42Penguins - Slashdot User

Submission + - Jack Valenti died today.

Submitted by Derek Pomery on Thursday April 26, 2007 @08:49PM

Derek Pomery writes: Jack Valenti dies from stroke complications. Valenti had a stroke in March and was hospitalized for several weeks at Johns Hopkins University Medical Center in Baltimore. He died of complications from the stroke at his Washington, D.C.

Submission + - Google paper on disk reliability

Submitted by oski4410 on Saturday February 17, 2007 @09:56PM

oski4410 writes: The Google engineers just published a paper on Failure Trends in a Large Disk Drive Population. Based on a study of 100,000 disk drives over 5 years they find some interesting stuff. To quote from the abstract:

"Our analysis identifies several parameters from the drive's self monitoring facility (SMART) that correlate highly with failures. Despite this high correlation, we conclude that models based on SMART parameters alone are unlikely to be useful for predicting individual drive failures. Surprisingly, we found that temperature and activity levels were much less correlated with drive failures than previously reported."

Submission + - Google Auto-Suggests Social Security Number

Submitted by

Dotnaught

on Monday January 22, 2007 @06:46PM

Dotnaught writes: "In a story about Google's recent security lapse with its anti-phishing blacklist, InformationWeek reports some odd behavior from the Google Toolbar. "Entering two keywords related to Social Security numbers — call them 'x' and 'y' so as not to compound the problem — into the Google Toolbar will produce a keyword search suggestion in the form 'x y John Doe.' Selecting the suggested search terms and name, as might be expected, generates a search results page with the named person's Social Security number. A spokesperson for Google said the company's engineers didn't have an immediate explanation for the auto-generated suggestion, that it was probably an aberration and that the suggestion would likely be removed.""

Submission + - iTunes DRM called out by France and Germany

Submitted by

Aryabhata

on Monday January 22, 2007 @06:44PM

Aryabhata writes: "Apple is being challenged once again to open up its DRM by consumer groups in Europe. This time, Germany and France have joined the slowly-growing number of countries who are asking Apple to allow the protected songs purchased from the iTunes Store to be played on other music players besides the iPod."

Submission + - Scientits Say Don't Ignore Geothermal

Submitted by anthemaniac on Monday January 22, 2007 @06:23PM

anthemaniac writes: Geothermal energy is overlooked as a cost-effective and clean supply of energy and could be the source of 10 percent of our electricity needs by 2050, MIT researchers say. From the article: 'Unlike conventional power plants that burn coal, natural gas or oil, no fuel is required. And unlike solar power, a geothermal plant draws energy night and day.' Declining oil prices in the mid-80s slowed interest in geothermal, but it's time to take another look, the researchers say.

Pentium 4 631 Overclocked to 8 GHz 271

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday January 22, 2007 @06:15PM from the smokin dept.

Andreas writes "There are always those who are willing to take things one step further than others. A group of guys known as OC Team Italy is one of them. They recently pushed an Intel Pentium 4 631 to over 8000MHz using an ASUS P5B with modified voltage regulation and liquid nitrogen. Overclocking is cool and all, but this extends beyond what some would perhaps call useful. Still a milestone though."

Submission + - Food Network using subliminal advertising?

Submitted by

spoco2

on Monday January 22, 2007 @06:05PM

spoco2 writes: "Is the Food Network using subliminal advertising now? From the always interesting Something Awful forums comes this interesting nugget:

"I was sitting around waiting for Battlestar Galactica this evening watching Iron Chef America. I had seen the commercials for tonight's episode, and it looked neat so I set it up to record. Towards the end, when they're going over the iron chef and the challenger's entries a McDonalds logo popped up for a single frame."
There's a video of the offending portion."

Submission + - Free music to college students

Submitted by vindimy on Monday January 22, 2007 @04:35PM

vindimy writes: news.com.com reports that

In one more attempt to counter music piracy, major music labels have agreed to support a service that will offer free music downloads — with some substantial restrictions — to any college student.
The service, from Ruckus Network, will be supported by advertising on its Web site and on the software used to download and play songs. The four major record labels and several independent labels have agreed to license their music to Ruckus at lower rates than they charge other mass-market music services on the theory that college students would rather steal songs than pay the $10 to $15 a month that such services normally charge.

Questions arise, how likely are students to use the free but DRM-guarded service? Is the music industry finally making steps toward gaining peace with its young audience? Do we have the next free sharing killer app?

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