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Submission + - When Slashdot Beta goes mainstream, where will you go? 5

Submitted by EzInKy
EzInKy writes: I'm sure most of you have checked it out, and am just as sure most of you don't like what they are plan to force upon us. So my question is, where do you plan on getting your Slashdot fix once the beta becomes the default? I know I'm trying to learn CSS so I can undo the damage they are inflicting.

Submission + - Feedly Forces its Users to Create Google+ Profiles

Submitted by somegeekynick
somegeekynick writes: Feedly users, a lot of whom migrated from the now-defunct Google Reader, are now finding out that they will not be able to login to the service without a Google+ Profile. In a blog post from Edwin Khodabakchian, which was posted almost at the same time the change rolled out, the reason for the change is stated as following Google's own move from using OAuth to Google+ for authentication. What has riled up a lot of users, as can be read in the comments, is that this change has come without warning and a lot of feeds are now being "held hostage" by Feedly, especially for users who are reluctant to create Google+ Profiles.

Submission + - Apple Issues First Transparency Report

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: In a new report detailing the number and kind of requests for user information it’s gotten from various governments, Apple said it has never received a request for information under Section 215 of the USA PATROT Act and would likely fight one if it ever came. The company also disclosed that it has received between 1,000 and 2,000 requests for user data from the United States government since January, but it’s not clear how many of those requests it complied with because of the restrictions the U.S. government places on how companies can report this data.

Right now, companies such as Apple, Google and others that issue so-called transparency reports only are allowed to report the volume of requests they get in increments of 1,000. So Apple’s report shows that although it received 1,000-2,000 requests for user data so far in 2013, the number that it complied with is listed as 0-1,000. Apple, along with a number of other companies, including Google and Microsoft, have asked the government in recent months for permission to disclose more specific numbers of requests, including specific numbers of National Security Letters.

Submission + - Why is India Sending a Probe to Mars when it Has so Many Poor People? (yahoo.com)

Submitted by MarkWhittington
MarkWhittington writes: The recent launch of India's first mission to Mars has ignited a debate in that country that has parallels of a debate that was once raging in the United States. The question arises, why does a country with a severe poverty problem have a space program?

The Economist points out that India's space program, of which the Mars mission is a small part, costs about $1 billion a year. It claims that spending on things like public health in that country is "abysmally low."

On the other hand, most of India's space program is directed toward communications and other satellites that have a direct benefit to its people.

The BBC adds that the inspirational and national prestige aspects of the Mars mission are not to be sneezed at. India has a growing middle class, technically trained, and a good space program is part of a mix of policies that encouraged that development.

Submission + - http://istumblrdown Shuttered by Cease and Desist Order (istumblrdown.com)

Submitted by TrueSatan
TrueSatan writes: Blogging platform Tumblr has issued a Cease and desist notice to http://istumblrdown.com/ a rather trivial and harmless site that simply offered status updates for Tumblr. The site owner claims this to be symptomatic of Tumblr's disregard for users needs quoting http://zachinglis.com/posts/why-tumblr-sucks and their fixation on banning users rather than any more positive improvements they might make to their platform. http://www.dailydot.com/news/missing-e-banned-tumblr/

Submission + - New canon-faithful Star Trek series is in pre-production. (indiegogo.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Star Trek veterans such as Walter Koenig (Pavel Chekov), Tim Russ (Tuvok), Robert Picardo (the Doctor) and others are busy in pre-production of a professionally produced pilot episode for a suggested new online Star Trek series named Star Trek: Renegades, which will be faithful to the original Star Trek canon. The events of the series are placed a decade after Voyager's return from Delta Quadrant. They have also opened an Indiegogo campaign, seeking more funds from Star Trek fans to help make the production even more professional.

Submission + - GNUstep Kickstarter (kickstarter.com)

Submitted by DMJC
DMJC writes: A kickstarter has been created to fund development of the GNUstep desktop system. Major goals include complete compatibility with Cocoa from Mac OSX 10.6 which will allow programs written for Mac OSX 10.6 to compile and run on Linux and BSD platforms. Stretch goals include a complete port of Webkit/webcore to Linux and BSD.

Comment Fair licensing; the system works. (Score 1) 121

by Xenex (#39611635) Attached to: CSIRO Develops 10 Gbps Microwave Backhaul

CSIRO develop technologies, patent them, then license them at fair terms. They then use that licensing revenue to develop new technologies, patent them, and license them at fair terms. And repeat.

It's not like CSIRO are patent trolls. The WLAN thing only got dragged out in course because greedy companies were not interested in fair licensing terms.

Comment Not older than Slashdot. (Score 1) 222

by Xenex (#34339066) Attached to: GNU/Linux and Enlightenment Running On a Fridge

"Even 0.16 which I use at work and hasn't had much but bugfixes since about 2000 is very impressive. It had little thumbnail pictures of app windows for icons just like win7 only back before slashdot existed."

Slashdot has been around longer than E16. For instance, here's the Enlightenment 0.15 announcement.

It's amusing that nowadays E is considered lightweight, but back in that thread from 1999 people were complaining about its performance.

Comment Re:Incorrect analogy. (Score 1) 390

by mikechant (#30877844) Attached to: Judge Lowers Jammie Thomas' Damages to $54,000

Who the hell has a CD player these days? I haven't seen a music CD in at least 7-10 years.

Just a couple of points:
Virtually all DVD players are CD players. Eg I use the DVD player in my bedroom to play CDs sometimes (and I have a couple of dedicated CD players as well, although they don't get used much these days).

Amazon (in the UK anyhow) often sell music CDs for significantly less than the equivalent download (e.g. £5 vs £7), and ripping those CDs to flac gives you better quality** than the mp3 downloads, and an optical disc copy as well as your hard drive copy and backups. This is totally bizarre and stupid, but as long as this continues to be the case I'll carry on buying physical CDs.

** You get a losslessly compressed file which can then be converted to a lossy mp3 or aac or whatever at any quality you like, taking into account the capacity and sound quality of the target device. This is quite important to me. But even if you don't care, why pay *more* for lower quality?

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