Comment Re:Halo Wars? (Score 4, Funny) 77
The Halos
Sailor Halo
Need for Halo
Super Halo Brothers
Google Chrome, the Google Browser 807
Philipp Lenssen writes "Google announced their very own browser project called Google Chrome — an announcement in the form of a comic book drawn by Scott McCloud, no less. Google says Google Chrome will be open source, include a new JavaScript virtual machine, include the Google Gears add-on by default, and put the tabs above the address bar (not below), among other things. I've also uploaded Google's comic book with all the details (details given from Google's perspective, anyway... let's see how this holds up). While Google provided the URL www.google.com/chrome there's nothing up there yet."
Submission + - The Future Has A Kill Switch (wired.com)
palegray.net writes: "Bruce Schneier brings us his perspective on a future filled with kill switches, from OnStar-equipped automobiles and city buses that can be remotely disabled by police to Microsoft's patent-pending ideas regarding so-called Digital Manners Policies. In Bruce's view, these capabilities aren't exactly high points of our potential future. From the article:
Once we go down this path — giving one device authority over other devices — the security problems start piling up. Who has the authority to limit functionality of my devices, and how do they get that authority? What prevents them from abusing that power? Do I get the ability to override their limitations? In what circumstances, and how? Can they override my override?
At what point does centralizing and/or delegating operational authority over so much of our lives become a dangerous practice of its own?"
Ancestry Surprises From New Genetics Analysis Method 223
An anonymous reader commends a recently published study involving a new way to analyze genetic variation in human populations (full article published in PLOS Genetics): "[S]cientists from Ireland, the UK and the US analysed 2,540 genetic markers in the DNA of almost 1,000 people from around the world whose genetic material had been collected by the Human Genome Diversity Project. The results include a number of surprises... the Yakut people of northern Siberia were found to have received a significant genetic contribution from the population of the Orkney Islands, which lie off the coast of Scotland... there must have been a period of gene flow from northern Europe to east Asia. The study also shed light on the peopling of the Americas, as the results suggest that the native populations of north and south America have different origins."
Olympic Tickets Contain Microchip With Your Data 254
OMNIpotusCOM writes "Tickets to the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies will contain a microchip with information about the ticket holder, including a photograph, passport details, addresses, e-mail, and telephone numbers. The stated intent is to keep troublemakers out of the 91,000-seat National Stadium so that they cannot cause disruptions while China is on world-wide television, but it brings up serious concerns for privacy and identity theft."
YouTube Fires Back At Viacom 183
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "As we say in the legal profession, 'issue has been joined' in Viacom v. YouTube. In its answer to Viacom's complaint (PDF), filed Friday, YouTube says Viacom's lawsuit is intended to 'challenge... the protections of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA") that Congress enacted a decade ago to encourage the development of services like YouTube.' It goes on to say that the suit 'threatens the way hundreds of millions of people legitimately exchange information, news, entertainment, and political and artistic expression.'"
Internet-Based Realtors Win Monster Settlement 337
coondoggie writes "Until today, most Internet-based real-estate brokers were considered second-class citizens, and their clients were left in the cold. But perhaps that will change with today's news that the Department of Justice has reached a proposed settlement with the National Association of Realtors that requires NAR to let Internet-based residential real estate brokers compete with traditional brokers. NAR has agreed to be bound by a 10-year settlement, under whose terms NAR will repeal its anticompetitive policies and require affiliated multiple listing services to repeal their rules that were based on these policies." Here's the whole settlement document on the DoJ's site.
Threads Considered Harmful 266
LBR9 writes "James Reinders compares native threads with the goto statement so famously denounced 40 years ago by Edsger Dijkstra. Paraphrasing Dijkstra, he says they both 'make a mess of a program,' and then argues in favor of a higher level of abstraction. A couple of people commenting on the post question whether or not we should be even be treading into the 'swamp of parallelism,' echoing the view recently espoused by Donald Knuth."
Massive Increase in RIAA Copyright Notices 179
According to Wired, universities in the US are experiencing a "20-fold increase" in the number of takedown notices from the RIAA in the last ten days. Indiana University reports 80 notices a day, but they say their traffic hasn't increased significantly over the same time period. It will be interesting to see if the affected schools join the legal battle against the RIAA, or cave under the increased pressure.
"University of California at Berkeley's chief information officer Shel Waggener confirmed he'd heard of the spikes and suggested there was a political purpose driving them. 'Public universities are in a unique position since the industry puts pressure on us through state legislatures to try to impose what are widely considered to be draconian content monitoring measures and turn us into tech police forces in support of a specific industry,' Waggener said. The RIAA is also backing legislation in states such as Illinois and Tennessee that would require schools that get a certain number of notices to begin installing deep packet monitoring equipment on their internet and intranets, according to Luker."
Do the Blind Deserve More Effort on the Web? 663
dratcw writes "An article was posted this week to ComputerWorld, detailing the frustrations faced by blind people struggling to use the Web. The piece shows how little progress has been made and the inadequacy of solutions such as Microsoft's Narrator screen reader. While the article generated many positive comments, one reader said the disabled should 'get a grip' and maintained they 'have no more right to demand that others provide for their needs than I, as a diabetic, have a right to demand that sugar no longer be used.' Should Web sites and software makers do more, or does the reality of today's economics dictate that the blind/disabled will continue to struggle and learn to live with it?"
Feed news.com: Judge: Google can file anti-Microsoft antitrust brief (com.com)
But Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly says she still trusts that Microsoft and government prosecutors have already reached "appropriate resolution" to desktop search competition complaint.
Feed news.com: NetApp files patent suit against Sun (com.com)
Network Appliance alleges Sun Microsystems' ZFS storage software violates seven of its patents, seeks permanent injunction.
Journal Journal: Does Content Really Want To Be Free? 3
To those who actually say "content wants to be free" with a straight face and seriousness of purpose...
"Content wants to be free" makes as much sense as "content wants to be a fireman when it grows up."
When you say "content wants to be free," you actually mean, "I don't want to pay for content." You're talking about your own desires, but the way a three-year-old does.
Feed news.com: High-end Xeon goes quad-core with 'Tigerton' (com.com)
Intel takes on last AMD's last Opteron stronghold with quad-core its Xeon 7300 for multiprocessor servers.
Feed news.com: Apple cuts 8GB iPhone price, dumps 4GB model (com.com)
The 8GB iPhone now costs $399.
