ItsColdOverHere - Slashdot User

Submission + - OSX 10.5.1 Upgrade deep-freezes Mail.app (apple.com)

Submitted by joergschulz on Thursday November 22, 2007 @05:44AM

joergschulz writes: Several users are reporting that the recent upgrade of OSX causes Mail.app to freeze on launch — see discussion on apple (http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5892852). Obviously ToDo Items stored in ICal or the MailBox seem to cause mail to show the waterball of death.

Does Apples recent success make it copy the lousy product quality of other successful manufacturers? What will the next fix kill on our systems?

Submission + - UK could finally get terrestrial HDTV

Submitted by SoLongAndThanks on Thursday November 22, 2007 @05:42AM

SoLongAndThanks writes: When the UK opted to implement digital TV via terrestrial transmission the decision was taken not to allow HD, instead it went for increased channel choice in standard definition. Now OFCOM (the government off-shoot that allocates the spectrum) has indicated that it now wants to allow HD via the system (known as Freeview), but some changes will need to be made to make this possible. Cnet.co.uk has a story explaining the OFCOM proposal which includes moving some channels to MPEG-4 and changing the modulation scheme. It also mentions the BBC's MIMO trial which could be implemented at the same time to increase the amount of data carried per multiplex.

High Tech High 2.0 146

Posted by kdawson on Thursday March 08, 2007 @11:27AM from the you-wanted-backward-compatibility? dept.

theodp writes "A week ago, in his How to Keep America Competitive Op-Ed, Bill Gates touted the Gates Foundation-backed High Tech High as the future of American education. One small problem. Two days earlier, tearful Bay Area High Tech High students — recruited by a Bill Gates video — were told that their school of the future has no future. So would Bill be too embarrassed to lay out his education plan before the Senate Wednesday? Nah. Not too surprisingly though, mentions of High Tech High were MIA in Bill's prepared remarks (PDF), which touted Philly's imaginatively named $65M School of the Future, built under the guidance of Microsoft, as the new school of the future. Committee politicians reportedly embraced virtually all of the suggestions made by Gates."

Journal Journal: Open Call From the Patent Office

Journal by bendodge on Thursday March 08, 2007 @11:23AM

From The Washington Post

Submission + - Duke Grad Builds Beer Tossing Fridge

Submitted by grommet_tdi on Thursday March 08, 2007 @11:22AM

grommet_tdi writes: This guy builds what I think is one of the coolest uses for robotics yet...A refrigerator that launches beers directly to a happy recipient on the couch. FTFA:

"With a click of the remote, fashioned from a car's keyless entry device, a small elevator inside the refrigerator lifts a beer can through a hole and loads it into the fridge's catapult arm. A second click fires the device, tossing the beer up to 20 feet — "far enough to get to the couch," he said."

You can watch the video here, or see it directly on his website.

Submission + - CBS morphing March Madness

Submitted by

coondoggie

on Thursday March 08, 2007 @11:16AM

coondoggie writes: "CBS is betting heavily you will love what it's done to help you watch March Madness from your PCs. The company said today it is doubling the amount of bandwidth available for NCAA Tournament basketball games. Not only that, but it is borrowing a trick from computer games, to again offer a "Boss" button on the player that viewers can hit if they see their supervisor coming, which causes a fake spreadsheet to pop up and silences the audio feed. (CBS does explain on its Web site how companies can block online access to the video player.) The new system will support 300,000 viewers at any given time, up from 175,000 simultaneous viewers last year. http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/1224 4"

Submission + - Install Ubuntu in windows

Submitted by

eporue

on Thursday March 08, 2007 @11:10AM

eporue writes: ""Wubi is an unofficial Ubuntu installer for Windows users that will bring you into the Linux world with a few clicks. Wubi allows you to install and uninstall Ubuntu as any other application. If you heard about Linux and Ubuntu, if you wanted to try them but you were afraid, this is for you." More at: Wubi"

Submission + - Project BioShield fails again...

Submitted by osiris1 on Thursday March 08, 2007 @11:09AM

osiris1 writes: Bush administration rejects purchase of radiation drug... "It seems as though HHS has dropped the ball," said Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. He said a committee panel would hold a hearing on the issue next month. The decision was a major blow to Hollis-Eden, a small biotech firm that was coaxed into spending more than $85 million to pursue the contract by military researchers who developed the drug after searching for anti-radiation medicine for more than 30 years. Read Hollis-Eden's press release

Submission + - Oracle Linux has no legs

Submitted by

head_dunce

on Thursday March 08, 2007 @11:03AM

head_dunce writes: "Larry Ellison's big October announcement of Unbreakable Linux seems to be going nowhere.

From the article, "Oracle's Web site includes a list of seven information technology executives preceded by the phrase, "Customers of all sizes across a variety of industries are embracing Oracle Unbreakable Linux." Reuters attempted to contact all seven. Five responded, but only one, restaurant chain IHOP, said it is using Oracle Linux. The other four said they were using other products, including Red Hat."

Submission + - Everything you need to know about IPv6

Submitted by

RJS

on Thursday March 08, 2007 @10:56AM

RJS writes: "Ars Technica is running a great article on IPv6 written for newbies like myself. From the article: "IPv4 addresses are written down by splitting them into four 8-bit values and putting periods between those, for instance, 192.0.2.31. IPv6 addresses on the other hand, are written down as eight 16-bit values with colons between them, and each 16-bit value is displayed in hexadecimal, i.e., using numbers and the letters A — F. For example, 2001:db8:31:1:20a:95ff:fef5:246e. It's not uncommon for IPv6 addresses to have a sequence of consecutive zeroes. In these cases, exactly one of those sequences can be left out. So 2001:db8:31:0:0:0:0:1 becomes 2001:db8:31::1 and the IPv6 loopback address 0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1 becomes ::1.""

Submission + - Israel unveils portable hunter-killer robot

Submitted by badlikeacobra on Thursday March 08, 2007 @10:53AM

badlikeacobra writes: Reuters is reporting that an Israeli defense firm has unveiled an armed, remotely controlled robot. "As well as bomb-sniffing and bomb disposal equipment, the VIPeR can carry an Uzi machine-pistol or plant a grenade. The weapons would be aimed using an onboard video camera." There is a picture here.

Submission + - Coadunation 1.0.B1

Submitted by coadunation on Thursday March 08, 2007 @10:52AM

coadunation writes: The Coadunation project has just released version 1.0.B1 of its daemon server. It has been in development for a year, and now includes a Message Service, Service Locater, Timer Daemon, Jython Daemon, Deployment Daemon, and a lot more. It's aim is to supply developers with a means to quickly and easily write daemons for a distributed environment. We would appreciate people trying it and giving as much feed back as possible.

Adobe Tackles Photo Forgeries 158

Posted by kdawson on Thursday March 08, 2007 @10:49AM from the vanished-commisars dept.

Several readers wrote in with a Wired story about the work Adobe is doing to detect photo forgery. They are working with Canon and Reuters (which suffered massive bad publicity last year over a doctored war photo) and a professor from Dartmouth. (Here is Reuters's policy on photo editing.) Adobe plans to produce a suite of photo-authentication tools based on the work of Hany Farid (PDF) for release in 2008.

Game Developer / Indie Game Award Winners 19

Posted by Zonk on Thursday March 08, 2007 @10:49AM from the just-nice-to-be-nominated dept.

Last night, past the red carpet, under the swirling light and through thrumming bass, the Game Developer's Choice Awards and Independent Game Festival awards were handed out in front of an audience of some 3,500 people. The evening went by very quickly, for a nice change of pace, with few speeches lasting longer than 30 seconds or so. There was a marriage proposal (accepted), several humorous skits that were actually funny, and several moments of Shigeru Miyamoto awesomeness. The big winners of the night were Gears of War, which walked away with three GDCAs, and Aquaria, which won the Seamus McNally grand prize from the IGF. Later today Gamespot is going to be airing video of the awards, a first for the event. While there may not be much in the IGF event that captures your interest, definitely check out the GDCAs. The acceptance speeches from Greg Costikyan, The Fatman, Shigeru Miyamoto, and CliffyB should not be missed.

Submission + - Everything you need to know about IPv6

Submitted by almondcookie on Thursday March 08, 2007 @10:44AM

almondcookie writes: Ars Technica has a really comprehensive guide on IPv6. Why we have it, the differences in infrastructure from IPv4, how it works, security, and implementation. Could be really useful for those involved in security. From the article:

If you're working on security, keep your eye out for IPv6 because if overlooked, IPv6 could allow things that are blocked over IPv4. And if you're buying expensive equipment, you may want to make sure that if it doesn't do IPv6 today, it's at least upgradable, so you can still use your gear if IPv6 picks up more quickly than expected as IPv4 addresses run out. And it never hurts to experiment a bit with the new protocol so you know how it works by the time you need it.

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