Submission + - Warfighters Using Wikis & Web 3.0 (socialcomputingmagazine.com)
An anonymous reader writes: According to this article, the military and intelligence technology communities have now moved beyond merely spawning Intellipedia, already widely used by individuals with appropriate clearances from the 16 agencies of the United States intelligence community. Now, Web 2.0-style mashups are being used to develop integrated battlespace management and situational awareness systems. Even more interesting, the Defense Intelligence Agency has deployed a suite of 13 different commercial metadata extraction and tagging services in order to inject greater semantic meaning into its data. War, in other words, is going Web 3.0.
Submission + - Europeans get vacations, Americans get the shaft.
End Program writes: According to this article, American workers are getting the shaft when it comes to vacation time and perks. http://www.alternet.org/workplace/56523/ I also noticed the same sentiment is echoed in the new Michael Moore movie Sicko.
I have been working in the tech industry for almost 10 years now and have not passed the two-week mark for vacation time. I also tried to convince my latest employer to start me with three weeks vacation but to no avail. Has the Slashdot community seen the same stingy attitude while working for American corporations?
I have been working in the tech industry for almost 10 years now and have not passed the two-week mark for vacation time. I also tried to convince my latest employer to start me with three weeks vacation but to no avail. Has the Slashdot community seen the same stingy attitude while working for American corporations?
BBC Trust Will Hear iPlayer Openness Complaints 177
AnotherDaveB writes with a Register story reporting that the BBC Trust has asked to meet with open source advocates to discuss their complaints over the corporation's Windows-only on-demand broadband TV service, iPlayer. The development came less than 48 hours after a meeting between the Open Source Consortium and regulators at Ofcom on Tuesday. Officials agreed to press the Trust, the BBC's governing body, to meet the OSC. The consortium received an invitation on Wednesday afternoon.
Submission + - Google in Colorado safe cracking caper (theregister.co.uk)
JazzLad writes: "It's true. Google can help with anything. Minutes before they opened several locked safes at a "family fun center" in Colorado Springs, a team of masked bandits sat down at a nearby PC and Googled "safe-cracking." "They brought up a site called 'How to Open Safes,'" Colorado Springs detective Chuck Ackerman told The Register."
Submission + - ACCC takes 'deceptive' Google to court (news.com.au)
ulathau writes: GOOGLE, the "world's best search engine" is being taken to court by the Australian competition watchdog, which is alleging the company engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct, relating to its sponsered links.
Submission + - Self-Centered Cultures Narrow Your Viewpoint (eurekalert.org)
InvisblePinkUnicorn writes: "NewScientist reports on research indicating that people from Western cultures such as the US are particularly challenged in their ability to understand someone else's point of view because they are part of a culture that encourages individualism. In the experiment, Chinese students outperformed their US counterparts when ask to infer another person's perspective. Volunteers had to follow the instructions of a director and move named objects from one compartment to another. But sometimes the researchers placed two objects of the same kind (eg, "wooden block") in the grid. 95% of Chinese students would immediately understand which object to move — the one visible to both them and the director. Their US counterparts, however, did not always catch on — only 35% understood what to do."
Submission + - Court reporter shortage cutting deep (networkworld.com)
coondoggie writes: "The federal Telecommunications Act boosted demand for court reporters by mandating large increases in the numbers and types of broadcasts that must be closed-captioned as well as other spoken testimony or information that must be read, searched and archived. While that move alone should have boosted the numbers of court reporters, their numbers are dwindling to alarming levels. The number of schools taking part in NCRA's certification programs and their graduates have steadily declined over the decade. Almost 1,000 students graduated from more than 100 NCRA-certified schools in 1996. This year, 62 certified programs across the U.S. will graduate fewer than 350 court reporters. Link: Graduation trends in NCRA-certified programs says Reesa Parker, NCRA's president
http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/1746 3"
Submission + - Windows losing ground with US developers
Seeker451 writes: "Microsoft's Windows platform is losing traction with application developers in North America, according to a survey by Evans Data.
http://www.techworld.com/news/index.cfm?NewsID=935 7"
Submission + - Cellular networks should be open, says major news (yahoo.com)
athloi writes: "In the USA, however, cellphone service providers can and do thwart innovative technologies and limit competition. For example, they routinely bar handset makers from including Wi-Fi capabilities, which can save consumers a bundle by allowing them to use a free network when they are in "hot spots." With more new technologies on the way, the current system could stifle innovation.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20070712/cm_usato day/ourviewonspectrumforsaledisconnectphoneprovide r"
Submission + - Privacy Isn't Dead, or At Least It Shouldn't Be (sciam.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Scientific American sits down with Carnegie Mellon computer scientist Latanya Sweeney to discuss online privacy. After a brief discussion of the importance of privacy in society (and a few paragraphs on her life) Latanya Sweeny, who heads the Data Privacy Lab at Carnegie Mellon University, talks about just how easy it is to identify people through publicly available information. From the article:
"[Earlier in my career] I had learned that if I had the date of birth, gender and a five-digit zip code of a person, I could identify 87 percent of the people in the United States. So even if you don't give me your social security number, I can find out who you are nearly nine out of 10 times."
Submission + - All 11.6 million Xbox360's are faulty
Anonymous non-xbox360-owning Coward writes: It seems that Microsoft has admitted that all of the 11.6 million sold Xbox360 units are faulty with a design error. So beware, your console may be dead tomorrow. Read more here
Submission + - Steorn's free energy demo delayed
Lisandro writes: "Steorn announced that the demo for its Orbo free-energy technology, which was to be presented at Kinentica Museum in London, complete with a live broadcast with 4 cameras over Internet, has been postponed. Steorn's CEO stated that 'technical problems arose during the installation of the demonstration unit in the display case on Wednesday evening. These problems were primarily due to excessive heat from the lighting in the main display area. Attempts to replace those parts affected by the heat led to further failures and as a result we have to postpone the public demonstration until a future date.'
Slasdot covered the original announcement in a previous story."
Submission + - Steorn's Kinetica Demonstration Postponed (steorn.com)
ManoSinistra writes: "Steorn's public demonstration of their new free energy technology, "Orbo", has been postponed.
"Sean McCarthy CEO stated that "technical problems arose during the installation of the demonstration unit in the display case on Wednesday evening. These problems were primarily due to excessive heat from the lighting in the main display area. Attempts to replace those parts affected by the heat led to further failures and as a result we have to postpone the public demonstration until a future date."
Submission + - H1-B: Cut the Cap! (cio.com)
Chris Lindquist writes: "The debate over keeping or raising the current cap on H1-B visas rages on. CIO magazine's publisher Gary Beach proposes another solution: Cut the cap by 50 percent next year, sunset it to oblivion by 2014, and replace guest worker programs with efforts to promote technical education for US students. His rallying cry? "Cut the Cap!""
