edibleplastic - Slashdot User

Submission + - USC Deploys Google Apps For Students

Submitted by apok04 on Wednesday September 26, 2007 @12:18AM

apok04 writes: A new partnership between USC and Google will bring convenience and new opportunities for online collaboration to USC students. The tools provided to students include Gmail (2 GB), integrated chat and applications for calendaring and document and spreadsheet production. The program is called Google Apps For Education, and is hosted by Google.

Is Google making a play for an environment traditionally controlled by Microsoft? Maybe. Are there privacy concerns since the service is being controlled by an outside organization? Of course.

But as a USC grad student in engineering (among the first to try these out), I must say I am glad to have platform-independent collaboration tools for use in my group projects.

Submission + - Only private copy of Magna Carta for sale (nytimes.com)

Submitted by

cultjam

on Wednesday September 26, 2007 @12:13AM

cultjam writes: "The Perot Foundation will be auctioning its copy of the Magna Carta to raise funds for medical research to benefit injured soldiers. This is the only privately held copy which until recently had been on display at the National Archives."

Submission + - John Kerry Want Your Advice On Broadband Access (theseminal.com)

Submitted by

J-Ro

on Tuesday September 25, 2007 @10:25PM

J-Ro writes: "Senator John Kerry is taking your suggestions on how to expand broadband access in America in advance of Congressional hearings on the subject. One idea: Treat Internet access like a utility and make it universal, affordable, and net neutral. If you've got other ideas, go and leave him your thoughts!"

Submission + - Scientists freeze water at body temperature (physorg.com)

Submitted by

Spy der Mann

on Tuesday September 25, 2007 @06:20PM

Spy der Mann writes: "Harvard physicists have shown that specially treated diamond coatings can keep water frozen at body temperature, a finding that may have applications in future medical implants. The process works only for layers of ice of two to three nanometers, depending on the temperature."

Submission + - Google Throws Lead Paint on Movie Download Market 6

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 19, 2007 @02:58PM

An anonymous reader writes: As promised Google shut down its video store Wednesday — and its DRM made sure all movie files purchased from the store ceased to funtion. This has sparked a firestorm of negative commentary from the Digerati who see it as pure theft. Cory Doctorow called it "...a giant, flaming middle finger, sent by Google and the studios to the customers who were trusting (as in dumb) enough to buy DRM videos". John Dvorak called it "old bait-and-switch tactics" where vendors make promises, but build-in the ability to reneg on those promises if they choose to do so later. Both Dvorak and Doctorow call for the judicial system to step in, but MP3 Newswire says that the abuse to consumer trust will do more damage to the paid download market than anything the courts could inflict. "As a consumer, if you purchase a digital movie file online only to have it unexpectedly repossessed you will probably think twice before ever buying any such download again. If you do consider it again it certainly won't be for the same price as before. Experience made these downloads worth far less to you. So what are feature film downloads that can be revoked at any time worth in the market place? To some Google Video customers the value of a movie download dropped all the way down to zero."

Submission + - Brit social services try to censor Youtube

Submitted by Kedyn's Crow on Sunday August 19, 2007 @12:13AM

Kedyn's Crow writes: Britain's social services, citeng the Data Protection Act, are trying to remove a audio recording from youtube. The recording posted by expectant parents Vanessa and Martin Brookes , shows social services attepting to force the adoption of her unborn child in spite of their own belief that there was "no immediate risk to your child from yourselves"

Submission + - Apple May Track IPod Thieves & You (msn.com)

Submitted by

Ryan N. Kamfolt - ClickAway

on Thursday August 02, 2007 @03:21PM

Ryan N. Kamfolt - ClickAway writes: "Apple may begin implementing software in its I-Tunes suite to track serial numbers of I-Pods and compare them to a stolen I-Pod database. Due to the worlds most successful and popular product being on the #1 most stolen items list. This may alert the local police to come knocking on your door, if "Your" I-Pod is in question. Weather it be stolen or legit, people are not taking this to heart kindly at all. With the right to privacy walls closing in on us ever so fast, this seems to be another push to take our privacy rights away even more, or is it? Those who have had their I-Pods stolen love the idea. Others are not so happy about the idea. Some privacy right advocates have suggested implementing I-Pods or I-Phones with owner ID verification, such as a password or other forms of verification that must be entered into the devices before they will take a charge or allow you to place songs on the device. Or offer a service that is apart of Apple iCare, which allows users who feel they may become a victim of theft, to join this database, to further protect them in the even their I-Pod is stolen."

Submission + - Do Not Call Registry gets wake-up call (networkworld.com) 2

Submitted by

coondoggie

on Thursday August 02, 2007 @01:58PM

coondoggie writes: "If you signed up for the federal or your state's Do Not Call Registry a few years ago, you might want to thing about refreshing it. Pennsylvanians this week got a wake up call, so to speak from the state's Attorney General Tom Corbett who kicked off a public awareness campaign designed to remind people what many have forgotten or never knew — that the 2002 law set registrations to expire after five years. That is of course unless you want to start hearing from those telemarketers as you sit down to dinner. Corbett said about 2 million people signed up in the immediate aftermath of the law taking effect and those who do not act by Sept. 15 will have their numbers dropped from the registry on Nov. 1. The Pennsylvania action is a reminder that the National Do Not Call Registry has a five year life span as well. The Federal Trade Commission is set to being a nation campaign in Spring 2008 to remind all US citizens to refresh their federal Do Not Call Registry standing. http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/18066"

Submission + - Apple Releases 160GB AppleTV

Submitted by mnemonic_network on Tuesday June 05, 2007 @12:12AM

mnemonic_network writes: The Apple Store is now offering two flavors of its AppleTV, $299 40GB model and $399 160GB model. Apple also announced on its website a YouTube plugin for the AppleTV that will be released in June. "With Apple TV, you can watch theatrical trailers from Apple.com on your TV. And soon, you'll be able to browse and watch YouTube videos on the big screen, too. Coming in June, you can browse and watch thousands of free YouTube videos streaming directly from the Internet. Just sit back and enjoy the show." It will be interesting to see what else Apple is going to do with the AppleTV.

Submission + - Microsoft further opens up identity platform

Submitted by

AlexGr

on Thursday May 24, 2007 @01:06PM

AlexGr writes: "By John Fontana (Network World) Microsoft on Wednesday unveiled royalty-free access to another of its identity specifications and introduced four open source projects designed to improve interoperability among its identity management platform and those from other vendors and developers. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/052307-micro soft-identity-platform.html"

Submission + - New York City mandates 100% hybrid taxis by 2012

Submitted by The Fun Guy on Tuesday May 22, 2007 @11:10AM

The Fun Guy writes: The New York Times is reporting that all of the taxis in New York City City must be gasoline hybrids by 2012:

In addition to making the yellow cab brigade entirely green within five years, the city will require all new vehicles entering the fleet after October 2008 to achieve a minimum of 25 miles per gallon. A year later, all new vehicles must get 30 miles per gallon and be hybrid.
Shifting the taxi fleet to hybrids is part of Bloomberg's wider sustainability plan for the city, which includes a goal of a 30 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2030.

Submission + - All next gen iPod Nano and iPod Video have Bluetoo

Submitted by

9699395

on Tuesday May 22, 2007 @10:15AM

9699395 writes: "I have worked with a number of suppliers throughout the iPod supply chain, and it is clear that the next generation video iPod and iPod Nano will contain Bluetooth chips to enable wireless headphone usage.

Both of the next-gen video iPods (code named n25 and n45 for the hard drive and NAND-Flash based models, respectively) have a wifi/bluetooth module identical to the one in the iPhone. The wifi is supplied by Marvell, and the Bluetooth is supplied by Cambridge Silicon Radio (CSR), and the module will be built by Taiwan's Advanced Semiconductor Engineering's USI division (ASE/USI). Presumably, the wifi capability will be used to download movies, while the Bluetooth will be used to enable wireless headphones.

The next-gen iPod Nano also has Bluetooth, also supplied by CSR, but does not have wifi (probably because it uses too much power).

Presumably there is also a wireless headphone being produced to go along with this, also using CSR's Bluetooth (the only other supplier of Bluetooth is Broadcom, and after a huge fight over the original video iPod and the iPhone, Apple and Broadcom are not on speaking terms).

This story has been confirmed by: (contact info at bottom)
-Marvell
-CSR
-multiple people at Apache, CSR's largest distributor in Taiwan
-manufacturer's reps at Vishay, who are supplying power management for the radios
-ASE/USI (the module makers)

All three new iPods (both videos, and the Nano) are scheduled to start production in July/august, and become publicly available in the September/October timeframe (the same launch schedule as past year's iPod updates). CSR will be delivering chips to Apple's contract manufacturers (mostly Honnhai/Foxconn) in June.

Not only has this feature been confirmed by multiple suppliers, it is also quite logical- it would be "very apple" to have a wireless headphone, and would be very well received by customers (look at the huge uptake of Bluetooth wireless headsets for cell phones). It would also enable a common headphone to be used for iPods and the iPhone.

Sincerely- 96993995
9699395@gmail.com

—
Sources for this data include: (but keep in mind, it will be difficult to get people to confirm this publically, since Apple has sworn them to secrecy)

APACHE COMMUNICATIONS Inc
2F,No.431, Ruei-Guang Road,
Neihu, Taipei,
Taiwan
http://www.aitgroup.com.tw/onweb.jsp?webno=3333333 304
Tel: +886-2-8797-8997
Fax: +886-2-8797-2929

ASE/USI http://www.aseglobal.com/
http://www.aseglobal.com/3/3_1_4.html

CSR: http://www.csr.com/home.php

Marvell: http://www.marvell.com/products/wireless/index.jsp "

Google Wins Nude Thumbnail Legal Battle 204

Posted by CowboyNeal on Thursday May 17, 2007 @08:03PM from the over-for-now dept.

eldavojohn writes "Google is currently fighting many fronts in its ability to show small images returned in a search from websites. Most recently, Google won the case against them in which they were displaying nude thumbnails of a photographer's work from his site. Prior to this, Google was barred from displaying copyrighted content, even when linking it to the site (owner) from its search results. The verdict: "Saying the District Court erred, the San Francisco-based appeals court ruled that Google could legally display those images under the fair use doctrine of copyright law." This sets a rather hefty precedence in a search engine's ability to blindly serve content safely under fair use."

Submission + - Spam is back, and worse than ever.

Submitted by

Ant

on Saturday January 20, 2007 @08:10PM

Ant writes: "The Red Tape Chronicles reports that just last December (2006), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) published an optimistic state-of-spam report. It cites research indicating spam had leveled off or even dropped during the previous year. It now appears spammers had simply gone back to the drawing board. There's more spam now than ever before. In fact, there's twice as much spam now as opposed to this time last year. And the messages themselves are causing more trouble. About half of all spam sent now is "image spam," containing server-clogging pictures that are up to 10 times the size of traditional text spam. And most image spam is stock-related, pump-and-dump scams which can harm investors who don't even use e-mail. About one-third of all spam is stock spam now. Seen on Digg."

Submission + - Quantum Computer Demo in February

Submitted by fwburton on Saturday January 20, 2007 @07:20PM

fwburton writes: D-Wave Systems has announced has announced that they will be demoing a 16-qubit adiabatic quantum computer in February. Their roadmap calls for a 1000-qubit by the end of 2008.

D-Wave Systems is planning to provide free access to one of their quantum computers in Q2/2007 for people who want to develop or port applications to the system.

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