Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Businesses

Submission + - The true profiteers of charities.

Submitted by
scherermaddness
scherermaddness writes: "I often have wondered how socially responsible online corporations are while working with charities. I have believed (perhaps in ignorance) that deals where struck that would allow non-profits an equal foothold in exchange for tax write offs by big business. Today while deciding if I felt Wikimedia was a worthy cause for my contribution I learned that they paid ebay over $45,000 in paypal fees last year (ebay have a net revenue of $1,028,455,000 from their payments division last year (P51, Ebay's 10-K)). After seeing this and MySpace turning (Red) I ask, how much are corporations as a whole profiting off of non-profits? What can WE do to help foundations like Wikimedia lower the costs associated with receiving their contributions?"
Software

Submission + - $10,000 donation to a free NVIDIA driver?

Submitted by blueser
blueser writes: David Nielsen committed to donate at least $10.00 to the Nouveau driver project if 1,000 other people do so. These guys intend to reverse engineer NVIDIA Linux driver to produce a 100% open source alternative with 3D acceleration. From their page you can see there's still a lot of ground to cover: "Currently, nothing works. If you're not a developer, you're not interested in this at all." Could this work? Would this free driver be able to keep up with newest NVIDIA hardware as it comes out? This is not an unreasonable scenario as some might think: NVIDIA dropped their own nForce network driver in favor of the open source, reverse-engineered 'forcedeth' driver.
Music

Submission + - Amazon to offer DRM-free MP3s

Submitted by
et764
et764 writes: "A post on Hypebot reports that Amazon is planning to launch an online music store early next year. This store will offer only MP3s without DRM and offer variable pricing. From the article:

What is most surprising (and exciting) about Amazon's new store is that the online giant is apparently telling labels that they will only sell DRM free mp3's and will offer variable pricing.
"
Television

Submission + - One in Four LCD TV's not made by the company

Submitted by
Keith
Keith writes: "A very interesting report came out today from DisplaySearch: Nearly one in four LCD televisions shipped worldwide in the third quarter of 2006 were not manufactured by the company whose name is on the front of the set according to a recent report by DisplaySearch. Something that most people do not realize is that HDMI cables are the same way! There are only a handful of licensed makers of HDMI cables. Why pay $150 for the same cables that can be bought for $6.99?"
Sony

Sony BMG Settles Over CD DRM 225

Posted by samzenpus from the sorry-about-that dept.
aurispector writes "Sony BMG Music Entertainment will pay $1.5 million and kick in thousands more in customer refunds to settle lawsuits brought by California and Texas over music CDs that installed a hidden anti-piracy program on consumers' computers. The settlements, announced Tuesday, cover lawsuits over CDs loaded with one of two types of copy-protection software — known as MediaMax or XCP. Although it's great to see this as a victory for consumers, I can't help but wonder about the next wave of DRM schemes."
Hardware

PS3 Opened For Pictures 219

Posted by Hemos from the purty-pictures dept.
An anonymous reader writes "As all of you surely know by now, the PS3 has just been released in Japan. What you might find interesting, however, is that among those 80 000 happy PS3 owners (or self-appointed resellers) was at least one who decided it was his or her sacred mission to crack this puppy open for a peek inside. About the article, it is in Japanese. Someone who knows enough of this fabled language of wonder well enough would do well to offer some translations, although I don't really suspect that the story is the most important thing here..."

Virtual Earth 3D Beta Launched 188

Posted by Zonk from the really-great-globe dept.
Lord Satri writes "Microsoft has announced the launch of Virtual Earth 3D. There are numerous screenshots to be seen, as well as a Google Earth comparison from Spatially Adjusted. You can read the Google Earth Blog on why he thinks it's not a threat to Google. C|Net's coverage and the official press release provide lots of concrete details of the product. You can also read more from the development side or see the CBS report on Virtual Earth 3D. My main gripe: Windows and Internet Explorer 6/7 only. From the official press release: 'When people visit Live Search, type a query into the search box and click the "Maps" tab, they get their search results in a map context that offers the option to explore the area using two-dimensional views (aerial and bird's-eye) or three dimensional models with Virtual Earth 3D. This new technology compiles photographic images of cities and terrain to generate textured, photorealistic 3-D models with engineering level accuracy.'"

FBI Raids Security Researcher's Home 516

Posted by kdawson from the senator-did-it-first dept.
Sparr0 writes, "The FBI has raided the home of Christopher Soghoian, the grad student who created the NWA boarding pass site. Details can be found on his blog including a scanned copy of the warrant. The bad news is that he really did break the law. The good news is that Senator Charles Schumer did it first, 19 months ago, on an official government website no less. The outcome of this trial should be at least academically interesting. At best, it could result in nullifying some portion of the law(s) that the TSA operates under." Read on for Sparr0's take on what laws may apply in this case.

Slashdot Top Deals

"Protozoa are small, and bacteria are small, but viruses are smaller than the both put together."

Close