DemiKnute writes "According to the official Penguin.SWF blog, the a beta release of the long-awaited Flash 9 for Linux is available for download, a mere year after the release for Windows." From the blog: "While we are still working out exactly how to distribute the final Player version to be as easy as possible for the typical end user, this beta includes 2 gzip'd tarball packages: one is for the Mozilla plugin and the other is for a GTK-based Standalone Flash Player. Either will need to be downloaded manually via the Adobe Labs website and unpacked. The standalone Player (gflashplayer) can be run in place (after you set its executable permission). The plugin is dropped into your local plugin directory (for a local user) or the system-wide plugin directory." Report bugs here.

nuxx asks: "I have a copy of Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise x64 Edition here, with 25 Client Access Licenses which I don't need. I don't want to throw it away, but because it's a Not For Resale copy, I can't list it on eBay. So, I'd like to give it to a charity. It's a completely new, unused, legal copy which was handed to me by a Microsoft rep a few weeks ago, so this should be legal to do. The problem is, I'm not really sure how to donate software to a charity. Does anyone have any experience with this? Do you know of any resources available regarding how to send such donations and which organizations find them useful?"

KevHead writes "Speaking at a conference of international police chiefs, FBI Director Robert Mueller called for strict data retention guidelines for US ISPs. Echoing DHS head Michael Cherthoff's assertion that the Internet was enabling terrorists to telecommute to work, Mueller went further and said that the US needs stricter data retention guidelines. '"All too often, we find that before we can catch these offenders, Internet service providers have unwittingly deleted the very records that would help us identify these offenders and protect future victims," Mueller said. The solution? Forcing ISPs to retain data for set periods of time.' If that happens, how long before the MPAA and RIAA start asking to take a peek at the data too, as they have in Europe?"

MaestroRC asks: "I've been looking around online, and I have found several people wanting to do the same thing, but no one seems to have figured it out yet. What I am wanting to do (and before you go further, understand this is for work, i.e.: no innocent people will be harmed in the implementation) is to set up a name server that selectively forwards queries. For example, I would like to create a list of acceptable domains (less than 20) using wildcards such as *.google.com, that the name server will forward a query on to and reply to normally. For anything not in the list, I want it to reply NXDOMAIN or some such. I've looked at BIND, and there doesn't appear to be a way to do what I'm wanting; it can either have recursion on or off, and any specific zones of type forward still do not forward if it is off. The solution doesn't have to be pretty, and it can just be a simple DNS proxy, but I'm not adept at coding, so it needs to be installable by a regular sysadmin on Linux. Has anyone heard of something like this?"

PreacherTom writes "The party line for the music industry has been clear: discourage music downloads at all cost. However, singer Peter Gabriel is taking things in a different direction. In order to promote his own label, he is actually encouraging people to not only download his music, but also adapt it into something more modern. In doing so, he actually posted a sample pack of Shock the Monkey consisting of vocals and other pieces of the original multitrack recording. Some in the music business would call this the commercial equivalent of hiring kidnappers to babysit. In actuality, Gabriel is pleased with the results."

eldavojohn writes "In 1994, there was speculation that there might be a southern ice cap on the moon — something our exploration of it could take advantage of. Unfortunately, recent evidence has come to light revealing that this probably isn't true." From the article: "If there is any ice at the South Pole, it probably comes from tiny, scattered grains that probably account for only one or two percent of the local dust, the authors suggest. "Any planning for future exploitation of hydrogen at the Moon's South Pole should be constrained by this low average abundance rather than by the expectation of localized deposits at higher concentrations," the paper says soberly. The research involved sending a radar signal from the Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico. The signal hit the southern lunar region and the reflection was picked up by the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia." Well, it looks like we're going to have to hit Hoth before we hold that kegger on the moon."

Despite a 5.4 percent slip in third quarter operating margins (AMD attributes the decline to lower average selling prices for processors used in desktop computers), AMD beat analyst estimates for financial performance. AMD reported a net income of $134 million, or $0.27 cents a share on revenue of $1.33 billion, as it continues to pressure number-one chipmaker Intel Corp. "When memory products sales are excluded, AMD's sales grew 9 percent from the previous quarter and 32 percent from last year's third quarter, Robert Rivet, AMD's chief financial officer. AMD has been taking semiconductor market share away from rival Intel in the last year with new dual-core processors, forcing Intel into a defensive posture."

Luis Escalante writes "After over a year and a half, IE7 has been released to the public as of Monday afternoon. Download it directly here. Word hit the streets after several mangers of the IE division posted on the IE blog."

Sylentmode writes "A recent study by Brookings Institution's Brown Center shows that students who are good with math are less likely to be happy, and are likely to have low confidence. From the article "In essence, happiness is overrated" says study author Tom Loveless. I wonder if Loveless is just a nickname, because he is so good with math."

Logitech today announced the purchase of Slim Devices, longtime makers of network audio players SliMP3, Squeezebox, and the new Transporter. A couple years back Logitech bought Harmony Remote, becoming the makers of all my wireless control devices for my entertainment center (Bluetooth mouse, remote control, and PS2 controllers). Now they make my Squeezebox, too.

eldavojohn wonders: "With the recent acquisition of YouTube by Google, there has been a lot of speculation (on both Slashdot & The Toronto Star) that we are nearing the second economic bubble created largely in part by growth in the digital sector. While one may be able to debate that the revenue from advertising and sales can indeed back this growth, are we headed towards the second bubble and, if so, how hard is it going to pop? Keep in mind that popular voodoo economic theory has attributed the first bubble phenomenon to 'a combination of rapidly increasing stock prices, individual speculation in stocks, and widely available venture capital.' I think we're experiencing all those, although it is not as flagrant as it was during the first bubble. What do you think?"

Raynor writes "Imagine a world without people. What if every human being, all 6.5 billion of us, were suddenly abducted and the planet was left to fend for itself? The planet would heal. 'The sad truth is, once the humans get out of the picture, the outlook starts to get a lot better,' says John Orrock, a conservation biologist. Pollution would cease being created. It would remain around for many years, CO2 taking as long as 20,000 years to be restored to it's natural level, but will decrease. Even if we were all whisked away and our nuclear reactors melted down, it would have a surprisingly little effect on the planet. Chernobyl gives hope to this end. 'I really expected to see a nuclear desert there,' says Ronald Chesser, an environmental biologist. 'I was quite surprised. When you enter into the exclusion zone, it's a very thriving ecosystem.' In the grand scheme of the world there would be little evidence of our existence at 100,000 years. The most permanent piece is the radio waves we've emitted of the last century. As the article puts it, 'The humbling — and perversely comforting — reality is that the Earth will forget us remarkably quickly.'"

edmicman writes "Wired News has an interesting article about what would make the perfect voting machine: 'With election season upon us, Wired News spoke with two of the top computer scientists in the field, UC Berkeley's David Wagner and Princeton's Ed Felten, and came up with a wish list of features we would include in a voting machine, if we were asked to create one. These recommendations can't guarantee clean results on their own. Voting machines, no matter how secure, are no remedy for poor election procedures and ill-conceived election laws. So our system would include thorough auditing and verification capabilities and require faithful adherence to good election practices, as wells as topnotch usability and security features.'"

Gamespot is reporting that Nielsen is now going to be tracking game play statistics. The same 10,000 sample households that dictate what succeeds and fails in the television world will also have their game playing habits recorded by the company. From the article: "The rating system will monitor the goings-on of game consoles, including next-generation models such as Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii. Data will include which games are played most frequently, along with corresponding information about the demographics of the players. The video-game rating system is also intended to offer insight into what television and Internet trends the players follow. Called GamePlay Metrics, it will be the first project to come out of Nielsen's new Wireless and Interactive Services Division, which itself launched today."

Troy Samuel writes "The WiMedia Alliance is planning to make the technology known as 'ultrawideband,' or UWB, work among a wide variety of consumer electronics devices. Various organizations, including the Bluetooth SIG, have chosen the WiMedia Alliance's version of UWB technology as the foundation for a next-generation short-range networking technology." From the article: "UWB technology can deliver data rates at up to 480 megabits per second at around 3 meters, with speeds dropping off as the range grows to a limit of about 10 meters. Real-world speeds will probably be a little slower, but this is as fast as the wired version of USB 2.0 and much faster than current Wi-Fi networks are capable of transmitting data. 'This stuff is plumbing,' Roger Kay, an analyst with Endpoint Technologies Associates, said of the newer-generation wireless technology. 'It's important that it be there, it's going to be handy for getting rid of cables hanging around your desk.'"