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

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Windows

Peru To Be First To Put Windows On OLPC Laptop 292

Posted by kdawson from the must-be-that-high-mountain-air dept.
Da Massive writes "The government of Peru will run the first ever trial of the One Laptop Per Child association's XO laptop running Windows XP. This puts the nation at the heart of a software controversy that has been raging for years between those who advocate making software and its source code free, such as Linux OS developers, and those who charge for software and keep the development recipes secret, such as Microsoft."
Censorship

City Sues To Prevent Linking To Its Website 429

Posted by kdawson from the nolo-mi-tangere dept.
Mike writes "In what appears to be a first-of-its-kind case, the Sheboygan city attorney ordered Jennifer Reisinger to remove a link to the city's police department from her Web site. The city went further, she claims, launching a criminal investigation of her for linking to the department on one of her sites, and in response she's suing the mayor and the city. 'The mayor decided to use his office to get back at Jennifer for her efforts in the recall and picked this to do it,' said her attorney, Paul Bucher. It appears this will go to court, and the question will be can a city (or any business or Web property) stop people from posting a link to its site?"

Comment We should not accept manupulative terminology (Score 1) 598

by polemistes (#24991453) Attached to: What Do You Most Often Pirate?
Piracy is the cruel act of confronting an unsuspecting ship out on the open sea, boarding it, usually killing the crew and passengers and the taking the ship with whatever valuables it contains.

I think it's sad that so few people question the manipulative comparison of piracy with the act of copying and sharing digital content without the permission of the content creator.

This act might often (but not always) be illegal, but it shouldn't be compared with cruelly killing innocent people. It shouldn't even be compared with stealing.
Media

Submission + - Apple ranked least green electronics company

Submitted by
Josh Fink
Josh Fink writes: "It seems the people over at Greenpeace have ranked Apple Computers the worst as far as being a "green" electronics manufacturer. Apple in turn has rejected Greenpeace's ranking system. Greenpeace has ranked a former last ranked company Lenovo as its most green company as well. From MSNBC: "Greenpeace spokeswoman Iza Kruszewska said Apple has been willing to meet legal requirements and basic standards, but it hasn't stopped using several types of harmful chemicals in its manufacturing." Greenpeace has also set up a petition to be sent to Steve Jobs to voice your displeasure here, as well."
Windows

HardOCP Spends 30 Days With Vista 662

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the second-verse-same-as-the-first dept.
boyko.at.netqos writes "Hardocp.com has published "30 days with Vista" — with the same author from "30 days with Linux" doing the evaluation. And he doesn't like it. From the article: 'Based on my personal experiences with Vista over a 30 day period, I found it to be a dangerously unstable operating system, which has caused me to lose data [...] Any consideration of the fine details comes in second to that one inescapable conclusion. This is an unstable operating system.'"
The Internet

Submission + - Our next teachers: avatar experts

Submitted by
Roland Piquepaille
Roland Piquepaille writes: "Researchers from Illinois and Florida are developing a networking system which will create virtual representations of real people to improve our knowledge. They will use artificial intelligence and natural language processing software to enable us to interact with these avatars. The goal of the project, sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF), is to give us the possibility to interact with these virtual representations as if they were the actual person, complete with the ability to understand and answer questions. We should see the results at the beginning of 2008 — if the researchers succeed. Read more for additional details and pictures of the researchers avatars."
Biotech

Submission + - Gene Test Helps Detect Radioactivity Exposure

Submitted by
webdoodle
webdoodle writes: "In the event of a nuclear catastrophe people could be exposed to radiation, with no way of quickly determining how much radiation has seeped inside their bodies. Researcher have developed a blood test to rapidly detect levels of radiation exposure so that doctors can help the people who need it most."
Biotech

Hardware Implants Mimic Brain Cells 230

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the memory-upgrade dept.
An anonymous reader writes "PopSci is reporting that Ted Berger, a USC scientist, has been working to engineer a brain implant the mimics the functions of neurons. Early tests on rat brain cells have shown promise, and if successful, Berger's implant could remedy everything from Alzheimer's to absent-mindedness — and reduce memory loss to nothing more than a computer glitch"
Businesses

Submission + - Lenovo tops eco-friendly ranking

Submitted by
gollum123
gollum123 writes: "Chinese computer maker Lenovo has topped a ranking of the world's most eco-friendly electronics firms ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6525307.stm ). Compiled by Greenpeace, the quarterly report ranks firms by how green their production processes are and what they do to recycle hardware they sell. In previous reports Lenovo ranked low for eco-friendliness but in 2007 it scooped the top spot over Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Dell, and Samsung. Apple came last of the 14 firms Greenpeace profiled in the report. The study, which was first compiled in 2006, looks at how big electronics firms make their hardware to see if they use toxic chemicals in the production process and scrutinises what they do to recycle goods when customers have stopped using them. The campaigning group said that overall scores for the hi-tech firms it profiled had improved but it shied away from describing any hardware maker as "green"."
Databases

Submission + - Master Boot Record Guided Tour

Submitted by IdaAshley
IdaAshley writes: This article explores the Linux boot process from the initial bootstrap to the start of the first user-space application. Along the way, learn about other boot-related topics such as the boot loaders, kernel decompression, and the initial RAM disk. Also take a look at a scheduled chat about the Linux desktop and how it is evolving, including improvements in application interoperability, and desktop graphics.

Slashdot Top Deals

If you want to put yourself on the map, publish your own map.

Close