Kaizenlog

31 05 2007

[Slashdot] Stories for 2007-05-31

Posted by: kaizenlog in Kaizenlog

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Slashdot Daily Newsletter

In this issue:
* Electrical Field Treats Brain Cancer
* Google Debuts Street View and Mapplets
* DNS Complexity
* EVE Online Scandal Deliberate Frame-Job?
* Can a Blogroll Be Defamatory?
* Semantic Search Points To Better Relevancy
* Does ZFS Obsolete Expensive NAS/SANs?
* Linux Finally Getting XBMC
* Microsoft’s Multitouch Coffee Table Display
* Wii’s Longevity, Competition Questioned
* Novell Worries About GPL v3
* Microsoft, Novell, and “Clone Product” Lawsuits
* Who’s Trading Your E-mail Addresses?
* MySpace Gets False Positive In Sex Offender Search
* New Gentoo 2007.0 Release Gets Mixed Review
* Team Discovers “Throttle” For Solar Wind
* It’s Not News, It’s Fark
* How to Keep Your Code From Destroying You
* McCain on Net Neutrality, Copyright, Iraq
* Palm Unveils Foleo, Linux-Based “Mobile Companion”
* Apple Hides Account Info in DRM-Free Music
* Fan Fiction Writers Balk at FanLib.com
* Computers Outperform Humans at Recognizing Faces
* Xerox Develops New Way to Print Invisible Ink

amigoro writes “A device that specifically targets rapidly growing cancer
cells with intermediate frequency electrical fields [0]doubled the
survival rates of patients with brain cancer, according to an article
apperaring in PNAS. The device uses electrical fields to disrupt tumor
growth by interfering with cell division of cancerous cells, causing them
to stop proliferating and die off instead of dividing and growing.
Healthy brain cells rarely divide and have different electrical
properties than cancerous brain cells. This allows the device to target
cancer cells without affecting the healthy cells. Essentially no
device-related side effects were seenin the clinical trial.”

Discuss this story at:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/05/29/2154217

Links:
0. http://pressesc.com/01180456249_brain_cancer_electric_field

Today at the O’Reilly Where 2.0 Conference Google unveiled two new map
features. An O’Reilly blogger describes [0]Street View, which uses
360-degree street-level video from Immersive Media to enable neighborhood
walk-throughs in (for now) a few selected areas. The other new feature is
[1]Mapplets, which let you embed Google Maps mashups in any Web page.
[2]Much more coverage is linked from TechMeme.

Discuss this story at:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/05/30/0126209

Links:
0. http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/05/where_20_google_2.html
1. http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2007-05-29-n38.html
2. http://www.techmeme.com/070529/p57#a070529p57

ChelleChelle writes “Paul Vixie of Internet Systems Consortium guides us
on a [0]journey into the sublime details of the domain name system.
Although it contains just a few simple rules, DNS has grown into a system
of enormous complexity. This article explores the supposed and true
definitions of DNS, and shows some of the tension between the two
definitions through the lens of the philosophy of Internet development
protocol.”

Discuss this story at:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/05/29/234243

Links:
0. http://www.acmqueue.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=481

+—————————–—————————————+
| EVE Online Scandal Deliberate Frame-Job? |
| from the don’t-believe-everything-you-read dept. |
| posted by Zonk on Wednesday May 30, @00:17 (Role Playing (Games))|
| http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/30/0412241 |
+—————————–—————————————+

Last Friday, we discussed [0]serious allegations leveled against CCP by
players of the game. The comments on the discussion were lively, and
pointed. Perhaps a bit too pointed, as CCP’s internal affairs
investigation claims that [1]a plot to smear the company with false
accusations over the long holiday weekend was behind the flurry of online
activity. “The objective of this scheme was to permanently paint CCP as a
biased and corrupt company that favors a select group of players over the
rest of our community. In this particular case, instead of receiving
notification of a possible problem and sufficient time to examine and
address it, we faced a coordinated and hostile attack executed on our
forums, Digg, Wikipedia, Slashdot, and other outlets at the beginning of
a three-day weekend. We believe this speaks volumes of the intention of
the person(s) responsible for orchestrating this scheme. Verification of
this can be readily found on the forums of the people responsible–or at
least could, the last time we looked.” Scott Jennings [2]over at Broken
Toys points the finger at [3]the Goon Fleet corporation, an organization
based out of the Something Awful forums. As I noted in the original post,
the evidence presented on both sides is challenging to verify
independently. Take everything you read about these events with a grain
of salt.

Discuss this story at:
http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/05/30/0412241

Links:
0. http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/26/0016226&tid=209
1. http://myeve.eve-online.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=472
2. http://www.brokentoys.org/2007/05/29/eve-ccp-strikes-back/
3. http://wiki.goonfleet.com/index.php?title=Joining_Goonfleet

An anonymous reader clues us that the wildly litigious Canadian Wayne
Crookes, who has been [0]suing the Internet for defamation, has [1]added
Michael Geist to his hit list. Geist is a well-known Canadian law
professor and blogger. His offense: linking on his blog to site that
links to another site that contains material allegedly of a defamatory
nature. (Others would characterize that material as historical facts
about Crooks’s tenure at the helm of the Canadian Green Party.)

Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/05/30/024225

Links:
0. http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/22/0148255&tid=153
1. http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/1987/125/

[0]ReadWriteWeb writes in to tell us about an article by Dr. Riza C.
Berkan, founder and CEO of hakia.com, describing the [1]promise of and
potential for semantic search. This approach to providing more on-target
search results contrasts with the dream of the [2]semantic Web. Semantic
search doesn’t require all the Web page authors in the world to begin
adding metadata; but it’s not a sure thing that the researchers now
developing the idea will get it right.

Discuss this story at:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/05/30/000259

Links:
0. http://www.readwriteweb.com/
1. http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/semantic_search_antidote_for_poor_relevancy.php
2. http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/21/0235208&tid=95

hoggoth writes “As a common everyman who needs big, fast, reliable
storage without a big budget, I have been following a number of emerging
technologies and I think they have finally become usable in combination.
Specifically, it appears to me that I can put together the little brother
of a $50,000 NAS/SAN solution for under $3,000. Storage experts: please
tell me why this is or isn’t feasible.” Read on for the details of this
cheap storage solution.

This story continues at:
http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/30/0135218

Discuss this story at:
http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/05/30/0135218

B47h0ry’5 CuR53 writes “[0]XBMC is getting ported to Linux. A few
developers of [1]Team-XBMC have begun the porting of XBMC to Linux using
OpenGL and the SDL toolkit. In this effort, they are recruiting
developers. XBMC is, by far, one of the [2]finest projects to come out of
the open source community; and to think it is homebrew. XBMC is a massive
project, with the current SVN branch weighing about 350M before
compilation. Porting it will be a big effort and any hackers willing to
contribute should check out the [3]Linux port project.”

Discuss this story at:
http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/05/30/122227

Links:
0. http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/
1. http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/wiki/index.php?title=Team_XBMC_and_Others
2. http://sourceforge.net/awards/cca/
3. http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/wiki/index.php?title=Linux_port_project

+—————————–—————————————+
| Microsoft’s Multitouch Coffee Table Display |
| from the ok-admit-it-you-want-one dept. |
| posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday May 30, @09:36 (Input Devices) |
| http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/30/127246 |
+—————————–—————————————+

longacre writes “Popular Mechanics takes the [0]Microsoft Surface system
for a hands-on video test drive. To be announced at today’s D5
conference, the coffee-table-esqe device allows manipulation from
multiple touch points, while infrared, WiFi and Bluetooth team up to
allow wireless transfers between devices placed on top of it, such as
cameras and cell phones. Expected to launch before the end of the year in
the $5,000-$10,000 range, the devices might not make their way under many
Christmas trees, but will find the insides of Starwood hotels, Harrah’s
casinos and T-Mobile shops.”

Discuss this story at:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/05/30/127246

Links:
0. http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/4217348.html

Gamasutra reports that, despite the Wii’s breakaway sales success,
[0]some analysts are skeptical of the Wii’s staying power. Other analysts
are, of course, pointing out that many of the ‘hardcore’ titles are
expected later this year. “[They] not[ed] that 31% of Wii owners surveyed
in March said they expected to play the Wii more often a year from now,
compared to 21% of Xbox 360 owners.” At the same time, Nintendo of
America’s George Harrison is [1]questioning the staying power of Sony and
Microsoft. According to Harrison, the two larger companies ‘lack the DNA’
to move with the industry, and keep with the the demand for casual, more
family-friendly titles. “‘They’re really good at reaching a certain
customer, and have a real difficulty understanding how we succeed with
the customers that we have,’ said the senior vice president of marketing
and communications. With the sales of Wii and DS hardware crushing the
competition in the US, Harrison is confident that Nintendo could take up
to as much as 50 per cent of the market for this latest ‘next-gen’
cycle.”

Discuss this story at:
http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/05/30/1359256

Links:
0. http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=14103
1. http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=25365

An anonymous reader writes “In its annual report for the fiscal year
ended October 31, 2006, [0]Novell expressed concerns over how the new
version of the GPL may affect their business. Microsoft might stop
distributing Suse coupons if the GPL version 3 interferes with their
agreement or puts Microsoft’s patents at risk, ultimately causing
Novell’s business and operating results to be adversely affected.”

Discuss this story at:
http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/05/30/1225205

Links:
0. http://news.com.com/Novell+worries+that+GPL+3+could+foil+Microsoft+pact/2100-7344_3-6187127.html

El_Oscuro writes “The MS/Novell deal specifically [0]excludes patent
protection for “clone products.” In the agreement, a clone product is
broadly defined as “a product (or major component thereof) of a Party
that has the same or substantially the same features and functionality as
a then-existing product (or major component thereof) of the other Party
… and that has the same or substantially the same user interface, or
implements all or substantially all of the Application Programming
Interfaces of the Prior Product.” The text of the clone product
definition subsections is very cumbersome to read, but it specifically
mentions OpenOffice, Wine, and OpenXchange by name without asserting that
they are necessarily clone products.”

Discuss this story at:
http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/05/30/1417201

Links:
0. http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070529-microsoftnovell-agreement-may-exclude-patent-protection-for-wine-openoffice.html

[0]Bennett Haselton is back with another piece on e-mail privacy. He
starts “On April 14, 2007, I signed up for an AmeriTrade account using an
e-mail address consisting of 16 random alphanumeric characters, which I
never gave to anyone else. On May 15, I started receiving pump-and-dump
stock spams sent to that e-mail address. I was hardly the first person to
discover that this happens. Almost all of the top hits in a [1]Google
search for “ameritrade spam” are from people with the same story: they
used a unique address for each service that they sign up with, so they
could tell if any company ever leaked their address to a spammer, and the
address they gave to AmeriTrade started getting stock spam. (I don’t
actually do that with most companies where I create accounts. But after
hearing all the AmeriTrade stories, I created an account with them in
April just for the purpose of entering a unique e-mail address and seeing
if it would get leaked.)” Bennett continues on if you’re willing to click
the link.

This story continues at:
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/30/1444236

Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/05/30/1444236

Links:
0. mailto://bennett [Email address: //bennett #AT# peacefire.org/ - replace #AT# with @ ]
1. http://www.google.com/search?q=ameritrade+spam

+—————————–—————————————+
| MySpace Gets False Positive In Sex Offender Search |
| from the not-if-but-when dept. |
| posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday May 30, @12:33 (The Internet|
| http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/30/164224 |
+—————————–—————————————+

[0]gbulmash writes “In its eagerness to clear sex offenders off its site
and publish their identities, MySpace identified an [1]innocent woman as
a sex offender. She shares a name and birth month with a sex offender who
lives in a neighboring state and that was apparently enough to get
MySpace to wrongly brand her and completely ignore her protests.”

Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/05/30/164224

Links:
0. http://www.fundraw.com/
1. http://tech.blorge.com/Structure:%20/2007/05/26/myspace-falsely-labeled-a-woman-as-sex-offender/

[0]lisah writes “Gentoo’s recently released version 2007.0 gets a
[1]fair-to-middling review from Linux.com. Installation was a headache
from the live CD and DVD versions, but the Gentoo Linux Installer saved
the day and gets high marks for being ‘far better than it’s predecessor.’
The user experience is also mixed — on the one hand, the distribution
boots quickly, has great hardware support, and new, user-friendly
artwork. On the other hand, ‘for some strange reason, the installed
Gentoo doesn’t allow normal users to run any administrative
applications.’ Overall, it doesn’t look like Gentoo offers any compelling
reasons to switch to ‘Secret Sauce’ if they’re happy with their current,
uh, flavor.”

Discuss this story at:
http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/05/30/1615233

Links:
0. mailto://lisahoover [Email address: //lisahoover #AT# gmail.com/ - replace #AT# with @ ]
1. http://distrocenter.linux.com/distrocenter/07/05/29/2050238.shtml?tid=108

ScienceDaily is reporting that a team of scientists have discovered that
Helium may act as a [0]“throttle” for the solar wind. The team hopes that
this insight will provide them a better look inside the dynamics of space
weather. “Because helium nearly vanishes from the solar wind at its
minimum speed, the researchers believe helium might somehow set the
minimum speed. Helium is not accelerated efficiently by any process
thought to be propelling the solar wind. Instead, it has to be dragged
along by the hydrogen: Solar wind hydrogen atoms exert a small electric
field that drags the helium out along with it, according to the team.”

Discuss this story at:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/05/30/170241

Links:
0. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070530114957.htm

“In It’s Not News, It’s Fark, Drew Curtis takes a critical look at the
mass media. He promises to examine why the news is often not news at all,
to look at the fear mongering, the cyclical nature of the news and the
fluff that is passed off as important. Drew breaks down these not-news
stories into 8 separate categories and gives examples, along with user
comments from Fark. Unfortunately, 230 of the books 278 pages (including
the index) are used for these examples. What time is spent talking about
the media and the advertisement model it is built on, is insightful a bit
cynical and very brief.” Read below for the rest of the review.

This story continues at:
http://books.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/29/1718214

Discuss this story at:
http://books.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/05/29/1718214

+—————————–—————————————+
| How to Keep Your Code From Destroying You |
| from the i-have-been-sent-here-to-destroy-you dept. |
| posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday May 30, @15:09 (Programming)|
| http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/30/1813247 |
+—————————–—————————————+

An anonymous reader writes “IBM DeveloperWorks has a few quick tips on
how to write maintainable code that won’t leech your most valuable
resource — time. These six tips on how to write maintainable code are
guaranteed to save you time and frustration: one minute spent writing
comments can [0]save you an hour of anguish. Bad code gets written all
the time. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Its time to ask yourself if
its time for you to convert to the clean code religion.”

Discuss this story at:
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/05/30/1813247

Links:
0. http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-clear-code/?ca=dgr-FClnxw01linuxcodetips

+—————————–—————————————+
| McCain on Net Neutrality, Copyright, Iraq |
| from the everyone-has-an-opinion dept. |
| posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday May 30, @15:53 (Communicatio|
| http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/30/1826253 |
+—————————–—————————————+

An anonymous reader writes “Sen. John McCain kicked off [0]the All Things
Digital conference Tuesday night with some [1]interesting comments about
net neutrality among other things. His take: there should be as little
government regulation of broadband as possible. The market should be
allowed to solve the Net-neutrality issue: ‘When you control the pipe you
should be able to get profit from your investment.’”

Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/05/30/1826253

Links:
0. http://d5.allthingsd.com/
1. http://d5.allthingsd.com/20070529/d5-mccain/

+—————————–—————————————+
| Palm Unveils Foleo, Linux-Based “Mobile Companion” |
| from the too-little-too-late-or-lifesaver dept. |
| posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday May 30, @16:34 (Handhelds) |
| http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/30/203201 |
+—————————–—————————————+

An anonymous reader writes “Contrary to recent rumors, it’s not Palm’s
first Linux smartphone, and no, it’s not a competitor to Nokia’s
Linux-based N800 Internet Tablet. Rather, [0]Palm today unveiled the
Foleo, which it’s calling a ‘new class’ of mobile device. The device is
designed to expand the email, Internet, and productivity application
capabilities of mobile phones such as the Palm Treo, by adding a
full-size keyboard and a larger screen. Company founder Jeff Hawkins
predicts that the Foleo will be more successful than Palm’s original Palm
Pilot, which he designed, and more successful than its current Treo
smartphones. He touts its simplicity: ‘Press a button, it’s on. Press it
again, it’s off. There are no other modes.’”

Discuss this story at:
http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/05/30/203201

Links:
0. http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS2494029776.html

Alvis Dark writes “Apple [0]launched iTunes Plus earlier today, the fruit
of its agreement with EMI to sell DRM-free music. What they didn’t say is
that all DRM-free tracks have the [1]user’s full name and account e-mail
embedded in them. Is this to discourage people from throwing the tracks
up on their favorite P2P platform? ‘It would be trivial for iTunes to
report back to Apple, indicating that “Joe User” has M4As on this hard
drive belonging to “Jane Userette,” or even “two other users.” This is
not to say that Apple is going to get into the copyright enforcement
business. What Apple and indeed the record labels want to watch closely
is, will one user buy music for his five close friends?’”

Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/05/30/2014222

Links:
0. http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/05/30itunesplus.html
1. http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070530-apple-hides-account-info-in-drm-free-music-too.html

[0]bill jackson writes “A couple of former Yahoo execs are trying to
create the next MySpace by [1]aggregating fanfiction on a website called
FanLib. But the fanfic writers recognized that exploitation was written
all over the idea and they’ve refused to participate. ‘Instead of
creating the Myspace of fanfic since the launch two weeks ago, FanLib.com
sparked a white-hot Internet firestorm.The meltdown is a hard lesson in
how not to conduct business on the Internet.But it’s a firestorm of
FanLib’s own making because, in spite of the Yahoo pedigree (or maybe
because of it), they plowed in like china shop bulls.’”

Discuss this story at:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/05/30/2050224

Links:
0. mailto://billjackson100 [Email address: //billjackson100 #AT# gmail.com/ - replace #AT# with @ ]
1. http://www.multichannel.com/blog/1300000330/post/130010013.html

+—————————–—————————————+
| Computers Outperform Humans at Recognizing Faces |
| from the come-a-long-way dept. |
| posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday May 30, @18:44 (Technology) |
| http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/30/2059209 |
+—————————–—————————————+

[0]seven of five writes “According to the recent Face Recognition Grand
Challenge, The match up of [1]face-recognition algorithms showed that
machine recognition of human individuals has improved tenfold since 2002
and a hundredfold since 1995. ‘Among other advantages, 3-D facial
recognition identifies individuals by exploiting distinctive features of
a human face’s surface–for instance, the curves of the eye sockets,
nose, and chin, which are where tissue and bone are most apparent and
which don’t change over time. Furthermore, Phillips says, “changes in
illumination have adversely affected face-recognition performance from
still images. But the shape of a face isn’t affected by changes in
illumination.” Hence, 3-D face recognition might even be used in
near-dark conditions.’”

Discuss this story at:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/05/30/2059209

Links:
0. mailto://j-papiewski [Email address: //j-papiewski #AT# neiu.edu/ - replace #AT# with @ ]
1. http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/18796/

+—————————–—————————————+
| Xerox Develops New Way to Print Invisible Ink |
| from the the-fax-says-I’m-the-boss-now dept. |
| posted by samzenpus on Wednesday May 30, @19:48 (Printers) |
| http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/30/232200 |
+—————————–—————————————+

[0]scott3778 writes “Xerox said on Wednesday that its scientists have
perfected a new method for [1]printing hidden fluorescent wording using
standard digital printing equipment. According to the company, the
discovery paves the way for customers and businesses alike to add an
additional layer of security to commonly printed materials such as
checks, tickets, coupons, and other high-value documents. The hidden
fluorescent words and letters show up only under ultraviolet light, said
Reiner Eschbach, a research fellow in the Xerox Innovation Group, and the
co-inventor of the patented process. What’s more, the method for printing
them doesn’t require the use of special fluorescent inks.”

Discuss this story at:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/05/30/232200

Links:
0. mailto://bgardiner [Email address: //bgardiner #AT# gmail.com/ - replace #AT# with @ ]
1. http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2138431,00.asp

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[Slashdot] Stories for 2007-05-31

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