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Slashdot Daily Newsletter
In this issue:
* Drawing on Air With Haptics in 3D
* EU Think Tank Urges Full Windows Unbundling
* MIT’s SAT Math Error
* Apple Legend Woz Blasts iPhone Price Drop
* AMD Releases Register Specs For R5xx And R6xx
* OLPC Announces Buy-2-Get-1 XO Laptop Sale
* The Fall Geek TV Lineup
* The Linux Identity Crisis
* Mysterious Peruvian Meteor Disease Solved
* Device Reduces Stress While Gaming
* GoogHOle Exploits GMail, Picasa and 200K Other Sites
* Free Phone Calls… If Advertisers Can Eavesdrop
* From Sputnik to the WWW, a History of ARPA
* Firefox Working to Fix Memory Leaks
* Jack Thompson Sets His Sights On Halo 3
* Halo 3 Review
* Video Professor Sues 100 Anonymous Critics
* A Mathematical Answer To the Parallel Universe Question
* STriDER, a Three-Legged Walking Robot
* Apple’s Leopard Will Exclude 800MHz G4 Processors
* Gartner Touts Web 2.0, Scoffs At Web 3.0
* Vivendi Calls iTunes Contract Terms “Indecent”
* First US GPL Lawsuit Heads For Quick Settlement
* Virgin Digital To Close Up Shop
+—————————–
| Drawing on Air With Haptics in 3D |
| from the just-like-in-longest-journey dept. |
| posted by Zonk on Sunday September 23, @20:06 (Graphics) |
| http://science.slashdot.org
+—————————–
[0]Roland Piquepaille writes “In a recent article, PhysOrg.com reports
that a team of computer scientists at Brown University has developed
‘Drawing on Air’, a haptic-aided interface to help artists to [1]create
3D illustrations while wearing a virtual reality mask. ‘The technique
introduces two new strategies, using one hand or two hands, to give
artists the tools they need for drawing different types of curves, and
for viewing and editing their work.’ The researchers hope that these
techniques will improve the precision with which scientists can interact
with their 3D data using a computer. This also would help artists to
illustrate complicated artistic, scientific, and medical subjects.”
Discuss this story at:
http://science.slashdot.org
Links:
0. http://www.primidi.com/2007/09
1. http://www.physorg.com/news109
+—————————–
| EU Think Tank Urges Full Windows Unbundling |
| from the fly-be-free-little-components dept. |
| posted by Zonk on Sunday September 23, @22:09 (Microsoft) |
| http://slashdot.org/article.pl
+—————————–
leffeman writes “An influential Brussels think tank is urging the
European Commission to ban the bundling of operating systems with desktop
and laptop computers. The Globalisation Institute’s [0]submission to the
Commission says that bundling ‘is not in the public interest’ and that
the dominance of Windows has ’slowed technical improvements and prevented
new alternatives entering from the marketplace.’ It says the Microsoft
tax is a burden on EU businesses: the price of operating systems would be
lower in a competitive market. This is the first time a major free-market
think tank has published in favour of taking action against Microsoft’s
monopoly power.”
Discuss this story at:
http://slashdot.org/comments
Links:
0. http://www.globalisation.eu
+—————————–
| MIT’s SAT Math Error |
| from the maybe-they-should-get-a
| posted by Zonk on Monday September 24, @00:10 (Education) |
| http://science.slashdot.org
+—————————–
[0]theodp writes “The Wall Street Journal reports that for years now,
[1]MIT wasn’t properly calculating the average freshmen SAT scores (reg.)
used to determine [2]U.S. News & World Report’s influential annual
rankings. In response to an inquiry made by [3]The Tech regarding the
school’s recent drop in the rankings, MIT revealed that in past years it
had [4]excluded the test scores of foreign students as well as those who
fared better on the ACT than the SAT, both violations of the U.S. News
rules. MIT’s reported first-quartile SAT verbal and math scores for the
2006 incoming class totaled 1380, a drop of 50 points from 2005.”
Discuss this story at:
http://science.slashdot.org
Links:
0. mailto:theodp [Email address: theodp #AT# aol.com - replace #AT# with @ ]
1. http://online.wsj.com/article
2. http://colleges.usnews.ranking
3. http://www-tech.mit.edu/
4. http://www-tech.mit.edu/V127
+—————————–
| Apple Legend Woz Blasts iPhone Price Drop |
| from the cuz-the-price-is-crazy dept. |
| posted by Zonk on Monday September 24, @02:19 (Media (Apple)) |
| http://apple.slashdot.org
+—————————–
Stony Stevenson writes “Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak Saturday [0]blasted
Steve Jobs’ decision to drop the price of the iPhone by $200 just two
months after the product was launched. Said Woz: ‘Everyone expects
technology to drop in price. The first adopters always pay a premium. I
am one of them. I am used to that. But that one was too soon, too harsh
… A lot of people from Apple, even a lot of people that worked on the
Apple Lisa and Macintosh computers in the beginning now work at Google.
The thinking over at Google is very much like early Apple days. The fact
that they give people time off to work on their own ideas is exactly
matches some of the things that made Apple great. I wish Apple did
that.’” We just [1]discussed the price drop last night.
Discuss this story at:
http://apple.slashdot.org
Links:
0. http://www.itnews.com.au/News
1. http://apple.slashdot.org
+—————————–
| AMD Releases Register Specs For R5xx And R6xx |
| from the have-fun-storming-the-castle dept. |
| posted by Zonk on Monday September 24, @04:12 (Displays) |
| http://hardware.slashdot.org
+—————————–
ianare writes “AMD has recently released [0]register specifications for
the ATI Radeon R5xx and R6xx graphic devices. This will (theoretically)
allow the OSS community to develop drivers, given time. In fact,
engineers from Novell have released a first [1]alpha quality Open Source
driver which currently supports initial mode settings. Although current
work is focused on 2D, rather than 3D acceleration, this type of
information sharing could conceivably lead to an OSS 3D driver.”
Discuss this story at:
http://hardware.slashdot.org
Links:
0. http://arstechnica.com/journal
1. http://news.opensuse.org/?p
+—————————–
| OLPC Announces Buy-2-Get-1 XO Laptop Sale |
| from the seems-like-a-fair-deal-to-me dept. |
| posted by Zonk on Monday September 24, @06:04 (Education) |
| http://hardware.slashdot.org
+—————————–
[0]theodp writes “Starting November 12, The One Laptop Per Child Project
will [1]sell its affordable XO laptop to Americans for a brief period of
time, but there’s a slight catch: [2]U.S. buyers must purchase two
computers — one for their own child and one for a child in the developing
world — for a total cost of $399. ‘Staff members of the laptop project
were concerned that American children might try the pared-down machines
and find them lacking compared to their Apple, Hewlett-Packard or Dell
laptops. Then, in this era of immediate global communications, they might
post their criticisms on Web sites and blogs read around the world,
damaging the reputation of the XO Laptop, the project staff worried. So
the laptop project sponsored focus-group research with American children,
ages 7 to 11, at the end of August. The results were reassuringly
positive.’”
Discuss this story at:
http://hardware.slashdot.org
Links:
0. mailto:theodp [Email address: theodp #AT# aol.com - replace #AT# with @ ]
1. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09
2. http://www.xogiving.org/
+—————————–
| The Fall Geek TV Lineup |
| from the hollywood-nerds-don’t-reallly
| posted by Zonk on Monday September 24, @07:08 (Television) |
| http://slashdot.org/article.pl
+—————————–
An anonymous reader writes “Wired has an article looking at [0]this
Fall’s bumper crop of geek TV. McG, who directed the pilot for the show
Chuck, opines that the appearance of nerd culture on network television
is a long-overdue reflection of real life. From the article: ‘Hollywood,
he said, is playing catch-up with IT culture. “The classic shape of the
computer geek is over when Bill Gates became the (richest), most
aspirational, coolest guy in the world,” he said. “He is the original
thick-glasses, pocket-protector guy. Now who doesn’t want to be like Bill
Gates?”‘ They have [1]reviews of the lengthy list of shows, for clues as
to what to watch and what to miss.”
Discuss this story at:
http://slashdot.org/comments
Links:
0. http://www.wired.com/entertain
1. http://www.wired.com/entertain
+—————————–
| The Linux Identity Crisis |
| from the wants-to-be-called-linuxette
| posted by CmdrTaco on Monday September 24, @08:27 (Linux) |
| http://linux.slashdot.org
+—————————–
Jayze Calrtini writes “From an article from ZDNet:”If you’ve been
following the current rift in the Linux community between Linus Torvalds
and his minions squaring off against Con Kolivas and the mainstream Linux
fanatics, you probably know that [0]it’s getting quite heated. You also
probably know that these two entirely different ideas could create three
possible paths Linux can take for the future: stay geeky and appeal to
the advanced tech guru in all of us; go mainstream and leave the advanced
functionality and reliable kernel behind to compete with Microsoft and
Apple; or face a “civil war” that could lead to total Linux
annihilation.”
Discuss this story at:
http://linux.slashdot.org
Links:
0. http://www.zdnetasia.com/news
+—————————–
| Mysterious Peruvian Meteor Disease Solved |
| from the oh-great-its-only-poison dept. |
| posted by CmdrTaco on Monday September 24, @09:08 (Space) |
| http://science.slashdot.org
+—————————–
Technician writes “The meteor that crashed in Peru [0]caused a mystery
illnesses. The cause of the illness has been found. The meteor was not
toxic. The [1]ground water it contacted contains arsenic. The resulting
steam cloud is what caused the mystery illness. “The meteorite created
the gases when the object’s hot surface met an underground water supply
tainted with arsenic, the scientists said.” There is a very good photo of
the impact crater in the article. The rim of the crater is lined with
people for a size comparison.”
Discuss this story at:
http://science.slashdot.org
Links:
0. http://science.slashdot.org
1. http://news.nationalgeographic
+—————————–
| Device Reduces Stress While Gaming |
| from the or-just-in-bad-traffic dept. |
| posted by CmdrTaco on Monday September 24, @09:45 (Input Devices)|
| http://games.slashdot.org
+—————————–
[0]Bayscribe writes “Vyro Games, a Dublin Ireland company, unveils a
[1]device today that forces you to relax while playing games. It is
called a PiP, or “Personal Input Pod,” and it measures things like the
moisture in your hand to assess whether you’re stressed. If you’re
showing signs of stress, your performance in a game deteriorates. If you
relax, you do much better. The PiP communicates wirelessly with software
on devices such as mobile phones, PCs or games consoles… If you relax,
the dragon spreads its wings and flies. If not, it stumbles all over the
place.”
Discuss this story at:
http://games.slashdot.org
Links:
0. http://www.venturebeat.com/
1. http://venturebeat.com/2007/09
+—————————–
| GoogHOle Exploits GMail, Picasa and 200K Other Sites |
| from the hate-when-that-happens dept. |
| posted by CmdrTaco on Monday September 24, @10:27 (Google) |
| http://it.slashdot.org/article
+—————————–
[0]Giorgio Maone writes “[1]Multiple Google-targeted exploits disclosed
in the past 3 days could compromise your GMail account, steal your
pictures from Picasa or impersonate you on almost 200,000 big sites which
[2]outsourced their search engines (vulnerabilities included in the
price). If even Google, a very reactive company when web security
matters, does face this kind of problems, how serious is the threat and
what can you do, as a “normal” web user, to protect yourself?”
Discuss this story at:
http://it.slashdot.org/comment
Links:
0. http://maone.net/
1. http://hackademix.net/2007/09
2. http://hackademix.net/2007/09
+—————————–
| Free Phone Calls… If Advertisers Can Eavesdrop |
| from the why-are-my-ads-all-about-boobs dept. |
| posted by CmdrTaco on Monday September 24, @11:10 (Communications|
| http://slashdot.org/article.pl
+—————————–
[0]Dekortage writes “Today, Pudding Media is introducing an Internet
phone service similar to Skype’s online service, but without any toll
charges. The catch: they are [1]eavesdropping on phone calls with voice
recognition software to monitor calls, then push conversation-relevant
the ads to the subscriber’s computer screen. Interestingly, during tests,
“conversations [were] actually changing based on what was on the screen,”
said the president. “Our ability to influence the conversation was
remarkable.”"
Discuss this story at:
http://slashdot.org/comments
Links:
0. http://www.cheapcheap.biz/
1. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09
+—————————–
| From Sputnik to the WWW, a History of ARPA |
| from the know-your-roots-boy dept. |
| posted by CmdrTaco on Monday September 24, @11:46 (The Internet) |
| http://slashdot.org/article.pl
+—————————–
[0]Ian Lamont writes “Next month is the 50th anniversary of the Sputnik
launch, but it’s not just the start of mankind’s exploration of space
that should be observed. [1]The ‘October surprise’ also changed computing
forever, thanks to the subsequent creation of the Advanced Research
Projects Agency. J.C.R. Licklider, the first director of IT research at
ARPA, catalyzed the invention of an [2]astonishing array of IT, from
computer graphics to microprocessors to the Internet … and even an
early ‘electronic office.’ However, the long-range vision that Licklider
promoted at the agency is allegedly in danger, according to some
observers quoted in the article: ‘In the early years, ARPA was willing to
fund things like artificial intelligence — take five years and see what
happens,’ [CMU Professor David Farber] says. ‘Nobody cared whether you
delivered something in six months. It was, “Go and put forth your best
effort and see if you can budge the field.” Now that’s changed. It’s more
driven by, “What did you do for us this year?”‘ Former ARPA director
Charles M. Herzfeld [3]blames Congress and a new crop of ‘wishy-washy’
agency heads. DARPA’s response: [4]It still is investing heavily in
technologies that may take years to come to market, such as universal
language translation, realistic agent-based societal simulation
environments, and photonic communications in a microprocessor having a
theoretical maximum performance of 10 TFLOPS.”
Discuss this story at:
http://slashdot.org/comments
Links:
0. http://www.computerworld.com
1. http://computerworld.com
2. http://computerworld.com
3. http://computerworld.com
4. http://computerworld.com
+—————————–
| Firefox Working to Fix Memory Leaks |
| from the important-but-boring-work dept. |
| posted by CmdrTaco on Monday September 24, @12:29 (Mozilla) |
| http://slashdot.org/article.pl
+—————————–
[0]Christopher Blanc writes “Many Mozilla community members, including
both volunteers and Mozilla Corporation employees, have been [1]helping
to reduce Firefox’s memory usage and fix memory leak bugs lately.
Hopefully, the result of this effort will be that Firefox 3 uses less
memory than Firefox 2 did, especially after it has been used for several
hours.” Here’s hoping. Frequent restarts of things on my computer make me
furious. I can’t imagine why anyone would tolerate such things.
Discuss this story at:
http://slashdot.org/comments
Links:
0. http://www.chrisblanc.org/
1. http://www.squarefree.com/2007
+—————————–
| Jack Thompson Sets His Sights On Halo 3 |
| from the because-he-has-nothing-better
| posted by Zonk on Monday September 24, @12:41 (The Courts) |
| http://games.slashdot.org
+—————————–
GamePolitics is reporting that anti-game advocate Jack Thompson is
[0]seeking to have Halo 3 declared a nuisance to the public in Florida.
He tried the same stunt with Bully, and failed then too. “As with Bully,
Thompson clearly hopes the court will grant him a hearing. Although after
last year’s well-publicized Bully performance, which earned Thompson a
Bar complaint from presiding Judge Ronald Friedman, that seems unlikely.
More troubling by far are the long term implications of this action.
Thompson apparently feels emboldened to invoke Florida’s public nuisance
law against any video game he desires to target. That is the essence of
censorship and the video game industry cannot allow it to continue on any
number of grounds - legal, moral or creative.”
Discuss this story at:
http://games.slashdot.org
+—————————–
| Halo 3 Review |
| from the cue-orchestral-background
| posted by Zonk on Monday September 24, @13:09 (XBox (Games)) |
| http://games.slashdot.org
+—————————–
From a certain point of view, Halo 3 is without a doubt the biggest game
of the year. The combination of fan anticipation, marketing, and the
skill of Bungie’s design combine to create a game that’s larger than
life; if gaming has a blockbuster franchise to match the movie industry’s
punch, it’s the tale of Master Chief. The importance of the Halo
franchise to gaming is a very big issue, though, and one worth it’s own
article. Having played through the game, there’s really only one question
I’m here to answer today. Does it meet expectations? In a word: yes. It’s
not the best game ever made, and it may not even be the best game this
year. Will it make the fans happy, and deservedly sell thousands of Xbox
360s? Very much yes. Read on for my impressions of Bungie’s
years-in-the-making epic, Halo 3.
This story continues at:
http://games.slashdot.org
Discuss this story at:
http://games.slashdot.org
+—————————–
| Video Professor Sues 100 Anonymous Critics |
| from the sco-business-model dept. |
| posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday September 24, @13:51 (The Court|
| http://yro.slashdot.org
+—————————–
Techdirt is reporting that the Video Professor Company is [0]suing 100
anonymous critics of their company. The Video Professor is known for
their television ads hawking DVDs that teach you various skills like how
to use your computer. Most of the complaints center around how their
“free” product offering automagically signs you up for a subscription.
Instead of addressing the concerns the Video Professor has decided to
take the litigious route.
Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org
Links:
0. http://techdirt.com/articles
+—————————–
| A Mathematical Answer To the Parallel Universe Question |
| from the evil-twins-always-have-a
| posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday September 24, @14:33 (Math) |
| http://science.slashdot.org
+—————————–
diewlasing writes to mention that Oxford scientists have proffered a
[0]mathematical answer to the parallel universe question that is gaining
some support in the scientific community. “According to quantum
mechanics, unobserved particles are described by ‘wave functions’
representing a set of multiple ‘probable’ states. When an observer makes
a measurement, the particle then settles down into one of these multiple
options. The Oxford team, led by Dr. David Deutsch, showed mathematically
that the bush-like branching structure created by the universe splitting
into parallel versions of itself can explain the probabilistic nature of
quantum outcomes.”
Discuss this story at:
http://science.slashdot.org
Links:
0. http://www.breitbart.com
+—————————–
| STriDER, a Three-Legged Walking Robot |
| from the they-call-him-tripod dept. |
| posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday September 24, @15:15 (Robotics)|
| http://hardware.slashdot.org
+—————————–
[0]Roland Piquepaille writes “In a short article, New Scientist reports
that researchers at Virginia Tech University have developed a [1]tripedal
experimental robot. With its three legs, this robot, named STriDER —
short for ‘Self-excited Tripedal Dynamic Experimental Robot’ — is
actually more stable than 2- or 4-legged robots. As said another
researcher, ‘It’s like a biped with a walking stick.’ This robot is
intended to deploy sensors and cameras in difficult-to-access areas.”
Discuss this story at:
http://hardware.slashdot.org
Links:
0. http://www.primidi.com/2007/09
1. http://technology.newscientist
+—————————–
| Apple’s Leopard Will Exclude 800MHz G4 Processors |
| from the older-tech-gets-forked dept. |
| posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday September 24, @15:57 (Operating|
| http://apple.slashdot.org
+—————————–
goombah99 writes “According to AppleInsider, [0]Apple is about to
announce that Leopard will not support 800 MHz G4 PowerPC processors.
Previously developers had been told that it would require at least an 800
MHz G4. But AppleInsider alleges only 867 MHz G4s and higher will now be
supported because of speed issues, and testers have been told that the
new OS ‘cannot be installed’ on lesser machines. This cutoff in minimum
requirements means that all those original iMac flat screens and Titanium
PowerBooks are now forked to the Tiger (10.4) Update Path.”
Discuss this story at:
http://apple.slashdot.org
+—————————–
| Gartner Touts Web 2.0, Scoffs At Web 3.0 |
| from the web-2.1.12.3-just-doesn’t-have-quite-the-same-ring dept.|
| posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday September 24, @16:40 (The Inter|
| http://slashdot.org/article.pl
+—————————–
An anonymous reader writes to mention that even though Web 2.0 is just
now starting to gain widespread acceptance, there are those who are
already trying to [0]hijack the term Web 3.0. According to Gartner, there
are quite a few new technologies and incremental modifications to
existing Web 2.0 technology, but nothing that could equal the level of
fundamental change exhibited by the shift to Web 2.0.
Discuss this story at:
http://slashdot.org/comments
Links:
0. http://www.networkworld.com
+—————————–
| Vivendi Calls iTunes Contract Terms “Indecent” |
| from the better-business-through-greed dept. |
| posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday September 24, @17:23 (Music) |
| http://apple.slashdot.org
+—————————–
[0]Bemopolis writes “Brace yourselves for a shocking revelation: The CEO
of Vivendi, parent company of UMG, is not happy with the [1]current deal
with the iTunes Store. ‘The split between Apple and (music) producers is
indecent [...] Our contracts give too good a share to Apple.’ The usual
argument about older music priced at the same rate as new music is
trotted out. No doubt UMG would prefer to make the former cheaper, while
maintaining the current pricing for the latter. At least he had the
decency not to claim that they were trying to defend their artists
against predatory iTunes pricing. Or maybe he just misplaced the index
card with that boilerplate on it.”
Discuss this story at:
http://apple.slashdot.org
Links:
0. http://slashdot.org/~Bemopolis
1. http://www.reuters.com/article
+—————————–
| First US GPL Lawsuit Heads For Quick Settlement |
| from the owning-up-shows-character dept. |
| posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday September 24, @18:04 (GNU is No|
| http://linux.slashdot.org
+—————————–
DeviceGuru writes to tell us that the first lawsuit centered around the
GPL seems to have been [0]quickly resolved outside of the courtroom.
Monsoon Multimedia was quick to admit that they had violated the GPLv2 in
their modified BusyBox code and will soon be releasing the source to come
into full compliance with the license.
Discuss this story at:
http://linux.slashdot.org
Links:
0. http://www.linux-watch.com
+—————————–
| Virgin Digital To Close Up Shop |
| from the left-from-itunes-and-a-right
| posted by kdawson on Monday September 24, @19:37 (Music) |
| http://yro.slashdot.org
+—————————–
mrspin writes in to note the [0]demise of the Virgin Digital music store.
Here is [1]Virgin’s announcement. It will shut down in stages: the
service closed its doors to new subscribers on Friday; current
subscribers will lose all access to it when their next monthly payment is
due or on Oct. 19, whichever comes first. The store advises customers who
have purchased downloads to back them up to CD and re-import them as MP3.
It used to discourage such DRM-evading tactics.
Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org
Links:
0. http://arstechnica.com/news
1. http://www.virgindigital.co.uk
Copyright 1997-2006 OSTG. All rights reserved.
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