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Linux Business

Submission + - Linux and the Indy 500

Submitted by
tbone1
tbone1 writes: "Teams from the Indy Racing League are in Indianapolis to prepare for The Indianapolis 500 on the 27th of May. There is a story in the Indianapolis Star about a local Linux programmer who is trying to get the Linux logo on a car. Usually it's the big companies who have year-long deals with the top IRL teams — Marlboro, Target, Motorola, etc — but for a small team racing at the 500 only, a small logo can be purchased for $11,000, or you can be a primary sponsor for about $350,000, and possibly get "Team Linux" in the car's name."
Businesses

News Corp to Purchase Photobucket 78

Posted by Zonk from the not-bad-as-buckets-go dept.
DJCacophony writes "Reuters is reporting that Newscorp, having already purchased Myspace, is purchasing the image hosting site Photobucket for between 250 and 300 million dollars. The story details how Photobucket and Myspace, which have previously had disputes over advertising on each others' sites, will now be integrated with each other. The deal is still very much on the table, apparently, and may yet fall through. 'While hardly known outside the youthful world of social network sites, Photobucket has become wildly popular with users for providing free, online storage tools for multimedia self-expression, from photos to videos to digital slideshows. Site builders turn to it for images to decorate their sites. The four-year-old startup, based in Palo Alto, California, has signed up 41 million registered users, up from 32 million at the end of last year and 2 million in 2004. It now hosts nearly 2.8 billion images on the site.'"
Security

Submission + - Rogue Wi-FI Hot Spots New Security Threat?

Submitted by
csavage
csavage writes: "According to this article in the Dallas Morning News, the latest security threat is rogue wi-fi hotspots setup to capture unknowing users' data. Although the article is lacking in true details of the threat, it does bring up a good point about how can you tell whether or not you're connecting to a "safe" wi-fi network."
Security

Submission + - Using Sensors to Fight Poaching

Submitted by
u-bend
u-bend writes: "In an attempt to combat elephant poaching in the Republic of Congo, a trailside metal detector system is being installed on commonly used poaching routes. If successful, it is hoped that that this method can be used in other poaching hot spots, such as Russia, the Galapagos Islands, and Costa Rica. Better not go camping with old fashioned metal tent pegs.
From the article:
'Endangered animals killed for their skins, meat or tusks may soon have a life-saving technology on their side. A metal-detecting sensor that can be buried alongside oft-used trails help identify weapons and alert authorities to potential poachers.'"
Businesses

Spore Delayed Until Q2 2008 107

Posted by Zonk from the no-terraforming-until-next-year-go-home dept.
georgewilliamherbert writes "CNet has the news that EA is reporting a slight loss for the quarter. It expects profits for the year to fall short about ten cents, hitting a high of $1.20 as opposed to the expected $1.31. The company's share price was down 3% in extended trading yesterday. The reason for these adjustments? EA reluctantly announced that Spore has been delayed until Q2 2008. ' Redwood City, Calif.-based Electronic Arts said it taken out Spore, a game where players build organisms from scratch, from its financial projections for the fiscal year ending in March 2008, adding that the game could be delayed until fiscal 2009. In the fourth quarter ended March 31, the company said its net loss widened to $25 million, or 8 cents per share, from $16 million, or 5 cents, in the year-earlier period. Excluding items, the company earned 6 cents per share versus 14 cents in the year-earlier period.'" From a technology perspective, this thing seems at least as complicated as some Massive games; makes perfect sense it would take about as long to build this title as a game in that genre.

Feed Patent envisions landline phones displaying targeted ads (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

A patent application has recently been approved by the USPTO which details a landline phone that would feature a GUI capable of displaying controls, targeted ads, and various infoswag. Inventor Rich Loen seems especially keen on the advertising potential of his so-called Internet protocol telephone system, which would allow businesses like hotels and spas to stream different ads depending on room price, or consumers to receive offers based on location, time of day, and type of residence, among many other possible criteria. Sounds like a good idea for service industries looking to squeeze a few more bucks out of their facilities, but maybe not ideal for the average landline user, who's gonna require more than just in-phone stock quotes or sports scores to convince him / her to let Google ads onto yet another screen. Now dangle some sweet subsidized calling plans in front of us, and we just might bite.

[Via textually]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Education

Submission + - Oxford University Goes Facebook.

Submitted by MilkyJoe
MilkyJoe writes: Staff at Oxford University are exploring the use of Facebook to help organise academic life for staff and students, "be it [for] tutorials, research or something new." According to Grazyna Cooper, Head of IT Learning Programme at Oxford University Computing Services, there are circa 25,000 users registered on Facebook as either staff, students or Alumni. In 2005-06 There were 18,431 students in residence at the University.
Linux Business

Think Tank Report On the State of Open Source 110

Posted by kdawson from the looking-in-the-mirror dept.
AlexGr writes to recommend an account of a meeting a couple of months back of representatives from more than 100 software companies discussing the state of open source software. The outcome is outlined in a 16-page report, 2007 Open Source Think Tank: The Future of Commercial Open Source (PDF). Among the surprising conclusions: participants noted a growing similarity in methods between open source and proprietary software development. They predicted some kind of convergence, where the best of both approaches gets adopted in each camp.
The Internet

Submission + - Caughtya - Use technology against parking abuse

Submitted by
Patof
Patof writes: "An entry on USA Today, titled Tattlers unite! Citizen sites share the shame says:

Beware, scofflaws of all types. Big Brother may not be watching, but your fellow citizens are, and thanks to a flurry of tattletale websites, your violations can be held up for the world to see.


One website in particular grabbed my attention: Caughtya.org. Caughtya focuses on the abuse of disability parking spaces by people who don't have disability parking permits. The site displays photos of illegally parked vehicles, along with details of the date/time/location of the infraction.

Caughtya was also mentionned on Good Morning America. When I Googled for more info, I saw that it was mentionned on The Wall Street Journal

What is so fascinating about this is the use of technology to tackle an ongoing social problem, with apparently a good measure of success. With cell phones and integrated cameras becoming more affordable, more and more people are able to act. Technologies that were not readily available just a few years ago are now accessible enough that people can get them. Technology empowering people. It's not just about having a cool phone that takes photos anymore. Yeah, of course, you could take cool photos, but now the photos you take can be put to good use.

I know what *I* am going to do next time I see someone parked in a disability parking space without a placard: Take a photo and post it on Caughtya!"

Comment automating this (Score 4, Interesting) 375

by mboedick (#13949821) Attached to: Amazon's Mechanical Turk

For the image ones, couldn't you create 5 bots each with a different account and each one picks a different image and one picks None of these? One of them would be approved and you'd get paid, right?

Also if they are having humans approve your image selection before you get paid, isn't that as much effort as you making your original choice?

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