The Breach Stops Here!
Learn how Fixed Disk Encryption can help secure data at rest
and reduce the chances of data reaching the wrong eyes. Examine
the first data center disk encryption solution based on the TCG
industry security protocol.
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======================================================================
Slashdot Daily Newsletter
In this issue:
* No Social Media In These College Stadiums
* Suitable Naming Conventions For Workstations?
* XP Users Are Willing To Give Windows 7 a Chance
* Scientists Learn To Fabricate DNA Evidence
* In the UK, a Plan To Criminalize Illegal Downloaders
* iPhone 3GS Is Number One In Japan
* The Press Releases of the Damned
* NASA Discovers Life's Building Block In Comet
* The Problems With Porting Games
* World's Only Diesel-Electric Honda Insight
* Looking For a Link Between Sci-Fi UFOs and UFO Reports
* Why the BSA Is Less Reviled Than the RIAA
* Scala, a Statically Typed, Functional, O-O Language
* Sony Announces PS3 Slim, Price Cut, Improvements To Home
* Excalibur Almaz To Offer Commercial Orbital Flights
* Predicting Malicious Web Attacks
* Smarter Clients Via ReverseHTTP and WebSockets
* i4i Says OpenOffice Does Not Infringe Like MS Word
* Fatal Explosion At Russian Hydroelectric Dam
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| No Social Media In These College Stadiums |
| from the ninety-thousand-reporters dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Monday August 17, @21:46 (Social Networks) |
| http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/08/17/2141244 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
RawJoe writes "Today, the Southeastern Conference (SEC) is expected to
release a final version of its new media policy that, at the moment, can
best be described as a [0]ban on all social media usage at SEC games.
Earlier this month, the conference informed its schools of the new
policy, which says that ticketed fans can't 'produce or disseminate (or
aid in producing or disseminating) any material or information about the
Event, including, but not limited to, any account, description, picture,
video, audio, reproduction or other information concerning the Event.'
Translated, that means no Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, TwitPic, or any
other service that could in any way compete with authorized media
coverage of the event. In the case of the SEC, authorized media coverage
rights belong to CBS, who has a [1]$3B deal with the conference over the
next 15 years, according to The St Petersburg Times." Good luck with
that. To quote Clay Shirky, "The idea that people can't capture their own
lived experience is a losing proposition."
Discuss this story at:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/08/17/2141244
Links:
0. http://mashable.com/2009/08/17/sec-new-media-policy/
1. http://www.tampabay.com/news/science/personaltech/for-sec-tech-savvy-fans-might-be-biggest-threats-to-media-exclusivity/1027680
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Suitable Naming Conventions For Workstations? |
| from the tune's-my-own-invention dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Monday August 17, @22:06 (Networking) |
| http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/08/18/0143232 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]spectre_240sx writes "We've discussed [1]server [2]naming a fair
amount in the past, but I haven't seen much about workstations. Where I
currently work, we embed a lot of information in our workstation names:
site, warranty end date, machine type, etc. I'm of the opinion that this
is too much information to overload in the machine name when it can more
suitably be stored in the computer description. I'd love to hear how
others are naming their workstations and some pros and cons for different
naming schemes. Should computers be logically tied to the person that
they're currently assigned to, or does that just cause unnecessary work
when a machine changes hands? Do the management tools in use make a
difference in how workstations are named?"
Discuss this story at:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/08/18/0143232
Links:
0. http://digital-traffic.net/
1. http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/02/2228254&tid=718
2. http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/03/12/213232&tid=4
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| XP Users Are Willing To Give Windows 7 a Chance |
| from the light-at-the-end-of-the-long-tunnel-that-is-vista dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Monday August 17, @23:49 (Windows) |
| http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/08/17/2151224 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]Harry writes "PC World and Technologizer conducted a survey of 5,000
people who use Windows XP as their primary operating system. Many have no
plans to leave it, and 80% will be unhappy when Microsoft completely
discontinues it. And attitudes towards Vista remain extremely negative.
But a majority of those who know something about Windows 7 have a
positive reaction. More important, [1]70 percent of respondents who have
used Windows 7 say they like it, which is a sign that Windows 7 stands a
chance of being what Vista never was: an upgrade good enough to convince
most XP users to switch."
Discuss this story at:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/08/17/2151224
Links:
0. mailto:harry@technologizer.com
1. http://technologizer.com/2009/08/17/windows-xp-users-on-windows-7/
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Scientists Learn To Fabricate DNA Evidence |
| from the tossing-a-bag-of-maryjane-in-the-back-seat dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Tuesday August 18, @02:37 (Biotech) |
| http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/08/18/0043212 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that it is possible to
fabricate blood and saliva samples containing DNA from a person other
than the donor, and even to [1]construct a sample of DNA to match
someone's profile without obtaining any tissue from that person ��� if you
have access to their DNA profile in a database. This undermines the
credibility of what has been considered the gold standard of proof in
criminal cases. 'You can just engineer a crime scene,' said Dan Frumkin,
lead author of the paper. 'Any biology undergraduate could perform this.'
The scientists fabricated DNA samples in two ways. One requires a real,
if tiny, DNA sample, perhaps from a strand of hair or a drinking cup.
They [2]amplified the tiny sample into a large quantity of DNA using a
standard technique called whole genome amplification. The other technique
relies on DNA profiles, stored in law enforcement databases as a series
of numbers and letters corresponding to variations at 13 spots in a
person's genome. The scientists cloned tiny DNA snippets representing the
common variants at each spot, creating a library of such snippets. To
prepare a phony DNA sample matching any profile, they just mixed the
proper snippets together. Tania Simoncelli, science adviser to the
American Civil Liberties Union, says the findings were worrisome. 'DNA is
a lot easier to plant at a crime scene than fingerprints,' says
Simoncelli. 'We're creating a criminal justice system that is
increasingly relying on this technology.'"
Discuss this story at:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/08/18/0043212
Links:
0. http://hughpickens.com/slashdot/
1. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/18/science/18dna.html
2. http://www.fsigenetics.com/article/S1872-4973(09)00099-4/abstract
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| In the UK, a Plan To Criminalize Illegal Downloaders |
| from the naughty-naughty dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Tuesday August 18, @05:26 (The Internet) |
| http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/08/17/2349241 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
krou writes "It looks like the launch of the UK Pirate Party came not a
moment too soon. The Independent reports that Business Secretary Lord
Mandelson is going to [0]take a hard-line stance to preserve copyright
after intense lobbying by the music and film industry. 'Under the
proposed laws, Ofcom, the industry regulator, would be given powers to
require Internet service providers to collect information on those who
downloaded pirate material. The data would be anonymous, but serious
repeat infringers would be tracked down through their computer ID
numbers.' Prospective punishments included restricting internet access,
either slowing down an offender's broadband or disconnecting them
altogether, and fines up to ��50,000. The Pirate Party came out against
the scheme, calling it a gross invasion of civil liberties, while Tom
Watson, the former minister for digital engagement, [1]spoke out against
the move, saying that the government should stop trying criminalize
downloaders just so as to 'restore 20th-century incumbents to their
position of power,' but should instead be 'coming up with interventions
that will nurture 21st-century creative talent.'"
Discuss this story at:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/08/17/2349241
Links:
0. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/the-net-closes-in-on-internet-piracy-1772820.html
1. http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/tom-watson-heavyhanded-regulation-will-not-help-to-nurture-creative-talent-in-the-digital-age-1772821.html
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| iPhone 3GS Is Number One In Japan |
| from the buddha-phone dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Tuesday August 18, @08:15 (Cellphones) |
| http://mobile.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/08/18/0125245 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]mudimba writes "The iPhone 3GS 32GB is currently the [1]best selling
phone [2]in Japan (the 16GB version came in at number nine). This is in
stark contrast to reports from earlier this year that the [3]Japanese
hate the iPhone. Nobody is sure what specific features caused the change
of heart, though it is speculated that video capture and voice control
might be part of the answer. When the 3G iPhone first came out it saw a
spike in sales, but unlike the 3GS it was unable to outsell locally-made
handsets."
Discuss this story at:
http://mobile.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/08/18/0125245
Links:
0. http://mudimba.deviantart.com/
1. http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/08/17/iphone.3gs.tops.in.japan/
2. http://brainstormtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/08/17/apples-iphone-3gs-is-no-1-in-japan/
3. http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/27/144256&tid=883
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| The Press Releases of the Damned |
| from the synthesize-best-practices dept. |
| posted by timothy on Tuesday August 18, @09:08 (Businesses) |
| http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/08/18/1251255 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]Harry writes "Once upon a time, Microsoft said that Windows Vista
would transform life as we knew it. Palm said its Foleo was a
breakthrough. Circuit City said firing its most experienced salespeople
would save the company. And Apple said that Web apps were all that iPhone
owners needed. I've collected the original [1]press releases for these
and other ill-fated tech announcements, and annotated them with the facts
as they played out in the real world."
Discuss this story at:
http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/08/18/1251255
Links:
0. mailto:harry@technologizer.com
1. http://technologizer.com/2009/08/18/press-releases/
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NASA Discovers Life's Building Block In Comet |
| from the low-glycemic-index dept. |
| posted by timothy on Tuesday August 18, @10:04 (Space) |
| http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/08/18/1357243 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]xp65 writes "NASA scientists [1]have discovered glycine, a fundamental
building block of life, in samples of comet Wild 2 returned by NASA's
Stardust spacecraft. 'Glycine is an amino acid used by living organisms
to make proteins, and this is the first time an amino acid has been found
in a comet,' said Jamie Elsila of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in
Greenbelt, Md. 'Our discovery supports the theory that some of life's
ingredients formed in space and were delivered to Earth long ago by
meteorite and comet impacts.'"
Discuss this story at:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/08/18/1357243
Links:
0. http://spacefellowship.com/
1. http://spacefellowship.com/2009/08/18/nasa-researchers-make-first-discovery-of-lifes-building-block-in-comet/
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| The Problems With Porting Games |
| from the i-don't-have-that-button dept. |
| posted by Soulskill on Tuesday August 18, @10:46 (Games) |
| http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/08/18/1411225 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]mr_sifter writes "There's a large lexicon of monosyllabic, four-letter
words for describing something you don't like ��� but only PC gamers use
the word 'port' with such a fervent degree of repulsion. Common
complaints about console ports include meager graphics options, dodgy
third-person camera angles, poorly-thought-out controls and sparsely
distributed save points. In this feature, Bit-tech talks to developers of
games such as Dead Space, Red Faction and Tales of Monkey Island to find
out why [1]porting games between the three major consoles and the PC is
so difficult. Radically different CPU, graphics and memory architectures
play their part, as do the differences in control methods and the rules
Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo set about how games should work on their
systems."
Discuss this story at:
http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/08/18/1411225
Links:
0. http://www.thewiredjester.co.uk/
1. http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/2009/08/18/the-problem-with-porting-games/1
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| World's Only Diesel-Electric Honda Insight |
| from the something-like-that-I'd-drive-even-more dept. |
| posted by timothy on Tuesday August 18, @11:40 (Transportation) |
| http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/08/18/1534231 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]Jake Staub writes "Just replaced the gasoline engine in a Honda
Insight with a Diesel engine. On a 3,000 mile cross-country shakedown
journey the car averaged 92mpg over 1,800 miles. Around a very hilly town
in Northwest Washington, the car is averaging 78mpg. These mileage
averages are without the electric side of the vehicle fully functional.
With a bit more tinkering on the electric side and through a slight
gearing change through tire size, it is anticipated that the car will
likely average 100mpg. The build for the car has been [1]documented on
the web site and is as close to open source as my time allows. The car
was built by two guys in a garage in Southern Maryland. If we can do it I
don't see any reason why major auto manufacturers can't do it since we
used their parts."
Discuss this story at:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/08/18/1534231
Links:
0. mailto:jpstaub@msn.com
1. http://www.redlightracing.org/
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Looking For a Link Between Sci-Fi UFOs and UFO Reports |
| from the it's-spooky-how-the-aliens-manipulate-hollywood dept. |
| posted by timothy on Tuesday August 18, @12:27 (Sci-Fi) |
| http://entertainment.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/08/18/1558249|
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
NewsWatcher writes "The BBC has an interesting story about the [0]link
between sightings of UFOs and sci-fi films. From the article: 'Documents
from the Ministry of Defence released by the National Archives show the
department recorded 117 sightings in 1995 and 609 in 1996.' Those years
correlate with the screening of the film Independence Day (1996) and when
The X-Files was at the height of its popularity in the UK (1995). 'The
more that alien life is covered in films or television documentaries, the
more people look up at the sky and don't look down at their feet,' said
an expert on UFO sightings based at Sheffield Hallam University."
Discuss this story at:
http://entertainment.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/08/18/1558249
Links:
0. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8205424.stm
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Why the BSA Is Less Reviled Than the RIAA |
| from the cry-havoc-and-let-slip-the-trolls-of-war dept. |
| posted by timothy on Tuesday August 18, @13:14 (Businesses) |
| http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/08/18/1654220 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]Hugh Pickens writes "The [1]Business Software Alliance (BSA) is a
trade group established in 1988 representing a number of the world's
largest software makers whose principal activity is trying to stop
copyright infringement of software produced by its members, performing
roughly the same function for the software industry that the RIAA
performs for the music industry. Yet, as Bill Patry, author of a 7-volume
treatise on US copyright law and currently Senior Copyright Counsel at
Google, notes on his blog the BSA is a 'far less unpopular organization'
than the RIAA because [2]there are three key differences between the
BSA's campaigns and the RIAA's. First, BSA's members have always offered
their products for sale to the public, through any channel that wants to
sell them. Second, BSA's members are consumer-oriented; they try to
develop products that respond to consumers' needs, and not, the reverse:
focusing on what they want to sell to consumers. Third, because consumers
can easily purchase BSA's members products, those who copy without paying
are simply scofflaws. 'I think the fact that the public does not object
to BSA's campaign proves my point [that]... people do not want things for
free; they are willing to pay for them,' writes Patry. 'It should not be
surprising that when consumers are not treated with respect, they react
negatively. That's something the software industry learned long ago, and
that's why people don't object to the BSA's enforcement campaign.'"
Discuss this story at:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/08/18/1654220
Links:
0. http://hughpickens.com/
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Software_Alliance
2. http://moralpanicsandthecopyrightwars.blogspot.com/2009/08/my-reply-to-bens-reply.html
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Scala, a Statically Typed, Functional, O-O Language |
| from the means-scaleable dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Tuesday August 18, @14:00 (Programming) |
| http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/08/18/1725217 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]inkslinger77 notes a Computerworld [1]interview with Martin Odersky on
the Scala language, which is getting a lot of attention from its use on
high-profile sites such as Twitter and LinkedIn. The strongly typed
language is intended to be a usable melding of functional and
object-oriented programming techniques. "My co-workers and I spend a lot
of time writing code so we wanted to have something that was a joy to
program in. That was a very definite goal. We wanted to remove as many of
the incantations of traditional high-protocol languages as possible and
give Scala great expressiveness so that developers can model things in
the ways they want to. ... You can express Scala programs in several
ways. You can make them look very much like Java programs which is nice
for programmers who start out coming from Java. ... But you can also
express Scala programs in a purely functional way and those programs can
end up looking quite different from typical Java programs. Often they are
much more concise. ... Twitter has been able to sustain phenomenal
growth, and it seems with more stability than what they had before the
switch, so I think that's a good testament to Scala. ... [W]e are looking
at new ways to program multicore processors and other parallel systems.
We already have a head start here because Scala has a popular actor
system which gives you a high-level way to express concurrency. ... The
interesting thing is that actors in Scala are not a language feature,
they have been done purely as a Scala library. So they are a good witness
to Scala's flexibility..."
Discuss this story at:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/08/18/1725217
Links:
0. mailto:inkslinger77@gmail.com
1. http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/315254/-z_programming_languages_scala?fp=4194304&fpid=1
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Sony Announces PS3 Slim, Price Cut, Improvements To Home |
| from the worst-kept-secret dept. |
| posted by Soulskill on Tuesday August 18, @14:45 (PlayStation (Ga|
| http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/08/18/187216 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
Sony's press conference today at the Gamescom convention was full of
announcements. They [0]officially revealed the PS3 Slim, which will be
36% lighter and 33% smaller than the normal PS3. It will come with a 120
GB hard drive and list for $299 when it hits retail stores in early
September. Normal PS3s will [1]drop to that price as well starting
tomorrow. (Unfortunately for Sony, their unveiling was spoiled a bit by
several retailers [2]jumping the gun on new advertisements, not to
mention the [3]rumors that had been swirling for weeks ahead of time.)
Sony also announced [4]a PS3 firmware update as well as [5]new features
and customization options for Home. In addition to that, the PS3 and PSP
will be getting a [6]digital reader service. At launch it will bring
access to Marvel comic books, and will expand from there. They didn't
talk much about their upcoming motion control scheme, but promised more
details next month at the Tokyo Game Show.
Discuss this story at:
http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/08/18/187216
Links:
0. http://kotaku.com/5339968/sony-announces-slim-ps3-+-it-lives-this-september
1. http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/60043
2. http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/18/sony-ps3-slim-shows-up-for-pre-order-at-kmart-300/
3. http://games.slashdot.org/story/09/08/08/1517241/Sony-Producing-New-PS3-Hardware-Slim-Appears-Likely?from=rss
4. http://www.joystiq.com/2009/08/18/ps3-firmware-3-00-adds-animation-to-the-xmb/
5. http://www.joystiq.com/2009/08/18/playstation-home-receiving-bevy-of-new-features-customization-o/
6. http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/60041
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Excalibur Almaz To Offer Commercial Orbital Flights |
| from the big-circle-in-the-sky dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Tuesday August 18, @15:29 (Space) |
| http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/08/18/1749231 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]xp65 alerts to the plans of an international consortium called
Excalibur Almaz Limited to [1]open up a new era of private orbital space
flight for commercial customers. The group, consisting of Russian, US,
and Japanese companies, will use a formerly top-secret Soviet re-entry
vehicle called [2]Almaz to carry paying research crews on one-week
missions into Earth orbit by 2013. This ambition represents a large step
beyond the sub-orbital flight market so far targeted by most other
private space companies. "Excalibur has raised 'tens of millions of
dollars' to initiate what will become a several hundred million dollar
program, [CEO] Dula tells Spaceflight Now. He has spent more than 20
years eying this specific Almaz program... He also says 'the business
plan closes' generating profits within a few years. His surveys have
found research and science customers for space missions that are not
tourist hops, but less demanding than ISS operations."
Discuss this story at:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/08/18/1749231
Links:
0. http://spacefellowship.com/
1. http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0908/18almaz/
2. http://excaliburalmaz.com/SP1/spacecraft-almaz.php
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Predicting Malicious Web Attacks |
| from the you-will-begin-ddosing-me-in-three-two-one dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Tuesday August 18, @16:13 (Security) |
| http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/08/18/1828255 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]KentuckyFC writes "[1]Recommendation systems attempt to guess what
books, movies, or news people are likely to be interested in. Companies
such as Amazon, Google, and Netflix have developed algorithms to mine
vast databases looking for correlations that they then use to recommend
new items. Now a team of computer scientists has used some of the same
filtering techniques to [2]predict the origin of malicious Web attacks so
that they can be blacklisted in advance. The team mined a database of
hundreds of millions of security logs looking for correlations between
victims. The correlations were then used to produce a predictive
blacklist of potential attackers. The team says its algorithm is up to 70
per cent more successful at predicting the origin of attacks than current
state-of-the-art predictive blacklisting."
Discuss this story at:
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/08/18/1828255
Links:
0. http://arxivblog.technologyreview.com/
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recommender_system
2. http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/23998/
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Smarter Clients Via ReverseHTTP and WebSockets |
| from the edges-are-not-dumb dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Tuesday August 18, @17:01 (Software) |
| http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/08/18/1836214 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]igrigorik writes "Most web applications are built with the assumption
that the client / browser is 'dumb,' which places all the scalability
requirements and load on the server. We've built a number of crutches in
the form of Cache headers, ETags, and accelerators, but none has
fundamentally solved the problem. As a thought experiment: what if the
browser also contained a Web server? A look at some of the [1]emerging
trends and solutions: HTML 5 WebSocket API and ReverseHTTP."
Discuss this story at:
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/08/18/1836214
Links:
0. http://www.igvita.com/
1. http://www.igvita.com/2009/08/18/smart-clients-reversehttp-websockets/
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| i4i Says OpenOffice Does Not Infringe Like MS Word |
| from the tooth-for-tooth dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Tuesday August 18, @17:46 (Patents) |
| http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/08/18/190227 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "After the [1]permanent
injunction barring Microsoft from selling Microsoft Word, many armchair
lawyers and pundits wondered how the ruling would affect OpenOffice. The
company with [2]the patent, i4i, [3]believes that OpenOffice does not
infringe upon it. But lest anyone think that therefore ODF will win out
over OOXML, keep in mind that Microsoft has its own [4]broad XML document
patent, which issued just two weeks ago, having been filed in December
2004, and they're [5]telling the Supreme Court to apply the Bilski ruling
narrowly, so that it doesn't invalidate patents like theirs (and i4i's).
After all, unlike most companies and individuals, Microsoft can afford
$290 million infringement fines. Then again, given that Microsoft's new
patent has only two independent claims (claim #1 and claim #12), and both
of those claims 'comprise' something using an 'XML file format for
documents associated with an application having a rich set of features,'
maybe they wouldn't be that hard to work around if you just make sure any
otherwise infringing format is only associated with an application
lacking in the feature richness department."
Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/08/18/190227
Links:
0. http://www.eff.org/support
1. http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/08/12/1129230&tid=11
2. http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=y8UkAAAAEBAJ
3. http://gcn.com/Articles/2009/08/17/Federal-future-Microsoft-Word-uncertain.aspx?p=1
4. http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=7,571,169.PN.&OS=PN/7,571,169&RS=PN/7,571,169
5. http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20081112034806294
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Fatal Explosion At Russian Hydroelectric Dam |
| from the price-of-green dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Tuesday August 18, @18:32 (Earth) |
| http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/08/18/1916211 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
stadium writes "[0]An oil-filled transformer exploded at the
Sayano-Shushenskaya power plant in Siberia, destroying three turbines and
bringing down the ceiling of the turbine hall, which then violently
flooded. The dam itself did not sustain any damage. It is unclear how
many people were killed, but with 12 confirmed deaths and as many as 64
still missing (all presumed dead), this is a serious incident. The huge
transformer had enough oil in it to produce a three-mile-long oil spill
slowly moving downriver. BBC News [1]reports with [2]three separate
[3]videos. The dam produces a quarter of the total energy of RusHydro
(whose stock thus took a [4]steep dive at London Stock Exchange) and also
feeds the world's largest aluminum smelter. The damages will take years
to repair."
Discuss this story at:
http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=09/08/18/1916211
Links:
0. http://www.eng.rushydro.ru/press/news/7550.html
1. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8204860.stm
2. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8206998.stm
3. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8207816.stm
4. http://www.londonstockexchange.com/exchange/prices-and-news/stocks/summary/company-summary.html?fourWayKey=US4662941057USUSDIOBU
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