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Tue, December 18, 2007 11:04:26 PMFrom:
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Subject:
[Slashdot] Stories for 2007-12-19
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Slashdot Daily Newsletter
In this issue:
* Microsoft's Influence On Upcoming ISO Vote
* OpenOffice Online Goes Beta
* Dodd's Filibuster Threat Stalls Wiretap Bill
* Vista Named Year's Most Disappointing Product
* Synthetic DNA About To Yield New Life Forms
* Kite-Powered Ship Launched
* US Urged To Keep Space Shuttles Flying Past 2010
* Intel Announces Open Fibre Channel Over Ethernet
* Why the Coming Data Flood Won't Drown the Internet
* 2007 Sees Wireless Spending Outstrip Landlines
* Zen and the Art of Guitar Hero
* Penny-Sized Flash Module Holds 16GB
* Dell's Linux, IT Re-Invention
* The Future of Google Search and Natural Language Queries
* Businesses Generally Ignoring E-Discovery Rules
* Jackson Slated to Make Hobbit Movie, Sequel
* More Mac Vulnerabilities Than Windows In 2007?
* Where Do the Laws of Nature Come From?
* SquirrelMail Repository Poisoned
* Colorado Decertifies E-voting Machines
* Speculation On a Lossless iTunes Store
* Major Australian ISP Pulls OpenOffice
* FCC Ignores Public, Relaxes Media Ownership
* Artificial Blood Vessels Grow On Nano-Template
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Microsoft's Influence On Upcoming ISO Vote |
| from the 800-lb.-gorilla-thumb-on-the-scale dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Monday December 17, @19:32 (Microsoft) |
| http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/17/2340242 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]christian.einfeldt writes "Microsoft has experienced some criticism
for its handling of its bid to have OOXML accepted as an ISO standard,
including the [1]use of financial incentives to affect the Swedish
national vote, which resulted in Sweden [2]reversing its pro-Microsoft
position; and [3] failing to honor a promise to relinquish control of the
OOXML specification if it gained ISO status. A few days ago Groklaw
published an article that [4]raises questions about Microsoft's influence
on the upcoming February vote, citing concerns with the limitation of
discussions of patent issues, public accountability of the process, and
even irregularities with choosing the size of the room so as to limit the
delegates opposed to OOXML ISO status, [5]as had been done in the past."
Discuss this story at:
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/12/17/2340242
Links:
0. mailto:einfeldt@digitaltippingpoint.com
1. http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/28/1237255&tid=109
2. http://www.builderau.com.au/news/soa/NZ-rejects-Microsoft-OOXML-Sweden-confused/0,339028227,339281682,00.htm
3. http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/06/2129203&tid=109
4. http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20071211055139790&mode=nested
5. http://wiki.ansol.org/CT-173-LDD-Meeting-002#head-97d98c9d1cc370fba533fd050ef66807b5564296
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| OpenOffice Online Goes Beta |
| from the at-your-service dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Monday December 17, @20:44 (Software) |
| http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/18/0049255 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
Stony Stevenson sends word of the beta availability of a
[0]software-as-a-service version of OpenOffice 2.3, brought to us by
Mandriva Linux creator Gael Duval. According to Ars, this package "easily
offers the most features of any online office suite," though it "lacks
the collaborative or document-sharing features of competitors like Google
Docs or even Microsoft's Office Live Workspace." "To create this
feature-rich environment, Online OpenOffice.org requires a modern browser
with JavaScript and the Sun Java Runtime Environment version 1.4+
plug-in. The setup has been tested in Firefox 1.5 and above, IE6 and 7,
and even Safari, though Ubuntu users are specifically warned that they
must be using the Sun Java (Sun JRE) plug-in or the current
implementation of Online OpenOffice.org won't work."
Discuss this story at:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/12/18/0049255
Links:
0. http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071216-hands-on-with-the-new-online-version-of-openoffice-org.html
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Dodd's Filibuster Threat Stalls Wiretap Bill |
| from the talk-until-blue-in-the-face dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Monday December 17, @21:56 (United States) |
| http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/18/0232207 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
otakuj462 sends in an important followup to this morning's story on
[0]telecom immunity legislation. "Senator Chris Dodd won a temporary
victory today after his threats of a filibuster [1]forced Democratic
leadership to push back consideration of a measure that would grant
immunity to telecom companies that were complicit in warrantless
surveillance... [T]he threat of Dodd's filibuster... persuaded Senate
Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV, to table the act until January. A
compromise on the immunity will ostensibly be worked out in the interim
period."
Discuss this story at:
http://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/12/18/0232207
Links:
0. http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/17/1342251&tid=103
1. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/12/17/dodds-filibuster-threat-_n_77220.html
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Vista Named Year's Most Disappointing Product |
| from the foregone-conclusion dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Monday December 17, @23:03 (Windows) |
| http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/18/0125207 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
Shadow7789 writes "No surprise here, but to complete its humiliation, PC
Magazine has declared that Windows [0]Vista is the most disappointing
product of 2007. Quoting: 'Five years in the making and this is the best
Microsoft could do?... No wonder so many users are clinging to XP like
shipwrecked sailors to a life raft, while others who made the upgrade are
switching back. And when the fastest Vista notebook PC World has ever
tested is an Apple MacBook Pro, there's something deeply wrong with the
universe.'"
Discuss this story at:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/12/18/0125207
Links:
0. http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,140583-page,5-c,techindustrytrends/article.html
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Synthetic DNA About To Yield New Life Forms |
| from the what-could-possibly-go-wrong dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Tuesday December 18, @01:19 (Biotech) |
| http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/18/019212 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
mlimber sends along a Washington Post story about [0]the immanence of
completely artificial life: "The cobbling together of life from synthetic
DNA, scientists and philosophers agree, will be a watershed event,
blurring the line between biological and artificial ?€? and forcing a
rethinking of what it means for a thing to be alive... Some experts are
worried that a few maverick companies are already gaining monopoly
control over the core 'operating system' for artificial life and are
poised to become the Microsofts of synthetic biology. That could stifle
competition, they say, and place enormous power in a few people's hands."
Discuss this story at:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/12/18/019212
Links:
0. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/16/AR2007121601900.html
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Kite-Powered Ship Launched |
| from the aeolius-called-left-message dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Tuesday December 18, @03:36 (Transportation)|
| http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/18/026214 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
The Grand Poobah writes "The [0]big-kite technology we discussed last
month has officially launched in Hamburg, Germany. Reuters has a writeup
of the new technology, which aims to cut fossil fuel use on sea voyages
by an estimated 20% by means of [1]a huge computer-controlled kite. The
link includes a video."
Discuss this story at:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/12/18/026214
Links:
0. http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/26/1925210&tid=232
1. http://www.reuters.com/article/inDepthNews/idUSL1548100520071217?sp=true
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| US Urged To Keep Space Shuttles Flying Past 2010 |
| from the clipping-the-wing-clippers dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Tuesday December 18, @05:50 (Space) |
| http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/18/0215218 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
DarkNemesis618 writes "A US Representative has [0]proposed that NASA keep
the shuttle fleet flying past its planned 2010 retirement date. The move
would help NASA avoid reliance on Russian rockets during the gap between
the Space Shuttle retirement and the start of the Orion program. One
proposal would keep the shuttle fleet flying from 2010 to 2013 while
another would keep the fleet alive until the Orion program is ready in
about 2015. 2011 marks the end of the exemption that has allowed NASA to
use Soyuz rockets for trips to the Space Station, and they would need an
extension to keep using Russian launch vehicles. NASA's other option lies
in the private sector; but thus far, the progress from that quarter does
not look sufficient to meet the 2011 deadline."
Discuss this story at:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/12/18/0215218
Links:
0. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071218/sc_nm/space_shuttle_dc
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Intel Announces Open Fibre Channel Over Ethernet |
| from the geting-our-roughage dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Tuesday December 18, @08:04 (Intel) |
| http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/18/0248255 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]sofar writes "Intel has just [1]announced and released source code for
their [2]Open-FCoE project, which creates a transport allowing native
[3]Fibre Channel frames to travel over ordinary ethernet cables to any
Linux system. This extremely interesting development will mean that data
centers can lower costs and maintenance by reducing the amount of Fibre
Channel equipment and cabling while still enjoying its benefits and
performance. The new standard is backed by Cisco, Sun, IBM, EMC, Emulex,
and a variety of others working in the storage field. The timing of this
announcement comes as no surprise given the uptake of 10-Gb Ethernet in
the data center."
Discuss this story at:
http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/12/18/0248255
Links:
0. http://foo-projects.org/
1. http://lwn.net/Articles/260055/
2. http://open-fcoe.org/
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibre_channel
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Why the Coming Data Flood Won't Drown the Internet |
| from the really-strong-tubes dept. |
| posted by Zonk on Tuesday December 18, @08:45 (The Internet) |
| http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/18/1310220 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
High Waters writes "Ars Technica examines [0]predictions of an 'exaflood'
of data that some alarmists believe will overwhelm the Internet. A closer
look reveals that many of those raising the alarm about an exaflood are
generally doing so to make the case against internet neutrality
regulation. 'There's a reason that "exaflood" sounds scary. It's supposed
to. Though [1]Brett Swanson's Wall Street Journal piece tried to avoid
alarmism, it did have an explicitly political point in mind: net
neutrality is bad, and it could turn the coming exaflood into a real
disaster'."
Discuss this story at:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/12/18/1310220
Links:
0. http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/the-coming-exaflood.ars
1. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/23/AR2007052301418.html
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| 2007 Sees Wireless Spending Outstrip Landlines |
| from the and-what-about-now-okay-how-about-now dept. |
| posted by Zonk on Tuesday December 18, @09:23 (Cellphones) |
| http://mobile.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/18/1314207 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]prostoalex writes "Each December the Bureau of Labor Statistics
prepares a report on telecommunications spending among US households.
They analyze the previous year's data, so their most recent release says
that in 2006 the average US household [1]spent $542 on their landline,
and $524 on their wireless bill. The way the curves are headed, 2007 is
likely to become the first year when wireless spending [2]will surpass
landline spending. 'To be sure, when corporate cell-phone use is counted,
overall U.S. spending surpassed land line spending several years ago,
analysts said.'"
Discuss this story at:
http://mobile.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/12/18/1314207
Links:
0. http://www.moskalyuk.com/blog
1. http://www.itfacts.biz/index.php?id=P9287
2. http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gObDqSSc9ZyeCqkzMiqFjJ9SnFJwD8TJL9G82
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Zen and the Art of Guitar Hero |
| from the watching-a-master-at-work dept. |
| posted by Zonk on Tuesday December 18, @09:32 (Games) |
| http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/18/1342253 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
An anonymous reader writes "Julian Murdoch over at GamersWithJobs.com has
what can only be described as a piece of liturgy, proclaiming [0]a
religious experience at his local Best Buy as he watches someone beat
'Through the Fire and the Flames' on Expert in Guitar Hero 3. 'At 6
minutes in, a small crowd has formed, perhaps 15 of us. His sravaka ?€? his
disciples ?€? look nervously at us, absorbing the distractions, protecting
him a bubble of calm. There is complete silence. Even my son is staring
slackjawed, like he does in church during communion, not understanding
the content of the ritual but understanding the tone and sacredness of
the space.'"
Discuss this story at:
http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/12/18/1342253
Links:
0. http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/36460
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Penny-Sized Flash Module Holds 16GB |
| from the okay-now-we're-in-the-future dept. |
| posted by Zonk on Tuesday December 18, @10:03 (Data Storage) |
| http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/18/1255222 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
nerdyH writes "Intel describes its new [0]2GB to 16GB SSDs (solid state
disks) as 'smaller than a penny, and weighing less than a drop of water.'
The parts are '400 times smaller in volume than a 1.8-inch hard drive,'
Intel boasts, 'and at 0.6 grams, 75 times lighter.' Sampling now, with
[1]mass production set for Q1 2008, the Z-P140 is described as an
'optional' part of Intel's [2]Menlow chipset, built in turn as part of
Intel's vision for Linux-based [3]Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs)."
Discuss this story at:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/12/18/1255222
Links:
0. http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS5845259932.html
1. http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/hardware/soa/New-penny-sized-Intel-solid-state-drives-in-2008/0,130061702,339284600,00.htm
2. http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS9317663306.html
3. http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS8166710404.html
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Dell's Linux, IT Re-Invention |
| from the still-looks-blue-to-me dept. |
| posted by Zonk on Tuesday December 18, @10:39 (Businesses) |
| http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/18/1436242 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]jcatcw writes "An [1]IDG analysis of Dell's attempts to reinvent
itself concludes that there are some positive results, but there are
problems with the company's supply-chain management and support. One area
analysts want to see more improvement: the company's Linux business.
'Jeremy Cole, owner of Proven Scaling, a small consulting firm with
offices in the US and UK ... is satisfied with Dell equipment, but said
the company needs to show more support for open-source applications and
the Linux OS. "It's clear that Dell cares about Linux, in that all their
server-class hardware is well-supported by the Linux kernel and they have
many people dedicated to making sure that's the case. However, it's not
good enough just to boot," Cole said.'"
Discuss this story at:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/12/18/1436242
Links:
0. http://www.computerworld.com/blogs/carpenter
1. http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9053239
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| The Future of Google Search and Natural Language Queries |
| from the teach-us-to-search dept. |
| posted by Zonk on Tuesday December 18, @11:22 (Google) |
| http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/18/1530209 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]eldavojohn writes "You might know the name Peter Norvig from the
classic big green book, '[1]AI: A Modern Approach.' He's been working for
Google since 2001 as Director of Search Quality. An interview with Norvig
at MIT's Technology Review has a few interesting insights into the
'search mindset' at the company. It's kind of surprising that he claims
they have [2]no intent to allow natural questions. Instead he posits, 'We
think what's important about natural language is the mapping of words
onto the concepts that users are looking for. But we don't think it's a
big advance to be able to type something as a question as opposed to
keywords ... understanding how words go together is important ... That's
a natural-language aspect that we're focusing on. Most of what we do is
at the word and phrase level; we're not concentrating on the sentence.'"
Discuss this story at:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/12/18/1530209
Links:
0. mailto:my/.username@@@gmail.com
1. http://aima.cs.berkeley.edu/
2. http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/19868/
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Businesses Generally Ignoring E-Discovery Rules |
| from the going-to-get-messy dept. |
| posted by Zonk on Tuesday December 18, @12:03 (Privacy) |
| http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/18/1540223 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]eweekhickins writes "A full year after the institution of [1]new
federal e-discovery court rules, only a minority of companies are paying
attention. Keeping track of every IM, email, and document for a court
order that may never come must seem like a tall order. Researcher Michael
Osterman said that only [2]47 percent of companies have some kind of
e-mail retention policy in place. 'I don't think it's difficult to
understand the rules,' Osterman told eWEEK. 'I just think that it
sometimes takes headline shock to make people move on some things.'"
Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/12/18/1540223
Links:
0. http://blogs.eweek.com/epiphanies/
1. http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/01/1425221&tid=187
2. http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2236400,00.asp
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Jackson Slated to Make Hobbit Movie, Sequel |
| from the hobbit-two-electric-bugaloo dept. |
| posted by Zonk on Tuesday December 18, @12:44 (Lord of the Rings)|
| http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/18/1641234 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
syrinx writes "Peter Jackson, New Line Cinema, and MGM have [0]agreed to
work on two new movies: a film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's 'The
Hobbit', and a further sequel. From the article: 'The two Hobbit films
... are scheduled to be shot simultaneously, with pre-production
beginning as soon as possible. Principal photography is tentatively set
for a 2009 start, with the intention of 'The Hobbit' release slated for
2010 and its sequel the following year, in 2011.'" Not sure if it would
be possible to nab [1]Ian Holm as Bilbo, but here's hoping.
Discuss this story at:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/12/18/1641234
Links:
0. http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2007/12/18/28150-peter-jackson-and-new-line-cinema-join-with-mgm-to-produce-%E2%80%9Cthe-hobbit%E2%80%9D/
1. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000453/
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| More Mac Vulnerabilities Than Windows In 2007? |
| from the dogs-and-cats-living-together-mass-hysteria dept. |
| posted by Zonk on Tuesday December 18, @13:24 (Security) |
| http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/18/170241 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]eldavojohn writes "A ZDNet blog reports stats from Secunia showing OSX
averaged 20.25 vulnerabilities per month while XP & Vista combined
averaged 3.67/month. Is this report card's implication accurate, or is
this a symptom of one company turning a blind eye [1]while the other
concentrates on timely bugfixes? 'While Windows Vista shows fewer flaws
than Windows XP and has more mitigating factors against exploitation, the
addition of Windows Defender and Sidebar added 4 highly critical flaws to
Vista that weren't present in Windows XP. Sidebar accounted for three of
those additional vulnerabilities and it's something I am glad I don't
use. The lone Defender critical vulnerability that was supposed to defend
Windows Vista was ironically the first critical vulnerability for Windows
Vista.'"
Discuss this story at:
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/12/18/170241
Links:
0. mailto:my/.username@@@gmail.com
1. http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=758
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Where Do the Laws of Nature Come From? |
| from the you-say-anthropic-i-say-platonic dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Tuesday December 18, @14:05 (Math) |
| http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/18/1746207 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
mlimber writes "The NYTimes science section has up an interesting article
discussing [0]the nature of scientific laws. It comes partly in reply to
physicist Paul Davies, whose [1]recent op-ed in same paper lit up the
blogosphere and solicited [2] flurry of reader responses to the editorial
page. It asks, 'Are [laws of nature] merely fancy bookkeeping, a way of
organizing facts about the world? Do they govern nature or just describe
it? And does it matter that we don't know and that most scientists don't
seem to know or care where they come from?' The current article proceeds
to survey different views on the matter. The author seems to be poking
fun at himself by quoting Richard Feynman's epigram, 'Philosophy of
science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds.'"
Discuss this story at:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/12/18/1746207
Links:
0. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/18/science/18law.html
1. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/24/opinion/24davies.html
2. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E05E5DA1E3EF934A15752C1A9619C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| SquirrelMail Repository Poisoned |
| from the nuts-to-that dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Tuesday December 18, @14:47 (Security) |
| http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/18/1847233 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]SkiifGeek writes "Late last week the SquirrelMail team posted
information on their site about a [1]compromise to the main download
repository for SquirrelMail that resulted in a critical flaw being
introduced into two versions of the webmail application (1.4.11 and
1.4.12). After gaining access to the repository through a release
maintainer's compromised account (it is believed), the attackers made a
slight modification to the release packages, modifying how a PHP global
variable was handled. This introduced a remote file inclusion bug ?€?
leading to an arbitrary code execution risk on systems running the
vulnerable versions of the software. The poisoning was identified by a
difference in MD5 signatures for version 1.4.12. [2]Version 1.4.13 is now
available."
Discuss this story at:
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/12/18/1847233
Links:
0. http://www.beskerming.com/
1. http://www.beskerming.com/commentary/2007/12/19/313/SquirrelMail_Repository_Poisoned_with_Critical_flaw
2. http://www.squirrelmail.org/download.php
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Colorado Decertifies E-voting Machines |
| from the sudden-outbreak-of-common-sense dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Tuesday December 18, @15:30 (United States) |
| http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/18/1912230 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
mamer-retrogamer writes "On December 17, Colorado Secretary of State Mike
Coffman [0]decertified election equipment used by 64 Colorado counties,
including machines made by Premier Election Solutions, formerly known as
Diebold Election Systems. A report issued by the Secretary of State's
office [1]details a myriad of problems such as lack of password
protection on the systems, controls that could give voters unauthorized
access, and the absence of any way to track or detect security
violations. Manufacturers have 30 days to appeal the decertification."
Discuss this story at:
http://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/12/18/1912230
Links:
0. http://www.thedenverchannel.com/politics/14875334/detail.html
1. http://www.elections.colorado.gov/DDefault.aspx?tid=833
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Speculation On a Lossless iTunes Store |
| from the filling-up-the-160-gb-ipod dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Tuesday December 18, @16:13 (Music) |
| http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/18/1950211 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
DrJenny writes "C|net UK has up an interesting blog post predicting that
within 12 months Apple's iTunes Store will include a [0]download center
for lossless audio. This would be a massively positive move for people
who spend thousands of dollars on hi-fi gear, but refuse to give money to
stores that only offer compressed music ?€? they could finally take
advantage of legal digital downloads. The article goes into details on
how Apple's home-grown ALAC lossless encoding relates to FLAC, DRM, and
the iPod ecosystem."
Discuss this story at:
http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/12/18/1950211
Links:
0. http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/natelanxon/0,139102300,49294808,00.htm
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Major Australian ISP Pulls OpenOffice |
| from the can't-stand-the-competition dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Tuesday December 18, @16:55 (Software) |
| http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/18/215258 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]thefickler writes "Australia's largest Internet service provider
[1]Telstra BigPond has removed OpenOffice from its unmetered file
download area following the launch of its own, free, hosted, office
application, BigPond Office. The removal of OpenOffice was brought to
TECH.BLORGE's attention by a reader, who complained to Telstra BigPond's
support department about no longer being able to download OpenOffice
updates. The support people were quite open about why OpenOffice was no
longer available, i.e. because it was perceived to be competitive with
BigPond Office."
Discuss this story at:
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/12/18/215258
Links:
0. mailto:james.s.byrnes@gmail.com
1. http://tech.blorge.com/Structure:%20/2007/12/18/major-aussie-isp-telstra-bigpond-shafts-open-source-openoffice/
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| FCC Ignores Public, Relaxes Media Ownership |
| from the big-is-not-bad-honest-except-for-cable dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Tuesday December 18, @17:36 (Media) |
| http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/18/2148257 |
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[0]anthrax writes "Ignoring Congressional and public comments, [1]the FCC
voted to relax ownership rules that have prevented broadcasters from
owning newspapers in the nation's 20 largest media markets. After holding
several public hearings that overwhelmingly opposed the relaxation of the
rules, and Congressional hearing where Democrats and Republicans (even
Ted 'Tubes' Stevens) voiced opposition to the move, the FCC voted 3 to 2
to relax ownership. On the same day the FCC voted 3 to 2 (by a different
split) to cap the size of any cable company at 30% of the nationwide
market, a limit Comcast is up against."
Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/12/18/2148257
Links:
0. mailto:nantrhax0@gmail.com
1. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/18/business/18cnd-fcc.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5088&en=17cbae43078de27f&ex=1355634000&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
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| Artificial Blood Vessels Grow On Nano-Template |
| from the hemo-the-magnificent dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Tuesday December 18, @18:16 (Biotech) |
| http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/18/2237240 |
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[0]Invisible Pink Unicorn writes "Researchers at MIT have found a way to
[1]induce cells to form parallel tube-like structures that could one day
lead to tiny engineered blood vessels. The researchers found that they
can control the cells' development by growing them on a surface with
nano-scale patterning. The work focuses on vascular tissue, which
includes capillaries, the tiniest blood vessels. The team has created a
surface that can serve as a template to grow capillary tubes aligned in a
specific direction. The cells, known as [2]endothelial progenitor cells,
not only elongate in the direction of the grooves, but also align
themselves along the grooves. That results in a multicellular structure
with defined edges ?€? a band structure. Once the band structures form, the
researchers apply a commonly used gel that induces cells to form
three-dimensional tubes."
Discuss this story at:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/12/18/2237240
Links:
0. http://filer.case.edu/bct4/
1. http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-12/miot-mwt121707.php
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endothelial_progenitor_cell
Copyright 1997-2006 OSTG. All rights reserved.
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