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Movies

Submission + - MovieBeam Bankrupt?

Submitted by J.q.smith
J.q.smith writes: Is MovieBeam bankrupt? MovieBeam has been covered twice before on /. (here and here. A blog entry on LiveJournal suggests that it is, and that they are firing people who talk about it. Calls to the order line say that there order system is temporarily down, but their website makes no mention and still lets you sign up (I stopped short of entering my credit info, though). So, did anyone buy one of their $200 paperweights?
Wii

Submission + - Wii sells 600,000 in 1 week! 75 percent get Zelda

Submitted by
Wowzer
Wowzer writes: "Nintendo today announced the Wii sold through more than 600,000 units in the Americas in just its first eight days of availability. That's a rate of nearly one per second continuously since the November 19 launch! From the article: "Including just first-party software and accessory sales, Wii instantly has become a $190 million business in the Americas. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, a favorite of avid gamers, already has achieved sales of more than 454,000 units in the Americas." What games did you get?"
Portables

Submission + - Thailand government cancels OLPC participation

Submitted by
patiwat
patiwat writes: "Thailand's new junta-appointed Education Minister has cancelled Thailand's participation in the One Laptop Per Child project and scrapped a plan to give a 2B1 laptop to every primary school student. He has also cancelled plans to roll out computers and a broadband connection to every single school in Thailand. The cancellation of half a million scholarships for needy students is being studied. He cited the lack of readiness of teachers and the need to focus on basic education standards. "We will not focus too much on technology and materials. We will focus on substance," he said. This comes on the heels of the cancellation of the Thai government's open source policy. How important is high tech for education in developing countries?"
Patents

Submission + - Obivous test for patents questioned

Submitted by bulled
bulled writes: news.com Is currently running a story about a case coming before the US Supreme Court on testing new patents for "obviousness". The decision has potential to significantly impact the High Tech industry. The usual gang of idiots have lined up on both sides of the issue.
United States

Submission + - US Att. Gen. Defends Warrantles Surveillance

Submitted by
eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: "Despite the outcry from the public, the Attorney General has attacked critics of the warrantles surveillance. From the article, "Attorney General Alberto Gonzales contended Saturday that some critics of the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program were defining freedom in a way that poses a "grave threat" to U.S. security. Gonzales was the second administration official in two days to attack a federal judge's ruling last August that the program was unconstitutional. Vice President Dick Cheney on Friday called the ruling "an indefensible act of judicial overreaching." If critics of such an invasive policy pose a 'grave threat' to my security, I'd consider the actions of the current administration to be 'strangling the last breath' out of my privacy. (note for the editor, even though "The Scoop" shows 'warrantless', the preview shows 'warrantles' and no matter how many 's's I tack onto the word, only one appears)"
Biotech

Submission + - Genetically Engineered Edible Cotton

Submitted by
eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: "New Scientist is running a curious article on genetically engineered cotton. Is it warmer than regular cotton? Is it thicker than regular cotton? Not really. It's simply edible. Here's why, normal cotton is 22% protein which makes it a great target food source but it contains gossypol which may cause fatigue and even paralysis. Early attempts failed since removing gossypol left the plants extremely susceptible to other organisms. Using RNA interference (RNAi) technology, a US team has figured out a way to leave the plants themselves full of the protective gossypol but remove it entirely from the seed. According to the researches, the kernel of edible cotton can be roasted, salted and ate for a 'nutty flavor.' It can also be prospectively used to enrich many other foods with protein. Will this put a dent in world hunger? The researchers sure hope so."
PC Games (Games)

Submission + - Blizzard reinstates Cedega WoW users' accounts

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: (this could work as a slashback)

Various people on the Cedega forums are claiming that Blizzard has reinstated the accounts of Cedega users who had their accounts closed incorrectly as cheaters. Does this mean that Blizzard cares about the Linux community?

The email Blizzard sent to the account holders is at the first link.
Networking

Submission + - What does your ISP Run?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: What does your ISP run? In light of articles that indicate one software stack is more reliable than another, what have your service providers chosen to use to run their networks? What building blocks are used? Email Server? DNS Server? DHCP Server? AAA Server? Does your ISP gracefully handle errors? When part of your ISP's systems are down, do other parts also fail? E.G. when there is a problem with DNS, can you still resolve things via IP and switch to an alternate DNS Server? Do you see messages like this which provide an indication that both the Web Tier and Persistence Tier of your ISP are running on a particular software stack?

System Status: GA, Atlanta

Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers error '80040e31'

[Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver]Timeout expired

/system/main.asp, line 124
Businesses

Submission + - Wii will not go back to wal-Mart

Submitted by
Lord Draconis-san
Lord Draconis-san writes: "Dear Slashdot, Wii the people were going to Wii-volt. My local Wal-Mart supercenter, open 24/7, refused to allow me and the rest of the Wii line in the building. The WHOLE story can be found here: on Digital-Madman homepage The story has also gained quite a bit of popularity on the site Digg, here's the link: The article on Digg I wasn't the one who wrote the article on Digital-Madman, or the one who submitted it to Digg, but I was in the same line as Digital-Madman, in line for 15 hours. And I wasn't the first one there, one person was in line from 5:00am to midnight. However, they did finally bring us some coffee and a box of doughnuts around 9:00pm. We think it was only to prevent them from getting a lawsuit on their hands. All we wanted to do was wait in an out of place inside, out of 30 degree weather. And we were treated like prisoners. Our Wii line spent a minimum of five to six thousand dollars, twenty consoles sold and atleast a game each(one guy bought six), and they wouldn't allow us in out of the cold. I really hope this gets on Slashdot, I think this is something that needs to be heard. I'm never going back to Wal-Mart again. Thank you for reading this, Paul "Draconis" Livingston"
The Media

Submission + - Students put UCLA taser video on YouTube

Submitted by dircha
dircha writes: As widely reported, an incident in which Iranian-American student Mostafa Tabatabainejad was allegedly tasered up to five times by UCLA police on Friday, has been captured by a fellow student using a video enabled cell phone and published to YouTube. From the Daily Bruin:
At around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, Tabatabainejad, a fourth-year Middle Eastern and North African studies and philosophy student, was asked to leave the library for failing to present his BruinCard during a random check. The 23-year-old student was hit with a Taser five times when he did not leave quickly and cooperatively upon being asked to do so.
In a story which has raised concerns of racial profiling, police brutality and the health risks of taser use, the ubiquity of video cell phone technology has given us a first hand record of an incident which might otherwise have been a he-said, she-said affair. While the publishing of the video to YouTube has given the issue compelling popular exposure beyond the immediate campus community. Do these oft-maligned technologies have important implications for democracy and justice?
Novell

Submission + - Novell Suckered by Microsoft ?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Anonymous Monkey writes:

In a new rebuttal to the community reaction to the Novell+Microsoft agreement, CEO Ron Hovsepian released an open letter to the community re-stating Novell's position and intention to stay the course, claiming it not detrimental to Linux. The letter also rejects public claims made by Microsoft since the deal was signed.

Nothing surprising so far, but one interesting nugget is mixed in: "Our interest in signing this agreement was to secure interoperability and joint sales agreements, but Microsoft asked that we cooperate on patents as well, and so a patent cooperation agreement was included as a part of the deal." . Since one does not scuttle a company making 1.2BLN$ every year over a paltry 70M$/yr promised by Microsoft to Novell under the deal, one has got to wonder exactly what kind of glue Novell's management snorted before signing off on this 'deal' ...
Wii

Submission + - The Wii Disassembled

Submitted by mrmcgeeber
mrmcgeeber writes: There are two ways to take apart the Wii. The first, as demonstrated by Popular Science, involves breaking the Wii open due to a lack of tools. The second method is a more formal Wii disassembly guide, which is provided by InformIT.com. Either way, you can see some detailed pictures of the internals of the Wii and how the parts are laid out. The InformIT.com version also includes an eight minute teardown video.
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Wacom Tablet Pricing

Submitted by
G0Ducks
G0Ducks writes: "A few days ago, I emailed the customer service department at WACOM Technologies regarding the fellow who created a Cintiq21UX-like graphics tablet for around $200. The following is the reply I got from Sue Ovall the Senior Customer Service Rep at WACOM.

The Reply:
'Ryan: It wasn't long ago the older PL monitors with much less functionality, sold for $4000. Just two years ago, we started selling the Cintiq current models for $2500. We have been increasing the technology and features while keeping the price the same. As our Vice President, Scott Rawlings said "The trends of increased performance for less cost are likely to continue going forward, so it really becomes a question of how long can you wait, how long should you wait, and when will the combination of price and functionality be right for you..." I am sorry that you feel we are over charging for our Cintiq21UX product but I know the opposite is really true. Thank you for your feedback, it made it all the way to the top and it is appreciated. Regards,

Sue Ovall
Senior Customer Service Rep
800.922.6613 Option #5
M-F 8:30-5pm Pacific'

Needless to say, I was rather disappointed with the response... Come on WACOM, while your products rock, the financial weight of them makes my heart sink :( More people should write in to WACOM and share their sentiment regarding the prices (EVEN IF YOU ARE FINE WITH THEM.)

— R ;)"

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