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I like the things he told Datamation better. His respect for upstream developers and software freedom was more apparent than it is here.

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "It seems that some people have gotten the idea that the recent publication of some of Microsoft's binary formats makes it acceptable for OOXML to preserve old bugs in the form of application-defined behavior. But IBM's Rob Weir points to the 'Carolino Effect' for why that just won't help. For those wondering, Pedro Carolino was a man who tried to write a Portuguese/English phrase book when he didn't know English. Instead, he had a Portuguese/French phrasebook and a French/English dictionary, so he 'faithfully' translated each French word in the phrasebook into English with the dictionary. Which is, unfortunately reminiscent of the way Microsoft seems to think that implementers will be able to 'faithfully' represent these legacy-feature bugs in OOXML. So if you ever see an OOXML document filled with the XML equivalent of 'Here that it rouse. let aim it! let make fire him!' or 'Me, i have failed it; my gun have miss fixe,' you know who to blame."
http://www.robweir.com/blog/2008/03/carolino-effect.html

An anonymous reader alerts us to a report that scientists have developed silicon nanowires which convert heat into electricity at a rate 100 times greater than that of typical silicon. The developers are hopeful that this technology will allow the harvesting of waste heat as a power source, improving the efficiency of various computer chips and appliances. Quoting IEEE Spectrum: "Research teams found that they could decrease silicon's thermal conductivity--and therefore increase the conversion efficiency--by fashioning the material into nanowires with diameters of 10 to 100 nanometers and introducing defects in the silicon that slowed the flow of phonons--the acoustic vibrations in the crystal lattice of a material that carry heat. 'Defects are important here,' says Peidong Yang, a materials scientist at Berkeley. 'They can block the phonon transport from one end to the other end, so the thermal conductivity can be drastically reduced.'"

ColeonyxOnline writes "Gimp 2.4 was released today. Among the many improvements are the new user interface, new tools, support for a few more file formats, and better printing support."

Unlimited really means unlimited, even in advertising. So says the New York State Attorney General's Office in squeezing a $1 million settlement out of Verizon Wireless for disconnecting 13,000 of its customers who had the temerity to believe that the unlimited service they were promised came with unlimited service. Verizon's statement explaining the settlement is a gem, too.

http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/20981
http://www.networkworld.com/community/buzzblog

Marnix de Bil writes "Research by Netherlands-based company Qnetlabs shows that 50% of the tested antivirus products detect only as little as 75% of the viruses offered to them. One of the products tested scored as low as 22% !

A daily Current Threat top 3 is published at www.qnetlabs.com. This ranking aims to show which antivirus products react well to current often-seen threats. The tests show that the first three usually score over 85%, and the first five rank at 80% or better. The rest of the field fails to exceed 75% detection rate, with the latest virus definitions.

On average, the antivirus products outside the first three detect only 50% of these recent viruses — within this group, the big players in the consumer market are found as well."
http://www.qnetlabs.com/

trenien writes "Recently, a friend of mine has been looking to buy a new laptop. Being a linux user, he isn't interested in Macs, and a doesn't particularly care which version of microsoft os is installed. Wat's relevant is the hardware, how well it's supported under linux and — and that is the crux of it — how quiet the laptop is when not under heavy use. Were it available, he'd buy a laptop with linux pre — installed, or no OS at all (this isn't in the US, so neither Dell nor HP offers are available).

He thought he'd found an interesting deal the other day (Asus Z83TC), but ended up bringing it back as it ran like crasy and was almost as loud as his desktop right after booting. Nothing was running but Vista.

I read somewhere else that Vista was pretty bad with laptops, but that may be with specific ones only. In any case, it could be that one laptop will be particularly loud with Vista but run normally under linux. Would anybody have thoughts or advice about this?"

PessimisticLitigator writes "Adam Liptak wrote a great article, in the New York Times, on how competition in the legal field is driving the cost per click of Google ad to remarkable levels Phrases such as "Oakland personal injury lawyer," "Asbestos attorney," and "mesothelioma attorney Texas" are bringing in between $58 and $66 per click. Is this an example of commonsense left at the door, or is it a brilliant use of technology? It seems like the prior to me.

There is an interesting side note where the article calls Google a middle aged technology, and it cites the historically slow adaptation of technology by attorneys as evidence.

   "
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/15/us/15bar.html?n=Top/Reference/TimesTopics/People/L/Liptak,Adam

Anonymous Coward writes "Science Daily is reporting that "With the latest advances in treatment, doctors have discovered that they can successfully neutralise the HIV virus. The so-called 'combination therapy' prevents the HIV virus from mutating and spreading, allowing patients to rebuild their immune system to the same levels as the rest of the population. To date, it represents the most significant treatment for patients suffering from HIV. Professor Jens Lundgren from the University of Copenhagen, together with other members of the research group EuroSIDA, have conducted a study, which demonstrates that the immune system of all HIV-infected patients can be restored and normalised. The only stipulation is that patients begin and continue to follow their course of treatment.""
http://sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071020103343.htm

tijsvd writes "The latest releases of Ubuntu for desktop and server are available today for download. This release brings together the best of free and open source software delivered on a stable, easy to use and learn platform. Read the press releases or download it now."

Aviran writes "Ubuntu, the most popular linux distribution is finally out with a new shiny version Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon). The home page of Ubuntu.com is not updated yet but the release page is live and images of the Linux operation system are available for download."
http://www.aviransplace.com/2007/10/18/ubuntu-710-gutsy-gibbon-released/

theodp writes "A reexam initiated by Lord of the Rings motion capture performer Peter Calveley's do-it-yourself legal effort has prompted the USPTO to reject 21 of the 26 Amazon 1-Click Patent claims. A USPTO Examiner found a 1995 Newsweek article on Digicash submitted by Calveley sufficient to quash a number of the claims, while many others were rejected in light of an e-shopping patent flagged by Calveley. Interestingly, additional claims were rejected by the Examiner in light of a TV remote control patent that was deemed to be unsuitable 1-Click prior art (for not being specific to the Web) in a contest run by the Tim O'Reilly and Jeff Bezos-bankrolled BountyQuest (Amazon last year testified to Congress that the contest failed to find prior art for Bezos' patent). Unfortunately, the action is non-final, so Amazon's high-priced law firm will get another chance to crush Calveley's PayPal-financed effort."

Macthorpe writes "In a news story carried by Telegraph.co.uk, the High Court in the United Kingdom has ruled that Al Gore's famous feature-length film on global warming is a 'political film' and therefore can only be shown to school children with guidance notes to prevent political indoctrination. He reinforces this with 9 key points in the film where specific points of view are raised with little to no evidence to support them. From the article: "Judge Michael Burton ruled yesterday that errors had arisen "in the context of alarmism and exaggeration" in order to support Mr Gore's thesis on global warming [...] the judge ruled that the "apocalyptic vision" presented in the film was politically partisan and thus not an impartial scientific analysis of climate change."

rimberg writes "On Tuesday, John Pugh MP led an adjournment debate on IT software procurement, where he accused the UK government of excluding Linux and Mac Users from government services such as the Department of Work and Pensions online benefits system.Also during the debate it looked like Andrew Miller MP might have raised the spectre of Microsoft's failed OOXML standard, when he asked:
"Would it not help in the quest for openness if the British Standards Institution were to follow the lead in other parts of the world and make open source XML (sic) one of the standards to be applied throughout the world? It would mean that people working outside the Microsoft sphere could have access to the code, and it would help the world in future-proofing big projects such as the British Library archives.""
http://www.openrightsgroup.org/2007/10/11/uk-government-accused-of-breaching-state-aid-rules-in-software-procurement/