azadrozny - Slashdot User

Submission + - AMD Nearly Out Of Cash

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 20, 2007 @12:14PM

An anonymous reader writes: Following a horrible quarter and market share losses, AMD is within two quarters of running out of cash, according to EETimes. "AMD lost approximately $883 million in free cash flow in the last quarter, worse than expected, and putting the company within two quarters of running out of cash," EETimes quotes Wall Street analyst Chris Caso as saying. It gets even worse for AMD. After losing significant market share in 2006, Intel struck back in the first quarter of 2007, gaining 4.5 percentage points in the microprocessor market. Intel now holds 80.2 percent of the global chip market. Can AMD dig itself out of a hole? Maybe, maybe not. "AMD will look to lessen the capital needs of its models by outsourcing production and partnering up, though we believe this could take much longer than investors anticipate," analyst Doug Freedman of American Technology Research told EETimes.

Submission + - Microsoft's $3 software for developing countries.

Submitted by

sqwishy

on Friday April 20, 2007 @11:11AM

sqwishy writes: "At a meeting in Beijing, Bill gates announced a new product aimed at bringing people software for an extremely low cost. Somewhat a competitor for the OLPC.

"The initiative, an expansion of Microsoft's "Unlimited Potential" strategy, involves offering governments a $3 software package called the Student Innovation Suite. It includes Windows XP Starter Edition, Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007, Microsoft Math 3.0, Learning Essentials 2.0 for Microsoft Office, and Windows Live Mail desktop."
"The suite will be available by the end of this year to qualifying governments that are working to supply PCs to students in order to promote technology skills. In 2008, Microsoft will extend its availability to all countries with economies defined as low- or middle-income by the The World Bank."
A $3 software package shows that Microsoft's aim here isn't to make some more money, but to influence young people growing up with Linux as their main OS in other countries."

Submission + - Scott Ambler on Agile development

Submitted by

BlueVoodoo

on Friday April 20, 2007 @11:00AM

BlueVoodoo writes: "Ambler explains what Agile development means, and look at why it is increasingly relevant and experiencing rapid adoption. He contrasts it with more traditional software development methods and dispels a number of common myths."

Submission + - The Jock Exchange

Submitted by flynt on Friday April 20, 2007 @10:58AM

flynt writes: Yahoo! Finance is running a story about A.S.A Sports Exchange, who want to create a "stock" market for the public trading of professional athletes. From the article, "The athlete would sell 20 percent of all future on-field or on-court earnings to a trust, which would, in turn, sell securities to the public." Sounds fun, I'll be offering Sidd Finch futures, any buyers?

Submission + - Human blood may contain a cure for AIDS

Submitted by

Lisandro

on Friday April 20, 2007 @10:39AM

Lisandro writes: "German scientists at the University of Ulm have identified a natural ingredient of human blood that prevents the HIV-1 virus from from infecting immune cells and multiplying. The molecule, which they call virus-inhibitory peptide (VIRIP), promises new types of effective treatment for HIV in the future."

Submission + - Gore mulling third party run in '08

Submitted by on Monday April 02, 2007 @01:49PM

An anonymous reader writes: It looks like there may be another contender in the presidential race. Insight Magazine is reporting that Al Gore is considering running for President as the Green Party candidate in 2008. Ralph Nader has been active in trying to recruit him; and according to sources close to Gore, he has not refused the offer.

Submission + - Google Maps Erases Katrina Effects

Submitted by cybermage on Friday March 30, 2007 @09:20AM

cybermage writes: Google Maps has replaced images of New Orleans from after Katrina with images from before Katrina. The AP story can be found here. What could their motivation possibly be?

Submission + - TRON banned after 25 years.

Submitted by IckySplat on Friday March 30, 2007 @09:10AM

IckySplat writes: Hust seen this over at kuro5hin Har to belive that its for real. But given the current global climate :) http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2007/3/28/132751/380

Submission + - Vista Failing "Blackboard" College Courses

Submitted by writertype on Friday March 30, 2007 @08:54AM

writertype writes: Although Blackboard is used to communicate between students and professors at virtually all of PC Magazine/Princeton Review's top 20 wired colleges, when run under a Vista environment users can see glitches. Moreover, IT departments told PC Mag that if Blackboard is used with Vista plus IE7, students can't communicate via the software. When asked why, Microsoft...waffled.

Blackboard says they'll have a fix in place by summer. Meanwhile, are there any other common college apps that Vista fails to work with?

Submission + - Newton's Second Law, Revisited

Submitted by

eldavojohn

on Friday March 30, 2007 @08:49AM

eldavojohn writes: "Dust off your fundamental physics books, an aspiring astrophysicist by the name of Alex Ignatiev has published a paper that proposes testing special cases of Newton's Second Law on earth's surface. The difficulties that lie ahead are that he's only got 1/1000th of a second window twice each year to test in either Greenland or Antarctica. What would he look for? Spontaneous motion. From his interview with PhysOrg, "If these experiments were to take place, Ignatiev says that scientists would look for what he calls the SHLEM effect. This acronym stands for static high latitude equinox modified inertia and would be noticed in a condition where the forces of the earth's rotation on its axis, and of the orbital force of the earth as it moves around the sun, would be canceled out. "This would lead to a tiny shift to be detected," Ignatiev explains." In the end, if Newton's Second Law could be violated, he would be forcing physicists to reevaluate much of what we understand derived from that law — which is quite a bit."

Submission + - Windows Animatied Cursors Flaw

Submitted by Hennell on Friday March 30, 2007 @08:41AM

Hennell writes: Should anybody here be using animated cursors on their windows machine, Microsoft has warned that there's a flaw in the way they work, which is leaving computers open to attack.

Musicians Demand the Internet Stay Neutral 203

Posted by kdawson on Thursday March 29, 2007 @09:47AM from the bits-is-bits-man dept.

eldavojohn writes "124 bands — including R.E.M., Sarah McLachlan, and Pearl Jam — and 24 music labels are sending a clear message to keep Net traffic neutral. The Rock the Net campaign wants all traffic to be equal instead of allowing providers to charge a fee for certain pages to load faster than others. These musicians are the latest to join the Save the Internet campaign, which has the chair of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet in its camp. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., spoke at the campaign's kickoff. I think it's obvious that musicians (especially independents and small labels) will find themselves with the short end of the stick if they are asked to pay a fee to have their music streamed as fast as larger bands or even corporations."

Submission + - Do Online Petitions Matter?

Submitted by cybermage on Thursday March 29, 2007 @09:26AM

cybermage writes: Snopes.com, the resource for ferreting out urban legends, has engaged in a bit of editorializing about the ineffectiveness of online petitions. Many petitions sites have sprung up that seem to be mostly geared toward attracting traffic to ads more than having any tangible effect; but, at the same time, efforts like DraftGore.com and petitions from moveon.org seem to be having some effect — at least some of the time. Is snopes right? Are online petitions a counter-productive waste of time? What have you experienced?

Submission + - Terahertz spectrum for wireless communication

Submitted by holy_calamity on Thursday March 29, 2007 @08:24AM

holy_calamity writes: A first step to allowing wireless data transfer over a currently unused part of the electromagnetic spectrum are reported in New Scientist. Terahertz radiation exists between radio and infrared. A new filter created at the University of Utah can filter out particular frequencies, a prerequisite for using it for data. The abstract of the paper in the journal Nature is freely available.

Submission + - USPS announced Star Wars stamp set

Submitted by

morpheus83

on Thursday March 29, 2007 @07:56AM

morpheus83 writes: "After R2D2 letter boxes USPS continues the saga, as it unveiled 15 new stamps featuring Star Wars characters at Grauman's Chinese theater in Hollywood where the original "Star Wars" movie opened 30 years ago. The 41 cent stamps will be released on May 25, all the 15 stamps will be issued on a single sheet resembling a movie poster."

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