Submission + - Microsoft Patents the Mother of All Adware (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Ars Technica has an article on the mother of all adware patent filed by Microsoft: "It's such a tremendously bad idea that it's almost bound to succeed. Microsoft has filed another patent, this one for an "advertising framework" that uses "context data" from your hard drive to show you advertisements and "apportion and credit advertising revenue" to ad suppliers in real time. Yes, Redmond wants to own the patent on the mother of all adware."
Submission + - Firefox gains at Microsoft's expense
Daniel Hudson writes: Firefox, is becoming increasingly popular, gaining on average an extra 3.1 percent of the market in 32 European countries in the past four months, according to French Web-monitoring company XiTi Monitor.
Although Microsoft still has 66.5 percent of the browser market across Europe, in certain countries Firefox has now become very popular — especially in Eastern Europe. In Slovenia, Firefox has 47.9 percent of the market, while the browser now has over 39 percent market share in Poland, Hungary, and Croatia.
Submission + - Apache loses more ground in latest Netcraft report (techtarget.com)
E. Stride writes: "Is the sky falling? As Apache continued its month-over-month decline in market share in July, Microsoft made subtle gains with IIS."
Submission + - How Apple Can Win The PC Battle (readwriteweb.com)
ReadWriteWeb writes: "Despite dropping the word computer from its name, Apple still desperately wants to win the PC market. And recent statistics show they are making progress. Just a year ago Apple's share was close to 2%. Now Apple's Desktops have crossed 10% and the MacBooks now closing on 15% of the laptop market. This puts MacBooks in 4th place behind HP, Toshiba and Gateway. The figures are likely to increase in the 3rd quarter, which is traditionally strong for Apple, because of the back-to-school sales.
Despite the fact that Macs are on the rise and iPods rule already, one can't help but wonder: why are people still using PCs if Macs are so great? One reason is of course cost — Apple computers are usually more expensive than PCs. But another reason is Inertia. When it comes to switch, the cost is not just measured in dollars — it is measured in time and brain power. In addition to cost and learning barriers, there are big corporate barriers as well."
Despite the fact that Macs are on the rise and iPods rule already, one can't help but wonder: why are people still using PCs if Macs are so great? One reason is of course cost — Apple computers are usually more expensive than PCs. But another reason is Inertia. When it comes to switch, the cost is not just measured in dollars — it is measured in time and brain power. In addition to cost and learning barriers, there are big corporate barriers as well."
Submission + - A human buffer overflow to defeat printer dots (seeingyellow.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The Seeing Yellow project wants us to contact printer manufacturers to at last get their statement about the yellow dots that laser printers include to allow tracing of individual printouts. They say one person who did this was paid a visit by the Secret Service!
Submission + - Blogs Are Eating Tech Media Alive - Forbes.com (forbes.com)
Heinz writes: Silicon Valley is booming again. But if you work in tech media, there's blood on the floor. Take Red Herring. It hung onto its offices after getting the eviction notice earlier this month. But gossip site Valleywag is breaking story after story not just on its beat — but about its woes. Meanwhile, bigger publications are hurting too: Time Warner's (nyse: TWX — news — people ) Business 2.0 saw ad pages drop 21.8% through March from the same period a year ago; PC Magazine's editor in chief walked out the door after ad pages fell 38.8% over the same period; and one-time online powerhouse CNET is reporting growing losses even as the companies it covers flourish. It may be happening in tech first, but there's no reason the same thing won't happen, eventually, in every media niche.
Submission + - A Pilot on Airline Security (hotair.com)
Paperweight writes: Dave Mackett, president of the Airline Pilots Security Alliance, recently wrote how unsafe and hole-ridden airline security still is, in spite of all the money being blown on it. There is simply no deployable technology that has a prayer of keeping a motivated, prepared terrorist out of the system. The US Transport Security Administration misses more than 90% of detectable weapons at passenger checkpoints even in their own tests. Until the mindset behind airline security is changed, using an airliner as a weapon of mass destruction is as easy today as ever.
Submission + - Net addicted couple neglect, starve own kids (yahoo.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Yahoo is reporting in this story that "A couple who authorities say were so obsessed with the Internet and video games that they left their babies starving and suffering other health problems have pleaded guilty to child neglect"
According to a prosecutor on the case: " ... the Reno couple were too distracted by online video games, mainly the fantasy role-playing Dungeons & Dragons series, to give their children proper care ... they had food; they just chose not to give it to their kids because they were too busy playing video games ..."
Police said hospital staff had to shave the head of the girl because her hair was matted with cat urine. The 10-pound girl also had a mouth infection, dry skin and severe dehydration. Her brother had to be treated for starvation and a genital infection. His lack of muscle development caused him difficulty in walking.
Last month, experts at an American Medical Association meeting backed away from a proposal to designate video game addiction as a mental disorder, saying it had to be studied further. Some said the issue is like alcoholism, while others said there was no concrete evidence it's a psychological disease.
According to a prosecutor on the case: "
Police said hospital staff had to shave the head of the girl because her hair was matted with cat urine. The 10-pound girl also had a mouth infection, dry skin and severe dehydration. Her brother had to be treated for starvation and a genital infection. His lack of muscle development caused him difficulty in walking.
Last month, experts at an American Medical Association meeting backed away from a proposal to designate video game addiction as a mental disorder, saying it had to be studied further. Some said the issue is like alcoholism, while others said there was no concrete evidence it's a psychological disease.
Submission + - Mitochondria may hold secret to preventing death
H_Fisher writes: "Research into mitochondria — small parts within a cell that have their own DNA — are a cause of cellular death, Newsweek reports. The article from the most recent edition of the magazine, entitled "The Science of Death: Reviving the Dead," reports on people who have recovered from sudden death due to cardiac arrest through the use of medically-induced hypothermia. The cooling process may help stop the death of brain and heart cells caused by the mitochondria once they are deprived of oxygen. The next step: figuring out how to keep the brain from dying, and arguing for or against "the view that the mind is more than the sum of the parts of the brain, and can exist outside it.""
Submission + - Playing the Lottery with Eclipse CDT
LinucksGirl writes: Eclipse can work with PHP, Ruby, and Groovy, C, and C++. In this article, you will learn how to build and develop applications in C++ using the Eclipse C/C++ Development Toolkit (CDT), and Standard Template Library (STL). This allows you to streamline the process and take advantage of powerful features C++ offers.
Submission + - What You Know, Just Ain't So: Facts vs. Beliefs (functionalisminaction.com)
IConrad01 writes: "Functionalism In Action: What You Know — It Just Ain't So: Why Facts Can't Win Arguments is a commentary by a technophile libertarian (yours truly) attempting to further document the connection between deeply held beliefs and the inability of those with hard facts to contradict those beliefs."
Submission + - Future of Netradio may depend on DRM adoption (arstechnica.com)
Bearhouse writes: ars technica reports that the planned tripling of royalties for US-based net radios may be postponed, but at a price. From the article, "SoundExchange has offered to cap the $500 per channel minimum fee at $50,000 per year for webcasters who agree to provide more detailed reporting of the music that they play and work to stop users from engaging in 'streamripping' — turning Internet radio performances into a digital music library,". Could this mean a return to 'pirate radio', with sites moving offshore?
Submission + - Video Game Addiction or just Stupidity?
crystall writes: From Yahoo News: Nev. couple blame Internet for neglect
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070716/ap_on_re_us/ne glect_internet_addiction
Two young children suffered from neglect and the lamer parents blame "internet addiction". I won't argue about the validity of PC/Internet/Gaming addiction — I know it exists because I see it in my own home. But can it get this severe? Or are these idiots just looking for an excuse for the unexcusable? Discuss.
Submission + - Bomb-laden 'Reaper' drones bound for Iraq (usatoday.com)
DoctorBit writes: America will soon deploy in Iraq humanity's first robotic attack squadron. Each of the squadron's nine MQ-9 Reaper hunter-killer drones weighs five tons, four times heavier than a Predator. The Reaper is the size of a jet fighter, powered by a turboprop engine, able to fly at 300 mph and reach 50,000 feet. It is outfitted with infrared, laser and radar targeting, and a ton and a half of guided bombs and missiles. While each Reaper's pilot will sit at a video console in Nevada, the drones themselves will probably be based at a 400,000-square-foot expansion of the concrete ramp area at Balad, Iraq now used by Predator drones.
