miike - Slashdot User

Submission + - Top 500 World Universities of 2007

Submitted by

mernil

on Tuesday August 14, 2007 @06:33AM

mernil writes: "The people at the Institute of Higher Education, Shanghai Jiao Tong University is now finished with the Academic Ranking of World Universities of 2007. And the winner is Harvard University, followed by Stanford University, and with University of California @ Berkley on third place. Congratulations!"

Submission + - ATT + NSA = Busted? (msn.com)

Submitted by

DynaSoar

on Tuesday August 14, 2007 @06:26AM

DynaSoar writes: ""In 2003, Room 641A of a large telecommunications building in downtown San Francisco was filled with powerful data-mining equipment for a "special job" by the National Security Agency, according to a former AT&T technician. It was fed by fiber-optic cables that siphoned copies of e-mails and other online traffic from one of the largest Internet hubs in the United States, the former employee says in court filings." The article elaborates on the nature of the system in San Francisco (and others elsewhere) and the whistleblower's part in things. The Justice Department wants the case dismissed because it claims it can't defend itself without revealing state secrets. It also claims that the real issue is whether this was done in accordance with the constitution. Sadly, that may be true."

Submission + - Government: iPhone and US cell service is unfair (blorge.com)

Submitted by

fdmendez

on Tuesday August 14, 2007 @05:57AM

fdmendez writes: "Lawmakers in Washington believe the Federal Government needs to regulate the cell service industry in order to create a better experience for consumers. Other countries provide examples for the US to follow.

Recently, Amp'd Mobile shut down leaving 175,000 customers suddenly out of cell service. Sprint canceled the accounts of about 1,000 customers last month for complaining too much. Verizon is always behind the rest of the world when it comes to phone selection and phone technology, and don't get me started on AT&T's reception and call quality. Basically, America isn't satisfied with its cell service.

The House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and Internet thinks it might be a bad idea for wireless companies to be regulated at the state utility level rather than the federal level."

Submission + - New glitches in touch screens -- 40% failure rates (blorge.com)

Submitted by

destinyland

on Tuesday August 14, 2007 @04:02AM

destinyland writes: "A new investigation by Dan Rather found 40% of voting machine touch screens from one parts supplier had to be returned as defective. It was only discovered after a new manager took over the manufacturing plant in "the shanty towns of Manilla." Even the $2.50-a-day workers were spotting parts defects, but their hurried managers would perform only one test — shaking the machine to see if anything rattled. A Florida elections specialist ultimately had to return 1800 touch screen voting machines as defective, because selecting the first box on a ballot would highlight the second box. But even after testing newer machines, he's not re-assured. "It seems like they'll work today, and tomorrow they might not work... They're just unreliable, in my opinion.""

Submission + - Things not looking for the BBC's iPlayer (binaryfreedom.info)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 14, 2007 @02:12AM

An anonymous reader writes: The future of iPlayer, the BBC's new online on-demand system for delivering content is continuing to look bleaker. With ISPs threatening to throttle the content delivered through the BBC's iPlayer, consumers petitioning the UK government and the BBC to drop the DRM and Microsoft-only technology, and threatened legal action from the OSC, the last thing the BBC wanted today was street protests at their office and at the BBC Media Complex accompanied by a report issued by DefectiveByDesign about their association with Microsoft.

Submission + - U.S. life expectancy lags behind other countries (cnn.com)

Submitted by

gollum123

on Monday August 13, 2007 @09:18PM

gollum123 writes: "For decades, the United States has been slipping in international rankings of life expectancy, as other countries improve health care, nutrition and lifestyles ( http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/08/13/life.expectan cy.ap/index.html ). A baby born in the United States in 2004 will live an average of 77.9 years. That life expectancy ranks 42nd, down from 11th two decades earlier, according to international numbers provided by the Census Bureau and domestic numbers from the National Center for Health Statistics. Forty countries, including Cuba, Taiwan and most of Europe had lower infant mortality rates than the U.S. in 2004. The U.S. rate was 6.8 deaths for every 1,000 live births. It was 13.7 for Black Americans, the same as Saudi Arabia. There are also other Racial disparities. Black Americans have an average life expectancy of 73.3 years, five years shorter than white Americans. Black American males have a life expectancy of 69.8 years, slightly longer than the averages for Iran and Syria and slightly shorter than in Nicaragua and Morocco."

Submission + - Kernel devs say VMware violates Linux copyrights (venturecake.com)

Submitted by Nailer on Monday August 13, 2007 @08:41PM

Nailer writes: Bloomberg believe VMware's IPO today may the largest technology offering since Google. But doubts have been cast over the company's supposedly proprietary ESX product, as top 10 Linux contributor Christopher Hellwig claims the software violates Linux kernel copyrights.

Submission + - Majority of businesses will not move to Vista

Submitted by oDDmON oUT on Tuesday July 31, 2007 @09:29AM

oDDmON oUT writes: An article appearing today in Computerworld quotes polling results from a PatchLink Corp. survey, saying that the majority of it's enterprise customers feel there are no compelling security enhancements in Windows Vista, that they have no plans to migrate to it in the near term and that many will "...either stick with the Windows they have, or turn to Linux or Mac OS X".

A majority, 87%, said "they would stay with their existing version(s) of Windows".

This comes on the heels of a disenting view of Vista's track record in the area of security at the six month mark, which sparked discussion on numerous forums.

Submission + - Data partition as Linux PC value add?

Submitted by

g8orade

on Tuesday July 31, 2007 @08:48AM

g8orade writes: "As the

Open Document Format forces compete with Microsoft OOXML,

Applications via the internet become possible (terminal applications),

PC makers start offering Linux pre-loaded but the "distro wars" continue, and

some writers think package management is a true Linux differentiator,

wouldn't it be a good idea for the Linux PCs to come set up with a data partition separated from the OS / Applications partition? Alternately even a separate (portable) data drive / data port for your files?

It wouldn't hurt for consumers to get used to the idea of their files being separate from the programs that use them. This would also allow them to put any OS and applications on that partition over any timeframe, but leave their files alone.

Why don't PC makers do this by default, does MS not want it? Because, wouldn't this advance the cause of open document formats?"

Submission + - Adblock plus users "accused" of stealing (mozilla.org) 1

Submitted by

derrida

on Tuesday July 31, 2007 @07:56AM

derrida writes: "There is this Firefox Add-on called Adblock plus that promises (and delivers) removal of "all those ads and banners on the internet that often take longer to download than everything else on the page". And there is also an ongoing debate whether this is stealing or not. Quoting two different views:
"Do you have a devise that automatically blocks all commercials on television.[?] There's a difference between ignoring commercials and blocking them." and
"My a** it is [stealing]! If your going to argue I'm taking something from you by not waiting for your ads to load, I'm going to argue you are "stealing" bandwidth.".
Going one step further some web developers released scripts that blocks Adblock (watch the oxynoron!).
How is really slashdot going to react if Adblock plus is heavily used by its readers?"

Submission + - Symantec: Free tool bypasses Vista kernel defenses

Submitted by

reube

on Tuesday July 31, 2007 @01:50AM

reube writes: "The security defenses in placed by Microsoft to protect its Windows Vista kernel from accepting non-digitally-signed code can now be easily circumvented with the released of a free utility tool, according to researchers at Symantec."

Submission + - Blue Blu-ray?

Submitted by TopSpin on Tuesday July 31, 2007 @01:44AM

TopSpin writes: According to this story, at Japan's recent euphemistically named Adult Treasure Expo 2007, adult filmmakers said Sony had begun offering technical support — which was later confirmed by Sony PR, which stated that Sony would offer support to any filmmaker working on the format, no matter their industry. Apparently, Blu-ray is now the preferred media for Japanese porn.

Submission + - Babylon 5: The Lost Tales released (wikipedia.org)

Submitted by

Raul654

on Tuesday July 31, 2007 @12:03AM

Raul654 writes: "Voices in the Dark, the first episode of Babylon 5: The Lost Tales is being released today. The Lost Tales are half-hour shorts that focus on a small group of characters. Series creator J. Michael Straczynski choose to do a short format instead of a feature-length film due to the deaths of Andreas Katsulas (J'Kar) and Richard Biggs (Dr. Franklin). The first episode will feature John Sheridan, Elizabeth Lochley, and the technomage Galen."

Submission + - Six-Stroke Gasoline/Steam Hybrid Engine (autoweek.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 17, 2007 @04:15AM

An anonymous reader writes: Bruce Crower has made a fascinating modification to traditional internal combustion engines: a fifth and sixth stroke. His six-stroke engine injects water into the hot cylinder to achieve a second power stroke with the expanding steam. The engine "burns" equal amounts of gasoline and water, thereby reducing fuel consumption by a whopping 40%. Could this technology the future of petroleum powered vehicles? More information is available on Wikipedia.

Submission + - Microsoft pledges conditional support for ODF

Submitted by

Macthorpe

on Tuesday July 17, 2007 @02:39AM

Macthorpe writes: "BetaNews is reporting that Microsoft have announced in a letter that they will support ODF if it doesn't 'restrict choice among formats'. Citing their lack of opposition to the ratification of ODF as a standard, they go on to say: "ODF's design may make it attractive to those users that are interested in a particular level of functionality in their productivity suite or developers who want to work that format. Open XML may be more attractive to those who want richer functionality [...] This is not to say that one is better than the other — just that they meet different needs in the marketplace.""

Slashdot Top Deals