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Science

Submission + - P != NP 1

morsch writes: "Researcher Vinay Deolalikar from HP Labs claims proof that P != NP. The 100 page paper has apparently not been peer-reviewed yet, so feel free to dig in and find some flaws. However, the attempt seems to be genuine, and Deolalikar has published papers in the same field in the past. So this may be the real thing! Given that one million USD prize money from the Millenium Prize is involved, it will certainly get enough scrutiny. Greg Baker broke the story on his blog, including the email Deolalikar sent around."
Cellphones

Submission + - A Windows Phone 7 for Every Microsoftie

theodp writes: So, how can Microsoft guarantee its Windows Phone 7 devices will enjoy broader adoption than the ill-fated Kin? By giving every Microsoft employee a free one, that's how. A Microsoft spokesman confirmed the move, explaining that the idea is to thank employees for all their work, and make sure that they have experience with Windows Phone 7 devices. Microsoft has nearly 90,000 employees worldwide.
Cellphones

Submission + - Microsoft Introduces 'Kin' Social Phones 3

adeelarshad82 writes: Microsoft has introduced two new phones for Verizon Wireless called "Kin," which are designed to appeal to social-networking focused teens and twenty-somethings. The Kin One and Kin Two, which were formerly known by the codename "Pink," are both sliding phones with hardware keyboards. The Kin One is a small vertical slider, while the Kin Two is a bigger, horizontal slider. The phone is called Kin because it knits together & kindred spirits. Kin phones helps young people communicate with different circles of friends, whether they be their closest dozen friends, hundreds of acquaintances, or celebrities they follow on Twitter.

Submission + - Major bug in Avast cripples computers

NichardRixon writes: Certainly most Avast users (and Slashdot?) have heard by now that a major bug existed in the anti-virus code update released last night. This bug caused cascading false positive reports of DELF-MZG and Zbot-MKK trojans. (A supposedly fixed file was released this afternoon.) When one of the "infected" files was identified the software would often report that it couldn't be moved to the quarantine because there was no space available, regardless of how much space was actually free. This prompted many people to delete the "infected" files. Successive scans, including start-up (safe mode?) scans, continued to report false positives. The only way to deal with most of the files identified was to delete them. System files, restore points and other files were effected. The advice offered by Avast at this point is to restore the files in quarantine. Mine contained eight files out of more than a hundred deleted.

Avast's complete response can be read here: http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=51647

Don't bother visiting the website with the intention of commenting or asking questions. At least in my case, they have forgotten who I am, and I am not able to log in.

Comment Re:Yep (Score 4, Informative) 667

You are so wrong about the McDonalds thing. It is used as a propaganda tool (as you are by spouting it) by corporations who want to get liability limiting legislation passed by painting her as greedy. She just sued for her medical bills (tried to settle for 20k but McDonalds refused). The jury awarded her punitive damages when she won (I think she also got 200k for actual damages). The jury decided to PUNISH McDonalds (which is what punitive damages means) for flagrantly putting people at risk so that their bottom line would benefit. The amount of punitive damages was 2.7mil, which was 2 days worth of McDonald's coffee sales. I hope you are getting paid for being a corporate mouthpiece.

Comment Re:(Un)Surprising (Score 1) 297

Yea, men are more capable of stopping a bullet or 2000 pound bomb than women and children are?

Really? Thats news to pretty much everyone on the planet I think.

I guess thats why they let women into the military now, because men and women are equally adapt at defending themselves against cruise missiles, laser guided bombs and depleted uranium bullets than all that stuff back in the early 40s.

You've never held a weapon have you?

Microsoft

Submission + - US court tells Microsoft told to stop selling Word (arnnet.com.au)

oranghutan writes: A judge in a court in Texas has given Microsoft 60 days to comply with an order to stop selling Word products in their existing state after a patent infringement suit filed by i4i. According to the injunction Microsoft is forbidden from selling Word products that let people create XML documents, which both the 2003 and 2007 versions let you do. An analyst quoted in the article — Michael Cherry from Directions — said: "It's going to take a long time for this kind of thing to get sorted out." Basically, most don't believe the injunction will stop Word being sold as there are ways of getting around it. However, in early 2009 a jury in the Texas court ordered Microsoft to pay i4i US$200 million for infringing the patent. http://www.arnnet.com.au/article/314620/injunction_microsoft_word_unlikely_halt_sales

Comment Re:Java doesn't fail (Score 2, Insightful) 171

If you're coding in lots of explicit memory reference deletes, what you're writing is not C++ but C. A C++ codebase would use RRID and automatic memory management to obviate the need for any explicit memory management. My last C++ project at work contained zero (yes, zero) calls to delete/free() out of around 20000 lines of code and a year of development/testing.

You're making the same mistake you're accusing C++ developers of making - you're viewing C++ through Java lenses.

Comment Re:Pass by reference (Score 1) 612

Well, you need to take GP's point to its logical conclusion - use references everywhere. The problem with C pointers is that they have overloaded semantics - they're used for pointing to heap memory (which is the only place you need NULL) as well as for call-by-reference (for performance). C++ obviates the need for pointers in both instances. No, I'm not saying I never use pointers in C++, but they're rare, as rare as say, the "static" keyword.

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