garbletext - Slashdot User

Submission + - Firefox 3 To Support Offline Apps

Submitted by on Monday February 12, 2007 @05:19PM

An anonymous reader writes: Read/WriteWeb reports that Robert O'Callahan from Mozilla, a kiwi who drives the rendering engine of Mozilla/FireFox, spoke at the recent New Zealand Foo Camp event about how Firefox 3 will deliver support for offline applications. This means you'll be able to use your web apps — like Gmail, Google Docs & Spreadsheets, Google Calendar, etc — in the browser even when offline. Not only does this move suit Google, but it makes Firefox attractive as the browser platform of choice for SaaS providers like salesforce.com. All of which will hit Microsoft where it hurts. Robert O'Callahan turns up in the comments to the article to say that "Yes, Web apps need to be reengineered for this, and no, no-one (including Google) has announced they will do so — although we hope they will!".

Submission + - New Hiking Maps of Mars

Submitted by

sighted

on Monday February 12, 2007 @03:38PM

sighted writes: "The European Space Agency has released new topographic 'hiking maps' of Martian canyons. The maps provide detailed height contours and names of complex geological features in the Iani Chaos region, which in the past was the site of ice melted by volcanic heat. These days, if you want to hike the labyrinth of canyons and cliffs in Iani, you'll have to bring your own water."

Submission + - Is Microsoft getting paid for patents in Linux?

Submitted by

kripkenstein

on Sunday February 11, 2007 @08:08AM

kripkenstein writes: "In an interview, Jeremy Allison (of the Samba project) implies that Microsoft is secretly getting paid for patent licenses on Linux-related products:

[Interviewer:] One of the persistent rumors that's going around is that certain large IT customers have already been paying Microsoft for patent licensing to cover their use of Linux, Samba and other free software projects.[...]

Allison: Yes, that's true, actually. I mean I have had people come up to me and essentially off the record admit that they had been threatened by Microsoft and had got patent cross license and had essentially taken out a license for Microsoft patents on the free software that they were using [...] But they're not telling anyone about it. They're completely doing it off the record.
If true, is this slowing down Linux adoption? Or are these just rumors — which may accomplish much the same effect?"

Obama Announces for President, Boosts Broadband 846

Posted by kdawson on Sunday February 11, 2007 @03:40AM from the ethanol-and-fat-pipes-for-all dept.

Arlen writes "As many as 17,000 people (according to police estimates) watched Senator Barack Obama officially announce his candidacy for President in Springfield, Illinois today. He mentioned several things that will interest readers of Slashdot. The Senator said he wanted to free America from 'the tyranny of oil' and went on to promote alternative energy sources such as ethanol — a popular stance in the Midwest where he announced, because of all the corn farmers. He also talked about using science and technology to help those with chronic diseases, which is likely to have been an allusion to his staunch support for stem cell research. Perhaps most of interest to readers here is the following statement halfway through Obama's speech: 'Let's invest in scientific research, and let's lay down broadband lines through the heart of inner cities and rural towns all across America. We can do that.' Like nearly everything in his speech, this was met with robust applause from the crowd. You can watch a video of the entire speech at Obama's website."

Journal Journal: The Onion on Vista

Journal by P(0)(!P(k)+P(k+1)) on Saturday February 10, 2007 @09:15PM

Highlights from the article:

Microsoft Word's helpful paper-clip icon now blinks at rate of normal humans
Five new card-back designs for Solitaire
Something that Apple would never, ever dream up in a billion years

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