Slashdot

conner_bw writes "Yessire folks, here they are: the official UK government UFO files now available for your reading pleasure. Discover UFO files, newly released by Ministry of Defense with The National Archives in may 2008. "What does all this stuff about flying saucers amount to? What can it mean? What is the truth?" -Winston Churchill"
http://ufos.nationalarchives.gov.uk/

darthcamaro writes "The largest stock exchange on Earth is a Linux shop. NYSE Euronext has chosen Red Hat's Linux offerings to power the critical financial trading platform that services approximately $141 billion in daily trading volume. Financial terms of the deal are not being publicly disclosed at this time."

conner_bw writes "Renoise is a contemporary digital audio workstation (DAW) based upon the heritage and development of tracker software. With input from a very enthusiastic user community, two and a half months were spent on bug fixes and stability improvements for the Linux beta. The work has paid off and as of a few moments ago the Linux port is now officially 1.9.1 "GOLD" like it's OS X and Windows counterparts. If you're a "free as in freedom" software user there's good news for you too. MilkyTracker is GPL as of last week."
http://www.renoise.com/board/index.php?showtopic=16280

desmondhaynes writes "There were striking similarities between one of Google's App Engine demos, HuddleChat (a real-time chat application) and the Campfire app from 37Signals. Google has taken HuddleChat down from the App Engine app gallery." Google explains: 'The App Engine team was looking for some sample apps to help kick the tires on their new system, so we invited Googlers to build some as side projects. A couple of our colleagues here built HuddleChat in their spare time because they wanted to share work within their team more easily and thought persistent web chat would do the trick. We've heard some complaints from the developer community, though, so rather than divert attention from Google App Engine itself, we thought it better to just take HuddleChat down.'" We noted the launch of Google's App Engine yesterday.

Update: 04/10 14:51 GMT by KD : A reader wrote in to warn that the link in this article is infected. Windows users beware, and have your AV up-to-date.

conner_bw writes "Dave Phillips of Linux Journal shows us the first version of this music composition and production software for Linux. Are commercial sound and music software manufacturers finally realizing that there is a market for their products in the Linux audio world?"
http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/renoise-linux

conner_bw writes "As of as few minutes ago, the Renoise demo for Linux is now available. Renoise is a contemporary software application based on the heritage and development of tracker styled music sequencers. Its primary use is the composition of music using samples (WAV, AIFF, FLAC, OGG, MP3) and MIDI sequencing of VSTi soft synths. A free (as in beer) binary is available for Linux users here."
http://www.renoise.com/indepth/renoise-news/renoise-191-final-and-public-linux-demo/

conner_bw writes "There's a poll going on in the Renoise forums, asking if you would use said music software on Linux. Renoise is a contemporary digital audio workstation based upon the heritage and development of tracker software. It's currently available on Windows and OS X. This post by the main developer spills the beans on there already being a Linux version up and running. At this point they just need to decide when to release a beta, if a demo version will be available, what distributions to support, and so on. Renoise on Linux would be closed source shareware. Opinions?"

This week's film blogs have been left aghast as Mike Judge's grotesque fictional energy drink Brawndo from the movie Idiocracy became a reality. To recap: Fox wouldn't support a film about Brawndo, the energy drink that destroys plants, debases the human race, and makes those who drink it 'win at yelling' but they are now putting wholehearted support behind the actual drink?
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/film/2007/12/for_editors_the_view_why_fox_w.html

ESheline writes "If you looked closely at last night's episode of Saturday Night Live during the iPhone: The Affair sketch, you may or may not have noticed a certain extra "Installer" icon next to the iTunes button. So what's that icon signify? The iPhone being used was Jailbroken (or, hacked for programs and games, in layman terms)."
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/nbc-hacks-iphone/nbc-has-hacked-their-iphone-318634.php

Rude Awakening writes "From the Hardware Upgrade Department: Jared and Justin Serovich came up with the "Rip Away 1000," rigged shorts that got them to the finals of a central Ohio invention competition earlier this year, as well as an invitation to appear on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show.""

FreeMichael61 writes "Is this the beginning of the end? None less than the Open Document Foundation (ODF) has condemned the open document format to irrelevance. The Foundation's VP, Sam Hiser told eWEEK that ODF is a "sideline drama, only useful insofar as it has provided a foil for [Microsoft's] OOXML [Office Open XML]." Microsoft knows what to do with that kind of opening. Its format guru, Jason Matusow, responded that "when it comes down to the real world of meeting their needs, even the organization that has a charter to promote ODF decided that a different format was better for it." ODF provided and ceremonial sword and knelt over it; Microsoft simply gave them a gentle shove. Adieu ODF?"
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2211700,00.asp

conner_bw writes "The interface is primarily numeric, notes are entered via the keyboard, length, parameters, effects are often entered in hexadecimal notation, and code flies across the screen as if you were looking at the opening credits of The Matrix. What's not to love? Renoise 1.9 was released a few hours ago. OS X and Windows compatible, rumors in the forums that a Linux version is just around the corner are abundant. A mob of interested Slashdot users couldn't hurt? Could it?"

Enter Sandvine writes "A handful of consumer groups have filed a complaint with the FCC over Comcast's "delaying" some BitTorrent traffic. The complaint seeks fines of $195,000 for each Comcast subscriber affected by the traffic blocking as well as a permanent injunction barring the ISP from blocking P2P traffic. '"Comcast's defense is bogus," said Free Press policy director Ben Scott. "The FCC needs to take immediate action to put an end to this harmful practice. Comcast's blatant and deceptive BitTorrent blocking is exactly the type of problem advocates warned would occur without Net Neutrality laws.""