BTJunkie writes "BitTorrent Inc. is experimenting with alternatives to paid downloads on their Entertainment Network, and is now experimenting with advertising supported downloads. This news comes nearly one month after the initial release of the Entertainment Network, a possible sign of failure.'The ad-supported model is currently being tested on episodes by the video gamers network G4, but is likely to be tested on episodes from other publishers in the future. The video ads are short video clips delivered by YuMe Networks, a company that is specialized in IP based video ads. YuMe CEO Jayant Kadambi said that the company expects to deliver more user targeted video ads as soon as BitTorrent Inc. signs more deals with publishers that want to experiment with ad-supported downloads.'"

GogglesPisano writes "CNN earlier reported that former HP chairwoman Patricia Dunn would plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of fraudulent wire communications stemming from her involvement in last year's corporate eavesdropping scandal. The story was later amended after charges again st Dunn were dropped. The original charges, four felony counts, were reduced to misdemeanors in exchange for a plea bargain. Her three co-defendants are expected to receive 96 hours of community service; in Dunn's case this sentence is likely to be waived due to illness." Update: 03/15 02:21 GMT by KD : The prosecutor in the case issued a correction to the eariler pronouncement that Dunn would plead guilty to a misdemeanor. "At court today, Patricia Dunn did not enter any plea in response to the misdemeanor count, and the court exercised its discretion by dismissing the case against her," the revised statement said.

gondwannabe writes "Here are Five Things You Aren't Allowed to Discuss About Linux. With considerable chutzpa, an insightful Rob Enderle takes on what he considers five dogmas in the OSS community and explains why they're wrong. Examples: Linux is secure, "communes" actually work in the long haul, and that Linux is "pro-developer."

It would be hard to argue that World of Warcraft hasn't been a huge success. Not only has it been a financial success in the MMO market, but it has introduced many new people to Massive gaming that might not have otherwise given it a shot. With their first expansion, The Burning Crusade, Blizzard has made huge advances in many areas of the game. Long-standing complaints have been addressed, and the structure of the popular title has been reinforced. The casual players have gotten a large injection of content that is both accessible and enjoyable to someone who doesn't have huge amounts of time to play. At the same time, hardcore players who thirst for new challenges on a daily basis have quite a bit of work ahead of them. This is not to say that The Burning Crusade (BC) doesn't have its pitfalls, but overall I get the feeling that this is closer to what Blizzard's World of Warcraft dream was meant to be. Read on for my opinions of this new round of addiction.

narramissic writes "After 13 years as a loyal Red Hat user, Eric Raymond, co-founder of the Open Source Initiative, is switching to the Ubuntu distribution. In a message distributed to Linux mailing lists and news organizations, Raymond cited technical issues with Red Hat, such as the way repositories are maintained, the submission process and 'stagnant' development of Red Hat's packaging technology, as well as governance problems, the failure to gain desktop market share and the failure to include proprietary media formats. 'Over the last five years, I've watched Red Hat/Fedora throw away what was at one time a near-unassailable lead in technical prowess, market share and community prestige,' Raymond wrote. 'The blunders have been legion on both technical and political levels.'"

Madas writes "Scientists working in Cambridge have managed to make quantum encryption completely secure (registration required) by putting decoy pulses in the key transmission stream. According to the story this paves the way for safe, encrypted high-speed data links. Could this allow completely private transmission of data away from snooping eyes and ears? Or will it mean film studios can stop movies from being copied when traveling on the internet?"

QuatumCrypto writes "SETI@home is a distributed processing client from UC Berkeley that installs on the volunteers' home computers and harnesses their processing power in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. So far nothing noteworthy has comeout of this massive project... that is until today! One of the volunteers was able to track down his wife's stolen laptop using the IP address that SETI@home client reports back to the server. After getting back the laptop his wife said, 'I always knew that a geek would make a great husband.'"

narramissic writes "At the Symantec Vision event in Tokyo Thursday, chairman and CEO John Thompson spoke about a shift his company has observed in the threat posed to computer users and companies by hackers. 'While a few years ago many people were much more focused on attacking the machine and attacking the broad-based activities that were going on online, now all of a sudden we've noticed a significant shift in both the type of attack and the motivation of the attack,' he said. 'The attacks that we see today are more targeted and more silent and their objective is to create true financial harm as opposed to visibility for the attackers.'"