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

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
Check out the new SourceForge HTML5 internet speed test! No Flash necessary and runs on all devices. ×
Security

Submission + - MIT Student arrested at Airport for LED Art (google.com)

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: An MIT student was arrested today at Logan Airport because she "had a computer circuit board and wiring in plain view over a black hooded sweat shirt she was wearing" when talking to a staffer at an information booth. She was visiting the airport to greet an arriving friend. She was wearing the shirt at a Career Fair earlier to stand out, and apparently didn't change before entering the airport. The police believed the object was a bomb and she was surrounded by a group of officers with submachine guns. Didn't the city learn its lesson from the Aqua Teen Hunger Scare?
Microsoft

Microsoft Finds a Home For Barcode 141

Posted by kdawson from the color-cuecat dept.
MicroBarcode writes in about the color barcode technology that Microsoft developed but shelved two years back because nobody adopted it. The technology promised a way to link packaging to Web sites — and once cell phone cameras get good enough, Microsoft hoped lots of people would use it. It seems the technology has finally found a home: the ISAN International Agency has inked a deal with Microsoft. The color barcodes, consisting of red, green, yellow, and black triangles, will appear on XBox 360 games and other products beginning later this year.
Software

Submission + - When Developers Attack

Submitted by
Rhymes With Trouble
Rhymes With Trouble writes: "What do you do when you fork your project and the users shun the new application and keep using the old one? The Freenet Project has had an ongoing problem where many of the users have kept using the older 0.5 network because it was stable and had Open Net while the new 0.7 network was slow, buggy, and difficult to connect to. The Freenet developers Zothar and Nextgens decided that they should attack and destroy the old network instead of making the new network more stable and easier to use. The following is an IRC chat between two of the Freenet developers. " [20:12:25] Zothar_Work> I need to talk about bringing 0.5 down with toad [20:12:38] Zothar_Work> I've got some ideas on how to do it [20:12:52] that would definitly shut up 0.5 trolls, wouldn't it ? [20:14:08] nextgens: yeah, that would probably do it [20:14:13] censoring at hand? [20:14:24] it's not about censoring [20:14:30] I find it interesting that Frost on 0.5 doesn't seem to be having the board spoofing problem 0.7 does [20:14:36] it's about prooving that 0.5 has to be replaced :) [20:14:43] FuriousRage: vulnerability demonstration [20:15:19] that would be indirect "settling" " When asked to condem this action, the primary developer Matthew Toseland (Toad) remained silent."
Space

Submission + - Microsoft Billionaire Simonyi Lands After Trip

Submitted by jjj30337
jjj30337 writes: From Bloomberg — Charles Simonyi, whose two decades as a software developer at Microsoft Corp. made him a billionaire, returned to Earth today, two weeks after blasting off to become the world's fifth space tourist.

Hungarian-born Simonyi, 58, landed in Kazakhstan today at 6:31 p.m. local time, images broadcast live on the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's online television station showed. He was accompanied by NASA Commander Michael Lopez- Alegria and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin, who had spent a record 215 days at the International Space Station.

— You can read more about his adventure in outer space here (flash warning)
Communications

Global Positioning Without GPS 82

Posted by kdawson from the where-we-are dept.
GadgetMike sends word of an award to Boeing for work on a Robust Positioning System that could make use of cell signals, television transmissions, and other clues to provide position information when GPS is unavailable. (Wonder if they've heard about Skyhook Wireless, which does a similar job based on Wi-Fi hotspots, for 2500 US cities and towns.) The work is being sponsored by the US military, so it's not surprising that they don't want to rely on upcoming GPS enhancers or replacements from France, China, and Russia. Here is the Boeing press release.
NASA

Submission + - Gunman Kills at NASA

Submitted by
Bizzeh
Bizzeh writes: "
A gunman has killed a male hostage and himself during a stand-off at Nasa's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

Police, who had surrounded the scene and entered when they heard a gunshot, also found a second hostage, a woman, who was alive but tied up with tape.
Full story at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6578167. stm"
United States

Submission + - Kremlin Gag Order Issued to Russian Journalists

Submitted by
reporter
reporter writes: "In a shocking report, "The New York Times" states, "At their first meeting with journalists since taking over Russia's largest independent radio news network, the managers had startling news of their own: from now on, they said, at least 50 percent of the reports about Russia must be 'positive.' In addition, opposition leaders could not be mentioned on the air and the United States was to be portrayed as an enemy , journalists employed by the network, Russian News Service, say they were told by the new managers, who are allies of the Kremlin." Will the Kremlin now resurrect the Ministry of Truth?"
United States

Submission + - American Candidate for French President?

Submitted by
reporter
reporter writes: "With regards to American politics, the French will hold their most important presidential election in more than 20 years. Nicolas Sarkozy currently holds the lead among the 4 most viable candidates. He is pro-American and advocates American values: e.g., free markets, affirmative action, and freedom of speech. The French will go to the polls tomorrow, April 22. If Sarkozy wins, he would steer the European Union into a stronger relationship with the USA."
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Melamine in pet food may not be accidental

Submitted by
kervaw
kervaw writes: "USA Today is reporting that Melamine in pet food may not be accidental. The nitrogen in Melamine makes the food appear to have more protein because the protein level is tested indirectly by testing the nitrogen content. From the article: "A nitrogen-rich chemical used to make plastic and sometimes as a fertilizer may have been deliberately added to an ingredient in pet food that has sickened and killed cats and dogs across the country, public and private officials say. A leading theory is that it was added to fake higher protein levels. Melamine has been found in wheat gluten, rice protein concentrate and, in South Africa, corn gluten, all imported from China, and all meant for use in pet food, the Food and Drug Administration confirmed Thursday.""
Space

The Hundred Million Mile Pipe Organ 76

Posted by kdawson from the louder-than-yours dept.
jd writes "Scientists have announced that the gigantic coils of plasma in the solar atmosphere, known as coronal loops, actually carry sound waves much like a pipe organ. Micro-flares on the surface of the sun create powerful blasts of charged particles, which are then guided through the coronal loops, creating the standing waves. Sheffield University is hosting movies and audio recordings of the sun's performance."
Censorship

Submission + - Canada's Wayne Crookes sues Google, Wikipedia

Submitted by
newtley
newtley writes: "Wayne Crookes, the Green Party of Canada's ex-financier, is in effect trying to sue the Net. He's going after the Wikiedia, Google and openpolitics.ca, run up by federal Green Party activist Michael Pilling, claiming he's suffered, "an immense amount of frustration and emotional distress" over postings. Some 15 others may also have been targeted. "Mr Crookes seems to be trying to unwrite history," Pilling says. "He was a central figure in the growth of the Green Party. His actions were highly controversial and if we have freedom of speech in this country, people should be allowed to talk about them.""
The Internet

Submission + - eBay changes its listings policy,businesses hurt

Submitted by cyberianpan
cyberianpan writes: An interesting article on the BBC describes how eBay has changed its search interface. The standard search on the .com site now only brings up items for sale by US sellers. Some UK businesses have reported a 90% drop in sales. eBay's fix ? : register separately for 2 eBay accounts & thus pay 2 listing fees per item. Previously for bricks & mortars shops, rent reviews were at worst yearly & you could always plan ahead to move down the street. Now we have international monopolistic companies who can double their charges overnight. Do we welcome our new overlords ?
Printer

Is Your Printer Ripping You Off? 362

Posted by CowboyNeal from the or-only-its-maker dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Are original inkjet cartridges really worth the high cost? Do third party refill inks do as good a job? This article looks at printers from Epson, HP, Canon and Lexmark, with a combination of original inks and the top selling third-party options, using a whole host of different papers. A panel of printer users judged the output in a blind test — the printer manufacturers may not be happy with the results!"
Privacy

Submission + - Clean slate Internet projects mean end to privacy?

Submitted by srijon
srijon writes: this article by Steve Watson observes that recently discussed clean slate Internet projects pay scant regard to privacy. From the article:

In tandem with broad data retention legislation currently being introduced worldwide, such "clean slate" projects may represent a considerable threat to the freedom of the internet as we know it. EU directives and US proposals for data retention may mean that any normal website or blog would have to fall into line with such new rules and suddenly total web regulation would become a reality.
Though the article lacks any "smoking gun", it provides a good summary of existing efforts to clamp down on the net. Certainly Standford's clean slate white paper is alarming because it pays scant regard to privacy, stating only that the new internet should "support anonymity where prudent, and accountability where necessary."

Slashdot Top Deals

Every program is a part of some other program, and rarely fits.

Close