Comment: Re:It's Takoma Park, folks (Score 1) 227
Having spent my teenage years there, I can verify everything this poster says is true. Takoma Park is a joke to the rest of the state, and results will sadly be ignored by state government.
More "Miles Per Acre" From Bioelectricity Than Ethanol 223
Posted
by
timothy
from the all-depends-on-the-details dept.
from the all-depends-on-the-details dept.
CarnegieScience writes "Scientist calculate that, compared to ethanol used for internal combustion engines, bioelectricity used for battery-powered vehicles would deliver an average of 80% more miles of transportation per acre of crops, while also providing double the greenhouse gas offsets to mitigate climate change."
Windows 7 Lets You Uninstall IE8 474
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the if-thy-browser-offend-thee-pluck-it-out dept.
from the if-thy-browser-offend-thee-pluck-it-out dept.
CWmike writes "A just-leaked build of Windows 7 lets users remove Internet Explorer, the first time that Microsoft has offered the option since it integrated the browser with Windows in 1997, two bloggers reported today. The move might have been prompted by recent charges by the European Union that Microsoft has stifled browser competition by bundling IE with its operating system, the bloggers speculated. One solution under consideration by the EU would require Microsoft to disable IE if the user decided to install a different browser, such as Mozilla's Firefox or Google's Chrome. Microsoft had no comment when asked to confirm whether Windows 7 will let users dump IE8 or whether the option was in reaction to the EU charges."
Designer Babies 902
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the wings-and-a-nice-prehensile-tail dept.
from the wings-and-a-nice-prehensile-tail dept.
Singularity Hub writes "The Fertility Institutes recently stunned the fertility community by being the first company to boldly offer couples the opportunity to screen their embryos not only for diseases and gender, but also for completely benign characteristics such as eye color, hair color, and complexion. The Fertility Institutes proudly claims this is just the tip of the iceberg, and plans to offer almost any conceivable customization as science makes them available. Even as couples from across the globe are flocking in droves to pay the company their life's savings for a custom baby, opponents are vilifying the company for shattering moral and ethical boundaries. Like it or not, the era of designer babies is officially here and there is no going back."
No More Space Tourists After 2009, Russia Says 105
Posted
by
timothy
from the after-gathering-up-all-of-these-box-tops dept.
from the after-gathering-up-all-of-these-box-tops dept.
mknewman writes with disappointing news for anyone with the money that it would have cost to fly as a space tourist, excerpting a story that says "Russia's space chief says there won't be any more tourists headed to the international space station after this year. Anatoly Perminov told the government newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta that there will be no room for paying tourists because the space station's crew is expanding from three members to six."
IBM Wins Most Patents In a Single Year For 2008 99
Posted
by
timothy
from the that's-a-lot-of-paperwork- dept.
from the that's-a-lot-of-paperwork- dept.
eldavojohn writes "You might have heard or felt that there is little left to patent these days but IBM begs to differ. They came in at over four thousand for the year of 2008. Now, this isn't a good metric to measure success or progress but for those of you who like to keep track: 'IBM said it earned 4,186 U.S. patents in 2008, more than triple the number of patents earned by rival Hewlett-Packard. Microsoft Corp earned 2,030 patents, while Intel Corp had 1,776 and Hewlett-Packard 1,424, according to the report, which compiled data from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Korean electronics giant Samsung Electronics had the second-highest number of patents at 3,515.' You can find the original source of this study here as well as 2007's data and even 2006's data."
Roland Piquepaille Dies 288
Posted
by
kdawson
from the in-memoriam dept.
from the in-memoriam dept.
overheardinpdx writes "I'm sad to report that longtime HPC technology pundit Roland Piquepaille (rpiquepa) died this past Tuesday. Many of you may know of him through his blog, his submissions to Slashdot, and his many years of software visualization work at SGI and Cray Research. I worked with Roland 20 years ago at Cray, where we both wrote tech stories for the company newsletter. With his focus on how new technologies modify our way of life, Roland was really doing Slashdot-type reporting before there was a World Wide Web. Rest in peace, Roland. You will be missed." The notice of Roland's passing was posted on the Cray Research alumni group on Linked-In by Matthias Fouquet-Lapar. There will be a ceremony on Monday Jan. 12, at 10:30 am Paris time, at Père Lachaise.
PC Grand Theft Auto IV Features SecuROM DRM 531
Posted
by
Soulskill
from the players-are-pirates-qed dept.
from the players-are-pirates-qed dept.
arcticstoat writes "Game developer Rockstar has revealed that the forthcoming PC version of Grand Theft Auto IV will feature the controversial SecuROM 7 DRM system. Unlike some of EA's recent titles, such as Spore and Mass Effect, GTA IV won't limit the number of times that you can install the game, although SecuROM will be impossible to remove without leaving 'some traces' on your PC. Anyone hoping to avoid SecuROM by downloading the game form Steam will also be disappointed, as Rockstar says that all versions of the game will feature SecuROM, including digital versions online. On the plus side, Rockstar says that it's 'working with SecuROM to post information on our support pages regarding how to remove these inactive traces of the program for users who wish to do so.' Has Rockstar gotten a better balance between draconian DRM and fair copy protection here?"
Comment: Re:Bill Joy's terrorist connection (Score 1) 393
in case anyone cares the article in question: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy_pr.html
Google reinvents Wikipedia-> 1
Submitted
by
teslatug
teslatug writes "Google appears to be reinventing Wikipedia with their new product that they call knol (not yet publicly available). In an attempt to gather human knowledge, Google will accept articles from users who will be credited with the article by name. If they want, they can allow ads to appear alongside the content and they will be getting a share of the profits if that's the case. Other users will be allowed to rate, edit or comment on the articles. The content does not have to be exclusive to Google but no mention is made on any license for it. Is this a better model for free information gathering?"
Link to Original Source
Link to Original Source
Former Wikipedia COO had criminal record
Submitted
by
Goobergunch
Goobergunch writes "The Register is reporting that Carolyn Doran, Chief Operating Officer of the Wikimedia Foundation from January to July of this year, was a convicted felon, with a criminal record in four states. Wikipedia general counsel Mike Godwin said that he had "no direct knowledge" of her record. Responsibilities of the Chief Operating Officer included ensuring effective audit trails and approval of Foundation expenditures."
The Register: Wikipedia COO was convicted felon->
From feed
by
registerfeed
Audit pending
Link to Original Source
Exclusive For more than six months, beginning in January of this year, Wikipedia's million-dollar check book was balanced by a convicted felon.
Link to Original Source
Techdirt: Patent Attorney Ups Bounty On Troll Tracker, Apparently Doesn't Like Anonymous S->
From feed
by
techdirtfeed
Last week we had the bizarre story of how a bigshot patent attorney, Raymond Niro, was so disturbed by the anonymous Patent Troll Tracker shining some light on Niro and some of Niro's clients, that he was offering a $5000 bounty to anyone who could identify the Tracker. Niro has now responded to some of the stories about the bounty, where he tries to "correct a few misconceptions" about the story. On one point, he is quite accurate -- the patent he's been accusing the Troll Tracker of accusing is not owned by Acacia, but by another firm, Global Patent Holdings. Of course, the Tracker had already corrected that story a few days ago, so Niro wasn't actually adding anything there. Also, Niro states that Global Patent Holdings "has no connection to Acacia" which is a bit misleading. It may not currently have any connection, but three years ago Acacia bought most of Global Patent Holdings' assets -- and it was even misreported by the NY Times that Acacia had bought the entire company. So, it was a pretty easy mistake to make -- especially since these patent hoarding firms use so many shell companies to hide their identities.
More importantly, Niro first raises the bounty to $10,000 for information identifying the Tracker, and then states that the Tracker needs to be exposed to be "held accountable for what he says." He also notes "if you really have anything truthful to say, you are not afraid of identifying yourself." You would think that Niro, as an intellectual property lawyer, would be well aware of both the historical importance of anonymity and the US courts repeated decisions pointing out that anonymity is part of our free speech rights. As for not "being afraid" to identify yourself, would Niro have said the same thing of the authors of The Federalist Papers? There's often a good reason to be anonymous -- which is why the courts protect it as free speech. Niro also insists that he's not trying to identify the Tracker in order to sue over the patent in question, but that would be much more believable if Niro hadn't used that same patent against another critic and also sent the Tracker an email telling him that he was infringing on that patent. As for the patent itself, Niro makes it clear that: "Anyone that operates a website runs the risk of infringing Global's patent if (as we believe) that patent covers the manner in which JPEG images are displayed on a website." There are some people who can make reasonable claims that they're trying to use the patent system to further the cause of innovation. But when someone claims that he can sue any website that has a JPEG image in it, you have to wonder how that could possibly "promote the progress of science and useful arts."
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Link to Original Source
More importantly, Niro first raises the bounty to $10,000 for information identifying the Tracker, and then states that the Tracker needs to be exposed to be "held accountable for what he says." He also notes "if you really have anything truthful to say, you are not afraid of identifying yourself." You would think that Niro, as an intellectual property lawyer, would be well aware of both the historical importance of anonymity and the US courts repeated decisions pointing out that anonymity is part of our free speech rights. As for not "being afraid" to identify yourself, would Niro have said the same thing of the authors of The Federalist Papers? There's often a good reason to be anonymous -- which is why the courts protect it as free speech. Niro also insists that he's not trying to identify the Tracker in order to sue over the patent in question, but that would be much more believable if Niro hadn't used that same patent against another critic and also sent the Tracker an email telling him that he was infringing on that patent. As for the patent itself, Niro makes it clear that: "Anyone that operates a website runs the risk of infringing Global's patent if (as we believe) that patent covers the manner in which JPEG images are displayed on a website." There are some people who can make reasonable claims that they're trying to use the patent system to further the cause of innovation. But when someone claims that he can sue any website that has a JPEG image in it, you have to wonder how that could possibly "promote the progress of science and useful arts."
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Link to Original Source
The Real-Life Colossal Cave->
Submitted
by
Jason Scott
Jason Scott writes "While working on my documentary on text adventure games, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dennis Jerz, who has dedicated part of his scholarly studies to Colossal Cave/ADVENT, the original text adventure. This game is based on an actual cave system in Kentucky (part of the Mammoth Cave system) and Jerz actually traveled to this cave, took photos, and worked on a great paper discussing not only the similarities of the cave system, but the differences in approach to the game between the original creator of Adventure (Will Crowther) who was a caver, and Don Woods, who was not. The paper just got published online and is a great read. It turns out you can't just "xyzzy" your way in..."
Link to Original Source
Link to Original Source
Put the Amiga Demoscene in your DVD Player
Submitted
by
Jason Scott
Jason Scott writes "Four years ago, the crew at Hornet put out a collection of PC demos spanning 10 years on a DVD, and called it "Mindcandy". Everyone asked when they'd come out with a DVD of demos for other platforms, and just four short years later, they've announced MindCandy 2: Amiga Demos. It's got 30 Amiga demos rendered on the original hardware, a documentary about how a demoparty is run, and even 5.1 surround remixes of all the music. Additionally, they're sponsoring a rare US demoparty this April called Blockparty. It's a great year for demos!"