Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Advertising

Adobe Calls Out Apple With Ads In NY Times, WSJ 731

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i-support-ad-wars dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Businessweek reports that Adobe has taken out newspaper advertisements in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times today and posted an open letter to call out the tablet-computer maker for stifling competition. 'We believe that consumers should be able to freely access their favorite content and applications, regardless of what computer they have, what browser they like, or what device suits their needs,' the letter states. 'No company — no matter how big or how creative — should dictate what you can create, how you create it, or what you can experience on the web.' The letter is part of a widening rift between Apple and Adobe. Two weeks ago, Apple Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs wrote a 29-paragraph public missive panning Adobe's Flash as having 'major technical drawbacks.' US antitrust enforcers also may investigate Apple following a complaint from Adobe, people familiar with the matter said this month. Adobe has also launched a banner ad campaign to let you know that they love Apple. The two-piece banner ads are composed of a 720x90-pixel 'We [heart] Apple' design, followed by a 300x250-pixel medium rectangle that reads: 'What we don't love is anybody taking away your freedom to choose what you create, how you create it, and what you experience on the web.'"
Businesses

How To Behave At a Software Company? 842

Posted by timothy from the answer-may-vary-with-stock-ticker dept.
dawilcox writes "I'm a recent grad and am going to begin work at a software company. I want to make a good impression on my boss and coworkers. I know that performance is usually tracked, but there are also innate personality traits of good software developers that bosses just want to have around. What are those personality traits? What should I be trying to do in order to make a good impression on the people at my work?" (Appropriate side question: What behavior traits would you like your co-workers to exhibit?)
Google

Adobe Flash Now Officially a Part of Google Chrome 168

Posted by CmdrTaco from the flash-in-the-pan dept.
MacGene noted that Google has announced plans to include Flash with Chrome. This step will make Chrome easier for Mom & Pop to use, but comes with a host of issues that have been discussed here before. I expect them to announce Silverlight Thursday.
Government

Study Says OOXML Unsuitable For Norwegian Government 145

Posted by kdawson from the party-like-it's-1997 dept.
angry tapir writes "Microsoft's XML-based office document format, OOXML, does not meet the requirements for governmental use, according to a new report published by the Norwegian Agency for Public Management and eGovernment (DIFI). The agency wants to start a debate over the report as part of its work on standards in the Norwegian government. (As we discussed a week ago, Denmark has already decided to choose ODF over OOXML.)"
The Internet

Russian Whistleblower Cop Arrested 199

Posted by kdawson from the predicted-it-himself dept.
Remember the Russian cop's YouTube narrative on police corruption? Reader Max_W writes with the news that Alexei Dymovsky, the cop whose videos started a movement, was arrested (Google translation; Russian original) on January 22, 2010. He is in prison in the south of Russia. Max_W adds: "It seems only a president is allowed to have a video blog in Russia."
Censorship

PayPal Freezes the Assets of Wikileaks.org 403

Posted by kdawson from the thought-money-was-speech dept.
matsh sends word that PayPal has frozen the assets of wikileaks.org. From their Web site: "Paypal has as of 23rd of January 2010 frozen WikiLeaks assets. This is the second time that this happens. The last time we struggled for more than half a year to resolve this issue. By working with the respected and recognized German foundation Wau Holland Stiftung we tried to avoid this from happening again — apparently without avail." The submitter adds: "Hopefully we can pressure PayPal to resolve this quickly, since this seems like a dangerous political decision."
Spam

By Latest Count, 95% of Email Is Spam 198

Posted by timothy from the much-of-the-rest-might-as-well-be dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The European Network and Information Security Agency released its new spam report, which looks at spam budgets, the impact of spam and spam management. Less than 5% of all email traffic is delivered to mailboxes. This means the main bulk of mails, 95%, is spam. This is a very minor change, from 6%, in earlier ENISA reports. Over 25% of respondents had spam accounting for more than 10% of help desk calls. The survey targeted email service providers of different types and sizes, and received replies from 100 respondents from 30 different countries."
Music

Judge Lowers Jammie Thomas' Damages to $54,000 390

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the no-resolution-in-sight dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Judge Michael Davis has slashed the amount Jammie Thomas-Rassett is said to owe Big Music from almost $2,000,000 to $54,000. 'The need for deterrence cannot justify a $2 million verdict for stealing and illegally distributing 24 songs for the sole purpose of obtaining free music. Moreover, although Plaintiffs were not required to prove their actual damages, statutory damages must still bear some relation to actual damages.' The full decision (PDF) is also available."
Government

US Blocking Costa Rican Sugar Trade To Force IP Laws 441

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the if-you-can't-beat-em-squeeze-harder dept.
For the last couple of days news has been trickling in about how the US is trying to ram IP laws down Costa Rica's throat by blocking their access to the US sugar market. Techdirt has a good summary of the various commentaries and a related scoop in the Bahamas where the US is also applying IP pressure. "The first is in Costa Rica, which is included in the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). Yet like with other free trade agreements that the US has agreed to elsewhere, this one includes draconian intellectual property law requirements. I still cannot understand why intellectual monopoly protectionism — the exact opposite of 'free trade' — gets included in free trade agreements. At least in Costa Rica, a lot of people started protesting these rules, pointing out that it would be harmful for the economy, for education and for healthcare. So the Costa Rican government has not moved forward with such laws. How has the US responded? It's blocking access to the US market of Costa Rican sugar until Costa Rica approves new copyright laws."
America Online

Does a Lame E-Mail Address Really Matter? 1049

Posted by kdawson from the america's-oldest-luddites dept.
theodp writes "Over at the Chicago Tribune, freelance writer Nancy Anderson makes an embarrassing confession. It's 2010 and she still has an AOL e-mail address. 'You've got to get rid of that AOL address,' her publicist sister told her five years ago. 'It's bad for your image.' Image, shmimage, Anderson thought. 'If I do good work,' she asks, 'does my e-mail address really matter?' Good question. Would an AOL e-mail address — or another 'toxic' e-mail address — influence your decision to hire someone?"
Businesses

Netflix Will Delay Renting New WB Releases 418

Posted by kdawson from the times-they-are-a-changin' dept.
DesertBlade tips the news that Netflix will delay renting new releases from Warner Brothers for 28 days, and adds "Luckily I am so far behind in my movie watching that I will probably never catch up anyway." "It's part of a strategy by several studios to create staggered releases of DVDs so that the most profitable transactions are available first and cheaper rental options take effect further down the road. The move could be copied by other studios, forcing consumers to wait nearly a month if they want to rent popular movies from Netflix. ... The studio is hoping that the four-week window will push consumers interested in watching movies at home to buy the DVDs or pay a premium to rent them from stores like Blockbuster or from Internet and cable video-on-demand services. Warner Bros. already imposes a 28-day window on $1-a-night kiosk firm Redbox."
Social Networks

Jaron Lanier Rants Against the World of Web 2.0 231

Posted by timothy from the cue-up-disinterested-erudite-analysis dept.
hao3 writes "In his new book, You Are Not A Gadget, former Wired writer Jaron Lanier bemoans what the internet has become. 'It's early in the twenty-first century, and that means that these words will mostly be read by nonpersons,' it begins. The words will be 'minced into anatomized search engine keywords,' then 'copied millions of times by some algorithm somewhere designed to send an advertisement,' and then, in a final insult, 'scanned, rehashed, and misrepresented by crowds of quick and sloppy readers.' Lanier's conclusion: 'Real human eyes will read these words in only a tiny minority of the cases.' He goes on to criticise Google, Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter, open-source software and what he calls the 'hive mind.'"
GNU is Not Unix

GNU Emacs Switches From CVS To Bazaar 198

Posted by timothy from the surely-you-need-not-leave-emacs-to-use-bazaar dept.
kfogel writes "GNU Emacs, one of the oldest continuously developed free software projects around, has switched from CVS to Bazaar. Emacs's first recorded version-control commits date from August, 1985. Eight years later, in 1993, it moved to CVS. Sixteen years later, it is switching to Bazaar, its first time in a decentralized version control system. If this pattern holds, GNU Emacs will be in Bazaar for at least thirty-two years ..."
Education

How To Teach a 12-Year-Old To Program? 799

Posted by timothy from the hypnotherapy-might-work dept.
thelordx writes "I've got a much younger brother who I'd like to teach how to program. When I was younger, you'd often start off with something like BASIC or Apple BASIC, maybe move on to Pascal, and eventually get to C and Java. Is something like Pascal still a dominant teaching language? I'd love to get low-level with him, and I firmly believe that C is the best language to eventually learn, but I'm not sure how to get him there. Can anyone recommend a language I can start to teach him that is simple enough to learn quickly, but powerful enough to do interesting things and lead him down a path towards C/C++?"

Slashdot Top Deals

For God's sake, stop researching for a while and begin to think!

Close