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Cellphones

EU Commissioner Wants Standard For Mobile Phone Connectors 374

Jantastic writes "European Commissioner Günter Verheugen wants manufacturers of mobile phones to come up with a standard connector for chargers and microphones. If companies fail to do so, proposed legislation should speed up this process. In theory, this could improve competition, while enabling longer life cycles for these devices."

Comment Re:Its a bad word and we wont use it (Score 1) 58

When you draw the internet while diagramming on a whiteboard, what do you draw? Most people draw a cloud as an abstraction for the stuff "out there". I've never seen anyone draw a spiderweb when drawing a diagram that includes the internet.

I've tried to explain the cloud to slashdotters before. If you don't like the word cloud, you don't have to call it that. A less buzzword-y and perhaps more accurate term would be "utility computing". Turn on the faucet and out comes your data.

Government

Senator Diane Feinstein Trying to Kill Net Neutrality 873

An anonymous reader writes "According to the Register, Senator Diane Feinstein is attempting to put language into the stimulus bill that would kill net neutrality. The amendment that her provision was attached to was withdrawn, but lobbyists tell Public Knowledge that Feinstein hopes to put it back into the bill during the closed-door conference committee that reconciles the House and Senate versions." Bad Senator! No Cookie!
The Internet

False Fact On Wikipedia Proves Itself 513

An anonymous reader writes "Germany has a new minister of economic affairs. Mr. von und zu Guttenberg is descended from an old and noble lineage, so his official name is very long: Karl Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg. When first there were rumors that he would be appointed to the post, someone changed his Wikipedia entry and added the name 'Wilhelm,' so Wikipedia stated his full name as: Karl Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Wilhelm Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg. What resulted from this edit points up a big problem for our information society (in German; Google translation). The German and international press picked up the wrong name from Wikipedia — including well-known newspapers, Internet sites, and TV news such as spiegel.de, Bild, heute.de, TAZ, or Süddeutsche Zeitung. In the meantime, the change on Wikipedia was reverted, with a request for proof of the name. The proof was quickly found. On spiegel.de an article cites Mr. von und zu Guttenberg using his 'full name'; however, while the quote might have been real, the full name seems to have been looked up on Wikipedia while the false edit was in place. So the circle was closed: Wikipedia states a false fact, a reputable media outlet copies the false fact, and this outlet is then used as the source to prove the false fact to Wikipedia."

Comment Re:Intel plans US Plants to Manufacture 32nm Chips (Score 4, Interesting) 193

Yeah, I noticed that this morning when I read about the investment. They closed a bunch of older facilities in Asia, laying off the workers, and are building the new fancy fabs in the US (and creating high paying jobs in the process).

Of course, the next thing that came to my mind is whether Slashdot would cover that aspect of the story. Sure enough, Slashdot's summary completely disregards that Intel is creating jobs in America. I suspect there are two reasons for this: 1. It hurts Slashdot's agenda if they report about companies insourcing, readers should only know about outsourcing by "the evil corporations". 2. Because Intel is the big bad wolf and we can't report anything good they do.

Google

Google Earth 5.0 Silently Changes Update Policy 535

mario_grgic writes "Recently announced Google Earth version 5.0 adds interesting new features like images of ocean floors and some detailed images of Mars. But it also brings another unwelcome change for Mac OS X users. Google Software update daemon is installed when the application is launched for the first time. The user is greeted with an uninformative message that does not really explain what is about to happen. After the user accepts, Google Update Agent is downloaded and installed. It updates all Google applications and not just Google Earth. Also, it runs on an unchangeable schedule of its own (instead of, say, only when one of Google's apps is launched), consuming system resources. Worst of all it can not be simply removed, since it is downloaded and installed again once Google Earth is launched. Users really have only two choices: live with it, or uninstall all Google apps. There's a discussion about the updater in this Google Group, including details of a way to disable it (not for the faint of heart). So fellow Slashdotters, has Google crossed the line?"
Privacy

Google Privacy Counsel Facing Criminal Charges 242

ProfJonathan writes "According to a story in the IAPP's Privacy Advisor, Google's Paris-based global privacy counsel, Peter Fleischer, is facing criminal charges in Italy for defamation based upon a user's posting of a video to Google Video. Mr. Fleischer was on his way to the University of Milan for a speaking engagement when he was met by Italian law enforcement officials. As with the 1997 case of Compuserve's Felix Somm and the 2006 arrest in Texas of BetOnSportsUK's CEO during a layover on a trip to Costa Rica, this case once again highlights the risks faced by executives and employees of online companies whose activities may be legal and protected in their own countries, but illegal elsewhere in the world. Troubling, and worth watching."

Comment Re:stop the xenophobia (Score 0, Troll) 749

Umm, hate to burst your bubble, but I was being pro-American. This country has a long history of being built by immigrants and I want to keep it that way.

I know other countries have protectionist policies, do you notice how they are not as successful as the US? We are not the biggest economic power in the world in spite of our open borders, but because of our open borders.

Comment Re:stop the xenophobia (Score 1) 749

If the company is on the brink of disaster and is receiving bailout money in order to save the company (which I oppose), then they should do everything in their power to stay afloat. If the H1-B workers are providing a better deal than Americans, or have skills that can not be replaced, then getting rid of them to support American jobs endangers the company and goes against the whole bailout effort.

Comment Re:stop the xenophobia (Score 5, Insightful) 749

The reality, particularly in the tech industry, is that non-Americans are leaders in the various fields. Pick up any industry-related journal, and 90% of the articles are by people of non-American decent.

Very true. This is to be expected because America makes up only, what, 4% of the global population? This alone means we'll have only a small percent of the top-talent natively.

We probably have a higher percent in actuality because our wealth allows more people to go to higher education, whereas large swaths of the world are prevented from reaching their potential, either through poverty, health, or non-free governments. This is a huge shame; I can only imagine the scientific progress and quality of life improvements we'd make if everyone were allowed to live up to their full potential.

Comment Re:When the going gets tough... (Score 3, Insightful) 749

You can train people all you want, it won't necessarily make them smarter.

My team at work has five engineers and a manager. I'm the only one that was born in the US. Some of them have become citizens and others are here on visas. They are extremely smart and know their shit. There is a shortage of top-notch talent, and the only way for a company to remain competitive is to hire people from outside the US. In my opinion it is better to bring them here to work than to set up an office in their native country (offshore) because the employees make more and they spend most of it within the US. That's a net win.

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