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Submission + - Microsoft wants to participate in SVG development (cnet.com)

Submitted by rossendryv
rossendryv writes: After many years and fighting against the standard, Microsoft announced they are joining http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/ to help with the development of SVG. "We recognize that vector graphics are an important component of the next-generation Web platform," said Patrick Dengler, senior program manager on Microsoft's Internet Explorer team in a blog post

Submission + - EFF wants to know are the Feds cyberstalking? (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by rossendryv
rossendryv writes: The Electronic Frontier Foundation and UC Berkeley's Samuelson Center filed suit in California's Northern District, asking the court to force a number of government agencies to hand over any documents they have concerning the use of social networking sites as part of investigative procedures.
The Military

Submission + - Obama and Russian Leader Announce Nuclear Deal

Submitted by
Peace Corps Library
Peace Corps Library writes: "The United States and Russia, seeking to move forward on one of the most significant arms control treaties since the end of the cold war, announced that they had reached a preliminary agreement on cutting each country's stockpiles of strategic nuclear weapons effectively setting the stage for a successor to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, a cold war-era pact that expires in December. Under the framework negotiators are to be instructed to craft a treaty that would cut strategic warheads for each side to between 1,500 and 1,675, down from the limit of 2,200 slated to take effect in 2012 under the Treaty of Moscow signed by President George W. Bush (pdf). The limit on delivery vehicles would be cut to between 500 and 1,100 from the 1,600 currently allowed under Start. Perhaps more important than the specific limits would be a revised and extended verification system that otherwise would expire with Start in December. The United States currently has 1,198 land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-based missiles and bombers, which together are capable of delivering 5,576 warheads, according to its most recent Start report in January while Russia reported in January that it has 816 delivery vehicles capable of delivering 3,909 warheads. "We have a mutual interest in protecting both of our populations from the kinds of danger that weapons proliferation is presenting today," said President Obama."

Comment License? (Score 1) 385

by rossendryv (#26560283) Attached to: Britannica Goes After Wikipedia and Google
Oh sure, we all rushing to go make edits at Britannica with all their linking and copywrite restrictions: http://corporate.britannica.com/termsofuse.html compared to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights Why work to make them richer? If they go CC or GNU Free Documentation License, it will be impressive and of course, have a better chance of succeeding...but dont see any evidence this is a route they going.
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft deprecating some OOXML functionality (fanaticattack.com)

Submitted by
christian.einfeldt
christian.einfeldt writes: "According to open standards advocate Russell Ossendryver, Microsoft will be deprecating certain functionality in its Microsoft Office Open XML specification. Ossendryver says the move is an attempt to quiet critics of the specification in the run up to the crucial February vote as to whether Microsoft OOXML will be included as a second standard for e-documents, along with the existing ODF ISO standard. ECMA, the Microsoft-led industry standards group formally offering OOXML to ISO, confirms in a 21 December 2007 announcement that issues related to the "leap year bug", VML, compatibility settings such as "AutoSpaceLikeWord95" and others will be "extracted from the main specification and relocated to an independent annex in DIS 29500 for deprecated functionality." Ossendryver is not convinced that deprecation will work, calling the deprecation proposal a 'smoke screen' and a 'bomb disguised as a standard' because 'every application will need to support the deprecated features in order to read files with the deprecated features.' Ossendryver also points out that legacy formatted Microsoft Office documents will still remain non-standard under the new proposal for deprecation."
Software

Submission + - Microsoft's influence on upcoming ISO vote? (groklaw.net) 2

Submitted by
christian.einfeldt
christian.einfeldt writes: "Microsoft has experienced some criticism for its handling of its bid to have OOXML accepted as an ISO standard, including the use of financial incentives to affect the Swedish national vote, which resulted in Swedent reversing its pro-Microsoft position; and failing to honor a promise to relinquish control of the OOXML specification if it gained ISO status. Now, Groklaw has published an article that raises questions about Microsoft's influence on the upcoming February vote, citing concerns with the limitation of discussions of patent issues, public accountability of the process, and even irregularities with choosing the size of the room so as to limit the delegates opposed to OOXML ISO status, as had been done in the past."
Supercomputing

Iran Builds Supercomputer From Banned AMD Parts 778

Posted by Zonk from the maybe-they-fell-off-the-back-of-a-really-big-truck dept.
Stony Stevenson writes with the news that, despite a ban on US PC hardware, Iranian techs have built an enormously powerful supercomputer from 216 AMD processors. The Linux-cluster machine has a 'theoretical peak performance of 860 gig-flops'. "The disclosure, made in an undated posting on [the University of] Amirkabir's Web site, brought an immediate response Monday from AMD, which said it has never authorized shipments of products either directly or indirectly to Iran or any other embargoed country."

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