Comment Patentability? (Score 1) 285
It should have been a no-brainer very early on in the process that reproduction is "obvious to a person skilled in the art."
Submission + - 70 Expert Ideas for Better CSS Coding
Patrick Griffin writes: CSS isn't always easy to deal with. Depending on your skills and your experience, CSS coding can sometimes become a nightmare, particularly if you aren't sure which selectors are actually being applied to document elements. The article 70 Expert Ideas for Better CSS Coding includes over 70 expert tips, which can improve your efficiency of CSS coding. It also has most interesting and useful CSS ideas, methods, techniques and coding solutions as well as basic techniques you can probably use in every project you are developing, but which are hard to find once you need them.
Submission + - Free X and Mesa drivers for new Intel 965GM chip
keithp writes: "The Intel Open Source Technology Center graphics team is pleased to announce the availability of free software drivers for the recently released Intel® 965GM Express Chipset family mobile graphics controller. These drivers include support for 2D and 3D graphics features for the mobile version of the newest generation Intel graphics architecture.
The Intel® 965GM Express Chipset represents the first mobile product that implements fourth generation Intel graphics architecture. Designed to support advanced rendering features in modern graphics APIs, this chipset includes support for programmable vertex, geometry, and fragment shaders.
Extending Intel's commitment to work with the X.org and Mesa communities to continuously improve and enhance the drivers, support for this new chipset is provided through the X.org 2.0 Intel driver and the Mesa 6.5.3 releases. These drivers represent significant work by both Intel and the broader open source community.
In addition to Intel® 965GM chipset support, the X.org 2.0 driver adds native video mode programming support for all chipsets from i830 forward. The driver supports automatic video mode detection and selection, monitor hot plug, dynamic extended and merged desktops and per-monitor screen rotation. These Intel-developed features are built in to the X.org 1.3 X server release and will eventually be supported across most of the open source X.org video drivers.
Additional information available at the Intel Linux Graphics web site.
The Intel® 965GM Express Chipset represents the first mobile product that implements fourth generation Intel graphics architecture. Designed to support advanced rendering features in modern graphics APIs, this chipset includes support for programmable vertex, geometry, and fragment shaders.
Extending Intel's commitment to work with the X.org and Mesa communities to continuously improve and enhance the drivers, support for this new chipset is provided through the X.org 2.0 Intel driver and the Mesa 6.5.3 releases. These drivers represent significant work by both Intel and the broader open source community.
In addition to Intel® 965GM chipset support, the X.org 2.0 driver adds native video mode programming support for all chipsets from i830 forward. The driver supports automatic video mode detection and selection, monitor hot plug, dynamic extended and merged desktops and per-monitor screen rotation. These Intel-developed features are built in to the X.org 1.3 X server release and will eventually be supported across most of the open source X.org video drivers.
Additional information available at the Intel Linux Graphics web site.
"Intel's committment to providing high-quality drivers that meet the needs of the mobile Linux community is second to none.
Matthew Garrett, Ubuntu Mobile Linux Engineer
Submission + - Answers from Steve Jobs at Apple's Shareholder Mee
DECS writes: Answers from Steve Jobs at Apple's Shareholder Meeting: At today's Apple annual shareholder meeting, a series of proposals were presented for voting after which CEO Steve Jobs answered a series of questions from the audience. Jobs talked about Greenpeace, stock options, the iPhone, Mac OS X Leopard, and .Mac.
Submission + - New Centrino Tech Headed for Desktops, Too
scott3778 writes: PCMag.com is running a story about how Intel's new Centrino mobile technology is also being used in small form factor desktop PCs as well. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2128536,00.as p
Submission + - Verizon's comical launch
Jeff writes: "Verizon Wireless has launched AMA's Comic Creator, an app that allows customers to create their own personalised comics and send them to other consumers.
Comic Creator was developed by AMA's partner Longtail Studios. It lets Verizon's Get It Now subscribers write their own story and choose from a variety of backgrounds, settings and characters. The accompanying messaging technology helps them find friends' phone numbers from within the application.
Christian Guillemot, president and CEO of Advanced Mobile Applications, said: "Get It Now service provides AMA with the ability to leverage the enormous adoption of consumer generated content, and bring that to mobile phones."
David Oberholzer, associate director of messaging content programming for Verizon Wireless, added: "Comic Creator is wild. It's hysterically funny. You have to try it to understand it, but it capitalises on customers' desire to extend the communication capabilities of their phones and connect with friends and family in creative, alternate ways."
Comic Creator costs $3.99 for monthly access, which allows users to send up to 20 comics to mobiles and an unlimited number to e-mail recipients."
Submission + - James Doohan lost in New Mexico
Cervantes writes: As previously reported on Slashdot, the ashes of James "Scotty" Doohan were launched into space (well, sub-orbital altitude). Now, it seems Scotty has gone for one last camping trip in the mountains. Space.com is reporting that the rocket came back to earth and is now lost in the mountains of New Mexico. Keep an eye on eBay for word of the ashes recovery...
Submission + - Google search by employer not illegal, say judges
An anonymous reader writes: A court of appeals for the federal circuit has upheld a ruling (PDF) against a man who sued his former employer for Googling his name before firing him. He had accused his former employer of participating in "ex parte" communications — off-the-record communications that are used to play a part in the final outcome of a decision — that ultimately affected the decision to fire him from his job. However, the three-judge panel ruled that an ex parte communication did not occur in the case when the employer used Google.
The man in question, David Mullins, was a government employee at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Weather Forecast Office in Indianapolis, IN. Through a series of events, Mullins' employer found that he had misused his government vehicle and government funds for his own purposes — such as sleeping in his car and falsifying hotel documents to receive reimbursements, withdrawing unauthorized amounts of cash from the company card, traveling to destinations sometimes hundreds of miles away from where he was supposed to be (and using his company card to fill up on gas there), and spending company time to visit friends and/or his children. Mullins' supervisor provided a 23-page document listing 102 separate instances of misconduct.
Mullins took issue with a Google search that Capell performed just before authorizing his firing. During this Google search, Capell found that Mullins had been fired from his previous job at the Smithsonian Institution and had been removed from Federal Service by the Air Force. Mullins argued that his right to fundamental fairness was violated when Capell performed the search and that she committed perjury when she stated that the search did not influence her decision to fire him.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070510-goog le-search-by-employer-not-illegal-say-judges.html
The man in question, David Mullins, was a government employee at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Weather Forecast Office in Indianapolis, IN. Through a series of events, Mullins' employer found that he had misused his government vehicle and government funds for his own purposes — such as sleeping in his car and falsifying hotel documents to receive reimbursements, withdrawing unauthorized amounts of cash from the company card, traveling to destinations sometimes hundreds of miles away from where he was supposed to be (and using his company card to fill up on gas there), and spending company time to visit friends and/or his children. Mullins' supervisor provided a 23-page document listing 102 separate instances of misconduct.
Mullins took issue with a Google search that Capell performed just before authorizing his firing. During this Google search, Capell found that Mullins had been fired from his previous job at the Smithsonian Institution and had been removed from Federal Service by the Air Force. Mullins argued that his right to fundamental fairness was violated when Capell performed the search and that she committed perjury when she stated that the search did not influence her decision to fire him.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070510-goo
Submission + - Exhibitionist gets Paintballed World Wide
Venan writes: "A gentleman by the name of Wafaa Bilal started an online exhibition entitled "Domestic Tension" on May 4th, confining himself to a room with a web rigged paint ball gun in order to raise awareness of life in current Iraq. Yes, he does get shot."
Shredded Secret Police Files Being Reassembled 222
An anonymous reader writes "German researchers at the Frauenhofer Institute said Wednesday that they were launching an attempt to reassemble millions of shredded East German secret police files using complicated computerized algorithms. The files were shredded as the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and it became clear that the East German regime was finished. Panicking officials of the Stasi secret police attempted to destroy the vast volumes of material they had kept on everyone from their own citizens to foreign leaders."
Big Red Button Disasters? 508
FredDC asks: "The Daily WTF has a story about a Big Red Button disaster. What Big Red Button disasters have you experienced? Which ones have you caused? Are there any that you've heard about, or do you know of any that can happen any day now?"
Lucas To Make New Live Action Star Wars Films 371
DrNASA writes "George Lucas says that he will make two more live-action films based in the "Star Wars" era.
"But they won't have members of the Skywalker family as characters," he said."
