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Comment Re:Hypocritical maybe? (Score 5, Insightful) 108

by SleeknStealthy (#22783930) Attached to: Human Rights and a Code of Conduct for China's Web
I guess the day the world can't come to the conclusion that oppression is not unethical, is the day that humanity will lose all form of justice. I understand this isn't just about Tibet, but the overall censorship of China's web. However, when a country is censoring its own atrocities from its people it is a global problem.

No one cares of course, China's disregard for environmental and humane concerns of its own people give the rest of the world the cheapest goods.
Music

Submission + - Eminem Sues Apple for iTunes Sales (macworld.co.uk)

Submitted by puk
puk writes: MacWorld UK is reporting that Eminem's publisher is suing Apple, alleging that his publisher did not have the right to authorize Apple's online sales of digital versions of Eminem's music through the iTunes Music Store and that therefore Apple is violating Eminem's copyright by doing so.

Of course, if this turns out to be the case, Universal may also be on the hook for the damages, if indirectly. Looks like another more case of trying to figure out whether old contracts authorize new activities...
Networking

Submission + - Linksys brand not going anywhere says Cisco (freedomblogging.com)

Submitted by
Mav
Mav writes: "To follow up with http://slashdot.org/articles/07/07/27/0044202.shtm l, Cisco announced that it won't be doing away with the Linksys name. http://ocbiz.freedomblogging.com/2007/07/30/linksy s-staying-put-and-keeping-its-name/ Karen Sohl, a spokeswoman for Irvine's Linksys, says, "Linksys consumer and (small-medium business) products will continue to be marketed under the Linksys brand and co-exist in the market with Cisco branded connected home products over the near term""
Biotech

Submission + - Cat Can Predict Death

Submitted by jeepliberty
jeepliberty writes: Yahoo and CNN are reporting a cat in a nursing home that can predict death. Cat Can Predict Death. Is the cat the cause or the effect? Didnt Dr Jack go to prision for the same thing? I wonder if the cat can predict a Blue Screen? Gives new meaning to the term lap top.
Biotech

Submission + - Nursing Home Cat Can Sense Death (yahoo.com) 1

Submitted by
Raver32
Raver32 writes: "When Oscar the Cat visits residents of the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, Rhode Island, the staff jump into action — Oscar can sense within hours when someone is about to die. In his two years living in Steere's end-stage dementia unit, Oscar has been at the bedside of more than 25 residents shortly before they died, according to Dr. David Dosa of Brown University in Providence. He wrote about Oscar in the New England Journal of Medicine. "It's not that the cat is consistently there first," Dr. Joan Teno, a professor of community health at Brown University, who sees patients in the unit. "But the cat always does manage to make an appearance, and it always seems to be in the last two hours.""
Music

Submission + - The sad state of sound in Linux (blogspot.com) 1

Submitted by Wertigon
Wertigon writes: Looks like atleast one coder has been driven insane by the aggravating difficulties of getting sound to work properly in his 'nix application. Coming from his blog:

All this shows me is that ALSA is truly garbage, and a very bad idea from the ground up. If you want good sound support under Linux, the best, and sometime the only feasible option is to install the closed source OSS. With this, you always get mixing (even using the hardware mixer which ALSA doesn't always do), support for a dozen UNIX OSs, and finely tuned controls.
Perhaps it's time to go back to OSS, now that it has become Open Source again?
Handhelds

Submission + - What's Keeping US Phones in the Stone Age?

Submitted by knapper_tech
knapper_tech writes: After seeing the iPhone introduction in the US, I was totally confused by how much excitement it generated in the US. It offered no features I could see beyond my Casio W41CA's capabilities. I had a lot of apprehension towards the idea of a virtual keypad and the bare screen looked like a scratch magnet. Looks aren't enough. Finally, the price is rediculous. The device is an order of magnitude more expensive than my now year-old keitai even with a two-year contract.

After returning to the US, I've come to realize the horrible truth behind iPhone's buzz. Over the year I was gone, US phones haven't really done anything. Providers push a miniscule lineup of uninspiring designs and then charge unbelievable prices for even basic things like text messages. I was greeted at every kiosk by more tired clamshells built to last until obselescense, and money can't buy a replacement for my W41CA. I finally broke down and got a $20 Virgin phone to at least get me connected until I get over my initial shock. In short, American phones suck, and iPhone is hopefully a wakeup call to US providers and customers. Why is the American phone situation so depressing?

Before I left for Japan about a year ago, I was using a Nokia 3160. It cost me $40 US and I had to sign a one year contract that Cingular later decided was a two-year contract. I was paying about $40 a month for service and had extra fees for SMS messages.

After I got to Kyoto, I quickly ended up at an AU shop and landed a Casio W41CA. It does email, music, pc web browsing, gps, fm radio, tv, phone-wallet, pictures (2megapixel), videos, calculator etc. I walked out of the store for less than ¥5000 (about $41) including activation fees, and I was only paying slightly over ¥4000 (about $33) per month. That included ¥3000 for a voice plan I rarely used and ¥1000 for effectively unlimited data (emails and internet).

Perhaps someone with more knowledge of the costs facing American mobile providers can explain the huge technology and cost gap between the US and Japan. Why are we paying so much for such basic features?

At first, I thought maybe it was something to do with network infrastructure. The US is a huge land area and Japan is very tiny. However, Japan would have lots of towers because of the terrain. Imagine something like Colorado covered in metropolitan area. Also, even though places like rural New Mexico exist, nobody has an obligation to cover them, and from the look of coverage maps, no providers do. Operating a US network that reaches 40% of the nation's population requires nowhere near reaching 40% of the land area. The coverage explanation alone isn't enough.

Another possibility was the notion that because Americans keep their phones until they break, phone companies don't focus much on selling cutting edge phones and won't dare ship a spin-chassis to Oklahoma. However, with the contract life longer, the cost of the phone could be spread out over a longer period. If Americans like phones that are built to last and then let them last, the phones should be really cheap. From my perspective, they are rediculously priced, so this argument also fails.

The next exlpanation I turned to is that people in the US tend to want winners. We like one ring to rule them all and one phone to establish all of what is good in phone fashion for the next three years. However, Motorola's sales are sagging as the population got tired of dime-a-dozen RAZR's and subsequent knockoffs. Apparently, we have more fashion sense or at least desire for individuality than to keep buying hundreds of millions of the same design. Arguing that the US market tends to gravitate to one phone and then champion it is not making Motorola money.

At last I started to wonder if it was because Americans buy less phones as a whole, making the cost of marketing as many different models as the Japanese prohibitive. However, with something like three times the population, the US should be more than enough market for all the glittery treasures of Akiba. What is the problem?

I'm out of leads at this point. It's not like the FCC is charging Cingular and Verizon billions of dollars per year and the costs are getting passed on to the consumer. Japanese don't have genetically superior cellphone taste. I remember that there was talk of how fierce mobile competition was and how it was hurting mobile providers' earnings. However, if Japanese companies can make money at those prices while selling those phones, what's the problem in the US? It seems to me more like competition is non-existent and US providers are ramming yesteryear's designs down our throats while charging us an arm and a leg! Someone please give me some insight.
Privacy

Submission + - MPAA: Plagarism good, Piracy bad? 1

Submitted by BillGatesLoveChild
BillGatesLoveChild writes: The MPAA is fast to complain about their Intellectual Property being violated, but have no qualms about violating the Intellectual Property of others. The SMH reports another case of a Hollywood Studio plagarizing a film as their own. Adam Sandler's I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry (2007) is a tale of two firemen who pretend to be gay to get domestic partner benefits. Curiously Paul Hogan's Strange Bedfellows (2004) made three years earlier, is also a tale of two firemen who pretend to be gay to get domestic partner benefits. Universal Studios issued a statement claiming "the similarities are purely coincidental". The producers of "Strange Bedfellows" are amused but not convinced.

This isn't the first time, with similar accusations being made against Spielberg's Julie Newmar (1995) vs Priscilla (1994) and Eddie Murphy's "Coming to America" which the courts found was stolen from writer Art Buchwald. Add to that "Hollywood Accounting" fleecing artists (The Forest Gump movie didn't pay the author a cent in royalties), the Record Industry doing the same and the MPAA itself caught yet unrepentant for pirating movies. Before The Senate rushes off to do their bidding, shouldn't the MPAA and RIAA be ordered to clean up their own houses?
Announcements

Submission + - Pope: Creation vs. evolution clash an 'absurdity' (msn.com)

Submitted by
RobertinXinyang
RobertinXinyang writes: "The Pope has spoken out on both the issue of creation v. evolution and on the issue of the environment. Of course, many slashdot readers are such bigots that thtt will have to watch that their jerking knees do not hit their, foaming with ignorant hate, mouths when the pope is even mentioned; however, the facts are that a lot of people do listed to him. If the number of people who listen to him were taken as a sole concern, his comments are relevant.
"Pope Benedict XVI said the debate raging in some countries — particularly the United States and his native Germany — between creationism and evolution was an "absurdity," saying that evolution can coexist with faith... This clash is an absurdity because on one hand there is much scientific proof in favor of evolution, which appears as a reality that we must see and which enriches our understanding of life and being as such... Benedict also said the human race must listen to "the voice of the Earth" or risk destroying its very existence... We all see that today man can destroy the foundation of his existence, his Earth... We cannot simply do what we want with this Earth of ours, with what has been entrusted to us," said the pope."
Intel

Submission + - Intel Researchers Demonstrate 40Gbps Optical Chips (gearlog.com)

Submitted by
scott3778
scott3778 writes: "Intel Researchers announced they have successfully demonstrated a 40Gbps optical chip on Wednesday [http://www.gearlog.com/2007/07/intel_researchers_ demonstrate.php], an accomplishment the company says will yield cheaper photonic integrated circuits (PICs)."
Networking

Submission + - New Ethernet standard:not 40Gbps,not 100, but both (mcox.com)

Submitted by
Artemis
Artemis writes: "When Ethernet was originally created in 1974 it was a 3Mbps technology from Bob Metcalfe at Xerox PARC that few thought would beat out technologies such as Token Ring from the big boys like IBM. But Metcalfe left Xerox to found 3com and promote Ethernet, while also boosting the speed from 3Mbps to 10Mbps, compared to Token Rings 6Mbps. Now a days 1Gbps networks are becoming standard and 10Gbps networks are creeping in to specialized situations. But the Higher Speed Study Group (HSSG) is not satisfied. They have approved a Project Authorization Request (PAR) for a new standard, IEEE 802.3ba, which will give Ethernet speeds of up to 100Gbps.

When IEEE 802.3ba was originally proposed their were multiple possible speeds that were being discussed, including 40, 80, 100, and 120Gbps. While there options were eventually narrowed down to just two, 40 and 100Gbps, the HSSG had difficulties decided on the one specific speed they wanted to become the new standard. HSSG chair John D'Ambrosia told PC World that although he "wouldn't say there was a fight, I would say their was an education going on, and it got heated at times." During the discussions two different groups formed, one which wanted faster server-to-switch connections at 40Gbps and one which wanted a more robust network backbone at 100Gbps. The higher speed required more expensive and power-hungry equipment, you can find out more about it from this presentation [PDF].

Unable to come up with a consensus the HSSG decided to standardize both 40Gbps and 100Gbps speeds as the IEEE 803.23ba standard. Each speed will use different connection equipment. 40Gbps can be 1 meter long on the backplane, 10 meters for copper cable and 100 meters for fiber-optics. The 100Gbps standard includes specifications for 10 kilometer and 40 kilometer connections over single-mode fiber.

According to D'Ambrosia this is the first time the specification group has approved two different speeds in the same specification. If IEEE approves the specification it could be completed by 2010 with devices that support is soon thereafter."
The Internet

Submission + - BBC Claims Open Source = unlicensed and unprotecte

Submitted by Buirseach
Buirseach writes: The BBC's The Today Programme ran an interview with the lawyer for Facebook, broadcasting his assertons that Open Source projects have no protection and no license, and so the creator of Facebook is perfectly entitled to halp himself to whatever code of theirs he wants. The news story is in relation to 3 university buddies of the founder of facebook sueing him.
Microsoft

Submission + - MS Manufacturing Consent to OOXML fast-track

Submitted by
Stephen Samuel
Stephen Samuel writes: "In Spain, Microsoft appears to be fighting desperately to make it look like they have wide-ranging support for the OOXML fast-track. The story surprised Groklaw's PJ enough that she asked for translators to make sure that she correctly understood what had happened. Apparently, technicians for the Spanish region of Andalusia had written a letter which espoused a preference for ODF, but expressed a willingness to provide technical support in the examination of document standards generally — including Microsoft's OOXML documentation.

Shortly before a meeting to vote on Microsoft's proposal, Microsoft sent off a letter with carefully chosen tidbits of Andalusia's letter designed to make Andalusia's support of ODF look like support for OOXML. Andalusia's technical team was apparently so miffed by this willful misrepresentation of their stance that they wrote an official complaint to the president of the national technical committee denouncing the misrepresentation, and re-iterating (emphasizing, even) their lack of support for OOXML."
Programming

Submission + - Intel open-sources parallelization Framework

Submitted by CajunArson
CajunArson writes: An interesting article over at Ars Technica discussing Intel's recent release of its http://osstbb.intel.com/">Thread Building Blocks 2.0 templating library for C++. This library provides a higher level of abstraction for writing parallel code than normal POSIX or Windows threads provide. It has been pushed by Intel in the past as a similar concept to OpenMP, although its template nature means it is much more focused on C++.

Some interesting notes on Intel's earnestness in open-sourcing the project: Released under GPL version 2, it runs on non-Intel CPUs (even non-x86 as in the G5), and it is already ported to Linux and Solaris as well as Windows.

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