parrothead - Slashdot User

Submission + - Robot Swarms invade Kentucky (moreintelligentlife.com) 2

Submitted by

PacoCheezdom

on Monday September 17, 2007 @11:59AM

PacoCheezdom writes: "Intelligent Life has short summary of a demonstration by MIT professor James McLurkin of his new group-minded robots, which run an operating system called "Swarm OS." The robots are able to work together as a group not by communicating with all members of the group at once, but by talking only to their neighbors, and model other similar behaviors performed by bees and ants. I for one welcome our new robotic pseudo-insect overlords."

Submission + - The impact of pirated software on free software (tlug.jp)

Submitted by

jmglov

on Wednesday August 15, 2007 @08:55AM

jmglov writes: "Dave Gutteridge has an interesting take on why people are not interested in saving money by using a free-as-in-beer OS like Linux or *BSD: because Windows is free. At least, that is an all-too-common perception, thanks to bundling and piracy. Bundling is a well-known problem to the adoption of Open Source operating systems, so Dave takes a look at the piracy issue in depth. His title may offend you, but his well-written article will most likely get you thinking hard about the question, "how much *does* Windows cost?"."

Submission + - Cross-platform Microsoft (zdnet.com)

Submitted by

willdavid

on Tuesday August 14, 2007 @11:08AM

willdavid writes: "By John Carroll (ZDNet Blogs): Microsoft, apparently, is helping the folks at Mono to port Silverlight to Linux. This is good news, as the primary fear I've heard from developers is that Silverlight will be locked to Microsoft platforms and products. Microsoft has already committed to supporting Silverlight cross-browser on Windows, and has a version that runs on Mac OS X (which is even available from the Apple web site). The last step is Linux, and Microsoft is working with Novell and Mono to make this happen. http://blogs.zdnet.com/carroll/?p=1737"

Submission + - The Forbidden City of Terry Gou (wsj.com)

Submitted by

ElvaWSJ

on Monday August 13, 2007 @09:39AM

ElvaWSJ writes: "Hon Hai churns out iPhones and Wiis, and provides a window into China's secretive world of outsourcing and manufacturing. With a work force of some 270,000 — about as big as the population of Newark, N.J. — the factory is a bustling testament to the ambition of Hon Hai's founder, Terry Gou. In an era when manufacturing has been defined by outsourcing, no one has done more to shift global electronics production to China. Little noticed by the wider world, Mr. Gou has turned his company into China's biggest exporter and the world's biggest contract manufacturer of electronics."

Submission + - War on terror overblown, says Microsoft (apcmag.com)

Submitted by

SlinkySausage

on Wednesday August 08, 2007 @10:05AM

SlinkySausage writes: "The endless security measures imposed on society as a result of the "war on terror" have become overblown and intrusive, according to Microsoft Redmond senior security analyst Steve Riley. (The same can be said for some security measures *cough*Vista UAC*cough*). He made the comments in a talk at day one of Tech.Ed Australia about software security.

Riley also fessed up that Microsoft cocked up XP from a security perspective. "We let you down with XP," he said.

Microsoft also showed a very interesting new desktop virtualisation technology called SoftGrid, which allows applications to be virtualised individually, rather than a whole OS. Think Virtual PC or VMware, but instead of virtualising an OS, just a single application is virtualised."

Submission + - RIAA v. Santangelo default judgment vacated

Submitted by

NewYorkCountryLawyer

on Thursday July 19, 2007 @10:03AM

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "It was reported last week that at the July 13th status conference in Elektra v. Santangelo II, the default judgment taken by the RIAA against Patti Santangelo's daughter, Michelle, was vacated by Judge Stephen C. Robinson. This has now been confirmed in papers filed by the RIAA's lawyers in which they indicated that the Judge vacated the default judgment because he prefers cases to be decided on their merits, rather than by default (pdf). The papers sought $513 in attorneys fees for (a) procuring the default judgment and (b) preparing judgment enforcement documents. Patti Santangelo is the first RIAA defendant known to have moved to dismiss the RIAA complaint. After two years of litigation, the RIAA dropped its case against Patti Santangelo, leaving open only the question of whether the RIAA will be ordered to pay her attorneys fees."

Submission + - Web-based Anonymizer Discontinued

Submitted by

RobertB-DC

on Wednesday July 18, 2007 @06:21PM

RobertB-DC writes: "With no fanfare, and apparently no outcry from the privacy community, Anonymizer Inc. discontinued its web-based Private Surfing service effective June 20, 2007. No reason was given, either on the Anonymizer web site or on founder Lance Cottrell's privacy blog. Private Surfing customers are now required to download a anonymizing client that handles all TCP traffic, but the program is Windows-only (with Vista support still a work-in-progress). And of course it's closed-source, which means it has few advantages over several other alternatives."

Submission + - Identifying (and Fixing) Failing IT Projects

Submitted by

Esther Schindler

on Wednesday July 18, 2007 @11:20AM

Esther Schindler writes: "Often, the difference between success and failure is spotting critical early warning signs that a project is in trouble. CIO.com offers a few ways to identify the symptoms, as well as suggestions about what you can do to fix a project gone wrong.

One interesting point is that failure isn't preordained; IT projects are far more likely to succeed than they once were.

In 1994, the [Standish Group] researchers found that 31 percent of the IT projects were flat failures. That is, they were abandoned before completion and produced nothing useful. Only about 16 percent of all projects were completely successful: delivering applications on time, within budget and with all the originally specified features.

"As of 2006, the absolute failure rate is down to 19 percent," Johnson says. "The success rate is up to 35 percent." The remaining 46 percent are what the Standish Group calls "challenged": projects that didn't meet the criteria for total success but delivered a useful product.

And that's before the author enumerates the warning signs, both tangible and intangible."

Submission + - Court orders dismissal of U.S. wiretapping lawsuit (computerworld.com)

Submitted by jcatcw on Friday July 06, 2007 @02:55PM

jcatcw writes: A U.S. appeals court has ordered the dismissal of a lawsuit against the U.S. National Security Agency for a wiretapping program because it said the plaintiffs haven't been hurt by the agency's actions. A divided three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled today that the lawsuit, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and a group of journalists, lawyers and academics, be sent back to a District Court judge to be dismissed. In August 2006, Judge Anna Diggs Taylor of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan ruled that the NSA program, which monitored telephone and Internet communications without court-ordered warrants, was illegal.

iPhone Battery Replacement An Unwelcome Surprise 629

Posted by Zonk on Friday July 06, 2007 @11:33AM from the hope-you-really-like-that-phone dept.

epidemic99 writes "Apple has released what it will cost to replace the battery in the iPhone, and consumers might be a bit put off. Replacement is a tricky ordeal, as the battery is apparently soldered into the device. The service will cost $79, plus $6.95 for shipping, plus an optional $29 'loaner iPhone' rental. A consumer advocacy group sent a letter to Apple complaining that this information was not made public before iPhone's release since the cost of the battery replacement is so high. Even reviewer Harvey Rosenfield, who is usually very kind to Apple, was quoted as saying 'some of them might be waking up now, wondering who they got in bed with.'" Update: 07/06 21:06 GMT by Z : Fixed incorrect attribution of quote to Mossberg.

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