Journal Journal: Intel Patents Skype 2
Intel appear to have a Patent on the Softphone. Filed in 2000, granted in 2006. Not only that, but Intel have just invested $20m into Jajah. Should we anticipate some litigation designed
Submission + - Orkut to be censored
William Robinson writes: The popular web site Orkut is planning to apply censorship on its contents. From this news from CNN "And if you have been concerned of web pages with obscenities scrawled over the national flag, or even others criticising the Father of the Nation or the ones negating political leaders — then sit back as these are going to be out of the website soon. Just report these to the Mumbai Police and chances are that not only will the pages be erased, but the creators brought to book for there has been an informal tie-up between the Mumbai Police and the Orkut management." What will be the level of censorship?
Submission + - ProcFS comes to Mac OS X
An anonymous reader writes: Ever since Google released their MacFUSE early this year it's been getting a lot of well deserved hype in the Mac community and some very interesting filesystems are coming up. Though I guess one can get by without a procfs filesystem on OS X I sometimes wish it was there. Well now MacFUSE solves that problem! Amit Singh has released an open source procfs for OS X based on MacFUSE. As you'd expect you get to see running processes as folders with all kinds of Mach task, port, VM, cpu info inside as text files. Things like motionsensor, ambient lightsensor, TPM module, mouse are also shown as files from which you can view their readings. Pretty cool!
Submission + - Is paying hackers good for business?
Jenny writes: "http://www.itpro.co.uk/blogs/editorial-blogs/davey -winder/333022/is-paying-hackers-good-for-business .thtml
In the light of the recent QuickTime vulnerability, revealed for $10,000 spot cash, the UK IT Security Journalist of the Year asks why business treats security research like a big money TV game show."
Submission + - MS updates trying to reset the default browser?
Anonymous Coward writes: "Are MS updates trying to reset the default browser back to IE?
Has anyone else noticed that are the last two batches of online automatic updates, the default browser in WinXP has been reset to IE?
See the included discussion.
http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?t=72188 "
Submission + - PS3 losing ground in Japan
Krommenaas writes: "Last week's sales figures from Japan show the PS3 dramatically losing the console battle in Japan, the home market of both Sony and Nintendo. The PS3 loses out 6:1 to the Wii in hardware sales and a whopping 30:1 in software sales (325,619 for the Wii vs. 10,412 for the PS3). Not a single PS3 title is in the top 50 of best sold games, while Nintendo occupies the top 19 spots with DS and Wii titles."
Submission + - New "Terminator" Trilogy Planned
Ant writes: "Dark Horizons report after much talk and posturing over the future of "The Terminator" franchise/series in recent years, something surprising has happened... The Halcyon Company has acquired the franchise rights to the popular "The Terminator" movie series and intend to make a new trilogy that would anchor their movie company..."
Journal Journal: Google is going to contribute on distcc project
From distcc site:
distcc is a program to distribute builds of C, C++, Objective C or Objective C++ code across several machines on a network. distcc should always generate the same results as a local build, is simple to install and use, and is usually much faster than a local compile.
Submission + - Could Global Warming Make Life on Eath Better?
mikee805 writes: A lengthy article in Spiegel talks of global warming making life on Earth better not just for humans but all life. From the article:
"A warmer climate helps promote species diversity", "We have to take away people's fear of climate change.Unfortunately many scientists see themselves too much as priests whose job it is to preach moralistic sermons to people.", "the only distress the Scandinavians will face is the guilty conscience that could come with benefiting from global warming." Its not all positive however "The world's new drought zones lie in the southern United States and Australia, but also in Mediterranean countries like Spain, Italy and Greece". Overall they seem to conclude that a increase of 2 degrees will have more benefits than anything else.
Submission + - Second Life meets Real Life Trouble
Zephida writes: "The BBC is reporting thatSecond Life is being investigated by German police following allegations that some members are trading child abuse images in the online world
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6638331.stm
FTA: The investigation follows a report by a German TV news programme which uncovered the trading group and members who pay for sex with virtual children. The police are now trying to identify the Second Life members involved.
Linden Lab, the creator of Second Life, said it would help identify users and pass on details to prosecutors"
Submission + - Lack of input validation kills
ushering05401 writes: Multiple news sources are reporting at least eight deaths across North America due to failures in the calibration and use of pumps designed to deliver cancer medications. The medications being administered are so powerful that once an overdose has occured there is not a way to save the victims life. The case reviewed in this article http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.h tml?id=d296990e-fc05-4b5d-86b4-32d3c2e4be9b&k=6732 3
describes a woman who recieved an overdose living for twenty two days after the overdose knowing she was going to die.
In addition to the human element, regulators reviewing the cases cite the lack of sanity checks embedded into the pump as an issue that needs to be addressed. Yet another example of technology designed without proper validation testing to account for human error.
The nurses involved in most of these cases are not being disciplined. Regulators cite systematic failures that should have been addressed when the procedures and technology were implemented.
describes a woman who recieved an overdose living for twenty two days after the overdose knowing she was going to die.
In addition to the human element, regulators reviewing the cases cite the lack of sanity checks embedded into the pump as an issue that needs to be addressed. Yet another example of technology designed without proper validation testing to account for human error.
The nurses involved in most of these cases are not being disciplined. Regulators cite systematic failures that should have been addressed when the procedures and technology were implemented.
Microsoft Is Sued For Patent Violation Over .NET 288
randomErr writes "As reported by Info World, Microsoft was issued a cease and desist order on February 7 of this year by Vertical Computer Systems. The order was for patent infringement by the current implementations of the .NET framework. Both the .NET framework and Vertical Computer Systems' SiteFlash use XML to create component-based structures that are used to build and operate web sites. Vertical Computer Systems is requesting a full jury trial. If VCS prevails, .NET technology implementations as we know them may completely change and Microsoft would probably have to pay out a hefty sum."
Submission + - Bootable IDE ports disappearing- why & how to
wattsup writes: "It seems that bootable IDE ports are disappearing on newer motherboards.
I recently purchased an MSI G965M-FI motherboard for a system upgrade. Overall the board is pretty good with lots of features, but it had one "unexpected feature" that I didn't know about when I bought it. The PATA100 IDE port won't allow you to install an operating system from a CD-ROM attached to it.
While its on their website, MSI doesn't tell you this on the retail packaging, until you break the seal on the static wrap and look at the motherboard. There, with a tiny label placed over the IDE connector they inform you "This IDE does not support OS installation in hard drive".
This made my out-of-box experience rather maddening, as I had to get a USB based CD-ROM to install a fresh copy of XP. This seems like a pretty lame way to save money, disabling functionality on an IDE port that's included. Some research shows me that other manufacturers are doing the same thing. Why?
My question is; Does anybody know if this is an issue that can be fixed by upgrading the BIOS, or is this hard-wired in the IDE controller?"
I recently purchased an MSI G965M-FI motherboard for a system upgrade. Overall the board is pretty good with lots of features, but it had one "unexpected feature" that I didn't know about when I bought it. The PATA100 IDE port won't allow you to install an operating system from a CD-ROM attached to it.
While its on their website, MSI doesn't tell you this on the retail packaging, until you break the seal on the static wrap and look at the motherboard. There, with a tiny label placed over the IDE connector they inform you "This IDE does not support OS installation in hard drive".
This made my out-of-box experience rather maddening, as I had to get a USB based CD-ROM to install a fresh copy of XP. This seems like a pretty lame way to save money, disabling functionality on an IDE port that's included. Some research shows me that other manufacturers are doing the same thing. Why?
My question is; Does anybody know if this is an issue that can be fixed by upgrading the BIOS, or is this hard-wired in the IDE controller?"
Critical Security Hole in Linux Wi-Fi 262
thisispurefud writes "A flaw has been found in a major Linux Wi-Fi driver that can allow an attacker to run malicious code and take control of a laptop, even when it is not on a Wi-Fi network."
Submission + - Sperm made from human bone marrow
Burlador writes: "The BBC reports that German scientists have converted stem cells into sperm. From the article: 'If these can be grown into fully developed sperm, which the researchers hope to do within five years, they may be useful in fertility treatments.'"
