Slashdot

JimXugle writes "As a collection of industry experts, fanboys and activists, slashdotters have an opportunity with the upcoming American presidential election to influence the future of a large portion of the political field for technology. We have seen with the DMCA, Germany's new anti-hacking law, attempted bans on violent video games, and countless others that government officials don't always 'get' technology. To educate the candidates as much as possible on technological topics, what would you suggest they read?"

A leaner, lighter, faster, and most importantly, BSD Licensed Compiler PCC has been imported into OpenBSD's CVS and NetBSD's pkgsrc.

The compiler is based on the original Portable C Compiler by S. C. Johnson, written in the late 70's. Even though much of the compiler has been rewritten, some of the basics still remain.

It is currently not bug-free, but it compiles on x86 platform, and works being done on it to take on GCC's job.
http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20070915195203&mode=expanded/

Coryoth writes "Following on from a previous story about UK schools encouraging students to drop mathematics, an article in The Age accuses Australian schools of much the same. The claim is that Australian schools are actively discouraging students from taking upper level math courses to boost their academic results on school league tables. How widespread is this phenomenon? Are schools taking similar measures in the US and Canada?"

kiwipom writes "The BBC is reporting that Nintendo are opening up the Wii to developers to produce their own games.

"Home and independent game makers are getting a chance to put together titles for Nintendo's Wii console. The hi-tech firm has released a set of game-making tools called WiiWare that give budding game makers the data they need to use the console and its innovative controller.



Do Slashdotters think this will drive a decent selection of games for the Wii driving further adoption, or is this just a gimmick that will supply endless versions of centipede clones? What games, that can be home developed, do people think would benefit from the wiimote and nunchuck?"

weighn writes "The Official Google Blog brings us news that Google Desktop for Linux is now available. "Just a few months after Google Desktop became available for the Mac, I'm [Mendel Chuang, Product Marketing Manager] happy to tell you it's now available for Linux users too. Google Desktop for Linux makes searching your computer as easy as searching the web with Google". So, what's wrong with grep?"

mytrip writes "2007 has not been kind to AMD, but it's surprising to hear rumours that they might be considering outsourcing chip fabrication. Analysts are predicting that AMD will try to cut costs by moving some fabrication elements out of the company by early next year. 'One Citigroup analyst is predicting a "transformational move" that would result in AMD's lower-end CPUs being manufactured by a third party and possibly selling off part or all of its Dresden, Germany facility. Another report from Goldman Sachs outlines the investment firm's belief that the company will leave manufacturing completely in the hands of third parties.'"

An anonymous reader writes "Paul Resnikoff's latest column on Digital Music News asks the question "are looking at the death of the traditional record label"? In Resnikoff's opinion we might just be. "Applying the current model, which relies heavily on recorded assets, the answer is yes. But if labels manage to diversify themselves quickly, and redefine the traditional definition of what a label is, the answer changes". As the increasingly powerful consumer shifts away from transactions involving recorded assets, to survive labels will need to radically broaden their revenue streams into areas that they traditionally have not played a role in. In short, the old way of doing business is going the way of the Model T. The failure of Sony Connect validates this opinion and as Richard Menta of MP3 Newswire points out even iTunes is overall failing to ignite the pay digital market beyond a single $20 gift card per year. Indeed, it took iTunes a few years to sell as many tracks as the P2P networks move in a single month. In Menta's opinion the $0.99-$1.29 a track price point is a traditional record label pricing strategy, one that still embraces the principal of scarcity when there is no scarcity. The followup question is, of course, what will Record Label 2.0 look like and will the concept of the major label survive the onslaught of experimental and lean tech savvy music startups?"

Nom du Keyboard writes "Several sources are reporting an agreement between AT&T and the RIAA/MPAA alliance to block copyrighted material on their network. And as has been pointed out, AT&T has a lot of network, meaning most packets traverse a piece of it at some point. Money quote: "As AT&T has begun selling pay-television services, the company has realized that its interests are more closely aligned with Hollywood." Nice to know that their interests aren't aligned with their paying customers any longer."

Noted security expert Marc Weber Tobias contributes The Lockdown, exposing the shoddy security you may depend on.

Two years ago I published an alert on my site regarding the inherent insecurity of gun trigger locks in the hope that manufacturers would remove them from the market or modify their design to make them more child-proof. Although some manufacturers now produce a more secure model to meet statutory requirements in California, even some of these can be easily compromised. Essentially nothing has changed: many manufacturers continue to sell products that are poorly designed, the consequences of which can be fatal -- literally. Even the cable locks that are provided under a US Justice Department grant to law enforcement agencies through Project ChildSafe for free dissemination to gun owners are inadequate.

I hope that this article will once again place all gun owners on notice of the dangers stemming from any form of trigger or cable lock to protect a weapon from unauthorized use by anyone -- but most importantly children. Have you ever seen an untrained eleven year old demonstrate the removal of three of the most popular trigger locks on the market from a rifle in just a few seconds? You will today. Read on.

Continue reading The Lockdown: Gun locks - unsafe at any caliber

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/124555719/

x3sphere writes "It's taken awhile, ten years to be exact, but Andreas Naive has successfully managed to break the protection on Capcom's CPS-3 arcade system board. The CPS-3 powered less than a dozen arcade classics, including JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Red Earth, and Street Fighter III.

The security system of the CPS-3 was rather advanced for its time. Any tampering to the game's security cartridge would result in the decryption key being erased, thereby rendering the respective cartridge useless.

So, the decryption is broken, what does this all mean? In one word: Emulation. Now that the decryption task is done, the folks over at MAME have already started work on a CPS-3 emulator."
http://www.exophase.com/industry/cps-3-encryption-scheme-broken-1195.htm

Ray writes "What's happened to AT&T's San Diego presence lately? It has be completely off the air to the Internet Health Report for several days, causing AT&T's service an overall red."

EWAdams writes "I don't know how many websites I've tried to register on that assume that I live in America. They demand that I pick a state from one of the 50 listed, and provide no alternative if I live elsewhere. They demand that I enter a ZIP code in exactly five digits, no letters allowed. (Canada and the UK use letters in their postal codes. Ireland does not use postal codes at all — the entire population of Ireland is less than that of New York city, so why bother?)

They demand that I enter a phone number in the form XXX-XXX-XXXX and no other. Sometimes they do this even when they provide a field to indicate that the country I live in is not the USA. The international standard format for a phone number is +[country code]-[city code]-[local number]. There are no guarantees about how long any of those will be in any given country.

What's this about? Are webmasters just routinely narrow-minded, blinkered, pig-ignorant morons, or is there some vast American conspiracy to pretend that it's the American Web rather than the World Wide Web? I'm not just talking about mom-and-pop operations here; some of the worst offenders are multinationals! I'm usually forced to resort to the telephone to straighten it out — a waste of their time, my time, and my money. What can be done about it? How does one get the message through to the idiot who programmed, and maintains, the site?"

Roland Piquepaille writes "Everyday, our cars are using more computing technology, primarily for safety reasons. So why not turning them into computer nodes of a mobile network? This is what UCLA engineers are working on. According to them, this would just need the relatively low-cost addition of sensors to the vehicle's roof and bumpers. They say their mobile ad-hoc networking platform (MANET) would allow 'moving vehicles within a range of 100 to 300 meters of each other to connect and create a network of cars.' Of course, not every driver would like to be part of this network because of privacy concerns. This is why 'the first mobile networks will be implemented in emergency response vehicles such as police cars, ambulances and hazardous materials response units.' But read more for additional details about these upcoming vehicular sensor networks (VSNs)."

JimXugle writes "Torrify.com, home to the open source anonymous Internet browser based on Firefox and The Onion Router, now redirects you to XeroBank.com.

What happened?"

blast writes "Given the broad field of candidates, I was wondering who the community thinks will make the best President when it comes to representing issues Slashdot readers might care about? Eg: privacy, 'total information awareness', Internet regulation and taxation, net neutrality, copyright/patent reform, the right to read, the right to secure communications, the right to tinker. Who do you think best represents your views? "