Comment "Beepers are coming back! (Score 1) 584
Because, as we all know, technology is circular."
Submission + - No Slashdot April Fools Jokes in 2008 8
An anonymous reader writes: Slashdot will not be participating in the April Fools jokes this year due to a lawsuit that was settled out of court with undisclosed terms stemming from the 2007 April 1st stunts. The false stories were determined to be too egregious by a yet to be named individual. Slashdot's parent company SourceForge, Inc. found it wiser to settle out of court then a lengthy battle that was obviously going to span several months.
The ponies will be missed.
The ponies will be missed.
Daylight Savings Time Puts Kid in Jail for 12 Days 881
Jherek Carnelian writes "Cody Webb was jailed for calling in a bomb threat to his Hempstead Area high school (near Pittsburgh). He spent 12 days in lockup until the authorities realized that their caller-id log was off an hour because of the new Daylight Savings Time rules and that Cody had only called one hour prior to the actual bomb threat. Perhaps it took so long because of the principal's Catch-22 attitude about Cody's guilt — she said, 'Well, why should we believe you? You're a criminal. Criminals lie all the time.'"
Submission + - Presidential Candidate Uses YouTube
Aaron Wilson writes: "U.S. Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney kicks off YouTube's "You Choose Spotlight" by posting an informal video of himself. In the clip he calls for feedback videos from the YouTube community. "What do you believe is America's single greatest challenge?" Mitt says, "And what would you do to address it?"
While the YouTube community shoots back with mixed responses regarding political issues, there is general enthusiasm about a presidential candidate embracing the Internet community at large."
Submission + - Google Buys DoubleClick
Thib writes: As previously discussed, Google beat Microsoft and Yahoo to it and snapped up DoubleClick for 3.1 billion dollars in cash. The current owners of DoubleClick bought it in 2005 for 1.1 billion dollars. From the article: "During a conference call with analysts on Friday afternoon, Schmidt said Google had been thinking about making this acquisition for a 'very, very long time.' Schmidt added that the addition of DoubleClick to Google's business would strengthen Google's position with large brand-name advertisers, who tend to rely more on display ads than the search ads that are Google's bread and butter business."
Submission + - NASA: Mars Surveyor Was Doomed by Humans
Hananim writes: Human error triggered a cascade of events that caused the battery to fail on the Mars Global Surveyor last year, according to a preliminary report released Friday.
An internal NASA board determined that power loss likely doomed the spacecraft after a decade of meticulously mapping the Red Planet.
Should Schools Block Sites Like Wikipedia? 545
Londovir asks: "Recently, our school board made the decision to block Wikipedia from our school district's WAN system. This was a complete block — there aren't even provisions in place for teachers or administrators to input a password to bypass the restriction. The reason given was that Wikipedia (being user created and edited) did not represent a credible or reliable source of information for schools. Should we block sites such as Wikipedia because students may be exposed to misinformation, or should we encourage sites such as Wikipedia as an outlet for students to investigate and determine the validity of the information?"
New Law Lets Data Centers Hide Power Usage 208
1sockchuck writes "Just days after Google announced that it may build a huge data center in the state, Oklahoma's governor has signed a bill into law that will effectively exempt the largest customers of municipal power companies from public disclosure of how much power they are using. Officials of the state's power industry say the measure is not a 'Google Law' but was sought 'on behalf of large-volume electric users that might be considering a move to Oklahoma.' Others acknowledge that data center operators were among those seeking the law, apparently arguing that the details of their enormous power usage are a trade secret. Google recently acquired 800 acres in Pryor, Oklahoma for possible development as a data center, and is reportedly seeking up to 15 megawatts of power for the facility."
Deep Impact Mission May Be Extended 50
SeaDour writes "The famous Deep Impact mission, which in 2005 launched a projectile in the path of comet Tempel 1, may be extended by NASA. The proposal is to slingshot the probe around the Earth as it passes by at the end of this year, putting it on a trajectory to reach comet Boethin in December 2008. Scientists want to see if the strange composition and behavior of Tempel 1 is more common than they had previously assumed. (The probe only had one projectile though, so we will not see another brilliant man-made explosion on this comet.) Additionally, while the probe is en route to the comet, researchers will point its on-board telescope at known exosolar planets to determine the compositions of their atmospheres."
Samsung to Launch Dual Blu-ray HD DVD Player 156
narramissic writes "File this one under 'if you can't beat em, join em.' Samsung, one of the main backers of the Blu-ray Disc format, Friday said it plans to release an optical disc player this year that will play both Blu-ray Disc and the rival HD DVD format. With the announcement, Samsung becomes the second company to shift from a single-format stance (LG launched a dual player in North America earlier this year.) 'Our main concern is with the consumer and not a particular technology,' said Samsung spokesman Kwak Bumjoon."
Word 2007 Flaws Are Features, Not Bugs 411
PetManimal writes "Mati Aharoni's discovery of three flaws in Word using a fuzzer (screenshots) has been discounted by Microsoft, which claims that the crashes and malformed Word documents are a feature of Word, not a bug. Microsoft's Security Response Center is also refusing to classify the flaws as security problems. According to Microsoft developer David LeBlanc, crashes aren't necessarily DoS situations: 'You may rightfully say that crashing is always bad, and having a server-class app background, I agree. Crashing means you made a mistake, bad programmer, no biscuit. However, crashing may be the lesser of the evils in many places. In the event that our apps crash, we have recovery mechanisms, ways to report the crash so we know what function had the problem, and so on. I really take issue with those who would characterize a client-side crash as a denial of service.' Computerworld's Frank Hayes responds to LeBlanc and questions Microsoft's logic.'"
