ComSon0 - Slashdot User

Submission + - Debunks Bill Hilf's FUD about Open Source (hackfud.net) 2

Submitted by on Sunday November 18, 2007 @08:51PM

An anonymous reader writes: InformationWeek interviewed Microsoft's Bill Hilf, supposedly to be all about Microsoft's position on Open Source. This article on HackFUD — a site dedicated to debunking anti-FOSS FUD — debunks what Bill Hilf was saying.

Submission + - The ACS's Hostility Toward Open Access Journals (the-scientist.com)

Submitted by

Beetle B.

on Sunday November 18, 2007 @08:10PM

Beetle B. writes: "'An anonymous email that was circulated on October 10 calls into question the practices of the non-profit publishing giant, the American Chemical Society (ACS), which has long been under scrutiny. The Email, signed only by "ACS insider," was sent to college librarians, ACS administrators, and a science writing listserv. It said that the ACS is growing more corporate in structure and described how it manages the 36 chemical journals under its purview. Among other criticisms, the anonymous emailer wrote that the bonuses given to ACS executives are tied to the profits of the publishing division, and such bonuses explain why the society has had such a strong stance against open-access publishing.'

In 2005, the ACS opposed PubChem, an open access chemical compound database.

Slashdot has covered open access journals numerous times."

Submission + - Google Building Its Own !0 Gig Ethernet Switches (datacenterknowledge.com)

Submitted by

1sockchuck

on Sunday November 18, 2007 @06:22PM

1sockchuck writes: "Google is now building its own energy-efficient 10 Gigabit Ethernet switches for its data centers, expanding its program to use customized software and hardware to improve the power and efficiency of its back-end operations. Google already builds its own servers and power supplies, and uses customized operating system and web server software. Google's switch development was unearthed by analyst Andrew Schmitt, who says that Google's switch development efforts could have a disruptive impact on the market for 10GbE switching equipment. It also explains reports that Google has been hiring staff from Cisco."

Submission + - Cell phone replacements

Submitted by AurigaTarantino on Sunday November 18, 2007 @06:03PM

AurigaTarantino writes: My cell phone recently died and I'm having hell finding a replacement. I really want the same phone I had, but it's semi-out of date. It's a simple EDVO that'll run java and has a metal casing, the Samsung a900 (aka, MM900 or A900-M). I use proprietary java for work, so this is a must.

Sprint's only comparable phone was $249 AFTER contract extention rebate and the local electronic stores wont offer discounts even though my contract expires Dec 1st. With Ebay, the same phone is $87 plus shipping and you run the risk of a bad esn.

Are there any other places (Auction or straight out retail) to replace an older phone? There are tons of places who'll take old phones for charity, but I can't find any that sell them. Help!

Submission + - In The U.S., Email Is Only For Old People (slate.com)

Submitted by

lxw56

on Saturday November 17, 2007 @03:04PM

lxw56 writes: "Two years after Slashdot was rocked by the theory that Korean young people were rejecting email, Chad Lorenz comes to the same conclusion about the United States."

Submission + - JBoss sales data reveals secrets of its success (cnet.com)

Submitted by

mjasay

on Saturday November 17, 2007 @02:28PM

mjasay writes: "For those who insist that open source only works as a high-volume, low-ASP (Average Sales Price) game, they've obviously never worked for an open-source company. At least, not long enough. As leaked JBoss ASP numbers show, open-source companies like JBoss are rapidly moving beyond departmental implementations (small dollars) to enterprise-wide deployments (big dollars). This is the natural progression for any successful commercial open-source project. Invade the enterprise through free downloads and let the positive experience percolate throughout an enterprise until the CIO pushes a site-wide license. Importantly, it all starts with a website (from which 84% of JBoss' sales leads came) and developers, and the process continues to revolve around writing great code that developers will want, download, and propagate."

Submission + - Journalists Can't Hide News Anymore 2

Submitted by

Hugh Pickens

on Saturday November 17, 2007 @02:09PM

Hugh Pickens writes: "Robert Niles at the Online Journalism Review comments on the story about the 13-year-old girl who took her own life after making friends with a boy she'd met on MySpace who turned on her. The boy didn't exist. 'He' was the creation of the mother of one of the girl's former friends. But the newspaper didn't name the woman, citing concerns for *her* teen daughter. Bloggers went nuts, and soon uncovered the woman's name, her address, phone number and business registration records and plastered them all over the Web. "The lessons for journalists? First, we can't restrict access to information anymore. The crowd will work together to find whatever we withhold," wrote Niles. "Second, I wonder if that the decision to withhold the other mother's name didn't help enflame the audience, by frustrating it and provoking it to do the work of discovering her identity." Here are links to the original story on the girl's suicide, to one of the bloggers who uncovered the woman's identity, and to another look at the journalistic issues involved in naming names."

Submission + - Can Closed Source Be Legally Blended With GPL?

Submitted by

ir0b0t

on Saturday November 17, 2007 @12:49PM

ir0b0t writes: "Using a GPL license with closed source code should mean that the modified code is also GPL. But this guy, ptang ptang olay biscuit barrel, says no. Closed source code *can* sometimes legally be combined with GPL code without resulting in GPL code. I happen to disagree, but I heard he's a lawyer and a coder and that he ought to know. :) Here's the link."

Submission + - MIT Students Show How the Inca Leapt Canyons

Submitted by

PCOL

on Saturday November 17, 2007 @12:27PM

PCOL writes: "When Conquistadors came to Peru from Spain in 1532, they were astonished to see Inca suspension bridges achieve clear spans of at least 150 feet at a time when the longest Roman bridge in Spain had a maximum span of 95 feet. The bridges swayed under the weight of traffic terrifying the Spanish and their horses, even though, as one Spaniard observed, they were almost as "sturdy as the street of Seville." To build the bridges, thick cables were pulled across a river with small ropes and attached to stone abutments on each side. Three of the big cables served as the floor of the bridge, two others served as handrails and pieces of wood were tied to the cable floor before the floor was strewn with branches to give firm footing for beasts of burden. Earlier this year students at MIT built a 70-foot fiber bridge in the style of the Incan Empire. The project used sisal twine from the Yucatan Peninsula and anchored it by wrapping it around massive concrete blocks. The weekend's burst of activity was preceded by 360 hours of rope-twisting as the 50 miles of sisal twine was turned into rope. Working together as a group was part of the exercise. "A third of the time was spent learning to work together," one of the students said. "But after a while, we were banging those cables out.""

Submission + - Star Trek Home Theater (slashfilm.com)

Submitted by

Critical Facilities

on Saturday November 17, 2007 @12:12PM

Critical Facilities writes: "I stumbled across this story which should make any "Star Trek: The Next Generation" fan drool uncontrollably with envy. From TFA:

Someone thought it would be a good idea to model their home theater after the Enterprise NCC-1701D from Star Trek: The Next Generation. The result is super geeky, but actually rather cool. Named the best theme theater installation at CEDIA 2007, this Palm Beach County, FL home features motion-activated air-lock doors with series sound effects, and a "Red Alert" button on the Crestron TPMC-10 controller to turn all of the LEDs bright red and flashing.
I'm just interested as to whether or not the bartender has to dress like Guinan and if Starfleet Uniforms are required for access."

Submission + - India enters the supercomputing race

Submitted by fermat on Tuesday November 13, 2007 @06:57PM

fermat writes: India has entered the super computing race with its very own EKA (meaning "One" in Sanskrit).It is ranked 4th fastest in the world and is the fastest in Asia with a peak performance of 170 teraflops. It was built in the Indian city of Pune by Computational Research Laboratories in collaboration with HP. CRL is owned by Tata Sons,a large business conglomerate with over $21 billion in revenue.

Submission + - A First Look At The 45nm Intel Penryn (techwarelabs.com)

Submitted by

Techwarelabs

on Tuesday November 13, 2007 @04:41PM

Techwarelabs writes: "TechwareLabs has a first look at the new Intel 45nm Penryn Processor complete with screenshots and a preliminary benchmark. The mobile Penryn chip is faster than a pair of dual Xeon 5150 server cpu's due to several enhancements including Intels new high-k transistor material based on Hafnium. Intel has kept to its release of a new processor every 2 years and feels that the new high-k transistor material will assist it in keeping up with Moore's Law."

Submission + - Website helps fans takeover soccer club

Submitted by Stony Stevenson on Tuesday November 13, 2007 @04:26PM

Stony Stevenson writes: Soccer fans are set to share ownership of English minor league club Ebbsfleet United after a deal was reached in principle for a 700,000 pounds (US$1.45 million) takeover. Each of the 20,000 fans paid 35 pounds (US$72.42) to community Web site MyFootballClub.co.uk, set up earlier this year to help fans purchase a club of their choosing. If the takeover satisfies the process of due diligence the fans, who between them will own 51 percent of the club, will effectively be allowed to make decisions on all club matters, including transfers and team selection.

Submission + - WestWorld? S. Korea to build robot theme parks (networkworld.com)

Submitted by

coondoggie

on Tuesday November 13, 2007 @04:08PM

coondoggie writes: "Call it WestWorld Lives! South Korea officials today said they hope to build two robot theme parks for $1.6 billion by 2013. The parks will feature a number of attractions that let visitors interact with robots and test new products. "The two cities will be developed as meccas for the country's robot industry, while having amusement park areas, exhibition halls and stadiums where robots can compete in various events," the ministry said. The theme parks are not a big surprise because South Korea loves its robots. Earlier this year the government of South Korea said it was drawing up a code of ethics to prevent human abuse of robots — and vice versa. http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/21867"

Submission + - Wall Street Journal Going Free

Submitted by

Hugh Pickens

on Tuesday November 13, 2007 @03:38PM

Hugh Pickens writes: "Rupert Murdoch announced today that he intends to make access to the Wall Street Journal's Web site free, trading subscription fees for anticipated ad revenue. Murdoch's News Corporation has signed an agreement to acquire Dow Jones & Company and the deal is expected to close by the end of the year. The WSJ web site, one of the few news sites to successfully introduce a subscription model, currently has around one million subscribers and generates about $50 million annually in user fees. Murdoch made his decision as paid circulation at major newspapers in the United States continued to decline this year with readership at 609 papers that filed on Sunday falling 3.5% to 46,771,486. With their business model under extreme pressure, publishers have been whittling back on circulation considered to be less useful by advertisers and increasing their internet presence because ad revenue has been increasing. Online advertising now accounts for an average 5.5% of newspapers' total ad revenue and online profits margins have been skyrocketing worldwide with revenue projected to hit 10% of newspapers' total ad revenue by 2008-2009."

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