Diabolus Advocatus - Slashdot User

Submission + - Canonical Begins to Open-Source Launchpad (ubuntu.com)

Submitted by

kripkenstein

on Tuesday July 10, 2007 @03:55AM

kripkenstein writes: "Canonical, the corporation behind Ubuntu, has begun to open-source Launchpad. Canonical has been criticized for not doing so earlier.

The first component of Launchpad to be open-sourced is Storm, described as an "object-relational mapper (ORM) for Python". A tutorial with many examples is available. The license for storm is the LGPL 2.1 (inspection of the several source files shows they contain the common "either version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version", implying that Storm is LGPLv3-compatible)."

Submission + - Microsoft Submits First Patent For Public Review

Submitted by

JohnTeddy

on Tuesday July 10, 2007 @01:43AM

JohnTeddy writes: "As Groklaw reports microsoft's first patent to be publicly reviewed via Peer to Patent Project website is "application (#20070136608) is for an invention that will allow copyright owners and media sellers to profit from the off-line transfer of media between buyers and sellers." There are 5 claims with this patent, with claims 2-5 all relying on claim 1. You can find all the claims here: Claim1, Claim2, Claim3, Claim4 and Claim5. From wikipedia's patent page "Typically, however, a patent application must include one or more claims defining the invention which must be new, inventive, and useful or industrially applicable." So if you can find any prior art or demostrate why it's obvious(not "inventive") please feel free to comment here and on the url for comments for this particular patent."

Submission + - Piratebay (sort of) going down

Submitted by muffen on Monday July 09, 2007 @05:27AM

muffen writes: It seems like the Swedish police came up with a new idea for blocking PirateBay, confirmed by the swedish police.
Basically, the Swedish police maintains a list of child pornography sites in Sweden, and on a voluntary basis, the ISP's in Sweden block access to the sites. This week, PirateBay will be part of the list so almost every ISP in Sweden will block access to said site.

Since the news leaked, the swedish police website has not been reachable and is suspected to be under a DoS attack. Furthermore, several sites in Sweden, most of them belonging to sport-clubs, have been hacked and the page replaced with the page you get if you are on the Swedish child pornography blocklist.

It should be noted that the people behind PirateBay hasn't argued against the child pornography claims (also, some links are to Swedish webpages, the links in the story are going via Systran for the English translation).

Submission + - Scientists to Look for 'Wierd Life' (iht.com)

Submitted by GapingHeadwound on Monday July 09, 2007 @05:21AM

GapingHeadwound writes: Bypassing Slashdot (and going straight to the source?), "Scientists call for wider search for alien life".

Oh, and NASA's involved too...

A panel of scientists convened by America's leading scientific advisory group says the hunt for extraterrestrial life should be greatly expanded to include what they call "weird life": organisms that lack DNA or other molecules found in life as we know it.
[...]
NASA has long looked to life on Earth to guide its search for life on other worlds. Planets and moons that have hints of liquid water have been ranked high on the list of potential sites for life-detection missions. But there is good reason to suspect that other kinds of chemistry could support life as well, the authors of the new report argue. Weird life could differ from life as we know it in small or big ways.

Submission + - Microsoft to force feed us Vista with Gears of War (yougamers.com)

Submitted by

neeyik

on Monday July 09, 2007 @05:08AM

neeyik writes: "The PC version of Gears of War is definitely going to be announced at the E3 2007 this week — a leaked video (that got quickly pulled) confirms as much. What's interesting is the fact that it's apparently going to be a Games for Windows Live Title. While the original high quality video vanished very quickly, someone managed to save it and post it to YouTube. The image quality of this YouTube version of the leaked footage is poor, but it does show one remarkable bit: a Games for Windows Live achievement pop-up. No word yet if this also means that there will be cross-platform multiplayer support, but it does indicate that Gears of War will most likely be a Vista-only title. Unless somebody can hack it, a la Shadowrun and Halo 2."

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