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Comment Re:Pidgin Plugins (Score 1) 1104

by nwbvt (#23261442) Attached to: Pidgin Controversy Triggers Fork
They did make a plugin for that, the fork was actually more in response to the fact that this kind of thing is fairly common with the pidgin/gaim developers. They don't particularly value the comments made by users who don't contribute to the project, which is fine for a small open source project but not so great for something that is distributed as the default im client for many desktops. In this light, a fork makes perfect sense.
Linux Business

Linux To Take Over The Low-End PC Market? 391

Posted by Zonk from the penguins-on-the-loose dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Desktop Linux has a recent commentary on the inevitable growth of Linux on the cheaper end of the desktop market. According to the article, the availability of under-$500 usable hardware, combined with a free operating system, free desktop office products, and free or cheap 'software as a service' online applications, opens a new market in which Microsoft cannot compete. 'Microsoft will fight this trend tooth and nail. It will cut prices to the point where it'll be bleeding ink on some of its product lines. And Windows XP is going to stick around much longer than Microsoft ever wanted it to. Still, it won't be enough.'"
Math

Best Way To Teach Oneself Math? 609

Posted by kdawson from the making-up-for-lost-time dept.
An anonymous reader writes "In high school I failed two out of three years of math classes and eventually dropped out of school completely. I earned my general equivalency diploma as soon as was legally possible and from there went on to college and beyond. That was many years ago and my most basic algebra, trigonometry, and geometry skills are slipping away at an alarming rate. I'm looking for a self-guided course covering the equivalent of 4 years of high school mathematics including calculus. My math skills are holding me back. How can I turn this around?"
Supercomputing

Cracking Go 328

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the brute-force-always-a-fun-solution dept.
prostoalex writes "IEEE Spectrum looks at current trends in artificial technology to crack the ancient Chinese game of Go, which theoretically has 10^60 potential endings. Is conquering the game via exhaustive search of all possibilities possible? 'My gut feeling is that with some optimization a machine that can search a trillion positions per second would be enough to play Go at the very highest level. It would then be cheaper to build the machine out of FPGAs (field-programmable gate arrays) instead of the much more expensive and highly unwieldy full-custom chips. That way, university students could easily take on the challenge.'"
Moon

The New Moon Race 212

Posted by Zonk from the make-the-jump dept.
An anonymous reader writes "News.com has a pictoral and editorial look at the quickly-heating second race to the moon. A Japanese orbital probe is expected to reach orbit of the satellite sometime today, just one of the dozens of projects now aiming to exploit Earth's orbital partner for scientific and business gains. 'The next lunar visitor may come from China. The Chang'e-1 spacecraft is scheduled to lift off near the end of October. It is slated to study the moon's topography in 3D and also investigate its elements. Chang'e-3 is a soft lunar lander that is scheduled to fly in 2010 ... If all goes as planned, the United States and India will have astronauts on the moon by 2020, China by 2022, and Japan and Russia by 2025.'"
The Courts

Jack Thompson Sets His Sights On Halo 3 240

Posted by Zonk from the because-he-has-nothing-better-to-do dept.
GamePolitics is reporting that anti-game advocate Jack Thompson is seeking to have Halo 3 declared a nuisance to the public in Florida. He tried the same stunt with Bully, and failed then too. "As with Bully, Thompson clearly hopes the court will grant him a hearing. Although after last year's well-publicized Bully performance, which earned Thompson a Bar complaint from presiding Judge Ronald Friedman, that seems unlikely. More troubling by far are the long term implications of this action. Thompson apparently feels emboldened to invoke Florida's public nuisance law against any video game he desires to target. That is the essence of censorship and the video game industry cannot allow it to continue on any number of grounds - legal, moral or creative."
Google

Google Unveils Flash Ads 225

Posted by Zonk from the hip-hip-hooray dept.
Gailin writes "Google has announced and given some examples of their new Flash based ads. They seem to vary from average size to full screen-width Flash advertisements, with some interactive abilities. 'Gadget ads can incorporate real-time data feeds, images, video and much more in a single creative unit and can be developed using Flash, HTML or a combination of both. Designed to act more like content than a typical ad, they run on the Google(TM) content network, competing alongside text, image and video ads for placement. They support both cost-per-click and cost-per-impression pricing models, and offer a variety of contextual, site, geographic and demographic targeting options to ensure the ads reach relevant users with precision and scale.'"
Businesses

12 Year Old Gets $6.5M for Gaming Company 180

Posted by samzenpus from the that's-a-lot-of-candy dept.
Bayscribe writes "A Silicon Valley company co-founded by a 12-year-old has just raised $6.5 million in venture capital. PlaySpan, based in Santa Clara, Calif. says it offers game publishers a technology that lets users make payments and shop for other items. It calls itself the first "publisher-sponsored in-game commerce network." Arjun Mehta, a 6th grader, says on his Web site that he is passionate about software that can make the game experience more "rewarding," and that he started the company last year in his garage. He paid for it from earnings made from selling online game items he won."
Space

Opportunity Takes a Dip Into Victoria Crater 79

Posted by CmdrTaco from the probably-not-skinny dept.
Muad'Dave writes "From the NASA News Release 'Today, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity entered Victoria Crater for the first time. It radioed home information via a relay by NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter, reporting its activities for the day. Opportunity drove far enough in — about four meters (13 feet) — to get all six wheels past the crater rim. Then it backed uphill for about three meters (10 feet). The driving commands for the day included a precaution for the rover to stop driving if its wheels were slipping more than 40 percent. Slippage exceeded that amount on the last step of the drive, so Opportunity stopped with its front pair of wheels still inside the crater.' This marks the beginning of perhaps the greatest 'Opportunity' for new discoveries on Mars."
Privacy

Manhattan 1984 545

Posted by samzenpus from the watching-you dept.
Etherwalk writes "The New York Times is reporting on developments in the quest to charge driving fees for all vehicles headed below 86th Street in Manhattan. Notably absent from any part of the discussion is that a record is made of every car or truck that enters, together with the vehicle ownership information and the date and time of travel — either as part of EZ-Pass or in license-plate photos taken for subsequent billing."

Change Google's Background Color To Save Energy? 519

Posted by CowboyNeal from the turned-off-until-further-notice dept.
i_like_spam writes "Recent commentary at Nature Climate Change describes an on-going debate about the energy savings associated with the background colors used by high-traffic websites such as Google and the NYTimes. A back of the envelope calculation has suggested energy savings of 750 Megawatt hours per year if Google switched their background from white to black. In response, a new version of Google called Blackle was created. However, other calculations by the Wall Street Journal suggest minimal energy savings."
Portables

Are Cheap Laptops a Roadblock for Moore's Law? 335

Posted by Zonk from the there-will-always-be-gamers dept.
Timothy Harrington writes "Cnet.co.uk wonders if the $100 laptop could spell the end of Moore's Law: 'Moore's law is great for making tech faster, and for making slower, existing tech cheaper, but when consumers realize their personal lust for faster hardware makes almost zero financial sense, and hurts the environment with greater demands for power, will they start to demand cheaper, more efficient 'third-world' computers that are just as effective?" Will ridiculously cheap laptops wean consumers off ridiculously fast components?"
Handhelds

Submission + - iphone security hole - and a free AT&T cellpho (blorge.com)

Submitted by
destinyland
destinyland writes: "Security researchers have identified three separate ways to install malicious code on your iPhone. By mimicking a trusted wireless access point, they're able to install malicious code and then access everything. "In our proof of concept, this code reads the log of SMS messages, the address book, the call history and the voicemail data...then transmits all this information to the attacker." The other two methods involve embedding the code in messages, or in hyperlinks on a web page. But there's some good news too. Bloggers have identified a loophole in AT&T's cellphone contracts. AT&T subsidizes $250 of your cellphone cost if you sign up for a two-year contract. Upgrade your cellphone to an iPhone, and you can transfer the two-year contract — while keeping the free cellphone!"

Hilf Claims Free Software Movement Dead 395

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the faster-than-a-speeding-fud dept.
moe1975 writes to mention that Bill Hilf has taken a rather aggressive stance with regard to the status of the Free Software movement. With claims like; "The Free Software movement is dead. Linux doesn't exist in 2007. Even Linus has got a job today" it would certainly seem that the next offensive is going to be sponsored by denial. "For the desktop, Hilf sees a new frontier in terms of rich client programming. With more and more services by Amazon, Google, Yahoo and, of course, Microsoft being run as services rather than as software installed locally, it will be up to the desktop to provide richer functionality."

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