Snad - Slashdot User

Submission + - AMD Barcelona Opteron Processor Launched (pcper.com)

Submitted by

Vigile

on Monday September 10, 2007 @12:28AM

Vigile writes: "Today may be one of the most important days in AMD's history as they bring a completely new CPU architecture to the market. Barcelona has been one of most anticipated and debated hardware advancements in the industry for years, but now the hardware is officially unveiled and the real testing can begin. First, PC Perspective has a summary of all the worldwide launch events that will be taking place throughout the day that includes lots of AMD-provided information. They theorize that AMD might actually be in some trouble with the first batch of Barcelona parts, comparing this launch to AMD's failed HD 2900 XT GPU launch. There is already a review of some Barcelona-based servers with a performance preview over at Anandtech as well."

Submission + - Sony Introduces The Rolly?!? (fastsilicon.com)

Submitted by mrneutron2003 on Monday September 10, 2007 @12:17AM

mrneutron2003 writes: Sony, purveyor of extremely expensive consoles and rootkits, has launched an interesting portable media player that just has to be seen to be believed. Is it too quirky for western markets? Perhaps. The following video does some justice to understanding what it is, and how freaky it is too. http://www.fastsilicon.com/off-the-wall/sony-intro duces-the-rolly.html

Submission + - UK gets its own dedicated anime channel (wikipedia.org)

Submitted by The_Rift on Sunday September 09, 2007 @05:15PM

The_Rift writes: From this Monday at 21:00 BST Animecentral will officially start broadcasting free and unencrypted to the UK (and a significant part of Northern Europe) from the Astra 2 satellites used by Sky. The initial line-up is chock-full of quality titles like Bleach, Full Metal Alchemist and Planetes with other classics such as Cowboy Bebop and witch Hunter Robin lined up for later. Broadcasts will be every evening 7 days a week from then on Sky channel 199.

Submission + - Google Earth Flight Simulator (insidedesign.info)

Submitted by

insidedesign

on Saturday September 01, 2007 @02:16AM

insidedesign writes: "It has been recently discovered by Marco that the newest version of Google Earth includes a Flight Simulator. Though simple in comparison to the full-blow flight simulators available out there, the one available in Google Earth is fun and addictive. Getting started is easy and you can be playing in no time. Simply ensure that you have the newest version of Google Earth, which can be obtained from the Google Earth website, and press CTRL+ALT+A on your keyboard. A dialog will then appear, giving you option of plane (F16 or SR22) and airport. If you own a joystick, have no fear because they are supported! It has even been reported that force feedback is also supported. The game's controls are sensitive so it takes some getting used to. You can see all the available controls here on Google's Flight Controls Help Doc. If you want a quick overview, check out this YouTube video. Good luck flying!"

Submission + - Bank of India web site hacked, security firm says (networkworld.com)

Submitted by

bednarz

on Thursday August 30, 2007 @06:00PM

bednarz writes: "The Web site of the Bank of India has been hacked and is now an unwitting dispenser of an enormous amount of malware code to visitors, including rootkits and trojans, according to security firm Sunbelt Software. The payload from the compromised site is said to be attempting a number of Internet Explorer exploits to break into computers that may not be fully patched. "We're seeing lots of rootkits and trojans, though not yet a keylogger," says Alex Eckelberry, president of Sunbelt Software. Sunbelt says the situation is still fluid and every effort is being made to notify Bank of India, described as a government-operated site with more than 2,000 branches. Network World has the story: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/083007-secur ity-vendor-bank-of-india-hacked.html"

Submission + - Lab 257 (scienceblogs.com)

Submitted by

grrlscientist

on Thursday August 30, 2007 @05:51PM

grrlscientist writes: "After the recent outbreak of foot and mouth disease in the UK was shown to be the result this virus's escape from one of two nearby research labs, I thought it was timely to review a book that investigates this same occurrence in the United States. Like something out of the Andromeda Strain, Lab 257 by Michael Christopher Carroll is the chilling true story about the not-so-secret biowarfare research lab right next door to NYC.

From the article: Most interesting and troubling to birdwatchers and other outdoors-y types is the author's investigation into the unproven but nonetheless highly suspicious connections between Plum Island and the sudden appearance of Dutch duck plague (1967), Lyme disease (1975) and West Nile virus (1999) on the East Coast. All of these disease outbreaks were first documented within a few miles of the labs. Further, as if the appearance of these foreign disease organisms are not incriminating enough, the sudden and inexplicable appearance of the Lone Star Tick in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut should be, because this sedentary tick species was formerly confined to the state of Texas. Despite the U.S. Department of Agriculture's repeated denials of their work with these organisms at Plum Island, there are documents that reveal otherwise. However, even if government denials are true, these many coincidences are, in my opinion, just too numerous not to be viewed with great suspicion."

Submission + - Lobbying Could Cause Legal Trouble for Microsoft (robweir.com) 2

Submitted by

Rob Isn't Weird

on Thursday August 30, 2007 @05:39PM

Rob Isn't Weird writes: "After the smoking gun memo exposing how Microsoft tried to buy Sweden's vote on OOXML and Sweden's annulment of that vote due to the irregularities, IBM's Rob Weir points out that the fiasco could cause anti-trust worries for Microsoft. He quotes ALLIED TUBE & CONDUIT CORP. v. INDIAN HEAD, INC., 486 U.S. 492 (1988), which says "What petitioner may not do (without exposing itself to possible antitrust liability for direct injuries) is bias the process by, as in this case, stacking the private standard-setting body with decision makers sharing their economic interest in restraining competition.""

Submission + - Ten Horrors From the Home Office (wordpress.com)

Submitted by

sbrown3820

on Thursday August 30, 2007 @04:29PM

sbrown3820 writes: "Stuck working from home for much of his life, saleman Sam Wang offers his thoughts on the ten horrors of working out of his SOHO. "Being in a technology field, working from home is universally accepted. Laptops, high speed Internet from home, VPNs and remote desktop all add up to a full and productive environment. And why not? But today, after working from home most of my career, I will provide some insight into the horrors of the virtual office.""

Submission + - Trend? Chicago scraps public wireless network (networkworld.com)

Submitted by

coondoggie

on Tuesday August 28, 2007 @10:03PM

coondoggie writes: "Chicago flew in the face of the public wireless broadband movement today and killed off an $18.5 million Internet access system. And there are signs the rush to municipal WiFi maybe be slowing. Chicago cited rising costs, spotty demand and uncooperative carriers as the main reasons for the cancellation of the rollout tat would have covered the city's 228 miles. According to one report, EarthLink and AT&T reportedly demanded that Chicago become an "anchor tenant," paying an annual fee to use the WiFi network to support city services. When the city refused — and insisted that the system attached to city street lights and lamp poles be built, maintained and operated at the contractor's "sole expense" the whole system came crashing down. This report says Chicago the latest in a string of municipalities to encounter troubles with their municipal broadband initiatives. http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/18848"

Submission + - Linux Foundation unveils Linux Weather Forecast (computerworld.com.au)

Submitted by

Anonymous Coward

on Tuesday August 28, 2007 @09:23PM

Anonymous Coward writes: "Finally an attempt to keep track of all the new Linux code being developed every day. The Linux Foundation has unveiled the Linux Weather Forecast, a Web site aimed at giving people a better sense of the status of specific Linux kernel projects. Jim Zemlin, executive director at the Linux Foundation says the forecast is a way to improve on one of the operating system's key strengths — its open-source development model. He estimates that every day developers add 2,300 lines of code to the Linux kernel. On average, a new version of the Linux kernel appears every three months, while fresh desktop distributions of the operating system debut every six months and corporate distributions become available every 18 months. The goal of the Linux Weather Forecast is to provide a central repository of accurate information presented in an easily understandable format."

Submission + - Semen may have anti-depressant properties (spring.org.uk) 1

Submitted by

bblboy54

on Tuesday August 28, 2007 @09:15PM

bblboy54 writes: "PsyBlog is running articles related to "weird psychology" and one article recalls a 2002 research study by Gallup, Burch and Platek that links condom use to depression and suggests that semen contains anti-depressant properties. The article also mentions a 1986 study that explains how this may occur."

Submission + - Is MS gaming live.com referrals? (nfggames.com)

Submitted by

NEOGEOman

on Tuesday August 28, 2007 @07:26PM

NEOGEOman writes: "In the last three days live.com has suddenly started appearing on my referral logs thirty times more frequently than they used to (a whopping 31 visitors per day now!). The thing is the search terms are almost certainly bogus. What human being would search for 'newest' or 'message' and find my tiny site among twenty three million results? All the visitors' IPs resolve to the domain *.phx.gbl, which seems to be some non-standard Microsoft thing. Google returns a lot of hits for it in discussion of all things Microsoft. My question now is: Am I the only one noticing this? Is there a legitimate reason for this increase in ridiculous traffic? To the point, is Microsoft gaming the system to make live.com more relevent?"

Submission + - Body heat touted as power source (computerworld.com.au)

Submitted by

StonyandCher

on Tuesday August 28, 2007 @07:21PM

StonyandCher writes: "German scientists claim to have a developed a procedure that harnesses body heat in order to generate power, which in the future may be used to power mobile devices."

Submission + - Computers Find False Aliens? (astrobio.net)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28, 2007 @07:15PM

An anonymous reader writes: Astrobiology Magazine has interviewed Frank Drake, the creator of the Drake Equation which estimates the number of intelligent civilizations in the galaxy. He notes that potential alien signals detected by automated SETI programs have a problem — with no one there to conduct immediate follow-up studies, the source of one-time signals can't be identified: "The long Harvard search of Horowitz and Sagan observed more than thirty signals that had the earmark of an extraterrestrial signal. The SETI@Home program has observed more than a hundred such signals. Both of these programs are automated, though, so no one was there at the time to do immediate follow-up observations. Researchers later tried to detect these signals, but, as with the Wow signal, they've been unsuccessful. So the origin of these signals is an open question. Project Phoenix of the SETI Institute also has found many good candidates, but that program could immediately determine the origin of the signal and all of them turned out to be of human origin. It may be that all the potential signals detected so far were generated by humans."

Submission + - Ultimate Censorship? China and Reincarnation.

Submitted by

michaelcole

on Tuesday August 28, 2007 @07:00PM

michaelcole writes: ":
"China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission"
— http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20227400/site/newsweek /

This article is both hilarious and sad, looking at the lengths to which a government will go to regulate thought through censorship. It also goes into some of the more subtle politics of the current 72 year-old Dalai Lama as he thinks about his political and spiritual successor.

The Dalai Lama's response: "he refuses to be reborn in Tibet so long as it's under Chinese control.""

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