kryptkpr - Slashdot User

Submission + - Linux-Based Archos 704 WiFi A/V Player Reviewed (cooltechzone.com)

Submitted by

hardyh

on Wednesday June 06, 2007 @08:45AM

hardyh writes: "CoolTechZone.com's Gundeep Hora reviews Archos' latest Linux-based 704 multimedia player with WiFi integration. He concludes, "As we have already stated, the audio, video and photo performance was great. Menus worked flawlessly, the audio quality is superb, and so is video playback. The battery life passed the stated specs slightly, a pleasant surprise, indeed. However, there are certainly some quirks in the product that could be taken a look at and improved upon. Obviously this product is designed for travelers and isn't meant to replace your HTPC or another multimedia device that's more convenient than the Archos 704 WiFi."

Submission + - Harry Potter's screaming book now a reality.

Submitted by on Wednesday June 06, 2007 @07:10AM

An anonymous reader writes: The BBC is reporting that researchers from Mid Sweden University have managed to create paper that talks when you touch it, using pressure-sensitive inks and printed speakers. At the moment it really only works for billboards, because it requires a cardboard backing, but before long we can expect to see it in packaging and probably in children's "talking books" too.

The key to the billboard's capabilities is a layer of digital paper that is embedded with electronics.

This is printed with conductive inks, which, when applied with pressure, relay information to a micro-computer that contains recorded audio files. Sound then streams out from printed speakers, which are formed from more layers of conductive inks that sit over an empty cavity to form a diaphragm.

This functional layer is sandwiched between a thick sheet of extra-strong cardboard and another sheet of paper that is printed with the billboard's design.

Submission + - State of the Homebrew Scene 2007

Submitted by Croakyvoice on Sunday February 25, 2007 @09:11PM

Croakyvoice writes: DCEmu have posted an article detailing the Homebrew scenes of all the consoles released at this time, it discusses the future of each console and what should be expected once consoles like the Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3 are fully open to amateur coders.

Submission + - Windows Vista WGA Still Plagued By Problems

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 25, 2007 @08:12PM

An anonymous reader writes: IWeek blogger Alex Wolfe writes that Vista is Still Plagued By Windows Genuine Advantage "False Postive" Problems. Along with his own experience (a support person hung up on him), he cites numerous cases on Microsoft's own forums where users have be forced to reactivate their copies of Vista and told there's a problem with their license.

[Messages like this: "After running vista for a few weeks, I rebooted this morning to find that my purchased copy of vista is no longer genuine."]

Based on the volume of problems, Wolfe characterized Microsoft's downplaying of false-positives last month as "spin control." Right now, the only "technical" solution when you run into this is to type "slui 4" into the command line and then go through phone activation. Have you had a problem with WGA? Do you agree with Wolfe that WGA should be shut off until Microsoft can resolve the 'false positives' problem? More importantly, do you think this could seriously undermine adoption of Vista?

Journal Journal: Fight Iranian gender-apartheid with one million signatures

Journal by DiscoCook on Sunday February 25, 2007 @07:48PM

Iranian women's rights activists are fighting gender apartheid through the "One Million Signatures" campaign, which demands an end to discriminatory laws against women. At present, men have the sole right to divorce and except in special cases, the right to custody of children. One man's testimony equals that of two women. A man's worth is twice that of a woman in cases of murder or bodily injury. A daughter receives half a son's inheritance. And certain positions, such as that of a judge, are c

Submission + - What's In A Twinkie?

Submitted by

ctwxman

on Sunday February 25, 2007 @02:26PM

ctwxman writes: "I grew up on Devil Dogs. Alas, there's no Devil Dog book, but now there is one about Twinkies — nature's perfect food thanks to the miracle of modern science and advanced chemistry! "Why is it you can bake a cake at home with as few as six ingredients, but Twinkies require 39? And why do many of them seem to bear so little resemblance to actual food?" Pure goodness doesn't come easy. Steve Ettlinger is the author of "Twinkie, Deconstructed," the definitive Twinkie story... even without the official help of the keepers of the Twinkie secret. It's all summarized on MSNBC. Before clicking, make sure you have a glass of milk handy."

Submission + - Geek Squad outsourcing their "In Store" re

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22, 2007 @01:09PM

An anonymous reader writes: BestBuy's GeekSquad has had hundreds if not thousands of employees silently laid off accross the country in the past couple of months. All these in-store technicians are being replaced by "Agent Jonny Utah". (Jonny Utah being a pop culture reference to the movie Point Break.)

"Agent Jonny Utah" is basically a KVM switch and a piece of software similar to PC-Anywhere that allows technicians from remote locations do diagnostics, virus removals, and software procedures on computers.

This is link where GeekSquad technicians can see what computers are being worked on listed be each store. http://www.dudev1.com/StoreViewExample/StoreView.a spx

Most disturbing is that GeekSquad agents have a tool to talk directly to the remote agent's, a majority of whom admit they work as far away as India, but BestBuy is claiming that all work is done from a remote center in the U.S.

All customer's private and sensitive data is being put on line and being accessed by people on the other side of the world and these customers are either not being told about it or are being directly lied to be BestBuy about it.

This is a call for GeekSquad agents to post what they know here and for everyone to start calling BestBuy and asking "who" really will be working your computer and how they intend to keep your data private on the other side of the globe.

Submission + - Merrill Lynch: 30% of U.S. Households to Own Wii b

Submitted by

njkid1

on Thursday February 22, 2007 @11:56AM

njkid1 writes: "According to a report in the Financial Times, the Wii's sales momentum is so strong that some analysts have upgraded their long-term outlooks for the console. Nintendo's new console just came off a very strong performance in January, easily selling more consoles than either the Xbox 360 or Sony's PS3. http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=1530 9&ncid=AOLGAM000500000000022"

Submission + - ESR gives up on Fedora

Submitted by

greginnj

on Thursday February 22, 2007 @11:49AM

greginnj writes: "Noted Linux evangelist Eric S. Raymond (ESR) has publicly announced that he is giving up on Fedora and switching to Ubuntu: http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2 007-February/msg01006.html Not content to alert RedHat alone, it appears he has also sent out press releases to alert the media: http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=07/02/21/13402 37 . The announcement has already drawn smackbacks from David Cantrell of RedHat and Alan Cox."

Submission + - What is the cost of using hosted applications?

Submitted by foniksonik on Thursday February 22, 2007 @11:39AM

foniksonik writes: I work at a small company, less than 30 people, and yet the leadership refuses to consider using hosted applications for ANY purpose. They won't consider going to Gmail as a POP email provider, or using Basecamp for Project Management or Harvest for timesheets, Salesforce for CRM. etc. even though these hosted applications would save them a lot of effort/grief as well as time = money.

They claim that there is a huge downside to not 'owning' their own data in these areas and that it far outweighs the savings from not having to manage, maintain and support those tools internally. SO we have created a hodgepodge of opensource versions of the tools (dotProject, timesheet, Sugar) which don't interoperate well together either AND take a lot of time to set up, deploy, configure and customize for our needs. We have competent developers and a team in India we contract to for time intensive troubeshooting... but he time they spend on these apps takes away from time they could be devoting to PAID projects.

What do you think Slashdot? Are hosted apps a money loser, does not having ultimate control of your operational business data (as opposed to your code or other proprietary data) keep you from considering them as a time = money saver? If your company has already made the leap to hosted apps for business use, what are your experiences — good and bad?

Submission + - Egyptian Blogger Gets 4 Year Prison Sentenced

Submitted by bored_lurker on Thursday February 22, 2007 @11:26AM

bored_lurker writes: According to a story carried on the washingtonpost.com (among others) an Egyptian blogger was convicted of insulting Islam and President Hosni Mubarak and sentenced to four years in prison on Thursday in Egypt's first prosecution of a blogger. The judge issued the verdict in a brief, five-minute session in a court in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria. He sentenced Nabil to three years in prison for insulting Islam and inciting sedition and another year for insulting Mubarak. Nabil had faced a possible maximum sentence of up to nine years in prison.

In some places discussing politics and religion in the workplace is considered bad taste, but jail time for doing it in a blog? Will the rest of the world stand by and say nothing?

Submission + - What's missing from Vista's "official apps"

Submitted by

PetManimal

on Thursday February 22, 2007 @11:18AM

PetManimal writes: "Microsoft has just released a list of 800 applications it says are "officially supported" on Windows Vista. What's special about this list, however, are the programs that are not included:

Popular Windows software that is conspicuously missing from Microsoft's list includes Adobe Systems Inc.'s entire line of graphics and multimedia software, Symantec Corp.'s security products, as well as the Mozilla Foundation's open-source Firefox Web browser, Skype Ltd.'s free voice-over-IP software and the OpenOffice.org alternative to Microsoft Office
Another area in which Vista has found to be lacking is gaming, as discussed earlier on Slashdot."

Submission + - Conservapedia replaces Wikipedia with anti-science

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22, 2007 @11:03AM

An anonymous reader writes: Some conservatives have launched an alternative to Wikipedia due to bias: http://www.conservapedia.com/Examples_of_Bias_in_W ikipedia

The new resource is still small (only about 3200 articles, many weak and with gaps in coverage such as having an entry for mathematical "crisp sets" but not for "sets"), and understandably endorses religious and conservative points of view. But the encyclopedia also undercuts the search for knowledge with statements such as "But historical facts, or their absence, are irrelevant since we all know He existed. Historical sources and scientific facts are unnecessary," in the entry for Jesus (http://www.conservapedia.com/Christ), and bizarre anti-science entries (http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2007/02/conserva pedia_and_math_1.php).

Submission + - HDCP prevents PC from playing 1080p on TV

Submitted by

motherball

on Thursday February 22, 2007 @11:02AM

motherball writes: "Will hardware manufacturers and the movie industry stop at nothing to fight the consumer? An article in EDN mentions that newer TVs deliberately do not include the common HDMI connector but instead have the HDCP (high-bandwidth digital content-protection) connector which is intended to make it impossible to hook up your PC to your TV and render 1080p! Who stands to gain from this? Doesn't the consumer (I hate that word) have any rights?"

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