which a date hasn't been announced yet."
Google

Journal Journal: Google Kills "Google-Bombs"

Journal by PoliTech
Google Kills Bush's Miserable Failure Search & Other Google Bombs.

After just over two years, Google has finally defused the "Google Bomb" that has returned US President George W. Bush at the top of its results in a search on miserable failure. The move wasn't a post-State Of The Union Address gift for Bush. Instead, it's part of an overall algorithm change designed to stop such mass link pranks from working.
Software

Submission + - Software Quality

Submitted by Anonymous PHB
Anonymous PHB writes: As a former techie turned pointy hair boss (PHB), I procure more than my fair share of expensive software to meet business needs. It seems that the quality of "enterprise" software has been dropping faster than the sale of Zunes. Cases in point, firewall software that failed to handle FTP connections, intrusion detection software than dropped 90%+ of packets, packet capture software that refuses to install. To limit the risk of poor quality software, I tend to buy software from larger, reputable companies or support contracts from companies who implement open source. When possible, I run proof of concepts before signing on the dotted line. What tricks do you use to ensure that software qualtiy prior to purchase?
Programming

Submission + - Lisp in Ruby

Submitted by
dtolton
dtolton writes: "Pat Eyler has posted an interesting interview with the Rubinius developers. The discussion revolves around adding a Lisp style dialect to the rapidly progressing Rubinius VM. Ready for macro's with your Ruby code anyone?"

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