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Games: Console Brand Loyalty and Lifestyle Choices 22 of 29 comments

BSD: Kernel Trap Interview with Theo de Raadt

Posted by Hemos on Tuesday May 02, @12:28PM
from the the-man-speaks dept.
Security
An anonymous reader writes "KernelTrap has an insightful interview with Theo de Raadt, creator of OpenBSD. The wide-ranging interview focuses first on the past few years of OpenBSD development, then moves on to the recently released OpenBSD 3.9. De Raadt talks about how binary blobs threaten free software, and how OpenBSD developers work to reverse engineer them. He also talks about the future of OpenBSD, his views on Linux, and why developing truly free software is so important to him."

Games: How IBM Out-foxed Intel With The Xbox 360

Posted by Hemos on Tuesday May 02, @11:47AM
from the beat-them-to-the-punch dept.
XBox (Games)
xcaverx writes "Learning from failure is a hallmark of the technology business. Nick Baker, a 37-year-old system architect at Microsoft, knows that well. A British transplant at the software giant's Silicon Valley campus, he went from failed project to failed project in his career. He worked on such dogs as Apple Computer's defunct video card business, 3DO's failed game consoles, a chip startup that screwed up a deal with Nintendo, the never successful WebTV and Microsoft's canceled Ultimate TV satellite TV recorder. But Baker finally has a hot seller with the Xbox 360, Microsoft's video game console launched worldwide last holiday season."

Science: First Neutron Pulse from SNS

Posted byHemos on Tuesday May 02, @11:24AM
from the prepare-the-proton-torpedos dept.
Science
kebes writes "The $1.4 billion Spallation Neutron Source is nearing completion, and has produced its first neutron pulse. The SNS is a scientific instrument that generates beams of neutrons, which can be used to probe anything from miniscule samples to industrial materials. When fully operational, the facility is expected to host up to 2,000 international scientists annually."

IT: BlueSecurity Database Compromised?

Posted byHemos on Tuesday May 02, @10:44AM
from the bad-news dept.
Spam
EElyn writes "Numerous users of Blue Security's anti-spam system now report of a new form of aggressive spam. An unknown group of spammers claim to have derived a way to extract the member email addresses of Blue Security group's anti-spam system, called Blue Frog. Blue Frog, a small tool which once installed on the users computer, enables Blue Security to systematically flood a known spammer's website with opt-out messages; much to the headache of the spammer. Tens of thousands of users has already signed up, so can it really be true that spammers now possess this database? Or is this yet another frail attempt by spammers to intimidate the user?" Another reader sent the text of the letter; read more to see.

Apple: New Apple Campaign Target PC Flaws

Posted by Hemos on Tuesday May 02, @10:20AM
from the so-many-submissions dept.
OS X
sodul writes"Apple just started a new campaign to emphasize the advantages of Mac versus a regular tasteless PC. The ads represent a young cool looking man (Mac) and a white collar in his 40's (not cool, PC). In one of the ads the PC repeat itself several times because it had to reboot. In an other one (and maybe the most aggressive of all) PC is sick because of a virus, while Mac is healthy. You can watch the new spots on Apple's site "

Developers: Multi-threaded Programming Makes You Crazy? 58 of 69 comments

IT: Why Email is a Bad Collaboration Tool

Posted by Hemos on Tuesday May 02, @10:10AM
from the the-best-tool-to-use dept.
The Internet
An anonymous reader writes "Isaac Garcia follows up his popular "The Good in Email" article with "The Bad in Email or (Why Steve Ballmer is the CTO of Microsoft)": "In spite of email's universal success (as a collaboration tool), and in spite of its many good traits, email contains deep, inherent flaws that force users and markets to seek alternatives to collaborating via email."

FOSS Is Not Free if It's Not Free From Complexity

Posted byHemos on Tuesday May 02, @09:28AM
from the pomp-and-circumstance dept.
Editorial
A reader writes:"This article argues that freedom from complexity is an essential part of the first FOSS freedom - the freedom to run a program. Freedom to run means nothing if the exercise of such right excludes people who do not possess high technical knowledge or advanced skills sets. Without the guarantee of "ease of use", the freedom to run FOSS for most users is a hollow promise. " (My own bias ensues here): I think that there are some valuable points in here; what good is a good if it cannot be used, but OTOH this argument seems simplistic.

()

Hardware: Greenpeace's Custom Underwater Giant-Squid-Cam

Posted byHemos on Tuesday May 02, @08:59AM
from the learn-more-about-it dept.
Robotics
Seagull76 writes "Check out this 1 minute video with Greenpeace's underwater photo/videographer and deep sea toy specialist, Gavin Newman, aboard the Esperanza. After months of confronting whalers and pirates, some might envy the crew aboard the next leg of Defending Our Oceans who are heading to the beautiful Azores in the mid-Atlantic. For this leg of the expedition, the Esperanza has been equipped with state of the art monitoring equipment, including a remote operating vehicle (ROV) which can shoot video down to a depth of 300m, and a drop camera capable of reaching depths of 1,000 metres - giant squid territory! The ship will become part of the ongoing University of the Azores research program intended to establish greater scientific knowledge of the importance of deep-sea habitats and marine life. "

Hardware: DARPA Grand Challenge 3

Posted by samzenpus on Tuesday May 02, @08:32AM
from the robot-cabbie dept.
Robotics
Meostro writes "DARPA announced the 3rd "Grand Challenge" today, The DARPA Urban Challenge. "To succeed, vehicles must autonomously obey traffic laws while merging into moving traffic, navigating traffic circles, negotiating busy intersections and avoiding obstacles." This year's new twist is two tracks for entry: the first is the same as the previous two challenges (develop on your own without Gov't. funding), but the second involves "submitting a detailed proposal for up to $1 million of technology development funds." Here is the PDF press release ."

Lego to Open Mindstorms NXT Firmware

Posted byHemos on Tuesday May 02, @07:59AM
from the arise-from-your-grave-oh-plastic-brick dept.
Toys
ajdlinux writes "LEGO has officially announced that the firmware for the Mindstorms NXT will be open source. They will be releasing several developer kits and the firmware source during August, the kits containing the NXT driver specs, the schematics for the hardware connection and the Bluetooth protocol used by the NXT. The NXT will be only US$250, which is only slightly more expensive than the Mindstorms RIS2 kit. I certainly can't wait. " We had covered the earlier announcement of this kit.

()

Developers: Will Sun Open Source Java?

Posted by samzenpus on Monday May 01, @11:10PM
from the free-coffee dept.
Java
capt turnpike writes "According to eWEEK.com, there's an internal debate going on at Sun whether to open-source Java. (Insert typical response: "It's about time!") Company spokespersons have no official comment, as might be expected, but perhaps we could hear confirmation or denial as early as May 16, at the JavaOne conference. One commentator said, "Sun should endorse PHP and go one step forward and make sure the 'P' languages run great on the JVM [Java virtual machine] by open-sourcing Java." Would this move Java up the desirability scale in your eyes? Could this be a way to help improve what's lacking in Java?"

Your Rights Online: RIAA Targets LAN Filesharing at Universities

Posted by samzenpus on Monday May 01, @09:56PM
from the stop-sharing dept.
Music
segphault writes "The RIAA has sent letters to 40 university presidents in 25 separate states informing them that students are engaging in filesharing on their campuses using the local network. Apparently, the RIAA wants to get universities to use filtering software on their networks to detect student filesharing. The RIAA did not disclose the methodology they used to determine that filesharing is occuring on those local networks, but it probably didn't involve asking permission. The article goes on to predict that the RIAA will eventually try to get the government to require use of anti-filesharing filtering technologies at universities."

Apple: Apple Sets Tune for Pricing of Song Downloads

Posted by samzenpus on Monday May 01, @08:42PM
from the pink-lady-serenade dept.
Music
PygmySurfer writes "Apple Computer on Monday revealed it had renewed contracts with the four largest record companies to sell songs through its iTunes digital store at 99 cents each. The agreements came after months of bargaining, and were a defeat for music companies that had been pushing for a variable pricing model."

Your Rights Online: RIM Rejects More Patent Infringement Allegations

Posted by samzenpus on Monday May 01, @07:38PM
from the copycat dept.
Businesses
SilentOne writes "Waterloo based Research In Motion is facing new allegations of patent violation. Visto Corp. of Redwood Shores, Calif., said Monday that it had won an infringement case against Seven Networks, also of California, and is now targeting RIM for infringing four patents, including three involved in the Seven action. "Our case against RIM is based on similar technology, law and patents as the case we have just won," Visto said in a statement. "

'Revenge of the Nerds' Remake in the Works

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday May 01, @06:26PM
from the score-with-the-omega-mus dept.
Movies
grouchomarxist writes "According to CNN the movie 'Revenge of the Nerds' is being remade. Here is the IMDB entry for the remake." I just don't see how this could be good. Unless they let me play Goose ;)

()

IT: IT Certification Less Important Now?

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday May 01, @05:25PM
from the i-never-valued-it-in-the-first-place dept.
IT
lpq writes "IT certifications, popular after the dot-com bust, seem to be hurting careers now according to this article in the current Eweek.com issue. Guess employers are getting hip to the idea that those who don't have experience or can't "do", get certified..."

ABC Launches Full Episode Streaming

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday May 01, @04:47PM
from the well-thats-something-anyway dept.
Television
Cjattwood writes "ABC.com has launched their free online episode streaming service earlier today. Shows available include Lost and Alias among others, and are available to watch for free, albeit with ads and commercials. It works pretty well so far, although no Linux support yet as it requires Flash 8." The first episode of Lost on there is a clip show. You can skip around to a segment of the show, but are forced through a commercial before you play. The quality is approximately what you would expect from flash video.

()

IT: Higher Education Fears Wiretapping Law

Posted byCmdrTacoon Monday May 01, @04:00PM
from the don't-we-all dept.
Security
alphadogg writes "Institutions of higher education are up in arms over an FCC ruling on wiretapping they say could cost them billions of dollars in upgrades, expose their networks to more attacks, and jeopardize rights to privacy and freedom of speech."


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