jkorz - Slashdot User

Submission + - Solar-grade silicon - real cheap real soon

Submitted by g8oz on Tuesday May 15, 2007 @02:32PM

g8oz writes: On May 2nd the judging committee for the MIT Ignite Clean Energy (ICE) Competition announced that RSI Silicon, was the winner of the 2007 Business Presentation Competition. RSI Silicon is a Massachusetts based startup has developed a process for manufacturing solar-grade silicon at a fraction of the cost of current methods. The projected production cost is $7-9 per kg, versus $25-30 per kg via a typical Siemens process plant. The process promises to help deal with the current supply problem the world faces as the demand for solar cells explodes.

Submission + - Start-ups hardest hit by Microsoft patent claims

Submitted by MsManhattan on Tuesday May 15, 2007 @09:36AM

MsManhattan writes: Microsoft's patent claims will hit start-ups and other small businesses based on the open-source model the hardest, legal experts and open-source advocates say. Even if the company pursues licensing arrangements instead of legal action, as it has indicated it would prefer, "There's no way a small company ... can compete against the patent portfolio of any big company. The very people that Microsoft's trying to collect from are the people least likely to be able to pay them any significant amount of money," says Matt Asay, vice president of business development for open-source developer Alfresco Software Inc. In general, open-source supporters view Microsoft's actions this week as "an attempt to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt and make people hesitant to use open source as an alternative to commercial products" and to mask the lackluster reception for Vista, Office 2007 and other under-performing products. And some have suggested that Microsoft will suffer a backlash effect. Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, notes "The same threat ... Microsoft is holding over open-source users' heads could be turned on the software giant, which itself has used open-source or freely available technology to develop its own commercial products. In fact, there is just as much potential patent infringement in Windows than there is in open source."

Submission + - Hadron Super Collidor - Detailed Profile

Submitted by

davco9200

on Tuesday May 15, 2007 @09:12AM

davco9200 writes: "For those that need their physics a little pre-chewed, the New York Times has a lengthy profile of the Large Hadron Collider (reg. required). The article covers the basics (size = 17 miles, cost = 8 billion, energy consumption = 14 trillon electron volts) and history but also provides interesting interviews the scientists and goes into detail on the expected experiments. There are photos, video and nifty interactive graphic."

Submission + - MIT Media Lab Releases New Programming Language

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 15, 2007 @09:04AM

An anonymous reader writes: Efforts to make computer programming accessible to young people began in the late 1970s with the advent of the personal PC, when another programming language with roots at MIT — Logo — allowed young people to draw shapes by steering a turtle around a screen by typing out commands. But the path to mastering most programming languages has been strewn with obstacles, since students needed to figure out not only the underlying logic but also master a brand new syntax, observe strict rules about semicolons and bracket use, and figure out what was causing error messages even as they learned the program. By contrast, Scratch — a free download at scratch.mit.edu — is easy enough for kindergarten-age children to use.

Submission + - Indian software firms abusing H1B visas?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 15, 2007 @08:50AM

An anonymous reader writes: It's not a big surprise and is in fact a known fact that a bunch of Indian IT companies, that have opened offices in the US , engage in outright abuse of H1B visas by bringing "highly-skilled" workers from India. From this Times-of-India article, "As the US Senate gets ready to take up the comprehensive immigration reform legislation, the two top law makers — Republican Senator Charles Grassley and Democratic Senator Richard Durbin — said "more and more it appears that companies are using H-1B visas to displace qualified, American workers." The companies the senators sent letters to were Infosys Technologies, Wipro Ltd., Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., Patni Computer Systems, I-Flex Solutions Inc., Satyam Computer Services Ltd., Larsen & Toubro Infotech Ltd., Tech Mahindra Americas Inc. and Mphasis Corp. As if outsourcing of jobs to India wasn't enough, these companies are setting up shops right here in the US to bring in cheap labour resulting in lower wages and displaced American workers.

Submission + - Retailers Still Using WEP? Learn Nothing from TJX

Submitted by

SkyDude

on Monday May 14, 2007 @02:31PM

SkyDude writes: "Retailers haven't learned from TJX — still running WEP by ZDNet's George Ou — When I blogged earlier this week about TJX's failure to secure their wireless LAN and how it may end up costing TJX a billion dollars, I knew that it was merely the tip of the iceberg with so many retailers still running WEP encryption. As if WEP wasn't already broken enough, WEP is now about 20 times faster to crack than in mid-2005 when TJX's WEP-based wireless LAN was broken and I knew from experience that most retailers were still running WEP. I decided to stroll through town and check on some of the largest retail stores in the country to see how they're doing today. The reason I looked at the large retailers is because they're the big juicy targets with millions of credit card transactions that the TJX hackers love. What I found was truly disturbing and I'm going to tell you what I found. http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=487&tag=nl.e539"

Submission + - Windows Vista's Built-in Rootkit

Submitted by iSeal on Monday May 14, 2007 @02:25PM

iSeal writes: A new vulnerability in Windows Vista has been found, whereby malicious software are able to use the permissions structure in Vista to create what amounts to being a rootkit. By creating dummy account with certain permissions, the malware is able to make itself invisible to the detection of anti-virus/spyware products.

Submission + - Billionaire's Guide to Stop "theft" of Onl

Submitted by

NewsCloud

on Monday May 14, 2007 @02:09PM

NewsCloud writes: "After acquiring the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune, billionaire Sam Zell told the Stanford Business Daily:

"If all of the newspapers in America did not allow Google to steal their content for nothing, what would Google do?" he asked. "We have a situation today where effectively the content is being paid for by the newspapers and stolen by Google, etcetera. That can last for a short time, but it can't last forever. I think Google and the boys understand that."
Google isn't stealing this material. The newspapers have left the content wide open — and simply haven't asked Google not to use it. I feel bad for anyone who spends $8 billion dollars on a newspaper enterprise with barely having any technical knowledge of how the Internets work so I've written a billionaire's guide guide to stopping "theft" of your online newspaper content just for Mr. Zell... but it might as well be called "How to relegate your online newspaper to obscurity and minimize your subscriber base" or "My Secrets of Search Engine De-optimization". Indulge your inner-luddite in eight easy steps..."

Submission + - Better communication with non-technical people?

Submitted by tinpan on Monday May 14, 2007 @01:19PM

tinpan writes: I've got a communication problem. When non-technical managers ask me to explain technical choices, they often make choices I recommend against and they later regret. I can tell that they do not understand their choice because of how they are explaining things to each other, but they usually refuse further explanation.

So it's time for some education. I want to get better at communicating technical subjects to non-technical people. More accurately, I want to get better at helping non-technical people make better technical decisions and I'm willing to accept it may include some understanding of "selling your idea."

What books, online courses and/or seminars do you recommend and why?

Submission + - How far should screening go?

Submitted by SlashSquatch on Monday May 14, 2007 @11:43AM

SlashSquatch writes: My sister is getting screened for a programming position with a financial firm. I was alarmed to hear she'll be getting fingerprinted at the sheriff's office as part of the screening process. Instantly I conjure up scenes of frame-ups and corporate scandals. I want to know, should this raise a flag? Would you submit to fingerprinting, blood tests and who knows what else (genetic code screening etc), for a programming position?

Submission + - Introduction to coLinux: Linux on Windows

Submitted by

E. Stride

on Monday May 14, 2007 @11:38AM

E. Stride writes: "You can still run Linux inside Windows, even if you have limited operating system capabilities, thanks to Cooperative Linux, or coLinux, without even having to reboot."

Submission + - Bullied Kid to Recieve $1m Payout.

Submitted by had3l on Monday May 14, 2007 @11:38AM

had3l writes: BBC News reports: "An Australian teenager has won record damages after a court found that his school "grossly failed" in its duty to protect him from a school bully: Benjamin Cox, now 18, was regularly teased and beaten from the age of five by an older pupil, leaving him with psychiatric problems, a court heard."

Submission + - A list of "rat" universities?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 14, 2007 @10:41AM

An anonymous reader writes: With more and more stories of Universities "ratting out" their students to the like of the RIAA, is there any place where a list of univerisities privacy policies are posted? A report card of how universities are doing with protecting their student's rights?

Submission + - Why Do We Let the Media Determine our Candidates?

Submitted by

Paladin144

on Thursday May 10, 2007 @11:36AM

Paladin144 writes: "I've written an article about the mainstream media's tendency to determine the course of our presidential elections by giving favorable coverage to certain "approved" candidates while denying coverage or recognition to other candidates. A perfect example is the recent censorship of Ron Paul and Mike Gravel's respective campaigns in the media while they are exploding in popularity across the web. Will the power the internet provides everyday users revolutionize our electoral system or will corporate interest find a way to limit the damage to their control grid?"

Submission + - ATI to go opensource ?

Submitted by BESTouff on Wednesday May 09, 2007 @04:36PM

BESTouff writes: As seen on Chris Blizzard's blog: The ATI marketing guy on stage (Henri Richard) at the Red Hat Summit just committed to fixing the ATI problems with open source. To paraphrase "most people are worried about what they will lose...IP, etc...we're worried about what we can win." They know it's a problem and they are committed to fixing it.

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