skymt - Slashdot User

Comment The ISO's "patent policy" (Score 1) 185

by skymt on Wednesday April 16, 2008 @03:37PM (#23094636) Attached to: ISO Releases OOXML FAQ

It's among the vaguest documents I've ever read. All it ensures is "licences with other parties on a non-discriminatory basis on reasonable terms and conditions." IANAL, but it seems like the word "reasonable" leaves far too much room for interpretation.

Ogg Vorbis Gaining Industry Support 235

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday February 06, 2007 @08:51PM from the chicken-or-the-ogg dept.

An anonymous reader writes "While Ogg Vorbis format has not gained much adoption in music sales and portable players, it is not an unsupported format in the industry. Toy manufacturers (e.g. speaking dolls), voice warning systems, and reactive audio devices exploit Ogg Vorbis for its good quality at small bit-rates. As a sign of this, VLSI Solution Oy has just announced VS1000, the first 16 bits DSP device for playing Ogg Vorbis on low-power and high-volume products. Earlier Ogg Vorbis chips use 32 bits for decoding, which consumes more energy than a 16-bit device does. See the Xiph wiki page for a list of Ogg Vorbis chips."

Global Warming Only a Theory, Says School Board 1089

Posted by Zonk on Friday January 12, 2007 @08:56PM from the i'd-think-seattle-would-know-about-rain dept.

BendingSpoons writes "A Seattle school board has placed a moratorium on screenings of 'An Inconvenient Truth', having found its subject matter too controversial. Echoing the language of the evolution debate, the school board found that students must be told that global warming is only a theory and presented with an opposing viewpoint. The ban was prompted by the complaints of a parent: '"Condoms don't belong in school, and neither does Al Gore. He's not a schoolteacher," said Frosty Hardison, a parent of seven who also said that he believes the Earth is 14,000 years old. "The information that's being presented is a very cockeyed view of what the truth is ... The Bible says that in the end times everything will burn up, but that perspective isn't in the DVD."'"

Slashdot Top Deals