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Sci-Fi

Submission + - Tron to be remade by Disney

Submitted by unassimilatible
unassimilatible writes: The Hollywood Reporter writes that Disney will remake the cult classic Tron, and has hired original Tron co-writer and director Steven Lisberger as producer and Joseph Kosinski as director.

The original, about a computer programmer thrust into a computer and forced to fight in games he helped create, is remembered for its sci-fi gladiator-style battles and groundbreaking special effects. It was the first movie to use computer-generated images instead of models and other optical effects in conjunction with live action. The arcade game based on the movie was so popular that it earned more than the movie.

The article also mentions that Kosinski will be remaking Logan's Run for Warner Brothers as well.

Comment Already pointless (Score 1) 348

by pHZero (#20559725) Attached to: Music Industry Set To Introduce the "Ringle"
A lot of my non-computer savvy friends got sick of paying for ringtones about a year ago and figured out how to use free music editing software to create little clips of their favorite songs. In fact, I don't know anyone anymore who doesn't know how to do this. How do these music companies think they're going to get away with charging $6-7 just because they threw in a ringtone?

Netcraft Says IIS Gaining on Apache 666

Posted by CmdrTaco from the trolls-rejoice-in-netcraft-story dept.
benjymouse quotes this month's netcraft survey "In the August 2007 survey we received responses from 127,961,479 sites, an increase of 2.3 million sites from last month. Microsoft continues to increase its web server market share, adding 2.6 million sites this month as Apache loses 991K hostnames. As a result, Windows improves its market share by 1.4% to 34.2%, while Apache slips by 1.7% to 48.4%. Microsoft's recent gains raise the prospect that Windows may soon challenge Apache's leadership position."
SuSE

Submission + - Lenovo intros ThinkPads with preloaded Linux (electronista.com)

Submitted by
JonathanF
JonathanF writes: "Sounds like an ideal mix for Linux geeks: Lenovo said today that they'll ship their rock-steady ThinkPads near the end of the year with Novell's SUSE Linux distro preloaded — and supported by Lenovo itself. No word on specs, but having a solid PC with an open-source OS sounds very appealing. Like the author of the article, though, I wonder whether Lenovo is offering Novell's distro because it's worried about that Microsoft Sword of Damocles hanging over its head if it chose an alternative like Red Hat or Ubuntu."
Microsoft

Submission + - Top 7 Microsoft Employee Bungles using Office (microsoft.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft insider Philip Su (of "Broken Windows Theory" fame) has published a hilarious take on the top 7 mistakes that Microsoft employees make using Microsoft Office. The article even manages to mention Unix, Hackers (the movie), and Hootie and the Blowfish. Worth reading if not only to feel a rewarding sense of smug satisfaction that even Microsoft employees sometimes struggle with using Microsoft software.
Security

Submission + - Harry Potter Zero-day exploit released (reuters.com)

Submitted by soccer_Dude88888
soccer_Dude88888 writes: Harry Potter Zero-day exploit released by Insecure.org

A hacker posting on a full disclosure email list run by InSecure.org claims to have obtained a copy of a transcript of the forthcoming book Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

The self-proclaimed hacker — who calls himself Gabriel — claims to have compromised the PCs of one or more workers at Bloomsbury Publishing, the publisher of the Harry Potter books, by tricking them into visiting a hacker-run website infected with malicious code. Workers who visited the site supposedly became infected with a Trojan which allowed the unnamed cracker to extract a draft copy of the highly anticipated final installment of the Harry Potter series, due out on 21 July.

The claims are unsubstantiated by secondary sources and carry with them the whiff of hackers bragging about their cool skillz rather than authenticity.

Also the supposed motive — revealing the ending to make reading the book "useless and boring" and so prevent youngsters from exposure to "neo-paganism", is a little hard to swallow.

Responses to the post (titled Harry Potter 0day) on the email list has been dismissive. "Who are you people and why should I care? Maybe a new exploit would be more useful," said one unwhelmed punter. ®
Bootnote

The posted message claims to expose the names and ways in which two of the characters die, something that has been the subject of much speculation by fans of author J.K.Rowling and the boy wizard. For those not allergic to potential spoilers (of dubious provenance) the post can be found here.

http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2007/Jun/0380.h tml
Unix

Submission + - SCO shipping MPlayer with DLLs

Submitted by evilviper
evilviper writes: Everyone's favorite company (SCO) is now distributing everyone's favorite GPL'd Unix video program (MPlayer) for their UnixWare and OpenServer operating systems. With it, they are including numerous codecs in the form of Windows DLLs, from Microsoft, Apple, RealNetworks, and others. This brings up numerous questions about the legality of re-distributing freely downloadable files, and the enforceability of EULAs on the related software. It also raises the question of whether the GPL extends to closed-source, binary code being loaded by GPL'd programs at runtime, such as DLLs or Linux kernel modules.

http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/88956
http://www.sco.com/products/docs/MPlayer%20for%20U W714%20&%20OSR6-FINAL.pdf
http://www.sco.com/support/update/download/release .php?rid=270
http://www.sco.com/support/update/download/release .php?rid=271
Caldera

Submission + - SCO receives official delisting notice from Nasdaq

Submitted by
fifteencattleprods
fifteencattleprods writes: "On the tail of two stories regarding possible delisting of SCO stock (reported on slashdot here, and here), today is the day the delisting process has started. Straight from SCO's own press release site, they have received their delisting notice from Nasdaq. While this doesn't mean their stock will be delisted immediately, it does mean they've come under notice by Nasdaq, and must fix their problems within 180 days, before October 22, 2007. If they don't get their stock above $1 per share for ten consecutive days between now and then, they're toast."
Space

Submission + - Mars Global Surveyor died from single bad command

Submitted by
wattsup
wattsup writes: "The LA Times reports that a single wrong command sent to the wrong computer address caused a cascade of events that led to the loss of the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft last November, NASA investigators reported Friday.

A command that oriented the spacecraft's main communications antenna was sent to the wrong address. The mistake caused a problem with the positioning of the solar power panels, this in turned caused one of the batteries to overheat, shutting down the solar power system and the batteries drained in 12 hours."
Google

Submission + - Vendors fudging prices for Froogle, others

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: I recently stumbled across a case of an online vendor adjusting it's prices based on url referral; notably, SoftwareMedia.com, but I've noticed similar (though harder to trace) activity from other large vendors such as Dell and Amazon.

Take a look at this page: Exchange Software, then find it again through Froogle. Once you access the SoftwareMedia site through the Froogle link, they update (generally lower) their prices to match those found on Froogle. Accessing the exact same page after going through Froogle results in an entirely different set of prices. (In my case, Exchange 2003 Enterprise was 'discounted' by a whopping $1260)

Is SoftwareMedia trying to make Froogle Fudge? Should this sort of activity be allowed? Should users be presented with two different pages depending on referral? Shouldn't all users be presented with the same set of prices?
Communications

Submission + - Vonage CEO quits

Submitted by
bednarz
bednarz writes: "The latest in the Vonage saga is news that CEO Michael Snyder resigned and quit the company's board of directors. Chairman and chief strategist Jeffrey Citron will fill in as CEO until a replacement is found. Vonage also announced plans to cut its costs by $140 million, including $110 million in marketing expenses; freeze staff recruitment; and lay off 10% of its workforce during the second quarter. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/041207-vonag e-ceo-resigns-cost-cutting-moves.html"
The Internet

Submission + - Apple, Opera, and Mozilla Push for HTML5

Submitted by
foo fighter
foo fighter writes: "The insular World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has been slumbering the past several years: HTML was last updated in 1999, XHTML was last updated in 2002, and no one is taking their largely incompatible work on "next-generation" XHTML or "modularized" XHTML seriously. Both HTML and XHTML are in sorry need of removing deprecated items while being updated to reflect the current practices of web and browser developers yet remaining compatible with legacy Recommendations. The much more open and transparent WHATWG formed in 2004 to address this problem and has been hard at work on developing a draft spec for HTML5 to update and replace legacy versions of both HTML and XHTML. The quality of this work has reached the point that Apple, Opera, and Mozilla have requested the adoption of HTML5 as the new "W3C Recommendation" for web development."
Power

Submission + - Daylight Saving Change: No savings, No point

Submitted by Giolon
Giolon writes: Ars Technica is reporting that the plan to enter daylight savings early in order to save power has been largely a bust:

"As it turns out, the US Department of Energy (and almost everyone else except members of Congress) was correct when they predicted that there would be little energy savings. This echoed concerns voiced after a similar experiment was attempted in Australia. Critics pointed out a basic fact: the gains in the morning will be offset by the losses at night, and vice-versa, at both ends of the switch. That appears to be exactly what happened."
Software

Submission + - What is the best bug-as-a-feature?

Submitted by Bat Country
Bat Country writes: The workflow system at the department I develop for was hand-coded by my predecessor in a rather short amount of time, resulting in somewhat unreadable code with a number of interesting "features."

When I took over maintenance of the code base, I started patching bugs and cleaning up the code in preparation for a new set of features.

When I was done however, I got a pile of complaints about features which disappeared which turned out to be caused by the bugs in the code.
So that leads me to ask, what is your favorite bug that you either can't live without or makes your life easier?
GNU is Not Unix

Submission + - FSF releases 3rd draft of GPLv3

Submitted by
johnsu01
johnsu01 writes: "The Free Software Foundation has announced publication of the third discussion draft of the GNU General Public License Version 3. Because quite a few changes have been made since the previous draft and important new issues have surfaced, the drafting process has been extended and revised to encourage more feedback. The most significant changes in this draft include refinements in the "tivoization" provisions to eliminate unwanted side effects, revision of the patent provisions to prevent end-runs around the license, and further steps toward compatibility with other free software licenses. The FSF has also explicitly asked the community whether the new patent provisions should apply retroactively to the Microsoft-Novell deal."

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