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>...but do I expect my local PC tech guy to have investigative training? ...

It's so that they can carry a gun before telling you: "I reformatted your harddrive, you have a backup, don't you?"

Opticalus writes "IDM are reporting that an Australian researcher has discovered a way of running VDSL over existing copper phone lines. This would mean the broadband speeds you currently see on Verizon and AT&T's fiber networks could be achieved on standard copper phone lines. The technology is still in testing phases and is based around reducing line interference to almost nothing in order to achieve 100 MB connections."
http://www.idm.net.au/story.asp?id=8943

Redmond forces resource-hogging search app on reluctant admins

Something seems to have gone horribly wrong in an untold number of IT departments on Wednesday after Microsoft installed a resource-hogging search application on machines company-wide, even though administrators had configured systems not to use the program.

http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/25/windows_update_snafu/

Filed under: Storage

Apparently SanDisk just noticed that other companies have had the nerve to ship flash-memory devices, because it's just dropped two lawsuits and an International Trade Commission action against some 25 companies, including Philips, Kingston, Imation / Memorex, LG, and Verbatim. SanDisk is alleging that these companies infringed up to seven different patents, although what those patents cover has not yet been released. The two lawsuits are filed in the Western District of Wisconsin, which is known as a "rocket docket," so we should hear more about them relatively quickly, but the real action for right now is the ITC case, which is the same type of complaint that halted imports of those Qualcomm chips and could result in a stoppage of flash imports if successful. This just dropped, so we'll keep you updated as we find out more -- and peep the whole list of companies being sued after the break.

Disclaimer: Although this post was written by an attorney, it is not meant to be legal advice or analysis and should not be taken as such.

Continue reading SanDisk drops a patent lawsuit bomb, sues 25 companies for infringement

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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/~3/174598727/

draxbear writes "To kick off a new advertising campaign against piracy in Australia, local newspaper The Age reports that winning a local music award (ARIA) could result in unemployment for Australian musicians thanks to illegal downloads. To round out the spin a trove of industry loss statistics are bandied about, capped off with veiled threats of impending lawsuits."
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2007/10/24/1192941131964.html

Colin Smith writes "

Humanity may split into two sub-species in 100,000 years' time as predicted by HG Wells, an expert has said. Evolutionary theorist Oliver Curry of the London School of Economics expects a genetic upper class and a dim-witted underclass to emerge.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6057734.stm

Presumably most Slashdot readers are already in the process of evolving into Morlocks."

This article in Australia's IT News, mentions that under its antitrust agreement with the European Union, "Microsoft will publish an irrevocable pledge not to assert any patents it may have over the interoperability information against non-commercial open source software development projects." Whether M$ will claim this will only apply in the E.U. or that it will apply to Open Source projects in the U.S. is an open question in view of Microsoft's rather lackluster compliance with prior antitrust violation settlements.

An anonymous reader writes "Lots of people think that giving stuff away for free somehow goes against "capitalism" or basic economics. However, what if that's not true? Techdirt has a detailed post going through the economics of free content and how it can be used to grow a market. When read in context, it shows why things like open source software actually are an important part of a thriving free market economy. Seems like a useful thing to read if you're in any business that relies on "intellectual property.""

An anonymous reader writes "As if telcos haven't been ripping off customers enough with various fees, now AT&T and others are charging some calling card users with 8 minutes of usage for every minute actually used. On top of that, when confronted, they blame the FCC, even though the FCC says there are no regulations on the matter."

An anonymous reader writes "Hello slashdotters,
I work in an IT division in a major US based investment firm. It has recently come to my attention that my organization is regularly and intentionally lying to/decieving our internal auditors, as well as those from the SEC, in regards to several articles of the sarbanes oxley act, most blatantly the ones concerning electronic mail/messages.

The real problem is that everyone (right up to the CIO) is aware of it, yet they all seem content with the lies. Without getting into specifics, the auditors have little understanding of technology and blindly accept what they are told, even though it is far from the truth.

While [I hope] it hasn't lead to anything as terrible as Enron [yet?], it still doesn't sit right with me, but I am not sure what would be the best course of action.

I realize my employment would most likely be terminated for alerting the SEC, but what rights [if any] does a virtual whistle blower have these days? Would this brand me for life hindering future employment?"

An anonymous reader writes "A new competitor to Bank of America's SiteKey authentication was announced at the Web 2.0 Expo. Vidoop is a picture password scheme that claims it is invulnerable to phishing attacks, keyboard loggers and "all prevalent forms of hacking" (according to their website and TV commercial on YouTube). The scheme is supposedly harder to break because users have to remember image categories as their password rather than the images themselves. Harvard and CommerceNet researchers report that they broke the scheme in a few hours, and they posted a video of the attack. This is related to the attack on Bank of America's Sitekey by the boarding pass hacker and to the Harvard study on SiteKey that shows how easily users get phished."

An anonymous reader writes "A recent study at the University of Minnesota suggests that ceiling height affects problem-solving skills and behavior by priming concepts that encourage certain kinds of brain processing. According to researcher Joan Meyers-Levy, "When people are in a room with a high ceiling, they activate the idea of freedom. In a low-ceilinged room, they activate more constrained, confined concepts." The concept of freedom promotes information processing that encourages greater variation in the kinds of thoughts one has, while the concept of confinement promotes more detail-oriented processing. From the article: "Managers should want noticeably higher ceilings for thinking of bold initiatives. The technicians and accountants might want low ceilings." There could be consequences in the world of health care as well, she said. "If you're having surgery done, you would want the operating room to encourage item-specific processing.""

eZtaR writes "The guys over at the Free60 project have released a working, gentoo-based linux live cd for the xbox 360. Sporting the gnome desktop and various applications such as Firefox and Evolution, one can pop the CD in and enjoy ones triplecore powerpc doing simpler tasks such as checking up on the latest news here on slashdot. Although it lacks features such as sound and hardware acceleration (which the developers blame on lack of hardware-docs) it's currently working on firmware versions 4532 and 4548, without risking breaking your warranty."