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Microsoft

Submission + - Confustion over Vista cause of most support calls (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by harsha_c
harsha_c writes: Support.com, a "Instant Technology Relief" support website that opened its doors to troubled techies in June, has released survey results from its first month of business. The number one reason for support calls? Vista questions.From a pool of 1,000 users that inquired about technical help, 77 percent needed help with Vista. Of those inquiring about Vista, 30 percent needed help navigating around Vista's new Aero user interface. According to Anthony Rodio, the chief marketing director of support.com, the three main issues were navigation problems, device incompatibility, and home networking issues. Consumers are having a hard time with Aero because of the changes between Vista and the Windows 2000 and XP user interfaces. Support.com customers were also complaining about device issues, which were mostly attributed to outdated drivers that needed to be brought up to speed with Vista. Lastly, support.com customers complained about home networking issues in which Vista users were not able to see Windows XP computers connected to their home network.
Biotech

Submission + - Iraq vet gets bionic hand

Submitted by
mcgrew
mcgrew writes: "CNN is carrying a report about a new prosthetic device, called an 'i-LIMB', that user Sgt. Juan Arredondo, who lost his real hand in Iraq, likens to the robotic bionics in 'Star Wars' and 'Terminator'. 'My son, he goes nuts about it,' the Sergent said.

'To have this movement, it's — it's amazing,' Arredondo said Monday as he showed off the limb made by Scotland-based Touch Bionics. 'It just gets me more excited about now, about the future.'

Five individual motors power the fingers, allowing the person to grasp round objects. The hand's gestures are made possible through electrode plates that detect electrical signals generated in the remaining muscles in the amputated limb.
And I thought my eye implant was cool! Welcome to the 21st century!"
Media

Submission + - MySpace finds 29,000 sex offenders

Submitted by taoman1
taoman1 writes: MySpace has identified more than 29,000 registered sex offenders among those registered to use its site — more than four times what the company said in May it had found from an investigation, according to North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper.
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - The seven habits of highly subversive people (blogspot.com)

Submitted by
frank_adrian314159
frank_adrian314159 writes: "Tired of the repression in the US? Want to fight "da man"? Want to be a subversive? A person who grew up in an authoritarian regime tells you how to do it in seven simple habits. Although couched in language of ecological concern Amanda Kovattana gives everyone who wants to get off their butts and make a difference a good set of guidelines."
Power

Submission + - Compressed Air Car

Submitted by FridayBob
FridayBob writes: Yesterday, a Belgian newspaper published this article (translation) about a new car that runs on nothing but compressed air. Apparently, it can run for about 200km on a tank of air filled up to a pressure of 300 bar (4351 psi). Special filling stations can refill an empty tank in only 3 minutes, but the car can also refill itself in six hours using an electrical outlet and its own on-board compressor. The car was developed by MDI (lots of info), a company set up by French engineer, Guy Nègre (ex-Formula One), that makes its money by selling patents and manufacturing licenses. It will become available in Belgium some time next year for a minimum price of only EUR 4,000 ($5,402). The Indian company, Tata, have also bought a manufacturing license and plan to sell a model for as little as EUR 1,835 ($2,478). This Wikipedia article has some interesting information regarding the air engine. Until a good enough battery appears with which to run an electric car, this seems like an excellent solution.
GNU is Not Unix

Submission + - Eben Moglen: Global Software Industry Post-GPL3

Submitted by
Dan Shearer
Dan Shearer writes: "Three days before GPLv3 was released, Eben Moglen delivered the annual lecture of The Scottish Society of Computers and Law in Edinburgh, Scotland giving his thoughts on The Global Software Industry in Transformation: After GPLv3. The text transcription, audio and 384kbit video are up at archive.org. Eben looks back at the "legislative action" achieved by the GPLv3 community over the last 18 months, and also from the 22nd century. A riveting presentation for all present."
Sci-Fi

Submission + - New Concept in Gaming Launched Online and at PAX (technomancer-press.com)

Submitted by
archer904
archer904 writes: "Penny Arcade and Technomancer Press have jointly announced the launch of TerraDrive, a new concept in gaming. It features content generated by the players via an ELOTH:TES style wiki, except that players will play in the universe they have created during the Massively Multiplayer Live Action Role Playing Game phase, which happens at PAX. They say they are expecting 4,000+ players. They are set to get a Guinness World Record for Largest RPG (single venue). After the MMLARPG at PAX, TerraDrive is available as a tabletop role-playing game with a twist: Technomancer Press is publishing adventures for the game based on content from the wiki. This means that a player can buy an adventure one day and find out he named the planet that the action takes place on, and his buddy developed the crime syndicate they're fighting against.

Information is available in wikipedia in the articles TerraDrive and TerraDrive Live, as well as at these URLs:

http://www.pennyarcadeexpo.com/tdlpress.php
http://www.technomancer-press.com/index.php/tdu-pr ess-release/"
The Courts

Submission + - RIAA Wants Agreements to Stay Secret

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "The RIAA is opposing Ms. Lindor's request for discovery into the agreements among the record company competitors by which they have agreed to settle and prosecute their cases together, by which she seeks to support her Fourth Affirmative Defense (pdf) alleging that "The plaintiffs, who are competitors, are a cartel acting collusively in violation of the antitrust laws and of public policy, by tying their copyrights to each other, collusively litigating and settling all cases together, and by entering into an unlawful agreement among themselves to prosecute and to dispose of all cases in accordance with a uniform agreement, and through common lawyers, thus overreaching the bounds and scope of whatever copyrights they might have. ...As such, they are guilty of misuse of their copyrights.""
GNU is Not Unix

Submission + - A commercial look at the GPL (nyud.net)

Submitted by
also-rr
also-rr writes: "I needed to present a five minute brief on the GPL and what it could offer a company.

My aim was to give a clear idea of the basics of the GPL and why it should be considered for some projects. In particular there is a focus on partnered projects and how the GPL might be used to build a better relationship.

Entitled "The GNU GPL: A Commercial View" I hope it's useful for anyone else that needs to persuade a value-focused audience of the benefits of the GPL.

What changes would you make to put the point across more effectively? What changes need to be made for GPL3?"
The Internet

Submission + - Are web-developer certifications worth it?

Submitted by
riyley
riyley writes: "I'm a fairly advanced web developer with some hard experience in HTML, CSS, Javascript, Coldfusion and PHP. Now the HR at my company wants me to prove it in a way they understand, certificate. My boss has asked me to select some solid certifications and i've come up with three providers: W3Schools, BrainBench and ExpertRating.

I would like to know if these companies hold any more weight than the frame around the cert, or if it's a waste of my departments money and time? Is there another company I should look at? I'd prefer that in 3-5 years when i'm ready to move on to another job, that these would still be worth padding my resume with. Is that a pipedream?"
The Internet

Submission + - Answer People in Online Discussions Visualized (cmu.edu)

Submitted by
Marc Smith
Marc Smith writes: ""Answer people", the folks who contribute most of the value in the Internet, are a small minority of all online users. Less than 2% of authors in Usenet newsgroups, a recent paper my co-authors and I (Howard T. Welser, Eric Gleave, Danyel Fisher and Marc Smith) have published in the Journal of Social Structure reports, are likely to be the helpful "answer person" type — authors who reply to many other people with brief replies. The paper Visualizing the Signatures of Social Roles in Online Discussion Groups contains social network visualizations of the ties created when authors reply to one another. These images highlight the difference between these helpful folks and other types of contributors. The findings may apply to other threaded discussions (maybe even Slashdot discussions!)."
Hardware Hacking

Submission + - Cell phone stalking: how plausible?

Submitted by
Soulfader
Soulfader writes: "A story in the local paper caught my eye: Cell Phone Stalkers Still Terrorizing Families. I immediately envisioned a pack of flip phones with loud faceplates and obscene background images demanding money from a Sidekick at knifepoint, but it turns out that a few Tacoma families have been targeted for harassment, apparently through their cell phones: "The stalkers' alleged method involves hijacking mobile phones, turning them into eavesdropping devices and spy cameras and using the phones to send threatening voice mails and text messages — all by remote control." A related story offers vague ideas about how this might be done. I'm asking a wider, more technical audience: how feasible is this, really?

(Most Unfortunate Phrasing Award goes to the police spokesman: "One of our tech guys who should be looking for child porn has spent 50 hours doing nothing but this.")"
Space

Submission + - Hubble sees Night Shining Clouds (nasa.gov)

Submitted by illeism
illeism writes: NASA is reporting an interesting pheonmenon in the upper atmosphere — Night-Shining Clouds.

Very little is known about how these clouds form over the poles, why they are being seen more frequently and at lower latitudes than ever before, or why they have been growing brighter. AIM will observe two complete cloud seasons over both poles, documenting an entire life cycle of the shiny clouds for the first time.
"It is clear that these clouds are changing, a sign that a part of our atmosphere is changing and we do not understand how, why or what it means," stated AIM principal investigator James Russell III of Hampton University, Hampton, Va. "These observations suggest a connection with global change in the lower atmosphere and could represent an early warning that our Earth environment is being changed

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