scrow - Slashdot User

Submission + - IT ads from the past: From the quaint to the weird (computerworld.com)

Submitted by

PetManimal

on Thursday June 14, 2007 @06:50PM

PetManimal writes: "Computerworld has dug up some funny IT advertising gems from decades past. The highlights include "The Personal Mainframe", Elvira hawking engineering software, and an image of the earliest screenless "briefcase portables." Strange to think that people not only took these technologies so seriously, but also paid big bucks for gear that seems positively primitive now."

Submission + - A Day without Google: sorry, no thanks (digital-folders.com)

Submitted by

A Marques

on Thursday June 14, 2007 @06:42PM

A Marques writes: "How important is Google and all the applications surrounding the major search engine for you? Could you live one day without it and just relying on alternative search engines?"

Submission + - 150mpg Motorized Bicycles a wave of the future? (motoredbikes.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14, 2007 @06:41PM

An anonymous reader writes: Motorized bicycles are getting more popular by the day as gas prices are rising. There is a option to curb your high fuel costs for commute to work. Most states do not require license or registration for your motorized bicycles. The gas mileage that I have gotten myself on my bicycle is around 150 miles per gallon. Going to work in cities or out in the sticks it will get you there and quite possibly faster than most forms of transportation. You can see many examples of what the bicycles are capable of and how well they operate as well as do yourself and fellow Americans a favor and cut your oil consumption during this seeming time of Peak Oil. The sound of it may be far fetched however if you look through history, you will notice that after WWII they were used as a major form of transportation. There was incredible destruction to the infrastructure in europe that did not allow for the construction of the automobile. One could almost wish we had stayed in this frame of mind to prevent the situation we are in now.

Submission + - Valve Not Charging For Downloadable Content

Submitted by

Anonymous Coward

on Tuesday May 22, 2007 @12:12PM

Anonymous Coward writes: "Valve Software have stated that the company has no intention of making users pay for downloadable content for their games, despite microtransactions becoming highly popular among the industry in services such as Microsoft's Xbox Live. Valve's philosophy, as detailed by marketing director Doug Lombardi, is "if you buy the product, we put more content out to keep the game interesting, we sell more products." "Counter-Strike is number one and has been since '99 because we kept the game interesting, not because we tried to charge people more, and that's come back in sales of Counter-Strike", he added."

Submission + - Does the perfect ISP exist?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 22, 2007 @12:04PM

An anonymous reader writes: Slashdot runs a lot of stories on ISPs who throttle bandwidth, ruin net neutrality, allow/disallow traffic based on packet contents. It makes you wonder if any of the ISPs out there have our best interests at heart. Even "unlimited" bandwidth comes with a cap with some ISPs. What ISPs are you with? Do they really give you unlimited downloads? Is it fast? How much is it? Let me know if I'm dreaming or not, because come September my contract ends and I really want to find someone better than BT.

Submission + - Study: Illegal Downloading Among Youth Drops

Submitted by

Aviran

on Tuesday May 22, 2007 @12:03PM

Aviran writes: "The results of a recent nationwide survey released by the Business Software Alliance (BSA) show that illegal downloading of digital copyrighted works by youth (ages 8 to 18) has dropped by 24 percent in the last three years. The survey, first conducted in 2004, indicated that 60 percent of survey participants reported downloading software, music, movies, or games without paying for it; in 2006 the percentage of those who downloaded without paying dropped to 43 percent; and in 2007 the percentage decreased to 36 percent."

Submission + - "First" OpenOffice virus emerges

Submitted by

NZheretic

on Tuesday May 22, 2007 @11:19AM

NZheretic writes: "According to APCmag the "First" cross platform OpenOffice.org virus "SB/Badbunny-A" has been emailed directly to Sophos from the virus developers. It has not yet been seen in the wild.

Despite Sun's OpenOffice.org developer Malte Timmermann's claims to the contrary this kind of embedded scripting attack represents a real threat to OpenOffice.org users.

Back in June 2000 when Sun first announced the open sourcing of OpenOffice.org the twelfth email to the open discussion list put forward a two part solution for to provide OpenOffice users with Safe(r) Scripting using restricted mode execution by default and access by signed digital certificates. In October 2000 the issue of treating security as an "add-on" feature rather than a "system property" was again raised. Is it time to now introduce such measures to the OpenOffice.org Core to greatly reduce any future risk from scripted infections?"

Submission + - New York City mandates 100% hybrid taxis by 2012

Submitted by The Fun Guy on Tuesday May 22, 2007 @11:10AM

The Fun Guy writes: The New York Times is reporting that all of the taxis in New York City City must be gasoline hybrids by 2012:

In addition to making the yellow cab brigade entirely green within five years, the city will require all new vehicles entering the fleet after October 2008 to achieve a minimum of 25 miles per gallon. A year later, all new vehicles must get 30 miles per gallon and be hybrid.
Shifting the taxi fleet to hybrids is part of Bloomberg's wider sustainability plan for the city, which includes a goal of a 30 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2030.

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