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Washington Post To Go Paywall, Along With Buffett-Owned Local Papers 163

Posted by timothy from the interesting-use-of-the-word-reportedly dept.
McGruber writes "The Washington Post reports that the Washington Post, and local newspapers owned by Warren Buffett, are all planning to follow the New York Times and install metered paywalls." Buffett's got more than 80 papers right now, and hasn't quit buying them. There's some time to read the WaPo sans paywall, but by mid-year it may be up.
AMD

Submission + - Rumor: AMD Is Up For Sale, Dell May Be Interested (techspot.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: As far as the stock market is concerned, Advanced Micro Devices may be up for sale. AMD's shares were significantly up yesterday, apparently on rumors that Dell is interested in buying the American multinational semiconductor company.

If AMD ends up being bought out, the purchase by Dell, or any other company for that matter, would be among the biggest the technology industry has seen. It would be of course bigger than when AMD bought ATI in 2006.
PC Games (Games)

Valve Apologizes For 12,000 Erroneous Anti-Cheating Bans 202

Posted by Soulskill from the making-it-right dept.
Earlier this week, there were reports that large numbers of Modern Warfare 2 players on Steam were getting erroneously banned by Valve's Anti-Cheat software. While such claims are usually best taken with a grain of salt, the quantity and suddenness caused speculation that Valve's software wasn't operating correctly. A few days later, Valve president Gabe Newell sent out an email acknowledging that roughly 12,000 players had been inappropriately banned over the preceding two weeks. "The problem was that Steam would fail a signature check between the disk version of a DLL and a latent memory version. This was caused by a combination of conditions occurring while Steam was updating the disk image of a game." Valve reversed the bans and gave free copies of Left 4 Dead 2 to everyone who was affected.
PC Games (Games)

EA Launches Ultima-Based Browser Game 106

Posted by Soulskill from the my-face-has-gone-numb dept.
On Monday Electronic Arts launched Lord of Ultima, a free-to-play, browser-based strategy game that's based on the Ultima universe. Quoting VG247: "Set in the new world of Caledonia, players start the game as conquerors raising an empire, and then move from developing a village to evolving it into a highly customized capital. Players can be peaceful merchants by trading resources over land or sea and using diplomacy, or become feared conquerors using armies of knights and mages to crush their enemies one by one in maniacal glee."
Real Time Strategy (Games)

Command & Conquer MMO a Possibility? 159

Posted by Soulskill from the +1-sandbag-of-blocking dept.
TheProphet92 sends along a speculative piece about the future of EA's popular RTS franchise, writing: "EA's real-time strategy games don't have the luxury of extensive funding the way some other franchises do. EA has been milking their game engines for all they're worth and then some. They have been using various versions of the 'Sage' engine for the past half-dozen or so RTS games, and they need money to make a new one. Perhaps an MMO is the way to go for EA, using none other than their famous Command & Conquer franchise."

Comment Re:Huh? (Score 1) 369

by PerpetualMotion (#28755975) Attached to: Checked out from the library right now, I've got ...

I've read, quite literally, thousands of books on my computer. Being able to reformat them as I like, and always having a copy to go back to is much better to me than using the library. Unfortunately, not all the books I want to read are available online. In some cases, they are available at the library, and I always end up thinking how much more convenient it would be to have it on my computer.

As far as smells and tactile nostalgia, I find more and more that it is the same difference between reading a newspaper and reading your news online.

The only remaining downside, as I see it, is that some authors write specifically for paper format, so digital copies lose some of the flow or nuances that would be had with paper.
Patents

Microsoft Seeking Hot-Or-Not Patent 135

Posted by kdawson from the getting-colder dept.
theodp writes "In its just-disclosed patent application for the Online Personal Appearance Advisor, Microsoft describes the 'invention' of its three Microsoft Research employees in these words: 'The contributor uploads self images for viewing and rating (or voting) by viewers who choose provide an opinion on different fashion and/or cosmetic looks of the contributor.' So what do you think — is Microsoft's invention really Hot or Not?"
Spam

Spam Replacing Postal Junk Mail? 251

Posted by kdawson from the connecting-the-dots dept.
TheOtherChimeraTwin writes "I've been getting spam from mainstream companies that I do business with, which is odd because I didn't give those companies my email address. It is doubly strange because the address they are using is a special-purpose one that I wouldn't give out to any business. Apparently knotice.com ('Direct Digital Marketing Solutions') and postalconnect.net aka emsnetwork.net (an Equifax Marketing Service Product with the ironic name 'Permission!') are somehow collecting email addresses and connecting them with postal addresses, allowing companies to send email instead of postal mail. Has anyone else encountered this slimy practice or know how they are harvesting email addresses?"
Media

Designer Accused of Copying His Own Work By Stock Art Website 380

Posted by Soulskill from the only-so-many-ambulances-can-be-chased dept.
the_harlequin writes "A successful designer, who has a showcase of his own work available online, has had a stock image site accuse him of copyright infringement over his own illustrations, citing damages of $18,000. The story doesn't end there; the stock photo site hired lawyers, who have contacted the original designer's clients. The lawyers told them the designer is being investigated for copyright infringement and their logos might be copied, thus damaging his reputation. 'My theory is that someone copied my artwork, separated them from any typography and then posted them for sale on the stock site. Someone working for the site either saw my [LogoPond] showcase or was alerted to the similarities. They then prepared the bill and sent it to me. The good thing is that the bill gives me a record of every single image they took from me. That helps me gather dates, sketches, emails, etc. to help me prove my case. The bad thing is that despite my explanations and proof, they will not let this go.'"
Image

Battlestar Galactica Hosted At the UN 252

Posted by timothy from the bizarro-world-doesn't-quite-begin dept.
TheDopp writes "The United Nations hosted the cast and crew of Battlestar Galactica Tuesday evening in New York. Clips of the show were shown as discussion points during the event, touching on the morality of Suicide Bombers in war, Abortion and the use of torture on enemies of the state. At one point during the event an attendee mentions 'the "Old Man" launched into a passionate speech about casting off the idea of race as a cultural determinant, and said we were one race, the human race. His voice echoed throughout the chamber growing louder until — I kid you not — he was yelling, "So Say We All," and the crowd answered right back. Hell, even I yelled it, I was in the fraking United Nations with Adama, the gods themselves could not have stopped this moment.' The full video of the event is located on the UN website."
Programming

It's Not the 15th Birthday of Linux 261

Posted by CmdrTaco from the burn-the-cake dept.
Glyn Moody writes "There's been a spate of celebrations of Linux's 15th birthday recently. What they're really marking is the 15th anniversary of version 1.0. But do version numbers matter for free software? The 'release early, release often' approach means there's generally little difference between version 0.99.14z, say, and version 1.0. In fact, drawing attention to such anniversaries is misguided, because it gives the impression that free software is created in the same way as traditional proprietary code, working towards a predetermined end-point according to a top-down plan. So how should we be choosing and celebrating free software's past achievements?"
Google

Google's Information On DMCA Takedown Abuse 217

Posted by samzenpus from the hassle-your-way-to-the-top dept.
Binestar writes "According to a PC World article, Google has submitted a brief to New Zealand about its proposed copyright law (section 92A). "In its submission, Google notes that more than half (57%) of the takedown notices it has received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act 1998, were sent by business targeting competitors and over one third (37%) of notices were not valid copyright claims.""
Education

How To Get High-Schoolers Involved In Real Science? 314

Posted by timothy from the none-of-that-fake-science-stuff dept.
Wellington Grey writes "I'm a physics teacher and have been wondering what ways it's possible to get students to participate in or donate to real science projects. I encourage my students to help out with things like Galaxy Zoo (which has just released a new version) and to get them to install BOINC on their personal computers. Do Slashdotters out there have any other suggestions that would be appropriate for the 11-18 age range? Extra credit if you can think of a way that I can track their progress so that I can give them extra credit."
Transportation

Flying Car Passes First Flight Test 273

Posted by Soulskill from the seeking-new-metaphor-for-future-technology dept.
waderoush writes "Terrafugia — the Massachusetts company building a 'roadable aircraft' (that's flying car to you and me) — revealed at a press conference Wednesday that the Transition vehicle has been taken aloft for its maiden flight. The craft, which can fly up to 460 miles at 115 mph and then fold up its wings for 65-mph highway driving, was the subject of two hotly debated Slashdot posts on May 8 and May 13 of last year. The company said the first flight took place in Plattsburgh, NY; retired Air Force Colonel Phil Meteer was at the controls."
Medicine

Brain Decline Begins At Age 27 381

Posted by timothy from the mine-started-before-that dept.
krou writes "The BBC is reporting that a new study suggests that our mental abilities start to dwindle at 27 after peaking at 22, and 27 could be seen as the 'start of old age.' The seven-year study, by Professor Timothy Salthouse of the University of Virginia, looked at 2,000 healthy people aged 18-60, and used a number of mental agility tests already used to spot signs of dementia. 'The first age at which there was any marked decline was at 27 in tests of brain speed, reasoning and visual puzzle-solving ability. Things like memory stayed intact until the age of 37, on average, while abilities based on accumulated knowledge, such as performance on tests of vocabulary or general information, increased until the age of 60.'"

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