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Slashdot Daily Newsletter
In this issue:
* Microsoft’s Acoustic Caller ID Patent
* Companies That Clean Up Bad Online Reputations
* Human Genome More Like a Functional Network
* EU Considering Regulating Sale of Violent Games
* Virginia Tech Report Cites Privacy Law Problems
* Internet2 Deployment Reaches Major Milestone
* Linspire Signs Patent Pact With MS
* ISS Computer Failure
* Google Street View Could Be Unlawful In Europe
* House To Vote On Paper Trail and OSS Voting Bill
* Details and Rumors of iPhone Restrictions Emerging
* Intuit Finally Offers Some Support For Linux
* Boston University Student Challenges RIAA
* Ask the MMOG Money Traders
* FBI Finds It Overstepped Bounds in Collecting Data
* Judge Orders TorrentSpy to Turn Over RAM
* Safari 3 Beta Updated, Security Problems Fixed
* Doctor Urges AMA To Classify Gaming Addiction
* US Falls to 24th Place For Broadband Penetration
* PC Call Centers Garner Lowest Satisfaction Score
* Mass of Dwarf Planet Eris 27% Greater than Pluto
* Senate Discusses Third Pipe Using 700MHz Spectrum
* Nerdy Photo in Vista DVDs Thwarts Disk Pirates
+—————————–
| Microsoft’s Acoustic Caller ID Patent |
| from the who-do-you-sound-like-today dept. |
| posted by samzenpus on Wednesday June 13, @20:46 (Patents) |
| http://yro.slashdot.org
+—————————–
[0]theodp writes “A new patent granted to Microsoft Tuesday for
[1]automatic identification of telephone callers based on voice
characteristics covers constructing acoustic models for telephone callers
by identifying words or subject matter commonly used by callers and
capturing the acoustic properties of any utterance. Not only that, it’s
done ‘without alerting the caller during the call that the caller is
being identified,’ boasts Microsoft in the patent claims.”
Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org
Links:
0. mailto://theodp [Email address: //theodp #AT# aol.com/ - replace #AT# with @ ]
1. http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi
+—————————–
| Companies That Clean Up Bad Online Reputations |
| from the it-never-happened dept. |
| posted by samzenpus on Wednesday June 13, @22:02 (The Internet) |
| http://yro.slashdot.org
+—————————–
Radon360 writes “As the ever-increasing amount of information available
online becomes indexed and searchable, more and more people find
themselves potentially at risk of having unwanted personal information
revealed or their names incorrectly associated with inflammatory topics.
The are several firms that now sell their services of trying to [0]remove
or bury such information that their client deems offensive or troublesome.
Companies, such as ReputationDefender and DefendMyName will, for a fee,
do the legwork to find content that negatively impacts your reputation
and have it removed or buried deeper in search rankings. However, some of
these efforts can backfire, as the act to get it taken down can sometimes
draw more attention than the offending content in the first place.”
Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org
+—————————–
| Human Genome More Like a Functional Network |
| from the nothing-wasted dept. |
| posted by samzenpus on Thursday June 14, @00:09 (Biotech) |
| http://science.slashdot.org
+—————————–
bshell writes “An article in science blog says we may have to rethink how
genes work. [0]So called “junk DNA” actually appears to be functional.
What’s more it works in a mysterious way involving multiple overlaps that
seems to be connected in some sort of network.” From the article: “The
ENCODE consortium’s major findings include the discovery that the
majority of DNA in the human genome is transcribed into functional
molecules, called RNA, and that these transcripts extensively overlap one
another. This broad pattern of transcription challenges the long-standing
view that the human genome consists of a relatively small set of discrete
genes, along with a vast amount of so-called junk DNA that is not
biologically active. The new data indicates the genome contains very
little unused sequences and, in fact, is a complex, interwoven network.
In this network, genes are just one of many types of DNA sequences that
have a functional impact. “Our perspective of transcription and genes may
have to evolve,” the researchers state in their [1]Nature paper, noting
the network model of the genome “poses some interesting mechanistic
questions” that have yet to be answered.”
Discuss this story at:
http://science.slashdot.org
Links:
0. http://www.scienceblog.com/cms
1. http://www.nature.com/nature
+—————————–
| EU Considering Regulating Sale of Violent Games |
| from the think-of-the-children dept. |
| posted by samzenpus on Thursday June 14, @02:31 (PC Games (Games)|
| http://games.slashdot.org
+—————————–
[0]Spamicles writes “European Union justice ministers met today in order
to discuss the [1]regulation of sales of violent video games to minors.
Europeans were riled up last year when a German gunman shot several
people before taking his life at a secondary school. A European Union
Commissioner is taking advantage of the shootings last year called for
stricter regulations in the video game industry. A motion introduced last
month calls for legislators to “put in place all necessary measures to
ban the sale of particularly violent and cruel video games.”"
Discuss this story at:
http://games.slashdot.org
Links:
0. mailto://paulastewart [Email address: //paulastewart #AT# gmail.com/ - replace #AT# with @ ]
1. http://www.lawbean.com/2007/06
+—————————–
| Virginia Tech Report Cites Privacy Law Problems |
| from the pass-the-buck dept. |
| posted by samzenpus on Thursday June 14, @05:04 (Privacy) |
| http://yro.slashdot.org
+—————————–
[0]RickRussellTX writes “A panel of Bush administration officials,
including several bureau chiefs, concludes that [1]confusing privacy laws
contributed to the Virgina Tech shootings. The report claims that
confusion over student privacy and medical privacy laws “has limited the
ability of these officials to prevent the kind of violence that occurred
at Virginia Tech.”"
Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org
Links:
0. mailto://rickrussell [Email address: //rickrussell #AT# gmail.com/ - replace #AT# with @ ]
1. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06
+—————————–
| Internet2 Deployment Reaches Major Milestone |
| from the they-grow-up-so-fast dept. |
| posted by samzenpus on Thursday June 14, @07:59 (The Internet) |
| http://it.slashdot.org/article
+—————————–
An anonymous reader writes “Internet2 today announced that [0]the first
East to West Coast span on its new nationwide 100 gigabit per second
network has been completed and is providing production IP and circuit
services. This deployment marks another major milestone in bringing
leading- edge networking resources to the research and education
community in the United States.”
Discuss this story at:
http://it.slashdot.org/comment
+—————————–
| Linspire Signs Patent Pact With MS |
| from the devil’s-sleeping-around dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Thursday June 14, @08:35 (Linux Business) |
| http://linux.slashdot.org
+—————————–
[0]RLiegh sends us to an AP article reporting that [1]Linspire has signed
a patent deal with Microsoft. The company, which started out life as
“Lindows,” joins a [2]growing [3]list of [4]patent agreements reached
between Microsoft and [5]vendors. Linspire will be granted a license to
use True Type Fonts and “various code” that would allow for Linspire
users to use voice on Windows Live Messenger as well as the [6]usual
patent protection for Linspire’s customers. In return, among other
things, Linspire will make Microsoft’s search engine the default search
on PCs shipped with their OS. Kevin Carmony, the CEO for Linspire,
approached Microsoft a year and a half ago, according to the article.
Discuss this story at:
http://linux.slashdot.org
Links:
0. http://slashdot.org/~Rliegh
1. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap
2. http://yro.slashdot.org
3. http://yro.slashdot.org
4. http://yro.slashdot.org
5. http://linux.slashdot.org
6. http://linux.slashdot.org
+—————————–
| ISS Computer Failure |
| from the little-help-from-my-friends dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Thursday June 14, @09:12 (Space) |
| http://science.slashdot.org
+—————————–
A number of readers wrote us with news of the computer problems on the
International Space Station. Space.com has one of the better writeups on
the [0]failure of Russian computers that control the ISS’s attitude and
some life-support systems. Two out of six computers in a redundant system
cannot be rebooted. The space shuttle Atlantis may have its mission
extended until the problem is fixed. A NASA spokesman was optimistic that
the problem can be resolved; worst-case scenario would be for the shuttle
to evacuate everyone onboard the ISS. Engineers are working on the theory
(among others) that the failure may have been triggered by new solar
panels installed earlier in Atlantis’s mission.
Discuss this story at:
http://science.slashdot.org
Links:
0. http://www.space.com/missionla
+—————————–
| Google Street View Could Be Unlawful In Europe |
| from the please-sign-here dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Thursday June 14, @09:55 (Google) |
| http://yro.slashdot.org
+—————————–
arallsopp writes “European data protection laws [0]restrict the
commercial use of photographs where individuals are identifiable. The law
sets extra requirements for so-called sensitive personal data: it demands
explicit consent, not just notification: ‘If Google’s multi-lens camera
cars come to Europe and inadvertently find themselves taking pictures of
persons leaving a church or sexual health clinic, they may just need to
pull over and start picking up signatures.’”
Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org
Links:
0. http://www.out-law.com/page
+—————————–
| House To Vote On Paper Trail and OSS Voting Bill |
| from the good-start dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Thursday June 14, @10:37 (United States) |
| http://politics.slashdot.org
+—————————–
[0]Spamicles writes “A vote is imminent for the [1]bill that is a direct
response to problems in the 2006 elections. This legislation would create
a paper trail for elections, require a manual audit of every federal
election, and open the source code of voting software in certain
circumstances. The bill currently has 216 co-sponsors and is expected to
be brought to the floor of the House and passed any day.”
Discuss this story at:
http://politics.slashdot.org
Links:
0. mailto://paulastewart [Email address: //paulastewart #AT# gmail.com/ - replace #AT# with @ ]
1. http://www.lawbean.com/2007/06
+—————————–
| Details and Rumors of iPhone Restrictions Emerging |
| from the still-don’t-know-how-much-a
| posted by kdawson on Thursday June 14, @11:18 (Communications) |
| http://apple.slashdot.org
+—————————–
We’re getting indications of the ways the iPhone will be sold (or not
sold) and restricted by Apple and AT&T. Reader thefickler writes, “An
anonymous AT&T store manager has told blorge.com that [0]users will get
their WiFi when they sign a contract locking them into a data plan and
EDGE. Kiss your dreams of WiFi reliance goodbye.” And our own CmdrTaco
found an article up on AppleInsider reporting that the [1]iPhone will not
be sold through established business channels — forcing Cingular business
customers to stand in line for their goodies, as individuals, at Apple
stores. An AT&T Business Division rep told one customer, “There is no ETA
on the [ending of the] sale ban to business.”
Discuss this story at:
http://apple.slashdot.org
Links:
0. http://mac.blorge.com/2007/06
1. http://www.appleinsider.com
+—————————–
| Intuit Finally Offers Some Support For Linux |
| from the double-entry-penguins dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Thursday June 14, @11:57 (Software) |
| http://linux.slashdot.org
+—————————–
[0]walterbyrd sends us to the ZDNet blog, where Dan Farber & Larry Dignan
write: “Intuit said Wednesday it will [1]allow QuickBooks Enterprise
Solutions to operate on Linux servers. For Intuit, the move is a bit of a
milestone — QuickBooks is the first of its products [to] work on open
source software.”
Discuss this story at:
http://linux.slashdot.org
Links:
0. mailto://walterbyrd [Email address: //walterbyrd #AT# yahoo.com/ - replace #AT# with @ ]
1. http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p
+—————————–
| Boston University Student Challenges RIAA |
| from the back-off dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Thursday June 14, @12:40 (The Courts) |
| http://yro.slashdot.org
+—————————–
[0]NewYorkCountryLawyer writes “A Boston University student identified
only as one of the 21 ‘John Does’ in Arista v. Does 1-21 has
[1]challenged the RIAA’s alleged right to get his or her identity from
the school, bringing a motion to vacate the ex parte discovery order
obtained by the RIAA, and to quash the subpoena served on the university.
[2]John Doe’s court papers (PDF) argue, among other things, that the
RIAA’s papers are ‘based on a flawed theory that having copyrighted music
files on an individual’s computer or on an assigned folder on Boston
University’s server is a “distribution” of such copyrighted music files,
where such folder is merely accessible by others.’”
Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org
Links:
0. http://recordingindustryvspeop
1. http://recordingindustryvspeop
2. http://www.ilrweb.com/viewILRP
+—————————–
| Ask the MMOG Money Traders |
| from the how-much-for-that-sword-in-the
| posted by Zonk on Thursday June 14, @13:18 (Role Playing (Games))|
| http://games.slashdot.org
+—————————–
Late yesterday, Sparter Inc. announced [0]the Gamer2Gamer virtual
currency trading platform. The goal: to provide a secure currency trading
environment for players of Massively Multiplayer Online Games. Rather
than purchasing currency outright, the goal of the project is to cut out
the middleman and (implicitly) the gold-farming consortiums that supply
larger for-pay sites. We were contacted by a representative from the
company before the release went out, looking to speak with the Slashdot
community about the service. In his words, the folks at Gamer2Gamer “are
devoted gamers themselves and are well aware that not everyone will like
the idea — but we think plenty of folks will like a world where Real
Money Transfer is workable and unintrusive.” And so, you get the chance
today to put the hard questions to them. One question per comment,
please, and we’ll pass on the best of the lot to be answered as soon as
possible. Update: 06/14 17:58 GMT by [1]Z : Howzer points out that there
is [2]an extensive FAQ on the service, that you can use as a springboard
for questions.
Discuss this story at:
http://games.slashdot.org
Links:
0. http://www.shacknews.com
1. http://slashdot.org/~Zonk/
2. http://sparter.com/web/faq.jsp
+—————————–
| FBI Finds It Overstepped Bounds in Collecting Data |
| from the back-over-the-line-you dept. |
| posted by Zonk on Thursday June 14, @13:56 (Privacy) |
| http://yro.slashdot.org
+—————————–
[0]truthsearch writes with a link to a Washington Post article about an
eyebrow raising internal FBI audit recently released to the public. The
document finds that, contrary to a document release back in March, [1]the
FBI frequently overstepped its bounds in collecting data on US citizens.
The article states that the organization may have violated laws or agency
rules ‘more than 1,000 times’. “The new audit covers just 10 percent of
the bureau’s national security investigations since 2002. The vast
majority of the new violations were instances in which telephone
companies and Internet providers gave agents phone and e-mail records the
agents did not request and were not authorized to collect. But two dozen
of the newly-discovered violations involved agents’ requests for
information that U.S. law did not allow them to have.”
Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org
Links:
0. http://docforge.com/wiki/Main
1. http://www.washingtonpost.com
+—————————–
| Judge Orders TorrentSpy to Turn Over RAM |
| from the i-do-not-think-that-word-means
| posted by Zonk on Thursday June 14, @14:33 (Privacy) |
| http://yro.slashdot.org
+—————————–
[0]virgil_disgr4ce writes “In an impressive example of the gap of
understanding between legal officials and technology, U.S. Magistrate
Judge Jacqueline Chooljian ‘found that a computer server’s RAM, or
random-access memory, [1]is a tangible document that can be stored and
must be turned over in a lawsuit.’ ZDNet, among others, reports on the
ruling and its potential for invasion of privacy.”
Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org
Links:
0. http://www.liminastudio.com/
1. http://news.zdnet.com/2102
+—————————–
| Safari 3 Beta Updated, Security Problems Fixed |
| from the closing-holes-in-the-apple dept. |
| posted by Zonk on Thursday June 14, @15:09 (Security) |
| http://it.slashdot.org/article
+—————————–
Llywelyn writes “Apple has [0]released an update to the Windows Safari 3
Beta. According to Macworld the updates ‘…include correction for a
command injection vulnerability, corrected with additional processing and
validation of URLs that could otherwise lead to an unexpected termination
of the browser; an out-of-bounds memory read issue; and a race condition
that can allow cross-site scripting using a JavaSscript [sic] exploit.’
It is available through either the [1]Apple Safari download site or
through Apple’s Software Update.”
Discuss this story at:
http://it.slashdot.org/comment
Links:
0. http://www.macworld.com/news
1. http://www.apple.com/safari
+—————————–
| Doctor Urges AMA To Classify Gaming Addiction |
| from the we-who-are-about-to-grind-for
| posted by Zonk on Thursday June 14, @15:47 (Education) |
| http://games.slashdot.org
+—————————–
Doctor Mario writes “The AMA has issued a [0]set of findings and
recommendations (Word document) which follow a lengthy look at possible
connections between gaming and violence, as well as gaming addiction. Ars
Technica has a [1]very good summary of the report, which suggests that
gaming addiction is likely to be a subset of Internet addiction ‘as it
most frequently occurs in players of MMORPGs. In both of these
addictions, the current definition is currently informal — the described
symptoms actually most closely resemble pathological gambling, rather
than an addiction. In either case, the report notes, “there is currently
insufficient research to definitively conclude that video game overuse is
an addiction.”‘ The report also recommends that Internet and videogame
addiction be included in a revision to the Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual of Mental Disorders.”
Discuss this story at:
http://games.slashdot.org
Links:
0. http://www.ama-assn.org/ama1
1. http://arstechnica.com/news
+—————————–
| US Falls to 24th Place For Broadband Penetration |
| from the that-is-not-so-good dept. |
| posted by Zonk on Thursday June 14, @16:33 (Networking) |
| http://it.slashdot.org/article
+—————————–
[0]amigoro writes “According to research done by the consultancy firm
Point Topic, [1]the US has fallen to 24th place in terms of broadband
penetration, with only 53% of households connected. South Korea led the
pack, with 90% of households having highspeed connections. The US remains
the largest broadband country in the world with more than 60.4 million
subscribers in the quarter with 2.9 million new broadband additions, but
China is fast catching up and has cut the gap to the US from 5.8 million
at the end of 2006 to 4.1 million at end of March 2007. The firm’s
research also pointed out the disparity between the connectivity of first
world nations and other places throughout the world. ‘Many Sub-Saharan
African states do not register in the figures at all: only South Africa,
Sudan, Senegal and Gabon make it onto the list, with household broadband
penetration running from 1.79% in South Africa - with 215,000 users at
the end of March - to just 0.05% in Sudan - with a mere 3,000. North
African states fare slightly better with Morocco scoring 6.78%
penetration with 418,000 users and Egypt at 1.55% or 240,000.’”
Discuss this story at:
http://it.slashdot.org/comment
Links:
0. http://groundviews.org/
1. http://business.guardian.co.uk
+—————————–
| PC Call Centers Garner Lowest Satisfaction Score |
| from the ouch-worse-than-cable-service
| posted by Zonk on Thursday June 14, @17:13 (Communications) |
| http://it.slashdot.org/article
+—————————–
[0]Lucas123 writes “The University of Michigan took its first American
Customer Satisfaction survey and found that of six industries measured
for the Customers’ Call Center Satisfaction Index, [1]the PC industry
received the lowest score, according to a Computerworld story. ‘According
to the survey, nearly 73% of the people who have bad experiences with
their PC companies’ call centers said they will consider purchasing their
next PCs from another company, while 85% of customers who had their
problems resolved by calling a PC call center said they would continue
doing business with the company. Other calls centers included in the
survey included banking, cell phone service, cable and satellite
television, and insurance.’”
Discuss this story at:
http://it.slashdot.org/comment
Links:
0. http://www.computerworld.com/
1. http://www.computerworld.com
+—————————–
| Mass of Dwarf Planet Eris 27% Greater than Pluto |
| from the she-wants-a-bite-of-the-apple dept. |
| posted by Zonk on Thursday June 14, @17:55 (Space) |
| http://science.slashdot.org
+—————————–
jcgam69 writes “When it was discovered in 2005, some thought Eris should
be considered the 10th planet of our solar system. Everyone still
considered Pluto a planet then. At first, Eris was thought to be slightly
larger. Now — with the help of Eris’ moon — [0]Eris is known to be 27%
more massive than Pluto. If Pluto had remained a planet to the entire
community of astronomers, surely Eris would be considered the 10th
planet.”
Discuss this story at:
http://science.slashdot.org
Links:
0. http://hubblesite.org/newscent
+—————————–
| Senate Discusses Third Pipe Using 700MHz Spectrum |
| from the stevens-confused-between-pipes
| posted by Zonk on Thursday June 14, @18:38 (The Internet) |
| http://hardware.slashdot.org
+—————————–
Freebird writes “The US Senate Commerce Committee held [0]hearings on the
upcoming 700MHz spectrum auction today, and much of the discussion
centered around Frontline Wireless’ proposal to create a commercial
wireless broadband network that would also be used for public safety.
‘Under Frontline’s proposal, the FCC would auction off 10 MHz from the
commercially available spectrum and offer that to the highest bidder. The
winner would also be given (free) 12 MHz out of the 24 MHz currently
allotted to public safety.’ Some senators were skeptical, especially Ted
Stevens of Alaska who had a ‘long and testy interchange’ with Frontline
CEO James Barksdale. ‘He seemed to be zeroing on criticisms that the
Frontline proposal was simply a way for a new company to get a huge
discount on a prime chunk of spectrum by playing the “public safety”
card.’”
Discuss this story at:
http://hardware.slashdot.org
+—————————–
| Nerdy Photo in Vista DVDs Thwarts Disk Pirates |
| from the tiny-family-albums dept. |
| posted by CowboyNeal on Thursday June 14, @19:22 (Windows) |
| http://it.slashdot.org/article
+—————————–
maximus1 writes “Microsoft says that the tiny photo on the Windows Vista
Business Edition installation disks is an anti-piracy feature. The
[0]tiny photo of three grinning men — less that 1 mm in size — is one of
several images incorporated into the hologram’s design intended to
[1]make it harder to replicate a Vista DVD, according to Nick White on
Microsoft’s Vista team blog. ‘The real story is interesting, but
conspiracy theorists will be disappointed to learn that it is not the
result of a deliberate attempt to deceive,’ White wrote.”
Discuss this story at:
http://it.slashdot.org/comment
Links:
0. http://security.itworld.com
1. http://windowsvistablog.com
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