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Media

Submission + - Linux finally getting XBMC

Submitted by B47h0ry'5 CuR53
B47h0ry'5 CuR53 writes: XBMC is getting ported to Linux. A few developers of Team-XBMC have begun the porting of XBMC to Linux using OpenGL and the SDL toolkit. In this effort, they are recruiting developers. XBMC is, by far, one of the finest projects to come out of the open source community; and to think it is homebrew. XBMC is a massive project, with the current SVN branch weighing about 350M before compilation. Porting it will be a big effort and any hackers willing to contribute should check out the Linux port project.
Announcements

Submission + - One of the largest warez forums has closed down

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: One of the largest warez forums(ProjectW) has decided to close down after providing pirated software for 3 years. The site was upgraded to the new version of phpBB3 RC1 in the last week so this news is quite unexpected. The administrator who is known as "GRIZZLY" has disabled the forum and put up the following message "I've decided to close ProjectW down since I don't have time to run it anymore. It was fun to do 3 years but now the time has come to shut it down. Big thanks to all posters, donators, VIPs and most of all mods and admins. Good luck in the future, GRIZZLY"
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Dells: choose wisely and save 25% with Ubuntu

Submitted by
1336
1336 writes: "Yesterday's article erroneously reported that the Ubuntu systems Dell would be selling at "little or no price differential" (note in the comments to the referenced article that the savings for using Ubuntu on equivalent hardware was $50-$100 US off the base system). I just discovered however that for the Dimension E520 vs E520N, if you select "No Monitor" in the options, the price difference jumps from $80 to $140. For such inexpensive systems, that represents just over a 25% savings by selecting Ubuntu instead of Windows ($549 vs $409). At that kind of discount, would you consider Ubuntu for yourself or others (e.g. relatives) even if you hadn't before? Can Microsoft effectively compete in the low-end market?"
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft Surpasses Java's Dynamic Language Suppor

Submitted by Floyd
Floyd writes: Microsoft's announcement of the Dynamic Language Runtime (DLR) has caused quite a stir in many areas, also in the Java space. Many voices seem convinced that the DLR has given .NET a major head start over the JVM, because it solves many problems Java is only just starting to realize. InfoQ took a look at the current situation of dynamic language support and how it compares to the DLR.
Google

Submission + - Google's "supplemental index", according t

Submitted by whoever57
whoever57 writes: Forbes has an interesting article on the consequences of being dumped into a claimed "supplemental index", also known as "Google Hell". It uses the example of Skyfacet.com, a site selling diamonds rings and other jewelery, which has dropped in Google's rankings and saw a $500,000 drop in revenue in only three months after the site owner paid a marketing consultant to improve the sites. Google rankings. The article claims that sites in the supposed "supplemental index" may be visited by Google's spiders as infrequently as once per year. The problem? Google's cache shows that Google's spiders visited the site ss recently as April 28 and April 24
Google

Submission + - Orkut : Google's tell all pact with Mumbai police

Submitted by food4thought
food4thought writes: Economic times is running an article where its reported that Google had an agreement with Mumbai police to improve the communication between Google and Mumbai police. Apparently this agreement came to light after some unfavorable remarks against the likes of Chhatrapati Shivaji , Dr. B R Ambedkar , and politician Bal Thackeray. According the article, Google will block forums and communities with defamatory or inflammatory content and will provide the IP addresses to the police from which the content was generated.

Their this new agreement with police raises few questions about free speech, Googles role in enabling free speech and their "Don't be evil" motto :

a)Is this the beginning of new service by Google i.e. Google Police, whereby instead of searching some text on web, Google has also started searching people which some country's police or politicians believe are criminals?
b)Isn't this against one of the basic assumptions of free speech of Web and also of a democratic country like India ?
c)Isn't this against Google's "Don't be evil" slogan. Or is this a slogan by Google for others action and not for Google's own action?
d)Is this the beginning of web censorship by Google in India, similar to what it's doing in China?
Amiga

Submission + - Fred Fish died

Submitted by
Lars
Lars writes: "amiga-news reports, that last Friday, April 20th 2007, Fred Fish, maker of the Fish Disks died at age 51 in his house in Idaho."

Feed Solo's bus stop ad enables life-size chatting with strangers (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Cellphones

Hot on the heels of Nokia's own bus stop gimmick comes none other than Solo, which has erected a clever display on a number of waiting areas to allow perfect strangers to yap it up on giant mobiles. The interactive billboards each sport a larger-than-usual flip phone, which allows curious onlookers to mash an enlarged walkie talkie button and get on the horn with a faraway stranger. The active two-way radio setup was reportedly installed in transit shelters in Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, and Calgary, and the system supposedly connects users in the different cities to one another when a conversation is initiated. Unfortunately, Engadget HQ doesn't happen to reside in the land of the Canucks, so for our brethren in the north, why not stop on by and give a shout to a fellow Canadian, eh?

[Via Core77]

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

Submission + - High-Capacity Bandwidth Testing Software

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: I work for an ISP which specializes in high bandwidth (100+ megabit) fiber-based delivery solutions. As with any other ISP we sometimes have to perform troubleshooting with customers whom are reporting slow throughput. We currently have a home-grown bandwidth testing server in order to point-to-point test the throughput across our own network. Unfortunately (fortunately), customers have begun purchasing amounts of bandwidth that are capable of exceeding our testing capacity. Given a multi-gigabit network infrastructure and an on-net server with a gigabit Ethernet port, what software packages are available which can reliably test throughput approaching one gigabit? Cross-browser compatibility and 'click-here-to-test' usability should be considerations.

Feed Takara Tomy's Transformers earphones (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Portable Audio

The same folks that brought you the Optimus Prime iPod speaker dock are lobbying for your head-earned dollars once more, as Takara Tomy is betting that you just can't resist yet another Transformers gizmo to stack in your collection. This time it's throwing down a nifty set of morphing earphones, dubbed the Music Label Frenzy & Rumble, which boast a clip-on design coupled with a fold-out robot. Of course, we have sincere doubts about the sheer sound quality of these things, but let's be honest, you'll be listening a lot more intently to geeky comments as you stroll by than the LCD Soundsystem track quietly playing in the background. Start saving those pennies, fanboys and girls, as this treasure should land in the July timeframe for just ¥3,950 ($33).

[Via TokyoMango]

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

Submission + - Keeping Google's In-house Database Ticking

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Short but interesting piece on the what Google did with its 12GB database when it became a challenge for the finance department. The database was split into three, says Chris Schulze, technical program manager for Google — one for the current financial planning projections, one for the actual current data from existing HR and general ledger systems, and one storing historic information. The article says Google has been using a variety of products from Hyperion (recently bought by Oracle) to manage its internal financial systems since 2001.
Businesses

Submission + - Citibank breaking support for alternate browsers

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Recently went to do some online banking with Citibank at www.citicards.com and found they had so badly altered their website that it was unusable in both Moz 1.6 and in Firefox 1.5. Called their 1-800 tech support and was informed they don't support anything but IE so no help there. I was completely stonewalled by the customer support rep. I simply had to inform them that only fools use IE and that their changes had made it impossible for me to continue doing any business with them. We're done using Citi which has become more aggressive with their terms, fees and interest rates. Website FUBAR's that make it harder to do business with them are the last straw. Anyone else have issues with Citibank and their online site?
Space

Journal Journal: Dazzling image captures violent birth of stars

Journal by slayermet420
CNN is reporting about the amazing new image captured by the Hubble telescope. The image, released by NASA's Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, is more than 50 light years wide. It shows the chaotic Carina Nebula, through the birth and death of stars. It really is an amazing picture, available directly

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