Comment Re:My first hand experience on Modern Warfare 2 (Score 0, Offtopic) 560
$ sudo yum install potato-pancakes
yum: okay!
yum: okay!
Comment Re:GPS? (Score 1) 99
The PDF document makes reference to its navigation accuracy relative to the last GPS or USBL update. USBL is an underwater positioning system in which the topside (boat) notifies the vehicle of its (the vehicle's) position. First, the topside's acoustic transducer pings the vehicle and determines the direction and distance of the vehicle's response ping. Using some trig and its own GPS position, the topside calculates the vehicle's position, and sends it in an acoustic message down to the vehicle. Coupled with a high-accuracy internal navigation system on the vehicle, this allows the vehicle to stay at depth and hold its survey course for long periods.
Submission + - Smarter homes with an Amigo 1
Roland Piquepaille writes: "I'm sure that some of you remember Jini, an initiative launched in 1998 by Bill Joy of Sun Microsystems. This software was supposed to turn all the devices we use into 'network
citizens,' as Joy said. It never really worked. And even if the electronic devices we own are increasingly network compatible, they still are unable to work together intelligently. This is why the European Union has funded a project to allow your fridge or your TV to communicate with your phone or your PC. This project, named Amigo, will end in February 2008 and was granted 13 millions by the EU. This project enrolled powerful partners such as France Telecom, Microsoft or Philips which pay the rest of the bill, expected to reach 23 millions. The researchers think their approach will be successful because it's an entirely open source project and everyone can participate. But read more for additional references and a picture describing how the Amigo home network will work."
Heavily Discounted Zune Outpacing iPod Sales 407
firegate writes "Yahoo Tech is reporting that the Microsoft Zune, having been heavily discounted for the holiday season, 'is currently Amazon's top-selling music player, beating out the new iPod Nano and the 80GB iPod on the 'Bestsellers in Electronics' list.' An Associated Press report even indicates that the Zune's newfound popularity has left it in short supply, sold out in many locations. Is this a sign that a true competitor, from Microsoft no less, has finally broken into the Apple-dominated MP3 player market? And will this spell more success for Windows-media based music subscription services like Napster?"
Submission + - Gizmodo Declares March "Boycott The RIAA"
Ryan Draga writes: "Tech Bloggers, Gizmodo, are declaring March "Boycott the RIAA Month"
From the article: "The RIAA has the power to shift public policy and to alter the direction of technology and the Internet for one reason and one reason alone: it's totally loaded. Without their millions of dollars to throw at lawyers, the RIAA is toothless. They get their money from us, the consumers, and if we don't like the way they're behaving, we can let them know with our wallets.""
From the article: "The RIAA has the power to shift public policy and to alter the direction of technology and the Internet for one reason and one reason alone: it's totally loaded. Without their millions of dollars to throw at lawyers, the RIAA is toothless. They get their money from us, the consumers, and if we don't like the way they're behaving, we can let them know with our wallets.""
Submission + - Dealing with Security Bugs: A Primer
CowboyRobot writes: "ACM Queue's current issue on Open Source Security includes a short article by Eric Allman of Sendmail on how to handle security bugs in your code.
"Patch with full disclosure. Particularly popular in the open source world (where releasing a patch is tantamount to full disclosure anyway), this involves opening the kimono and exposing everything, including a detailed description of the problem and how the exploit works... Generally speaking, it is easier to find bugs in open source code, and hence the pressure to release quickly may be higher.""
Submission + - YouTube set to filter content
An anonymous reader writes: Computer world reports that Google is racing to head off a media industry backlash over its video Web site YouTube and will soon offer antipiracy technologies to help all copyright holders thwart unauthorized video sharing.
But YouTube has also said the process of identifying copyrighted material is not automated and requires the cooperation of media company partners.
Submission + - Looking for email to web service
An anonymous reader writes: The place where I work has blocked web access and I've been reduced to using an email to web service for web browsing. The biggest downsides to this are the dearth of servers as well as the slow response times of the ones that are available. I've considered setting up my own www4mail http://www.www4mail.org/ server but I've read that My provider (ATT) won't allow an email server on a home account. There are free hosting services that will allow tou to run scripts but again the email restriction applies there as well. Are there any other options I am missing?
Submission + - Finnish Ministry of Justice migrates to OpenOffice
An anonymous reader writes: In December 2006, the Finnish Ministry of Justice decided to migrate to the open source OpenOffice.org office suite. The ministry and its administrative sector will also adopt the OpenDocument ISO standard for the file format of office documents.
After the migration, OpenOffice.org will be the primary office suite for 8500 persons and Microsoft Office for 1500 persons. All Windows XP workstations of the ministry and its administrative sector are installed with OpenOffice.org version 2.
http://www.om.fi/Etusivu/Julkaisut/Julkaisusarjat/ Toimintajahallinto/Toiminnanjahallinnonarkisto/Toi mintajahallinto2007/1171362109118
After the migration, OpenOffice.org will be the primary office suite for 8500 persons and Microsoft Office for 1500 persons. All Windows XP workstations of the ministry and its administrative sector are installed with OpenOffice.org version 2.
http://www.om.fi/Etusivu/Julkaisut/Julkaisusarjat
Telecom Refunds $8 Million for Bad Service 57
Gearu writes in with an article about a hefty refund coming to New Zealanders. It opens, "Telecom New Zealand has admitted it made an error with its Go Large broadband plan and is to credit customers of the service. An internal technical review of the service, launched in October, identified an issue with how internet traffic was being managed on the plan. The Go Large plan was promoted as having traffic management applied to certain applications, but since December the traffic management process had affected all forms of activity.
With around 60,000 customers on the Go Large service, the refunds were expected to total $7.5 million to $8.5 million."
Submission + - Vint Cerf at Google Speaker Series, India
zakkie writes: "Ajit Gaddam reports on a talk by Vint Cerf, Google VP and one of the people considered one of the "founding fathers of the Internet", held at Hyderabad, India. Cerf discusses the challenges facing Google in particular in a connected world, as well as exploring some potential solutions for both businesses and end-users in dealing with connectivity and security. Cerf also stated that were he to do things over again, he'd have pushed IPv6 over IPv4 right from the start."
Submission + - MSFT Plays up Open Source
An anonymous reader writes: One of the longest running open source databases — Postgres — has been around for nearly 11 years (I think.) The powerful object-relational database is a direct competitor to other OSS databases, as well as Microsoft's SQL Server 2005. So why is Microsoft promoting it? Thursday, Microsoft's open source software lab posted PostgreSQL on Windows: A Primer. At first, I get Redmond's interest in promoting anything that runs on Windows as a platform. But looking at this week's news: Ian Murdock visits Redmond, Microsoft and Novell announced their technical roadmap & Red Hat joins Microsoft's Interop Vendor program — is something bigger brewing in Bill's backyard? And how does Ballmer feel about this?
The post is located at: http://port25.technet.com/archive/2007/02/22/postg resql-on-windows-a-primer.aspx
Submission + - Second Google Desktop vulnerability uncovered
zakkie writes: "According to InfoWorld, Google's Desktop indexing engine is vulnerable to an exploit (the second such flaw to be found) that could allow crackers to read files or execute code. By exploiting a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability on Google.com, an attacker can grab all the data off a Google Desktop. Google is said to be "investigating"."
Software Deletes Files to Defend Against Piracy 544
teamhasnoi writes "Back in 2004, we discussed a program that deleted your home directory on entry of a pirated serial number. Now, a new developer is using the same method to protect his software, aptly named Display Eater. In the developers's own words, 'There exist several illegal cd-keys that you can use to unlock the demo program. If Display Eater detects that you are using these, it will erase something. I don't know if this is going to become Display Eater policy. If this level of piracy continues, development will stop.'"
A Bad Month for Firefox 195
marty writes "Februrary is not a good month for Mozilla developers. Infoworld reports about the efforts of Polish researcher Michael Zalewski, who apparently kept finding new vulnerabilities in the popular browser on a daily basis through the month, first postponing the 2.0.0.2 update, and then finding a remotely exploitable flaw in it immediately after its release."
