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Feed MS launches 'unlimited potential' campaign (theregister.com)

From feed by registerfeed
The big picture on the 'next five billion'

Comment Microsoft has announced its Unlimited Potential campaign - with a sub headline of "The Next Five Billion". This number points to the number of people as yet untouched by general computer technology, with only around 1.2 billion people on the planet currently having such technology available to them.
Patents

Linked List Patented in 2006 477

Posted by Hemos from the good-thing-that's-protected-now-as-well dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Congratulations are in order to Ming-Jen Wang of LSI Logic Corporation who, in patent #10260471 managed to invent the linked list. From the abstract, "A computerized list is provided with auxiliary pointers for traversing the list in different sequences. One or more auxiliary pointers enable a fast, sequential traversal of the list with a minimum of computational time. Such lists may be used in any application where lists may be reordered for various purposes." Good-bye doubly linked list. We should also give praise to the extensive patent review performed by Cochran Freund & Young LLP."
Links

Submission + - NanoVox

Submitted by
hlovy
hlovy writes: "Nanotechnology voices: My favorite comments, of course, come from the children. Enjoy."
Security

Submission + - OpenBSD Security Patch Patched

Submitted by whamett
whamett writes: Just days after OpenBSD patched its second-ever remotely exploitable security hole, there's now a new version of the patch. On the one hand, this is a drag, and it's time to patch your systems; on the other hand, you'll still be running one of the most secure operating systems in existence. (And, in case you missed it, there's an informative message from Theo de Raadt responding to Core Security's advisory.)

Submission + - Learning Assembly programming

Submitted by
intelinsight
intelinsight writes: "How relevant or useful is it to learn Assembly programming language in the current era? Consider this question in the lieu of the current s/w development needs and also the claims of the Assembly lovers for it being a language giving one insights of the internal working of a computer."
Java

Submission + - James Gosling: Open source Java will be secure

Submitted by Jay Sami
Jay Sami writes: Java co-inventor James Gosling squashes what he says is a misconception that open source is less secure than proprietary software, pledging that Java will remain secure even after it is fully open source.

In an interview with ZDNet Asia at the recent Sun Tech Days developer conference in Kuala Lumpur, Gosling clears the air about Java and explains why the programming platform is now more user-friendly.
Java

Submission + - Interview - James Gosling, father of Java

Submitted by Minaloush
Minaloush writes: Interesting Q&A with Sun's James Gosling on silicon.com. The father of Java field questions on the GPL, security, the role of Java in the enterprise — and even reveals his — albeit limited — views on Windows Vista ("I tend to stay away from Microsoft [software] because it tends to be so toxic").

From the article:
If you come up with a good software development tool, that makes life easier for the developers and they can get their job done quicker, then the first thing the manager says is 'oh you've got free time on your hands. Do this extra thing'.
Businesses

The Business Case for Open Source Software 158

Posted by Zonk from the exciting-time-to-like-penguins dept.
An anonymous reader writes "An InfoWorld blog entry makes a business case for open source software, and attempts to explain the business benefits of OSS to management and business owners. The primary benefits the piece uses to argue in favor of OSS include no licensing fees, and no license keys. The article also argues that OSS results in freedom from 'ownership' by software vendors. 'Never again will you fear the BSA (Business Software Alliance) knocking on your door wanting to perform a software audit. The BSA even takes out advertisements on Google search pages for and up to $200,000 reward a disgruntled ex-employee can receive for reporting your company to the BSA! That's quite a powerful motivator...'"
Software

Submission + - mnoGoSearch 3.3.1 released

Submitted by
mnoGoSearch team
mnoGoSearch team writes: "The new release of mnoGoSearch Open Source search engine software 3.3.1 is available from mnoGoSearch website. The 3.3.x branch includes numerous improvements and new features, including support for search clusters and better search results quality, with 3.3.1 release adding live index updates, easier configuration for indexing SQL data, and many others."
Programming

Submission + - Writing Ajax applications in real Java

Submitted by
jole
jole writes: "Creating cross-browser Ajax user interfaces is tough if your application is non-trivial. Googles solution (GWT) is to write in Java, convert to javascript and run on browser. IT Mill released today their competing Toolkit that allows you to write applications in (real) Java, run them on server and use them with almost any Ajax compatible browser."
Networking

Submission + - eSATA Connectors

Submitted by buffalocheese
buffalocheese writes: eSATA Connectors Since the introduction of the Serial ATA 1.0a specification in 2002, many manufacturers have introduced PCI and CardBus cards with both internal and external SATA connections. At first these internal and external connectors were completely identical, but later, external connectors started to appear which were still fully compatible with the internal sockets but featured added extra screening for external use. With the introduction of the SATA II specification in mid 2004 a new external SATA connector was defined. These new external (eSATA) connectors are not compatible with the original internal SATA connection. Currently there are add-on cards and drive housings available which feature both types of SATA connection for external use. Gradually the older types will disappear and all new SATA cards will feature the eSATA connector for external drive connections. http://www.lindy.com/uk/tips/uk/eSATA_Connectors/i ndex.php
PlayStation (Games)

Submission + - Driving games make drivers dangerous

Submitted by
kilauea
kilauea writes: "According to this BBC new story, some german scientists are telling us that playing driving games makes you take more risks while "doing the real thing". Sounds fishy to me. For one they state that people who play games are more likely to crash, well we already knew that the demographic here overlaps. Secondly they state they reaction times are a second slower, and there is more than enough science to suggest that playing games will actualy increas your reaction times. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6457353.stm"
Microsoft

Scoble Bites The Hand That Fed Him 178

Posted by Zonk from the define-sucks dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Times Online points out a post that Robert Scoble, former Microsoft blogger, put up on his site recently. In essence, Scoble has moved 180 degrees from his former blogging tone, saying that 'Microsoft Sucks'. More specifically, he is highly critical of Microsoft's online policy. In Scoble's words: 'Microsoft's Internet execution sucks (on whole). Its search sucks. Its advertising sucks (look at that last post again). If that's in it to win then I don't get it. ... Microsoft isn't going away. Don't get me wrong. They have record profits, record sales, all that. But on the Internet? Come on. This isn't winning. Microsoft: stop the talk. Ship a better search, a better advertising system than Google, a better hosting service than Amazon, a better cross-platform Web development ecosystem than Adobe, and get some services out there that are innovative (where's the video RSS reader? Blog search? Something like Yahoo's Pipes? A real blog service? A way to look up people?) That's how you win.'"

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You must realize that the computer has it in for you. The irrefutable proof of this is that the computer always does what you tell it to do.

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