Elm Tree - Slashdot User

Submission + - Is there more UNIX compliance than POSIX?

Submitted by darthcamaro on Friday December 01, 2006 @04:29PM

darthcamaro writes: There was a time when POSIX compliance was all that it took to be a UNIX (or even Unix-like) system. But now there are newer standards like UNIX 03 which significantly raise the bar. But at this point in the game do UNIX standards even matter anymore? In this article IBM, Sun and HP argue that they do..though at least one analyst isn't so sure.
From the article:
According to Jonathan Eunice, principal IT adviser at Illuminata, formal standards such as Unix 03 are important at removing gratuitous differentiation from the market.
"But — and this is a very big but — the real driver of independent software vendor behavior is how much money they can make by supporting a platform," Eunice told internetnews.com.

Submission + - Apple acquires patent on media downloads

Submitted by

shashi

on Friday December 01, 2006 @04:26PM

shashi writes: "In an out-of-court settlement, Apple has recently acquired the rights to a patent from 1996 on media downloads:
The concept consisted of a desktop computer holding multiple songs with an interface allowing a hotel guest to select three songs and play them on an electric grand piano. Starkweather saw the broader value and broke the patent into three elements; remote music storage, selection of music to download and playing music on a music device.

This could create serious leverage for Apple against its competitors as well as give them a large bargaining chip when negotiating with the content providers."

Submission + - Firefox becomes Firewolf.

Submitted by zmanzero on Friday December 01, 2006 @04:13PM

zmanzero writes: For over 2 months now Firefox has been encouraging it's users to download tracking software by Conduit.com which is offered as the first choices in virtually every category of extension provided at it's official site — https://addons.mozilla.org/ — go to extensions and click on Privacy and Security for an example. Poor Firefox, consumed by the wolves... there's a discussion on it here — http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=4656 43

Journal Journal: Useful medical condition 7

Journal by StalinsNotDead on Friday December 01, 2006 @03:59PM

Maintenance & Facilities people came by our area today because they had been notified by someone in the business side that lights were out. Most of the developers on our team prefer the dimmer atmosphere, lacking fluorescent lighting, so they've taken it upon themselves to unhook a number of the bulbs to minimize their effect. Evidently, the maintenance people took some shit for not duly keeping up with bulb replacement, and our area is visible from the outside of the building and is visi

Submission + - NVidia, AMD subpoenaed in antitrust investigation

Submitted by mustardayonnaise on Friday December 01, 2006 @03:19PM

mustardayonnaise writes: CNN Money is reporting that graphics chipmakers Nvidia and AMD (having recently acquired NVidia rival ATI) said Friday that they received subpoenas from the US Department of Justice as part of a probe into potential antitrust violations involving graphics processing units and cards. Each company controls about 25% of the entire graphics chip market. Funny, I would've assumed they controlled a great deal more than that. According to the article, Intel, who makes their own fair share of graphics chipsets, has yet to be included in the investigation.

Submission + - Silly String isnt so Silly

Submitted by ice666 on Friday December 01, 2006 @03:17PM

ice666 writes: Wired has an article about how our Troops overseas are requesting silly string. Turns out they spray this into door ways to check for booby traps and is saving their lives. Not that this is the most technical article out there right now, but it goes to show just how resourceful our troops are getting. Read more here.

Submission + - Apple's Safari Web Browser Grows Share to 4%

Submitted by

ChilyMack

on Friday December 01, 2006 @03:16PM

ChilyMack writes: "In the past year, usage of Apple's Safari web browser has increased 45% to represent 4.03% of the market. The article notes that "the continued Safari usage increase can be used as a metric to track the increase in the number of Mac users." New numbers for Firefox and Internet Explorer are also given: with a 52.7% year-over-year gain, Firefox now represents 13.5% of the market, while Internet Explorer market share has dropped to 80.65%, a 6.32% fall. Safari's gain, Firefox's gain and Internet Explorer's loss all represented an increased rate of change over the year-ago numbers."

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