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Handhelds

Best Wi-Fi Portable Browsing Device? 426

Posted by timothy from the deep-in-the-stacks-desire-mounts dept.
foxxo writes "I'm a library worker, so I get lots of questions about our collection when I'm out in the stacks. I'd love to be able to access our online catalog and give patrons more comprehensive guidance without directing them to the reference desk. What options are available for a portable device with Wi-Fi connectivity, full-featured Web browsing, and (most importantly) no cellphone-style activation and service fees? Size is important, too; I need something I can carry in my pocket, not a micro-notebook with full keyboard. (And I am a library worker, so low cost is key!)" One device that sounds interesting in this category is the GiiNii Movit (not yet released, but shown off at CES). What can you recommend that's out there now?
Transportation

Automation May Make Toll Roads More Common 585

Posted by Soulskill from the first-cameras-then-evil-toll-robots dept.
bfwebster writes "Here in Denver, we have E-470, a toll section of the 470 beltway, that uses the usual transponder attached to your windshield. Fair enough, and I make use of it, particularly in driving to the airport. But they've just implemented new technology on E-470 that allows anyone to drive through the automated toll gates. If you don't have a transponder, it takes a photo of your license plate and sends a monthly bill to your house. As a result, the company that runs E-470 plans to close all human-staffed toll booths by mid-summer. And as an article in this morning's Rocky Mountain News notes, 'Such a system could be deployed on other roads, including some that motorists now use free. The result: a new source of money for highways and bridges badly in need of repair.' You can bet that legislators, mayors, and city councilpersons everywhere will see this as an even-better source of income than red-light cameras. You've been warned."
The Courts

17,000 Downloads Does Not Equal 17,000 Lost Sales 398

Posted by timothy from the channeling-captain-obvious dept.
Andrew_Rens writes "Ars Technica has a story on a ruling by a US District Judge who rejects claims by the RIAA that the number of infringing downloads amounts to proof of the same number of lost sales. The judge ruled that 'although it is true that someone who copies a digital version of a sound recording has little incentive to purchase the recording through legitimate means, it does not necessarily follow that the downloader would have made a legitimate purchase if the recording had not been available for free.' The ruling concerns the use of the criminal courts to recover alleged losses for downloading through a process known as restitution. The judgement does not directly change how damages are calculated in civil cases."
Perl

Call For Grant Proposals In Perl Development 137

Posted by kdawson from the sand-in-the-oyster dept.
On Elpeleg writes "The Perl Foundation is giving out grants for Perl development ranging from $500 to $3,000 in February 2009. You neither need to have a large, complex, or lengthy project nor be a Perl master or guru. You are encouraged to submit a proposal if you have a good idea and the means and ability to accomplish your Perl project. The deadline for proposal submissions is January 31, 2009."

Memoirs of a Bystander: Visual Studio.NET development on OS X w/ Parallels 147

Posted by Hemos from the how-to-make-it-work dept.
A reader writes "There is an interesting blog piece entitled Memoirs of a Bystander: Visual Studio.NET development on OS X w/ Parallels. The piece does a good job talking about development for different environments then the one that you are programming in. " And with the continued rise of more and more heterogeneous environments, this will become more and more common.

Comment Re:Instructor's responsibility (Score 1) 601

by JonMisurda (#16041504) Attached to: Podcasts of University Lectures?
All good ideas (I use them too :) to keep people attending when the alternative is simply not coming. As the second reply asks, is this all moot when the video is there to watch instead?

The only answer I can come up with right now concerns me somewhat, but having a student audience certainly insures that I do a better job and be more interesting than if I was just lecturing into a video camera.

I'd also lose the ability to ask questions of my students. That's critical in me gaging how fast I'm going and how much the students are retaining and understanding what I say.

I guess an issue to me is, well video is fine for extra study, and may even be a suitable replacement for those who cannot come to lecture for whatever reason. But what happens when the entire class goes away?

Jon

Linux 2.6.17 Released 444

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the spit-shine dept.
diegocgteleline.es writes "After almost three months, Linux 2.6.17 has been released. The changes include support for Sun Niagara CPUs, a new I/O mechanism called 'splice' which can improve the performance greatly for some applications, a scheduler domain optimized for multicore machines, driver for the widely used broadcom 43xx wifi chip (Apple's Airport Extreme and such), iptables support for the H.323 protocol, CCID2 support for DCCP, softmac layer for the wireless stack, block queue IO tracing, and many other changes listed at the changelog"

New Caldera Promised 291

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the people-you-love-to-hate dept.
An anonymous reader writes "SCO has announced their plans to release a new version of Caldera Linux by the end of the year. From the announcement: 'To provide extensive reliability and performance features, the Linux Kernel 2.5 codebase has been merged with recently developed additions to SCO's world leading UNIX core operating system. Already contained code owned by SCO is still included benefiting the stability and overall experience opposed to recent Linux kernel releases.' The question is, is anyone listening?"

Linspire Announces Freespire Distribution 223

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the let's-muddy-the-waters-a-bit dept.
LinuxScribe writes "Is the world ready for another community Linux distro a là Fedora and openSUSE? We're about to find out, as Linspire used the Desktop Linux Summit to announce a community-driven version of Linspire, to be called Freespire. But here's the twist, Freespire will come in two flavors: a completely open source version and a version that includes all of the fully-licensed proprietary apps, drivers, and codecs in Linspire."

Missing Link Found Between Human Ancestors 664

Posted by Zonk from the we-were-apes dept.
simetra writes "Researchers with a University of California, Berkeley team are now saying they have 'proof' of human evolution. Fossils have been found linking two types of pre-human species." From the article: "The remains of eight individuals found in the northeastern Afar region of Ethiopia belonged to the species Australopithecus anamensis -- part of the Australopithecus genus thought to be a direct ancestor to humans, according to a report due to be published Thursday in Nature magazine. 'The fossils are anatomically intermediate between the earlier species Ardipithecus ramidus and the later species Australopithecus afarensis,' he said."

When Telecom Mergers Hit Home 131

Posted by Zonk from the there-are-people-working-there dept.
netbuzz writes "A telecom manager submitted an essay to Network World that paints a sadly humorous picture of what the mega-telecom mergers really mean on the ground." From the article: "Well, when I heard that these companies were about to combine forces, it made my blood run cold. How would they be able to take, in each case, two companies with already broken processes and mediocre customer support and successfully merge them? How could they continue to provide me with the support I need to keep my company's networks functioning as they need to in this age of the bandwidth junkie? The answer ... at this moment, is they can't!"

Neutrino Mass Confirmed 318

Posted by Zonk from the they-do-exist dept.
biohack writes "BBC News reports that results from the MINOS experiment have confirmed that neutrinos have mass. To look for neutrino oscillations, scientists created muon neutrinos in a particle accelerator at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab). After passing through a particle detector at Fermilab, a high intensity beam of neutrinos travelled to another particle detector 724km (450 miles) away in a disused mine in Soudan, US. The set up established that fewer particles were being detected at the Soudan site than had been sent from Fermilab, which confirmed that some neutrinos changed their flavor on the way - an effect called neutrino flavor oscillation, which requires them to have mass. 'To put it simply, if they are heavy, it means that there is a lot more mass in the Universe than we thought there was,' said Professor Jenny Thomas from University College London."

First 3G BlackBerry Announced 89

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the now-make-it-wearable-with-a-hud dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Register is featuring an article on Research In Motion's first 3G BlackBerry, due shortly for release in the UK via Vodafone. The big news is that it contains an integrated 3G data modem - meaning UK addicts will be able to connect from the device and their laptop (via USB/BlueTooth) at 3G broadband speeds. No EDGE so the US will have to carry on waiting, but for those in the UK and Europe, short of integrated GPS, is the BlackBerry 8707v finally the first example of mobile device convergence everyone has been waiting for?"

Adults Love Video Games 257

Posted by CmdrTaco from the well-i'm-only-technically-an-adult dept.
flabbybuns writes "For those of you who feel you may waste too much time behind a controller fret no longer. According to a recent report on adult gamer statistics, it turns out that the adults are more hardcore about gaming than the kids are. "

Highly Critical Hole Found in IE 336

Posted by CmdrTaco from the must-be-thursday dept.
dotpavan writes "Eweek reports on a highly critical MS Internet Explorer hole found by Secunia Research's Andreas Sandblad. The vulnerability is due to the processing of the "createTextRange()" method call applied on a radio button control. From Secunia, "The vulnerability has been confirmed on a fully patched system with Internet Explorer 6.0 and Microsoft Windows XP SP2." The vulnerability has also been confirmed in Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 Preview (January edition) though it could be avoided by turning off Active Scripting, as suggested by Microsoft Security Response Center blog. How would this put MS in the market, hit by the ever-growing shots of vulnerabilties? And would the divorce of IE7 from Vista's Windows Explorer help?"

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