[Slashdot] Stories for 2007-10-29
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Slashdot Daily Newsletter
In this issue:
* Astronauts Open ISS Station Room
* Italian Judge Tells HP To Refund Pre-Installed XP
* Know Any Hardware Needing Better Linux Support?
* Review of Asus Linux-Based Eee PC 701
* Rochester Judge Holds RIAA Evidence Insufficient
* YouTube For High-School Jocks
* The Kremlin Tightens Its Grip on the Internet
* A Look At Free Reviewer Swag
* 512GB Solid State Disks on the Way
* Vista Sales Rate Fell Last Quarter
* GNOME Foundation Helping OOXML?
* Apple Makes $831 On Each AT&T iPhone
* Origin of Cosmic Rays Confirmed
* UK Schools Warned Off Microsoft Deal
+—————————–
| Astronauts Open ISS Station Room |
| from the now-to-hang-curtains dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Saturday October 27, @20:29 (NASA) |
| http://science.slashdot.org
+—————————–
[0]mikesd81 notes an ABC News report that astronauts aboard the ISS have
[1]opened the new station room. Commander Peggy Whitson and astronaut
Paolo Nespoli delayed their lunch so the event could happen before the
station’s orbit temporarily blocked the ability to send a video downlink
to Mission Control. From the article: “Nespoli… joined Discovery’s crew
to personally deliver the Italian-made pressurized chamber… Astronauts
added the school bus-sized room called Harmony during a 6.5-hour
spacewalk Friday, using a robotic arm to lift it from the shuttle’s cargo
bay and install it on the station. The compartment will serve as the
docking port and nerve center for European and Japanese laboratories that
will be delivered on the next three shuttle flights. It also will be a
power and thermal distribution center, providing air, electricity, water
and other systems for the space station. Racks of computer and electronic
equipment are already inside the cylinder, which will double as a living
space for the crew… The astronauts will have to undo more than 700
bolts [which held down the equipment during flight] to free up the
equipment.”
Discuss this story at:
http://science.slashdot.org
Links:
0. mailto:mikesd [Email address: mikesd #AT# ptd.net - replace #AT# with @ ]
1. http://abcnews.go.com/Technolo
+—————————–
| Italian Judge Tells HP To Refund Pre-Installed XP |
| from the fair’s-fair dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Saturday October 27, @22:24 (HP) |
| http://yro.slashdot.org
+—————————–
Paolo DF writes “An Italian user asked for a refund after buying a Compaq
computer that came with Windows XP and Works 8 pre-installed. HP tried to
avoid the EULA agreement which states, approximately: ‘[I]f the end user
is not willing to abide by this EULA… he shall immediately contact the
producer to get info for giving back the product and obtaining refunds.’
[0]The court ruled in favor of the user (Google translation from the
Italian), who received back €90 for XP and €50 for Works. Here is [1]the
ruling (PDF, Italian).”
Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org
Links:
0. http://translate.google.com
1. http://www.aduc.it/dyn/documen
+—————————–
| Know Any Hardware Needing Better Linux Support? |
| from the problem-you-don’t-see-every
| posted by kdawson on Sunday October 28, @00:13 (Software) |
| http://linux.slashdot.org
+—————————–
[0]Dev Null writes “The Linux device driver project has hit something of
a snag: they have [1]lots of developers, but few devices to work on, so
they’re looking for input concerning which devices aren’t well-supported
in Linux. If any of you know of devices that could use better support,
you can help out by [2]listing them on the project’s wiki.”
Discuss this story at:
http://linux.slashdot.org
Links:
0. http:///dev/null
1. http://www.desktoplinux.com
2. http://linuxdriverproject.org
+—————————–
| Review of Asus Linux-Based Eee PC 701 |
| from the two-pounds-of-power dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Sunday October 28, @03:12 (Portables) |
| http://hardware.slashdot.org
+—————————–
Bongo Bob writes “CNET.co.uk has up a [0]review of the Asus Eee PC 701
that runs Linux. According to the reviewer. ‘It’s hard to fault the Eee
PC, mainly because of its price. It can be difficult to use because of
the cramped keyboard, but it’s better than similar-sized laptops like the
Toshiba Libretto. If you’re in the market for a second PC, or looking for
something you can take with you almost anywhere, the Eee PC is definitely
worth buying.’”
Discuss this story at:
http://hardware.slashdot.org
Links:
0. http://reviews.cnet.co.uk
+—————————–
| Rochester Judge Holds RIAA Evidence Insufficient |
| from the so-prove-it-already dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Sunday October 28, @05:06 (The Courts) |
| http://yro.slashdot.org
+—————————–
[0]NewYorkCountryLawyer writes “Judge David G. Larimer, presiding in
Rochester, New York, has denied an RIAA application for default judgment
on the ground that [1]the RIAA’s evidence was insufficient, in that it
contained no details of actual downloads or distributions, and no
sufficient evidence that defendant was in fact Kazaa user
‘heavyjeffmc@KaZaA.’ The [2]decision (PDF) concluded that ‘there are
significant issues of fact regarding the identification of the defendant
from his alleged “online media distribution system” username.’ (In case
you’re unfamiliar with the term ‘online media distribution system,’
that’s because it is a term the RIAA coined 4 years ago to describe p2p
file sharing accounts in its lawsuits; the term is not known to have been
used by anyone else anywhere else.) In August a similar RIAA default
judgment motion was [3]denied on the ground that the pleadings failed to
allege sufficient factual details supporting a claim of copyright
infringement, in a San Diego, California, case, [4]Interscope v.
Rodriguez.”
Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org
Links:
0. http://recordingindustryvspeop
1. http://recordingindustryvspeop
2. http://www.ilrweb.com/viewILRP
3. http://yro.slashdot.org
4. http://recordingindustryvspeop
+—————————–
| YouTube For High-School Jocks |
| from the sports-videographers dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Sunday October 28, @08:07 (The Internet) |
| http://slashdot.org/article.pl
+—————————–
[0]theodp writes “Used to be college scouts had to put in lots of miles
to find a [1]hick from French Lick. But thanks to the Internet, athletic
recruiters [2]no longer have to traipse out to actual games to find
talent. The players are coming to them via links to video streamed from
sports-info websites like Student-Athlete Showcase, iPlayers, and
GetMyNameOut. The home-video-meets-NFL-Films highlight reels — which
parents commission for a fee ranging from $300 to $5,000 — have become a
standard component of college applications for jocks (as well as for
aspiring actors, dancers, and musicians). One sales pitch: ‘Are you
willing to risk your child’s potential scholarship with a homemade
videotape? Remember, first impressions last forever!’”
Discuss this story at:
http://slashdot.org/comments
Links:
0. mailto:theodp [Email address: theodp #AT# aol.com - replace #AT# with @ ]
1. http://sportsillustrated.cnn
2. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10
+—————————–
| The Kremlin Tightens Its Grip on the Internet |
| from the more-you-tighten-your-fingers dept. |
| posted by CmdrTaco on Sunday October 28, @09:07 (The Internet) |
| http://yro.slashdot.org
+—————————–
[0]reporter writes “According to a report just published by “The
Washington Post”, the percentage of Russian adults having access to the
Internet has risen from 8% in 2002 to 25% in 2007. This growth has
attracted the [1]attention of the Kremlin. Its allies are creating
pro-Kremlin web sites and are purchasing web sites known for high-quality
independent journalism. Pro-Kremlin bloggers have used their skills to
bury news about anti-Kremlin demonstrations: at Russian news portals, web
links to news about pro-Kremlin rallies consistently rank higher than web
links to news about anti-Kremlin demonstrations. The most disturbing
development is that the Kremlin intends to develop a Russian Internet
which is separate from the global Internet. Russian officials are
studying the techniques that the Chinese use to censor the Internet.”
Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org
Links:
0. http://www.geocities.com
1. http://www.washingtonpost.com
+—————————–
| A Look At Free Reviewer Swag |
| from the something-to-think-about dept. |
| posted by CmdrTaco on Sunday October 28, @10:20 (The Internet) |
| http://slashdot.org/article.pl
+—————————–
chicl3t writes “It used to be that the lagniappes that came along with
hardware for review were things like USB drives — makes sense, one 128MB
drive for a 100MB presentation. [0]But…iPod nanos? As in more than one?
That’s another story entirely. It’s damn nice swag, of course, but at
what point is it too much? A DailyTech writer talks about his experiences
with swag.”
Discuss this story at:
http://slashdot.org/comments
Links:
0. http://www.dailytech.com
+—————————–
| 512GB Solid State Disks on the Way |
| from the and-eventually-they’ll-be
| posted by CmdrTaco on Sunday October 28, @11:34 (Data Storage) |
| http://hardware.slashdot.org
+—————————–
Viper95 writes “Samsung has announced that it has developed [0]the
world’s first 64Gb(8GB) NAND flash memory chip using a 30nm production
process, which opens the door for companies to produce memory cards with
upto 128GB capacity”
Discuss this story at:
http://hardware.slashdot.org
Links:
0. http://www.custompc.co.uk/news
+—————————–
| Vista Sales Rate Fell Last Quarter |
| from the peaked-too-early dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Sunday October 28, @12:58 (Windows) |
| http://slashdot.org/article.pl
+—————————–
Microsoft is not directly mentioning Vista demand while they brag about
how much money they made last quarter, because [0]sales fell.
“[Microsoft] shipped approximately 28 million copies of Vista in the
latest quarter ended September, or 9.3 million copies per month. Though
the Windows developer pointed to 27 percent growth in business licenses
and noted that many home users were buying the more lucrative Vista Home
Premium or Ultimate editions, the rate represents a decline from the 10
million per month reported early in summer.”
Discuss this story at:
http://slashdot.org/comments
Links:
0. http://www.electronista.com
+—————————–
| GNOME Foundation Helping OOXML? |
| from the on-your-own-time-please dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Sunday October 28, @14:24 (GNOME) |
| http://slashdot.org/article.pl
+—————————–
[0]christian.einfeldt writes “According to long-time OpenDocument
Fellowship member Russell Ossendryver, it appears that GNOME founder
Miguel de Icaza’s [1]widely-publicized praise for OOXML as a ’superb
standard’ is being followed up with on-going support by the GNOME
Foundation in ‘resolving’ the thousands of criticisms leveled against
Microsoft’s proposed standard. [2]In an open letter in his blog,
Ossendryver urges the GNOME Foundation to halt its apparent support for
OOXML as a standard and to put its efforts behind enhancing adoption of
the genuinely open standard, ODF, which was approved by the world
standards bodies as ISO/IEC standard 26300 on 2 May 2006.”
Discuss this story at:
http://slashdot.org/comments
Links:
0. http://einfeldtampdigitaltippi
1. http://linux.slashdot.org
2. http://fanaticattack.com/2007
+—————————–
| Apple Makes $831 On Each AT&T iPhone |
| from the minting-it dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Sunday October 28, @15:46 (The Almighty Buck|
| http://apple.slashdot.org
+—————————–
[0]Ponca City, We Love You writes “The NYTimes reports that Gene Munster,
an analyst at Piper Jaffray, has studied Apple’s financial statements and
come to the conclusion that [1]AT&T is paying Apple $18 a month, on
average, for each iPhone sold by Apple and activated on AT&T’s network —
up to $432 over a two-year contract. This shows how much incentive Apple
has to maintain its exclusive deal with AT&T rather than to sell unlocked
phones or cut deals with multiple carriers. Last week Apple disclosed
that 250,000 iPhones had been purchased but not registered with ATT that
Apple thinks are being unlocked so Apple has now taken action to curb
unauthorized resellers by [2]limiting sales of the iPhone to two per
customer and requiring that purchases must now be made with a credit or
debit card — cash will not be accepted.” The latter article links to a
[3]US Treasury page explaining the incorrectness of the widely-held
belief that cash cannot be refused for any transaction.
Discuss this story at:
http://apple.slashdot.org
Links:
0. http://poncacityweloveyou.com/
1. http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com
2. http://www.news.com/8301-13579
3. http://www.treas.gov/education
+—————————–
| Origin of Cosmic Rays Confirmed |
| from the just-as-we-suspected dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Sunday October 28, @17:14 (Space) |
| http://science.slashdot.org
+—————————–
cats-paw writes in with news of research that seems to confirm and
support current theories of [0]how cosmic rays are created. The
prevailing thinking has been that cosmic rays are generated in the
regions where supernovas’ shock waves interact with the interstellar
medium. The new research used the variability in X-ray emissions from a
supernova remnant to estimate the strength of the magnetic fields present
in that environment. The results lend support to the possibility of
protons and nucleii being accelerated in supernova remnants to energies
of 1 PeV (10^15 eV) and beyond. Here is the [1]abstract from Nature.
Discuss this story at:
http://science.slashdot.org
Links:
0. http://www.nasa.gov/centers
1. http://www.nature.com/nature
+—————————–
| UK Schools Warned Off Microsoft Deal |
| from the do-not-sign-on-that-dotted
| posted by kdawson on Sunday October 28, @19:12 (Education) |
| http://slashdot.org/article.pl
+—————————–
[0]rs232 sends in a BBC piece on the UK computer agency Becta [1]advising
schools against signing up for a Microsoft educational license because of
alleged anti-competitive practices. “The problem was that Microsoft
required schools to have licenses for every PC in a school that might use
its software, whether they were actually doing so or running something
else.” We have discussed Becta’s role in British education here
[2]several [3]times as they have acted as a watchdog warning of perceived
Microsoft excesses.
Discuss this story at:
http://slashdot.org/comments
Links:
0. mailto:emacsuser@ [Email address: emacsuser #AT# - replace #AT# with @ ]@@linuxmail…org
1. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi
2. http://it.slashdot.org/article
3. http://slashdot.org/article.pl
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