11634694
submission
Edisman writes:
The European Commission (EC) welcomes the release of the documents.
According to the EC:
"The negotiation draft shows that specific concerns, raised in particular by the civil society, are unfounded. No party in the ACTA negotiation is proposing that governments should introduce a compulsory '3 strikes' or 'gradual response' rule to fight copyright infringements and internet piracy. Similarly, ACTA will not hamper access to generic medicines."
10812802
submission
ZXSpectrum42 writes:
i am trying to view some videos in youtube but all i get is
Http/1.1 Service Unavailable
does anyone have any more information about this
10810036
submission
bjarnem writes:
4chan is at it again, making death threats against the Australian communications minister for his utterly silly internet filter. Utterings like that are not helping our cause. I for one decided to relinquish my membership of the Australian Computer Society when they made Senator Conroy an honorary member. I just couldn't face being in the same 'club' as someone who believes mandatory secret censorship is good for a healthy democracy. I for one wish more Aussie IT professionals would do the same, all along telling the ACS why they no longer want to be a member. Maybe that would make the ACS strike Conroy off as an honorary member and send a message. But leaving this dream aside, how else do we send a legitimate but strong message to our 'dear leader' that his single minded idea is offensive and unworkable?
9991748
submission
simpz writes:
Will the serial port as a console connection esp for devices switches, routers, SAN boxes etc ever be displaced? Okay in one sense it's an simple connection, but it is the only current port you need to know about wiring/baud rates/parity etc to use, has non-standard pinouts and is now becoming too slow to quickly upload massive firmware updates on dead devices. And it is rapidly being removed from new laptops where you really need it in data centers. Centronics, PS/2, Current loop have mostly passed on. Any sign of a USB console connection?
9988946
submission
edgeofphysics writes:
Given that Chile is one of the most seismically active countries in the world, how do astronomers protect their giant telescopes that have been built or are being built in the Chilean Andes? This blog post discusses how Chile's most advanced facility — the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) — protects its precious 8.2-metre primary mirrors in the event of an earthquake.
9969568
submission
kkleiner writes:
According to a recent report in the New England Journal of Medicine, a stem cell transplant performed in Germany has unexpectedly removed all signs of HIV from a 42 year old American patient. The unnamed white male was treated two years ago for Leukemia with a dose of donor stem cells and his HIV RNA count has dropped to zero and remained there since. While the treatment was for Leukemia, Dr. Gero Hutter and colleagues at the Charite Universitatsmedizen in Berlin had selected the stem cell donor for his HIV resistant genes. While there are still many questions unanswered, this is the first such case of stem cells treating HIV that has been reported in a NEJM-caliber publication.
9968640
submission
daedae writes:
It seems Facebook has been granted a patent for the news feed, as a method of monitoring activities, storing them in a database, and displaying an appropriate set of activities to an appropriate set of users.
9964076
submission
superglaze writes:
The European Commission is "not supporting and will not accept" any attempt to have Acta (the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) force countries to disconnect people for downloading copyrighted material, a spokesman for the new EU trade commissioner has said.
All the signs are that the new commission, which took office earlier this month, intends to take a hardline stance against US proposals for a filesharing-related disconnection system. 'Three strikes' is allowed in EU countries, but not mandated by the European government itself, and it looks like the new administration wants to keep it that way. From trade commssion spokesman John Clancy, quoted in ZDNet UK's article:
"[Acta] has never been about pursuing infringements by an individual who has a couple of pirated songs on their music player. For several years, the debate has been about what is 'commercial scale' [piracy]. EU legislation has left it to each country to define what a commercial scale is and this flexibility should be kept in Acta."
9962162
submission
Barence writes:
Windows 7 may have hogged the limelight in 2009, but this is the year for the other big-hitter in Microsoft’s portfolio: Office 2010. This release brings a wealth of new features to the suite, including the debut of the Office Web Apps, the ribbon interface in Outlook and the Office-wide Backstage view. This complete guide to Office 2010 includes a breakdown of all the major apps in Microsoft’s near-ubiquitous suite, explains every significant new feature, where to find it, and how to use it.
9961434
submission
schliz writes:
MIT researchers are developing swarms of "micro-helicopters" that each act as tiny, flying pixels. The whole system is controlled by one central computer and with each helicopter containing small LEDs, self-stabilisation and networking functionality. Researchers claim it is scalable to infinitely high resolution.
9958540
submission
spidweb writes:
Much virtual ink has been spilled over Ubisoft's new, harsh DRM system for Assassin's Creed 2. You must have a constant internet connection, and, if your connection breaks, the game exits. While this has angered many (and justifiably so), most writers on the topic have made an error. They think that this system, like all DRM systems in the past, will be easily broken. This article explains why, as dreadful as the system is, it does have a chance of holding hackers off long enough for the game to make its money. As such, it is, if nothing else, a fascinating experiment. From the article, "Assassin's Creed 2 is different in a key way. Remember, all of its code for saving and loading games (a significant feature, I'm sure you would agree) is tied into logging into a distant server and sending data back and forth. This vital and complex bit of code has been written from the ground up to require having the saved games live on a machine far away, with said machine being programmed to accept, save, and return the game data. This is a far more difficult problem for a hacker to circumvent."
9956632
submission
A BOFH writes:
The longer I do desktop support, the more it becomes obvious that my users don't read anything that appears on their screen. Instead, they memorize a series of buttons to press to get whatever result they want and if anything unexpected happens, they're completely lost. Error logs help a lot, but they have their limits. I've been toying with a few ideas, but I don't know if any of them will work and I was hoping my fellow Slashdotters could point me in the right direction. For example, I was thinking about creating icons or logos to identify specific errors. They might not remember that an error about "uninitialized data" but they might be more able to remember that they got the "puppy error" if I showed a puppy picture next to the error message. Or for times when finding images is too time consuming, you could create simple logos from letters, numbers, symbols, colors or shapes, so you could have the "red 5" error or "blue square" error (or any combination of those elements). I've even wondered if it would be possible to expand that to cover the other senses, for example, playing a unique sound with the error. Unfortunately, haptic and olfactory feedback aren't readily available. I like to think that my users would remember the error that caused them to get a swift kick in the balls. And if they forgot it anyhow, I could always help them reproduce it. Does anyone else have experience with ideas like these? Did it work?
9953130
submission
wpd writes:
The market crushed shares of Palm on Thursday after it admitted that sales of its anticipated new phones were missing expectations, quelling hopes the company could regain ground in the competitive mobile market. Wall Street is skeptical as to whether the company can rebound from its mired attempt to jump back into the market. Demand is slow for its new phones, and the expected boon from Verizon and Sprint haven't been materializing.
