geoffeg - Slashdot User

Google, Sun Headed for Showdown Over Android 124

Posted by Zonk on Friday November 16, 2007 @11:21PM from the immovable-object-vs.-nuclear-furnace dept.

narramissic writes "There may be trouble brewing between Google and Sun. Google has written its own virtual machine for Android, 'most likely as a way to get around licensing issues with Sun.' If Google used any of Sun's intellectual property to build Dalvik, Sun could sue Google for patent infringement. But here's where it gets interesting - Sun is a vocal advocate for open source and it would 'hardly appease the open source community to sue Google over an open source software stack.'"

AACS Revision Cracked A Week Before Release 346

Posted by Zonk on Thursday May 17, 2007 @04:05PM 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.'"

SCO Stock In Danger of Delisting, Again 188

Posted by kdawson on Friday April 13, 2007 @10:50AM from the pennies dept.

hweimer writes "In 2005, SCO got into delisting trouble because they failed to file their annual 10-K report in a timely manner. SCO seems to be headed the same way again for a different reason: the stock price is too low to meet Nasdaq's requirements. Quoting: '[W]hat can a company do to boost its share price? Besides stopping to burn money and come up with a working business model, I mean.'"

Internet Radio May Stream North to Canada 73

Posted by Zonk on Tuesday April 10, 2007 @05:57PM from the enjoy-your-soundtracks-eh dept.

An anonymous reader writes "With U.S. copyright royalties threatening to kill Internet radio in the U.S., Michael Geist explains why webcasters considering a move to Canada will find that the legal framework for Internet radio trades costs for complexity. There are two main areas of concern from a Canadian perspective — broadcast regulation and copyright fees. The broadcast side is surprisingly regulation-free, but there are at least three Canadian copyright collectives lining up to collect from Internet radio stations."

Voting Machine Glitches Already Being Reported 742

Posted by Zonk on Tuesday November 07, 2006 @02:38PM from the go-vote dept.

Neovanglist writes "CNN, FOX, and MSNBC are reporting that voting machines in three states (Ohio, Indiana, and Florida) have already been showing issues, both in the machines themselves and in the training of poll attendants, causing many districts to switch to paper ballots." From the article: "Voters put the Republican congressional majority and a multitude of new voting equipment to the test Tuesday in an election that defined the balance of power for the rest of George W. Bush's presidency. Both parties hustled to get their supporters out in high-stakes contests across the country, Democrats appealing one more time for change, and appearing confident the mood was on their side. Republicans conceded nothing as their vaunted get-out-the-vote machine swung into motion." If you're in the U.S., and you haven't voted already, go do it!

The CVS Cop-Out 486

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Saturday May 20, 2006 @01:30PM from the keep-the-users-happy dept.

NewsForge (also owned by VA) has a short piece attempting to call into focus one of the major complaints of end users, the "CVS cop-out". From the article: "One of my biggest pet peeves with open source software is what I call the CVS cop-out. It works like this: I criticize (accurately) some shortcoming of an open source application either in an article or in conversation, and someone responds with, 'That's not true! That feature was fixed in CVS four weeks ago!' [...] I bring up the CVS cop-out not because I have an answer for it, but to air it out. Sometimes, giving a problem a name helps to foster discussion that leads to resolution."

Ruby On Rails Goes 1.1 255

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Tuesday March 28, 2006 @03:03PM from the still-traveling-at-breakneck-speeds dept.

MrByte420 writes "The Ruby On Rails team today released version 1.1 of the web framework. From the announcement: 'Rails 1.1 boasts more than 500 fixes, tweaks, and features from more than 100 contributors. Most of the updates just make everyday life a little smoother, a little rounder, and a little more joyful.' New features were examined back in February at Scottraymond.net and include Javascript/AJAX integration, enhancements to active record, and enhanced testing suites. Not to mention upgrading this time promises to be a piece of cake."

Getting on Top of Spam Down Under 128

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Tuesday March 28, 2006 @02:17PM from the sudden-increase-in-spam-drone-numbers dept.

The Register is reporting that Australia has implemented a new industry code for the regulation of email with respect to spam. From the article: "Under the new code, internet service providers (ISPs) will bear some of the responsibility for helping fight spam. Service providers must offer spam-filtering options to their subscribers and advise them on how to best deal with and report the nuisance mail. ISPs will also be compelled to impose 'reasonable' limits on subscribers' sending email."

Bloggers Exempted From Campaign Laws 230

Posted by Zonk on Monday March 27, 2006 @06:35PM from the bloggers-look-up-then-return-to-linking dept.

MaceyHW writes "The Federal Election Commission ruled today that the only online political activity subject to Campaign Finance Laws are paid advertisements on a third party site. Today's ruling extended the regulations to paid advertising as required by a 2004 Federal Court ruling, but explicitly exempted all other forms of online activity: 'For example, the rule says individuals can use union or corporate computers or other electronic devices for political activity, as long they do it on their own time and are not coerced to engage in such activity by the union or corporation. Bloggers would be entitled to the same exemption from the campaign finance law that newspapers and other traditional forms of media receive. "There will be no second class citizens among members of the media," [FEC Chairman Michael T.] Toner said.'"

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