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Programming

Alan Cox Quits As Linux TTY Maintainer — "I've Had Enough" 909

Posted by timothy from the when-smart-people-clash dept.
The Slashdolt writes "After a stern criticism from Linus, the long-time kernel hacker Alan Cox has decided to walk away as the maintainer of the TTY subsystem of the Linux Kernel, stating '...I've had enough. If you think that problem is easy to fix you fix it. Have fun. I've zapped the tty merge queue so anyone with patches for the tty layer can send them to the new maintainer.'" A response to a subsequent post on the list makes it quite clear that he is serious.
Real Time Strategy (Games)

Blizzard Confirms No LAN Support For Starcraft 2 737

Posted by Soulskill from the also-no-telegraph-compatibility-mode dept.
Kemeno writes "Blizzard has announced that they will be dropping LAN support for Starcraft II, citing piracy and quality concerns. Instead, all multiplayer games will be hosted through their new Battle.net service. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by this move, but wasn't LAN play how the original Starcraft became popular? Blizzard said, 'More people on Battle.net means ... even more resources devoted to evolving this online platform to cater to further community building and new ways to enjoy the game online. World of Warcraft is a great example of a game that has evolved beyond anyone's imagination since their Day 1 and will continue to do so to better the player experience for as long as players support the title. ... We would not take out LAN if we did not feel we could offer players something better.'"

Comment Re:I would love it as (Score 1) 312

by Rasit (#27848595) Attached to: Amazon Kindle DX Details Revealed

Given the existence of a usb port, what is stopping students from sharing single textbooks?

DRM of course! There is no way that hardware copyprotection can be broken.

DRM is the herald of a multitude of new business innovations! All hail the mighty Consumer Restriction Application Protection.
Books

Samsung Papyrus E-Book Reader, Coming Soon 145

Posted by timothy from the 5th-mover-disadvantage dept.
kanewm writes with a snippet from Portable-Ebook-Reader.NET: "Samsung's new, highly portable e-book reader, dubbed 'Papyrus,' will be available in Korea in June 2009 and in the UK and North America sometime later (likely within several months)." As the site notes, though, this lacks some features of the Kindle, the obvious choice for comparison in the American market.
Internet Explorer

IE8 Update Forces IE As Default Browser 311

Posted by timothy from the how-awfullly-polite dept.
We discussed Microsoft making IE8 a critical update a while back; but then the indication was that the update gave users a chance to choose whether or not to install it. Now I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes in with word that the update not only does not ask, but it makes IE the default browser. "Microsoft has a new tactic in the browser wars. They're having the 'critical' IE8 update make IE the default browser without asking. Yes, you can change it back, but it doesn't ask you if you want IE8 or if you want it as the default browser, it makes the decisions for you. Opera might have a few more complaints to make to the EU antitrust board after this, but Microsoft will probably be able to drag out the proceedings for years, only to end up paying a small fine. If you have anyone you've set up with a more secure alternative browser, you might want to help check their settings after this."
Spam

Opting Out Increases Spam? 481

Posted by timothy from the damned-either-way dept.
J. L. Tympanum writes "I used to ignore spam but recently I have been using the opt-out feature. Now I get more spam than ever, especially of the Nigerian scam (and related) types. The latter has gone from almost none to several a day. Was I a fool for opting out? Is my email address being harvested when I opt out? Has anybody had similar experience?"
Role Playing (Games)

A Look At the Final Fantasy XIII Demo, Early Analysis 103

Posted by Soulskill from the slowly-but-surely dept.
A demo for the PS3 version of Final Fantasy XIII was released in Japan this week, and people have had a chance to try it out and report back. In fact, video footage of the demo in its entirety was streamed and then posted on YouTube shortly after finding its way into customers' hands. Eurogamer got a chance to give the demo a test-drive, and they had this to say: "The characters are likeable — Lightning for her mysteriousness, the members of NORA for their banter and camaraderie — the setting is compelling, and the whole thing is as sumptuous visually as you'd expect of a next-generation Square-Enix title. The plot's the only thing that I couldn't get a definite feel for from the demo, beyond the basic set-up of an oppressive regime, a resistance fighting against it and a character with mysterious powers brought to aid them in a twist of fate. But forty minutes with Final Fantasy XIII have left me with nothing but anticipation for what else it has in store."

Comment Re:law enforcement back door (Score 2, Interesting) 685

by Rasit (#27134515) Attached to: Norton Users Worried By PIFTS.exe, Stonewalling By Symantec
People are claiming this is a analysis of PIFTS.exe. I have no way to verify that this really is the norton PIFTS.exe so keep that in mind.

Changes security settings of Internet Explorer: This system alteration could seriously affect safety surfing the World Wide Web.

medium

Performs File Modification and Destruction: The executable modifies and destructs files which are not temporary.

high

Performs Registry Activities: The executable reads and modifies register values. It also creates and monitors register keys.

low
Data Storage

Can SSDs Be Used For Software Development? 480

Posted by timothy from the real-world-odds dept.
hackingbear writes "I'm considering buying a current-generation SSD to replace my external hard disk drive for use in my day-to-day software development, especially to boost the IDE's performance. Size is not a great concern: 120GB is enough for me. Price is not much of a concern either, as my boss will pay. I do have concerns on the limitations of write cycles as well as write speeds. As I understand, the current SSDs overcome it by heuristically placing the writes randomly. That would be good enough for regular users, but in software development, one may have to update 10-30% of the source files from Subversion and recompile the whole project, several times a day. I wonder how SSDs will do in this usage pattern. What's your experience developing on SSDs?"
Power

A New Way To Produce Hydrogen 204

Posted by kdawson from the doctor-clark-i-presume dept.
Iddo Genuth writes "Scientists at Pennsylvania State University and Virginia Commonwealth University are producing hydrogen by exposing clusters of aluminum atoms to water. Rather than relying on the electronic properties of the aluminum, this new process depends on the geometric distribution of atoms within the clusters. It requires the presence of 'Lewis acids' and 'Lewis bases' in those atoms (water can act as either). Unlike most hydrogen production processes, this method can be used at room temperature and doesn't require the application of heat or electricity to work. The researchers experimented with a variety of different aluminum cluster patterns, discovering three that result in hydrogen production."
Programming

Submission + - Benchmarking CSS Selectors

Submitted by Kickboy
Kickboy writes: These days in the JavaScript world, everything is about accessing and manipulating the DOM (Document Object Model). The most powerful tool available to modern JS developers are CSS Selectors. Today, every popular JavaScript Library and modern browser has it's own implimentation of accessing elements on a page using advanced CSS3 selectors, but which is most efficient? With that question in mind, I have developed an advanced CSS Selector benchmarking tool. This tool uses the latest versions of all the popular JavaScript Libraries; including jQuery, ProtoType, mooTools, Dojo, and YUI. Users who run a test on this site can submit their results to be included in the website's overall stats. By tracking the different results for libraries on many different browsers and computer configurations, we can produce an accurate map of the most efficient JavaScript Libraries and Browsers. Try the test yourself...
Networking

OpenDNS To Block and Monitor Conficker Worm 175

Posted by Soulskill from the no-phone-home dept.
Linker3000 writes "According to The Register, OpenDNS plans to introduce an new service that will prevent PCs infected with the Conficker (aka Downadup) malware from contacting its control servers, and will also make it easy for admins to know if even a single machine under their control has been infected by Conficker: 'Starting Monday, any networks with PCs that try to connect to the Conficker addresses will be flagged on an admin's private statistics page. The service is available for free to both businesses and home users.' With the amount of trouble this worm has caused, perhaps this is a good time to take a look at OpenDNS if you haven't done so already."

Comment Re:Simpsons? (Score 2, Funny) 293

by Rasit (#26665683) Attached to: Alaskans Prepare For Volcanic Eruption

I'm pretty sure the goggles tag is a reference to the simpsons. I'm wondering if that episode is famous enough to warrant a meme or if its just because it was the one they showed last night.

The googles, they do nothing! = 239,000 results.
The goggles do nothing = 325,000 results.

I think that it qualifies to be called a internet meme.

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