Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Log in

[ Create a new account ]

Slashdot Poll

Let's Settle This. Who Would Win?
  • Ninjas (1071)
  • Pirates (466)
  • Robots (607)
  • Monkeys (394)

    • (You've already voted.)
    [ Results | Polls ]
    Comments:96 | Votes:2538

    Older Stuff


    Older Articles
    Today's News | Apr. 27
    Recent reviews from Slashdot readers:

    Submitting a review for consideration is easy; please first read Slashdot's book review guidelines. Updated: 20051129 by hemos

    Cool Sites:
    · AnimeFu (Addicted to Anime?)
    · Penny Arcade (The First one is always Free)
    · Everything (Blow your Mind)
    · Themes.freshmeat.net (Make X Perty)

    Support Slashdot:
    · ThinkGeek (Clothe Yourself in Slashdot)

    Ask Slashdot: Do Kids Still Program?

    Journal written by hogghogg (791053) and posted by Cliff on Friday April 28, @11:24PM
    from the loss-of-impetus dept.
    Programming
    From his journal, hogghogg asks: "I keep finding myself in conversations with tertiary educators in the hard sciences (Physics, Astronomy, Chemistry, etc.) who note that even the geeks—those who voluntarily choose to major in hard sciences—enter university never having programmed a computer. When I was in grade six, the Commodore PET came out, and I jumped at the opportunity to learn how to program it. Now, evidently, most high school computer classes are about Word (tm) and Excel (tm). Is this a bad thing? Should we care?" Do you think the desire to program computers has declined in the younger generations? If so, what reasons might you cite as the cause?

    Science: Blaming The Bats

    Posted by Zonk on Friday April 28, @11:20PM
    from the kree-kree-off-into-the-night-searching-for-bananas dept.
    Biotech
    d'alz writes "Bats have long been the subject of various conflicting theories. They have been linked with lethal viruses that cause Ebola hemorrhagic fever, SARS, Nipah or Hendra. But of late researchers have taken a complete shift in these theories. They now claim that bats are being blamed for human mistakes. It now seems that these outbreaks could be a direct result of the encroachments that took place over the years in the rainforests." From the article: "Emerging viruses like the one that causes SARS are symptoms of the drastic, large-scale changes humans are making in the life of the planet. At a time of intense concern about avian flu, it is hardly controversial to argue that human health is linked to animal health. But the field challenges traditional academic divisions, especially the cultural divide between doctors and veterinarians."

    Test Drive Your Dream Job

    Posted by Zonk on Friday April 28, @09:30PM
    from the go-find-yourself dept.
    Businesses
    ches_grin writes "'Vocation Vacations' has a simple concept--allow folks to try out a new career before leaving their current job. Participants get paired with mentors in their chosen field and then spend 2-3 days fully immersed in life as a brewer, dog-trainer, sword-maker, or whatever their fantasy gig is. People are willing to pay to do someone else's job." From the article: "The idea is relatively simple. Participants pay anywhere from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand (transportation, lodging, etc., aren't included) to experience life as, say, a chocolatier, a fashion designer, or a race-car driver. The time spent immersed in their fantasy job allows them to get a 360-degree perspective without the risk of quitting their own jobs or investing heavily in a new career. "

    ( )
    Ask Slashdot: Exchange Compatible Spam Filters? 63 of 66 comments

    Wisdom From The Last Ninja

    Posted by Zonk on Friday April 28, @07:42PM
    from the real-ultimate-power dept.
    Education
    I Could Tell You But... writes "The AP has a story about ninjutsu master Masaaki Hatsumi, last living student of Japan's last 'fighting ninja.' He offers advice from the heart of Ninjadom, like 'always be able to kill your students,' and describes the current popular ninja image as 'pathetic.' At age 76, students are speculating on his successor, who may for the first time be non-Japanese." From the article: "As I cautiously raise the sword with a taut two-handed samurai grip, my sparring partner gingerly points to Hatsumi. I avert my eyes for a split second - and WHAM! The next thing I know, I'm staring at the rafters. Keeping your focus is just one of the lessons thumped out on the mats of the Bujinkan Dojo, a cramped school outside Tokyo that is a pilgrimage site for 100,000 worldwide followers. They revere Hatsumi as the last living master of ninjutsu - the mysterious Japanese art of war practiced by black-masked assassins of yesteryear."

    ( )

    Your Rights Online: Verizon Ruling May Tax Dial-Up Customers

    Posted by Zonk on Friday April 28, @07:01PM
    from the no-pipe-for-them dept.
    The Almighty Buck
    cellocgw writes "The Boston Globe is reporting that a court ruling in Verizon's favor could effectively allow phone companies to charge dial-up users on a per-minute basis." From the article: "About 68 percent of US internet users now connect via broadband, according to the latest data from Neilsen//NetRatings. That still leaves millions of users connecting the old way, in which modems in their home call local numbers over a telephone line to access the Internet. Precisely how many people were affected by the court ruling is unknown. Good said the number was in the thousands, but that Global NAPs did not have exact numbers and could not disclose the identities of all the companies that relied on Global NAPs for dial-up numbers."

    Ask Slashdot: Advice for Building a Multi-Platform Lyrics Database? 34 of 45 comments

    Live Commercials Will Save TV?

    Posted by Zonk on Friday April 28, @06:21PM
    from the that's-different dept.
    Television
    Vitaly Friedman writes "Entrepreneur Mark Cuban doesn't believe that traditional television advertising is dead, it simply needs to be more interesting. And what's more interesting than being live? From the article: 'It's no secret that the traditional 30-second spot has been losing much of its luster with advertisers. With the rise of other media options (videogames, home theater systems, Web surfing) on the one hand and the recent growth of DVRs like TiVo on the other, traditional television advertising has been feeling the squeeze. Broadcasting executives are struggling to figure out the economics of the new digital landscape, and have been willing to try just about any creative idea, such as TiVo's plan to replace old commercials with new ones when watching recorded shows.'"

    ( )

    A Grand Unified Theory of YouTube and MySpace

    Posted by Zonk on Friday April 28, @05:19PM
    from the weighty-internet-concerns dept.
    The Internet
    Ant writes "Paul Boutin's Slate article explains the factors contributing to the success YouTube and MySpace: they are easy to use (usability), and they don't 'tell you what to do.'" From the article: "Both YouTube and MySpace fit the textbook definition of Web 2.0, that hypothetical next-generation Internet where people contribute as easily as they consume. Even self-described late adopters like New York editor Kurt Andersen recognize that that by letting everyone contribute, these sites have reached a critical mass where 'a real network effect has kicked in.'"

    ( )

    Your Rights Online: Rockers Sue Sony Over Download Royalties

    Posted by Zonk on Friday April 28, @04:34PM
    from the mp3-breakage dept.
    Music
    Ohreally_factor writes "According to an AP article, groups Cheap Trick and The Allman Brothers allege that Sony is paying them less than what they deserve for music downloaded from popular download sites such as iTunes. Because Sony counts such sales as the equivalent of a physical phonorecording sale, they deduct costs for packaging (20%) and breakage (15%) from the artists' royalties, just as they would if they were selling CDs through more traditional means. Seeing as how there is no physical packaging, nor physical inventory that might suffer breakage, one wonders how Sony will defend against these charges."

    Your Rights Online: NSA Spying Comes Under Attack

    Posted by Zonk on Friday April 28, @03:59PM
    from the get-out-of-my-head dept.
    The Courts
    maotx writes "The NSA's no-longer-secret surveillance program came under a two-pronged attack this week on both political and legal fronts. Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania threatens to cut funding to NSA's spying program if President Bush's administration does not come clean on how it works. Separately, two hearing dates have been set for a lawsuit that seeks to prove that AT&T illegally cooperated with the NSA and violated federal wiretapping laws in doing so. Sen. Specter emphasized that he doesn't want the issue to fade into the background, saying that he'd like to see 'public concern and public indignation build up.'"

    Financials Indicate Microsoft Prepping for War

    Posted by Zonk on Friday April 28, @03:27PM
    from the man-the-trenches dept.
    Microsoft
    SpaceAdmiral writes "Microsoft has surprised analysts by forecasting significantly higher expenses in the next fiscal year, an indication that the company might be getting ready to do battle with its online rivals. According to analyst Eugene Munster of Piper Jaffray, 'It looks like Microsoft is going to war with Google.'" From the article: "According to Mark Stahlman of Caris & Company, the fact that Microsoft plans to spend significantly more in 2007 was an indication of renewed aggressiveness in its competitive strategy and an indication that the company was returning to the kind of actions it exhibited before the Justice Department's antitrust lawsuit in the mid- and late 1990's. 'It's pretty clear that Bill is running the company again,' Mr. Stahlman said, referring to Bill Gates, 'and they are going to remake the business. They are being much more combative and much more strategically managed.'"

    ( )

    IT: Next Generation Spam Zombies Will Use Data Mining

    Posted by Zonk on Friday April 28, @02:46PM
    from the hate-these-new-fast-zombies dept.
    Spam
    branewashd writes "The Globe and Mail is covering some new research on the future of spam. The paper 'Spam Zombies from Outer Space', from researchers at the University of Calgary, will be presented on Sunday at the European Institute for Computer Anti-Virus Research conference. According to the paper, the next generation of spam zombies will employ 'sophisticated data mining of their victims saved email'. When a computer is turned into a spam zombie, it will first be mined of its address book, mail client configuration, and mail archives. Then the spam program will use Natural Language Processing techniques to send spam messages to the victim's contacts that look a lot like messages that the user has previously sent. The researchers predict that this will be extremely hard to detect, but they do offer a few suggestions for combating it."

    Apple: Cringely Posits Adobe's Purchase by Apple

    Posted by Zonk on Friday April 28, @02:07PM
    from the now-what-is-he-talking-about dept.
    Software
    An anonymous reader writes to mention another Robert Cringely piece discussing Apple's future. In his latest article, he lays out some goals for Apple on its quest to desktop dominance. An important link in this chain is Apple's purchase of Adobe Systems. From the article: "Adobe has already made one feint away from Mac development that required personal pressure from Steve Jobs on John Warnock to reverse. If Apple kinda-sorta embraces Windows enough for Adobe to question whether continued development for the native OS X platform is still warranted, well, then Apple WILL just become another Dell, which isn't what Steve Jobs wants. Steve wants Windows applications to run like crazy on his hybrid platform but to look like crap. In his heart of hearts, he'd still like to beat Microsoft on the merits, not just by leveraging some clever loophole. So he needs the top ISVs who are currently writing for OS X to continue writing for OS X, and that especially means Adobe."

    Games: IGN Claims Halo 3 At E3 60 of 70 comments

    IT: Cell Phones Responsible For Next Internet Worm?

    Posted by Zonk on Friday April 28, @01:19PM
    from the i-guess-they're-tasty dept.
    Security
    nitsudima writes "The mobile devices you know and love are great for productivity, but they have completely changed the vulnerability state of our networks. Norm Laudermilch tells you why you should be afraid, very afraid." From the article: "The new and largely unexplored propagation vector for malicious code distribution is mobile devices. With 802.11, Bluetooth, WiFI, WiMAX, MMS, Infrared, and cellular data capabilities on almost all new models, these devices provide a wealth of opportunity for the transmission of data. With no notion of user access levels in the compact mobile operating systems, a lack of effective authentication, and no data encryption, these environments are prime targets for the incubation of malicious code."

    Games: Next-Gen Shift Costing Sony and Microsoft 55 of 66 comments

    Developers: Web 2.0 Goes To Work

    Posted by Zonk on Friday April 28, @12:10PM
    from the about-time-you-started-pulling-your-weight dept.
    Businesses
    An anonymous reader writes "News.com is reporting on analyst predictions that Web 2.0 has begun meeting up with enterprise software in the business world." From the article: "Buttoned-down IBM, which mainly sells to businesses, on Wednesday detailed QEDwiki, for example. The project is meant to let people assemble Web applications using wikis, really simple syndication (RSS) and simple Web scripting. Similarly, the grassroots direct-marketing techniques of the consumer world are starting to be used to tout enterprise software, analysts said. The enterprise software market, once the hotbed of innovation, is starting to catch up to the consumer Web, where people are becoming used to melding data from their desktop with services online. It's a shift that could shake up the traditional enterprise-software model, experts predicted. "

    Games: Expected E3 Titles For Konami/LucasArts 17 of 26 comments

    Hardware: Seven Mobile ATA Hard Drives Compared

    Posted by Zonk on Friday April 28, @11:36AM
    from the compare-and-win dept.
    Data Storage
    AnInkle writes "Though hard drives are allegedly the fastest advancing high-tech product, most laptop manufacturers persist in saving a buck by outfitting their units with a low-end, low-cache, low-capacity, low-spindle-speed HDD. The Tech Report takes a different angle from other mobile hard drive reviews by including one of those maligned 4,200 RPM, 2MB cache models in their roundup of 2.5" hard drives, which includes 'a 160 GB perpendicular monster and a couple of 7,200-RPM speed demons.' The results are clear that most of us would see a tremendous boost in performance by upgrading this one component."

    Games: Valve Developing For 360 30 of 39 comments

    IT: Phishers Get Phoney

    Posted by Zonk on Friday April 28, @10:56AM
    from the punlarious dept.
    Security
    Nick Johnson writes to mention a new twist on phishing. From the article: "The spammed message warns of a problem with a bank account and instructs the recipient to dial a phone number to resolve it. The caller is connected to a voice response system that is made to sound exactly like the bank's own system. The phone system identifies itself to the target as the financial institution and prompts them to enter account number and PIN."

    Games: Dell Ships Gaming Systems Sans Bloat 79 of 93 comments

    Your Rights Online: Wal-mart's Wikipedia War

    Posted by Zonk on Friday April 28, @10:27AM
    from the wewwy-inwestingw dept.
    Censorship
    An anonymous reader writes "Whitedust is running an article which claims that lobbyists for Wal-mart have successfully waged a war against a fair viewpoint on Wikipedia's Wal-mart page. From the article: "Although Wikipedia maintains a 'Neutral Point of View' (NPOV) policy, the Wal-mart page is highly biased. Additionally, all criticism has, contrary to policy, practice, and the general opinion of those concerned, been moved to a Debates Over Wal-mart section. Even that page has noticeable resistance to negative points of view about Wal-mart."

    Politics: Microsoft To Invest Heavily In China

    Posted by Zonk on Friday April 28, @09:49AM
    from the all-piracy-is-local-when-your-money-is-on-the-line dept.
    Microsoft
    abb_road writes "As part of Chinese President Hu Jintao's recent visit to Redmond, Microsoft is announcing plans to invest $900 million dollars directly in software and hardware companies in China. The announced goal of this investment is to reduce software piracy and establish Windows-dominance in the region; what's not clear is if they expect the reduction to come from local business pressure or more direct government intervention." From the article: "To now, Microsoft's investment efforts have made little headway in reducing piracy. The company should be booking about $1 billion on annual sales of some 20 million PCs in China, says Paul DeGroot, an analyst at consultancy Directions on Microsoft. Instead, sales there are about $100 million, he says."

    Games: Both Sides of Wii

    Posted by Zonk on Friday April 28, @08:44AM
    from the not-a-cosmic-joke dept.
    Nintendo
    Yesterday Nintendo released the official name for their next console. Formerly the Revolution, and now simply called Wii, reaction has been strong among gaming fans. A Brian Crecente article in the Rocky Mountain News looks at why Wii is bad, from a marketing perspective. Chris Kohler, over at Game|Life, looks at why Wii is good because of its iconoclastic nature. And, always happy to help with the irreverent, Games.net examines why Wii is weird. From that article: "We don't think Nintendo Wii is a truly terrible console name, but it's an uncharacteristically risky choice, even for Nintendo. We admire its simplicity and its playfulness (the two i's represent multiplayer action, you see). But on the flip side, parents will have a hard time pronouncing it ("Nintendo...why?") and hardcore gamers will slam it ..."

    Hardware: Faking a Company

    Posted by CowboyNeal on Friday April 28, @06:43AM
    from the just-like-the-real-thing dept.
    Businesses
    gambit3 writes "What happens when pirating a movie, an application, or a game is not enough for you? Well, you take the next step and pirate a whole company. It happened to Japanese electronics giant NEC. Counterfeiters had set up what amounted to a parallel NEC brand with links to a network of more than 50 electronics factories in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan."

    Science: Researchers Create Artificial Insect Eye

    Posted by CowboyNeal on Friday April 28, @03:00AM
    from the fly-spy dept.
    Graphics
    maxzilla writes "An artificial insect eye that could be used in ultra-thin cameras has been developed by scientists in the US.The dimpled eye, contains over 8,500 hexagonal lenses packed into an area the size of a pinhead. The dome-shaped structure, described in the journal Science, is similar to a bee's eye. The researchers, from the University of California, Berkeley, say the work may also shed light on how insects developed such complex, visual systems. Darpa is also funding this project with applications expected for digital cameras and high speed motion detectors."

    Linux: Awesome Multimedia Technology Heads for KDE 70 of 95 comments

    Your Rights Online: Net Neutrality Voted Down in U.S. House Committee

    Posted by CowboyNeal on Friday April 28, @12:39AM
    from the multi-lane-internets dept.
    The Internet
    Ana10g writes "Business Week provides a look at the recent vote by the House Committee on Energy & Commerce, in which the FCC would have been given the power to prohibit discrimination of Internet traffic. The battlefield seems to be centered around which group has the better funded lobbyists, with companies such as Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and many others competing against the well funded Telecommunications lobbysts. The committee voted the amendment down, 34 to 22."

    <  Today's News | April 27  >