Quilted Porcupine - Slashdot User

Submission + - Vista Strongly Recommended Against by BECTA

Submitted by Dracul on Wednesday February 14, 2007 @08:09PM

Dracul writes: BECTA — the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency — have just released a report which analyses whether Vista should be adopted by UK schools

The recommendations of the report basically say it all:

The enhancements in Vista add value but do not justify its early deployment in the educational environment Early deployment [of Vista] is considered high risk and strongly recommended against

I expect higher education world wide is going to try to adopt a similar position. It will be interesting to see how hard Micro$oft fights back. The report estimates that upgrading would cost the UK schools £167 million — universities are going to be spending billions on this...

Submission + - Power-generating spacesuits

Submitted by

Maggie McKee

on Wednesday February 14, 2007 @08:08PM

Maggie McKee writes: "Could piezoelectric sensors help power future space missions? From the article: "Astronauts' spacesuits may one day be covered in motion-sensitive proteins that could generate power from the astronauts' movement, according to futuristic research being conducted by a new lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US. Such 'power skins' could also be used to coat future human bases on Mars, where they could produce energy from the Martian wind." Eventually, the biologically derived suits might even be able to heal themselves."

Submission + - Bill to store all ISP activity indefinitely

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 14, 2007 @07:48PM

An anonymous reader writes: Once again government uses the boogie man of child pornography to propose the most draconian internet legislation to date. ISP's would be required to store indefinitely all user online data or face prison. http://www.infowars.com/articles/bb/internet_congr ess_wants_monitor_all_emails_ims.htm

Submission + - Forecasting Keywords via Microsoft Prototype App

Submitted by

digitalsanctum

on Wednesday February 14, 2007 @07:45PM

digitalsanctum writes: "Although it may come to a shock to some of you, Microsoft has actually put together a cool web application called Keyword Forecast. Using it you can compare up to four keywords and it will spit out some pretty graphs forecasting the impression count vs. time, keyword age distribution, and keyword gender distribution. Do you think a tool like this can or will be accurate?"

Submission + - Master Boot Record Guided Tour

Submitted by IdaAshley on Wednesday February 14, 2007 @07:26PM

IdaAshley writes: This article explores the Linux boot process from the initial bootstrap to the start of the first user-space application. Along the way, learn about other boot-related topics such as the boot loaders, kernel decompression, and the initial RAM disk. Also take a look at a scheduled chat about the Linux desktop and how it is evolving, including improvements in application interoperability, and desktop graphics.

Submission + - Citizendium failing to gain traction?

Submitted by on Wednesday February 14, 2007 @07:06PM

An anonymous reader writes: Despite the two recent Slashdot articles about Larry Sanger's Citizendium, it appears that the site is having difficulty converting good publicity into new content. Although the project saw impressive spikes in the number of new user registrations on both occasions, neither of them resulted in a general increase in the number of edits made to the site; even the number of article edits for the last 24 hours are lower than pre-Slashdot levels. What does this mean for the budding Wikipedia competitor?

Submission + - Truth in Ratings Act reintroduced

Submitted by dropgoal on Wednesday February 14, 2007 @06:19PM

dropgoal writes: Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas (and GOP presidential candidate) has reintroduced the Truth in Ratings Act. Like the previous version that failed to pass last year, Sen. Brownback's bill would make the FTC responsible for overseeing the video game ratings system and possibly result in a unified ratings system for games, movies, and TV. The ESRB would also have to review all game footage before issuing a rating: 'Currently, the ESRB hands out ratings after viewing a reel with representative content prepared by the developers. Sen. Brownback thinks that's not enough: "Video game reviewers should be required to review the entire content of a game to ensure the accuracy of the rating," he said. "The current video game ratings system is not as accurate as it could be because reviewers do not see the full content of games and do not even play the games they rate."'

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