Logged in users have noticed for some time the request to drink from the Slashdot Firehose. Well now we're ready to start having everybody test it out. It's partially a collaborative news system, partially a redesigned & dynamic next-generation Slashdot index. It's got a lot of really cool features, and a lot of equally annoying new problems for us to find and fix for the next few weeks. I've attached a rough draft of the FAQ to the end of this article. A quick read of it will probably answer most questions from how it works, what all the color codes mean, to what we intend to do with it.

GrumpySimon writes "Wikipedia has blocked the entire country of Qatar from editing pages. Whilst the ban is due to spam-abuse coming from the IP address in question, the fact that this belongs to the country's sole high-speed internet provider has the unintended consequence of stopping Qataris from editing the wiki. The ban has raised concerns about impartiality — the majority of Al Jazeera journalists operate out of Qatar, for example. This raises a number of issues about internet connectivity in small countries — what other internet bottlenecks like this exist?" Update: 01/02 13:32 GMT by Z : Jim Wales wrote in the comments that the story is 'completely false'. Either way, the ban has been lifted and anonymous editing is once again possible from Qatar.

Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "In his first one-on-one interview since Bill Gates's retirement announcement, Steve Ballmer tells the Wall Street Journal he is bullish on Microsoft's investments in online services, and he dismisses as 'random malarkey' the idea that Microsoft is having trouble hiring and keeping the kind of brilliant employees that have always been the company's competitive weapon. Here's Ballmer on Gates's departure: 'As co-leaders of the business, I could allow Bill to be the full-time champion of innovation. And [now] with me really being the guy who's here every day running the place, I must be the champion of innovation.' And on competing with Google: 'We're going to compete. We're going to be in the online business. We are going to have a core around online. We're going to be excellent. That, I would tell people, to count on...'"

AuMatar writes "Symantec filed a lawsuit against Microsoft over patents on the volume management technology in Vista. They're seeking an injunction to stop Vista from being sold until the suit is completed. Given the recent Supreme Court ruling it should be interesting to see if the injunction is granted, since Symantec does produce software which uses the patent. If it is granted, expect MS to settle to prevent another Vista delay."

Tryllekunstner writes "The guys at the Google Press Center presented upcoming Google technologies at a press conference. Google Co-op beta is a community where users can contribute their knowledge and expertise to improve Google search for everyone. Google Trends builds on the Google Zeitgeist to help users find facts and trends related to Google usage around the world. Google Notebook is a simple way for users to save and organize their thoughts when conducting research online. This personal browser tool permits users to clip text, images, and links from the pages they're browsing, save them to an online 'notebook' that is accessible from any computer, and share them with others. Also, Google Desktop 4 is also mentioned." Googleblog has an outline of the new services.

Anonymous Coward writes to tell us that Radia Perlman, sometimes called the "Mother of the Internet" for her invention of the spanning tree algorithm used by bridges and switches, recently gave a very candid interview with NetworkWorld. From the interview: "The taste of whoever is in the funding agencies tends to cause everyone to look at the same stuff at the same time. Often technologies get hot then go away. There was active networking for a while, which always mystified me and has now died. In security the money is behind digital rights management, which I think ultimately is a bad thing -- not that we need to preserve the right to pirate music, but because the solutions are things that don't solve the real problems in terms of security."

bariswheel writes "Alan Cox, fellow at Red Hat Linux, gives a short-and-sweet talk at the European OSCON on the The Next 50 Years of Computer Security. Implementations of modularity, Trusted Computing hardware, 'separation of secrets,' and overcoming the challenge of users not reading dialog boxes, will be crucial milestones as we head on to the future. He states: "As security improves, we need to keep building things which are usable, which are turned on by default, which means understanding users is the target for the next 50 years. You don't buy a car with optional bumpers. You can have a steering wheel fitted if you like, but it comes with a spike by default." All of this has to be shipped in a way that doesn't stop the user from doing things."

Vitaly Friedman writes "Standards for the hotly anticipated Wi-Fi successor haven't yet been agreed upon. Where's that leave all those early-bird products? 802.11n is a highly anticipated successor to today's Wi-Fi, promising a huge performance boost. The draft spec promises to deliver data rates up to 180 Mbps, which could make wired home networks unnecessary and should allow high-definition wireless video streaming. At issue is whether the draft spec is far enough along that companies can make products that will provide that performance but still be compatible with each other and with older Wi-Fi equipment."

UltimaGuy writes to mention a Reuters report, stating that Vista may be delayed again, this time by up to three months. From the article: " The research note, released to clients [by the Gartner Group] on Monday, said the new Windows Vista operating system is too complex to be able to meet Microsoft's targeted November release for volume license customers and January launch for retail consumers. A Microsoft spokeswoman said the company disagreed with the Gartner report and it was still on track to meet its launch dates."

Gamasutra has reactions from game developers to the announcement of the Revolution's new commercial name, 'Wii'. From the article: "It doesn't change my personal opinions of the console in the slightest. It changes my opinion of the Nintendo marketing department considerably. Did they even bother to research this? Why do they do these things? What was wrong with 'Revolution'? It's bad enough that the Japanese have a drink called "Sweat," but at least they don't try to export it to the English-speaking world with that name. Am I supposed to be happy about having to go down to the game store to purchase the 'Nintendo Wee'? For God's sake, where was Miyamoto? I can't believe he would have let this get by. - Ernest Adams"

xcaverx writes "Learning from failure is a hallmark of the technology business. Nick Baker, a 37-year-old system architect at Microsoft, knows that well. A British transplant at the software giant's Silicon Valley campus, he went from failed project to failed project in his career. He worked on such dogs as Apple Computer's defunct video card business, 3DO's failed game consoles, a chip startup that screwed up a deal with Nintendo, the never successful WebTV and Microsoft's canceled Ultimate TV satellite TV recorder. But Baker finally has a hot seller with the Xbox 360, Microsoft's video game console launched worldwide last holiday season."

Cjattwood writes "Mac OS rumors has an article describing a possible implementation of a Bittorrent client into Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard", including a unique sharing reward system where the user can share bandwidth and get rewards, such as credit in the iTunes store."

tessaiga writes "The New York Times reports that Google is crying foul over a new IE7 search box feature that defaults to MSN Search. Although the feature can be modified to use Google or other search engines, Google asserts that "The best way to handle the search box [...] would be to give users a choice when they first start up Internet Explorer 7." Google goes on to assert that the move "limits consumer choice and is reminiscent of the tactics that got Microsoft into antitrust trouble in the late 1990s". I notice that in my version of Firefox the search box defaults to Google, and that the pulldown menu of pre-entered options doesn't even include MSN Search, but Google seems to have been oddly quiet on that front for the many years prior to IE7 that Firefox has made this feature available."

Udo Schmitz writes "Apples Filesystem Development Manager, Chris Emura, is looking into porting Sun Microsystems' file system ZFS to OS X. At least this is what Sun's Eric Kustarz states on the ZFS mailing list. Is this a glimpse of hope for all those of us who think HFS+ isn't up to par for a 21st century OS? Next thing you know and they'll rewrite the Finder ..."