Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Databases

CA Sues Over DB2 Migration Tool 104

Posted by Soulskill from the not-the-best-customer-retention-plan dept.
aesoteric writes "Software giant CA has filed suit against an Australian software developer over a program that allegedly enabled companies to migrate off CA database platforms onto IBM DB2. It claimed the software 'reproduced' portions of confidential source and object codes without permission and deprived CA of license fees. CA also disputed claims that its database platform was 'dying.'"

Comment Literature search (Score 4, Insightful) 279

by Alotau (#32681388) Attached to: Best Way To Publish an "Indie" Research Paper?
If this is true:

I've no experience on [research papers], not even read a complete one

Then you will likely have a hard time writing a legitimate paper. A key aspect of most papers is a comparison of your work to work previously published. You need to establish how yours is novel. Without ever reading any other articles, I doubt you'll be able to do that successfully. Of course you'd need to do this to get a patent as well if you go the route others seem to be suggesting.

Comment Re:Don't you love weasel language (Score 1) 124

by Alotau (#30636376) Attached to: Ideas For Exploiting NASA's SRTM Data

Carnival Rube: Hey honey, let's see how good this guy is. What'd I win?

Navin: Uh, anything in this general area right in here. Anything below the stereo and on this side of the bicentennial glasses. Anything between the ashtrays and the thimble. Anything in this three inches right in here in this area. That includes the Chiclets, but not the erasers.
Microsoft

Sam Ramji Answers Your Questions 81

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the horse's-mouth dept.
A couple weeks back you asked some questions of new CodePlex Foundation President Sam Ramji. He has responded and expressed interest in participating in the discussion at some point. If you have follow up questions feel free to drop them in the discussion so he can address them as he has time.
The Courts

US FTC Sues Intel For Anti-Competitive Practices 230

Posted by timothy from the in-the-interim-please-use-the-ftc-compiler dept.
Vigile writes "And here Intel was about to get out of 2009 with only a modestly embarrassing year. While Intel and AMD settled their own antitrust and patent lawsuits in November, the FTC didn't think that was good enough and has decided to sue Intel for anti-competitive practices. While the suits in Europe and in the US civil courts have hurt Intel's pocketbook and its reputation, the FTC lawsuit could very likely be the most damaging towards the company's ability to practice business as they see fit. The official hearing is set for September of 2010 but we will likely hear news filtering out about the evidence and charges well before that. One interesting charge that has already arisen: that Intel systematically changed its widely-used compiler to stunt the performance of competing processors."
Television

Nielsen Struggles To Track Modern Viewing Habits 248

Posted by kdawson from the watching-the-watchers dept.
RobotRunAmok writes "The Nielsen Company has been the principal entity tracking TV shows' popularity, and, by extension, their potential profitability. But as our media consumption practices change, some believe that Nielsen's methods have not kept pace. A new consortium including networks owned by NBC Universal, Time Warner, News Corp, Viacom, CBS, Discovery, and Walt Disney — along with major advertisers — is calling for the creation of a new audience measurement service, and planning to solicit bids from outside firms by the fourth quarter of this year. Nielsen says they're not worried about so many of their customers ganging up on them, having just invested more than a billion dollars in research to stay modern. Except that today Nielsen announced they would pointedly not be adding weights to DVR households, and that adding weights for the presence of a personal computer or Internet access in under-represented households would provide 'no significant change or enhancement' to its national TV ratings sample. The pundits deride Nielsen's 'archaic' methodology and 'disco-era tactics,' but others scoff that such a consortium will only 'put the foxes in charge of the henhouse.' Stay tuned..."

Comment Re:One in twenty? (Score 1) 884

by Alotau (#28224505) Attached to: Could a Meteor Have Brought Down Air France 447?

Yes, those odds seem inconceivably low. If an unguided rock can hit a plane with that frequency (1 in 20 times), you'd think we'd be able to develop an anti-ballistic missile system that worked.

They said there was a 1 in 20 chance that some plane in the last 20 years could have been taken down with a meteor. Not that 1 in 20 meteors takes down a plane.
Role Playing (Games)

Submission + - David Arneson, co-creator of D&D, dies at age (mercurynews.com)

Submitted by Alotau
Alotau writes: Following a two-year battle with cancer, David Arneson died Tuseday at the age of 61. He was a co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons. In an e-mail statement released by his family shortly after his death Tuesday, his daughter Malia Weinhagen, of Maplewood, Minn., said 'the biggest thing about my dad's world is he wanted people to have fun in life. I think we get distracted by the everyday things you have to do in life and we forget to enjoy life and have fun.'

Besides his daughter, Arneson is survived by his father, John, and two grandchildren.
Businesses

Submission + - Immigrant Chinese, Indian techies heading home (mercurynews.com)

Submitted by Alotau
Alotau writes: A survey of 1203 returnees to India and China indicates that increased opportunities back home and the economic problems the U.S. are leading many immigrant techies to return home. The study's authors say it illustrates the need for the United States to do more to retain its skilled immigrants in the face of growing global competition, for example by increasing the number of permanent residency slots for them in science, technology, engineering and math. An interesting tidbit on this study is that it used LinkedIn to gather some of its data.
Television

Conflict of Interest May Taint DTV Delay Proposal 339

Posted by timothy from the hard-to-find-true-disinterest dept.
Anonymous writes "Ars Technica has discovered that one of the Obama transition team members advising on the digital TV transition has a conflict of interest that would benefit WiMAX carrier Clearwire over Verizon. 'Barack Obama's call to delay the DTV transition would affect not only millions of analog TV viewers, but also powerful companies with a vested interest in the changeover date — including at least one with an executive on Obama's transition team.'"
Science

Rare Venomous Mammal Filmed 233

Posted by kdawson from the do-not-annoy-the-solenodon dept.
Smivs writes "The BBC are reporting that footage of one of the world's most strange and elusive mammals has been captured by scientists. Large, and with a long, thin snout, the Hispaniolan solenodon resembles an overgrown shrew. It can inject passing prey with a venom-loaded bite. Dr Sam Turvey, a ZSL (Zoological Society of London) researcher involved with the program, told BBC News: 'It is an amazing creature — it is one of the most evolutionary distinct mammals in the world.' Along with the other species of solenodon, which is found in Cuba (Solenodon cubanus), it is the only living mammal that can actually inject venom into their prey through specialized teeth. Little is known about the creature, which is found in the Caribbean, but it is under threat from deforestation, hunting and introduced species. Researchers say conservation efforts are now needed. The mammal was filmed in the summer of 2008 during a month-long expedition to the Dominican Republic — one of only two countries where this nocturnal, insect-eating animal (Solenodon paradoxus) can be found (the other is Haiti). The researchers from the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust and the Ornithological Society of Hispaniola were able to take measurements and DNA from the creature before it was released."
AMD

45nm Phenom II Matches Core 2 Quad, Trails Core i7 234

Posted by kdawson from the still-in-the-game dept.
An anonymous reader writes "AMD recently debuted its 45nm Phenom II processors, and The Tech Report has already run them through a complete suite of benchmarks to see how they perform compared to Intel's latest and greatest. The new 2.8GHz and 3GHz Phenom IIs are in a dead heat with like-priced Core 2 Quads, but they generally fall well behind Intel's new Core i7 chips. TR concludes that AMD's future doesn't look as bleak as some say, and future Phenom IIs could compete favorably with more affordable Core i7 derivatives."
NASA

Why Does the US Have a Civil Space Program? 308

Posted by timothy from the why-indeed? dept.
BDew writes "The Presidents of the National Academy of Science and the National Academy of Engineering have commissioned a study on the Rationale and Goals of the US Civil Space Program. In short, the Academies are asking why the nation has a civil space program (including human, robotic, commercial, and personal spaceflight). The study is intended to provide a strategic framework for the nation's activities in space that can provide consistent guidance in an increasingly interconnected world. The members of the study committee are interested in the views (positive or negative) of the general public, particularly those people with a scientific and/or technological interest."

Slashdot Top Deals

A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable. -- Thomas Jefferson

Close