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Comment Re:OSM State of the Map, Google Our Maps and more (Score 1) 61

by Vulva R. Thompson, P (#21868074) Attached to: Online Collaboration Creates 'Map-Making For the Masses'
Regarding the map update links, is there any reason to bother submitting new/updated street data? The only benefit is to Nokia and Tom-tom, both large publicly traded companies. Their proprietary datasets costs tens of thousands of dollars to license and you're saving them money in physical mapping costs while getting nothing in return.

It's not like the updates benefit a publicly accessible database like Tiger or Openstreetmap.
Programming

Submission + - Free Pascal 2.2 has been released (freepascal.org)

Submitted by
Daniel Mantione
Daniel Mantione writes: "Free Pascal 2.2 has been released. Several new platforms are supported, like the Mac OS X on Intel platform, the Game Boy Advance, Windows CE and 64-Windows. Free Pascal is now the first and only free software compiler that target 64-bit Windows. These advancements were made possible by Free Pascal's internal assembler and linker allowing support for platforms not supported by the GNU binutils. The advancement in internal assembling and linking also allow faster compilation times and smaller executables, increasing the programmer comfort. Other new features are stabs debug support, many new code optimizations, resourcestring smartlinking and more.

Further, Free Pascal has become extremely powerfull in developing portable software over the last years. The release article explains why."
Announcements

Submission + - Brain Differences In Democrats and Republicans

Submitted by i_like_spam
i_like_spam writes: Scientists from NYU and UCLA report in Nature Neuroscience that the brains of Democrats and Republicans process information differently. This new study finds that the differences are apparent even when the brain processes common information, not just political topics. From the study, liberals were more likely to be accurate and showed more brain activity in the region associated with analyzing conflicts. A researcher not affiliated with the study stated, liberals 'could be expected to more readily accept new social, scientific or religious ideas.' Moreover, 'the results could explain why President Bush demonstrated a single-minded commitment to the Iraq war and why some people perceived Sen. John F. Kerry ... as a flip-flopper.
Data Storage

Submission + - Toshiba boosts hard drive density by 50%

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Toshiba has unveiled a ground breaking technology that boosts recording density on an 80GB 1.8-inch single platter drive by 50%. Using the Discrete Track Recording (DTR) technology Toshiba was able to pack 120GB storage on a single 1.8-inch platter. The new development will hugely benefit media player, UMPC, and ultra-portable laptop segment where 1.8" drive with maximum possible capacity are in great demand.
Media

Viacom Says User Infringed His Own Copyright 404

Posted by kdawson from the catch-44 dept.
Chris Knight writes "I ran for school board where I live this past fall and created some TV commercials including this one with a 'Star Wars' theme. A few months ago VH1 grabbed the commercial from YouTube and featured it in a segment of its show 'Web Junk 2.0.' Neither VH1 or its parent company Viacom told me they were doing this or asked my permission to use it, but I didn't mind it if they did. I thought that Aries Spears's commentary about it was pretty hilarious, so I posted a clip of VH1's segment on YouTube so that I could put it on my blog. I just got an e-mail from YouTube saying that the video has been pulled because Viacom is claiming that I'm violating its copyright. Viacom used my video without permission on their commercial television show, and now says that I am infringing on their copyright for showing the clip of the work that Viacom made in violation of my own copyright!"
Microsoft

Submission + - HSI to reconsider its vote on OOXML (noooxml.org)

Submitted by
ens0niq
ens0niq writes: "Mr János Kóka, Minister of Economy and Transport, has sent a mail to György Pónyai, General Director of Hungarian Standards Institution (HSI), about its the Hungarian vote on OOXML issue. In this mail the minister informed the director, that the IBM Magyarországi Kft (the Hungarian subsidiary of IBM) signed concerns about the way how the Hungarian vote was decided on the OOXML issue (draft of ISO/IEC DIS 25900 standard) on the meeting of the Committee on 25th June 2007. As known, the meeting was organized breaking the internal rules of HSI on decisive meetings. The invitations for the meeting were not sent to the parties in time, then the voting rules were changed by the secretary of the Committee so that only the 50% of the votes is enough for a decision instead of the 2/3 lied down in the original rules. Because of these circumstances, the counterinterested parties were not able to vote on the meeting, therefore the official Hungarian opinion on the issue is "yes" for OOXML as ISO standard. However because of these anomalies, the minister has ordered HSI to restore the juridical situation, and repeat the vote on 31th August 2007. Since then, new members have been inaugurated to the committee of the HSI, where the only requirement of membership is a fee of 100-200 euros. Many of the new members seem to have tight relationships with Microsoft."
Software

Submission + - GPL Violations On Windows Go Unnoticed?

Submitted by Scott_F
Scott_F writes: I recently reviewed several commercial, closed-source slideshow authoring packages for Windows and came across an alarming trend. Several of the packages I installed included GPL and LGPL software without any mention of the GPL, much less source code. For example, DVD Photo Slideshow (www.dvd-photo-slideshow.com) included mkisofs, cdrdao, dvdauthor, spumux, id3lib, lame, mpeg2enc and mplex (all of which are GPL or LGPL). What's worse is that the company tried to hide this by wrapping them all in DLL's! There are other violations in other packages as well. It seems that use of GPL software in commercial Windows applications is on the rise based on my testing of other software. My question is how much are GPL violations in the Windows world being pursued? Does the FSF or EFF follow-up on these if the platform is not GPL? How aware is the community of this trend?
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - DMCA means you cannot delete files on your own PC (wired.com)

Submitted by
DragonHawk
DragonHawk writes: "According to Wired, John Stottlemire found a way to print duplicate coupons from Coupons.com by deleting some files and registry entires on his PC. Now he's being sued for a DMCA violation. He says, "All I did was erase files or registry keys." Says a lawyer: "It may cover this. I think it does give companies a lot of leverage and a lot of power." So now the copyright cartels are saying that not only can we not copy things on our computers, but we cannot delete things on our computers. Time to buy stock in Seagate."
AMD

Submission + - AMD Backs openSUSE with Huge New Infrastructure (opensuse.org)

Submitted by
apokryphos
apokryphos writes: "AMD has helped sponsor the progress of openSUSE with leading-edge hardware and development expertise. "AMD is helping to ensure that the openSUSE Build Service continues to be an important collaboration and development platform for developers of all distributions," said Terri Hall, AMD vice president of Commercial Systems Marketing. "AMD recognizes the value of the open source development model, and by providing hardware for the openSUSE Build Service, we are able to actively participate in the continued innovation for which the open source community is known."

Are these continued announcements of huge support from large OEMs an indication of a new era?"
AMD

Submission + - AMD finally launches its low-price DX10 cards

Submitted by
Steve Kerrison
Steve Kerrison writes: "The Radeon 'R600' HD 2900 XT was late coming, and so by extension are the lower cost parts derived from it. But the Radeon HD 2400 and 2600s are launched today, with pricing aimed at knocking mid-range GeForce 8 series cards off people's shopping lists. But there's more to a graphics card than price, performance and driver functionality are key too. HEXUS had some fun and games testing the new Radeons: 'The hardware designers may now be sitting back, content that their DX10-supporting midrange SKUs are at least as compelling as the competition's. But, and it's a big, big but, the current drivers aren't realising the kind of performance we'd expect from a knowledge of the Radeon HD 2600 XT's setup.'"
Puzzle Games (Games)

Submission + - Old islamic tile patterns show modern math insight

Submitted by
arbitraryaardvark
arbitraryaardvark writes: "Reuters reports Medieval Muslims made mega math marvel.
Tile patterns on middle eastern mosques display a kind of quasicrystalline effect that was unknown in the west until rediscovered by Penrose in the 1970s.
"Quasicrystalline patterns comprise a set of interlocking units whose pattern never repeats, even when extended infinitely in all directions, and possess a special form of symmetry."
It isn't known if the mosque designers understood the math behind the patterns.
page 2 of story."

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