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The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Social networking: Lots of buzz, little revenue (computerworld.com)

Submitted by
Ian Lamont
Ian Lamont writes: "MySpace, YouTube, and other websites that incorporate social networking features may be generating a lot of buzz, but they are not generating a lot of revenue, according to an IDC report cited in Computerworld. The reasons include a lack of precise demographic information for advertisers, and the desire for an "environment that doesn't threaten the safety of a company's brand." A potential solution for YouTube, says IDC, is to set up distribution deals with big media conglomerates, but that may not fly either:

YouTube, the report suggests, could earn substantial advertising revenue if it could figure out a way to acquire premium content from distribution deals with companies like Viacom Inc., NBC and Walt Disney Co. However, the report noted that Google so far declines to pay the sums required to purchase the content.
These issues haven't stopped some observers from predicting huge revenue streams for social networking sites, such as Henry Blodget, who sees Facebook hitting a "$1 billion run-rate within a year"."
Media

Submission + - Dan Rather uncovers flaws in touchscreen voting

Submitted by goombah99
goombah99 writes: Dan Rather Reports has posted a lengthy YouTube teaser of their upcoming touchscreen voting expose (to air tuesday at 8 or 11pm ET) This is sort of a "60-minutes" style investigation of touchscreen voting. It's apparently not a rehash either. Rather turns up some new evidence such as tracking down the dilapidated plant where the ES&S ivotronic touchscreens were assembled. There they were having a 30 to 40% rejection rate on the screen themselves. Apparently the issue here was a rush to market to meet the election schedule. They needed lots of machines, fast. So plant workers say the rejects got shipped too. The "rush to market" aspect demonstrates an often overlooked strength of the use of open source software with commodity hardware and a multiple vendor business model like open voting consortium. This should be much less subject to single source point failures and has a built-in adversarial oversight nature that might lend some quality control. I just hope their conclusion is not "we need perfect machines and perfectly trained operators" and instead is we need a different approach that is transparent, robust and self correcting in the face of errors.
Robotics

Submission + - Walking on Water

Submitted by qeorqe
qeorqe writes: A robot is being developed at CMU that walks on water. It is modeled after the basilisk lizard. Information about the robot can be found in a pdf file. They have done both computer simulations and experimented with test models. External counter weights were used with the models.

Information about why you can't walk on water is in a ppt file and also converted to an html file in the Google cache.
Java

Submission + - Dangerous Java flaw threatens virtually everything (zdnetasia.com)

Submitted by
brap999
brap999 writes: "According to ZDNet Asia there is a Dangerous Java flaw threatens virtually everything

Google's Security team has discovered vulnerabilities in the Sun Java Runtime Environment that threatens the security of all platforms, browsers and even mobile devices. Australia's Computer Emergency Response Team (AusCERT) analyst, Robert Lowe, warned that anyone using the Java Runtime Environment or Java Development Kit is at risk.
"
Security

Submission + - DDoS Attack on Root Servers Thwarted

Submitted by
jimbojw
jimbojw writes: "On Tuesday, the fourth anniversary of "Safer Internet Day", three of the 13 DNS root servers were temporarily browned out by a well orchestrated DDoS attack. Details surrounding the originators of the attack are vague, but some believe it may have originated in Asia.
Brian Krebs reports:

Among the apparent targets was a root server controlled by the Department of Defense Network Information Center. There is also evidence to suggest the attackers targeted the servers responsible for managing the stability of the ".uk" and ".org" domains.
He goes on to quote Paul Levins, vice president of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), who said:

This is a fact based community, and we're waiting for the facts to come in after the analysis before we can make committed statements about what the origins were, and its intended targets.
Why would attackers target the root-servers? No demands were received, no ransom paid."
Microsoft

Submission + - MS copies feature, then patents it

Submitted by
jbgreer
jbgreer writes: "Michael Kölling, a senior lecturer at the University of Kent and one of the developers of BlueJ, an educational development environment, realized last year that Microsoft had copied one of the BlueJ features into Visual Studio. Flattery, right? Recently he was informed that Microsoft has filed a patent describing the very same feature. For more details, read Michael's blog entry."
Microsoft

Journal Journal: MS copies feature, then patents it

Journal by jbgreer
Michael Kölling, a senior lecturer at the University of Kent and one of the developers of BlueJ, an educational development environment, realized last year that Microsoft had copied one of the BlueJ features into Visual Studio. Flattery, right? Well, recently he was informed that Microsoft has filed a patent describing the very same feature.

Michael's blog entry describing this here
Sci-Fi

Slow Light = Fast Computing 134

Posted by Zonk from the yay-light-beams dept.
yohaas writes "The Washington Post is reporting that scientists have been able to slow the speed of light while still maintaining its ability to transmit information. The researchers have even developed a way to 'tune' the process, modulating how fast or slow the light goes within controlled circumstances. From the article: 'Scientists said yesterday that they had achieved a long-sought goal of slowing waves of light to a relatively leisurely pace and using those harnessed pulses to store an image. Physicists said the new approach to taming light could hasten the arrival of a futuristic era in which computers and other devices will process information on optical beams instead of with electricity, which for all its spark is still cumbersome compared with light.'"
Privacy

Submission + - U.S. Warrantless Wiretap Extends Into Mail

Submitted by
s31523
s31523 writes: "Several slashdot articles on the United States rulings on warrantless wiretaps have been the subject of much debate. Many people feel that if you aren't doing something wrong, then you should have nothing to worry about. Others feel the privacy violation is unacceptable and paves the path for other rights being "waived". The others might be right. Yahoo is reporting yet another presidential signing that has wording that can be construed as giving the government the right to open US mail without a warrant. FTA, "The executive branch shall construe subsection 404(c) of title 39, as enacted by subsection 1010(e) of the act, which provides for opening of an item of a class of mail otherwise sealed against inspection, in a manner consistent, to the maximum extent permissible, with the need to conduct searches in exigent circumstances, such as to protect human life and safety against hazardous materials, and the need for physical searches specifically authorized by law for foreign intelligence collection.""

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