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

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror

Comment Re:Proof that Google has fanboys too. (Score 2, Insightful) 490

by tomasf (#33020154) Attached to: Survey Says Most iPhone Users Love AT&T

The iPhone meanwhile does not have a standard screen resolution (retina display, hello!),

From a developer's point of view (which is really what matters here), the screen does have the same amount of points. It's just that on the iPhone 4, 1 pt = 2 px. Thus, apps designed for earlier iPhones behave well on the new display.
Earth

National Academy of Science Urges Carbon Tax 875

Posted by samzenpus from the let-the-flamewar-begin dept.
eldavojohn writes "Moving for the first time from a cautious message to a message of urgency, the National Academy of Science has advised the United States government to either adopt a carbon tax or cap and trade legislation. This follows a comprehensive study in three parts released today from the National Academies that, for the first time, urges required action from the government to curb climate change."
Caldera

SCO Asks Judge To Give Them the Unix Copyright 286

Posted by CmdrTaco from the we-promise-to-walk-it-every-day dept.
Raul654 writes "In March, the jury in the Novell/SCO case found that Novell owns the copyright to Unix. Now, SCO's lawyers have asked judge Ted Stewart to order Novell to turn over the Unix copyright to them. 'SCO contends the jury did not answer the specific issue before Stewart that involves a legal principle called "specific performance," under which a party can ask a court to order another party to fulfill an aspect of an agreement.'" Over at Groklaw, PJ is deep into a community project to annotate SCO's filing. It's for the benefit of future historians, but it makes amusing reading now.

Comment Re:What about Flash games and other stuff? (Score 1) 328

by tomasf (#31664704) Attached to: Adobe Not Worried About the Future of Flash

it still lacks functions which have existed in Flash for what seems like eons, such as dynamic bitrates (connection quality goes down, the amount of data sent to you goes down to compensate), and real-time seeking (ever want to skip around in a long video before the whole thing has loaded?).

Just wanted to mention there's Live HTTP Streaming: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_Live_Streaming , which does both of those things.

It only works on OS X Snow Leopard and iPhone so far, but it's a start. :-)
Science

Study Shows People In Power Make Better Liars 265

Posted by Soulskill from the practice-makes-perfect dept.
oDDmON oUT writes "MSNBC is reporting that a Columbia Business School study shows those who hold power over others make better liars. According to one of the study's coauthors, 'It just doesn't hurt them as much to do it.' For the average liar, she said, the act of lying elicits negative emotions, physiological stress and the fear of getting caught in a lie. As a result, she added, liars will often send out cues that they are lying by doing things like fidgeting in a chair or changing the rate of their speech. But for the powerful, the impact is very different: 'Power, it seems, enhances the same emotional, cognitive, and physiological systems that lie-telling depletes. People with power enjoy positive emotions, increases in cognitive function, and physiological resilience such as lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol. Thus, holding power over others might make it easier for people to tell lies.'"
Programming

Google Go Capturing Developer Interest 434

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the fear-the-behemoth dept.
angry tapir writes with news that Google Go seems to be cutting a wide swath through the programming community in just a short time since its early, experimental release. While Google insists that Go is still a work in progress (like so many of their offerings), many developers are so intrigued by the feature set that they are already implementing many noncritical applications with it. What experiences, good or bad, have you had with Google Go, and how likely is it to really take over?
Education

How Easy Is It To Cheat In CS? 684

Posted by timothy from the no-no-you-want-game-theory-down-the-hall dept.
Pinky3 writes "The New York Times has an article on cheating in CS at Stanford. Here is a classic quote from one student: 'I wasn't even thinking of how it [sic] easy it would for me to be caught,' he said. One interesting strategy discussed is for the professor to make the final count for more of the final grade each time cheating is discovered. Share your experiences as a student and/or as an instructor."
The Internet

Is Google Planning To Fibre Britain? 184

Posted by timothy from the you're-fibred! dept.
Barence writes with this excerpt from PC Pro: "Google has emerged as a surprise contender to invest in Britain's fibre broadband network. The search giant yesterday announced plans to build a gigabit fibre broadband network in the US. The test network will see Google deliver fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) connections to up to half a million US homes. The move raises the possibility that Google is behind the Conservative Party's ambitious plans to deliver nationwide 100Mbits/sec connections by 2017. Parliamentary sources have told PC Pro that the Tories' plans were based on foreign investment in the UK broadband network."
Privacy

FBI Pushing For 2-Year Retention of Web Traffic Logs 256

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the build-a-better-proxy dept.
suraj.sun writes to tell us that the FBI is pushing to have ISPs keep detailed records of what web sites customers have visited for up to two years. Claiming a desire to combat "child pornography and other serious crimes," the FBI and others are pressing for increased data retention, which they have been doing since as early as 2006. "If logs of Web sites visited began to be kept, they would be available only to local, state, and federal police with legal authorization such as a subpoena or search warrant. What remains unclear are the details of what the FBI is proposing. The possibilities include requiring an Internet provider to log the Internet protocol (IP) address of a Web site visited, or the domain name such as cnet.com, a host name such as news.cnet.com, or the actual URL such as http://reviews.cnet.com/Music/2001-6450_7-0.html. While the first three categories could be logged without doing deep packet inspection, the fourth category would require it. That could run up against opposition in Congress, which lambasted the concept in a series of hearings in 2008, causing the demise of a company, NebuAd, which pioneered it inside the United States."

Slashdot Top Deals

"Never ascribe to malice that which is caused by greed and ignorance." -- Cal Keegan

Close