Slashdot

Wow. I'm surprised AOL still has that many customers.

Come on guys, let's get grandma off AOL.

JackPowers writes "The Google Health APIs enable portable, standardized, open architecture, extensible personal health records, which is nice but boring if they're just used to manage the paperwork of the doctor/patient relationship. But once the data is set free, all kinds of Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 apps are possible. This article looks ahead 10 years at Best Case Scenarios. A follow-up article lists the Worst Case Scenarios."

It's over. Move on.

I almost forgot one. Give seminars/lessons/tutorials on various, purely trivial topics. Teach the history of the ampersand or the origins of the Gin and Tonic.

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Bills have been introduced in both the House and the Senate to liberalize copyright law in the case of orphaned works. The almost-identical bills would limit the penalties for infringement in cases where the copyright holder could no longer be identified. The idea is that one could declare their intent to use the work with the Copyright Office and if the copyright holder didn't care to respond, they would only be able to get 'reasonable compensation' instead of excessive statutory penalties. Public Knowledge has more details on the bills."

DigDuality writes "With the news that Windows 2008 (recently discussed on Slashdot) will have GUI-less installs and be fully scriptable, that they've opened up their communication protocols for non-commercial usage and are providing a patent covenant (Redhat Responds), and now finally an interesting rumor floating around that Microsoft will be taking on GNU directly. Has Microsoft totally switched gears in how it is approaching the Unix and FOSS sector for direct competition? According to an anonymous email leaked from a Microsoft employee, it seems Microsoft will be developing a framework that will be completely GNU compatible. Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer, said on Friday (23 February) that they are aiming to restore a Unix-like environment to its former proprietary glory, at the same time proving that Microsoft is committed to interoperability. Ballmer emphasized that Microsoft's new strategy is to provide users with a complete package, and this includes users who like Unix environments. According to the supposedly leaked email, UNG, which stands for UNG's not GNU, is set to be released late 2009."

Lucas123 writes "Toshiba announced today that it will slash the prices on HD DVD players from 40% to 50% to boost market adoption of its hi-def DVD format by mainstream consumers after it said it had a successful fourth quarter in unit sales. "While price is one of the consideration elements for the early adopter, it is a deal-breaker for the mainstream consumer," said Toshiba executive Yoshi Uchiyama in a statement."
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=storage&articleId=9057222&taxonomyId=19&intsrc=kc_top

Paul Torrens, at the Arizona State University School of Geographical Sciences, has a computer simulation that models urban panic: "The goal of this project is to develop a reusable and behaviorally founded computer model of pedestrian movement and crowd behavior...
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/01/modeling_urban.html

macleoa writes "LWN has a story that KDE 4 has been released http://lwn.net/Articles/264769/"

The British government's educational IT authority has issued a report advising schools in the country not to upgrade their classrom or office systems to Windows Vista or Office 2007. According to this InformationWeek story, the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency says costs for Vista and Office 2007 "are significant and the benefits remain unclear." Instead, Becta is advising British schools to take a long look at Linux and open source suites like OpenOffice.org.

Corby Ziesman writes "Daily Kos reports that the Florida Citizens for Science have discovered Taylor County has passed an Intelligent-Design-friendly resolution asking that the "State Board of Education direct the Florida Department of Education to revise/edit the new Sunshine State Standards for Science so that evolution is presented as one of several theories as to how the universe was formed." This seems quite reasonable, as most scientists would also agree that the Theory of Evolution does not describe the formation of the Universe."
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/11/72621/6806

mrneutron2003 writes "With this past week's announcement by Warner to release its entire catalog to Amazon in MP3 format with no Digital Rights Management, you would think that the organization that represents them, The RIAA, would begin changing its tune. Instead, they are pressing on in their campaign against consumers by suing individuals who merely rip CDs they've purchased legally. 'The industry's lawyer in the case, Ira Schwartz, argues in a brief filed earlier this month that the MP3 files Howell made on his computer from legally bought CDs are "unauthorized copies" of copyrighted recordings.'"

From the article:

Microsoft Corp. has warned Windows Home Server users not to edit files stored on their backup systems with several of its programs, including Vista Photo Gallery and Office's OneNote and Outlook, as well as files generated by popular finance software such as Quicken and QuickBooks.

Don't back up you files to Windows Home Server as recommended by Microsoft themselves according to this article. I'm not exactly what the point is in having a home server if you can't backup files on it.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9054178

An anonymous reader writes "Many on Slashdot accuse music and movie companies of violating privacy and legal rights when they send DMCA subpoenas, and generally excoriate the DMCA subpoena process. Will they similarly condemn AVG for sending DMCA subpoenas to search engines and domain registrars in order to discover the identity of sellers of counterfeit antivirus software? Is there a difference?"
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=205101441

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "David Pogue of the New York Times has an interesting story about how fewer and fewer people believe that infringement is wrong. He mentions talks he gave back in 2005 where people were willing to believe that making backups of DVDs you own is wrong. Today, however, at his talks, he was only able to get two people out of a crowd of five hundred college students to say that downloading a movie or album is wrong. He goes on, like many before him, to bemoan the immorality of young people today, saying: 'I do know, though, that the TV, movie and record companies' problems have only just begun. Right now, the customers who can't even *see* why file sharing might be wrong are still young. But 10, 20, 30 years from now, that crowd will be *everybody*. What will happen then?'"