Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
Image

Michael Jackson Themed MMO In the Works 180

Posted by samzenpus from the who's-bad? dept.
norton123 writes "SEE has announced plans to published a Michael Jackson themed MMO. From the article: 'Planet Michael is described by SEE as "a massive social gaming experience" with "collaborative in-game activities," set in "an immersive virtual space themed after iconic visuals drawn from Michael's music, his life and the global issues that concerned him."'"
Education

MA High School Forces All Students To Buy MacBooks 1217

Posted by Soulskill from the at-least-it's-not-ipads dept.
An anonymous reader sends in this excerpt from the Salem News: "A new program at Beverly High will equip every student with a new laptop computer to prepare kids for a high-tech future. But there's a catch. The money for the $900 Apple MacBooks will come out of parents' pockets. 'You're kidding me,' parent Jenn Parisella said when she found out she'd have to buy her sophomore daughter, Sky, a new computer. 'She has a laptop. Why would I buy her another laptop?' Sky has a Dell. Come September 2011, every student will need an Apple. They'll bring it to class and use it for homework. Superintendent James Hayes sees the technology as an essential move to prepare kids for the future. The School Committee approved the move last year, and Hayes said he's getting the news out now so families can prepare. 'We have one platform,' Hayes said. 'And that's going to be the Mac.'"
The Media

Rupert Murdoch Hates Google, Loves the iPad 412

Posted by timothy from the consume-consume-consume dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "The Register reports that News Corp boss Rupert Murdoch, speaking at the National Press Club in Washington, reiterated his disgust at how search engines handle news and called on old media to rethink how their stories are distributed on the web. 'It's produced a river of gold, but those words are being taken mostly from the newspapers,' said Rupert. 'I think they ought to stop it, that the newspapers ought to stand up and let them do their own reporting.' Murdoch added that the iPad was a 'wonderful tool' for listening to music, watching videos and reading newspapers. 'It may well be the saving of the newspaper industry,' by making it cheaper to distribute content to a broader audience, Murdoch said. 'I'm old, I like the tactile experience of the newspaper,' Murdoch said. '(But) if you have less newspapers and more of these, that's OK. It doesn't destroy the traditional newspaper, it just comes in a different form.'"

Comment Commercial agenda? (Score 1) 470

by opieum (#28080557) Attached to: Wine Project Frustration and Forking
lol Call it Brandy or Skotch. Or something. Alchol always motivates someone out there. It would make for some intresting code. In all seriousness, a fork would is a two edged sword. It took 15 years for WINE to get where it is now. The fork would likley be slower in development even if it draws from the other code. OTOH it could be a good testing ground for better improvements for things that users might want like better DX support. While the core WINE project is working on that others could significantly improve it. I see alot of pros to a fork...but a good amount of cons too. It is worth a discussion tho :P

Comment Irony alert! (Score 0) 310

by opieum (#27294973) Attached to: Microsoft Unveils Open Source Exploit Finder
The Irony being that it's for Open Source software...not their own. Microsoft really needs to stop acting desperate and just making good software. Once their marketing machine can ratchet down the bullshit and just sell a solid reliable product instead of a complicated piece of software that has become synonmous with death (BSOD reference here). If they REALLY want to make money (hope you are reading this Ballmer) They could easily make an OS based on Linux open source it keeping certain elements proprietary while still keeping with the GPL and release at a lower price point. They do something like that that allows existing compatibility with ALL Windows and Linux programs (can you imagine a debian-like OS with 100percent windows compatability) And no not like WINE, great project but still far from 100 percent compatibility. They get the best of both worlds. They get the linux marketshare...and the anti-trust hawks off their back. Because people still have a choice. And if they do what is right by consumers while respecting their freedom of choice (creating a great product without the lame ass lockin), they will earn their name as a quality software provider. As it is they create "tools" to find the openings in other products flaws, but seem to miss their own. They had a few thousand bugs still open from 2002 do they not?
The Courts

Obama DOJ Sides With RIAA 785

Posted by timothy from the similar-to-the-old-boss dept.
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The Obama Administration's Department of Justice, with former RIAA lawyers occupying the 2nd and 3rd highest positions in the department, has shown its colors, intervening on behalf of the RIAA in the case against a Boston University graduate student, SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum, accused of file sharing when he was 17 years old. Its oversized, 39-page brief (PDF) relies upon a United States Supreme Court decision from 1919 which upheld a statutory damages award, in a case involving overpriced railway tickets, equal to 116 times the actual damages sustained, and a 2007 Circuit Court decision which held that the 1919 decision — rather than the Supreme Court's more recent decisions involving punitive damages — was applicable to an award against a Karaoke CD distributor for 44 times the actual damages. Of course none of the cited cases dealt with the ratios sought by the RIAA: 2,100 to 425,000 times the actual damages for an MP3 file. Interestingly, the Government brief asked the Judge not to rule on the issue at this time, but to wait until after a trial. Also interestingly, although the brief sought to rebut, one by one, each argument that had been made by the defendant in his brief, it totally ignored all of the authorities and arguments that had been made by the Free Software Foundation in its brief. Commentators had been fearing that the Obama/Biden administration would be tools of the RIAA; does this filing confirm those fears?"

Comment Interstate 76 (Score 1) 234

by opieum (#27250291) Attached to: How Steam Revived a Dead Game
If they overhaul the graphics and physics as well as add a gamebrowser but keep the gameplay intact...I will be very happy and so will many gamers. Hell it could ressurrect the genre of carmageddon games again.

Comment Re:Interstate '76 (Score 2) 234

by opieum (#27249189) Attached to: How Steam Revived a Dead Game
Seconded. That has to be one of my alltime faves. If they overhauled the engine and physics but kept the gameplay exactly the same. Oh and obviously a game browser. For its day you had to know the SPX/IPX or TCP/IP address of the machine you were connecting to. Still be a cool feature. but a game browser would be awesome :D
Earth

Tsunami Invisibility Cloak 172

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the just-deflect-those-waves-to-the-poor-town-next-door dept.
BuzzSkyline writes "New Scientist is reporting on a lab-scale experiment that may lead to a tsunami invisibility cloak, which could protect islands, open-ocean platforms and even coastlines from dangerous waves by effectively making them invisible to tsunamis. The technology is based on the same sorts of negative index of refraction ideas that some physicists are exploring as they try to make an optical invisibility cloak, except that it works with water instead of light."
Privacy

As of October, FBI To Allow Warrantless Investigations 574

Posted by timothy from the oh-that-pesky-4th-amendment dept.
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Attorney General Michael Mukasey has agreed to allow Congressional hearings, but not to delay, the implementation of new FBI regulations that would allow them to spy on American citizens who are not suspected of any crime. As an editorial in the New York Times points out, this is a power that has a history of abuse. In times past, it was used to wiretap Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and to spy on other civil rights and anti-war protesters." As Dekortage points out, "Several senators have formally complained that citizens could be investigated 'without any basis for suspicion,' which the Justice Department denies."
Businesses

Jerry Seinfeld Will Plug Vista 776

Posted by timothy from the for-all-that-is-good-stop-sending-this-one dept.
Barence writes "Microsoft has signed up comedian Jerry Seinfeld to its $300 million Vista PR blitz, as it attempts to turn around the negative perception surrounding its operating system. Reports suggest Bill Gates will also appear in the ads, which, given the comedy timing he displayed in his 'Bill's Last Day' video, and the deadpan manner of Seinfeld, could result in a huge hit for the company." Reader Zarmanto notes in his journal that "Mac users might be quite amused, considering that (like many other TV shows) the set of Seinfeld always had a Macintosh prominently displayed in the background."
Medicine

Research Suggests Polygamous Men Live Longer 483

Posted by timothy from the depends-which-part-of-utah dept.
Calopteryx writes "Want to live a little longer? Get a second wife. A study reported in New Scientist suggests that men from polygamous cultures outlive those from monogamous ones. After accounting for socioeconomic differences, men aged over 60 from 140 countries that practice polygamy to varying degrees lived on average 12% longer than men from 49 mostly monogamous nations."
First Person Shooters (Games)

The Duke Is Finally Back, For Real 309

Posted by kdawson from the better-be-good dept.
After the first announcement on 1997-04-27 and over eleven years of fresh start after fresh start, Duke Nukem Forever finally comes to your system. At least if your system is an Xbox 360. Jon Siegler, the webmaster of 3D Realms, confirms this on their site: "As has been reported around the net today, we can confirm that the game has indeed passed final certification with Microsoft on Friday the 15th of August (on our first try, no less). That means the game is done — it is now in the hands of Microsoft." Update: 08/19 10:47 GMT by T : Several readers have written with a correction: this announcement is actually about Duke Nukem 3D, rather than Duke Nukem Forever.
The Courts

RIAA 'Elektra V. Barker' Case Is Settled 306

Posted by CmdrTaco from the are-we-there-yet dept.
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Elektra v. Barker, one of the leading cases repudiating the RIAA's 'making available' theory, has been settled. Unlike in most cases, the actual settlement agreement (PDF) is on file with the Court, and a matter of public record. Now Ms. Barker's attack on the constitutionality of the RIAA's damages theory, as well as her other defenses — including unclean hands based on MediaSentry's illegal behavior, the RIAA's inability to sue for statutory damages, and innocent infringement — will not be adjudicated, and it will fall on the shoulders of other defendants to carry the day on those issues. Ms. Barker, a young social worker who lives in the Bronx, once told p2pnet 'I love music. I grew up in a house where music was played all the time. We had milk crates filled with albums.... So to be sued for having music files on my computer is an insult. It's a slap in the face. This experience has left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wanted to swear off music.'"

Slashdot Top Deals

Chemist who falls in acid is absorbed in work.

Close