Submission + - Most Americans think media has liberal bias
MCraigW writes: "The vast majority of American voters believe media bias is alive and well — 83% of likely voters said the media is biased in one direction or another, while just 11% believe the media doesn't take political sides, a recent IPDI/Zogby Interactive poll shows.
Nearly two-thirds of those online respondents who detected bias in the media (64%) said the media leans left, while slightly more than a quarter of respondents (28%) said they see a conservative bias."
Submission + - Open Sound System v4.0 announced
Dev Mazumdar writes: "4Front Technologies has finally announced Open Sound System v4.0 — the first major release since OSS v3 was announced back in 1996. The new audio architecture has a new virtual mixer engine that will mix any any audio app — mix DVD 5.1 multichannel with MP3 stereo with full duplex voip with game audio like DoomIII or Quake. The new virtual mixer engine gives each app its own volume control. OSS v4.0 comes with ALSA compatibility and Flash audio support.
More information is at http://www.opensound.com/press/2007/OSSv4.txt
OSS v4.0 is available for Linux 2.6, Solaris 10, FreeBSD 6 and UnixWare 7.
Best regards
Dev Mazumdar"
Submission + - PTO Rejects Instant Live Patent
Jivecat writes: "The U.S. Patent Office has issued a notice to cancel a patent held by Live Nation that allowed that company to monopolize live in-concert recordings, recorded directly from the sound board and quickly burned on CD so that audience members can buy copies of the show as they are leaving the venue. The patent concerned a technology to add start and end cues to a live performance so the resulting CD would not contain a single, massive track. The EFF and patent attorneys found prior work of an equivalent technology. This is good news for those who consider Live Nation to be the Evil Empire when it comes to concert promotion."
Submission + - Skype users can sell advice
An anonymous reader writes: Telecoms.com has a piece about an interesting beta in Skype 3.1. "Skype Prime allows users to make money and reach potential customers all over the world. An in built billing mechanism allows users to set up and determine their own per minute or one off fees for giving 'expert' advice."
Submission + - Red Hat Enterprise Linux administration guide
Jane Walker writes: "Here's your guide to getting started with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. We cover tasks like security, administration, networking, tools for Red Hat and more."
Submission + - Diodes could drive swimming micro-robots
finisterre writes: Diodes can be made to 'swim' through salt water by hitting them with an alternating electric field. The applied field induces a current that sets up a field between the diode's electrical contacts and creates a propulsive force. The abstract of the paper in Nature Materials is freely available. New Scientist has videos of the swimming diodes in action.
Submission + - Free GPS Navigation for Mobile Phones is here
Veripath Navigator writes: "Most people who use GPS navigation pay for it. Veripath Navigator is a new alternative. It is a Java-based GPS voice navigation system that works on most Java-enabled phones / PDAs. Veripath supports devices with internal or external (via Bluetooth) GPS receivers, has clear voice instructions, business / POI finder, auto-rerouting and most features of a traditional navigation system. Sign up to get up to 5 trips per month for free.
http://veripath.us/"
Submission + - US University Values Diversity over Education
EmagGeek writes: "According to a CNN Article, "Experts argue that if the United States is to remain competitive with other countries in the engineering field, it will have to find better ways to encourage women to join the profession." Apparently, the quality and competence of an engineering class has more to do with its gender composition than the quality and competence of the students.
From the Article:
Women received 18 percent of the 78,200 engineering degrees given out in 2003-04, the latest data available from the U.S. Department of Education. That's the same percentage as in 1998 and only slightly more than the 16 percent in 1996."
From the Article:
Women received 18 percent of the 78,200 engineering degrees given out in 2003-04, the latest data available from the U.S. Department of Education. That's the same percentage as in 1998 and only slightly more than the 16 percent in 1996."
Submission + - US Changes Story on Spy Coins
Aqua_boy17 writes: As a follow up to a story previously reported on Slashdot regarding bugged Canadian coins, the US Defense Department is now claiming that the original story was false. In an AP story published today the department states that its previous claims have proven to be unsubstatiated according to subsequent investigations. The US Defense Security Service was never able to provide evidence to support its original claim regarding the fake coins, and has now begun an internal investigation to determine how the original report was leaked to the public. Industry experts were intially baffled by the first reports, as such devices would have had a very limited capability to deliver significant amounts of reliable intelligence data.
Submission + - What's the BEST way to host a website from home?
lucas.clemente writes: "Currently, I use a very rudimentary system to host my website(s). I have a Time Warner cablemodem, protected by a Linksys router. That Linksys router does port forwarding (port 80) to a $50 Powermac G3 running OSX. For DNS, I use dyndns.org. (they offer both free and pay dynamic DNS clients).
This is adequate enough to support a website that has gotten no more than a dozen visitors at a time.
My question is: Are there any slashdot readers who have been able to use a cable modem's bandwidth to host a website with a significant volume of traffic? EG thousands of users a day...(& still use it for day-to-day internet surfing)?
If so, how many other configurations are there (of comparable cost & simplicity) to accomplish this?"
This is adequate enough to support a website that has gotten no more than a dozen visitors at a time.
My question is: Are there any slashdot readers who have been able to use a cable modem's bandwidth to host a website with a significant volume of traffic? EG thousands of users a day...(& still use it for day-to-day internet surfing)?
If so, how many other configurations are there (of comparable cost & simplicity) to accomplish this?"
Submission + - Net Neutrality Act Once Again on the Agenda
Michael Talbert writes: "On January 9th, Republican Senator Olympia Snowe and Democrat Byron Dorgan
reintroduced the Internet Freedom Preservation Act to the Senate.
Better known as the Net Neutrality Act, the bill was killed
by the Senate last year in a vote split down party lines (Democrats yea, Republicans
nay), with the exception of Senator Snowe. With the Democrats having a slight
majority in the Senate, the bill certainly has a better chance this time around,
but it still needs 60 votes to prevent a Republican filibuster.
The impetus for the bill started back in 2005, when broadband network executives began discussing the possibility of charging companies that use a high percentage of bandwidth. Most notably, in an interview with a Business Week, SBC chairman Ed Whitacre Jr (now AT&T CEO) stated: "How do you think they're going to get to customers? Through a broadband pipe. Cable companies have them. We have them. Now what they would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain't going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it. So there's going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they're using. Why should they be allowed to use my pipes?"
Whitacre went on to say, "The Internet can't be free in that sense, because we and the cable companies have made an investment and for a Google or Yahoo! or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes free is nuts!"
What's nuts is that he actually said that...
Read the entire article Net Neutrality Act Once Again on the Agenda on VoIP-Facts.net."
The impetus for the bill started back in 2005, when broadband network executives began discussing the possibility of charging companies that use a high percentage of bandwidth. Most notably, in an interview with a Business Week, SBC chairman Ed Whitacre Jr (now AT&T CEO) stated: "How do you think they're going to get to customers? Through a broadband pipe. Cable companies have them. We have them. Now what they would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain't going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it. So there's going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they're using. Why should they be allowed to use my pipes?"
Whitacre went on to say, "The Internet can't be free in that sense, because we and the cable companies have made an investment and for a Google or Yahoo! or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes free is nuts!"
What's nuts is that he actually said that...
Read the entire article Net Neutrality Act Once Again on the Agenda on VoIP-Facts.net."
Submission + - UK tracking and road taxing petition
Jaknet writes: The UK government is at it again with attempts to track and charge extreme amounts for using the roads. If your from the UK please sign up at the petition site below
The government's proposal to introduce road pricing will mean you having to purchase a tracking device for your car and paying a monthly bill to use it.
The tracking device will cost about £200 and in a recent study by the BBC, the lowest MONTHLY bill was £28 for a rural florist and £194 for a delivery drive. The road tax at the moment is about £110 for small cars and £170 for all other cars PER YEAR
On top of this massive increase in tax, you will be tracked. Somebody will know where you are at all times. They will also know how fast you have been going, so even if you accidentally creep over a speed limit you can expect a speeding fine and points on your licence with your monthly bill.
If you care about our freedoms and stopping the constant bashing of the car driver, please sign the petition on No 10's new website:
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/traveltax/
The government's proposal to introduce road pricing will mean you having to purchase a tracking device for your car and paying a monthly bill to use it.
The tracking device will cost about £200 and in a recent study by the BBC, the lowest MONTHLY bill was £28 for a rural florist and £194 for a delivery drive. The road tax at the moment is about £110 for small cars and £170 for all other cars PER YEAR
On top of this massive increase in tax, you will be tracked. Somebody will know where you are at all times. They will also know how fast you have been going, so even if you accidentally creep over a speed limit you can expect a speeding fine and points on your licence with your monthly bill.
If you care about our freedoms and stopping the constant bashing of the car driver, please sign the petition on No 10's new website:
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/traveltax/
Submission + - Spammer Convicted of Phishing Scam
eldavojohn writes: "Jeffrey Brett Goodin has been convicted under the 2003 CAN-SPAM Act. He is facing a sentence of up to 101 years in a federal prison after being found guilty. From the article, "The law forbids e-mail marketers from sending false or misleading messages and requires them to provide recipients with a way to opt out of receiving future mailings." And somehow he's the first person to violate this law since 2003? I'd gladly turn over my inbox to the DoJ if it results in even one of the people responsible spending 101 years in federal-pound-me-in-the-ass prison!"
Submission + - LG's 'Dual' HD DVD/Blu-ray Player not so Dual
An anonymous reader writes: LG did a great job rushing out the industry's first (it appears) dual-format Blu-ray/HD DVD player, giving consumers some assurance that they can simply buy any movie they want, without having to worry about compatibility issues. But in LG's rush, the company failed to include some key features in the HD DVD component of its Multi Blue player. It seems LG had all of the Blu-ray features completed, but only some of the HD DVD. The hardware can indeed play HD DVDs, but apparently LG did not have time to implement the iHD software engine that makes that player interactive.
