Comment Mind your French (Score -1, Offtopic) 326
"Et tu?" is not correct French. "Et toi?" is.
"tu" must always come with a verb.
"tu" must always come with a verb.
Submission + - Keylogger Hardware Embedded in New Dell Laptop (virus.org.ua)
kendbluze writes: "Here's an EE who was doing a simple repair to a nearly-new Dell 600m laptop when he noticed something a bit curious. Turns out he found a hardware keylogger sitting between the keyboard and ethernet controllers! See what Homeland Security didn't have to say about it."
Submission + - Switzerland bans the use of GPS units in cars.
An anonymous reader writes: If you're traveling with a GPS in your car to Switzerland, be very careful! As of January 10th, the Swiss authorities (ASTRA) have forbid the use of GPS systems in cars. They also banned the selling of car GPS units throughout the country.
The reason is that the software running on these devices reveal the location of traffic radars, through which less people have been fined in the recent years and thus Swiss authorities miss a lot of money. The controversial ban has been created a large commotion inside and outside the country, forcing the authorities to put an official document online [pdf — in Germans], with answers to most frequently asked questions.
GPS devices such as TomTom, Garmin, Mio, Navman, Medion, Route 66, Packard stand Ring, Sony and ViaMichelin are all in the banned list.
The reason is that the software running on these devices reveal the location of traffic radars, through which less people have been fined in the recent years and thus Swiss authorities miss a lot of money. The controversial ban has been created a large commotion inside and outside the country, forcing the authorities to put an official document online [pdf — in Germans], with answers to most frequently asked questions.
GPS devices such as TomTom, Garmin, Mio, Navman, Medion, Route 66, Packard stand Ring, Sony and ViaMichelin are all in the banned list.
Submission + - Top 5 Technical drawbacks of the iPhone
morpheus83 writes: "Steve Jobs has high hopes for the iPhone and plans to capture 1 % of the mobile phone market which may seems small but it is not as 1 billion handsets were sold last year which would mean 10 million iPhones. But the iPhone does have some technical drawbacks from battery life to memory as Newlaunches points out."
Submission + - Nice List of iPhone Problems
An anonymous reader writes: The Mac fanboy site roughlydrafted.com has just released a post listing ten of the iPhones biggest problems (referred to as "myths"). It has the usual anti-microsoft, anti-palm and anti-cisco comments, but seems to be quite an accurate and complete list of how the iPhone is broken and what ridiculous explanation one might think of to defend it.
Myth Eight: An integrated battery is a significant problem for users
[...]
Having an extra battery to swap in makes sense on a laptop, but does not make sense for a phone, particularly one that has standard external battery packs that can be used via its dock connector.
SCO Bankruptcy "Imminent, Inevitable" 234
mattaw writes "From analysis by Groklaw it seems that SCO may owe Novell nearly all the SCOSource licensing fees, and has been hiding the fact for 3 years. Imminent. Inevitable. Bankruptcy. Those are the words from Novell's lawyers. Perhaps the IBM/SCO case could close earlier than planned? Perhaps we can finally be rid of this specter once and for all?"
Submission + - Apple Introduces New Mobile Phone at MacWorld
octavian755 writes: "Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs confirmed months of speculation Tuesday by unveiling a new mobile phone and a set-top box that allows people to stream video from their computers to their televisions.
Jobs said Apple's iPhone would "reinvent" the telecommunications sector and "leapfrog" past the current generation of hard-to-use smart phones."
Submission + - Apple's Phone Uses Touchscreen, OS X
necro81 writes: "As reported by Engadget's blow-by-blow of Steve Job's keynote at Macworld Expo, Apple's new phone (still called the iPhone, despite that name already being taken) is a smartphone-PDA that runs OS X (embedded), has a 160 ppi 3.5" screen, has a full-szied touchpad (no stylus), syncs via iTunes to OS X or Windows and, of course, is an iPod. The phone communicates to the outside world via GSM, EDGE, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0, and Dock connector."
Submission + - World's First Virtual Banking Licenses
Anonymous Coward writes: "http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?relea se_id=200858
MindArk PE AB, creators of Entropia Universe — the original virtual universe with a real cash economy, today announced the auction of five virtual banking licenses which will integrate real world banking systems into the virtual world. These two-year exclusive licenses will be available through the public auction within Entropia Universe and will be open for bids beginning mid January 2007."
MindArk PE AB, creators of Entropia Universe — the original virtual universe with a real cash economy, today announced the auction of five virtual banking licenses which will integrate real world banking systems into the virtual world. These two-year exclusive licenses will be available through the public auction within Entropia Universe and will be open for bids beginning mid January 2007."
Submission + - Microsoft gets help from NSA for Vista Security
Anonymous Coward writes: "The Washington Post is reporting that Microsoft received help from the National Security Agency in protecting the Vista operating system from "worms, Trojan horses and other insidious computer attackers."
The article is at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2007/01/08/AR2007010801352.html
I wonder to what extent they also ensured their ability to get past whatever protections Vista may have built in as well."
Submission + - NASA to use Metric System on Moon Mission
JustOK writes: With the first mission scheduled for 2020, NASA plans, among other things, to use "metric units for all operations on the lunar surface"
"NASA's lunar plan also encourages participation by other nations, as well as non-governmental organizations and commercial groups." NASA has nearly 60 space and Earth science projects currently, with about half having some type of international cooperation. North and South lunar poles are being looked at as locations for moon bases. Lunar stays of up to 180 days are being planned.
The project will see "A string of robot spacecraft will shoot for the Moon within the next two years, departing from Japan, China, India, as well as the United States."
According to a report via Yahoo! by Space.com staff, NASA has had informal discussions on using Internet protocols for lunar communications.
"NASA's lunar plan also encourages participation by other nations, as well as non-governmental organizations and commercial groups." NASA has nearly 60 space and Earth science projects currently, with about half having some type of international cooperation. North and South lunar poles are being looked at as locations for moon bases. Lunar stays of up to 180 days are being planned.
The project will see "A string of robot spacecraft will shoot for the Moon within the next two years, departing from Japan, China, India, as well as the United States."
According to a report via Yahoo! by Space.com staff, NASA has had informal discussions on using Internet protocols for lunar communications.
Submission + - EMI abandons CD DRM
jOmill writes: EMI Netherlands has announced that it will no longer infect its CD's with DRM because it isn't worth the cost.
According to Reuters the company is still reviewing it.
Are the big media beginning to see the light?
Are the big media beginning to see the light?
Submission + - What does your dead man's switch do?
LqdEngineer writes: "How many of the Slashdot crowd use or have used a Dead Man's Switch designed to perform some action if you don't check in for a certain amount of time? Recently, I decided to put one together using MySQL and some Cron jobs, but I wanted to see what others have their Switches set up to do in the event you fail to check in. E-mails to loved ones? Send encryption keys to friends/family? Hate mail to your boss? Has anyone ever been on the receiving end of a Dead Man's e-mail? I can't even imagine how creepy that would feel."
Submission + - NASA Will Go Metric on the Moon
An anonymous reader writes: Space.com is reporting that NASA has decided to use the metric system for its new lunar missions. NASA hopes that metrication will allow easier international participation and safer missions. The loss of the Mars Climate Orbiter was blamed on an error converting between English units and metric units. 'When we made the announcement at the meeting, the reps for the other space agencies all gave a little cheer,' said a NASA official.
Submission + - Pledge drive to fund free NVidia drivers
An anonymous reader writes: Two months ago, David Nielsen started a pledge drive (http://www.pledgebank.com/nouveaudriver) to raise $10 000 to help speed up development of the nouveau (http://nouveau.freedesktop.org) project, which is an attempt to produce reverse-engineered free drivers for NVidia. Now, with one month left to go before the deadline, the pledge drive is well on its way to success, and may provide an interesting precedent for free software development.
