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Submission + - Canadian Bureaucrats Don't "Think Different

Submitted by owlgorithm
owlgorithm writes: Apple's new store in Montreal has three parking meters in front, and in their ever-conscious attempt to improve design, they offered to reimburse the city for the parking meters and their revenue if they would remove them. Answer: No, because "We've never done it before, so we can't."
Software

Submission + - Software Assistance for the Blind

Submitted by Yort
Yort writes: This last weekend, I met a woman who was blind. She had just moved to the area, and wanted to get a job, but her computer (Win95/98) and assistance software (JAWS 3.x) were too old to be used nowadays with the sort of out-of-home work she would be looking for. The new version of JAWS is over $1000, and would require a new computer. Are there any alternatives, open source or otherwise, that would allow her to get up and running for several hundred dollars instead of several thousand?
Software

Submission + - PCWorld refuse hardware repair due to Linux. 10

Submitted by
Tikka
Tikka writes: "Today I visit PC World (London, UK) because my 5 months old laptop has developed a manufacturing fault, the hinge to the display has started to crack the plastic casing.
Anyone in the know, will know that this is due to the joint inside and this means that ultimately the screen will separate from the keyboard in time.

Repair was refused, because I have Gentoo Linux on my laptop — Replacing the Windows Vista that was pre-installed.

PC World have said that this has void my warranty and there is nothing they will do for me, I spoke to a manager who said that he has been told to refuse any repairs if the operating system has been changed.

I feel this has really gone against my statutory rights and will do everything I can to fight it, I will review comments for your advice."
Software

Submission + - Smaller and more lightweight software is better?

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: I prefer software that takes as little hardrive space and RAM as possible. I can't stand bloated software like iTunes, as compared to Foobar or classic Winamp; or Windows Media Player, as compared to VLC or Media Player Classic. What are some of your favorite applications which are virtually bloat-free?
The Internet

Submission + - Wikipedia blocks Overstock.com from editing 1

Submitted by thefickler
thefickler writes: Known for having a media director that obsessively stalks critics, Overstock.com's IP address range has now been banned from editing on Wikipedia. Longtime Wikipedia staffer, David Gerard, posted this on the Administrators' Noticeboard Tuesday afternoon: "I've just blocked 65.116.112.0/21, which is an IP range (a) owned by Overstock.com (b) widely used by them for spamming, COI editing and attempted intimidation of administrators dealing with them. I strongly suggest against unblocking this range under any circumstances"
Security

Submission + - Osama Stunt Embarasses APEC

Submitted by GrpA
GrpA writes: The Chaser's War On Everything, possibly best known previously for their booking flights under the names Terry Wrist and Al Kyder have been arrested at the APEC Summit for what could be one of the most audacious stunts yet performed by the team. Their latest work involved them driving a fake motorcade through the restricted APEC Summit zone, with Chaser "Chas Licciardello" emerged from the vehicle dressed as Osama Bin Laden, embarassing security forces that were guarding world leaders, including Chinese President Hu Jintao and US President George W Bush. I guess our current world leaders haven't learned from lessons of the past.
Portables

Submission + - Palm cancels Foleo

Submitted by loshwomp
loshwomp writes: Evidently Palm has canceled its Foleo product just a few months after its introduction.

I guess it turns out that limiting your target market to people who already own an expensive Treo isn't a good idea. It's a shame, because the Foleo did have a few nice points — in particular, the instant-on/instant-off feature was a subtle but important convenience that's completely absent in many consumer electronics.
Linux Business

Submission + - Linux market share at 1.34%, surpassing Win 98 (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by
athloi
athloi writes: "Recent statistics released by W3Counter reveal that the market share of Windows 98 fell from 1.44 percent to 1.34 percent in August, reducing it to the same level of popularity as the open source Linux operating system, which saw its market share increase from 1.33 to 1.34 in the same period. (These are web statistics, probably less than reality depending on what sites they measure. See the "bad science" story posted earlier: I personally think this is probably inaccurate, but i trust the wisdom of Slashdot editors.)

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070903-linu x-marketshare-set-to-surpass-windows-98.html"
XBox (Games)

Submission + - MS says: Linux is inappropriate language

Submitted by
mocm
mocm writes: "The Inquirer has a story about a guy who wanted to use "linux" as his XBox Motto and got the message that this is inappropriate language. I tried it myself and got the same result. It seems that "linux" is on the same level as "sucks" and "baka" which it also won't accept. It will accept "linuxx" though and also "msbaka""
The Internet

Submission + - The Great Leader peddles limited capitalism (theglobeandmail.com)

Submitted by hodet
hodet writes: Interesting article on the North Korean attempt to dip its toe into capitalism. They figure they can do it without giving anyone access to the Internet or the use of cell phones. Just makes me so grateful to live in the free world.
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - More damaging compounds found in HFCS drinks (newswise.com)

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Chi-Tang Ho, Ph.D., conducted chemical tests among 11 different carbonated soft drinks containing HFCS. He found 'astonishingly high' levels of reactive carbonyls in those beverages. These undesirable and highly-reactive compounds associated with "unbound" fructose and glucose molecules are believed to cause tissue damage, says Ho, a professor of food science at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. By contrast, reactive carbonyls are not present in table sugar, whose fructose and glucose components are "bound" and chemically stable, the researcher notes.

More here: http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/532433/
Nintendo

Submission + - Aussie and NZ fans fed up with Nintendo (aussie-nintendo.com)

Submitted by hinki
hinki writes: Interesting report made by a reader from Aussie Nintendo regarding the release schedule of Nintendo games in Australia.

From the article:
In an email to A-N, Davies said, "I have recently penned a formal report relating to the common delays of Nintendo's Wii software releases, specifically in the regions of Australia and New Zealand. After listening to your most recent Podcast, I can tell you too are concerned about this issue. Consumers around our regions are getting bullied and manipulated into unfair and borderline illegal region locking that prevents Wii owners from importing the much earlier released US versions of software."

I for one am sick and tired of waiting up to 6 or so months for an english game to come to Australia! It's good that we can import DS games, but we can't import Wii games as our console is region locked. The thing is, the console can support NTSC games (e.g. before the last Wii update, you could use the GameCube freeloader to play NTSC games on the Wii). So it's ridiculous that we have to wait so long for games.
Would be interesting to compare the release schedule of Nintendo Australia with the release schedule of Xbox and PlayStation in Australian compared to US/Europe.
The Internet

Submission + - Facebook Leaves Advertisers Exposed to Hate Speech (newscloud.com) 1

Submitted by
NewsCloud
NewsCloud writes: "Does Facebook believe that no publicity is bad publicity? Why else would they leave a group called, "Fuck Islam" open since July 21, 2007 despite more than 53,482 members joining an opposing group called petiton: if "f**k Islam" is not shut down..we r quitting facebook group. Furthermore, advertisers such as Sprint, Verizon, T Mobile, Target, Qwest and French's wouldn't be too happy to learn that they are paying for ads on the "Fuck Islam" group pages.

I'm not advocating a policy against free speech, just strict enforcement of Facebook's own Terms of Use. The group name is clearly vulgar and obscene. Arguably, inflammatory and hateful. Facebook has positioned itself as the darling of the social network world, without the spam, porn and the sex offender problems of MySpace. Yet, this sort of thing isn't new to Facebook (see Facing Up to Facebook Racism and Elder hate groups on facebook. There's even an active group called I hate Iraqis targeting Iraqi refugees fleeing to Jordan.
Shouldn't a startup like Facebook, worth reportedly more than a billion dollars with over a hundred employees be expected to comply with its Terms of Use in less than six weeks?"
The Media

Submission + - Bad Science (badscience.net)

Submitted by
DocDJ
DocDJ writes: "Ben Goldacre (who writes an excellent article in The Guardian called Bad Science, which regularly demonstrates how poor the mainstream media is at reporting science) points out the flaws in the recent reporting of research which purported to show the evolutionary basis of 'blue for boys, pink for girls'."

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