canuck57 - Slashdot User

Submission + - Nokia claims Ogg format is "proprietary" 2

Submitted by a nona maus on Sunday December 09, 2007 @01:57PM

a nona maus writes: Several months ago the WHATWG workgroup of the W3C decided to include Ogg/Theora+Vorbis as the recommended baseline video codec standard for HTML5, against Apple's aggressive protest. Now, Nokia seems to be seeking a reversal of that decision: they have released a position paper calling Ogg "proprietary" and citing the importance of DRM support. Nokia has historically responded to questions about Ogg on their internet tablets with strange and inconsistent answers, along with hand waving about their legal department. This latest step is enough to really make you wonder what they are really up to.

Submission + - First US City gets OLPC for Schools

Submitted by on Tuesday December 04, 2007 @10:53AM

An anonymous reader writes: Birmingham,AL is getting OLPC for all children in their school systems grades 1-8. They'll be the first in the US to do so.

Submission + - eBay Hijacking (www.cbc.ca)

Submitted by canuck57 on Tuesday December 04, 2007 @09:29AM

canuck57 writes: CBC is running a story on eBay hijacking where people are losing money, makes a good case to escrow sizable transactions:

A Calgary man is one of 1,000 Canadians who have been scammed on eBay through a tactic known as hijacking, and the RCMP says the online auction service is not co-operating with their criminal investigations.

Shaqir Duraj, a Calgary bakery owner, won an eBay auction for a car in early October. He thought he was dealing with a reputable seller with a 98 per cent customer satisfaction rating.
http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2007/12/03/ebay-hijack.html

Submission + - No Release Yet for British Teacher Jailed in Sudan (techluver.com)

Submitted by

Tech.Luver

on Sunday December 02, 2007 @03:58PM

Tech.Luver writes: "Two UK Muslim peers who are in Sudan to lobby for a jailed British teacher to be released will meet the president on Monday, a presidential aide has said. Baroness Warsi and Lord Ahmed have delayed their return to the UK and Lady Warsi said they had "made progress". But she would not confirm the aide's announcement of a presidential meeting. Gillian Gibbons, 54, of Liverpool, was jailed for 15 days on Thursday for insulting religion by letting her pupils name a teddy bear Muhammad. ( http://techluver.com/2007/12/02/no-release-yet-for-british-teacher-jailed-in-sudan/ )"

Submission + - Government bristling at criticism over sentencing

Submitted by on Sunday December 02, 2007 @12:30PM

An anonymous reader writes: When I first read this, I thought good, they caught the rapists, but punishing the victim? What century do we live in? MSNBC has the whole story.

CAIRO, Egypt — Saudi Arabia is bristling at international criticism over the sentencing of a rape victim to prison and 200 lashes, insisting the West should stay out of its legal system. But the case could empower voices for change in the kingdom's Islamic courts.

The punishment of the "Girl of Qatif" as the rape victim is known, after her hometown in eastern Saudi Arabia was labeled "barbaric" by Canada. In a rare criticism of its Mideast ally, the White House called the Saudi court ruling "outrageous."

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal, in the U.S. for a Mideast peace conference, was visibly annoyed.
He should not be annoyed, but embarrassed.

Submission + - A Shocking Report Inside The Ron Paul Conspiracy (latimes.com)

Submitted by

Andrew Malcolm

on Saturday December 01, 2007 @04:32PM

Andrew Malcolm writes: "A shocking report: Inside the Ron Paul conspiracy Maybe you've heard rumors about an explosive newspaper expose on a major political figure that would rock the political world just as the presidential voting is about to begin... We haven't either. But we do know that today is when this newspaper blows the top off of the Ron Paul Conspiracy, that vast unorganized protest movement that has silently become one of the more interesting political phenomena of the current election season... goto http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2007/11 to read more"

Submission + - Sun accused of hardball open source project tactic 2

Submitted by on Saturday December 01, 2007 @02:52PM

An anonymous reader writes: The OpenDS project now appears close to extinction now that the people running the show, including the person who has contributed > 50% of the code have withdrawn from the project after Sun tried to force them to relinquish control.

In an open letter to the project and Sun, Neil Wilson gives the history behind their decision to retire from the project.

Sun have tried to put a different spin on the story and discredit Neil (Ludo, Eduardo-1, Eduardo-2) but were firmly rebutted by another (ex) member of the team Trey.

We will now have to wait and see if Jonathan Schwartz really means the hype he has been generating about Sun's commitment to Open Source — preferably by firing the execs responsible for this mess.

Submission + - Hostages taken in Clinton's campaign office (wmur.com)

Submitted by

atomicthumbs

on Friday November 30, 2007 @05:05PM

atomicthumbs writes: "A man with a bomb has walked into Hillary's campaign office, taken hostages, and demanded to speak to Clinton. Live video: http://www.wmur.com/video/14738085/index.html"

Submission + - Canada Opens Wireless Industry to Competition (www.cbc.ca) 2

Submitted by

FreeKill

on Wednesday November 28, 2007 @07:19PM

FreeKill writes: "The Canadian government on Wednesday paved the way for new cellphone companies by announcing new rules for an auction of radio airwaves designed to spur competition in the wireless industry. About 40 per cent of the spectrum will be reserved for new entrants with the remainder open to all bidders, including Canada's big three providers — Rogers, Bell and Telus. The government will also mandate roaming area agreements which will force existing carriers to share their networks with newcomers for five years, plus another five if the new entrants can build up their own networks nationally."

Submission + - Is DLP dieing? (audioholics.com)

Submitted by

mrnomas

on Wednesday November 28, 2007 @07:18PM

mrnomas writes: "With the recent announcement that BenQ is releasing projectors with 3LCD technology rather than DLP, Clint DeBoer over at Audioholics suggests that DLP may be on the verge of demise.

"Why is it that I can buy three single-chip DLP projectors for a grand total of $3000. But I cannot purchase a single 3-chip DLP projector for under $15,000? It's not because it costs 15x more to make a 3-chip system. DLP has apparently made promises, likely to both cinema DLP owners and high-end manufacturers, that it will not drop these 3-chip system prices down too far, too fast. If they did, the high-end DLP market would go into "garage-sale" mode overnight.... DLP is all but evenly matched with LCD — except that LCD offers more features, options and configurability than DLP at the same price points.""

Submission + - Google purges thousands of suspected malware sites (itnews.com.au) 1

Submitted by

Stony Stevenson

on Wednesday November 28, 2007 @06:37PM

Stony Stevenson writes: "In response to a concerted effort by cyber criminals to infect the computers of Google users with malware and make them unwitting partners in crime, Google has apparently purged tens of thousands of malicious Web pages from its index. Alex Eckelberry, CEO of Sunbelt Software, noted that many search results on Google led to malicious Web pages that expose visitors to exploits that can compromise vulnerable systems. Sunbelt published a list of search terms that returned malicious pages, the result of search engine optimization (SEO) campaigns by cyber criminals to get their pages prominently ranked in Google — Sunbelt refers to this as "SEO poisoning."

Let's hope Google has done its research and hasn't purged legitimate sites."

Submission + - Major Cybersquatter Sidelined by Dell Lawsuit

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 28, 2007 @06:19PM

An anonymous reader writes: The world's largest cybersquatting organization has been temporarily put out of business following an unusual legal maneuver by PC maker Dell, The Washington Post reports. Dell sued three registrars apparently set up to do nothing else but domain tasting and typosquatting — BelgiumDomains, CapitolDomains, and DomainDoorman — as well as what Dell claims are nearly a dozen Caribbean shell companies that allegedly served as the entities registering the domains. In addition to the cybersquatting claims, Dell has filed counterfeiting charges against the registrars, a claim that caused a federal judge to bar the company from domain tasting and to seal the case until federal marshals had a chance to seize hard drives and other evidence from the defendants. The counterfeiting claim also allows for ten times the statutory damages offered by anti-cybersquatting laws, up to $1 million per infringing domain.

Submission + - IBM sues company selling fake, flammable batteries (computerworld.com.au)

Submitted by Bergkamp10 on Wednesday November 28, 2007 @05:33PM

Bergkamp10 writes: A Computerworld article reporting that IBM is suing Shentech for selling laptop batteries that catch on fire and sport allegedly fake IBM logos. IBM apparently followed up on a claim by a customer that an "IBM" laptop battery bought at Shentech caught on fire and damaged his laptop. The customer reported the problem to Lenovo (who license Big Blue's trademark) who subsequently ordered 12 batteries from Shentech and found them all to be fakes. IBM is asking for US$1 million in damages for each dodgy battery sold.

Submission + - Western Digital Touts New "Green Drives" (computerworld.com)

Submitted by

Lucas123

on Wednesday November 21, 2007 @02:57PM

Lucas123 writes: "Western Digital today announced the availability of a new line of serial ATA drives that are supposed to use 4 to 5 watts less than other competitive drives from Hitachi GST, Fujitsu and Seagate. The new "GreenPower" line comes in 500GB, 750GB and 1TB capacities. Western Digital says it achieves better power performance by balancing the platter's spin speed in order to make it more efficient, by optimizing seek speeds and by parking the read heads when the disk is idle, according to a Computerworld story."

Submission + - 54% of UK computer users have stolen WiFi internet (blorge.com)

Submitted by thefickler on Sunday November 18, 2007 @06:50AM

thefickler writes: Though I think nearly everyone is guilty of a little piggy-backing at one point or another, a recent Sophos poll revealed that 54% of UK computer users have used someone else's WiFi without their permission. Interesting comment from a reader: "I don't think most people care if someone is using a bit of their bandwidth. Why would they? People naturally like to share things." Not so sure about that one...

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