Comment Re:Cool, but... (Score 1) 218
Is geonames.org of comparable quality for you?
Comment Re:lol (Score 0) 218
It is no longer CC-BY-SA, but rather ODbL. See http://www.osmfoundation.org/wiki/License/We_Are_Changing_The_License
Moglen: Facebook Is a Man-In-The-Middle Attack 376
jfruh writes "In an email exchange with privacy blogger Dan Tynan, Columbia law professor Eben Moglen referred to Facebook as a 'man in the middle attack' — that is, a service that intercepts communication between two parties and uses it for its own nefarious purposes. He said, 'The point is that by sharing with our actual friends through a web intermediary who can store and mine everything, we harm people by destroying their privacy for them. It's not the sharing that's bad, it's the technological design of giving it all to someone in the middle. That is at once outstandingly stupid and overwhelmingly dangerous.' Tynan is a critic of Facebook, but he thinks Moglen is overstating the case."
Comment Re:this, and then that other thing... (Score 2) 178
Note –Steve Coast now works for a competitor of Google (Maps).
SlideShare Ditches Flash, Rebuilds Site In HTML5 154
Frankie70 writes "SlideShare has ditched Adobe Flash technology entirely, and rebuilt its website using the HTML5 markup language. This means that SlideShare is now viewable on every kind of mobile device, from iPads to iPhones to Android devices and beyond."
Paypal Founder Helping Build Artificial Island Nations 692
MadMartigan2001 writes with a pretty crazy article on a project involving floating libertarian paradises. From the article: "PayPal founder and early Facebook investor Peter Thiel has given $1.25 million to an initiative to create floating libertarian countries in international waters. Thiel has been a big backer of the Seasteading Institute, which seeks to build sovereign nations on oil rig-like platforms to occupy waters beyond the reach of law-of-the-sea treaties."
Comment Re:Okay, good... (Score 1) 413
'Firefox has h264 added on with the MS WMP plugin'
In Windows 7.
For users outside of that 20% of 90%, Firefox will support Ogg and WebM.
Comment Re:I hope that Firefox isn't playing Microsoft's g (Score 2, Insightful) 363
If you hadn't noticed, every synthetic benchmark released from a browser vendor favoured their engine, at time of release. At least Google had balls to call it v8bench.
While I believe all benchmarks (and non-comprehensive ACID tests) to be 3dmark-style pissing contests where they encourage developers to fast-path specific used functions, I have more confidence in Mozilla producing another (Dromaeo also tried to have a more realistic workflow).
Nissan Unveils All-Electric LEAF 586
MojoRilla writes "In Japan, Nissan unveiled their all-electric LEAF (press release, and Flash site). Slated to launch in late 2010 in Japan, the US, and Europe, this car will have a 100-mile range, seats 5, has an advanced computer system with remote control by IPhone, and promises to be competitively priced. While this car's range won't work for everyone, it could be a game changer as a commuter car." Recharge time is 8 hours with a 200-volt power source, and "just under 30 minutes with a quick charger" (no further details given) to charge to 80% of capacity.
Comment Re:Ironkey also supports Linux! (Score 1) 191
I got a review piece of hardware from InfoSec and tried it out in Linux.
You can mount it once the key has been set-up, but you can't set it up under Linux with the software provided.
So this key *requires* Windows before it can be used under Linux, which is pretty bloody stupid.
Since I don't have any copies of that software, it pretty much doubles the cost of the drive.
Developer Stigma After a Bad Or Catastrophic Release? 223
An anonymous reader writes "We hear in the news all the time about how executives can drive a company into the ground and yet somehow become more desirable to other big companies. What we don't hear about are the grunts who implemented those decisions, and whether or not they end up resume-stained or blacklisted. Since we've got so many developers with lots of time in the trenches, I thought I would appeal to their experience. When disaster looms and sales starts pushing for development that has little chance but to end in disaster, what happens to the programmer who decides he needs his job enough to follow orders? Have they ever become unhireable?"
Submission + - Microsoft 'offers' $10k to IE users (ostatic.com)
ruphus13 writes: In the latest attempt to battle the declining share of Internet Explorer, Microsoft is dipping into its huge cash reserves to provide 'incentives' to people to switch to IE. In a new move, Microsoft is offering $10,000 in prize money that is 'buried' somewhere on the Internet, but can only be retrieved by using IE. Of course, several people will use IE, and a few will hopefully continue to do so even after 'discovery'. From the post, "How desperate is Microsoft to woo users to its Internet Explorer version 8 browser? Mozilla Chair Mitchell Baker points out in a blog post that Microsoft is now offering $10,000 in prize money "buried somewhere on the Internet" which you can only find if you use Internet Explorer. Come on Microsoft, Internet Explorer needs a lot more than this marketing campaign to shore up its prospects...Until Microsoft fosters the kind of free, open extensibility for its browser that Firefox has, it remains doomed to watch Internet Explorer continue to lose market share."
Submission + - Open Letter to Mozilla Regarding Their Use of HTML (osnews.com)
AberBeta writes: We're on the verge of a serious evolution on the web. Right now, the common way to include video on the web is by use of Flash, a closed-source technology. The answer to this is the HTML5 video tag, which allows you to embed video into HTML pages without the use of Flash or any other non-HTML technology; combined with open video codecs, this could provide the perfect opportunity to further open up and standardise the web. Sadly, not even Mozilla itself really seems to understand what it is supposed to do with the video tag, and actually advocates the use of JavaScript to implement it. Kroc Camen, OSNews editor, is very involved in making/keeping the web open, and has written an open letter to Mozilla in which he urges them to not use JavaScript for HTML video. Coincidentally, this comes on the first day of the Open Video Conference, an event meant to espouse the virtues of using the video tag, which is hypocritically using Flash to live stream the event on their homepage!
Bookmark Open Letter to Mozilla Regarding Their Use of HTML5 Video (osnews.com)
Submission + - Chinese passing off fake drugs as 'Made in India' (indiatimes.com)
prapu writes: The Times of India reports "Are fake drugs manufactured in China being pushed into various African countries with the `Made in India' tag? The Indian government
has long suspected this to be the case, but it now has definite evidence for the first time. "
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/China/Chinese-passing-off-fake-drugs-as-Made-in-India/articleshow/4633377.cms
