Back to newsletter listDate:
Sun, February 04, 2007 11:23:21 PMFrom:
slashdot@slashdot.org
Subject:
[Slashdot] Stories for 2007-02-05
======================================================================
Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security?
Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job
easier Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache
Geronimo
http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=120709&bid=263057&dat=121642
======================================================================
Slashdot Daily Newsletter
In this issue:
* XML::Simple for Perl Developers
* Material Tougher Than Diamond Developed
* Wii Hacked To Control Sword-Wielding Robot
* A Dream Job - CTO of the OLPC Project
* Jack Thompson Faces Disciplinary Hearing
* Google Sought To Hide Political Dealmaking
* "Tech Heroes" From Ada Lovelace to Jamie Z
* MySpace Worm Creator Sentenced
* TiVo Selling Data on Users' Watching Habits
* Linux Kernel 2.6.20 Released
* MS Office Zero-Day Under Attack
* The Death Of CS In Education?
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| XML::Simple for Perl Developers |
| from the weekend-project dept. |
| posted by Zonk on Saturday February 03, @19:46 (Perl) |
| http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/04/0042209 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
An anonymous reader writes "XML has become pervasive in the computing
world and is buried more and more deeply into modern applications and
operating systems. It's imperative for the Perl programmer to develop a
good understanding of how to use it. In a surprisingly large number of
cases, you only need one tool to integrate XML into a Perl application,
[0]XML::Simple. This article tells you where to get it, how to use it,
and where to go next."
Discuss this story at:
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/02/04/0042209
Links:
0. http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-xmlperl1.html?ca=dgr-lnxw01XML-Simple
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Material Tougher Than Diamond Developed |
| from the diamond-is-so-20th-century dept. |
| posted by Zonk on Saturday February 03, @22:37 (Science) |
| http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/04/0310234 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]sporkme has handed us a link to a New Scientist article. The piece
outlines the development of [1]a new substance reported to be stiffer
than diamond. A team of scientists from Washington, Wisconsin, and
Germany combined the ceramic barium titanate and white-hot molten tin
with an ultrasonic probe. The new material was, in some tests, almost 10x
more resistant to bending than diamond. Composite materials researcher
Mark Spearing of Southampton University comments on the result: "The
material's stiffness results from the properties of the barium titanate
pieces, Spearing says. As the material cools, its crystal structure
changes, causing its volume to expand. 'Because they are held inside the
tin matrix, strain builds up inside the barium titanate,' Spearing
explains, 'at a particular temperature that energy is released to oppose
a bending force.'"
Discuss this story at:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/02/04/0310234
Links:
0. mailto:sporkme99@yahoo.com
1. http://www.newscientisttech.com/article.ns?id=dn11093
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Wii Hacked To Control Sword-Wielding Robot |
| from the no-part-of-that-title-is-not-freaking-sweet dept. |
| posted by Zonk on Sunday February 04, @01:51 (Robotics) |
| http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/04/0643223 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
ianchaos writes "WiiBot is the pet project of two engineers who
apparently have way too much cool hardware and time on their hands. These
two guys figure that as long as you have a Kuka KR16 industrial robot to
work with, why not [0]see if you can control it with the Wii Remote? The
result is a tennis-playing, sword-wielding mechanical arm that
simultaneously captures 'weekend of nerdy fun' and 'accident waiting to
happen' in a [1]fun two minute video. The website even details the
technical aspects of teaching a robot to parry."
Discuss this story at:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/02/04/0643223
Links:
0. http://www.livescience.com/technology/070202_technov_wiibot.html
1. http://www.usmechatronics.com/usmgarage/WiiBot.html
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| A Dream Job - CTO of the OLPC Project |
| from the changing-the-world-one-laptop-at-a-time dept. |
| posted by Zonk on Sunday February 04, @03:14 (Businesses) |
| http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/04/0657254 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
weibullguy dropped us a link from the IEEE's site. They've voted the
[0]CTO of the One Laptop Per Child project as a 'Dream Job 2007'. Held by
Mary Lou Jepsen, a former CTO for Intel, the position entails world
travel, speaking with heads of state, and dealing endlessly with the
technological challenges of a project designed to change the world. In
the article, she relates some of the details of her first task on the job
- redesigning the OLPC's display. "According to Jepsen, the display her
team eventually marshaled into existence requires, depending on the mode,
only between 2 percent and 14 percent of a typical laptop display's power
consumption. ... To save watts, the display can switch between color with
the backlight on, in low light, and black-and-white with the backlight
off, in sunlight. OLPC's engineers trimmed battery usage further by,
among other things, adding memory to the timing-controller chip, which
decides how often a display refreshes. That trick enables the display to
update itself continually without using the CPU if nothing changes on the
screen."
Discuss this story at:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/02/04/0657254
Links:
0. http://spectrum.ieee.org/feb07/4900
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Jack Thompson Faces Disciplinary Hearing |
| from the disbarment-we-can-only-hope dept. |
| posted by Zonk on Sunday February 04, @05:29 (The Courts) |
| http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/04/072215 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
CoolC writes "Gamepolitics is reporting that attorney [0]Jack Thompson is
to face a disciplinary hearing before the Florida Supreme Court. The
attorney faces five counts of professional misconduct, three of which are
correlated with his ongoing campaign against violent video games.
Thompson faces the possibility of disciplinary action up to and including
disbarment."
Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/02/04/072215
Links:
0. http://gamepolitics.com/2007/02/03/jack-thompson-faces-florida-bar-disciplinary-hearing/
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Google Sought To Hide Political Dealmaking |
| from the they're-slipping-to-true-neutral dept. |
| posted by Zonk on Sunday February 04, @06:28 (Google) |
| http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/04/0953259 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
A [0]blog entry by Michael Kanellos at ZDNet links to and expands upon an
article in the Charlotte Observer. Last year Google was apparently
[1]throwing its weight around in North Carolina, seeking tax breaks from
state and local legislators. When the company didn't get what it wanted
pressure was brought to bear on legislative aides, journalists, and
politicians. The search giant was especially touchy about keeping the
negotiations secret: "Executives didn't want anybody even to mention the
company's name for fear that competitors could learn of its plans. Most
involved with the negotiations were required to sign nondisclosure
agreements ... That posed challenges for elected officials, charged with
conducting the public's business in the open. As the tax measure wended
its way through the legislature, some lawmakers began linking it to
Google." The results of this deal are extremely lucrative for both sides.
Google brought some $600 million in investment and as many as 200 jobs to
the state, and legislation enacted with Google's help is projected to
save the company some $89 million in taxes over 30 years.
Discuss this story at:
http://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/02/04/0953259
Links:
0. http://news.com.com/2061-10812_3-6155987.html?tag=nefd.top
1. http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/business/16603573.htm
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| "Tech Heroes" From Ada Lovelace to Jamie Z |
| from the all-know-kung-fu dept. |
| posted by CmdrTaco on Sunday February 04, @09:16 (The Internet) |
| http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/04/1357230 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
An anonymous reader writes "The Web 2.0 Journal has [0]launched a search
for what it calls "the all-time heroes of i-Technology" (its own
shorthand for 'Internet technologies'), reaching as far back as to The
Countess of Lovelace, though whether or not Ada Lovelace is truly the
first programmer is not discussed. As an exercise in reminding ourselves
whose shoulders we are standing on when hurtlng towards the 21st-century,
richer Web it's not a bad start. Naturally there are sins of omission..."
Discuss this story at:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/02/04/1357230
Links:
0. http://web2journal.com/read/331813.htm
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| MySpace Worm Creator Sentenced |
| from the wear-the-hat-and-sit-in-the-corner dept. |
| posted by CmdrTaco on Sunday February 04, @10:27 (Security) |
| http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/04/1439222 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]Aidan Steele writes "Remember [1]Samy? The creator of the infamous
worm was unfortunate enough to be the the target in MySpace's [2]latest
litigation. As was said in the earlier story, the script was "written for
fun" and caused no damage. The [3]source and technical explanation for
the "attack" was not even released until after MySpace had patched the
vulnerability. Apparently this was enough to get the 20 year old (19 at
the time of writing the worm) three years of probation, three months of
community service, pay restitution to MySpace and is also banned from the
Internet. Clearly, disclosing security vulnerabilities doesn't pay."
Discuss this story at:
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/02/04/1439222
Links:
0. http://slashdot.org/~Aidan+Steele/
1. http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/14/126233&tid=172
2. http://www.scmagazine.com.au/news/45262,myspace-superworm-creator-sentenced-to-probation-community-service.aspx
3. http://namb.la/popular/tech.html
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| TiVo Selling Data on Users' Watching Habits |
| from the that-little-antenna-guy-is-watching-you dept. |
| posted by Zonk on Sunday February 04, @14:19 (Privacy) |
| http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/04/194241 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
Gyppo writes "The San Francisco Chronicle reports that TiVo is collecting
and selling data on what parts of broadcasts people are rewinding for
review and what commercials they are skipping. The data collection is
part of a service the company provides to advertisers and television
networks, [0]collecting anonymous data on their users'
commercial-watching habits. The data they provide is a random subset of
their overall userbase, detailing which commercials are skipped and which
are actually watched. The article mentions the possibility for privacy
abuse, but with this application of technology Tivo is not providing
access to what any one individual user watches via the service."
Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/02/04/194241
Links:
0. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/02/04/BUGJ8NTRT91.DTL
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Linux Kernel 2.6.20 Released |
| from the enjoy-your-new-penguin dept. |
| posted by Zonk on Sunday February 04, @17:03 (Linux) |
| http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/04/221232 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]diegocgteleline.es writes "After two months of development, [1]Linux
2.6.20 has been released. This release includes two different
virtualization implementations: [2]KVM: full-virtualization capabilities
using Intel/AMD virtualization extensions and a [3]paravirtualization
implementation usable by different hypervisors. Additionally, 2.6.20
includes PS3 support, a [4]fault injection debugging feature, UDP-lite
support, better per-process IO accounting, relative atime, relocatable
x86 kernel, some x86 microoptimizations, lockless radix-tree readside,
shared pagetables for hugetbl, and many other things. Read the [5]list of
changes for more details."
Discuss this story at:
http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/02/04/221232
Links:
0. mailto:diegocg@teleline.es
1. http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/2/4/119
2. http://kvm.sourceforge.net/
3. http://lwn.net/Articles/194543
4. http://lwn.net/Articles/209257
5. http://kernelnewbies.org/Linux_2_6_20
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| MS Office Zero-Day Under Attack |
| from the you-know-they've-released-new-software-when dept. |
| posted by Zonk on Sunday February 04, @17:52 (Security) |
| http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/04/223256 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
paulBarbs writes "Microsoft is warning users to be on the lookout for
suspicious Excel files that arrive unexpectedly ?€? even if they come from
a co-worker's e-mail address. In an advisory, [0]Microsoft confirmed a
new wave of limited "zero-day" attacks was underway, using a code
execution flaw in its Microsoft Office desktop productivity suite.
Although .xls files are currently being used to launch the spear phishing
attacks, Microsoft said users of other Office applications (Word,
PowerPoint, Outlook, Access, etc.) are potentially at risk."
Discuss this story at:
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/02/04/223256
Links:
0. http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=16
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| The Death Of CS In Education? |
| from the give-it-bawls-for-life-support dept. |
| posted by Zonk on Sunday February 04, @18:42 (Education) |
| http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/04/2210200 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]JohnnyKimble writes "A provocatively titled article recently appeared
in the 'Future of Computing' section of the British Computer Society
website. 'The Death Of Computing' was written by a lecturer at De
Montfort University in the UK, and considers the problem of [1]falling
interest in computer science courses in the UK and what needs to be done
to encourage more students to take the courses." This ties in well with
our discussion last night about [2]Why Software is Hard.
Discuss this story at:
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/02/04/2210200
Links:
0. mailto:johnnykimble@gmail.com
1. http://www.bcs.org/server.php?show=ConWebDoc.9662
2. http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/03/2147222&tid=156
Copyright 1997-2006 OSTG. All rights reserved.
======================================================================
You have received this message because you subscribed to it
on Slashdot. To stop receiving this and other
messages from Slashdot, or to add more messages
or change your preferences, please go to your user page.
http://slashdot.org/my/messages
You can log in and change your preferences from there.
