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Cuba Lifts Ban on Home Computers 290

Posted by CmdrTaco from the hello-computer dept.
ianare writes "The first legalized home computers have gone on sale in Cuba, the latest in a series of restrictions on daily life which President Raul Castro has lifted in recent weeks. The desktop computers cost almost $800, in a country where the average wage is under $20 a month, but some Cubans do have access to extra income. Internet access remains restricted to certain workplaces, schools and universities on the island which the government claims is due to low bandwidth availability. Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez is laying a new cable under the Caribbean, but it remains unclear whether once the connection is completed, the authorities will allow unrestricted access to the internet."
Operating Systems

Slackware 12.1 Released 244

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the old-timers dept.
SlackFan writes "Slackware 12.1 has been released, with kernel 2.6.24-5. 'Among the many program updates and distribution enhancements, you'll find better support for RAID, LVM, and cryptsetup; a network capable (FTP and HTTP, not only NFS) installer; and two of the most advanced desktop environments available today: Xfce 4.4.2, a fast, lightweight, and visually appealing desktop environment, and KDE 3.5.9, the latest 3.x version of the full-featured K Desktop Environment.'"
Supercomputing

Purdue Plans a 1-Day Supercomputer "Barnraising" 97

Posted by timothy from the bring-some-ethernet-and-some-lemonade dept.
An anonymous reader points out an article which says that "Purdue University says it will only need one day to install the largest supercomputer on a Big Ten campus. The so-called 'electronic barn-raising' will take place May 5 and involved more than 200 employees. The computer will be about the size of a semi trailer. Vice President for Information Technology at Purdue Gerry McCartney says it will be built in a single day to keep science and engineering researchers from facing a lengthy downtime." Another anonymous reader adds "To generate interest on campus, the organizers created a spoof movie trailer called 'Installation Day.'"
Transportation

Strict Order Boarding Would Get Planes in the Sky Faster 880

Posted by Zonk from the up-up-and-away dept.
electrostatic writes "In a Nature.com oldie-but-goodie, a physicist says he has solved a problem that costs airlines millions every year: what is the quickest way to get passengers aboard an aircraft? Boarding is a serious issue for airlines, particularly those operating short flights that run several times a day, yet boarding times have steadily increased for decades. Back in 2005 Jason Steffen of the Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois said the method used by many airlines to this day is almost the worst. 'The best way to board, according to the researchers, would be a row-by-row, seat-by-seat, strict order. That would mean everyone lines up, row 25 first. I can't imagine fliers will go for that. Next best, they say, would be boarding all the window seats first, followed by those in the aisle. Obviously that's not practical, at least for couples or families traveling together.'"
Cellphones

iPhone SDK May Be 1-3 Weeks Late 157

Posted by kdawson from the say-it-ain't-so dept.
tuxeater123 writes "According to a blog posting at BusinessWeek.com, the iPhone SDK could be pushed back by another 1-3 weeks. Unfortunately, the evidence provided, such as the media announcements that are usually made before most Apple releases, suggests that this may indeed be true. Apple usually sticks to their announced deadlines, however they have been known to break them occasionally."
Microsoft

Microsoft Misleads On Canadian Copyright Reform 107

Posted by kdawson from the can't-have-it-both-ways dept.
An anonymous reader writes "As the battle rages over a Canadian DMCA, Microsoft Canada has published an op-ed in a political newspaper that Michael Geist describes as astonishingly misleading and factually incorrect. Microsoft tries to argue that Canadian copyright law provides no legal protections, even after it received one of the largest copyright damage awards in Canadian history just one year ago."
Announcements

2008 Turing Award Winners Announced 66

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the nobel-of-computing-awards dept.
The Association for Computing Machinery has announced the 2008 Turing Award Winners. Edmund M. Clarke, Allen Emerson, and Joseph Sifakis received the award for their work on an automated method for finding design errors in computer hardware and software. "Model Checking is a type of "formal verification" that analyzes the logic underlying a design, much as a mathematician uses a proof to determine that a theorem is correct. Far from hit or miss, Model Checking considers every possible state of a hardware or software design and determines if it is consistent with the designer's specifications. Clarke and Emerson originated the idea of Model Checking at Harvard in 1981. They developed a theoretical technique for determining whether an abstract model of a hardware or software design satisfies a formal specification, given as a formula in Temporal Logic, a notation for describing possible sequences of events. Moreover, when the system fails the specification, it could identify a counterexample to show the source of the problem. Numerous model checking systems have been implemented, such as Spin at Bell Labs."
The Internet

Submission + - RIAA hacked... again. 1

Submitted by
Recon (Drew Magierski)
Recon (Drew Magierski) writes: "Well, it seems that as of the time of writing, the RIAA either made a huge blunder or was hacked. Although the main page appears fine (http://www.riaa.com/index.php) all the links have failed to work. No group has claimed responsibility as of yet. More news as it becomes available."
Privacy

Submission + - Microsoft Wants to Be Your Big Brother (eweek.com)

Submitted by
sjvn
sjvn writes: "Today, I have a temperature of 99 degrees Fahrenheit, a headache, my blood pressure is 100 over 71, and my heart-heat is around 90 beats per minute. I have felt better. Now, if Microsoft's plan goes the way it wants, my Windows computer will soon be reporting all of that, and more, to my boss.

No, this isn't science fiction. This isn't paranoia. This is tomorrow's Windows-based office.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/Microsoft-wants-to-your-Big-Brother/

Steven"

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HELP!!!! I'm being held prisoner in /usr/games/lib!

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