CompotatoJ - Slashdot User

Submission + - Finnish Ministry of Justice migrates to OpenOffice

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24, 2007 @12:29PM

An anonymous reader writes: In December 2006, the Finnish Ministry of Justice decided to migrate to the open source OpenOffice.org office suite. The ministry and its administrative sector will also adopt the OpenDocument ISO standard for the file format of office documents.

After the migration, OpenOffice.org will be the primary office suite for 8500 persons and Microsoft Office for 1500 persons. All Windows XP workstations of the ministry and its administrative sector are installed with OpenOffice.org version 2.

http://www.om.fi/Etusivu/Julkaisut/Julkaisusarjat/ Toimintajahallinto/Toiminnanjahallinnonarkisto/Toi mintajahallinto2007/1171362109118

Submission + - Patent row could hit MP3 industry

Submitted by

w1z4rd

on Saturday February 24, 2007 @03:13AM

w1z4rd writes: "The BBC Reports "News that Microsoft has been fined for violating MP3 patents belonging to Alcatel-Lucent could have widespread fallout for the industry. Experts now suggest the US ruling could lead to hundreds of firms — including Apple and RealNetworks — being pursued for payments relating to the format. "Any of the companies that have licensed and implemented that technology have to have great concern about this verdict," said Microsoft vice president Thomas W Burt. And it seems the Federal District Court in San Diego agrees — it ordered Microsoft to pay Alcatel $1.52bn, an award both companies say is the largest patent award in history.""

Submission + - Wikipedia banned as source by history department

Submitted by hrvatska on Saturday February 24, 2007 @12:52AM

hrvatska writes: An article in the New York Times reports on a ban by the history department at Middlebury College on citing Wikipedia in papers or exams. The ban came after a number of students used inaccurate information from the same article on an exam. The ban is being actively debated at the school, and does not apply to all departments. Jim Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, is quoted as saying "Basically, they are recommending exactly what we suggested — students shouldn't be citing encyclopedias. I would hope they wouldn't be citing Encyclopaedia Britannica, either." The article does not say whether or not the history department permits Encyclopaedia Britannica to be cited as a source.

Submission + - Zink Imaging to launch inkless printer

Submitted by

Vinit

on Saturday February 17, 2007 @11:52AM

Vinit writes: "Zink Imaging has developed a unique technology which can print pictures without ink! The innovation could be applied to make hand-held printers that can be integrated into mobile phones and digital cameras. While printing one only needs a paper, I mean Zink paper which is initially colorless, looks and feels like ordinary white photograph paper and is not light sensitive. You can get a copy of picture (5 cm x 7.5 cm) in 30 seconds and the photos are are very durable — they cannot be torn and are also water resistant. The firm plans to launch two products by the end of the year: a small battery-operated, pocket-sized printer for camera-phones and a digital camera with a 2 inch x 3 inch (5 cm by 7.5 cm) printer built in. The company recently demonstrated a working prototype of the camera phone printer at the DEMO 2007 technology conference in California, US. The printer is expected to cost $200 while 100 sheets of paper will cost $20. http://www.pclaunches.com/optical_media/zink_imagi ng_to_launch_inkless_printer.php"

Submission + - First Commercial Quantum Computer Demonstrated

Submitted by

emw2012

on Wednesday February 14, 2007 @02:57AM

emw2012 writes: "As of February 13, D-Wave Systems Inc. of Burnaby, British Columbia has shown a proof of concept of its 16-qubit quantum system, dubbed "Orion". The system was showcased, audaciously enough, at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA, where D-Wave displayed Orion's power in a drug molecule matching test, followed by such worthy enterprises as solving a party seating arrangement seeking to pair like-minded guests, and deducing a Sudoku puzzle to completion. While time will tell whether Orion is remembered as merely a curious misadventure or the harbinger of revolution in the processing industry, D-Wave has assured us of the later, promising systems able to model molecular dynamics, complex NP-complete optimization problems, and simulate nanoscale behavior in fractions of second, compared to years (or simply not at all) on BlueGene/L and its digital kin.

dwavesys.com, Press Release"

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