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The Internet

Gartner Touts Web 2.0, Scoffs At Web 3.0 187

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the web-2.1.12.3-just-doesn't-have-quite-the-same-ring dept.
An anonymous reader writes to mention that even though Web 2.0 is just now starting to gain widespread acceptance, there are those who are already trying to hijack the term Web 3.0. According to Gartner, there are quite a few new technologies and incremental modifications to existing Web 2.0 technology, but nothing that could equal the level of fundamental change exhibited by the shift to Web 2.0.
Games

Your Mom And Gaming 76

Posted by Zonk from the lady-bought-me-a-nes-i'm-legally-obligated-to-love-her-now dept.
Tomorrow is Mother's Day in the US, and Newsweek's N'Gai Croal rightly estimates that many gamers owe a lot to their mothers. Because they indulged what they likely initially saw as a strange choice of hobby, we have a thriving gaming industry to enjoy today. The Level Up site offers an interview with a woman on the Newsweek staff who learned to tolerate those 'console things', and another piece where N'Gai interviews his own mom about his games-related past. "N'Gai: Growing up, you allowed us kids to have a computer, but we weren't allowed to have a videogame machine. What was your thinking behind that? Yvonne Croal: Well, in my estimation at that time, videogames were just another silly game. We certainly didn't want you to be spending 24/7 playing these games that we considered not productive in any way." If you're still looking for a gift for your own mom, Pop Cap is giving away a free copy of Bejeweled to anyone that signs up for their newsletter. Worked on my mom. Happy Mother's Day.

Comment Re:Block the Class C (Score 1) 180

by a10waveracer (#18189738) Attached to: A Myspace Lockdown - Is It Possible?
Are you kidding me? As a high school student, I can inform you that even the most computer-illiterate people know about the various proxies used to get to myspace/facebook/whatever they want to get to. Anyone can type in a URL--in fact, when I had my personal server running with a PHProxy, I saw it jump from 3 users a day (certain periods) to almost constant use during the school day, as people passed around the URL. Funny you mention the SSH proxy: That's what I do now, and it works really well. I track who is doing what, give everyone their own account, AND get 100% of the pages to work. Not only that, but it's substantially harder to set up putty and your browser than it is to just type in a URL.
Education

5 Strangest Materials 196

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the you-too-can-be-a-jesus-lizard dept.
MattSparkes writes to tell us that NewScientist recently posted a quick look at five interesting materials with some very strange properties. There are liquids you can walk on, liquids that will escape containers by creeping up the sides, and magnetic liquids that can easily show you the shape of magnetic fields. The story also offers video links to display some of more amazing properties described.
Linux

Council of the EU Says "We Cannot Support Linux" 370

Posted by kdawson from the penguins-need-not-apply dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Council of the EU has a streaming service so that we can watch its meetings — but the service can only be accessed by Mac or MS Windows users. This is because they employ WMV format for the videos. In the FAQ they express a really strange opinion about this: 'The live streaming media service of the Council of the European Union can be viewed on Microsoft Windows and Macintosh platforms. We cannot support Linux in a legal way. So the answer is: No support for Linux.' An online petition has been set up to create pressure to convince the EU council to change its service to one that is platform independent."
Education

Give an Internet Freedom Disk 342

Posted by kdawson from the real-holiday-cheer dept.
An anonymous reader, perhaps the blogger himself, writes to tell us about a new blog aimed at getting non-techies excited over the idea of running from a Live CD. The blogger doesn't call it that, preferring instead "Internet Freedom Disk"; Linux is never mentioned. The submitter adds: "This is just a great gift to drop on your non-geek friends and potentially wake up a sleeping giant." Cheap, last-minute, and you can make them yourself. The blogger isn't selling anything; he provides links to Ubuntu and Knoppix Live CDs. Or pick your favorite.
The Internet

Changing Climates for Microsoft and Google 393

Posted by Hemos from the a-path-to-the-future dept.
ReadWriteWeb writes "Weather metaphors abound as this article looks at the evolving software environment — and in particular the competition between Microsoft and Google. Milan says that while Google enjoys relative dominance on the Web platform today, two fissures exist that will force them to move. The first is Microsoft's ability to use the exact same HTML based strategy as Google (like Microsoft's current Live initiative); and secondly Microsoft leapfrogging the current environment by solving rich application installation/un installation and enforcing an acceptable contract regarding what rich apps can do on a user's machine. Unfortunately for Google, Microsoft is a lot closer to solving these two issues than people think. Microsoft has the best virtual machine with .NET, the best development tool with Visual Studio and the best access to developers with their MSDN programs. And they have a notion. Steve Ballmer himself has started touting the exact strategy they need — Click Once and Run."

UK Schools Bans WiFi Due To Health Concerns 535

Posted by Zonk from the no-bad-teeth-jokes dept.
Mantrid42 writes "Schools in the UK are getting rid of their WiFi network, citing health concerns from parents and teachers. The wireless emanations, parents fear, may be the root cause of a host of problems from simple fatigue to the possibility of cancer. A few scientists think younger humans may be more vulnerable to the transmissions, because of thinner skulls. From the article: "Vivienne Baron, who is bringing up Sebastian, her ten-year-old grandson, said: 'I did not want Sebastian exposed to a wireless computer network at school. No real evidence has been produced to prove that this new technology is safe in the long term. Until it is, I think we should take a precautionary approach and use cabled systems.'"

Tech Companies and Politicians: Who Pays Who? 112

Posted by Zonk from the a-bit-of-skuldruggery dept.
fiorenza writes "An investigation into political contributions by technology companies shows that Republicans are the top beneficiaries of such donations, but the Dems aren't too far behind. Perhaps most interesting, it appears that tech companies know that to really get what they want, they need to lobby directly. From the article: 'It's not just Microsoft that is spending these massive amounts. The computer/Internet industry as a whole dropped $84 million on lobbying in 2005 — more even than the TV/movies/music groups. Although the firms at the end of the Internet 'pipes' are spending money, it's dwarfed by the expenditures of those firms that own the 'pipes' themselves.'"

US Citizens To Require ''Clearance'' To Leave? 987

Posted by CowboyNeal from the hotel-americana dept.
jo7hs2 writes "The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has proposed a system which will in essence make it mandatory for you to have permission before leaving or entering the country, effectively putting everyone on a no-fly list unless the government says otherwise. Interestingly, the proposal does not seem to cover personal travel, only that on some sort of carrier like an airline or cruise vessel. While this certainly is concerning, it isn't exactly new, as a passport is already required for circumstances covered under the proposal."

How To Get Your Steam Account Pwned 110

Posted by Zonk from the not-everything-is-as-it-appears-to-be dept.
Pharmboy writes "It seems a 13 year old was trying to pose as a Steam employee to gain access to someone else's account, and had the tables turned on him. In a battle of wits, it helps to be smarter than the next guy." From the post: "br0kenrabbit says: Unlike you, I DO work for Valve. Trace my ip and you'll see. Greg_ValveOLS says: huh?" In the interests of being nice to Futuremark's forums, I've gone ahead and pasted the whole coversation below. Read More for the entire, priceless, exchange.

Dutch Securing E-voting After Being Pwned 269

Posted by kdawson from the wouldn't-it-be-nice dept.
An anonymous reader writes, "After the Dutch we-don't-trust-voting-computers foundation demonstrated glaring security holes in Dutch voting computers last week, the Dutch government has ordered (Dutch) all software to be replaced, all hardware to be checked, unflashable firmware to be installed, and an iron seal to be placed on voting machines. A certification institute will double-check all measures, and on election day will cull random machines to check them for accuracy. The Dutch intelligence service AIVD has been approached to consult on the radio emissions issue. Furthermore, foreign observers will monitor the upcoming elections on November 22nd. But the action group is still not confident (Dutch) that all problems are solved." US elections are controlled at the local level, so unfortunately such a nationwide fix would not be workable here.

What a Vista Upgrade Will Really Cost You 482

Posted by kdawson from the big-bucks dept.
narramissic writes, "James Gaskin wrote an interesting article this week about what he recons it will really cost organizations to upgrade to Vista. Gaskin estimates that each Vista user will 'cost your company between $3,250 and $5,000. That's each and every Vista user. Money will go to Microsoft for Vista and Office 2007, to hardware vendors for new PCs and components, and possibly a few bucks to Apple for those users jumping to a Mac.'" Any sense of how realistic those figures are?

iPod Users Buy CDs, Shun iTunes 550

Posted by kdawson from the what-part-of-"my-music"-do-you-not-understand? dept.
twitter writes, "The BBC's summarizes a Jupiter Research study, 'iPod fans shunning iTunes store.' From the article: '83% of iPod owners do not buy digital music regularly... only 5% of the music on an iPod will be bought from online music stores. The rest will be from CDs the owner of an MP3 player already has or tracks they have downloaded from file-sharing sites... [T]he only salient characteristic shared by all owners of portable music players was that they were more likely to buy more music — especially CDs.' This is despite years of iTunes promotion and apparent success. Given the outright failure of other music services, it is clear that users prefer DRM-free music, and are willing to pay for it and take the trouble to rip it."

Combating Harassing Use of Mosquito Noise Device? 1059

Posted by Cliff from the high-tech-hijinx-and-migraines dept.
amicold asks: "For a while now my neighborhood has had to deal with an elderly neighbor who has displayed a slightly paranoid attitude towards myself and the fellow younger-adults of the neighborhood, believing us to be attempting to harass him in our day-to-day activities. Recently, he installed a Mosquito ultrasonic noise device as an apparent attempt to 'get back at us' for our harassment. As the Mosquito emits a sound that's well out of his hearing range, he can't hear it, while most of the rest of the neighborhood is under 40 and can; at which point it's causing everyone a great deal of discomfort. Unfortunately, because the police also can't hear it, we can't get the authorities to do anything about it, leaving us empty-handed in our attempts at getting some peace and quiet back. What can we do to either help the police realize how disturbing this device is, or counteract it so that it's no longer disturbing us? And is this the first of what may be a growing trend of civilians using high-tech discomfort weapons as a method of neighborhood warfare?"

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