Duct Tape Pro - Slashdot User

Submission + - iTunes Ringtones and Complex World of Copyright< (roughlydrafted.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 14, 2007 @01:55AM

An anonymous reader writes: RDM outlines "Why copyright law involves more complex issues than many seem to recognize, and why we need to start caring about it." A look at the big money in music licensing and why iTunes' Ringtones are so needlessly complicated. Apple's iTunes Ringtones and Complex World of Copyright Law

Submission + - Sun Enters the Commodity Silicon Business (sun.com)

Submitted by Samrobb on Tuesday August 07, 2007 @11:54AM

Samrobb writes: According to Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz, Sun has decided to release its UltraSPARC T2 processor under the GPL. According to Schwartz, "We're announcing the fastest microprocessor we've ever shipped this week — delivering 89.6 Ghz of parallel computing power on a single chip — running standard Java applications and open source OS's. Simultaneously, we've said we're entering the commodity marketplace, and opening the chip up to our competition... To add fuel to the fire, the blueprints for our UltraSPARC T2... the core design files and test suites, will be available to the open source community, via its most popular license: the GPL."

Submission + - IBM, Sun launch intranet metaverses

Submitted by

wjamesau

on Tuesday May 15, 2007 @08:45PM

wjamesau writes: "Virtual worlds on the Net? That's so last month. Sun and IBM have launched intranet metaverses designed for business and architected to work behind their corporate firewalls, so their worldwide employees can use them to collaborate together. Most interesting to game developers, IBM (which also runs a private, no public access Second Life island as a development lab) created their intranet world from the 3D Torque engine from Garage Games. Will the metaverse actually be thousands of gated community metaverses?"

Submission + - Simple chemical trick to boost battery efficiency

Submitted by space_mongoose on Tuesday May 15, 2007 @08:04PM

space_mongoose writes: Hitachi reckons that a simple chemical additive could significantly improve battery life. Alkaline batteries have a positive electrode of manganese oxide and a negative electrode of finely powdered zinc, but zinc oxide forms around these grains of zinc. Hitachi's solution is to replace the zinc with a fine powder of zinc-aluminium alloy, displaces the zinc within the zinc oxide layer making it a much better conductor.

Submission + - NASA Claims to have found New Ring of Dark Matter

Submitted by perturbed1 on Tuesday May 15, 2007 @02:48PM

perturbed1 writes: The story on physorg.com says "Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have discovered a ghostly ring of dark matter that formed long ago during a titanic collision between two galaxy clusters." Previously, NASA had announced a press conference today, generating a discussion here last week. The team's paper has been accepted for publication in the June 1 issue of Astrophysical Journal. Until the details are revealed in the publication, the NASA press release will have to suffice.

Submission + - Nintendo Power to shut down?

Submitted by

BTWR

on Tuesday May 15, 2007 @04:13AM

BTWR writes: "IGN is reporting the rumor that Nintendo Power, the offical Nintendo Magazine is going to shut down. IGN reports: Nintendo of America was planning to move a significant chunk of its marketing and sales departments from Seattle to either San Francisco or New York, IGN has learned that the company may be planning to close or restructure its official Nintendo Power magazine. This would be a shame, as they became better since their restructuring last year. And, I owe Nintendo Power for giving me that free copy of Dragon Warrior all those years ago (not to mention the Zelda Collection too)."

Submission + - $25,000 question: Is this Turing machine universal

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 14, 2007 @04:54PM

An anonymous reader writes: Stephen Wolfram, creator of Mathematica and author of A New Kind of Science, is offering a 25k prize to anyone who can prove or disprove his conjecture that a particular 2-state, 3-color Turing machine is universal. If true, it would be the simplest universal TM, and possibly simplest universal computational system — even simpler than rule 110. The announcement comes on the 5-year anniversary of the publication of NKS, where among other things Wolfram introduced the current reigning TM champion.

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