Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Education

Submission + - Academic applications of OCR 4

Submitted by
kg1794
kg1794 writes: "In my recent PhD research, I've been looking at a 1,200 page typed but unpublished manuscript from a (unfortunately now deceased) political science professor. The end goal is to eventually bring this work to publication, but I don't have the original file he created this manuscript with (it was completed back in 1979). The document needs a degree of editing and re-arranging, but what's the best way of getting these pages into digital form that doesn't involve typing the whole lot out? How and who can do such a large scale OCR task for a nominal (read: university humanities research grant) fee? How feasible is a home-brew system with some kind of auto-document feeder? Any academics or researchers who have digitized source collections in the past would be very welcome to assist. I'm in the UK, but understand solutions for this may be more efficient from across the pond. Thanks."
Announcements

Submission + - Chandler 1.0 released - vision neutered (ostatic.com)

Submitted by ruphus13
ruphus13 writes: What was once touted as the next best Personal Information Manager that would fix the woes of all past and present information management systems has finally launched version 1.0. Released on Aug 8, the product is positioned as a " a 'Note-to-Self Organizer' designed for personal and small-group task management and calendaring. Chandler consists of a desktop application and Chandler Hub, a free sharing service and web application. You can also download and run your own Chandler Server." From the article, "Certainly, the original vision for Chandler, back when it was started as one of Mitch Kapor's projects, hasn't come to pass: "a new application to manage personal information including notes, mail, tasks, appointments and events, contacts, documents and other personal resources" What they've delivered instead is a combination online/offline to-do list and scheduling application, with some interesting synching hooks and connections to other projects. But this doesn't make the project a failure.". A great concept when originally launched 5+ years ago, the emergence of services like Google Docs result in mainly one reaction today — meh.
Software

Submission + - SPAM: Free software tools for archivists

Submitted by
Roland Piquepaille
Roland Piquepaille writes: "University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) archivists have developed a free software kit named Archon to help other librarians to manage their collections. This software has been designed for archivists with limited access to technological resources. It's free and you can download it to manage your own music or book collection even if you're not a librarian. But all the materials in the collection need to be available with descriptions and tags. One interesting feature of the software is that it will build a searchable website for you. But read more for many additional details and references."
Software

Submission + - Orrin Hatch - Software copyright violater (fudreport.com) 2

Submitted by
fudreporter
fudreporter writes: "Wired.com has an article referring to comments Senator Orrin Hatch(R-Utah) made about downloading copyrighted material from the Internet... Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) suggested Tuesday that people who download copyright materials from the Internet should have their computers automatically destroyed. But Hatch himself is using unlicensed software on his official website, which presumably would qualify his computer to be smoked by the system he proposes. The senator's site makes extensive use of a JavaScript menu system developed by Milonic Solutions, a software company based in the United Kingdom. The copyright-protected code has not been licensed for use on Hatch's website. "It's an unlicensed copy," said Andy Woolley, who runs Milonic. "It's very unfortunate for him because of those comments he made.""
Moon

Submission + - UK scientists plan to build a lunar mobile network 3

Submitted by Stony Stevenson
Stony Stevenson writes: British scientists are planning to build a mobile phone network that operates on the Moon. The proposal was contained in a report compiled by Nasa and the British National Space Centre on joint co-operation for exploration of the Moon in the coming years. Plans include a space probe called MoonLITE (Moon Lightweight Interior and Telecoms Experiment) which will fire probes into the lunar surface and communicate using a mobile phone protocol to send back information on earthquake activity.
Linux Business

Submission + - Ubuntu goes live in Canada (www.dell.ca)

Submitted by
Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward writes: "Dell shall start shipping machines in Canada, preloaded with the Ubuntu operating system by the end of this week. System models to be sold with the Ubuntu implementation of Linux include the XPS 1330, and the Inspiron range of Desktops. More info at www.dell.ca by Thursday!"
The Media

Submission + - Is Copyrigtht Infringement Stealing? 1

Submitted by gooman
gooman writes: An interesting opinion piece in the L.A. Times today regarding file sharing semantics. It also happens to be one of the Times rare opportunities to "Discuss" the topic, so don't forget to share your thoughts with them. It seems to me that the major media outlets have a lot of catching up to do on this subject.
The Media

Submission + - How PR Uses Slashdot 1

Submitted by
theodp
theodp writes: "Having received sufficient Karma from her Slashdot submissions to gain access to The Firehose, PR firm owner Alice Marshall observes that negative stories which are hot and appear headed to the front page are often suddenly rated down. Is that because readers spontaneously decide stories are not the best, wonders Marshall, or are corporate flacks down-rating the stories as a form of damage control? Slashdot is a valuable public square, concludes Marshall, and it's inevitable that PR flacks will be attracted to it, leaving Slashdot editors with the challenge of finding ways to prevent them from taking over."
Censorship

Submission + - Yahoo caught censoring Open Source (theinquirer.net) 5

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Amanda Kerik responded to a problem that a user was having with their Windows machine that since they had to do a re-install they might as well install Ubuntu Linux.

She got a message back from Yahoo claiming that such a comment was in violation of its Community Guidelines or Terms of Service. It deleted her answer and warned her not to post anything like that again ..
Operating Systems

Submission + - ReactOS - The Desktop Operating System Revolution (reactos.org) 1

Submitted by
frik85
frik85 writes: "With yesterdays release, ReactOS got nearly 100% binary and API compatible with Win2003 (NT 5.2). And they are aiming for full Vista (NT 6) compatibility.
The ReactOS Win32 subsystem is in the beginning of a total overhaul to make it completely compatible with NT5 and it has had a positive impact on stability and compatibility with Win32 applications. As a generic result of these internal changes, the system feels a lot more stable in comparison to previous releases. ReactOS ships with a bunch of open source default drivers for various hardware devices and of course support for third party NT 5 drivers.
A download utility (unofficially called "ReactOS Package Manager") now contains a set of applications (opensource and shareware apps) which you can install right away in ReactOS with one click of a mouse. And those apps will actually work!
Fresh ReactOS screenshots say more than written words!"
Software

Submission + - No gnu/linux love from ID software (beyond3d.com) 1

Submitted by
gnarlin
gnarlin writes: "According to golem.de's article (in German) ID software will no longer be porting their games to gnu/linux starting with the new Rage game being developed. Another article at beyond3d has the details in english. Is this due to lack of sales? This seems to be a major blow to gnu/linux gamers everywhere, especially when gnu/linux users are finally getting good Free software drivers for AMD's/ATI's graphic chips."
Data Storage

Submission + - Why are tape drives not scaling with hard disks? 4

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Every 3-6 months, we see an announcement about something adding to hard disk storage. However, tape drives don't seem to be improving on anywhere near the scale of hard disks.

Why is this? Both are magnetic media, and with a tape drive, a manufacturer has far more space to put data on than the platters of a hard disk, and still leave plenty of space for error correction data. Tape drives also don't spin nearly as fast as hard disks, so tolerances involved can be less.
The Courts

Submission + - RIAA Complaint Dismissed as "Boilerplate"

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "The decision many lawyers had been expecting — that the RIAA's "boilerplate" complaint fails to state a claim for relief under the Copyright Act — has indeed come down, but from an unlikely source. While the legal community has been looking towards a Manhattan case, Elektra v. Barker, for guidance, a case in which amicus briefs had been submitted by various industry groups and the US Department of Justice (see case file, and from Warner v. Cassin, a similar motion in the same Court's Westchester division, the decision instead came from Senior District Court Judge Rudi M. Brewster of the US District Court for the Southern District of California, in a decision denying a default judgment (i.e. the defendant had not even appeared in the action). Judge Brewster not only denied the default judgment motion but dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim. Echoing the words of Judge Karas at the oral argument in Barker , Judge Brewster held (pdf) that "Plaintiff here must present at least some facts to show the plausibility of their allegations of copyright infringement against the Defendant. However, other than the bare conclusory statement that on "information and belief" Defendant has downloaded, distributed and/or made available for distribution to the public copyrighted works, Plaintiffs have presented no facts that would indicate that this allegation is anything more than speculation. The complaint is simply a boilerplate listing of the elements of copyright infringement without any facts pertaining specifically to the instant Defendant. The Court therefore finds that the complaint fails to sufficiently state a claim upon which relief can be granted and entry of default judgment is not warranted.""

Slashdot Top Deals

"May your future be limited only by your dreams." -- Christa McAuliffe

Close