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Microsoft

Submission + - Vista Strongly Recommended Against by BECTA

Submitted by Dracul
Dracul writes: BECTA — the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency — have just released a report which analyses whether Vista should be adopted by UK schools

The recommendations of the report basically say it all:

The enhancements in Vista add value but do not justify its early deployment in the educational environment Early deployment [of Vista] is considered high risk and strongly recommended against
I expect higher education world wide is going to try to adopt a similar position. It will be interesting to see how hard Micro$oft fights back. The report estimates that upgrading would cost the UK schools £167 million — universities are going to be spending billions on this...
The Internet

Submission + - Citizendium failing to gain traction?

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Despite the two recent Slashdot articles about Larry Sanger's Citizendium, it appears that the site is having difficulty converting good publicity into new content. Although the project saw impressive spikes in the number of new user registrations on both occasions, neither of them resulted in a general increase in the number of edits made to the site; even the number of article edits for the last 24 hours are lower than pre-Slashdot levels. What does this mean for the budding Wikipedia competitor?
Portables (Apple)

Submission + - iPhone, meet Meizu's M8

Submitted by
Dan
Dan writes: "Shanghaiist has the scoop. Meizu? Not exactly a household brand name next to Apple. But for what it's worth, this Chinese manufacturer does make some pretty decent, portable music/video players, seen here. Some have even managed to find their ways to overseas markets. But, not everyone is thrilled with their product, Meizu has caught some flak for what some had considered to be an outright ripoff of iPod's design, though this Shanghaiist wasn't entirely convinced: Just because it's a portable music/video player? Just because it comes in black and white? That was until yesterday."
Google

Submission + - Has Google Lost its Agility?

Submitted by
aralin
aralin writes: "We all heard the stories of entrepreneurs being denied funding from VC firms for fear that Google will come and eat their lunch. Google enjoys the public image of an agile giant. But does it still hold true? What does the Slashdot crowd think?

Google has been lately very unresponsive to user feedback. Even bugs reported by many different users are not even answered in weeks, much less fixed. New features in many products appear once in a blue moon and are well tested. Case in point being Blogger, just to single out one really rotten apple. So when existing products are neglected in this manner, what is the chance Google will be able to enter new markets and really take a bite of your lunch? Is anybody still afraid? Google will be 10 years old soon, so are they turning into yet another large and slow corporation?"
Communications

Submission + - Zenit rocket explodes during launch of NSS-8

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: CNN has the developing story on the launch failure. "It was not known if the Zenit-3SL rocket actually lifted off the platform." The 'anomaly' occurred seconds after ignition.

Sea Launch says all of their people are OK.
The Internet

Submission + - Charter Communications Hijacks Windows Live Search

Submitted by
Tony Bradley
Tony Bradley writes: "There are plenty of spyware and malware programs out there that will hijack your default home page or search engine. Antivirus and anti-spyware software will typically identify and block such attempts because they are illegal, or at least unethical. Imagine my dismay then when my default Web browser search engine was hijacked...by my ISP!! I did some investigating and found that they rationalized their browser hijacking by calling it an opt in "feature". The problem is that they opted everyone in by default and never gave users the opportunity to choose. I also discovered that this "service" only seems to apply if you use Microsoft's search engine. If you are a Google or Yahoo user, apparently you don't need to be forced to opt in to Charter's new "feature". Check out my walk-through of my investigation into this browser hijacking, complete with screen shots to illustrate the story. http://netsecurity.about.com/od/webbrowsersecurity /ss/charterhijack.htm"
Media (Apple)

Submission + - AppleRecon is back!!!!

Submitted by
INOV8Tr
INOV8Tr writes: "A blast from the past... Applerecon.com is back in business. The new site delivers a refreshing take on the Apple rumors scene. Applerecon offers no-nonsense reporting without the advertising and clutter of other Apple rumor sites. For only being up and running for a short while they have garnered the support of many Apple fans, as one of their recent articles has over 3500 diggs. The site continues to hold top status among Word Press blogs."
Google

Submission + - Google "Interstitial" Knows Better Than Yo

Submitted by
Benjamin Cherry
Benjamin Cherry writes: "Apparently Google has teamed up with the folks over at StopBadware.org to provide what they've termed an "interstitial" between their engine and web pages that have been deemed unsafe by StopBadware.org, where you are informed that "You landed on this page because members of the public reported this website to StopBadware.org as hosting or distributing badware." They go on to define "badware" as "software that behaves in malicious and/or deceptive ways and is commonly referred to as spyware, malware, and deceptive adware." An example page can be seen here: Google search for 'dc boot cd utilities.' Google does not provide a hyperlink for the desired page, apparently meaning that its users need to be savvy enough to cut and paste if they wish to knowingly put their machines in harm's way. There is currently no option to disable this feature in Google's Search Preferences."
Security

Submission + - Torrentspy Reemed By Malicious Ads

Submitted by
Magoo
Magoo writes: "Torrentspy is displaying a warning on the search pages of its site explicitly warning users about the malicious advertisements it is currently showing it's users. More details here... unless you want to throw on NoScript and check it out for yourself."
Encryption

Submission + - cold war secret ink

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Two Michigan State University researchers are the first to unlock the secrets of the invisible ink used by East Germany's secret police force, the Stasi, http://www.physorg.com/news82134115.html
Microsoft

Microsoft drops VBA in Mac Office 2007 374

Posted by CmdrTaco from the seems-more-secure-that-way dept.
slashdotwriter writes "Macworld features an article stating that the next version of Office for the Mac will not include Visual Basic scripting. From the article: 'Microsoft Office isn't among the apps that will run natively on Intel-based Macs — and it won't be until the latter half of 2007, according to media reports. But when it does ship, Office will apparently be missing a feature so vital to cross-platform compatibility that I believe it will be the beginning of the end for the Mac version of the productivity suite...'"
Space

Submission + - Telescope Spots Solar Tsunami

Submitted by scdeimos
scdeimos writes: The prototype of a new solar patrol telescope in New Mexico recorded a tsunami-like shock wave rolling across the visible face of the Sun following a major flare event on Wednesday, Dec. 6. The shock wave, known as a Moreton wave, also destroyed or compressed two filaments of cool gas at opposite sides of the solar hemisphere.

"These large scale 'blast' waves occur infrequently, however, are very powerful. They quickly propagate in a matter of minutes covering the whole Sun, sweeping away filamentary material," said Dr. K. S. Balasubramaniam. "It is unusual to see such powerful waves encompassing the whole sun from ground based observatories. Its significance comes from the fact that these waves are occurring near solar minimum, when intense activity is yet to pick up."

SpaceWeather.com has a nice 480x360 GIF animation showing the wave spreading across the surface of the sun.
Announcements

Submission + - Kazakhstan's Arcology

Submitted by
legoburner
legoburner writes: "The BBC reports that Kazakhstan has unveiled a new architectural project for its capital Astana — a giant transparent tent that will contain an indoor city. The idea is to recreate summer, so that when the outside temperature is -30C, the residents of the Kazakh capital can play outdoor tennis, take boat rides or sip coffee on the pavement cafes. I wonder what Borat thinks?"

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