823505
submission
JerkyBoy writes
"Yahoo is reported to have approved "the appointments of former Viacom CEO Frank Biondi and former Nextel Partners CEO John Chapple to its board." The appointments occurred days before the scheduled shareholder meeting of August 1. It appears that Icahn's attempt to replace the entire board at Yahoo was met with only partial success. Icahn is now on the board, as well as the two aforementioned appointees. One wonders what it would be like to be in Steve Ballmer's shoes these days... Don't throw that chair, Steve!"
761747
submission
JerkyBoy writes
"A press release from AMD describes improvements to the ATI graphics cards for OpenGL on Linux. From the article: "AMD today announced new ATI Catalyst(TM) drivers with major performance enhancements to ATI FireGL(TM) professional graphics cards. Availability of this enhanced 8.49.7 Linux driver represents a significant leap for Linux customers seeking improved performance of CAD and digital content creation applications that can offer up to approximately 33 percent faster OpenGL performance than the previous driver." Linux support for NVIDIA cards seems lightyears ahead of the ATI cards, but maybe ATI (AMD) is finally taking Linux development seriously."
28869
submission
JerkyBoy writes
"There is an interesting article at Salon titled, "Brownout at the EPA," where it is noted that the Bush administration has slashed the EPA budget by $100 million, forcing the closure of the EPA library headquarters and three regional branches. Additional closures are likely to follow, essentially crippling the EPA through a denial of information access. Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility site have note that "[s]huttering the EPA libraries means that: Tens of thousands of unique holdings will be boxed up and inaccessible for an unknown period; Public access to EPA holdings will cease; and EPA scientists, enforcement agents and other specialists will have a much harder time doing their jobs.""
27554
submission
JerkyBoy writes
"In a previously covered story it was revealed that Blackboard had patented Learning Management Systems (LMS) (full text of the patent is here) and then quickly turned around and sued Desire2Learn for infringement of said patent. In response to Blackboard's behavior, Educause issued a strongly worded letter (cited here and reproduced here). An interesting part of the letter reads, "One of our concerns is that you may not fully appreciate the depth of the consternation this action has caused for key members of our community. Among those who have been most directly involved in the development and evolution of course management systems — customers whom Blackboard has relied upon for ideas and advice — these concerns are most pronounced."
European Union members might see the behavior of Blackboard in an especially interesting light due to recent attempts by big business lobbyists to allow patents for software. Blackboard's press release tells us that "indicated patents corresponding with the U.S. patent have been issued in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore and are pending in the European Union, China, Japan, Canada, India, Israel, Mexico, South Korea, Hong Kong and Brazil." In other words, enforcement of Blackboard's patent would essentially grant them a worldwide monopoly on Learning Management Systems, even in the face of mountains of prior art that should invalidate the patent out of hand. (The PLATO System was established in 1960 and one year later was catering to multiple, networked users.)"
