andrewscraig - Slashdot User

Who Would Actually Build an Ubuntu Smartphone? 230

Posted by timothy on Thursday January 03, 2013 @10:54AM from the small-but-dedicated-band-of-belgian-craftsmen dept.

Nerval's Lobster writes "When Canonical whipped back the curtain from its upcoming Ubuntu for smartphones, it set off a flurry of blogosphere speculation about the open-source operating system's chances on the open market. But which company would actually build such a device? Apple and Research In Motion and Nokia are all out of the running, for very obvious reasons. Motorola, as a subsidiary of Google, is also unlikely to leap on the Ubuntu bandwagon. While Hewlett-Packard has flirted with smartphones in the past, most notably after its Palm acquisition, the company doesn't seem too focused on that segment at the moment. That leaves manufacturers such as HTC, which currently offer devices running either Google Android or Windows Phone. But given Android's popularity, it might prove difficult for Canonical to convince these manufacturers to do more than release a token Ubuntu device—especially if Google and Microsoft apply counter-pressure."

Media Center Key Accidentally Gives Pirates Free Windows 8 Pro License 255

Posted by Unknown Lamer on Wednesday November 21, 2012 @11:01AM from the side-effects-include dept.

MrSeb writes "In an amusing twist that undoubtedly spells the end of some hapless manager's career, Microsoft has accidentally gifted pirates with a free, fully-functioning Windows 8 license key. As you have probably surmised, this isn't intentional — Microsoft hasn't suddenly decided to give pirates an early Christmas present (though the $40 upgrade deal from Windows 8 Release Preview is something of a pirate amnesty). ... The bug involves the Key Management Service, which is part of Microsoft's Volume Licensing system. Pirates have already hacked the KMS to activate Windows 8 for 180 days — but this is just a partial activation. Now it turns out that the free Media Center Pack license keys that Microsoft is giving out until January 31 2013 can be used on a KMS-activated copy of Windows 8 to turn it into a fully licensed copy of Windows 8 Pro. "

US Doctors Back Circumcision 1264

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday August 28, 2012 @05:40PM from the yep-we're-going-there dept.

ananyo writes "On 27 August, a report by the American Academy of Pediatrics concludes for the first time that, overall, boys will be healthier if circumcised. The report says that although the choice is ultimately up to parents, medical insurance should pay for the procedure. The recommendation, coming from such an influential body, could boost U.S. circumcision rates, which, at 55%, are already higher than much of the developed world. The researchers estimate that each circumcision that is not performed costs the U.S. health-care system $313."

GPL'd Driver and Linux Support For New H.264 Capture Card 119

Posted by timothy on Tuesday June 07, 2011 @03:02AM from the to-those-who-wait dept.

azop writes "Almost a year ago Slashdot covered the story of a MPEG-4 multiple input capture card with a GPL Video4Linux licensed driver. Earlier this year, Ben Collins added H.264 support into the solo6x10 Video4Linux2 GPL driver. The H.264 PCIe cards are finally released and shipping to customers. The new cards support faster frame rates and sport a PCIe interface. The driver is available for forkin' on Github."

Judge Issues Gag Order For Twitter 154

Posted by timothy on Saturday May 14, 2011 @01:44PM from the good-luck-with-that dept.

the simurgh writes with this excerpt from Reuters: "A British judge has banned Twitter users from identifying a brain-damaged woman in one of the first attempts to prevent the messaging website from revealing sensitive information. The ruling follows the publication on Twitter on Sunday of a list of celebrities alleged to have tried to cover up sexual indiscretions by obtaining court gag orders. The injunction, dated May 12 and seen by Reuters on Friday, includes Twitter and Facebook in the list of media prohibited from disclosing the information. It was issued in the Court of Protection in the case of a mother who wants to withdraw life support from her brain-damaged daughter. It prevents the identification of the woman and those caring for her."

Comment Re:Retrograde Descent? (Score 1) 139

by andrewscraig on Monday April 19, 2010 @03:27AM (#31893664) Attached to: Shuttle Reentry Over the Continental US

In the event that the shuttle explodes on take-off, the resulting debris will be in the Atlantic Ocean, and not in somebodies front garden.

UK's Channel 4 To Broadcast In 3D 126

Posted by timothy on Monday November 09, 2009 @04:42AM 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. "

Amiga and Hyperion Settle Ownership of AmigaOS 227

Posted by kdawson on Monday October 19, 2009 @07:06AM from the if-anyone-was-waiting dept.

HKcastaway writes "Amiga Inc and Hyperion Entertainment announced a settlement over ownership and licensing over AmigaOS 4.0 and future versions. Since the bankruptcy of Commodore, Amiga's history has been littered with lawsuits that have affected the development of Amiga hardware and software. Having a lawsuit-free OS probably will help a great deal to the continuity and recovery of the Amiga heritage. Hyperion also provides AmigaOS SDKs for developers.'

Design Starting For Matter-Antimatter Collider 191

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday October 08, 2009 @02:02AM from the dump-the-warp-core dept.

couch_warrior writes "The Register is carrying a story on the early design efforts for the next generation of high-energy particle accelerators. They will be linear, and will collide matter and antimatter in the form of electrons and positrons. The obvious question will be: once we have a matter-antimatter reactor, how long till we have warp drive, and will the Vulcans show up for a sneak-peak?"

Irish Astronomers Investigate Sky Explosion 157

Posted by timothy on Monday September 07, 2009 @03:31AM from the stopping-snake-attacks-since-400-AD dept.

puroresu writes "Astronomers in Ireland have appealed to the public to contact them with eyewitness accounts of a massive explosion in the sky over the country. From the BBC: 'Astronomy Ireland chairman David Moore said: "So far, reports have been registered by residents in west Cork, Kerry, Cavan and as far north as Donegal, thus suggesting that this spectacular event may have been witnessed by people all over the country. In the past two decades there have been two major explosions in the skies over Ireland. When we investigated these, we were able to conclude that one was a Russian military satellite that exploded over the country, and the other was a rock from space."'"

Look Out, Firefox 3 — IE8 Is Back On Top For Now 662

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday March 19, 2009 @10:44AM from the because-it-can dept.

CWmike writes "Internet Explorer 8 has shipped in its final version and is ready to take on its rivals. Preston Gralla reviewed it and says the latest version of Microsoft's browser leapfrogs its closest competition, Firefox 3, for basic browsing and productivity features — it has better tab handling, a niftier search bar, a more useful address bar, and new tools that deliver information directly from other Web pages and services. IE8 has also been tweaked for security and includes a so-called 'porn mode,' new anti-malware protection, and better ways to protect your privacy. The most noticeable new features? Accelerators and Web Slices. Think of an Accelerator as a mini-mashup that delivers information from another Web site directly to your current browser page. Web Slices deliver changing information from a Web page you're not actively visiting directly to IE8. There's one big problem for many, though. No add-ins, and there doesn't appear to be such an ecosystem on the horizon. So if you're a fan of add-ins and customizing the browser itself, writes Gralla, Firefox is superior. But for the actual browsing experience, IE8 has the upper hand — for now."

The 100 Degree Data Center 472

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday March 19, 2009 @09:18AM from the so-take-off-all-your-clothes dept.

miller60 writes "Are you ready for the 100-degree data center? Rackable Systems has introduced a new enclosure that it says can run high-density racks safely in environments as hot as 104 degrees (40 degrees C), offering customers the option of saving energy in their data center. Most data centers operate in a range between 68 and 74 degrees. Raising the thermostat can lower the power bill, allowing data centers to use less power for cooling. But higher temperatures can be less forgiving in the event of a cooling failure, and not likely to be welcomed by employees working in the data center."

Iowa Seeks To Remove Electoral College 1088

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday February 12, 2009 @09:27AM from the not-cancelling-their-caucus-i-bet dept.

Zebano writes "Since changing the US constitution is too much work, the Iowa senate is considering a bill that would send all 7 of Iowa's electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote in a presidential election. This would only go into affect after enough states totaling 270 electoral votes (enough to elect a president) adopted similar resolutions."

Global Warming Irreversible, NOAA Scientist Finds 1061

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday January 27, 2009 @02:57AM from the is-it-hot-in-here dept.

Tibor the Hun writes "NPR reports that Susan Solomon, one of the world's top climate scientists, finds in her new study that global warming is now irreversible. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, concludes that even if we could immediately cease our impact on pollution and greenhouse gasses emissions, global climate change would continue for more than a thousand years. The reason is the saturation of oceans with carbon dioxide. Her study looked at the consequences of long-term effect in terms of sea-level rise and drought."

Fedora 11 To Default To the Ext4 File System 161

Posted by kdawson on Friday January 23, 2009 @09:33AM from the better-in-many-dimensions dept.

ffs writes "The next release of Fedora, 11, will default to the ext4 file system unless serious regressions are seen, as reported by heise online. The LWN story has a few comments extolling the virtues of the file system. Some benchmarks have shown ext4 to be much faster than the current default ext3. Some of the new features that matter for desktop users are a faster file system check, extents support (for efficiently storing large files and reducing fragmentation), multiblock allocation (faster writes), delayed block allocation, journal checksumming (saving against power / hardware failures), and others. The KernelNewbies page has more information on each feature. As is the extfs tradition, mounting a current ext3 filesystem as ext4 will work seamlessly; however, most new features will not be available with the same on-disk format, meaning a fresh format with ext4 or converting the disk layout to ext4 will offer the best experience."

Slashdot Top Deals