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Microsoft

Microsoft and OLPC Agree To Put XP On the XO Laptop 530

Apro+im points out a NYTimes report which states that Microsoft and the OLPC project have officially agreed to put Windows XP on the XO laptop. While Microsoft has been working toward this for some time, analysts began to think a deal was more likely after Walter Bender resigned from the project and was replaced by Charles Kane. Former OLPC security developer Ivan Krstic had a lot to say about Windows on the XO as well. From the Times: "Windows will add a bit to the price of the machines, about $3, the licensing fee Microsoft charges to some developing nations under a program called Unlimited Potential. For those nations that want dual-boot models, running both Windows and Linux, the extra hardware required will add another $7 or so to the cost of the machines, Mr. Negroponte said. The project's agreement with Microsoft involves no payment by the software giant, and Microsoft will not join One Laptop Per Child's board. 'We've stayed very pure,' Mr. Negroponte said.
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Choosing a USB Hard Drive

PunkOfLinux writes: "I'm looking at getting an external hard drive (USB) for use with my laptop. When I look online, I see so many options that I have no idea where to start. Does anyone here on slashdot have experience with any particular models, or any recommendations?"
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - New eBay scam, without violating ebay policy

Bert64 writes: "It seems that eBay allows you to say one thing about the location of an item in the auction description, but then if the item turns out to be defective to supply a completely different address, in another country, where the item can be returned at buyer's expense. No mention of this was in the original auction listing, in the hope of fooling those who would normally not buy from a foreign seller. Details on http://www.ev4.org/ of how i was stung by this, and how it can so easily be abused by anyone to profit by ripping off unsuspecting buyers while ebay sits back and does nothing about it. So anyone can ship defective items, and then make the returns process expensive enough that people won't bother."
Democrats

Submission + - Barack Obama's Internet Incursion

Petey_Alchemist writes: "There's nothing new about interactive politics on the Internet. YouTube videos helped unseat George Allen in Virginia; Howard Dean's ill-fated run was predicated on Internet fundraising.

But Barack Obama (D-IL), who just announced his candidacy for President today, is going the next step. He first announced his exploratory commission in a video on his website, and soon after supporters made a Facebook group supporting him.

The Sun-Times says:

"The Obama campaign New Media Director is Joe Rospars, a veteran of Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign, which in its day was seen as an innovative leader in using the Internet as a critical campaign tool. At 11:25 p.m. on Thursday Rospars blogged on the site, "I'm writing now because we're making the final tweaks on the initial set of tools and functionality that will hopefully help a lot of people like you hit the ground running and start this campaign off with the culture of self-organizing that Senator Obama wants to build.," Rospars blogged ."

Indeed, Obama's website now boasts a built-in social networking site, where users can post pictures, blog, send messages, and organize meetups with other Barack supporters. This openness has been and will be abused, but it will be interesting to see how this new expansion into the Internet will play out."
Graphics

Submission + - Feng-GUI : Feng Shui for graphic user interfaces

Feng-GUI writes: "http://www.feng-gui.com/ is an online heatmap generator of how people look at your website? Designers, Photographers, Web Developers, Creatives ! Find out how people View your website or image and which areas are getting most of the attention. The ViewFinder Heatmap service, simulates human visual attention and creates an attention heatmap."
Censorship

Teens Prosecuted For Racy Photos 740

An anonymous reader writes with a story on CNet about two teens who were prosecuted under anti-child-porn laws in Florida for having made and emailed racy photos of each other. Both were under 18 years old, so the resulting pictures are clearly illegal; but the teens' intent was not to share the pictures with anyone else. An appeals court majority opinion found that emailing the photos from one of the kids to the other was a careless act that should, it seems, bring down the full weight of the law. A minority opinion argued that the laws were intended to protect children from exploitative adults, not from other children.
Media

Submission + - Italian judge says P2P OK if it's not for money

Paolo DF writes: Two italian students have been recently condemned (at a three months and ten days confinement) for creating a p2p network sharing movies and music with other students, because they violated two articles of the Italian Copyright Law. Now, the "Corte di Cassazione" wikipedia entry (court of last resort, born to "ensure the observation and the correct interpretation of law") cleared their charges, since that law is about copying for profit, while they weren't making money out of the p2p network.
Here is the story, from the major Italian newspaper "Corriere della Sera"

Feed Prosecutor in Apple Case Joins Law Firm (nytimes.com)

Christopher J. Steskal, a lead prosecutor of a federal task force investigating the backdating of stock options at Apple and other companies, is leaving his post to join a law firm.
Education

Submission + - Sound goes faster than light!

Roland Piquepaille writes: "According to Physics Web in 'Sound breaks the light barrier' (Free reg. required), a professor of physics in Tennessee has designed an experiment which proves that sound can move faster than light. This looks like impossible — and it is. In fact, the physicist has tweaked some scientific definitions. No sound can go faster than light. But a sound pulse, or more precisely, all the wavelengths associated to a sound, have a "group velocity" that far exceeds the real physical limits. Have I lost you? Read more for a summary of various sources trying to explain this superluminal phenomenon in plain English."
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft answers to Vista DRM critics claims

skepsis writes: Recently there were two stories in Slashdot claiming that Vista would downgrade the quality of audio and video for every application in a machine where protected content was running.

One of the stories painted a scary scenario where a "medical IT worker who's using a medical imaging PC while listening to audio/video played back by the computer" would have his medical images "deliberately degraded". Audio professionals were similarly scared by similar claims.

Well, Microsoft has just explained exactly how the content protection woks, and it turns out the medical IT staff and audio pros can relax, as all claims (even those by 'specialists') were rebuked.

It seems the Open Source crows also knows how to distribute FUD as well as MS...
Operating Systems

Submission + - What's Next, Winbuntu Linux?

Anonymous Coward writes: "The installation of ubuntu is a major barrier to its spread and use. This project aims to solve this problem by allowing installation from within Windows using an install.exe file, and eliminating the need to partition the hard drive or burn a CD to install. It will allow a faster and more user-friendly installation for Windows users, the ability to install without the risk of data loss through repartitioning, and the ability to install on ultra-portable laptops without CD drives."

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