Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Education

Russia Mandates Free Software For Public Schools 271

Posted by CmdrTaco from the in-soviet-russia-joke-makes-you dept.
Glyn Moody writes "After running some successful pilots, the Russian government has decided to make open source the standard for all schools. If a school doesn't want to use the free software supplied by the government, it has to buy commercial licenses using its own funds. What's the betting Microsoft starts slashing its prices in Russia?"
Earth

Submission + - Geoengineering to Cool the Earth

Submitted by
johkir
johkir writes: "As early as 1965, when Al Gore was a freshman in college, a panel of distinguished environmental scientists warned President Lyndon B. Johnson that CO2 emissions from fossil fuels might cause "marked changes in climate" that "could be deleterious." Yet the scientists did not so much as mention the possibility of reducing emissions. Instead they considered one idea: "spreading very small reflective particles" over about five million square miles of ocean, so as to bounce about 1 percent more sunlight back to space--"a wacky geoengineering solution," In the decades since, geoengineering ideas never died, but they did get pushed to the fringe--they were widely perceived by scientists and environmentalists alike as silly and even immoral attempts to avoid addressing the root of the problem of global warming. Three recent developments have brought them back into the mainstream."
Programming

Submission + - Microsoft says we're all mixed source 1

Submitted by
johkir
johkir writes: "Microsoft thinks the battle of open source vs. proprietary software is basically over. Microsoft's Horacio Gutierrez notes Microsoft is releasing plenty of stuff as open source, while open-source companies like Red Hat often license commercial software alongside their open-source products. "I actually think the war between proprietary and open source is a thing of the past," he said. Maybe those 235 patent violations were not necessarily designed by Microsoft after all."
Operating Systems

Submission + - Shop for the OS again

Submitted by
johkir
johkir writes: "Many of us have bought computers only to install a different OS over or with the pre-installed OS. But we've been limited to buying a 'Windows' machine and adding 'Linux.' Now, Open Tech is selling computers that come with Ubuntu, but can also run XP, Vista, and OS X, giving us the ability to buy an inexpensive box and place whichever OS we want on it, without any more technical expertise then putting an optical disk in the drive. Is this a novelty or is it the another step towards a post Microsoft dominated world? Will Apple allow this sort of thing to continue?"
Wireless Networking

Submission + - WiFi Rail

Submitted by
johkir
johkir writes: "This sounds like bit-spam, but the story I heard this morning on NPR is brief, so I have to direct you to the company page. WiFi Rail has completed the installation and successful testing of a multi-terrain demonstration of their proprietary wireless network. The demonstration network encompasses four underground stations in San Francisco, interconnecting tubes, and above ground for 2.6 miles at the BART Hayward test track. WiFi coverage in the underground tubes is delivered via a combination of Cisco radios, amplifiers, and filters powering a radiating coaxial cable traversing the length of the tubes. Tests on moving trains — at over 65mph/105kph — have demonstrated upload/download speeds over 15 Mbps."
Patents

Submission + - Researchers Play Tune Recorded Before Edison

Submitted by
johkir
johkir writes: "For more than a century, since he captured the spoken words "Mary had a little lamb" on a sheet of tinfoil, Thomas Edison has been considered the father of recorded sound. But researchers say they have unearthed a recording of the human voice, made by a little-known Frenchman, that predates Edison's invention of the phonograph by nearly two decades. It was made, the researchers say, on April 9, 1860, on a phonautograph, a machine designed to record sounds visually, not to play them back."
Music

Submission + - Researchers Play Tune Recorded Before Edison (nytimes.com)

Submitted by snl2587
snl2587 writes: Using advanced computer analysis, researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have deciphered an early recording made with a phonautogram, 17 years before Edison. The phonatogram's sole purpose was to record sound for people in the future to play back. Now, that is finally possible. The New York Times also has an audio clip of the tune recorded.
Software

Submission + - CNet: IE 8 vs Opera 9.5 vs Safari vs Firefox 3 (cnet.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: If it's controversial to compare unfinished products, hand CNet the medal for pitting the most recent beta releases of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari for Windows and Opera, against each other. It's actually a fairly quantified look at how each browser is shaping up, though certainly not an Ars Technica-style look at a final product. But it's an interesting, if contentious, insight into which browser is looking to be the most innovative and most useful.
Google

Submission + - EU regulators approve Google-DoubleClick merger

Submitted by
johkir
johkir writes: "European antitrust regulators on Tuesday approved Google's $3.1 billion merger with DoubleClick, paving the way for a blockbuster deal in Internet search and publisher-based advertising tools. The Commission's in-depth market investigation found that Google and DoubleClick were not exerting major competitive constraints on each other's activities and could, therefore, not be considered as competitors at the moment. Last December, the Federal Trade Commission gave the online-advertising megamerger its blessing."
Microsoft

Submission + - Vista OEM Activation Cracked

Submitted by
johkir
johkir writes: "The Register is reporting that Pirates have succeeded in making cracking, rather than simply circumventing, Windows Vista product activation easier than ever before. APC Mag has confirmed the crack from pirate group Pantheon allows pirated Vista installations to be activated and made fully operational. The approach avoids reliance on beta activation or time stamp hacks, instead concentrating on flaws in the volume activation process. The approach itself isn't new but its been dumbed down with a DIY kit that makes the process a lot easier."
Portables

Submission + - iPhone now world's fourth-biggest online browser

Submitted by
johkir
johkir writes: "The latest Net Applications operating system statistics for February 2008 emerged this weekend. They show Mac OS accounted for 7.46 per cent of internet activity by OS, and reveal that iPhone now holds 0.14 per cent — up from 0.12 per cent in January. Apple's iPhone is now the world's fourth-largest client OS for accessing the internet, trailing just behind Linux with its 0.65 per cent share. Safari usage dipped ever so slightly from 5.82 per cent to 5.7 per cent, with most users now running Safari 3, Net Applications said. Internet Explorer user continues to decline (now at 74.88 per cent) while the Firefox browser now takes 17.27 per cent of the market. Also interesting: iPhones are being used outside the officially sanctioned countries"
Books

Submission + - Books that make you Dumb

Submitted by
johkir
johkir writes: "Virgil Griffith, over at Caltech thought, I've read a book (required or otherwise) and upon finishing it thought to himself, "Wow. That was terrible. I totally feel dumber after reading that."? I know I have. Well, like any good scientist, He decided to see how well personal experience matches reality. We have a correlation between books and dumbitude (smartitude too)! Books Colleges Average SAT Scores. Yes, I'm aware correlation does not equal causation. The results are hilarity incarnate regardless of causality. Here's a list of 100 and how he did it. Remembering correlation does not equal causation, will a flame war on /. still ensue?"
User Journal

Journal Journal: Science and the Candidates

Journal by jdray
As the field of candidates narrows, and America starts to feel like they've heard the survivors hash and rehash their positions on the major issues, topics not previously covered are starting to bubble up. Business Week is reporting that there has been a call for a debate on science, tentatively scheduled for April. The candidates haven't exactly jumped on the bandwagon, possibl

Slashdot Top Deals

Software production is assumed to be a line function, but it is run like a staff function. -- Paul Licker

Close