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Printer

Submission + - Charging More for Printers and Less for Ink (nytimes.com)

Submitted by rkcallaghan
rkcallaghan writes: The New York Times (now registration free!) writes: "Today Xerox is unveiling a costly solid-ink printer for businesses that will print color pages at the same price as black and white. The printer, which can handle 30 pages a minute, will cost $2,499, about $900 more than laser printers that operate at similar speeds. The cost of ink to print 14,000 black-and-white ink pages is about $216, in line with the price for a page from laser printers using toner. But the cost of printing in color will be the same, $72 each for the three ink sticks needed for a wide-color spectrum. Laser toner to print the same number of color pages could cost five times as much."
Security

Submission + - List of deliberately insecure images? 3

Submitted by itchyfish
itchyfish writes: Does anyone know of a good source of deliberately insecure OS images, preferably for VMWare? Googling didn't help much. I'd like to set up a testing lab for some people to practice pen testing, ethical hacking, etc. Of course I could build a bunch of images with specific 'holes' in them myself, but I'm lazy (or smart depending on your point of view) and don't want to do it if someone else has already done so.
HP

Submission + - HP micro-needle to be used in medical patches

Submitted by Stony Stevenson
Stony Stevenson writes: The same programmable micro-needle technology that's embedded into HP office printers could be ever-so-slightly embedded into arms and bellies via a skin patch to inject time-released drugs to patients.

Crospon, a medical device maker based in Ireland, announced on Tuesday that it has signed an intellectual property licensing deal with Hewlett-Packard to develop a transdermal patch that can deliver doses of multiple medicines via technology that's also used in HP's inkjet cartridge printers. A one-inch transdermal patch could contain up to 90,000 micro-needles that can be programmed to "individually fire" medicine into the skin, said Charlie Chapman, an HP director of intellectual property licensing.

Feed Techdirt: Pump-And-Dump Stock Spammers Made $20 Million (techdirt.com)

From feed by techdirtfeed
Well, we already knew that pump-and-dump stock spam scams worked for the spammers, but we weren't aware of just how well they worked. Apparently a group of pump-and-dump spammers made out to the tune of $20 million before they were caught. Of course, unlike in some cases, these scammers involved the executives of the companies they were hyping up -- though, it's unclear to what extent those executives understood what the scammers were planning to do.
Power

Submission + - Saltwater burned as fuel (engadget.com)

Submitted by EzRider
EzRider writes: A gentleman from Erie named John Kanzius made a somewhat "shocking" discovery while he was working on a radio-wave generator he had developed for the treatment of cancer. While attempting to desalinate sea water using radio frequencies, he noticed flashes, and within a few days, had saltwater burning in a test-tube as if it were a candle. The discovery spawned interest from the scientific community, mostly concerned with whether or not the water could be used as a fuel, and of course, healthy doses of disbelief. Last week, a Penn State University chemist named Rustum Roy held a demonstration proving that the science is sound, noting that the water doesn't burn, though the radio frequencies weaken the bonds holding together the salt, releasing hydrogen which is ignited when exposed to the RF field. Mr. Kanzius and Dr. Roy say the question now is the efficiency of the energy, and are presenting the technology to the US Department of Defense and Department of Energy to investigate how useful the technology will be. Of the plentiful maybe-fuel (which apparently burns so hot it can melt test-tubes) Dr. Roy says, "This is the most abundant element in the world. It is everywhere," and (without recognition of the poetic irony, as far as we can tell), "Seeing it burn gives me chills." Check the TV report after the break to see the water in action.
Enlightenment

Submission + - What to do with $100k ... a geek's dream / dilemma 2

Submitted by Anonymous (but lucky) Coward
Anonymous (but lucky) Coward writes: It looks like I'm about to cash in on a pet project I've been nurturing for a few years; a company has stepped forward and is about to pay me roughly $100k for some software I developed. Good for me!

The problem I now face is what do I do with this money? I'm a US citizen in my early 40's, and expect that Uncle Sam will swoop in to take almost 40% of this windfall. What options are there for me to make best advantage of this situation? Is there any way I can avoid or minimize the tax hit?

Basically, what would SlashDotters do?

BusinessWeek Advocates Microsoft Piracy 181

Posted by Zonk from the not-like-they-have-anything-to-lose dept.
xzvf writes "In a lengthy editorial, BusinessWeek advocates allowing users in China and India to pirate Microsoft software so that it can obtain the same level of market share there as it has in the US and Europe. From the piece: 'If Microsoft succeeds in discouraging piracy of Windows in China and India, it is far more likely to drive the user of the pirated software into the Linux camp than it is to steer them into the land of paid-up Windows users. Microsoft's IP management strategy in China and India should instead focus on securing the victory of Windows on the desktops of all PC users. That may require deliberately lax enforcement efforts against pirated copies of Windows for the short and medium term. Only after the Linux threat lessens might Microsoft have the luxury of tightening up piracy protections, as it is now doing in the West. Microsoft can afford to be patient.'"
Role Playing (Games)

Submission + - FreedroidRPG 0.10.2 release 1

Submitted by
Arthur Huillet
Arthur Huillet writes: "Hello,

version 0.10.2 of FreedroidRPG was just released.

FreedroidRPG is an isometric 3D role playing game inspired from Diablo and Fallout.
(http://freedroid.sourceforge.net/info.php)

This new version, mostly unchanged from the -rc4, focuses on making the development for the
game easier, exported some hardcoded data into files, made the map
editor a bit more usable and other major and minor tweaks.

The source code and a win32 binary package are available at
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group _id=54521&package_id=58238&release_id=517900

That all being said, here is what we expect to deliver in the next version of FreedroidRPG:

- Magic is going to make a comeback, after a total redesign aimed at making it more original and
funnier
- New maps
- More dialog translations
- Small improvements on the interface

Updates will be announced on our website at http://www.freedroid.org/.

Contributors for dialog translations, mapping and sound effects are welcome. We are also looking
for testers, especially for platforms such as Mac OS, Linux/PPC, *BSD, etc.
You can contact us on #freedroid on irc.freenode.net, or by mail to freedroid-discussion AT
lists.sourceforge.net."
Networking

Submission + - Half of Americans now have home broadband access

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Nearly half of all Americans have broadband Internet connections in their homes, largely because of increasing use among minorities and the poor, according to an annual survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. The number of home broadband users nationwide now equals the total number of Americans with any type of Internet connection in 2000, the first year the survey was conducted. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/070507-broad band-access-in-american-homes.html
Slashdot.org

Submission + - 6,000-year-old Arctic ponds drying out (thestar.com)

Submitted by
Raver32
Raver32 writes: "Global warming is destroying ponds that have supported life in the Arctic for thousands of years — bad news for the North and an ominous warning to the rest of the world, says a new report by two Canadian scientists. The small, shallow ponds on Ellesmere Island, high in Canada's Eastern Arctic, are drying up and could begin to release greenhouse gases that make the problem worse, says John Smol, a biologist at Queen's University in Kingston. "What happens in the Arctic will affect us all, and not in good ways," says Smol, co-author of the report with Marianne Douglas of the University of Alberta in Edmonton. It is being published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Their findings are the latest in a series of troubling studies that show how global warming is transforming the Arctic. The region is heating up further and faster than any other place on Earth, and "it's the first to show signs of change," Smol says. It's like the canaries that were kept in mines to warn of bad air: "The canary is singing — it's coughing and choking.""
Google

Google Patents the Design of Search Results Page 114

Posted by kdawson from the look-and-feel dept.
prostoalex writes "ZDNet is reporting that USPTO issued a patent to Google, Inc. for 'ornamental design for a graphical user interface'. This is not, as ZDNet points out, a software patent (which is usually issued as a utility patent), but a design patent, which governs the look and feel of the product and prevents others from directly copying it." Ironic, given Google's recent slip-up of copying a Yahoo page. In news on the flipside, Google has launched a patent search service (in beta).
Communications

Study Shows Cell Phones Safe 210

Posted by Zonk from the safe-for-our-human-brains dept.
PreacherTom writes "In a move worthy of the Mythbusters, scientists in Denmark tracked over 420,000 cell phone users over the course of 21 years in an attempt to determine if the urban legend that cell phone use causes cancer is true. Their results: the RF energy produced by the phones did not correlate to an increased incidence of the disease. Please note that this doesn't make chatting on the highway at 85 mph any more safe." From the article: 'This so-called Danish cohort "is probably the strongest study out there because of the outstanding registries they keep,' said Joshua Muscat of Pennsylvania State University, who also has studied cell phones and cancer. 'As the body of evidence accumulates, people can become more reassured that these devices are safe, but the final word is not there yet,' Muscat added."

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