Comment Re:Suicide? (Score 1) 785
Finally, the launch of Microsoft Y2K Bug.
Comment Re:Yeah, mut how much useful stuff is happening? (Score 0, Flamebait) 294
It's to earn the "Windows 7 capable" sticker.
Comment Re:OMGITSSOOOOOSHINY (Score 1) 301
Well speaking as an iPhone user I got to say - BlackBerrys suck.
Speaking as a BlackBerry user, I agree. My reference is a series of Nokias, which the BalckBerrry has taught me to appreciate. The BlackBerry user interface
The Battle For Wikipedia's Soul 471
njondet recommends an article at The Economist that sheds light on the identity crisis faced by Wikipedia as it is torn between two alternative futures. "'It can either strive to encompass every aspect of human knowledge, no matter how trivial; or it can adopt a more stringent editorial policy and ban articles on trivial subjects, in the hope that this will enhance its reputation as a trustworthy and credible reference source. These two conflicting visions are at the heart of a bitter struggle inside Wikipedia between 'inclusionists,' who believe that applying strict editorial criteria will dampen contributors' enthusiasm for the project, and 'deletionists' who argue that Wikipedia should be more cautious and selective about its entries."
German Police Raid 51 CeBIT Stands Over Patent Claims 191
LeCaddie writes "Last week German investigators raided 51 exhibitor stands at CeBIT, the German information technology fair in Hanover, looking for goods suspected of infringing patents. Some 183 police, customs officers, and prosecutors raided the fair on Wednesday and carried off 68 boxes of electronic goods and documents including cellphones, navigation devices, digital picture frames, and flat-screen monitors. Of the 51 companies raided, 24 were Chinese. Most of the patents concerned were related to devices with MP3, MP4, and DVB standard functions for digital audio and video, blank CDs, and DVD copiers, police said." In the US there are no criminal penalties associated with patents, and such a raid could not be conducted, especially in the absence of a court ruling of infringement.
Submission + - Attacking hashes used to prevent document changes (economist.com)
timrichardson writes: "A supposedly cast-iron way of identifying digital documents, known as a hash function, is looking a bit rusty.
You could, for instance, present your boss with a document to sign. If this all happened electronically, the document might then be hashed to make sure it was not altered after the signing. But if you have a suitably prepared collision attack at your disposal, and have created two very different documents with the same hash, then your boss is at your mercy. Now that could come in handy, says the Economist. Read more, including a fool-proof prediction about who will win the US Presidential election."
Microsoft Internal Emails Show Dismay With Vista 662
bfwebster writes "Microsoft is currently facing a class-action suit over its designation of allegedly under-powered hardware as being 'Vista Capable.' The discovery process of that lawsuit has now compelled Microsoft to produce some internal emails discussing those issues. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has published extracts of some of those emails, along with a link to a a PDF file containing a more extensive email exchange. The emails reflect a lot of frustration among senior Microsoft personnel about Vista's performance problems and hardware incompatibilities. They also appear to indicate that Microsoft lowered the hardware requirements for 'Vista Capable' in order to include certain lower-end Intel chipsets, apparently as a favor to Intel: 'In the end, we lowered the requirement to help Intel make their quarterly earnings so they could continue to sell motherboards with 915 graphics embedded.' Read the whole PDF; it is informative, interesting, and at times (unintentionally) funny."
Feed The Register: ESA readies super-chilled space telescope (theregister.com)
Building blocks falling into place
The European Space Agency's (ESA) next big project is a step closer to being launch-ready, as scientists in Germany complete the "mating" of Herschel's two most fundamental modules, the cryostat and the service module.
Feed Science Daily: Microwaves Can Probe Fat Content In Supermarket Food (sciencedaily.com)
Microwaves used for zapping instant meals can also be used to determine the fat and salt content of supermarket food, according to new research. The aim of the project is to develop a new fast and non-invasive method of predicting the fat content in meat products. This type of constant real-time monitoring during the production process could help reduce waste, maximise yield, reduce laboratory testing and save energy.
Feed news.com: Has Google actually read U.S. v. Microsoft? (news.com)
Policy analyst James V. DeLong says Google's real game is to blur boundaries between desktop search and Internet search.
Submission + - Australia cracked US combat aircraft codes (news.com.au)
SpamSlapper writes: FORMER defence minister Kim Beazley has told how Australia cracked top-secret American combat aircraft codes to enable the shooting down of enemy aircraft in the 1980s. The radar on Australia's Hornets could not identify most potentially hostile aircraft in the region, but dispite many requests, the codes were not provided, so "In the end we spied on them and we extracted the codes ourselves".
The Americans knew what the Australians were doing and were intrigued by the progress they made.
Submission + - Coop Discourages Notetaking in Bookstore (thecrimson.com) 1
mikesd81 writes: "The Harvard Crimson reports that the Harvard Coop asked Jarret A. Zafran to leave the Coop after writing down the prices of six books required for a junior Social Studies tutorial he hopes to take. The apparent new policy could be a response to efforts by Crimsonreading.org — an online database that allows students to find the books they need for each course at discounted prices from several online booksellers — from writing down the ISBN identification numbers for books at the Coop and then using that information for their Web site. The coop claims the prices are their intellectual property. Crimson Reading disagrees. "We don't think the Coop owns copyright on this information that should be available to students," said Tom D. Hadfield, co-creator of the site. According to UC President Ryan A. Petersen, discussions with an intellectual property lawyer have confirmed Crimson Reading's position."
Submission + - Microsoft fails to get Office Open XML recognized
timrichardson writes: A panel of software experts unexpectedly rebuffed Microsoft's bid to have its open document format, Office Open XML, recognized as an international standard. Free link to the NY Times coverage
Submission + - Firefox gets full zoom
Solarius writes: "Today, Gecko got full page zoom functionality, which is similair to Operas.
Daniel Kirsch said:
Eli, Roc, dbaron and all the contributors: Congratulations and a big "Thank
you" for all your efforts. This was probably one of the top 10 wishes of a lot
of moz developers and users. Great to see this marked as "FIXED". Cheers!
You can see it here:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4821"
Submission + - Second Life shuts down casinos (theinquirer.net)
Tech.Luver writes: "theinquirer reports,
( http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=41240 )
" LINDEN LAB, hallowed creator of the Second Life virtual world, has
announced that all in-world casinos and miscellaneous gambling joints
are herewith to be shut down.
That means that the large chunk of users that enjoyed using in-world
casinos and betting Linden Dollars on events both inside and outside
the game world will now have nothing left to do.
Perhaps more to the point for Linden, the move will cut off the
revenues earned from those owning Casino-style islands in the game,
the owners of which are some of the top contributors to the Linden
coffers through currency fees and land rental. ""
