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The Courts

Submission + - Scientology critic Keith Henson extradited

Submitted by
muldrake
muldrake writes: "Engineer, writer, and Scientology critic Keith Henson has been extradited from Arizona to Riverside County, California, following his arrest in February. Henson had fled to Canada following his conviction for "interfering with a religion" in 2001 for his pickets and Usenet posts criticizing the Church of Scientology, returning to Arizona after his asylum claims were denied."
IBM

Submission + - IBM Bores Tiny Holes in Computer Chips

Submitted by IBMHole
IBMHole writes: Chips with minuscule holes in them can run faster or use less energy, IBM Corp. said in announcing Thursday a novel way to create them — potentially one of the most significant advances in chip manufacturing in years. To create these tiny holes, the computer company has harnessed a plastic-like material that spontaneously forms into a sieve-like structure. The holes have a width of 20 nanometers, or billionths of a meter, placing the method in the much-vaunted field of nanotechnology.
Google

Submission + - Google violating "Don't be Evil" motto?

Submitted by
ihuntrocks
ihuntrocks writes: "Search engine giant Google, along with several other large companies purchase their server systems from Dell. The catch: Dell doesn't do the work on them. Instead, it is contracted out to another company, which only hires temporary employees, the majority of which have no technical background whatsoever. This company also largely does not supervise these inexperienced employees, but rather leaves that task to other temporary employees (who may also have no technical knowledge). This often times leads to misconfiguration of things, like Google servers, or sometimes worse: systems leaving the warehouse completely blank. This lack of supervision and technical background allow employees to bypass the quality control checking and additional auditing on these systems and make such errors, often times with impunity when this is discovered by the company. I also believe, as an IS professional, that companies like the one contracted by Dell hurt trained and experienced IT/IS professionals by offering jobs like this to temporary employees only, for near poverty scale wages. These temporary employees are often hired at the end of the quarter, when Dell places things on sale, to meet the volume demand, and are then laid off until needed again. Are companies like Google hurting IT/IS professionals by allowing their work (perhaps unknowingly) to be done by companies like this? What do the members of the Slashdot community think should be done about this by companies like Google, if anything, and what should we, as IT/IS professionals do to preserve quality of work and competitive wages when faced with issues like this?"
Music

Jobs to Labels- Lose the DRM & We'll Talk Price 459

Posted by CmdrTaco from the ten-bucks-a-gig dept.
eldavojohn writes "Apple CEO Steve Jobs has been talking smack about DRM and has recently issued a verbal offer to major music lables stating that if they are willing to lose the DRM, he'd be willing to raise his 99 cent price for those iTunes songs. These tracks (such as the recent EMI deal) would also have better sound quality & cost about 30 cents more."
The Internet

Submission + - Image Analyzer detects porn in data transmissions

Submitted by thefickler
thefickler writes: Visual analysis software that was originally created in 2000 has recently expanded to include the detection of pornography within digital data transmission. The detection method and software have been in place for some time, but the recent release of Image Analyzer 3.0 offers significant improvements that will allow its practical use in future applications in real time.

Feed Alzheimer's Genetic Roots Explained (sciencedaily.com)

From feed by sdfeed
Scientists have long known that individuals with a certain gene are at higher risk for developing Alzheimer's disease. Now a new study helps explain why this is so. The research has uncovered a molecular mechanism that links the susceptibility gene to the process of Alzheimer's disease onset. The findings may lead to new pathways for development of Alzheimer's therapeutics.
Software

Submission + - Can F/OSS projects be killed by dormant patents?

Submitted by skelly33
skelly33 writes: I am working on putting together an open source project that has commercial applications but am concerned that some day some random company with a thick patent portfolio is going to see it and try to stamp it out with a cease and desist claiming that they own the concept. The trouble is that many clever concepts have been conceived but lay dormant in patents that are just waiting around for a lawsuit where the patent holder has no intent of ever turning it into a product. Is this a legitimate concern for someone who would much rather avoid investing deep into a project so as not to be brought down by some idiotic/costly lawsuit, or is there any degree of protection afforded through original research and not-for-profit development of an otherwise patented concept under the banner of "Open Source"?
Microsoft

Submission + - time.windows.com broken; Windows machines adrift?

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: It appears the widely-used time.windows.com Network Time Protocol server isn't working correctly. The host name is redirecting to unsynchronized Akamai NTP servers which are off by more than 100 seconds. This issue leaves millions of Windows XP and 2003 machines that still have the default configuration without a good source of network time. While most clients won't notice, there are certainly some important applications (such as kerberos authentication) that rely on accurate client time. This mis-configuration has been in place for at least several hours.

A bug report was submitted via Microsoft's website, but no response has been received in over 6 hours. This has apparently happened at least once before.
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft not gaining ground in search

Submitted by klblastone
klblastone writes: Despite Microsoft's massive investment in promoting and improving web-based search, the company still has less than ten percent of search engine marketshare. By comparison, Google is hitting about 50 percent, and still growing. Obviously, gimmicks like the interactive Ms. Dewey aren't helping Microsoft compete with Google in the search arena. Microsoft's deep pockets don't seem to be of much use in the highly competitive and dynamic web services market. As the web 2.0 revolution pushes more and more software online where open standards dominate and Microsoft can't leverage its desktop software monopoly, will the company start lose relevance?
Music

Submission + - Boycott the RIAA in March

Submitted by Barrien
Barrien writes: The guys over at Gizmodo have declared a boycott of the RIAA during the month of March. They are not advocating piracy, instead they suggest buying non-signed artist's music, or music that is available online. The full scoop can be found on their webpage, or here's a direct link to their plan. This is how we make our stand against the monster that is the RIAA.

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