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User Journal

Journal Journal: Music execs criticise DRM systems

Journal by mapkinase

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6362069.stm

Almost two-thirds of music industry executives think removing digital locks from downloadable music would make more people buy the tracks, finds a survey.

Haha.
GNOME

Journal SPAM: Linus fires latest shot in GNOME Wars 4

Journal by stoolpigeon
Linux.com is running a story about the continuing feud between Linus and some GNOME folks.Some bad blood between Linus Torvalds and GNOME developers is flaring up again. Previously, Torvalds has said that Linux users should switch to KDE instead of GNOME because of the GNOME team's "users are idiots" mentality. Now he has "put his money where his mouth is" by submitting patches to GNOME in orde
Software

Submission + - Cuba Embraces Open-Source Software

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: From The Washington Post (by way of the Associated Press): "Cuba's communist government is trying to shake off the yoke of at least one capitalist empire — Microsoft Corp. — by joining with socialist Venezuela in converting its computers to open-source software." Cuba's Communications Minister, Ramiro Valdes, has "called the world's information systems a "battlefield" where Cuba is fighting against imperialism."
Patents

Congress Tackles Patent Reform 261

Posted by Zonk from the new-employer-similar-to-the-previous-one dept.
nadamsieee writes "Wired's Luke O'Brian recently reported about Congress' latest attempt to reform the patent system. In the article O'Brian tells of how 'witnesses at Thursday's hearing painted a bleak picture of that system. Adam Jaffe, a Brandeis University professor and author of a book on the subject, described the system as 'out of whack.' Instead of 'the engine of innovation,' the patent has become 'the sand in the gears,' he said, citing widespread fears of litigation. The House Oversight Committee website has more details. How would you fix the patent system?"
Security

Submission + - Smokers may be the weak IT security link

Submitted by
BobB
BobB writes: "Where there's smoke, there's a door. A U.K. security company is warning that smokers may impact IT security, leaving open doors that could let in intruders who could abuse a company's network. It may sound slightly far-fetched. But a penetration tester from NTA Monitor Ltd., a company based in Rochester, England, gained access to a professional services company outside London that way. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/021607-smoke rs-may-be-the-weak.html"
GNU is Not Unix

Submission + - Stallman convinces Cuba to switch to open source

Submitted by
prostoalex
prostoalex writes: "Big victory for Richard Stallman in North America, as Cuba decided to adopt open source software on the national level. Both Cuba and Venezuela are currently working on switching the entire government infrastructure to GNU/Linux operating system and applications, Associated Press reports from Havana: "Both governments say they are trying to wean state agencies from Microsoft's proprietary Windows to the open-source Linux operating system, which is developed by a global community of programmers who freely share their code." AP article doesn't mention the distro used for government workers, but says that the students are working on a Gentoo-based distro."
United States

Submission + - FCC wants to regulate violence on TV

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: CNN is reporting that the FCC has released a report that claims Congress can expand the FCC's authority to regulate broadcast television. Currently, the FCC can regulate profanity and sexual content, but the new report calls for the power to regulate violence as well.
Power

Server Power Consumption Doubled Over Past 5 years 148

Posted by Zonk from the lets-get-that-fusion-thing-going-huh dept.
Watt's up writes "A new study shows an alarming increase in server power consumption over the past five years. In the US, servers (including cooling equipment) consumes 1.2% of all the electricity in 2005, up from 0.6% in 2000. The trend is similar worldwide. 'If current trends continue, server electricity usage will jump 40 percent by 2010, driven in part by the rise of cheap blade servers, which increase overall power use faster than larger ones. Virtualization and consolidation of servers will work against this trend, though, and it's difficult to predict what will happen as data centers increasingly standardize on power-efficient chips." We also had a recent discussion of power consumption in consumer PCs that you might find interesting.
GNOME

Submission + - Linus fires latest shot in GNOME Wars

Submitted by HellFeuer
HellFeuer writes: Linus speaks out against GNOME again. When challenged to use GNOME for a month, he submitted patches to the GNOME project to prove his criticism is *constructive*, saying "The code is actually _cleaner_ after my patches, and the end result is more capable. We'll see what happens". However, he still didn't commit to actually using GNOME.
Where do you stand on Linus vs GNOME?
GNOME

Submission + - Linus calls GNOME "limiting"

Submitted by
lisah
lisah writes: "The flame wars between Linus Torvalds and the GNOME community continue to burn. Responding to Torvalds' recent claim that GNOME 'seems to be developed by interface Nazis' and that its developers believe their 'users are idiots,' a member of the Linux Foundation's Desktop Architects mailing list suggested that Torvalds use GNOME for a month before making such pronouncements. Torvalds, never one to back down from a challenge, simply turned around and submitted patches to GNOME and then told the list, '...let's see what happens to my patches. I guarantee you that they actually improve the code.' After lobbing that over the fence, Torvalds concluded his comments by saying, 'Now the question is, will people take the patches, or will they keep their heads up their arses and claim that configurability is bad, even when it makes things more logical, and code more readable.'"
Wireless Networking

Submission + - Apple the latest company to jump the gun on 802.11

Submitted by
PetManimal
PetManimal writes: "Apple has just released the latest model of the Airport Extreme base station, which besides adding home storage networking capabilities, also pushes a wireless standard that's not even ratified: 802.11n. Although it's not the first "pre-n" wireless gear, the article says it does much better than the Linksys pre-n hardware in terms of setup and ease of use. As for whether the plethora of pre-n hardware on the market now is setting the stage for interoperability problems later on, eWeek reports that wireless vendors are already taking steps to make gear from different 802.11 manufacturers play nice, by releasing new router firmware and client drivers designed to improve interoperability among chip-set implementations, and implementing chip sets from multiple vendors. The draft 2.0 version of the 802.11n standard may be approved in the middle of this year, which could lead to final approval in late 2007."
Programming

Submission + - What does good ajax code look like?

Submitted by b0wl0fud0n
b0wl0fud0n writes: I've been browsing through the web to look up good coding standards and guidelines for ajax, but I've been cluttered with returns of basic tutorials and examples. Enough with basic tutorials, where can I go to find in depth resources for large ajax web application development?

Feed Water on Mars: New Evidence (wired.com)

From feed by wiredfeed
Photographs sent by a NASA orbiter suggests that water may indeed be flowing on Mars. And where there's water, there's at least a chance of life. By the Associated Press.


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