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Cellphones

Submission + - Research finds effects of GSM radiation on sleep (mit.edu) 2

An anonymous reader writes: The effects of mobile phone radiation on sleep were studied in Sweden in a laboratory experiment where subjects were exposed either to 884 MHz GSM radiation or placebo. The study finds that compared to placebo, in the radiation-exposed subjects there was a prolonged latency to reach the first cycle of deep sleep (stage 3). The amount of stage 4 sleep was also decreased. Moreover, participants that otherwise have no self-reported symptoms related to mobile phone use, appear to have more headaches during actual radiofrequency exposure as compared to sham exposure.
Businesses

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: How to Compare Web Analytic Numbers

An anonymous reader writes: I work in the marketing and advertising department of a small US-based manufacturing company. Last year I implemented Google Analytics into our website so we could get a better idea of what users were doing while on our website. However, sometimes I'll receive reports from other websites that we advertise with, showing the amount of traffic that they have sent our way. These numbers always conflict with my own data from Google Analytics. Is this par for the course with web analytics, or can this situation be rectified? This data is supposed to provide solid information when making marketing decisions and I need to know that I can trust it. I'm interested in knowing what other Slashdotters have done with their analytical data and the anomalies they have experienced.
Security

Submission + - What's In A Name: The State of Typo-Squatting 2007 (net-security.org)

AliG writes: McAfee released a research report that exposes how typo-squatters register domains using common misspellings of popular brands, products and people in order to redirect consumers to alternative Web sites. These squatter-run sites generate click-through advertising revenues, lure unsuspecting consumers into scams and harvest email addresses to flood users with unwanted email. To quantify the scope of the study, McAfee reviewed 1.9 million variations of 2,771 of the most popular domain names.
Microsoft

Submission + - ISO Paralyzed by OOXML

Broken Standards writes: "For all intents and purposes, the ISO has been completely paralyzed. The ISO is no longer able to reach an agreement on any standard because all those new members who joined just to approve OOXML cannot be bothered to vote on anything else. Per ISO rules, any standard where more than half those eligible are non-voters, not even bothering to return an "abstain" vote, fails automatically. So the ISO is completely paralyzed, unable even to amend their voting rules, until the new members eventually get kicked out for inactivity. Hopefully, they will learn from this and forbid those inactive members from rejoining later."
The Internet

Submission + - Programmer takes action against instant coffee... (tenbuckdeal.com)

stewiegriffinrocks writes: "A programmer in Ohio is so tired of drinking instant coffee he has created a website to help him buy his dream DeLonghi ESAM3300 Espresso/Coffee Machine. The site aims to raise money for the coffee maker and a sack of coffee beans by selling downloadable products. The programmer describes himself as "not a morning person"."
Media (Apple)

Submission + - Amazon launches DRM free MP3 download service (amazon.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Amazon has launched its MP3 download service today as a competitor to iTunes. Just looking at their start page, they seem to have more "popular" music available in MP3 than iTunes. Universal seems to have stuck it to Apple by adding their music in unprotected MP3 format to Amazon.com. However, they do not have a lot of older music yet. For example, I'm an Elvis Presley fan (having grown up in Tennessee), but I've never heard of either of the Elvis albums available on Amazon. In addition to using 256k unprotected MP3 format, Amazon also has a tiered pricing scheme (something which Apple has resisted so far). Will this spell the end of Apple's dominance in music downloads? Only time will tell, but Amazon seems to be off to a pretty strong start by having 2 million unprotected MP3s available for download right now.
Television

Submission + - Zap2It Replacement Scheduling Service Goes Online

Krondor writes: "Schedules Direct, the TV listing service created to replace the soon to be discontinued Zap2It Labs free listings, is now accepting registrations. This comes in advance of the pending Zap2It TV Listing shutdown and is obviously excellent news for many open source projects, such as MythTV. The service, though no longer free, does intend to reduce pricing as demand increases and exists as a non-profit specifically for the purpose of providing TV listing data to "Free and Open Source Applications". Slashdot has previously covered the Zap2It Labs TV Listing Discontinuation as well as the pricing expectations for Schedules Direct."
Space

Submission + - Illuminated Smoke Plume From Phoenix Spacecraft (stormvideographer.com)

StormVideo writes: "Here is a very cool picture from the launch yesterday of the Delta II rocket that carried the Phoenix Spacecraft on it's journey to Mars. The pic is of left over's from the launch of the rocket smoke trail and gas plume. It was very cool as the gas plume was being illuminated by the sun that was still below the horizon making for a awesome scene in the dark morning Florida sky."
Graphics

Submission + - ATI releases new drivers (amd.com)

jshriverWVU writes: ATI has released new linux drivers version 8.39.4 Some of the issues resolved are: * The kernel module build no longer fails on kernel version 2.6.22. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28556

* Starting AMD CCC-LE no longer fails with a floating-point exception when started in certain configurations. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28557

* When playing videos in I420 color format using the Xv extension and TexturedVideo (the default on R5xx), colors are no longer displayed incorrectly. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28558

* Running aticonfig — initial in X with the Vesa driver no longer segfaults resulting in the xorg.conf file not being available. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28559

Games

Submission + - Duke Nukem Forever Release Date: 12/1/07! (bestbuy.com)

wiggles writes: It's offical. According to this Best Buy page, Duke Nukem Forever is scheduled for release on December 1st of 2007. Talk about a solution to global warming! All we need to do is find hell, and use the sub-zero temperatures to siphon off our excess heat!
Printer

Which All-in-One Inkjet Printer is Cheapest to Use? 119

Ray asks: "A year or so ago, I got my dad a new computer system that included a Canon PX-160 printer/scanner/copier to replace his aging Lexmark with similar capabilities. On my next visit, I asked him how the new printer was working and he said the ink was killing him. The cartridges are expensive, they don't have much ink in them and there are no third party or refilled carts for it or (apparently) any other Canon. It looks like HP and Lexmark are the most likely to have (relatively) inexpensive supplies but what has your experience been with inkjet All-in-Ones as far as TCO goes?"
Programming

Submission + - Reasons to close source code?

cowens writes: The last Ask Slashdot article got me to thinking about what reasons people have (or think they have) to close source code. Are any of these reasons valid? Can you think of any other reasons?
  1. You believe that your source code is so revolutionary that closing it will act as a significant barrier to your competitors.
  2. You are embarrassed by the code's lack of quality and are afraid of ridicule.
  3. You wish to license someone else's code and they are not FOSS friendly.
  4. You are afraid someone might discover a security flaw by examining the source code and exploit the flaw rather than reporting it to you.
  5. You are afraid of losing control of the project (similar to point 1).
  6. You have not actually considered why you want to close the source; AKA you are an idiot.
  7. It is what you have always done before; AKA you are a dinosaur and see point 6.

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