mkcheme - Slashdot User

Submission + - Vote Swapping Ruled Legal!

Submitted by cayenne8 on Tuesday August 07, 2007 @01:34PM

cayenne8 writes: Way back when (2000), during that election, there were some sites set up (voteswap.com and votexchange.com) for people across the nation to agree to swap votes. This was set up mostly for Nader and Gore voters to work against Bush.

California representatives threatened to proscute these sites as criminal offenses, and many of them shut down. On Monday, the 9th US court of appeals upheld that "the websites' vote-swapping mechanisms as well as the communication and vote swaps they enabled were constitutionally protected" and California's spurious threats violated the First Amendment. The 9th Circuit also said the threats violated the U.S. Constitution's Commerce Clause."

See the story HERE .

Submission + - As Featured in 2600: Internet Archaeology (mattparnell.com)

Submitted by

ilikenwf

on Tuesday August 07, 2007 @01:28PM

ilikenwf writes: "This is an article that is featured in the current issue of 2600. It deals with finding lost media and content on the Internet Archive using uncommon methods. Believe it or not, there is in fact content other than html, php, and java on the Wayback Machine. It indexes archives, videos, sounds, and more! Used as an example (downloadable at the bottom of the page) are files discovered from the old ZDTV and TechTV sites, which include interesting items like a font of Cat's handwriting, source PSD and EPS files for many show logos, and much, much more, alongside a multitude of files from the old Fox Kids television site.
There's lots of great stuff out there, you just have to know where to look!"

Submission + - Nissan now hits the Brakes for you...

Submitted by cayenne8 on Tuesday August 07, 2007 @01:09PM

cayenne8 writes: Well, a few days ago, we heard that Nissan was fixing its cars up to detect if you've had a drink or two, and not let you drive. Now, it appears that Nissan is going to brake for you now too. .

From the article, "When speed and distance sensors on the car detect an imminent crash, the gas pedal lifts slightly to warn the driver. If the driver eases pressure on the gas pedal in response, the car automatically brakes instead of waiting until the driver slams a foot on the brake pedal".

A more detailed article on this is HERE

Personally, I like to be MORE in control of my own car, not less....remind me not to buy any newer Nissan model cars in the future, unless these options can be disabled or left off the car entirely.

Submission + - DefCon nabs undercover TV reporter (networkworld.com)

Submitted by

sumj

on Tuesday August 07, 2007 @12:42PM

sumj writes: "Defcon nabs undercover TV reporter It's a story of betrayal worthy of an episode of Dateline NBC. Dateline NBC Producer Michelle Madigan was publicly outed at the DefCon security conference in Las Vegas Friday after show organizers were tipped off that she was trying to film show attendees with a hidden camera."

Submission + - Mot Finally Ships Linux Mobile Phones in the U.S.

Submitted by on Tuesday August 07, 2007 @12:35PM

An anonymous reader writes: At long last, Motorola has finally shipped its first Linux-based mobile phone 'bound for North America.' The RAZR2 V8, which quietly became available last month, is a highly multimedia-oriented quad-band GSM/GPRS phone, with features such as Windows Media Player 11 codec, a USB 2.0 interface supporting 480Mbps file transfers, and a 'music touchscreen' on the external display. The company is also going to supplying a development toolsuite aimed at encouraging the development of third-party native Linux apps. Motorola announced plans to adopt Linux more than four years ago, but has shipped Linux phones in volume only in Asia and Latin America, to date.

Submission + - How eBay doesnt collapse. Scientific American

Submitted by David Greenspan on Tuesday August 07, 2007 @12:32PM

David Greenspan writes: Ever wonder why sellers on eBay aren't more dishonest? Scientific American did. In an article titled "Is Greed Good?" they discuses how it is possible for eBay to function since many scientists believe in the concept of "Homo economicus (economic man)" that a man is "a rational, selfish person who single-mindedly strives for maximum profit." According to that concept every seller should simply flee with the buyers' money yet this is clearly not the case, Scientific American discusses why. Scientific American

Submission + - $150 laptop is failing to deliver. 1

Submitted by

nnm.one

on Tuesday August 07, 2007 @12:01PM

nnm.one writes: "After several weeks of amazing discoveries and debunked claims made by 'Medison Europe Ltd' (the $150 laptop) the latest that has happened is that EMEA Services (contractor to Medison for the shipping of the laptops) has said in a public statement that they have canceled the [non existent] partnership (in Swedish) with Medisons CEO and founder Valdi Ivancic. Just hours before this, yet another statement from Valdi Ivancic was debunked, where he was caught lying about having an average 1.5 million (article in swedish) unique visitors per day and about ~10 million/week, a user of the forum on "cint.se" found out that by adding /webalizer to the end of the URL's (www.medisoncelebrity.com, www.medison.se) you are able to see the traffic stats updated in regular intervals, which show 70k unique visitors so far in August. You can follow the news about the Medison Celebrity laptop and the discussions and Swedish articles translated to english here."

Submission + - Roadtrip course determined by online voters (pollsb.com)

Submitted by

Dan Hunter

on Tuesday August 07, 2007 @11:57AM

Dan Hunter writes: "Polls Boutique (pollsb.com), a rich-media polling site, just sent three people on a cross-country roadtrip. The catch: what they do, where they go, and who drives is all determined by online votes on the pollsb.com website. Right now the guys are in Charleston SC, and it seems the crowd has decided (by 54%) to send them to Savannah GA next. link: http://www.pollsb.com/aidan/recent"

Submission + - Sun Enters the Commodity Silicon Business (sun.com)

Submitted by Samrobb on Tuesday August 07, 2007 @11:54AM

Samrobb writes: According to Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz, Sun has decided to release its UltraSPARC T2 processor under the GPL. According to Schwartz, "We're announcing the fastest microprocessor we've ever shipped this week — delivering 89.6 Ghz of parallel computing power on a single chip — running standard Java applications and open source OS's. Simultaneously, we've said we're entering the commodity marketplace, and opening the chip up to our competition... To add fuel to the fire, the blueprints for our UltraSPARC T2... the core design files and test suites, will be available to the open source community, via its most popular license: the GPL."

Submission + - Boson explains high-temperature superconductivity

Submitted by kgb1001001 on Friday August 03, 2007 @04:47PM

kgb1001001 writes: Just saw this (http://www.engr.uiuc.edu/news/?xId=071508320770) in a newsletter the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Seems like the key to understanding high-temperature superconductivity might be a new elementary particle. The article discusses how they think that the new boson is an emergent phenomena — maybe you can't find everything by breaking things apart in a particle accelerator.

Submission + - Broadcasters want cash for media streamed at home (webtvwire.com)

Submitted by

marcellizot

on Friday August 03, 2007 @01:17PM

marcellizot writes: "What would you say if told you that there are people out there that want to make sharing your media between devices over a home network illegal? According to Jim Burger, a Washington, D.C attorney who deals with piracy in the broadcasting industry, certain broadcasters want to do just that. Speaking in a recent podcast, Burger remarked about how the broadcasting industry is keen to put controls on sharing media between devices even if those devices are on a home network and even if the sharing is strictly for personal use. When pressed as to why broadcasters would want to do this, Burger replied simply 'because they want you to pay for that right'. WebTVWire has a full report."

Submission + - In 3 weeks iPhone has 1% market, Motorola down 2% (emediawire.com)

Submitted by

pete.com

on Friday August 03, 2007 @01:13PM

pete.com writes: "The latest ChangeWave consumer cell phone survey — completed July 20, 2007 — shows a virtual upheaval occurring among cell phone manufacturers and service providers as a result of Apple's (AAPL) entry into the space. Although iPhone sales are still in their nascent stages, the effects on cell phone manufacturers are already beginning to take shape — and no company is bearing the brunt of this more than Motorola (MOT). While it still leads all other manufacturers in terms of current market share (31%), Motorola has dropped 2-percentage points since a previous ChangeWave survey in April to its lowest level in more than a year. http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2007/8/emw54418 5.htm"

Submission + - Hydrogen turbines generate clean electricity

Submitted by

Roland Piquepaille

on Friday August 03, 2007 @12:59PM

Roland Piquepaille writes: "The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBL) has developed near-zero-emission gas turbines using pure hydrogen as a fuel. But because this LSI (low-swirl injector) technology also can use other fuels, it has the potential to help eliminate millions of tons of carbon dioxide and thousands of tons of nitrous oxides (NOx) from power plants each year. In fact, burners with the LSI emit 2 parts per million of NOx, more than five times less than conventional burners. The multi-patented technology is currently available for licensing. I sure hope that a utility company will be interested. But read more for many additional references and photographs comparing a high-swirl injector (HIS) and a low-swirl injector (LSI)."

Submission + - Turn your Mac Mini into a NAS drive (computerworld.com)

Submitted by

Lucas123

on Friday August 03, 2007 @11:33AM

Lucas123 writes: "The $132 Mini NAS Enclosure from UK-based Lindy Electronics can be connected to a Mac Mini by a USB port and then allows you to backup data over the Internet from up to 64 machines using FTP."

Submission + - First Personal Computer Ad from 1962

Submitted by

Gary

on Friday August 03, 2007 @08:30AM

Gary writes: "The Hewlett Packard 9100A was built with magnetic core memory, printed circuit board ROM, a CRT display and provided industrial strength calculating in a machine that weighed 40 pounds and cost $4900."

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