snoyberg - Slashdot User

Submission + - Chips on DVDs could prevent theft

Submitted by Kiralan on Wednesday May 09, 2007 @04:36PM

Kiralan writes: New technology designed to thwart DVD theft makes discs unplayable until they're activated at the cash register. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070509/ap_on_hi_te/te chbit_dvd_theft From the story: "A chip smaller than the head of a pin is placed onto a DVD along with a thin coating that blocks a DVD player from reading critical information on the disc. At the register, the chip is activated and sends an electrical pulse through the coating, turning it clear and making the disc playable." This appears to be a decent use of security technology, but what is the potential of this being the new DIVX?

Submission + - Google Apps Problems

Submitted by

dawhippersnapper

on Wednesday May 09, 2007 @04:17PM

dawhippersnapper writes: "Google's DNS has had major failures today for their Google Apps, I have not seen a reply from Google yet.

http://groups.google.com/group/hosted-the-basics/b rowse_thread/thread/ba884d5bf12c1704

This shows a list of some people experiencing the problems.

The problem is the Custom URL option uses a CNAME to change their hosted apps to ghs.google.com, then Google's DNS server routes it to the proper page. I believe the latter function is broken."

Submission + - Uri Geller Using DMCA to Block YouTube Clip

Submitted by

There is No Spoon

on Wednesday May 09, 2007 @04:16PM

There is No Spoon writes: "The EFF has filed a lawsuit against Uri Geller over his DMCA Takedown Notice targeting a YouTube clip critical of his claims of psychic powers. The video, which is twelve minutes long, apparently contains no more than a three second clip of Uri, which is the only part he could possibly claim copyright on. Thus, the EFF believes that this was a clear case of fair use and they are asking for damages, an injunction against Uri, and attorney's fees. Note that this is not the first time Uri has sued his critics, as one critic has pointed out, "[Uri] calls himself a psychic and has sued several people for millions of dollars for saying otherwise. His psychic powers were not sufficient to reveal to him, however, that he would lose all the lawsuits against his critics.""

Submission + - Jedi-Wannabes Flock to Charity Auction

Submitted by

on Thursday May 03, 2007 @04:34PM

An anonymous reader writes: Who would have thought Star Wars fans were such philanthropists? In the two days since a new "Making of Star Wars" book autographed by George Lucas himself was posted on The Books for Kids Foundation's charity auction website (www.sunshinegala.cmarket.com) bidding has been out of control. Now going for 33 times the opening price, it seems a new "Bid Wars" is in the making between "tolkienerd" and "drgelucasjr." Disclosure: I work for Books for Kids building libraries for under-served schools and communities.

Submission + - Don't pump gas on the 15th!

Submitted by Rooked_One on Wednesday May 02, 2007 @01:31PM

Rooked_One writes: NO GAS...On May 15th 2007
I am liking this idea!

Don't pump gas on may 15th

In April 1997, there was a "gas out" conducted nationwide in protest of gas prices. Gasoline prices dropped 30 cents a gallon overnight. On May 15th 2007, all Internet users are to not go to a gas station in protest of high gas prices. Gas is now over $3.00 a gallon in most places. There are 73,000,000+ American members currently on the Internet network, and the average car takes about 30 to 50 dollars to fill up. If all users did not go to the pump on the 15th, it would take $2,292,000,000.00 (that's almost 3 BILLION) out of the oil company's pockets for just one day!

STICK IT TO THE MAN!!

Submission + - Silverlight on Linux? We're in, says Mono founder

Submitted by

AlexGr

on Wednesday May 02, 2007 @01:23PM

AlexGr writes: "By Martin LaMonica (CNET blog) Miguel de Icaza, VP and head of Mono at Novell has said that the Mono open-source project will create a Linux version of Silverlight by the end of year. At the Mix '07 conference on Monday, Microsoft announced the ability to write Silverlight Web applications that run on Internet Explorer, Firefox and the Safari browser on Mac OS. The port will allow someone to use .Net languages to create Web applications that run on any Linux device or other platforms that Mono supports. Mono is an open-source implementation of portions of Microsoft's .Net Framework for building cross-platform applications. http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9714669-7.html"

Submission + - Project Honey Pot Announces Major New Features

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 24, 2007 @01:34PM

An anonymous reader writes: Project Honey Pot has been tracking email harvesters and spammers for more than two years. This week they're announcing a major new set of features. Yesterday, they announced the QuickLinks program: which allows virtually anyone to help trap malicious web robots. Today they just announced they've begun using their vast network of traps to catch comment spammers. While the system has only been online for about a week, they've already racked up some impressive stats never published before including the top countries where comment spammers are located, as well as the top URLs, domains, and keywords being promoted by comment spammers.

Cold Fusion Scientist Exonerated 171

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday February 19, 2007 @02:47PM from the cold-hearted dept.

Icarus1919 writes "New Scientist reports that the scientist who discovered a possible cold fusion reaction by bombarding a solvent with neutrons and sonic waves has recently been exonerated of accusations of scientific misconduct following the verification of his results by another scientist."

Submission + - How I Hacked Your LinkSys Router

Submitted by

on Monday February 19, 2007 @02:42PM

An anonymous reader writes: In a world where we all shop at the same stores and buy the same wireless equipment it is very easy to unintentionally hijack someone's wireless connection. http://www.shandyking.com/2007/02/18/hijack-hacked -linksys-wireless-router/

Submission + - Study Indicates Autism is Mostly Genetic

Submitted by Old Man Kensey on Monday February 19, 2007 @02:28PM

Old Man Kensey writes: A study funded by the National Institutes of Health and the nonprofit foundation Autism Speaks has found multiple verifiable genetic links to the development of autism, including a gene involved in glutamate metabolism, a process implicated in other childhood neurological disorders like epilepsy. One researcher went so far as to say the findings indicate that autism may be as much as 90% genetic.

Submission + - Couple who catch cop speeding could face charges.

Submitted by

a_nonamiss

on Monday February 19, 2007 @02:10PM

a_nonamiss writes: "A Georgia couple, apparently tired of people speeding past their house, installed a camera and radar gun on their property. After it was installed, they caught a police office going 17MPH over the posted limit. They brought this to the attention of the local police department, and are now being forced to appear in front of a judge to answer to charges of stalking.

from the article:

The Sipples allegedly caught Kennesaw police officer Richard Perrone speeding up to 17 mph over the speed limit. Perrone alerted Bartow authorities, who in turn visited the Sipples' home to tell them Perrone intended to press charges against them for stalking.
I have the utmost respect for most law enforcement. They have a difficult, dangerous and mostly thankless job to do, but shouldn't they be held accountable for casually breaking the very same laws they are supposed to be enforcing? Additionally, shouldn't we, as citizens, have the right to be able to bring this to someone's attention without having to face laughably bogus charges for our efforts?"

Ruby Implementation Shootout 112

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday February 19, 2007 @02:04PM from the always-with-the-shooting dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Ruby has an ever growing number of alternative implementations, and many of these attempt to improve the suboptimal performance of the current mainstream interpreter. Antonio Cangiano has an interesting article in which he benchmarks a few of the most popular Ruby implementations, including Yarv (the heart of Ruby 2.0), JRuby, Ruby.NET, Rubinius and Cardinal (Ruby on Parrot). Numerical evidence is provided rather than shear opinions. The tests show that Yarv is the fastest implementation and that it offers a promising future when it comes to the speed of the next Ruby version."

Submission + - Full .NET application running on Linux

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 19, 2007 @01:50PM

An anonymous reader writes: It seems there could be a place for Mono on the Linux GUI game. Many people thought Mono was going to be an easy way to port .NET Windows apps to Linux, but at the end it was just a new development platform. But it seems after release 1.2, Mono is reaching an acceptable maturity level.

Today I just checked Codice's Software blog, codicesoftware.blogspot.com, a small start-up company developing a new version control system. Their product, named Plastic, is fully written in .NET/Mono, and they finally made the GUI client run on Mono/Linux. It is probably one of the best looking SCM systems running on Linux. Is worth to have a look into it.

Have a look at the following post at their blog: http://codicesoftware.blogspot.com/2007/02/plastic -scm-running-on-sled-mono.html

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