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Comment Re:Yes (Score 1) 782

by vjl (#28911099) Attached to: The Ethics of Selling GPLed Software For the iPhone

There are lots of GPL apps on the AppStore - the most well known is the Wordpress app. If source code is available on the developer's site, than things are good to go. Anyone can download, for free, the iPhone SDK. It costs nothing to download/install the SDK. It only costs $99/year if one wants to publish an app into the AppStore or run it on a physical iPhone rather than the software-based iPhone simulator.

The developers are doing the right thing, IMO. /vjl/
Math

47th Mersenne Prime Confirmed 89

Posted by kdawson from the that's-odd dept.
radiot88 writes to let us know that he heard a confirmation of the discovery of the 47th known Mersenne Prime on NPR's Science Friday (audio here). The new prime, 2^42,643,801 - 1, is actually smaller than the one discovered previously. It was "found by Odd Magnar Strindmo from Melhus, Norway. This prime is the second largest known prime number, a 'mere' 141,125 digits smaller than the Mersenne prime found last August. Odd is an IT professional whose computers have been working with GIMPS since 1996 testing over 1,400 candidates. This calculation took 29 days on a 3.0 GHz Intel Core2 processor. The prime was independently verified June 12th by Tony Reix of Bull SAS in Grenoble, France..."
Portables

How About an iPhone OS Or Android-Based Netbook? 162

Posted by timothy from the upsides-and-downsides dept.
perlow (Jason Perlow of ZDNet) suggests that the current crop of netbooks might be missing the boat when it comes to getting maximum battery life and small-screen usability, and asks "Could Mac OS X iPhone or Google's Android be the key to mass adoption of the next generation of netbooks?" Android looks pretty nice, I admit, but so far I like having full-fledged Ubuntu on my own small computer. He's not the first one to think that the iPhone would be well-employed as the guts of an ultra-portable, though. (Note: it's only a model.)

Comment Re:Questions: (Score -1, Flamebait) 389

by vjl (#25379541) Attached to: Computer Error Caused Qantas Jet Mishap

Airbust QA sucks, sadly. They differ highly with how Boeing does things; they rely on computers *way* too much, which is why I will never fly on an Airbus a/c. The pilot is not given #1 priority in the cockpit.

Boeing a/c do have a lot of computer controls, but they can all be easily overwritten by the CO/FO flying the a/c. Not quite as easy on an Airbust. When their A320 debuted at the French airshow, the computer got very confused at take off and simply refused to allow the pilot to pull up more than 20-30 feet off the ground, causing the a/c to crash into the forest at the end of the runway.

Technology is good when it is used to supplement human experience and knowledge. It is not meant to replace it.

/vjl/
Transportation

Computer Error Caused Qantas Jet Mishap 389

Posted by kdawson from the gimme-back-my-stick dept.
highways sends word that preliminary investigations into a Qantas Airbus A330 mishap where 51 passengers were injured has concluded that it was due to the Air Data Inertial Reference System feeding incorrect information into the flight control system — not interference from passenger electronics, as Qantas had initially claimed. Quoting from the ABC report: "Authorities have blamed a faulty onboard computer system for last week's mid-flight incident on a Qantas flight to Perth. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau said incorrect information from the faulty computer triggered a series of alarms and then prompted the Airbus A330's flight control computers to put the jet into a 197-meter nosedive ... The plane was cruising at 37,000 feet when a fault in the air data inertial reference system caused the autopilot to disconnect. But even with the autopilot off, the plane's flight control computers still command key controls in order to protect the jet from dangerous conditions, such as stalling, the ATSB said."
Biotech

New Scientific Evidence Emerges In Anthrax Case 216

Posted by kdawson from the out-of-sequence dept.
sciencehabit writes "A Science Magazine investigation uses clues from a key document unveiled last week to reconstruct the trail that led the FBI to Bruce Ivins. Among the revelations: Anthrax fingerprinting was not critical to the investigation, as many reports have suggested. Rather, brute-force genetic sequencing, with the help of the J. Craig Venter Institute, helped crack the case. New potential motivations by Ivins are also revealed."
Games

Sonic The Hedgehog Coming to the iPod 51

Posted by Zonk from the gotta-get-some-rings dept.
mrneutron2003 writes "Sega has announced that Sonic the Hedgehog will be a new gaming option on the iPod. They're looking to charge about 4.99 for the classic title. 'Support is slated for the iPod nano with video, iPod classic, and fifth generation iPods ... Sega hopes that tremendous install base of the iPod family will lend to exposing a whole new audience to the old time wonders of Sonic The Hedgehog. The game has apparently been redesigned with the iPod in mind and should provide good port experience.'"
Businesses

FDIC Closes Netbank, One of the First Online Banks 174

Posted by Zonk from the thanks-loan-guys dept.
An anonymous reader writes "NetBank, one of the first internet banks in the country was closed by the FDIC on Friday. Being a loyal customer for 8 years, I am saddened that an institution that provided me with so much great service and a cool, hi tech way to conduct my financial transactions is shutting down. Seems that mortgage defaults are to blame: 'NetBank's closure marks the first bank to close since the recent U.S. housing boom deflated. Critics have said that weak underwriting standards have led to record number of homeowners entering the foreclosure process. But NetBank's rare Internet-based business strategy made it a unique financial institution and its problems aren't expected to mirror issues facing other mortgage lenders, analysts say.'"
Television

Knight Rider To Ride Again 243

Posted by Zonk from the how-much-can-you-be-disappointed-lets-find-out dept.
Penguinsh*t writes "Though the movie version of Knight Rider has remained 'up on chocks' for the better part of the last decade, Knight Rider, the TV show is revving into high gear. 'The premise of the show will essentially remain the same as the original, which centered on a mulleted man righting wrongs with the help of a particularly chatty and souped-up automobile. No word yet on who will play the hero this time around, but the Peacock is looking for some new blood.' Besides which, 'the Hoff' is busy."
The Internet

A Campaign to Block Firefox Users? 1154

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the bad-ideas dept.
rarwes writes "A website is aiming at blocking Firefox users. This because a fraction of the Firefox users installed an Ad Blocker and are therefor 'stealing money' from website owners that use ads. They recommend using IE, Opera or IE tab. From the site: 'Demographics have shown that not only are FireFox users a somewhat small percentage of the internet, they actually are even smaller in terms of online spending, therefore blocking FireFox seems to have only minimal financial drawbacks, whereas ending resource theft has tremendous financial rewards for honest, hard-working website owners and developers.' Be interesting to see where they are getting their numbers from.
The Courts

Submission + - RIAA Directed to Pay $68,685.23 in Attorneys Fees

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "In Capitol v. Foster, in Oklahoma, the RIAA has been directed to pay the defendant $68,685.23 in attorneys fees. This is the first instance of which I am aware of the RIAA being ordered to pay the defendant attorneys fees. The judge in this case has previously criticized the RIAA's lawyers' motives as "questionable", and their legal theories as "marginal" (pdf). Although the judge had previously ordered the RIAA to turn over its own attorneys billing records, today's decision (pdf) made no mention of that the RIAA had spent in paying its own lawyers."

Open Library Project Takes Flight 126

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the alexandria-green-with-envy dept.
Aaron Swartz today announced the launch of the new Open Library project. The goal of the project is to produce the world's greatest library on the Internet free for anyone to use. Starting with the Internet Archive's book scanning project and organizing the insertion of new content via a wiki-type model the project seems to be off to a great start. The demo, source code, and mailing lists were all opened up today in hopes of drawing interest from the public at large.
Security

Submission + - A Pilot on Airline Security (hotair.com)

Submitted by Paperweight
Paperweight writes: Dave Mackett, president of the Airline Pilots Security Alliance, recently wrote how unsafe and hole-ridden airline security still is, in spite of all the money being blown on it. There is simply no deployable technology that has a prayer of keeping a motivated, prepared terrorist out of the system. The US Transport Security Administration misses more than 90% of detectable weapons at passenger checkpoints even in their own tests. Until the mindset behind airline security is changed, using an airliner as a weapon of mass destruction is as easy today as ever.
Microsoft

Submission + - New tool to circumnavigate Microsoft DRM

Submitted by thefickler
thefickler writes: No one seems to really take much notice of Microsoft's Zune Marketplace, except for hackers that is, with "Divine Tao" announcing a new tool that gets around Microsoft's Windows Media DRM. Divine Tao, says his new tool uncovers "the individual keys from Microsoft's DRM blackbox components ("IBX"), up to version 11.0.6000.6324". Diving Tao also supplies an updated version of FairUse4WM (1.3Fix-2), a freeware utility that strips DRM from protected songs purchased from Zune Marketplace.
Networking

How Would You Deal With A Global Bandwidth Crisis? 478

Posted by Zonk from the read-a-book dept.
lopy writes "First Google claimed the internet infrastructure won't scale to provide an acceptable user experience for online video. Then some networking experts predict that a flu pandemic would bring the internet to it's knees and lead to internet rationing. We used to think that bandwidth would always increase as needed, but what would happen if that isn't the case? How would you deal with a global bandwidth shortage? Would you be willing to voluntarily limit your internet usage if necessary? Could you live in a world without cheap and plentiful broadband internet access?"

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