geemon - Slashdot User

Submission + - PS3 Sales Jump in US on Heels of Price Cut

Submitted by tighr on Sunday November 25, 2007 @03:12PM

tighr writes: The PS3 has finally started to gain ground in the latest incarnation of the console wars, though still selling less than the aging Playstation 2.

The higher sales are good news for Sony, which has been running in third place in the console battle in the U.S. In October, 121,000 PlayStation 3 consoles were shipped, according to estimates from NPD Group. That ranks it lower than the seven-year-old PlayStation 2, which shipped 184,000 units in the month. The market-leading Nintendo Wii shipped 519,000 units and Microsoft's Xbox 360 shipped 366,000 units, said NPD.
Meanwhile, the Nintendo Wii has pulled even with the XBox 360 in worldwide sales:

The Wii, which sells for $250 and features a motion-sensitive controller, sold 13.2 million units worldwide as of September, Nintendo said. Microsoft reported that the Xbox 360 — in models priced from $280 to $450 — had sold 13.4 million units at the time. Then, in October, U.S. sales of the Wii exceeded Xbox 360 sales, according to the NPD Group. Combined with the Nintendo console's strength in the Japanese market, that effectively would bring the two into a dead heat in cumulative sales.

Submission + - Justice Clarence Thomas' Interview on 60 Minutes, (blogspot.com)

Submitted by Advocate123 on Sunday September 30, 2007 @08:52PM

Advocate123 writes: Steve Kroft gave a balanced interview of Justice Clarence Thomas on 60 minutes. It was a very enlightening discussion. Overall, Justice Thomas was impressive and left the audience with a positive image.

Journal Journal: Mouseovers - as bad as popups? 8

Journal by fyngyrz on Sunday September 30, 2007 @08:26PM

Is anyone else as annoyed as I am by words and phrases in web articles that pop up boxes because my mouse pointer happened to cross them, temporarily hiding the content I was reading in the first place? I didn't click on anything, and consequently, I don't want a context change. I find these annoying to the point of noting what the site is and not going back. Anyone else feel the same? Anyone have a defense of the practice?

Submission + - How Blender compares to the Major 3D applications

Submitted by LetterRip on Sunday September 30, 2007 @08:19PM

LetterRip writes: CGWorld and CGTalk recently asked whether OpenSource software set to become the dominant toolset in feature film production? Also TDT 3D did a comparison chart with the Major 3D Digital Content Creation applications such as Maya, 3DS Max, and XSI, and of course Blender in this 3D Application Comparison. Blender came out surprisingly well, although it definitely still has some weaknesses. So what do slashdotters think? Can Blender 'take over' the 3D industry or will it always be just for 'freelancers and hobbyists'?

Submission + - Broken Bluetooth module on Macbooks (apple.com)

Submitted by

flowolf

on Sunday September 30, 2007 @06:37PM

flowolf writes: "Seems like a lot of Macbooks are showing some bad behavior with the Bluetooth module and Apple's support is incapable of managing it as many people had to send their Macbook for repair more than one time and still they didn't have it fixed.
When did quality leave Apple?"

Submission + - Bungie argues 640p is enough for anyone. (bungie.net) 2

Submitted by

AHuxley

on Saturday September 29, 2007 @05:17AM

AHuxley writes: "Smart people in the Beyond 3D forums have found that
Bungie's Halo 3 did meet the HD resolution of 720p.
Some math and Photoshop showed that Halo 3 was near 624p.
Bungie sees this as a "distracted conversation" in a short statement about "640 pixels", "lighting"
and "interweb detectives"."

Submission + - Married men play the field online

Submitted by

gingerbread-girl

on Tuesday April 10, 2007 @07:39PM

gingerbread-girl writes: "A new study published by Null Hypothesis, the Journal of Unlikely Science, claims our whole evolutionary history could be laid bare on MySpace. Authors found that men using the community site racked up female friends at a startling rate after getting hitched, whilst women stopped shopping around. Dr Mark Steer said, "When you consider the conflicting interests of the sexes, these results really start to make sense. From a man's point of view, the best way to make sure his genes get passed on might be to help one woman bring up the kids whilst sneakily sowing a few extra seeds elsewhere and hoping for the best." http://www.null-hypothesis.co.uk/science/strange-b ut-true/profs-probings/myspace_sex_married_relatio nship_evolution"

Submission + - Image Analyzer detects porn in data transmissions

Submitted by thefickler on Tuesday April 10, 2007 @07:20PM

thefickler writes: Visual analysis software that was originally created in 2000 has recently expanded to include the detection of pornography within digital data transmission. The detection method and software have been in place for some time, but the recent release of Image Analyzer 3.0 offers significant improvements that will allow its practical use in future applications in real time.

Feed WoW players learn value of Windows updates (theregister.com)

From feed by registerfeed on Tuesday April 10, 2007 @07:13PM

'Vuln left me naked and penniless'

Subscribers playing World of Warcraft on Windows machines continue to find their accounts stolen more than eleven months after hackers first began targeting them using a Trojan attack, according to posts on the game's official website. The perpetrators are employing sophisticated techniques that involve hundreds of booby-trapped sites that in some cases use the ANI cursor vulnerability that Microsoft patched last week.

Submission + - Framework for GUI development

Submitted by

rsuintila

on Tuesday April 10, 2007 @06:56PM

rsuintila writes: "The libraries and tools used to program the GUI are often an Achille's heal in the maintenance of long-term projects. In the case of multiplatform systems, the simplistic answer is Java, but, should I use Swing, AWT, SWT...? Are these alternatives well-suited for the development of GNU projects?
What framework/libraries/tools would you use in order to code a GUI for a long-term multiplatform GNU project?"

Submission + - Can F/OSS projects be killed by dormant patents?

Submitted by skelly33 on Tuesday April 10, 2007 @06:54PM

skelly33 writes: I am working on putting together an open source project that has commercial applications but am concerned that some day some random company with a thick patent portfolio is going to see it and try to stamp it out with a cease and desist claiming that they own the concept. The trouble is that many clever concepts have been conceived but lay dormant in patents that are just waiting around for a lawsuit where the patent holder has no intent of ever turning it into a product. Is this a legitimate concern for someone who would much rather avoid investing deep into a project so as not to be brought down by some idiotic/costly lawsuit, or is there any degree of protection afforded through original research and not-for-profit development of an otherwise patented concept under the banner of "Open Source"?

Submission + - Google Mail blocks a large amount of users!

Submitted by on Tuesday April 10, 2007 @06:44PM

An anonymous reader writes: Some Google Mail users are having a hard time. Some can't access their mail at all, some can't download nor send any attachments. Some even can't blog.

Google claims that the problems are due to the battle against Spammers but the fact that they have chosen to bury the issue and haven't notified the users (whom are blisfully unaware of the problem until they try the banned action), can it be possible that Google Mail is trying to bury the story? Since it was Easter holiday on most of the Christian World, not a lot of people have realised that they are affected. Especially since there are people running their businesses and personal lifes using Google Mail, how widely are the Google users being affected, it is not really known.

One theory is Google's servers are overloaded and they are trying to bump the heavy users of the service.

The problem has been affecting Google Mail users for 4 days now and counting.

Submission + - time.windows.com broken; Windows machines adrift?

Submitted by on Tuesday April 10, 2007 @05:57PM

An anonymous reader writes: It appears the widely-used time.windows.com Network Time Protocol server isn't working correctly. The host name is redirecting to unsynchronized Akamai NTP servers which are off by more than 100 seconds. This issue leaves millions of Windows XP and 2003 machines that still have the default configuration without a good source of network time. While most clients won't notice, there are certainly some important applications (such as kerberos authentication) that rely on accurate client time. This mis-configuration has been in place for at least several hours.

A bug report was submitted via Microsoft's website, but no response has been received in over 6 hours. This has apparently happened at least once before.

Submission + - Dumping .info TLD for good?

Submitted by

tulare

on Monday February 26, 2007 @12:15AM

tulare writes: "To the chagrin of postmasters and webmasters everywhere, the newish .info and .biz domains have become the realm of all that is seedy on the Internet, from popup-laden porn sites to every imaginable R)oleX and Herbal V14GrA advertising domain. From this writer's point of view, there is simply nothing on .info or .biz that is not at some level related to spam.

My question is this: at what point, and what sorts of efforts can be taken to simply drop the entire mess that has become .info and .biz? I'm sure ICANN would need to get involved, but perhaps a petition drive to convince DNS server admins to blackhole those TLDs would be a starting point to show public support for denying spammers the cheap safe haven they now have. Thoughts?"

Submission + - Carnegie Mellon To have Open Source in New Program

Submitted by

perlhacker14

on Sunday February 25, 2007 @11:01PM

perlhacker14 writes: "Carnegie Mellon is integrating Open Source components into its new MS Software Management Curriculum. This also includes a new elective on the Open Source world and software, under the idea that Open Source is the path of tomorrow. With outsourcing increasing, the idea is to go beyond software engineering to management, increasing security and value for graduates. Overall, it is a huge leap forward, with the combination of Software Management and Open Source.

Story: http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/KUgPOhhQdrmRJa/C arnegie-Mellon-Folds-Open-Source-Into-New-Degree-O ffering.xhtml"

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