AP2k - Slashdot User

Submission + - Companies Liable for deals with terrorists (darkreading.com)

Submitted by

Dionysius, God of Wine and Leaf,

on Thursday April 24, 2008 @03:21PM

Dionysius, God of Wine and Leaf, writes: "The Red Flag program, which takes effect Nov. 1, requires enterprises to check their customers and suppliers against databases of known online criminals — much like what OFAC does with terrorists — and also carries potential fines and penalties for businesses that don't do their due diligence before making a major transaction.

http://www.darkreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=151872&WT.svl=news1_1

(Soon all transactions will be processed through terrorist databases, just like they use Telecheck to verify checks and credit cards?)"

Submission + - Are C and C++ Losing Ground?

Submitted by

Pickens

on Thursday April 24, 2008 @03:05PM

Pickens writes: "Dr. Dobbs has an interesting interview with Paul Jansen, the managing director of TIOBE Software, about the Programming Community Index that measures the popularity of programming languages by monitoring their web presence. Since the TIOBE index has been published now for more than 6 years, it gives an interesting picture about trends in the area of programming languages. Jansen says that not much has happened in the top ten programming languages in the last five years with only Python entering the top 10, replacing COBOL but that C and C++ are definitely losing ground. "Languages without automated garbage collection are getting out of fashion," says Jansen. "The chance of running into all kinds of memory problems is gradually outweighing the performance penalty you have to pay for garbage collection." On the other hand the winners of the last couple of years have been Visual Basic, Ruby, JavaScript, C#, and D."

Feed Engadget: PS3 to get smaller Cell and/or RSX chips in August? (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed on Monday April 21, 2008 @02:52AM

Filed under: Gaming

Nikko Citigroup upgraded its rating on Sony this morning in anticipation of it breaking even on PS3 costs earlier than expected. At the moment, Sony sells the PS3 at a loss. The respected group of analysts is now earmarking August as the milestone month. Sony's CFO recently suggested that the move would occur in the second half of year -- a date analysts then pegged at November. No details behind the new upbeat expectations were provided by Nikko CG. However, it's safe to assume that the PS3's break-even event will be realized by a switch to a sub-65nm cell processor, sub-90nm RSX graphics chip, or both, since the smaller chips are less-costly to manufacturer.Read|Permalink|Email this|Comments

Feed New York Times: Chip Maker Reports Sixth Loss in a Row (nytimes.com)

From feed by nytfeed on Monday April 21, 2008 @12:53AM

The chip maker Advanced Micro Devices posted its sixth consecutive quarterly loss on Thursday.

Submission + - The end of non-widescreen laptops? 3

Submitted by

Santi Onta&amp;amp;amp;#241;&amp;amp;amp;#

on Sunday April 20, 2008 @08:53PM

Santi Onta&amp;amp;#241;&amp;amp;# writes: "Today Lenovo made me (and most developers out there) misserable...

They just retired the last NON-widescreen laptop they offered (the T61 14.1) from the market, and Lenovo is just an example (Apple, Sony, HP, etc. are the same). I understand the motivation behind all the laptop manufacturers to move to widescreen: they can still advertise that they offer 14.1 or 15.4 screens, but the screen area is smaller, and thus they save more money. Some people might like widescreens (they are useful for some tasks), but any developer knows that vertical space matters! Less vertical space = less lines of code in the screen = more scrolling = less productivity. How can laptop manufacturers still claim that they look after their customers when the move to widescreens is clearly a selfish one? I just wish they offered non-widescreen laptops, even if it were for a plus (that I'd be more than happy to pay)."

Submission + - Feds lie about software piracy, terrorism link (computerworld.com)

Submitted by

Lucas123

on Wednesday April 02, 2008 @11:42AM

Lucas123 writes: "Attorney General Michael Mukasey claims that terrorists sell pirated software as a way to finance their operations, without presenting a shred of evidence for his case. He's doing it to push through a controversial piece of intellectual property legislation that would increase IP penalties, increase police power, set up a new agency to investigate IP theft, and more, according to a Computerworld blog. "Criminal syndicates, and in some cases even terrorist groups, view IP crime as a lucrative business, and see it as a low-risk way to fund other activities," Mukasey told a crowd at the Tech Museum of Innovation last week."

Feed news.com: Rep. Berman: Pro-IP bill will become law in 2008 (news.com)

From feed by cnetfeed on Friday March 28, 2008 @04:12PM

Major rewrite of U.S. copyright law is on track to be signed by President Bush by the end of the year, the congressman representing the Hollywood, Calif. area says

Feed Wired: GM: We'll Lose Our Shirts on the Volt, But That's OK (wired.com)

From feed by wiredfeed on Thursday March 20, 2008 @05:13PM

Vice Chairman Bob Lutz says GM "won't make a dime" on the Chevrolet Volt "for years," but it's willing to take the losses to ensure the car succeeds.

Comment Re:Not a good idea (Score 1) 312

by AP2k on Thursday March 06, 2008 @07:03PM (#22669862) Attached to: New Lock Aims To End Chip Piracy

I also thought immediately of this. They dont even have to disassemble it. The article implies the main way that knockoff fabs get their plans are by blueprints. So chip manufacturers are going to produce chips that have DRM because they cant keep their blueprint designs safe. Makes a hell of a lot of sense....

If a knockoff gets the blueprints, its fairly trivial to figure out where the DRM stuff is located and they can modify their fab process so that it doesnt include them.

Submission + - Chip lock aims to end hardware piracy

Submitted by Stony Stevenson on Thursday March 06, 2008 @04:47PM

Stony Stevenson writes: Pirated microchips based on stolen blueprints could soon be a thing of the past thanks to computer engineers at Rice University and the University of Michigan. The engineers have devised a way to head off this costly infringement by giving each chip its own unique lock and key. The patent holder would hold the keys, and the chip would securely communicate with the patent-holder to unlock itself. The chip could operate only after being unlocked. The Ending Piracy of Integrated Circuits (Epic) technique relies on established cryptography methods, and introduces subtle changes into the chip design process without affecting performance or power consumption. With Epic protection enabled, each integrated circuit would be manufactured with a few extra switches that behave like a combination lock.

Submission + - Mac OS X Secretly Cripples Non-Apple Software (vlad1.com) 1

Submitted by spikedLemur on Thursday February 28, 2008 @12:59PM

spikedLemur writes: Vladimir Vukicevic of the Firefox team stumbled on some questionable practices from Apple while trying to improve the performance of Firefox. Apparently, Apple is using some undocumented APIs that give Safari a 500% performance advantage over other browsers. Of course, "undocumented" means that non-Apple developers have to try and reverse-engineer these interfaces to get the same level of performance. You really have to wonder what Apple is thinking, considering the kind of retaliation Microsoft has gotten for similar practices. (Anyone remember "DOS ain't done until Lotus won't run"?)

Feed Engadget: Telecom immunity for domestic spying dies on House floor (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed on Friday February 15, 2008 @03:32AM

Filed under: Cellphones

The House of Representatives just took a long weekend break without voting on the Spy bill sent down from the Senate. As such, our beloved carriers' hopes for immunity from those pesky US privacy laws have disintegrated. At least for the time being -- the fight between the baddies and goodies (however you define that) isn't over by a long shot.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Artificial Bases Added to DNA 362

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday January 30, 2008 @11:55AM from the totally-faked-you-out-man dept.

holy_calamity writes "Researchers have successfully added two 'unnatural' DNA letters to the code of life. They created two artificial base pairs that are treated as normal by an enzyme that replicates and fixes DNA inside cells. This raises the prospect of engineering life forms with genetic code not possible within nature, allowing new kinds of genetic engineering."

Submission + - Amazon Patents 404 Pages 2

Submitted by

theodp

on Wednesday January 30, 2008 @03:16AM

theodp writes: "Among the patents awarded to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on Tuesday was one for his invention of Error Processing Methods for Providing Responsive Content to a User When a Page Load Error Occurs, which covers displaying alternate web pages in response to HTTP 404 page-not-found errors. So is this the technology that causes Amazon's Home Page to be displayed when Bezos' MIA Patent Reform Page can't be found?"

Feed Tom's Hardware: E.Coli Bacteria May Be The Key To Your Very Own Hydrogen Factory (pheedo.com)

From feed by thfeed on Wednesday January 30, 2008 @03:12AM

Hydrogen carries the potential to become a clean energy source in the future. But while hydrogen does not produce green house gases in cars, an enormous amount of energy is required to produce it. E.Coli bacteria may change that and enable you to create your own hydrogen supply right in your backyard, if researchers from A&M University are right.

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