Slashdot is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Role Playing (Games)

Paizo to Discontinue Dragon and Dungeon Magazines 82

Posted by Zonk from the but-my-ecology-and-sniffle-my-adventure-path dept.
An anonymous reader slipped us a link to a page on the Wizards.com site marking the end of an era. As of September of this year Dungeon and Dragon Magazines will cease publication. Dragon has been in continuous circulation since 1976, while Dungeon will be marking its 150th issue at the end of its run in August. Paizo Publishing, the current printing house for the magazines, is offering several options for what to do with your ongoing subscription. From the announcement on the Wizards site: "'Today the internet is where people go to get this kind of information,' said Scott Rouse, Senior Brand Manager of Dungeons & Dragons, Wizards of the Coast. 'By moving to an online model we are using a delivery system that broadens our reach to fans around the world. Paizo has been a great partner to us over the last several years. We wish them well on their future endeavors.'" I've looked forward to my issue of Dragon every month for over a decade. It will be sad to see it go.
Mozilla

Mozilla Releases Thunderbird 2.0.0 311

Posted by samzenpus from the come-and-get-it dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Mozilla Corporation has released Thunderbird 2.0.0. Among the improvements are Message Tagging, updated UI, Advanced Folder Views, Better New Mail Notification and Full Support for Windows Vista and 64-bit versions of Windows."
Operating Systems

OLPC Operating System Available to Download 65

Posted by Zonk from the make-your-own-one-laptop dept.
ThePopeLayton writes "Engadget is reporting that the operating system made specifically for the OLPC project is now available for download. 'Apparently, the Linux-based Sugar OS from the One Laptop Per Child project is now available via a bootable LiveCD ISO, and according to user reports, works quite well aside from the lack of WiFi capability on a certain MacBook.'"
Google

Submission + - Microsoft Attacks Google on Copyright

Submitted by
loid_void
loid_void writes: "In remarks prepared for delivery on Tuesday to the Association of American Publishers, New York Tims reports that the associate general counsel of Microsoft, Thomas Rubin, argues that Google's move into new media markets has come at the expense of publishers of books, videos and software. Mr. Rubin's comments echo arguments at the heart of a 16-month-old copyright lawsuit against Google brought by five book publishers and organized by the Association of American Publishers, an industry trade group. David Drummond, Google's senior vice president for corporate development and its chief legal officer, said in response that Google worked with more than 10,000 publishing partners to make books searchable online and had recently added the BBC and N.B.A. as YouTube video partners."
Security

Submission + - Second Life bugs led to John Edwards attack

Submitted by
destinyland
destinyland writes: "This article identified the group who attacked John Edwards' virtual headquarters in Second Life. Apparently they've been attacking the service since last 2006, with Linden Labs unable to successfully stop them. (Though the group believes Linden Labs actually identified their hardware.) It's an interesting example of communities collididing. The group claims to have successfully designed "unbanning" tools, argue that they're protesting Linden's restrictive in-world guidelines, and insist that their attacks weren't specifically directed against John Edwards. But their past "attacks" have involved "grey goo" server flooding with an army of Nintendo's Mario — which they then uploaded the footage to YouTube as a music video."
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft gets ownd by its own Windows OneCare

Submitted by Stony Stevenson
Stony Stevenson writes: Microsoft has launched a marketing campaign that lets any student from an Australian university buy the Ultimate edition of Office 2007 (usually costs $1150) for only $75. A discount of about 93%. But when users go to the site, Microsoft Live OneCare pops up saying the site is a potential phishing scam.

From the article: When entering the site, some users have reported receiving a warning from Windows Live OneCare advising that the www.itsnotcheating.com.au site is a suspicious website.

The warning reads: "Phishing filter has determined this might be a phishing website. We recommend that you do not give any of your information to such websites. Phishing websites impersonate trustworthy websites for the purpose of obtaining your personal or financial information."

A Microsoft spokesperson said the company was unaware of the warning but pledged to amend it as soon as possible.
Perl

Randal Schwartz's Charges Expunged 219

Posted by CowboyNeal from the about-time dept.
After 13 years, Randal Schwartz has had his conviction expunged. In effect, legally it never happened. If you haven't heard about this one before, my take is that as a contractor at Intel, Randal did some over-zealous white-hat cracking free-of-charge; this embarrassed some people in management (he pointed out that their passwords were terrible) and management then chose to embarrass themselves further by having him convicted of a felony under an 'anti-hacking' law. More info can be had from the Friends of Randal Schwartz.

IBM

IBM Refuses To Certify Oracle Linux 124

Posted by kdawson from the doesn't-look-red-to-me dept.
Andrew writes "IBM has thrown a spanner in the Oracle Linux works by refusing to certify that IBM's software portfolio will run and be supported on Oracle Unbreakable Linux. If IBM applications turn out to be incompatible with Oracle Linux, then it will be up to Oracle to resolve any issues. This conservative stance of IBM's is unlikely to help Oracle sell Linux subscriptions to businesses that use any of IBM's large software portfolio."
Microsoft

Mr. Ballmer, Show Us the Code 462

Posted by kdawson from the open-letter dept.
DigDuality writes "A new campaign, Showusthecode.com, requests every leader in the Linux world, and companies invested in Linux, to stand up and demand that Steve Ballmer show the world where Linux violates Microsoft's intellectual property. He has been making these claims since the Novell-Microsoft deal. If Microsoft answers this challenge — by May 1st — then Linux developers will be able to modify the code so that it remains 'free' software. If such infringing code doesn't exist, we will have called Microsoft's bluff. And if the campaign garners enough attention and if Steve Ballmer maintains silence, then the community and companies behind Linux can take the silence for the admission that it is."
Wii

Submission + - The Wii Sips While the Others Slurp Electricity

Submitted by IEEE1394
IEEE1394 writes: Have you ever wondered how much of a burden on the electrical grid your gaming system was? Well, this article breaks it down. What they found was that the Nintendo Wii was by far the most power conscientous. The Wii only costs around 1.00 a month to run with WiiConnect24 running, and 0.20 cents a month without. The glutenous pigs turn out to be the Xbox 360 and the SONY PS3, not surprisingly.
The Internet

Submission + - RegisterFly issues official statement

Submitted by
kimvette
kimvette writes: "Moments ago RegisterFly issued an official statement regarding the domain registrar's dire situation. All blame is placed on Kevin Medina's alleged misconduct. This statement is posted at the RegisterFly customer advocate site, RegisterFlies.

Here is the introductory paragraph from the statement:

We at Registerfly.Com would like to offer our sincere apologies to all that have been affected by the actions of our former CEO / President, Kevin Medina. We cannot change the past but will make every effort to change the future of RegisterFly.com. As a result of Mr. Medina's actions many of you have lost your domains, experienced problems with your Hosting, Renewals and Registrations. For this reason Mr. Medina's our "Board of Directors" had no recourse but to take action against Mr. Medina and fire him.


Clearly the remaining principles are placing 100% of the blame on Mr. Medina's shoulders, however this only leads to further questions: If Mr. Medina was locked out of the servers as of Monday, why is RegisterFly still having problems regaining control of their network? Why did they not fire Mr. Medina and address customer support issues sooner? Why did it take a threat from ICANN to motivate them to respond? When do they expect to give customers control over their domains once again? What will they do to regain customer domains they have already lost?"
Microsoft

Submission + - Alcatel-Lucent wins $1.52 billion from Microsoft

Submitted by veeeee
veeeee writes: A federal jury found that Microsoft infringed upon Alcatel-Lucent's audio patents. Microsoft plans to ask the judge to lower the $1.52 billion ruling and also to appeal the case. Microsoft claims to have properly licensed the MP3 pantents from a German company called Fraunhofer.
The Internet

Submission + - A Dating Site for Researchers and Guinea Pigs!

Submitted by
Volterys
Volterys writes: "Researchers setting up clinical trials always have problems in finding suitable volunteer subjects. Stories in the media about the risks of being a "guinea pig" have had a disastrous effect on recruitment, with repercussions throughout medical research.

However, among the incurably sick there is often a desperate desire to try anything — even an experimental cure — that promises some relief or the distant prospect of cure. Patient groups and the Internet are helping to put these sufferers in touch with researchers, but formal channels are few and far between.

Volterys (www.volterys.org) is the brain-child of Dr. Laurent Hermoye, a Belgian researcher who specialises in magnetic resonance imaging of the brain. His goal is to increase public awareness of the important role of the volunteers in clinical research and to facilitate contacts between volunteers and medical researchers. The legal and ethical aspects of arranging these introductions are in the hands of legal specialists, de Wolf & Partners who are party to the initiative.

It is a unique concept. volunteers sign up, free of charge, filling in a medical questionnaire which is anonymous but traceable. The researchers interrogate the database of anonymous volunteers to match them to the inclusion criteria of their trials. It is not dissimilar to on-line contact dating! The two sides are only put in direct touch with each other when a match has been made and the two parties have agreed upon a specific research project. The recruitment is managed by the researcher's laboratory and conforms to the ethical guidelines laid down by the Helsinki declaration and the European directive of 4 April 2001.

Volterys volunteers have a unique opportunity to contribute to the advance of medical knowledge and also benefit from new treatments before they are available to the public at large. For some studies there is monetary reward. Researchers who avail themselves of the service reduce the time and effort entailed in the cumbersome business of enrolment of adequate numbers of subjects for meaningful clinical trials, all for a very reasonable fee. Volterys offers a free service to researchers doing work on so-called 'orphan drugs' or treatments for rare diseases, where recruiting suitable volunteers is even more difficult.

In the 9 months since the website was launched in France and Belgium, more than 9.000 volunteers have registered. Volterys is now extending its service to Europe and hopes eventually to expand throughout the world."

Slashdot Top Deals

"When the going gets tough, the tough get empirical." -- Jon Carroll

Close