Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Music

Will People Really Boycott Apple Over DRM? 664

Posted by kdawson from the for-tuppence-and-a-pretty-interface dept.
Ian Lamont writes "DefectiveByDesign.org is waging a battle against DRM with a 35-day campaign targeting various hardware and software products from Microsoft, Nintendo, and others. On day 11 it blasted iTunes for continuing to use DRM-encumbered music, games, TV shows, movies, audiobooks, and apps with DRM, while competitors are selling music without restrictions. DefectiveByDesign calls on readers to include 'iTunes gift cards and purchases in your boycott of all Apple products' to 'help drive change.' However, there's a big problem with this call to arms: most people simply don't care about iTunes DRM. Quoting: 'The average user is more than willing to pay more money for hobbled music because of user interface, ease of use, and marketing. ... Apple regularly features exclusive live sets from popular artists, while Amazon treats its digital media sales as one more commodity being sold.' What's your take on the DRM schemes used by Apple and other companies? Is a boycott called for, and can it be effective?"
Media

Nobel Jurors Facing Bribery Probe 74

Posted by Soulskill from the totally-innocent-all-expenses-paid-trips dept.
RockDoctor writes "A report is circulating that in the run-up to the selection of prize-winners for 2006 and 2008, some members of the Nobel jury accepted an expenses-paid trip (or trips) to China to 'explain the selection process.' That's not, in itself, an incriminating event ('Is there something that we're doing incorrectly, or not doing?' is a valid question), and if there was dishonorable intent, it doesn't seem to have worked too well (the last Chinese Nobel Laureate was in 1957). There does seem to be embarrassment about falling into an obvious conflict-of-interest mantrap." PhysOrg mentions that a corruption prosecutor is also looking into a Nobel-related sponsorship from a pharmaceutical company that was linked to one of the winners for this year's Medicine prize.
Education

What Restrictions Should Student Laptops Have? 1117

Posted by samzenpus from the the-less-you-know dept.
An anonymous reader writes "We're a school district in the beginning phases of a laptop program which has the eventual goal of putting a Macbook in the hands of every student from 6th to 12th grade. The students will essentially own the computers, are expected to take them home every night, and will be able to purchase the laptops for a nominal fee upon graduation. Here's the dilemma — how much freedom do you give to students? The state mandates web filtering on all machines. However, there is some flexibility on exactly what should be filtered. Are things like Facebook and Myspace a legitimate use of a school computer? What about games, forums, or blogs, all of which could be educational, distracting or obscene? We also have the ability to monitor any machine remotely, lock the machine down at certain hours, prevent the installation of any software by the user, and prevent the use of iChat. How far do we take this? While on one hand we need to avoid legal problems and irresponsible behavior, there's a danger of going so far to minimize liability that we make the tool nearly useless. Equally concerning is the message sent to the students. Will a perceived lack of trust cripple the effectiveness of the program?"
Databases

Is MySQL's Community Eating the Company? 223

Posted by CmdrTaco from the get-yer-drizzle-on dept.
mjasay writes "Craigslist's Jeremy Zawodny reviews the progress of MySQL as a project, and discovers that through third-party forks and enhancements like Drizzle and OurDelta 'you can get a "better" MySQL than the one Sun/MySQL gives you today. For free.' Is this a good thing? On one hand it demonstrates the strong community around MySQL, but on the other, it could make it harder for Sun to fund core development on MySQL by diverting potential revenue from the core database project. Is this the fate of successful open-source companies? To become so successful as a community that they can't eke out a return as a company? If so, could anyone blame MySQL/Sun for creating its own proprietary fork in order to afford further core development?"
Databases

MySQL 5.1 Released, Not Quite Up To Par 175

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the time-to-fix-the-org dept.
Mad Merlin writes "It's no secret that MySQL 5.1 has been a long time in the making, with the first beta release being in Nov 2005, but MySQL 5.1.30 has finally been released as GA. MySQL users can expect new features such as table/index partitioning, row based replication, a new plugin architecture, an event scheduler and a host of performance improvements from 5.1." Monty also had a blog post outlining some of the challenges faced in 5.1, including crashing bugs and a beta quality to most new features.
Data Storage

On the State of Linux File Systems 319

Posted by kdawson from the here-hold-this-for-me dept.
kev009 writes to recommend his editorial overview of the past, present and future of Linux file systems: ext2, ext3, ReiserFS, XFS, JFS, Reiser4, ext4, Btrfs, and Tux3. "In hindsight it seems somewhat tragic that JFS or even XFS didn't gain the traction that ext3 did to pull us through the 'classic' era, but ext3 has proven very reliable and has received consistent care and feeding to keep it performing decently. ... With ext4 coming out in kernel 2.6.28, we should have a nice holdover until Btrfs or Tux3 begin to stabilize. The Btrfs developers have been working on a development sprint and it is likely that the code will be merged into Linus's kernel within the next cycle or two."
AMD

AMD Launches First 45nm Shanghai CPUs 264

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the steady-progress dept.
arcticstoat writes "The wait for AMD's next-gen CPUs is finally over, as the company has now officially launched its first 45nm 'Shanghai' Opteron chips for servers and workstations. 'AMD's move to a 45nm process relies on immersion lithography, where a refractive fluid fills the gap between the lens and the wafer, which AMD says will result in 'dramatic performance and performance-per-watt gains.' It's also enabled AMD to increase the maximum clock speed of the Opterons from 2.3GHz with the Barcelona core to 2.7GHz with the Shanghai core. Shanghai chips also feature more cache than their predecessors, with 6MB of Level 3 cache bumping the total up to 8MB, and the chips share the same cache architecture as Barcelona CPUs, with a shared pool of Level 3 cache and an individual allocation of Level 2 cache for each core.'"
Media

Submission + - Warner Bros backs BluRay, format war will soon end (latimes.com)

Submitted by
crayz
crayz writes: "The NY Times reports that Warner Brothers will discontinue releases on HD-DVD starting this May, becoming another Blu-ray only studio. The LA Times also has a helpful graphic depicting the new breakdown of studio support, and HD-DVD is losing badly. With Blu-Ray also consistently selling twice the volume of discs, and holding a dramatic lead in purchased devices(mainly due to PS3), is there any doubt as to the eventual winner of this format war?"
Sony

Submission + - Warner Bros. backs Blu-ray

Submitted by
Charles Dodgeson
Charles Dodgeson writes: "The New York Times is reporting that after being courted by both Toshiba for HD-DVD and Sony for Blu-ray, Warner Brothers will move exclusively to Blu-ray for high definition releases at the end of May. Combined with speculation that Apple will go with Blue-ray, it is looking like we're reaching the tipping point and the format wars will come to a resolution."
Television

Submission + - Is the HD DVD Format Dead?

Submitted by
Reservoir Hill
Reservoir Hill writes: "Warner Brothers announced that it will release high-definition DVDs exclusively in Sony's Blu-ray format, dealing a big blow to Toshiba's rival HD DVD technology. Warner Brothers is Hollywood's biggest seller of DVDs, representing about 18 to 20 percent of sales in the United States and was one of the few studios backing both formats. "A two-format landscape has led to consumer confusion and indifference toward high definition, which has kept the technology from reaching mass adoption and becoming the important revenue stream that it can be for the industry," said Kevin Tsujihara, President of Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group. Saul Hansell at the NY Times says he wouldn't spend money on an HD DVD player until this all sorts out and expects many consumers to return their Christmas HD DVD players and exchange them for Blu-ray devices."
Television

Submission + - Did Warner Brothers Just Kill HD DVD? (nytimes.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The NY Times reports: In addition to Apple, Warner Brothers is now going to throw its weight behind the Blu-ray format for high-definition disks. Warner has been the only major studio to publish its movies in both Blu-ray and HD DVD formats. Today, the studio announced that from now on, it would only issue movies in Blu-ray. Richard Greenfield, the media analyst with Pali Research, wrote that this marks the end of the format wars: "We expect HD DVD to 'die' a quick death."
Media

Submission + - Warner Studios Moves to Blu-ray Exclusively (blogspot.com)

Submitted by
gaanagaa
gaanagaa writes: "The battle between Blu-ray and HD DVD has gotten more intense or may even be in the end-game. Today, Warner Studios announced that they are dropping HD DVD and will be only pressing Blu-ray discs. This is a big deal because Warner has a huge catalog of content. It is the fifth studio to back Blu-ray, developed by Sony Corp. Only two support the HD DVD format, developed by Toshiba Corp."

Slashdot Top Deals

A list is only as strong as its weakest link. -- Don Knuth

Close