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Comment Not Broken Don't Fix (Score 1) 990

by NoMercy (#37229234) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Could We Deal With the End of Time Zones?

I can look at my clock, see it's 9:20am in New York, and feel safe calling them or setting up a transatlantic meeting at that time..... Now, roll everyone onto the same clock, and I'll have no idea! I'd have to remember lots of stupid times or do some mental gymnastics to understand that calling at 22pm is a bad idea as that's lunch time in Singapore.

Want to fix something, make it a global standard when the clocks move for daylight savings... that really confuses things so meetings which don't normally collide between the USA and Europe, suddenly hit but only for one or two weeks until the other side moves into daylight savings.
Displays

UK's Channel 4 To Broadcast In 3D 126

Posted by timothy from the out-of-thin-air dept.
fatnickc writes "The UK's Channel 4, from the 16th of September, will be broadcasting a few programmes in 3D, the full list of which can be found here. While the likes of a 3D Miley Cyrus concert aren't exactly groundbreaking, this will give 3D viewing at home much more publicity, paving the way for even more interesting projects in the future. In partnership with retailer Sainsbury's, Channel 4 are producing free 3D glasses so that as many people as possible can watch them, although it's unclear which of the various types they'll be. "
Education

AU Government To Build "Unhackable" Netbooks 501

Posted by kdawson from the smells-like-a-challenge dept.
bennyboy64 writes "In what may be one of the largest roll-outs yet of Microsoft's new Windows 7 Operating System, Australia's Federal Government decided to give 240,000 Lenovo IdeaPad S10e netbooks to Year 9-12 students. Officials are calling them 'unhackable.' iTnews reports that the laptops come armed with an enterprise version of the Windows 7 OS, Microsoft Office, the Adobe CS4 creative suite, Apple iTunes, and content geared specifically to students. New South Wales Department of Education CIO Stephen Wilson said that schools were 'the most hostile environment you can roll computers into.' While the netbooks are loaded with many hundreds of dollars worth of software, 2GB of RAM, and a 6-hour battery, the cost to the NSW Department of Education is under $435 (US) a unit. Wilson praised Windows' new OS: 'There was no way we could do any of this on XP,' he said. 'Windows 7 nailed it for us.' At the physical layer, each netbook is password-protected and embedded with tracking software that is embedded at the BIOS level of the machine. If a netbook were to be stolen or sold, the Department of Education is able to remotely disable the device over the network. Each netbook is also fitted with a passive RFID chip which will enable the netbooks to be identified 'even if they were dropped in a bathtub.' The Department of Education also uses the AppLocker functionality within Windows 7 to dictate which applications can be installed."
Censorship

French Assembly Rejects Three Strikes Bill 129

Posted by CmdrTaco from the they-don't-even-play-baseball-there dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The French Assembly has rejected the Three Strikes bill (in French!) which would allow ISPs to cut off users found to have been downloading protected content after two warnings. Summary: the Sarkozy administration can go back with a new draft for approval by both chambers or try to get upper house approval of a softer version without the cutoff passed by the lower house."
Security

U-Turn On UK ID Cards 143

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the from-bad-to-worse dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The UK appears to be watering down its national ID card system, with the revelation by the government that it will now only check the cards against a central biometric database in a minority of cases. Critics are saying it not only renders the whole scheme pointless, but will pose a security risk by making it far easier to use copied or cloned cards. 'But an Identity and Passport Service spokesman denied the system would be vulnerable to fraud: 'The majority of instances where people use their identity cards will be day-to-day situations where the cards offer a convenient method of proving identity such as a young person proving their age to buy alcohol,' he said.'"
Security

Vista Exploit Surfaces on Russian Hacker Site 103

Posted by Zonk from the exploits-show-up-in-the-funnest-places dept.
Datamation writes "Exploit code for Windows Vista (though at this point only proof-of-concept code) has been published to a Russian hacker site, Eweek reports. Certain strings sent through the 'MessageBox' API apparently cause memory corruption. Though this is obviously cause for concern, at the moment it would seem access to the system would already be required to make use of the exploit. Determina has an analysis of the bug. Just last week, Trend Micro reported that Vista zero-days are being sold at underground hacker sites for $50,000."

Comment Not quite doubly linked lists (Score 1) 328

by NoMercy (#16967822) Attached to: LSI Patents the Doubly-Linked List
It appears to be a patent on having two list pointers in a structure (auxulary pointer so you can sort the list in a diferent order). Funny even the linux kernel has a really fancy (arguably patentable) way of doing this using very simple macros. Though yes this could also cover doubly linked lists.

For prior art I'd give /usr/src/Linux/include/scsi/scsi_cmnd.h - struct scsi_cmnd: Belongs to two doubly linked lists, though not for storing in diferent orders, it's because that structure happens to have mutiple systems tracking it.

This is probably a patent from some engineer who's been pushed by his boss to come up with things to patent because he's not done one recently. Personally I'm accredited on a couple of software patents, but being UK ones, there is a fairly heavy ammount of proof that this is a concept of tangable value, eg you can't patent a linked list because it's not going to do anything, but you could patent an application of it which makes the thing your product does do it better/faster/etc.

Comment Re:They have nerve (Score 5, Informative) 789

by Paul Vigay (#5254789) Attached to: Castle Technology UK Ripping off Kernel Code?
Actually, speaking as the webmaster of www.riscos.org, that quote is mine, and I have no link to Castle Technology at all. If you're going to call someone names, at least check your facts to see who you're accusing.
www.riscos.org is completely independent and in no way affiliated to ANY RISC OS hardware manufacturers.

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