pjcreath - Slashdot User

Submission + - BBC On-Demand to exclude Apple and Linux users

Submitted by startling on Thursday February 08, 2007 @10:07AM

startling writes: The BBC Trust has published its provisional conclusions regarding DRM for its On-Demand content. From a PDF on the BBC website:
"The BBC Executive proposes a digital rights management solution which would require consumers to be using Windows XP (or above) and Windows Media Player 10 (or above) to be able to access seven-day TV catch-up over the internet... Our understanding is that the BBC Executive aspires to offer an alternative DRM framework, which would enable Apple and Linux users to access the service, but has yet to identify a satisfactory solution. In either case, we will expect this to have been addressed within 24 months."
That means the BBC would effectively be giving Microsoft a monopoly for up to two years! More information on the BBC website.

Submission + - Media companies presume guilt on Bittorrent

Submitted by

kripkenstein

on Thursday February 08, 2007 @09:42AM

kripkenstein writes: "The big media companies immediately assume you are guilty by your mere presence on a Bittorrent swarm, an interesting report reveals. Turns out companies like BayTSP will send shutdown notices to ISPs without any evidence of copyright infringment; all they feel they need in the form of evidence is that you are reported by the tracker to be in the swarm. As the report states,

For my investigation, I wrote a very simple BitTorrent client. My client sent a request to the tracker, and generally acted like a normal Bittorrent client up to sharing files. The client refused to accept downloads of, or upload copyrighted content. It obeyed the law. [...] With just this, completely legal, BitTorrent client, I was able to get notices from BayTSP.

To put this in to perspective, if BayTSP were trying to bust me for doing drugs, it'd be like getting arrested because I was hanging out with some dealers, but they never saw me using, buying, or selling any drugs.

The report also has other interesting details about how companies like BayTSP operate."

Journal Journal: Office 2007 Not Finished

Journal by dhperry on Thursday February 08, 2007 @09:39AM

Has anyone noticed that Microsoft did not finish Office 2007. The new ribbon interface at the top of the application is complete however, when you click on anything that requires a dialog box to open, the interface is the same as older applications. They did not even bother to change the color scheme to match the applications look. I would think that if the selling point is a new improved "experience" that you would want that experience to be throughout the application. It seems to me that t

Submission + - Low Power, High Performance 10G

Submitted by

rss

on Thursday February 08, 2007 @09:30AM

rss writes: "Solarflare, one of the contenders in the 10Gig Ethernet market have just released details of their curiously different Solarstorm product. They advocate a different approach compared to normal TCP offload by doing "partial offload" — the usual stateless offload (IP,UDP and TCP Checksum) is done in hardware but the actual TCP/IP stack runs on the host processor instead of on the NIC as with traditional offload. They claim 2.2W power consumption on their Base-T NIC compared to 10-15W for traditional offload. I must say this idea appeals to me. Could hardware-offload be the killer app for multicore?"

Submission + - Is the U.S. Readying for Ian Attack on Iran?

Submitted by applemasker on Thursday February 08, 2007 @09:28AM

applemasker writes: Vanity Fair runs a long (but well-written and compelling piece) arguing that the Bush-Cheney team is taking the playbook used in the run-up to Operation Iraqi Freedom and applying it again — this time with Iran in the crosshairs. According to the neocons, Iraq is only the first step of a broader vision for the region. From the article: " 'Attacking Iraq when it had no W.M.D. may have been the wrong step,' says Uzi Arad, the former Mossad intelligence chief. 'But then to ignore Iran would compound the disaster. Israel will be left alone, and American interests will be affected catastrophically.' The article goes on to cite recent subtle shifts in U.S. force dispositions, the growing role of Strategic Command (which oversees nuclear weapons and missile defense) and the deployment of a second aircraft carrier group and minesweepers to the Gulf) to lend credence to its sources who are quoted as saying that "I've heard from sources at the Pentagon that their impression is that the White House has made a decision that war [with Iran] is going to happen."

Submission + - Inkscape 0.45 released

Submitted by

Simarilius

on Wednesday February 07, 2007 @01:38PM

Simarilius writes: "Version 0.45 of the vector art package Inkscape 0.45 was officially released Monday and is available for download now for a range of platforms. This release brings the exciting new features developed by the Google Summer of Code 2006 participants, as well as tons of other improvements across the board. Most notably is the new Gaussian Blur feature, which allow softly and naturally blurring Inkscape objects like path, shapes, groups, text, and images. Gaussian blur enables a wide range of photorealistic effects: arbitrarily shaped shades and lights, depth of field, drop shadows, glows, etc. Also, blurred objects can be used as masks for other objects to achieve the "feathered mask" effect. Some great examples of what it can do are available in the screenshot gallery."

Submission + - How to Properly Clean your LCD Screen

Submitted by

[Geeks Are Sexy]

on Wednesday February 07, 2007 @01:16PM

[Geeks Are Sexy] writes: "You've probably seen some of those expensive LCD cleaning solutions in computer stores right? Think you need those to properly clean your screen? The answer to this is : absolutely not. Mixing up your own cleaning solution is very easy and will actually save you quite a few bucks. Here's an article showing you how to clean your LCD screen with home products."

Submission + - U.S. doesn't sign ban on disappearances

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 07, 2007 @01:13PM

An anonymous reader writes: Jamey Keaten, writes:

Nearly 60 countries signed a treaty on Tuesday that bans governments from holding people in secret detention, but the United States and some of its key European allies were not among them.

The signing capped a quarter-century of efforts by families of people who have vanished at the hands of governments.

"Our American friends were naturally invited to this ceremony; unfortunately, they weren't able to join us," French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy told reporters after 57 nations signed the treaty at his ministry in Paris.

Full Story:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070207/ap_on_re_eu/fr ance_un_disappeared;_ylt=AmvBtfSe6.HGN0Rvsa45QoN0b BAF

Submission + - Lucid Movement - A high-speed video blog.

Submitted by on Wednesday February 07, 2007 @12:52PM

An anonymous reader writes: I wanted to let you know about a new video blog that may be of interest to other Slashdot readers. Lucid Movement — A gallery of High-Speed / Slow Motion videos. http://www.lucidmovement.com/ From the site about: "Lucid Movement is a daily updated video blog that was created to display the wonder of the world through the lens of a high-speed / slow motion camera. In addition to displaying these videos this site acts as a video reference for artists and researchers by including information on how the shot was created including specific camera settings etc. Lucid Movement also serves as a resource for prospective camera buyers. By listing the manufacturer and model of camera, camera buyers can look at footage from the camera they are interested in getting to judge if the quality/features are what they are looking for."

Submission + - Glass Walkway over the Grand Canyon

Submitted by

hac

on Wednesday February 07, 2007 @12:36PM

hac writes: "Afraid of heights? In March 2007, you will be able to walk over the rim and into the Grand Canyon, with glass separating you from a 4000 foot fall.

"The Skywalk will jut out 70 feet (21 meters) from the canyon rim, allowing tourists to go for a stroll with nothing between their feet and the Colorado River — 4,000 feet (1,220 meters) below — except for four inches (ten centimeters) of glass. "
How long until someone sets a record for wireless transmission within the Canyon?"

Submission + - Trusted Email Connection Signing

Submitted by

JohnGrahamCumming

on Wednesday February 07, 2007 @11:36AM

JohnGrahamCumming writes: "SPF, Sender-ID and DomainKeys all require that email messages be received before their validity can be checked, but SMTP servers are overloaded with SPF-compliant and DomainKeys-signed spam. Trusted Email Connection Signing is an approach that allows an SMTP server to decide before any email is delivered whether a connection is trustworthy or not saving bandwidth and CPU on overloaded mail servers."

Submission + - Uru Live to launch next week

Submitted by Protected on Wednesday February 07, 2007 @11:09AM

Protected writes: Myst Online: Uru Live, which has already been in its open beta-testing stage for some time, is officially scheduled to launch next thursday, February 15. The game will be available as part of the Gametap service in the United States and Canada and as a stand-alone in twelve other countries, and will feature new Ages and new goodies on launch, as well as regular improvements and an ongoing storyline.

Submission + - Google Apps to become paid service

Submitted by FredDC on Wednesday February 07, 2007 @10:53AM

FredDC writes: Business Week reports Google Apps is becoming a paid service soon for companies who wish to use it for their domain. Disney and Pixar are reportedly thinking about switching to Google Apps innstead of using Microsoft Office. Could this be the end of a monopoly? Or the start of a new one?

Journal Journal: Judge: Parents Aren't Liable For Kids RIAA Mis-Adventures

Journal by lpq on Wednesday February 07, 2007 @10:32AM

Judge Recognizes That Parents Aren't Liable For Kids RIAA Mis-Adventures
from the it's-about-time dept

Submission + - Intel Discrete GPUs Overview

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 07, 2007 @10:24AM

An anonymous reader writes: VR-Zone has a very interesting article on Intel's discrete graphics plans. According to them, Intel's Visual Computing Group (VCG) gave an interesting overview of the discrete graphics plans this week. There seems to be a few interesting developments down the pipeline that could prove quite a challenge to NVIDIA and AMD in 2 years time. Their first flagship product for games and graphics intensive applications is likely to happen in late 2008-09 timeframe and the GPU is based on multi-core architecture. There could be as many as 16 graphics cores packed into a single die.

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