Comment Video Games, of course (Score 3, Insightful) 1806
Wii Fit. If you're a geek looking for a half-way decent workout at home, that'll fit the bill quite nicely.
Submission + - Electric car to change the industry?
An anonymous reader writes: CNNMoney.com is running an article about a Norwegian car company that is hooking up with Google, Tesla, and others to bring an electric car to market that might change the automotive industry the way Dell changed the computer industry.
BBC Trust Will Hear iPlayer Openness Complaints 177
AnotherDaveB writes with a Register story reporting that the BBC Trust has asked to meet with open source advocates to discuss their complaints over the corporation's Windows-only on-demand broadband TV service, iPlayer. The development came less than 48 hours after a meeting between the Open Source Consortium and regulators at Ofcom on Tuesday. Officials agreed to press the Trust, the BBC's governing body, to meet the OSC. The consortium received an invitation on Wednesday afternoon.
Microsoft States GPL3 Doesn't Apply to Them 509
pilsner.urquell writes "Microsoft yesterday issued a statement proclaiming that it isn't bound by GPLv3. Groklaw has a very humorous rejoinder to the company's claim. From that article: 'They think they can so declare, like an emperor, and it becomes fiat. It's not so easy. I gather Microsoft's lawyers have begun to discern the GPL pickle they are in. In any case it won't be providing any support or updates or anything at all in connection with those toxic (to them) vouchers it distributed as part of the Novell deal ... These two -- I can't decide if it's an elaborate dance like a tango or more like those games where you place a cloth with numbers on the floor and you have to get into a pretzel with your hands and feet to touch all the right numbers. Whichever it is, Novell and Microsoft keep having to strike the oddest poses to try to get around the GPL. If they think this new announcement has succeeded, I believe they will find they are mistaken. In other words, not to put too fine a point on it, GPLv3 worked.'" EWeek has further analysis of this proclamation.
Submission + - Arrest under new NY piracy laws
AxminsterLeuven writes: The Beeb is carrying a story on new tightened New York anti-piracy legislation: A man has been been arrested, after smuggling video recording equipment into a theatre showing the new Transformers movie. "Kalidou Diallo, 48, has been charged with unauthorised use of a video camera in a cinema. Under upgraded legislation, he could face six months in jail and fines of up to $5,000 (£2,487) if found guilty," the BBC reports.
Microsoft to Release 6 Security Updates Next Week 123
An anonymous reader wrote in with an article that leads: "Microsoft will release six groups of security patches next week, including three critical updates for Windows and Excel users. The critical updates will fix bugs in many different versions of Microsoft's products including the latest versions of Excel, Windows XP, Vista and Windows Server 2003, Microsoft said."
Submission + - Google makes case to join Microsoft antitrust case
Rob writes: Computer Business Review magazine is reporting that Google has filed papers with the US
district judge overseeing Microsoft's compliance with its 2002 antitrust settlement,
outlining why it believes it has a special interest in helping
to ensure Microsoft remains in compliance.
Submission + - Answer People in Online Discussions Visualized (cmu.edu)
Marc Smith writes: ""Answer people", the folks who contribute most of the value in the Internet, are a small minority of all online users. Less than 2% of authors in Usenet newsgroups, a recent paper my co-authors and I (Howard T. Welser, Eric Gleave, Danyel Fisher and Marc Smith) have published in the Journal of Social Structure reports, are likely to be the helpful "answer person" type — authors who reply to many other people with brief replies. The paper Visualizing the Signatures of Social Roles in Online Discussion Groups contains social network visualizations of the ties created when authors reply to one another. These images highlight the difference between these helpful folks and other types of contributors. The findings may apply to other threaded discussions (maybe even Slashdot discussions!)."
Submission + - AMD Announces Release Date for Barcelona in Q3 (yahoo.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Rumors said the release wouldn't be until late Q4 but an August ship date is now promised. They're only releasing up to 2.0 GHz processors at first, with the top speed devices coming out later in the year.
Submission + - Power consumption and the future of computing (arstechnica.com)
mrdirkdiggler writes: ArsTechnica's Hannibal takes a look at how the power concerns that currently plague datacenters are shaping next-generation computing technologies at the levels of the microchip, the board-level interconnect, and the datacenter. In a nutshell, engineers are now willing to take on a lot more hardware overhead in their designs (thermal sensors, transistors that put components into sleep states, buffers and filters at the ends of links, etc.) in order to get maximum power efficiency. The article, which has lots of nice graphics to illustrate the main points, mostly focuses on the specific technologies that Intel has in the pipeline to address these issues.
Submission + - John Edwards on IP and open source
goombah99 writes: John Edward, the presidential candidate and lawyer, is emerging as quite techno savy. He has been guest hosting on Lawrence Lessigs Blog, giving his view on the current imbalance between property right protection and the good of public access. And he has become the first presidential candidate to support "open source code" for election systems in addition to voter verified paper records. He's even personally using a twitter.
Submission + - Google Maps now does interactive re-routing (blogspot.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Remember how cool it was the first time you used MapQuest or Google Maps or Google Earth? Once you try the new interactive dragging of routes on Google Maps, you'll find yourself wasting too much time again just playing with it and being amazed at how fast and scalable it is.
Submission + - Lake Disappears into Andes
steveb3210 writes: It seems that what was once a 5 acre glacial lake in the Andes has mysteriously disappeared. "In March we patrolled the area and everything was normal," Juan Jose Romero from Chile's National Forestry Corporation, Conaf, said.
"We went again in May and to our surprise we found that the lake had completely disappeared. All that was left were chunks of ice and an enormous fissure."
"We went again in May and to our surprise we found that the lake had completely disappeared. All that was left were chunks of ice and an enormous fissure."
Submission + - France Bans BlackBerries
DesertBlade writes: France Government officials are no longer allowed to use BlackBerries fearing that the US can snoop government secrets. Are these risks real or just unfounded. What will they ban next, cell phones, computers or talking. Maybe they like most of slashdot they are waiting for the new iPhone and just needed an excuse to find a way to pay for them.
Which All-in-One Inkjet Printer is Cheapest to Use? 119
Ray asks: "A year or so ago, I got my dad a new computer system that included a Canon PX-160 printer/scanner/copier to replace his aging Lexmark with similar capabilities. On my next visit, I asked him how the new printer was working and he said the ink was killing him. The cartridges are expensive, they don't have much ink in them and there are no third party or refilled carts for it or (apparently) any other Canon. It looks like HP and Lexmark are the most likely to have (relatively) inexpensive supplies but what has your experience been with inkjet All-in-Ones as far as TCO goes?"
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Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. -- Arthur C. Clarke
