enharmonix - Slashdot User

Submission + - FTC Notice and Request for Public Comments (commentworks.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 06, 2009 @01:03PM

An anonymous reader writes: Federal Trade Commission Title: Notice and Request for Public Comments Subject Category: FTC Town Hall to Address Digital Rights Management Technologies — Event Takes Place Wednesday, March 25, 2009, in Seattle Published: To Be Added Comments Due: January 30, 2009 How To Comment: Digital rights management (DRM) refers to technologies typically used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, and copyright holders to attempt to control how consumers access and use media and entertainment content. Among other issues, the workshop will address the need to improve disclosures to consumers about DRM limitations. Interested parties may submit written comments or original research on this topic.

Submission + - The 8-wheeled Eliica Car To be Mass Produced (inhabitat.com)

Submitted by

Mike

on Tuesday January 06, 2009 @12:56PM

Mike writes: "Designed by a team at Keio University in Japan, the 8-wheeled fully electric Eliica may be short on subtlety, but it has a range of 200 miles and can hit speeds of up to 230mph! Although only two vehicles currently exist, the team has recently announced that they intend to mass produce 200 units and are currently looking for corporate sponsorship."

Submission + - China Announces the World's Largest Solar Plant (inhabitat.com)

Submitted by

Jason Sahler

on Tuesday January 06, 2009 @12:28PM

Jason Sahler writes: "From the Three Gorges Dam to the Great Wall, China is known for its monumental projects that count among the biggest and grandest in the world. Recently the nation announced its latest supermassive project: the construction of the world's largest solar power plant. Planned by China Technology Development Group Corp and privately-held Qinghai New Energy Group, the project will begin with a 30 MW plant in the Qaidam Basin that will expand to produce 1 GW of solar energy."

Submission + - Groklaw shifts gears - Preservation now priority (groklaw.net)

Submitted by dan of the north on Tuesday January 06, 2009 @12:00PM

dan of the north writes: Pamela Jones (PJ) writes: "I think we need to use this time to perfect our work and ensure Groklaw's preservation. It will require shutting down the daily articles and News Picks, at least for the forseeable future, but I'm convinced it's important to do it. One of the core purposes of Groklaw has always been to create a reliable record for historians and law schools to use our materials to teach and inform. [...] I choose to make sure our work as fully reliable, comprehensive and, to the degree humanly possible, permanent. [...] Groklaw's collection of materials is really valuable. I'd like to ensure that it survives. I know many of you have mentioned this over the years, and I always meant to get to it eventually, but now seems like the time. We've covered the SCO litigations since May of 2003, and it's the only complete record of this important phase in IT history. Groklaw also made history, if I do say so myself, because it was the first time the Internet was ever used to put geeks together to help with distributed legal research."

Submission + - VeriSign transitions certificates to SHA-1 (net-security.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 06, 2009 @11:27AM

An anonymous reader writes: VeriSign announced an immediate transition to the SHA-1 algorithm on new RapidSSL brand certificates. The transition to the SHA-1 algorithm came within a few hours of the public unveiling of an MD5 flaw presented by researchers during the 2008 Chaos Communication Congress (CCC) in Berlin, rendering the MD5 flaw ineffective for all new RapidSSL Certificates.

Submission + - Microsoft talks about the "Apple Tax" (technologizer.com)

Submitted by

Harry

on Tuesday January 06, 2009 @11:13AM

Harry writes: "In anticipation of Apple announcements at today's Macworld Expo keynote, Microsoft is contacting journalists to argue that Apple "imposes" an "Apple tax" on its customers in the form of high prices for Macs, and that it's particularly unfair in a recession. But Apple can't impose anything on anyone--all it can do is to try to convince consumers that its products are worth the price asked. And while there's a similar price premium for many Windows-based machines that share some of Apple's focus on industrial design, you won't find Microsoft speaking of a "Sony tax" or "Voodoo Tax.""

Submission + - Why Businesses Are Embracing Macs (infoworld.com)

Submitted by

snydeq

on Tuesday January 06, 2009 @11:05AM

snydeq writes: "The recent trend toward allowing users to manage their own PCs has provided Mac OS X further inroads into business environments, InfoWorld reports. According to a recent IT survey, 23 percent of respondents had at least 30 Macs in their businesses, 12 percent had at least 4,000 Macs — and 68 percent said they would let users choose Macs as their work PCs in the next year. Driven by several factors — Apple's conversion to Intel, several virtualization options to run Windows on the Mac OS, the rise of the Web among corporate applications, among them — IT's further acceptance of the Mac in business marks a significant change in corporate IT: 'an increased willingness to let down the fortress gates and let employees use the systems they feel most productive with,' the article reports."

Submission + - Personal Firewall for Windows now on SourceForge (sourceforge.net)

Submitted by

Florian Eichelberger

on Tuesday January 06, 2009 @10:56AM

Florian Eichelberger writes: "Usec.at , a small Austrian platform of security software developers
decided to open-source an usable alpha version of their windows personal
firewall named ZID.

As of now it seems to be the only, readily usable open-source Windows Personal
Firewall around already featuring a basic set of functions and a GUI
usable even for not-so-savvy-users and some ideas we would like to get
help developing them.
We hope to lay a modular foundation for windows personal firewall
software and
protection as the netfilter framework does for linux.

You need to protect the weary , not the strong and as for a firewall, an
open-source firewall with decent functionality for all the existing
Windows XP, Windows 2000 , and maybe a lot others comes in handy."

Submission + - SPAM: DTV Coupon Program Out of Money

Submitted by Thelasko on Tuesday January 06, 2009 @10:46AM

Thelasko writes: It appears that the U.S. Government's digital converter box program is running out of money. If you sign up after the program runs out of money, you will receive your voucher if the program receives more funding. Older analog televisions will no longer work without a converter box after February 17.
Link to Original Source

Submission + - Israel, Palestine Wage Web War

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 06, 2009 @10:33AM

An anonymous reader writes: A war has erupted on the Internet between Israel and Palestine, alongside the war being fought on the ground in Gaza. A new report claims that a group called the "DNS Team" has defaced an Israeli Website, with anti-Israel graphical images — one in a series of instances of "e-vandalism." This sort of e-vandalism, says the author, is not only an inconvenience for Webmasters, but many of the images contain malware links and "redirects or flash links to Jihadist forums or blogs." However, while the Jihadist forums are registered in Saudi Arabia, they are hosted by companies like Layered Tech and SoftLayer in Plano, Texas.

Submission + - The 60 Hottest Games of 2009 (gameplayer.com.au) 2

Submitted by

SlappingOysters

on Tuesday January 06, 2009 @07:45AM

SlappingOysters writes: "With 2009 now upon us, gameplayer has taken an extensive look at what lies ahead in gaming and what are the hottest titles of the next twelve months. For ease of reading, they have broken the list into six formats (PC, X360, PS3, Wii, DS, PSP) and you can head directly to whichever is your preferred option. They have also looked into the hottest PC hardware configurations for the beginning of 2009 in three separate budget categories."

Submission + - Using your Blackberry as a modem on Linux (ostatic.com)

Submitted by ruphus13 on Tuesday January 06, 2009 @06:58AM

ruphus13 writes: Now, the suits and the geeks can unite — Barry allows Blackberries to serve as modems for Linux machines. From the news post, "Barry, created by open source software vendor Net Direct, lets you not only sync your contacts and calendar but also use your smartphone as a computer modem. Sure, it's not as fast as T1 or cable, but you can't beat it if you're stuck somewhere with no Internet access. Currently, there are packages available for Ubuntu, Debian, Mandriva, and Fedora (although syncing is not supported on Fedora 9). Most older BlackBerrys work just fine with Barry, but the newest generation of devices — the Storm and Bold — are not yet fully supported."

Submission + - Things preventing FOSS end-user adoption (ostatic.com)

Submitted by ruphus13 on Tuesday January 06, 2009 @06:51AM

ruphus13 writes: Computers are complex machines that permeate pretty much all functions in life. Yet, when they do fail, there is immense frustration. A widely held belief is that having a 'support contract' is what comforts users when dealing with Proprietary Source software, and the 'do-it-yourself' aspect of FOSS scares users away. This, coupled with the belief that 'computers should just work' might not be beneficial for FOSS adoption. From the article, "It's not realistic to expect every person with a computer to hunt down the answers as to why applications, or hardware, aren't working as they should. If they like to look under the hood to discover why themselves, they should be able to — they shouldn't be required to...I could see a viable market opening for independent Linux/open source tech support services. These sorts of services have traditionally fallen on LUGs, but would probably best work as a commercial venture just from the time investment needed to launch and tend to a service such as this. But before this happens, there's a real need for software developers and end-users to come to terms that not everything "just works" every last time — and this isn't necessarily a failing of the code, the hardware, or a personal bias of the machine against the user."

Submission + - Brown Dwarfs Don't Hang Out With Stars (spacefellowship.com)

Submitted by

Toren Altair

on Tuesday January 06, 2009 @05:23AM

Toren Altair writes: "Brown dwarfs, objects that are less massive than stars but larger than planets, just got more elusive, based on a study of 233 nearby multiple-star systems by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Hubble found only two brown dwarfs as companions to normal stars. This means the so-called "brown dwarf desert" (the absence of brown dwarfs around solar-type stars) extends to the smallest stars in the universe.

The Hubble survey, taken with Hubble's Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS), provide strong statistics pointing to the fact that brown dwarfs do not exist around even the least massive stars. "If mass ratio was the driving factor we would expect to find more brown dwarfs around small red stars than around solar type stars," says Dieterich."

Submission + - Logitech to cut over 1,000 jobs (hexus.net)

Submitted by

Steve Kerrison

on Tuesday January 06, 2009 @05:14AM

Steve Kerrison writes: "Anticipating a worsening economy the world over, Logitech is bracing itself for the ongoing storm by culling 15% of its 9,000 strong workforce. This comes at a time when some groups are asserting that lay-offs should be a last resort, with hidden costs involved in letting staff go. HEXUS.channel reports that "[Logitech] has also withdrawn its Fiscal Year 2009 growth targets for sales and operating income. Not revised, withdrawn. It plans to update investors on 20th Jan." A statement made in a press release by the company makes confident remarks about the future of the firm, but that'll be little consolation for those left jobless."

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