Feed news.com: U.S. judge praises Microsoft's open-source steps (news.com)
In contrast to European overseers, judge presiding over Redmond's U.S. antitrust compliance has kinder words for its recent attempts to better accommodate open-source developers.
Submission + - The 42-light-year Doritos commercial
An anonymous reader writes: People in the UK have an opportunity to get their Doritos-sponsored message sent to 47 Ursae Majoris, which is believed to be supporting living organisms — 42 light years away from Earth. The will be using a 2000 million watts strong signal to get the commercial into space, enough to tell living organisms hundreds of light years away that there is a snack called Doritos somewhere in the universe. Well, besides the fact that this ad will also have some user-created content about life on earth, thankfully.
Submission + - SPAM: A new strategy to fight HIV and AIDS
Roland Piquepaille writes: "An international team of researchers has developed a novel strategy against HIV. They added two genes to immune cells which 'transformed them into potent weapons that destroy cells infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.' This idea of 'genetically engineering immune cells to redirect their infection-fighting ability toward killing HIV-infected cells could lead to an entirely new approach for combating AIDS.' This research looks promising, but it's only working in labs right now. But read more and please note that this is a very different story from the one you mentioned on March 1, Researchers Discover Gene That Blocks HIV."
Submission + - Microsoft indemnifies Novell Moonlight users (regdeveloper.co.uk)
comm2k writes:
Microsoft will provide codecs worth $1m to every user downloading Moonlight from Novell under a special patent covenant, separate to the companies' broader — and controversial — patent protection and interoperability deal of November 2005.
Submission + - AT&T Throttling the internet? 1
DarkkOne writes: "One week ago, I purchased a new 6 megabit DSL connection, after having moved. Once it was working, I immediately performed a test to see how much bandwidth I really seemed to be getting, expecting something in the 4.5-5.5 range. Much to my dismay, I discovered I was getting the appropriate upload, but a mere 1.5 down. I called AT&T, my provider, and was given the runaround about their servers needing to communicate with my modem, and requiring a week or so for things to show full speed. Being a kind hearted soul, I assumed they just didn't want to confuse my feeble mind with technical details like "we have to actually set up your account properly now that the modem's on" and that I would be getting full speed in the next day or two, as they assured me it usually didn't take the full week. Several days later, my speed still isn't full, and I talk with a friend who has AT&T DSL. They reveal they weren't getting their full 6 mbit connection until they called AT&T and complained, at which time their line was immediately enabled even thought they'd been paying for 6 mbit for some time. Being less of a power user, they hadn't noticed the problem as being significant until they finally got around to testing it. When I contacted AT&T again, I managed to get through to someone with a clue, who told me that yes, my line was set to 1.5, and after a mere few minutes on the phone, I was getting speeds above 5 mbit on every bandwidth test I felt like trying. He told me it's been a problem recently in Texas. So I'd like to know, any experiences like this outside Texas with AT&T/SBC/Yahoo? Further experiences in Texas? Lack of clue, or something sinister, or an ISP merely trying to keep from overusing their own bandwidth, and only giving you what you pay for when you ask?"
Feed Macworld: Nike + iPod coming to the gym (macworld.com)
Submission + - Hillary Clinton spam sighted in the wild (networkworld.com)
Anonymous Coward writes: "The Hillary Clinton election campaign is being exploited in a spam message that tries to trick users into downloading a Trojan to their desktops by pretending to offer a link to a video of a Hillary Clinton campaign speech. "It's the first time we've seen spam like this targeting Hillary Clinton," says Doug Bowers, Symantec's senior director of anti-abuse engineering, who says the spam message, still not seen in large volumes, was first spotted today. The spam, which has the subject line "Hillary Clinton Video!!" offers users a link promising a video of the presidential candidate giving a speech. In reality, clicking on it would cause a Trojan to be downloaded to compromise the victim's machine for the purpose of sending more spam.
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/021408-hillary-clinton-spam.html"
Submission + - Rush Limbaugh begs Steve Jobs for bug fixes (valleywag.com)
jlgolson writes: "Yesterday, Rush Limbaugh complained on his radio program about some problems that he was having with his Mac: "Mr. Jobs, please help me. I know we don't agree on anything... But can you put me to somebody that can get this going, because I know it's gotta work for most people. What am I doing wrong?" Eventually he shared that he was running into actual problems — not just ID10T errors — with Time Machine and Back to My Mac. Can you fix them?"
US To Shoot Down Dying Satellite 429
A user writes "US officials say that the Pentagon is planning to shoot down a broken spy satellite expected to hit the Earth in early March. We discussed the device's decaying orbit late last month. The Associated Press has learned that the option preferred by the Bush administration will be to fire a missile from a U.S. Navy cruiser, and shoot down the satellite before it enters Earth's atmosphere. 'A key concern ... was the debris created by Chinese satellite's destruction -- and that will also be a focus now, as the U.S. determines exactly when and under what circumstances to shoot down its errant satellite. The military will have to choose a time and a location that will avoid to the greatest degree any damage to other satellites in the sky. Also, there is the possibility that large pieces could remain, and either stay in orbit where they can collide with other satellites or possibly fall to Earth.'"
Submission + - Starbucks to drop T-Mobile, offer AT&T WiFi (informationweek.com)
whoever57 writes: Starbucks has annouunced that it will switch from offering T-Mobile hotspots, it will offer WiFi provided by AT&T. AT&T will provide 2 hours of free Internet access to holders of Starbucks cards. Most AT&T Broadband customers will also get free access. T-Mobile Hotspot subscribers will get access through a deal between T-Mobile and AT&T. Analysts comment that this will likely help with iPhone sales.
Submission + - Netflix Drops HD-DVD
jschaefer writes: I have just received an E-Mail from Netflix proclaiming they too are dropping HD-DVD as a video format. Is this the final blow in the format wars?
"You're receiving this email because you have asked to receive high-definition movies in the HD DVD format. As you may have heard, most of the major movie studios have recently decided to release their high-definition movies exclusively in the Blu-ray format. In order to provide the best selection of high-definition titles for our members, we have decided to go exclusively with Blu-ray as well. While we will continue to make our current selection of HD DVD titles available to you for the next several months, we will not be adding additional HD DVD titles or reordering replacements. Toward the end of February, HD DVDs in your Saved Queue will automatically be changed to standard definition DVDs. Then toward the end of this year, all HD DVDs in your Queue will be changed to standard definition DVDs. Don't worry, we will contact you before this happens."
"You're receiving this email because you have asked to receive high-definition movies in the HD DVD format. As you may have heard, most of the major movie studios have recently decided to release their high-definition movies exclusively in the Blu-ray format. In order to provide the best selection of high-definition titles for our members, we have decided to go exclusively with Blu-ray as well. While we will continue to make our current selection of HD DVD titles available to you for the next several months, we will not be adding additional HD DVD titles or reordering replacements. Toward the end of February, HD DVDs in your Saved Queue will automatically be changed to standard definition DVDs. Then toward the end of this year, all HD DVDs in your Queue will be changed to standard definition DVDs. Don't worry, we will contact you before this happens."
Submission + - SPAM: NASA's Hubble telescope snaps gargantuan galaxy
coondoggie writes: "NASA today said its Hubble Space Telescope has captured a new image what it calls a giant cosmic fossil. The fossil is actually a galaxy, dubbed NGC 1132 which is the aftermath of an enormous multi-galactic pile-up, where the carnage of collision after collision has built up a brilliant but fuzzy giant elliptical galaxy far outshining typical galaxies. NGC 1132, together with the small dwarf galaxies surrounding it, are dubbed a 'fossil group" as they are most likely the remains of a group of galaxies that merged together in the recent past, NASA said.
[spam URL stripped]"
Link to Original Source
Link to Original Source
Submission + - Lawyer Puts $10k Bounty on Blogger's Identity (abajournal.com)
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes: "Raymond Niro of Niro Scavone Haller & Niro is fighting back against criticism from the Patent Troll Tracker blog by offering a $10,000 bounty for the identity of the person behind it. He thinks the blogger might work for Microsoft, Intel, or has connections to a 'serial infringer' and that could 'color' what they say."
Submission + - EBay saves billions for bidders
Stony Stevenson writes: Independent research by two statisticians from the University of Maryland has found that eBay buyers saved an average of $4 per person, or $19 billion total, at the popular online auction site per year. The study seeks to calculate what economists call "consumer surplus" — the difference between the top price buyers were ready to pay and what they actually ended up paying. E-commerce sites provide a treasure trove of data that allows researchers to test out theories of consumer behavior.
