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Privacy

Should Apple Give Back Replaced Disks? 446

Posted by kdawson from the consider-it-a-trade-in dept.
theodp writes "As if having to pay $160 to replace a failed 80-GB drive wasn't bad enough, Dave Winer learned to his dismay that Apple had no intention of giving him back the disk he paid them to replace. Since it contained sensitive data like source code and account info, Dave rightly worries about what happens if the drive falls into the wrong hands. Which raises an important question: In an age of identity theft and other confidentiality concerns, is it time for Apple — and other computer manufacturers — to start following the practice of auto mechanics and give you the option of getting back disks that are replaced?"
Software

GNU Octave 3.0 Released After 11 Years 222

Posted by kdawson from the math-just-works dept.
Digana writes "GNU Octave is a free numerical computing environment highly compatible with the MATLAB language. After 11 years of development since version 2.0, stable version 3.0 released yesterday. This version is interesting because unlike other free or semi-free MATLAB competitors like Scilab, specific compatibility with MATLAB code is a design goal. This has manifested itself in goodies like better support for MATLAB's Handle Graphics, a syntax closer to MATLAB's own for many functions, and many functions from the sister project Octave-Forge ported to the core Octave project for an enriched functionality closer to the toolboxes provided by MATLAB. GUI development is underway, but still no JIT compiling, which is a show-stopper for Octave newbies coming from MATLAB with unvectorized code."
Biotech

Genetically Engineered Mouse is Not Scared of Cats 286

Posted by Zonk from the good-for-the-cat-not-so-much-the-mouse dept.
Gary writes "A team from the University of Tokyo has genetically engineered a mouse that does not fear cats. By tweaking genes to disable certain functions of the olfactory bulb (the area of the brain that receives information about smells directly from olfactory receptors in the nose) the researchers were able to create a 'fearless' mouse that does not try to flee when it smells cats, foxes and other predators. 'The research suggests that the mechanism by which mammals determine whether or not to fear another animal they smell -- and whether or not to flee -- is not a higher-order cerebral function. Instead, that decision is made based on a lower-order function that is hardwired into the neural circuitry of the olfactory bulb.'"
NASA

Whose Laws Apply On the ISS? 344

Posted by CmdrTaco from the well-mine-do-of-course dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Whose laws apply if astronauts from different countries get into a fight, make a patentable discovery, or damage equipment belonging to another country while on the International Space Station? According to the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, ratified by 98 nations, states have legal jurisdiction within spacecraft registered to them. When the space station was assembled from modules supplied by the United States, Russia, Japan and the European Space Agency (ESA), partners rejected an initial proposal that US law should prevail throughout the space station. "It was agreed that each state registers its own separate elements, which means that you now have a piece of the US annexed to a piece of Europe annexed to a piece of Japan in outer space, legally speaking," said Dr Frans von der Dunk of the International Institute of Air and Space Law at the University of Leiden. So what happens if a crime is committed in space? "If somebody performs an activity which may be considered criminal, it is in the first instance his own country which is able to exercise jurisdiction," Dr. von der Dunk added."
Software

South Africa Adopts ODF as a Government Standard 107

Posted by Zonk from the few-down-few-dozen-to-go dept.
ais523 writes "As reported by Tectonic, South Africa's new Mininimum Interoperability Standards (pdf) for Information Systems in government (MIOS) explain the new rules for which data formats will be used by the government; according to that document, all people working for the South African government must be able to read OpenDocument Format documents by March, and the government aims to use one of its three approved document formats (UTF-8 or ASCII plain text, CSV, or ODF) for all its published documents by the end of 2008. A definition of 'open standard' is also included that appears to rule out OOXML at present (requiring 'multiple implementations', among other things that may also rule it out)."
The Courts

Submission + - SCO blames Linux for bankruptcy filing 4

Submitted by Stony Stevenson
Stony Stevenson writes: SCO Group CEO Darl McBride says competition from the open source Linux operating system was a major reason why the company was forced to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Friday.

In a court filing in support of SCO's bankruptcy petition, McBride noted that SCO's sales of Unix-based products "have been declining over the past several years." The slump, McBride said, "has been primarily attributable to significant competition from alternative operating systems, including Linux."

McBride listed IBM, Red Hat, Microsoft, and Sun Microsystems as distributors of Linux or other software that is "aggressively taking market share away from Unix."
Microsoft

MS Requiring More Expensive Vista if Running Mac 545

Posted by Zonk from the they've-got-to-make-money-somehow-right dept.
ktwdallas writes "Mathew Ingram from Canada's Globe and Mail writes that Microsoft will require at least the $299 Business version of Vista or higher if installing on a Mac with virtualization. Running the cheaper Basic or Premium versions would be a violation of their user agreement. According to the article, Microsoft's reasoning is 'because of security issues with virtualization technology'. Sounds suspiciously like a 'Mac penalty' cost that Microsoft is trying to justify."
Windows

Submission + - The Greatest Game You Never Played

Submitted by Alan
Alan writes: FiringSquad has been running their "American Idol wannabe" contest for a little over a month now. Now that they've weeded out the dredge, there are actually some awesome entries now. One of the best from this round is an article on The Greatest Game You've Never Played: Allegiance R3 Release. Apparently, it's a game Microsoft released several years ago and *gasp* ultimately made open source. It's since been developed further into an incredibly user-centric game. Good read.
Spam

Submission + - Can spam be reduced by checking domain maturity?

Submitted by gmHumfrey
gmHumfrey writes: It seems to me that most of the URLs in spam email contain domains that were registered in less than 90 days. If the whois databases could be snapshotted, and released as a bulk download + incremental updates for anti-spam software, then a lot of spam (including the picture-spam that is becoming more frequent,where they still try to provide something for you to click on) could be eliminated before reaching the person's inbox. Not a solution, but it would help significantly reduce the amount of spam that is able to be sent. There would be workaround's for this eventually, such as using a redirector url which the antispam engine would have to fetch the url to see where it actually resolves to. What does the slashdot community think about this?
Television

Submission + - Gumby on YouTube

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In celebration of the 50th birthday of the first Gumby television serries, YouTube is airing the very first episode. From the article:

"The original TV episodes from the '50s and '60s have been digitally remastered by Joe Clokey, son of Gumby creator Art Clokey. The '50s episodes have also been restored to their original eleven-minute format, having been previously re-edited to create two six-minute shorts. All 223 installments, complete with restored soundtracks, will roll out over the digital channels during the next few months."
Viewers can find the first episode on the DMGI YouTube Channel.
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - SCO is a penny stock

Submitted by Subm
Subm writes: SCO closed below $1.00 every day this week for the first time, accompanied by news about their case that can't be helping them out.

The stock has been stable for some time, and they can always reverse split to remain listed. Nonetheless, you have to wonder, is it time to start shorting?
Space

Submission + - Enormous amount of water ice found on Mars

Submitted by schweini
schweini writes: Space.com is reporting that the Mars Express probe's MARSIS (Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding) experiment has detected and measured an enormous amount of water ice near mars' south pole, which would be sufficient to submerge the whole planet's surface underneath aprox. 10m of water on average.
Privacy

Submission + - RIAA sues paralyzed stroke victim

Submitted by Stangger
Stangger writes: Just when you thought they couldn't do any worse, the RIAA is suing a paralyzed Stroke victim for alleged copyright infringment in Michigan. Of course, he lives in Florida, but that shouldn't be more than a minor glitch in the lawsuit. Article: http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/riaa-boycott/riaa-tires -of-suing-babies-and-elderly-moves-on-to-paralyzed -stroke-victims-244108.php
The Internet

U.S. Senators Pressure Canada on Canadian DMCA 466

Posted by Hemos from the the-creeping-fingers-problem dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The U.S. copyright lobby brought out some heavy artillery last week as it continued to pressure Canada to introduce a Canadian DMCA. U.S. Ambassador to Canada David Wilkins gave a public talk in which he described Canadian copyright law as the weakest in the G7, while Senators Dianne Feinstein and John Cornyn wrote to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to urge him to bring in movie piracy legislation."

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