rhinoX - Slashdot User

Are You Being Cheated by Digital Cable? 291

Posted by Zonk on Saturday September 15, 2007 @11:22PM from the every-bill dept.

Lauren Weinstein writes "Even though your cable company may claim that a channel is in a digital tier that you're paying for, they may be sending it to you in analog form, with associated negative effects. Surprise! Are You Being Cheated by Digital Cable? 'You're paying for digital, you should get digital. Outside of the lower video and audio quality that can be present on many analog feeds, third-party devices (like cableCARD TiVos) which could otherwise record a digital signal directly, will be forced to re-digitize an analog signal, with inevitable quality loss in the process. But how to know for sure if a channel is digital or analog as received?'"

PC Superstore Admits Linux Hinge Repair Mistake 193

Posted by Zonk on Saturday September 15, 2007 @09:29PM from the there-are-some-happy-endings-after-all dept.

Erris writes "PC Superstore says their store manager was wrong to turn away a client with a broken hinge whose machine should have been repaired. 'El Reg put a call in to the DSGi-owned retail giant to get some clarification on PC World's Linux support policy. A spokesman told us that there had simply been a misunderstanding at the store and that, in fact, the normal procedure would be for the Tech Guys to provide a fix. [PC World] will provide a full repair once the firm has made contact with Tikka.'

Radiation Absorbing Mineral Found In the Arctic 351

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday September 07, 2007 @03:41PM from the the-power-of-suck dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A mineral has recently been found that exhibits the astounding property of being able to remove radiation from water-based solutions. 'After coming into contact with the mineral, radioactive water becomes completely safe. Had this mineral been available to physicists after the Chernobyl or Three Mile Island disasters, the consequences might have been very different, as both accidents resulted in contamination from radioactive water.' Also, the article notes that although only grams of the material have been found, tons of it are needed; they are confident they could artificially reproduce it."

Google Geek's Photos of the Famous 98

Posted by kdawson on Saturday September 01, 2007 @02:40PM from the bugs-bunny-smile dept.

kiracatgirl writes "The NYTimes has a fun story about a relatively unknown Google employee and his hobby — taking photographs of himself with famous visitors to Google's headquarters. Tan Chade-Meng 'is a household name only in his own household,' but his gallery is posted on the walls at Google HQ. It's also available for our viewing pleasure at his Picassa photo album."

DMCA Means You Can't Delete Files On Your PC? 511

Posted by kdawson on Monday August 20, 2007 @11:39PM from the heck-of-a-way-to-apply-for-a-job dept.

DragonHawk writes "According to Wired, John Stottlemire found a way to print duplicate coupons from Coupons.com by deleting some files and registry entires on his PC. Now he's being sued for a DMCA violation. He says, 'All I did was erase files or registry keys.' Says a lawyer: '[The DMCA] may cover this. I think it does give companies a lot of leverage and a lot of power.' So now the copyright cartels are saying that not only can we not copy things on our computers, but we can't delete things on our computers? Time to buy stock in Seagate."

Public Discussion Opened on Space Solar Power 195

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday July 25, 2007 @03:36PM from the armchair-influence dept.

eldavojohn writes "The National Security Space Office (NSSO), an office of the DoD, has taken a novel approach to a study they are doing on space based solar power. They've opened a public forum for it and are interested in anyone and everyone's expertise, experience and ideas on the best means to harvest energy in space. I suppose this is similar to the DoD's $1 million for an energy pack just without the award. Still, if you want to have an influence on the US's plans in space, this would be an easy armchair place to start. Space.com also has more on the details."

Linux (Car) Crashes At Indy 500 244

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday May 29, 2007 @04:14PM from the tux-and-rolls dept.

thanksforthecrabs writes to let us know that the Linux-sponsored Indy 500 car had a rough day at the track this weekend: it was the first car to crash on the track and finished dead last. Joost sponsored a car that came in a respectable seventh.

The Downide of Your ISP Turning to Gmail 266

Posted by kdawson on Monday May 21, 2007 @12:26AM from the Google-Apps-Partner-Edition dept.

SlinkySausage writes "Google is offering ISPs the opportunity to turn over their entire email operation to Google, with all customer email hosted as Gmail accounts. This would allow Google to grow its user base rapidly (Google is a distant third with 51M users compared to Yahoo's 250M and Hotmail's 228M). There are some obvious benefits to end users — Google is offering ISPs mailboxes of up to 10GB per user. APCMag.com has posted an interesting piece looking at the dark side of Google's offer. Not least is in its reinforcing of the attachment people have to their ISP's email address, making it harder to change ISPs if a better deal comes along."

First R600 Review - The Radeon HD 2900XT 157

Posted by Zonk on Sunday May 13, 2007 @04:33PM from the tech-drool dept.

mrneutron2004 writes "Tweaktown seems to have the first review out of the gate on AMD's flagship R600 core. 'Our focus today is solely on the HD 2900 XT 512MB GDDR-3 graphics card – it is the first GPU with a fast 512-bit memory interface but what does this mean for performance? ... After taking a look at the GPU and the card from PowerColor as well as some new Ruby DX10 screenshots, we will move onto the benchmarks and compare the red hot flaming Radeon monster against Nvidia's GeForce 8800 GTX along with the former ATI GPU king, the Radeon X1950 XTX."

Australian Teachers Try To Shut Down Website 441

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday May 02, 2007 @11:51PM from the teachers-leave-them-kids-alone dept.

DeathElk writes "New South Wales teachers are attempting to have a website based in the United States closed down due to "defamatory" content. The site in question encourages students to rate teachers at their school, which obviously results in some colorful content. Now the story has hit the media, with some insightful quotes such as "The president of the NSW Secondary Principals Council, Jim McAlpine, said the Federal Government should block access to 'scurrilous American websites'."

Tax Accounting Evil at Google? 261

Posted by CowboyNeal on Saturday March 03, 2007 @01:32PM from the passing-the-bucks dept.

theodp writes "In its annual report, Google said it's done no tax-accounting evil, but the search giant acknowledged that both the IRS and SEC are taking a look at the way in which it accounts for income tax. Google is one of a number of U.S. companies that have come under fire for allegedly practicing 'profit laundering', i.e., moving book profits offshore to evade millions and even billions in taxes to the country where it really operates. In past SEC filings, Google has credited its Irish subsidiary for reducing its effective tax rate."

Consumer Revolt Spurred Via the Internet 309

Posted by Zonk on Friday February 23, 2007 @11:31AM from the power-to-the-pocketbook dept.

sas-dot writes "UK's newspaper Independent outlines the brewing consumer revolt being fomented on the web. 'Consumer militancy' is becoming ever more common, as individuals join forces on the internet to fight back against the state and big business. Businesses from banks to soccer clubs have been the target of these groups, in each case facing the fury of consumers who feel they have been wronged. For example, 'A mass revolt has left the high street banks facing thousands of claims from customers seeking to claw back some of the £4.75bn levied annually on charges for overdrafts and bounced cheques. More than one million forms demanding refunds have been downloaded from a number of consumer websites. The banks are settling out of court, often paying £1,000 a time.' Are these kinds of organized 'advocate mobs' going to be the future of internet activism?"

Microsoft Apologizes for Serving Malware 171

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday February 21, 2007 @02:30PM from the caught-sneaking-one-by dept.

dark_15 writes "Microsoft has apologized for serving malware via its websites and Windows Live Messenger software. APC reader Jackie Murphy reported the problem: 'With Microsoft launching Vista along with their Defender software to protect users from viruses and spyware, it seems therefore to be an oxymoron that they have started to putting paid changing banner advertisements for malware, on the popular MSN groups servers.'"

Some Hope During Registerfly's Meltdown 123

Posted by kdawson on Monday February 19, 2007 @10:41PM from the back-doors dept.

hookmeister writes "If you registered your domain at Registerfly.com, then you should know it may be locked, and you are at the moment unable to access it through Registerfly's website (video). You may even be unable to renew your domain because it has expired into a status known as 'redemption' through no fault of your own. By all accounts there are just under 2 million domains at risk here. Enom dumped them as a reseller; their SSL cert has expired; it's a mess. Fortunately the principals in this are trying to restore order. The external website registerflies.com, originally crafted as a gripe-zone and forum for Registerfly users, has gotten inside the ranks of the post-shakup Registerfly management, made some friends and connections, and is creating a back-door problem-reporting form that goes directly to those who can correct a domain problem. The official Registerfly support ticketing system remains clogged with thousands of unanswered complaints."

$25M Bounty Offered for Global Warming Fix 766

Posted by Zonk on Friday February 09, 2007 @05:39PM from the bring-me-the-head-of-global-warming dept.

SaDan writes "Richard Branson is offering $25M as a bounty for a fix to global warming. The person or organization that can devise a method to remove at least a billion tons of carbon dioxide a year from the atmosphere will be able to claim the bounty. There are a few catches, of course. There can't be any negative impact on the environment, and the payment will come in chunks. A 5 million dollar payout will be paid when the system is put into place with the remainder of the bounty to be paid after 10 years of continuous use."

Slashdot Top Deals