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SuSE

Submission + - Red Hat, Novell issue back-to-back announcements (techtarget.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In the past 24 hours, the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) beta became available through Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) service. While RHEL has been available in limited beta for a few weeks, this public beta announcement came on the heels of Novell's launch of SUSE Linux Enterprise Real Time 10, its latest enterprise OS offering. The launch of SUSE Linux Enterprise Real Time 10 is arguably the bigger announcement. Novell's new SUSE is a real time operating system, allowing critical processes to take priority over processor tasks.
Education

Submission + - SPAM: Which certifications are worth your time?

Submitted by alphadogg
alphadogg writes: For years, the key to jumpstarting a network professional's career was getting a Cisco, Microsoft or other technical certification. But now CIOs, IT recruiters and salary specialists say demand is waning for hardware- and software-oriented certifications. Instead, companies are looking for IT professionals with business-oriented certifications in such areas as project management and Six Sigma, a statistical quality improvement technique that is being adopted by more IT shops.
Link to Original Source
Music

Submission + - Three-Way Music Software Shootout (extremetech.com)

Submitted by
ThinSkin
ThinSkin writes: "Squabbling with bandmates is an old and busted tradition for rock stars. With games like "Rock Star" and "Guitar Hero," gamers are turning to media to unleash their inner rock star. Musicians a little more serious about crafting music can turn to computer apps to translate ideas into songs. Joel Durham Jr. over at ExtremeTech has a review of three popular music creation programs: Cakewalk SONAR Home Studio 6 XL, Sony ACID Music Studio 7.0, and MAGIX Music Maker 12 Deluxe. Each program has enough versatility for users to begin making music, but the right program depends on a person's skill level and budget."
Real Time Strategy (Games)

Submission + - Is our Universe Somebody Else's Hobby? (hughpickens.com)

Submitted by
Pcol
Pcol writes: "The New York Times is running a story on Philosopher Nick Bostrum, Director of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, who has a web site on "The Simulation Argument" that contends that there is a pretty good chance that we are living in someone else's computer simulation.

Dr. Bostrom assumes that technological advances could produce a computer with more processing power than all the brains in the world, and that advanced humans, or "posthumans," could run "ancestor simulations" of their evolutionary history by creating virtual worlds inhabited by virtual people with fully developed virtual nervous systems. If civilization survived long enough to reach that stage, and if the posthumans were to run lots of simulations for research purposes or entertainment, then the number of virtual ancestors they created would be vastly greater than the number of real ancestors. There would be no way for any of these ancestors to know for sure whether they were virtual or real, because the sights and feelings they'd experience would be indistinguishable. But since there would be so many more virtual ancestors, any individual could figure that the odds made it nearly certain that he or she was living in a virtual world.
Robin Hanson, an economist at George Mason University, says that if you desire to live as long as you can in this virtual world — and in any simulated afterlife that the designer of this world might bestow on you, you should try to be as interesting as possible, on the theory that the designer is more likely to keep you around for the next simulation."
Enlightenment

Submission + - Computers circumventing corrupt officials in India

Submitted by aalobode
aalobode writes: If you have ever lived under India's bureaucracy, you will know that any interaction with a government entity — to pay taxes, get married, get a license etc., pass through customs — will cost you in time and money. Even the smallest of public services requires a bribe or other inducement. Frequently, the officials are unavailable for business until the amount is paid. The keepers of the keys to these kingdoms of privilege are the "babus", those clerks and officers trained in officiousness and inefficiency since the days of the British East India Company. Today, on the eve of the 60th anniversary of independence, the London Times has an article http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/a rticle2237920.ece on efforts in the southern state of Karnataka to computerize such services. Using the internet, a farmer gets a driving license in 5 minutes without paying a quarter of his income in bribes. Such attempts to stamp out corruption are spreading through India but, the question arises, can they succeed in a country where so few are connected to the power grid and the internet?
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft on Linux and Windows Interoperability (technet.com)

Submitted by markstinson
markstinson writes: I thought many would find it entertaining. Time to spread some more jam on that Microsoft & Novell sandwich. It's the latest from Microsoft's Port 25 on "Linux and Windows Interoperability: On the Metal and On the Wire" giving at both OSCON in Portland and at LinuxWorld in San Francisco. It even comes with slides.
http://port25.technet.com/archive/2007/08/13/Inter operab-on-the-metal-and-on-the-wire.aspx
Encryption

Submission + - 1024 bit Product of Primes Factored

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A press release from EPFL as well as other sources are reporting that an international team has factored a 1024 bit product of primes using the special number field sieve. Once again time to increase your GPG key lengths.
Google

Submission + - Google's CheckOut vs. Ebay's Paypal

Submitted by
hminaya
hminaya writes: "Google is taking the fight straight to Paypal's turf. They have been promoting Google Checkout as a fast and easy alternative for online transactions. Right now they trail Paypal badly, but guiven enough time anything can happen. Most importantly Google will not start charging merchant processing fees until 2007!!!!. More at: http://news.com.com/Google+steps+more+boldly+into+ PayPals+territory/2100-1038_3-6144994.html?tag=nef d.top"
Slashdot.org

Submission + - How clean are sites like Slashdot or Digg?

Submitted by Steve Folger
Steve Folger writes: CNET ran an article about marketers submitting stories on Digg. It seems that a frequent Digg contributor posted an article on behalf of jetnumbers, a virtual-phone-numbers company. His account was cancelled and then reinstated. Sites like slashdot are marketing guys' paradise. The basic question is how clean are these sites.
Google

Submission + - Fun with Google patent search

Submitted by
192939495969798999
192939495969798999 writes: "Google Patent Search lets you search the entire patent catalog, complete with drawings. While some of the patents seem useful and interesting, others, especially software, are extremely vague. Patents like "system for downloading software" for example, seem entirely unoriginal. Will this new outlet for patent searches reignite the push for patent reform, or will we just use it to watch yet more obvious patents appear?"
Announcements

Submission + - Skype adds lie detector to VoIP service

Submitted by
Roy van Rijn
Roy van Rijn writes: "vnunet.com reports that: Skype has announced that it will be adding an optional lie detector to its popular internet telephony service. The 'KishKish' software attempts to determine whether the caller is telling a whopper by analysing the audio stream and checking for stress levels. Lying evokes the 'fight or flight' response in humans, which makes muscles tense up, altering the pitch and tone of the voice. "This is a really neat application, and the kind of thing we want to see more of," said Paul Amery, director of Skype's developer program. The software was developed by Israeli software house BATM, and is already in use by the US military."
Portables

Submission + - UMPC: New competitor for Nokia 770

Submitted by
ddalex
ddalex writes: "Since the UMPC concept emerged and everybody rushed on the "me too" wagon, I always took the Nokia 770 to be more like a low-end Linux-powered UMPC than just an Internet Tablet. Decisive was the form factor and extensibility.

But now, new competitors with very similar appearance, but a lot more horsepower under the hood, appear.
What do you think about Raon Vega (http://www.dynamism.com/vega/main.shtml) ? It's a small UMPC in the 770 format. It comes preloaded with Windows, but I suspect loading Linux on it wouldn't be too hard, especially when AMD gives out drivers for the AMD Geode processor that is used by the Vega. Since it comes with lots of memory, HDD capacity, powered USB ports, out-VGA capability, and price tag is quite high, it clearly targets at notebook(UMPC) market instead of being just a Internet Tablet. But the form factor (minus the weight) clearly makes this an ultraportable, and a competitor to the 770.

So, what would you do ? Get one, wait for next Nokia tablet (870 anyone??), or simply consider the UMPCs are not worthing the trouble ?"

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