BShive - Slashdot User

Submission + - Stores Reps Push Unnecessary Recovery Discs (pcworld.com)

Submitted by

Ed Albro, PC World

on Thursday August 30, 2007 @02:43PM

Ed Albro, PC World writes: "At PC World, we've got a story today on salespeople at Best Buy and Circuit City pushing consumers to pay the stores' technicians to create recovery discs for their new laptops. Recovery discs are important to have, of course, but the fact is that they're easy to make yourself. Or you can get them from the manufacturer of your PC, often for half of what Best Buy and Circuit City charge you. The salespeople often tell you that you can buy from the manufacturer — but they claim you'll pay twice as much as the stores charge."

Submission + - Insert Random N-Gage Gag Here (wordpress.com)

Submitted by on Thursday August 30, 2007 @02:40PM

An anonymous reader writes: Despite the spectacular failure of earlier attempts by Finnish communications giant Nokia to crack the notoriously difficult handheld gaming market, and the subsequent ridicule that was heaped upon them because of it, they are nevertheless trying again. Word on the street is, predictably, similar to last time — more ridicule and mild speculation as to their chances of success. However, they've got the backing of some major players and could fare considerably better this time around. So what's different?

Submission + - Giant spider web spurs sticky debate (www.cbc.ca) 1

Submitted by

Raver32

on Thursday August 30, 2007 @02:30PM

Raver32 writes: "Entomologists are debating the origins of a massive spider web, which runs more than 180 metres and covers several trees and shrubs, found in Texas. Officials at Lake Tawakoni State Park, near Willis Point, find the web both amazing and somewhat creepy. "At first, it was so white it looked like fairyland," park superintendent Donna Garde said. "Now it's filled with so many mosquitoes that it's turned a little brown. There are times you can literally hear the screech of millions of mosquitoes caught in those webs." Experts are debating whether the web is the work of social cobweb spiders working together, or a mass dispersal where the arachnids spin webs to move away from one another."

Submission + - Planetary Society Debunks "Puddles" on Mar

Submitted by

Rei

on Monday June 11, 2007 @01:36PM

Rei writes: "Yesterday, Slashdot posted about what appeared to be puddles of water sitting on Mars. Unfortunately, according to the Planetary Society's blog, the authors of the paper didn't even bother to check the context in which the "water" photos were taken. The article notes that one shouldn't trust papers that haven't yet gone through peer review. "The white square shows you where the image comes from. It's in the middle of Opportunity's Burns Cliff panorama, on some of the steepest slopes that Opportunity saw before arriving at Victoria crater! Those can't be puddles — unless the amazing "liquid" that puddles here on Mars in a freezing near-vacuum also has antigravity properties.""

Submission + - Establishing A Beachhead In A Crowded Genre (gamasutra.com)

Submitted by simoniker on Tuesday June 05, 2007 @10:24AM

simoniker writes: How do you make a game that will stand out apart from countless other similar titles? Harmonix designer Chris Canfield (Guitar Hero II) thinks he knows, and is talking about it in a new editorial, 'Establishing A Beachhead In A Crowded Genre'. He comments that one of the key things you can do is to 'Gut key elements of the design': "Examples of this in your genre might include: sniper rifles in an FPS, powerslides in a racing game, minigames in a Wii title, healing crates, bosses, rocket jumps, or any other big or small element. Of course, the really good features shouldn't be the only ones on the chopping block. Not only will this free up time in the schedule that would otherwise be occupied by been-done features, but it creates space for genuinely new solutions and makes producers very, very happy."

Submission + - Hackers becoming ever more secretive (itpro.co.uk)

Submitted by Simplicity on Tuesday June 05, 2007 @10:16AM

Simplicity writes: Hackers are coming up with ever more secretive and complicated attacks in order to bypass traditional signature-based anti-malware applications, according to the latest Web Security Trends report from IT security company Finjan. The report found that criminal gangs are now keeping track of IP addresses of victims visiting target websites — exposing users to malicious code only once. This code vanishes the second time the user visits the website. Finjan said the hackers use these methods to hide malcode from web crawlers, URL filters and reputation engines.

Submission + - OLPC Development: Cool New Interview and Specs (eugeneciurana.com)

Submitted by

ciurana

on Tuesday June 05, 2007 @10:15AM

ciurana writes: "Rob Savoye is a contributor to the OLPC project. He talks about OLPC in this video interview, and tells us how to contribute code and ideas. The article and video cover the hardware specs, a system overview, and a photo gallery showing the OLPCs features. Rob Savoye is a long-time member of the GNU project and is the CTO of lulu.tv. If you have ever used Red Hat, Debian, or Cygwin, chances are good that you've used his software."

Submission + - The 10 "Inconvienient Truths" of File Shar

Submitted by

54mc

on Tuesday June 05, 2007 @10:15AM

54mc writes: "The IFPI, an international recording industry organization, has released a list of Ten "Inconvenient Truths" of file sharing. Though the group has a vested interest, it's still an interesting read as it tears apart some of the most common arguments in favor of file sharing. Ars Technica follows up with a more thorough explanation of some of the points."

Submission + - LaLa Let's User Listen for Free, but Pay to Carry (wsj.com)

Submitted by

WSJdpatton

on Tuesday June 05, 2007 @09:49AM

WSJdpatton writes: "LaLa Media, a Silicon Valley start-up, is betting that by giving users free access to digital music at home, they will pay to buy the songs they want to take with them on iPods and other music players."

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