MosesJones - Slashdot User

Submission + - UK National Archives face "digital dark age (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by

rcbutcher

on Wednesday July 04, 2007 @12:33AM

rcbutcher writes: "Chief executive of the UK National Archives, Natalie Ceeney, said society faced the possibility of "losing years of critical knowledge" because modern PCs could not always open old file formats... She was speaking at the launch of a partnership with Microsoft to ensure the Archives could read old formats. Microsoft's UK head Gordon Frazer warned of a looming "digital dark age"."

Granny Sues RIAA Over Unlicensed Investigator 206

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday July 03, 2007 @08:43PM from the more-ways-to-hit-them-back dept.

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "An elderly, non-file-sharing grandmother from East Texas, who had been sued by the RIAA after being displaced by Hurricane Rita, has sought leave to file counterclaims against the RIAA record companies for using unlicensed investigators. In her counterclaims (PDF) Ms. Crain claims that the record companies 'entered into an agreement with a private investigations company to provide investigative services which led to the production of evidence to be used in court against counterclaim plaintiff, including the identification of an IP address on the basis of which counterclaim defendants filed their suit... [They] were at the time of this agreement aware that the aforementioned private investigations company was unlicensed to conduct investigations in the State of Texas specifically, and in other states as well... [T]hey agreed between themselves and understood that unlicensed and unlawful investigations would take place in order to provide evidence for this lawsuit, as well as thousands of others as part of a mass litigation campaign... [T]he private investigations company hired by plaintiffs engaged in one or more overt acts of unlawful private investigation... Such actions constitute civil conspiracy under Texas common law.'"

Submission + - Google Desktop for Linux released (blogspot.com)

Submitted by

Cyvros

on Thursday June 28, 2007 @03:13AM

Cyvros writes: "After a long wait and a release for Mac OSX, Google has released Google Desktop for Linux. From the article:

Not only can you rediscover important documents that have been idling on your hard drive for years, but you can also search through emails saved in Gmail or other applications. All office files, including documents and slides created with OpenOffice.org can be easily found.

Now a serious competitor to existing desktop search systems, such as Beagle, all three versions (Windows, OSX and Linux) are now available on the Desktop site."

Submission + - First look at the Zonbu, a $99 Linux Computer 1

Submitted by

Esther Schindler

on Friday June 22, 2007 @01:08PM

Esther Schindler writes: "The company is positioning this diminutive device (in late beta) as a consumer product. But with its out-of-the-box simplicity, says CIO.com's review, the Zonbu is an excellent choice for enterprise IT departments that want a Gentoo-based desktop Linux distribution, very little fuss and a price that won't raise eyebrows on an expense report."

Submission + - Programming the SPE's of Sony PLAYSTATION 3

Submitted by IdaAshley on Tuesday February 20, 2007 @06:27PM

IdaAshley writes: Take even greater advantage of the synergistic processing elements (SPEs) of the Sony PS3 in this installment of Programming high-performance applications on the Cell BE processor. Part 2 looks in depth at the Cell Broadband Engine processor's SPEs and how they work at the lowest level, while Part 1 showed how to install Linux on the PS3 and explored a short example program.

Submission + - Tux the ladies penguin

Submitted by GotoIsEvil on Monday January 15, 2007 @01:04PM

GotoIsEvil writes: So you can't get the lady in your life to move to Linux? Maybe this post from a happy female Linux user will help, its hard to imagine something written by someone less technical and more "OMG Ponies" about how easy they've found it to use Linux. "That was 2 years ago now and my computer works perfectly". The secret however is that someone else did the installing for her. It makes you wonder though how "easy" Windows would be to use if everyone had to sit through the install screens and put in the SATA drivers at the right points. Her one complaint is something called Note Attack which I assume is this. Another proof point that in this Web based world does the average, non-game playing user really need all the bells and whistles?

Submission + - Black hole triplets spotted

Submitted by Harmonious Botch on Friday January 12, 2007 @02:06AM

Harmonious Botch writes: ( CNN seems to have trouble distinquishing between a quasar and a blck hole, but otherwise it is interesting. -HB )

The discovery of three distant supermassive black holes in proximity to one another is giving astronomers a glimpse into the chaotic early years of the universe.

Known as quasars, these incredibly bright objects are thought to be powered by gas falling into enormous black holes situated in the centers of galaxies. Although smaller than our solar system, a single quasar can outshine an entire galaxy of a hundred billion stars.

Roughly 100,000 quasars have been observed in recent years, some of them double quasars. But this is the first time that three quasars have been found so near one another. The three quasars are separated by about 100,000 to 150,000 light years — about the width of our Milky Way.

"Quasars are extremely rare objects. To find two of them so close together is very unlikely if they were randomly distributed in space," said study leader George Djorgovski, an astronomer at Caltech. "To find three is unprecedented."

More at http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/space/01/11/three.bla ck.holes/index.html

Submission + - Microsoft's Immortality Patent

Submitted by

theodp

on Friday January 12, 2007 @01:10AM

theodp writes: "So are the folks at Microsoft Research watching too much Star Wars, conducting pot-fueled brainstorming sessions, or just goofing on us? The latest crop of published Microsoft patent applications includes one for Immortal information storage and access platform, which apparently covers embedding a DNA-sampling, nuclear-powered, networked device in an urn containing your cremated remains so the one year-old baby you left behind can get your oh-so-valuable advice twenty years after your death. Hope this patent diagram isn't too technical for you!"

Submission + - Mars probe may have spotted lost Sojourner rover

Submitted by

Maggie McKee

on Thursday January 11, 2007 @09:30PM

Maggie McKee writes: "NASA's eagle-eyed Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter may have spotted the tiny, toaster oven-sized Sojourner rover just a few meters away from its companion, the Mars Pathfinder lander. It appears to have crawled there in an attempt to re-establish contact with the lander after the lander had already died. But the pictures aren't clear enough to definitively ID the rover, and it's possible Sojourner simply took off on its own. If it were miraculously still alive after 10 years, it could be 3 kilometers away from Pathfinder — and probably impossible to find, even with MRO."

MPAA Caught Uploading Fake Torrents 579

Posted by CowboyNeal on Thursday January 11, 2007 @08:18PM from the old-bait-and-switch dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The MPAA and other anti-piracy watchdogs have been caught trapping people into downloading fake torrents, so they can collect IP addresses, and send copyright infringement letters to ISPs. The battle between P2P networks and copyright holders seems to be a never ending battle. It will be interesting to see how much the anti-piracy groups practices change once they begin begin selling movies and TV shows legally on bittorrent.com."

Submission + - Expensive new U.S. spy satellite not working

Submitted by

Penguinshit

on Thursday January 11, 2007 @08:12PM

Penguinshit writes: "U.S. officials are unable to communicate with an expensive experimental U.S. spy satellite launched last year by the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).

An official said the problems were substantial and involved multiple systems, adding that U.S. officials were working to reestablish contact with the satellite because of the importance of the new technology it was meant to test and demonstrate."

Submission + - World of Warcraft now the size of New York City

Submitted by

DeadBugs

on Thursday January 11, 2007 @03:07PM

DeadBugs writes: "World Of Warcraft has passed 8 Million subscribers. This would put it on par with the population of New York (the largest city in the United States). With the first expansion coming out since the game was released, the game could easily pass 10 million people.

From the press release: "Since debuting in North America on November 23, 2004, World of Warcraft has become the most popular MMORPG around the world. Today, World of Warcraft is available in seven different languages and is played in North America, Europe, mainland China, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau.""

Submission + - Black diamonds come from space

Submitted by

Roland Piquepaille

on Thursday January 11, 2007 @12:56PM

Roland Piquepaille writes: "Two teams of U.S. researchers have found that carbonados — or black diamonds — come from outer space. Helped with funds from the National Science Foundation (NSF), they discovered nitrogen and hydrogen in these porous black diamonds found only in Brazil and the Central African Republic. And these elements are not found in conventional diamonds extracted from mines from volcanic rocks. They think these carbonados were part of asteroids which landed on Earth about 3 billion years ago. Read more for additional explanations and a picture of such a not-so-pretty diamond."

UK Schools At Risk of Microsoft Lock-In 162

Posted by kdawson on Thursday January 11, 2007 @12:51PM from the apple-for-the-teacher dept.

Robert writes "UK schools and colleges that have signed up to Microsoft Corp's academic licensing programs face the significant potential of being locked in to the company's software, according to an interim review by Becta, the UK government agency responsible for technology in education. The report also states that most establishments surveyed do not believe that Microsoft's licensing agreements provide value for money." In a separate report, Becta offered the opinion that schools should avoid Vista for at least another year, since neither Vista nor Office 2007 offers any compelling reasons for schools to upgrade.

Submission + - PI faces charges in HP pretexting case

Submitted by

BillyBurrito

on Thursday January 11, 2007 @12:50PM

BillyBurrito writes: "It seems that there will be "someone held accountable" for the privacy violations that have rocked the Hewlett Packard Board in 2006. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/11/ap/busin ess/mainD8MITHV00.shtml (AP) A private investigator accused of posing as a journalist to access the reporter's private phone records as part of the boardroom spying scandal at Hewlett-Packard Co. was charged Wednesday with federal identity theft and conspiracy charges, prosecutors said. Bryan Wagner is accused of using the Social Security number of the unidentified journalist to illegally gain access to the phone logs, according to the criminal charges filed in San Jose federal court by U.S. Attorney Kevin V. Ryan's office. Wagner is also accused of conspiring to illegally obtain and transmit personal information on HP directors, journalists and employees as part of the computer and printer maker's crusade to ferret out the source of boardroom leaks to the media."

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