News For Nerds

Refilling Ink Cartridges Now a Crime?

2005-09-04T23:40:00.000+03:00

The Ninth Circuit has created box-wrap patent licenses. Now the label on the box that says "single use only" is given force of law, and if you refill the cartridge you are liable for patent infringement.

Source: Slashdot

Blu-Ray To Punish Users for Modifying Hardware

2005-09-04T23:39:00.000+03:00

As reported on Engadget, consumers should expect punishment for tinkering with their Blu-ray players, as many have done with current DVD players, for instance to remove regional coding. The new, Internet-connected and secure players will report any "hack" and the device can be disabled remotely. As the article asks, "Are they talking about PVP-OPM techniques and rejected HDMI keys, or something else far more sinister? Because apparently "A hacked player is any player that is doing something it's not supposed to do," which open to a pretty fair amount of interpretation--most of which egregious.

Source: Slashdot

Ohio Linux Festival 2005

2005-09-04T23:37:00.000+03:00

Ohio Linux Fest 2005, a free conference/event for Linux and OSS enthusiasts, looks to be every bit as good, if not better than Ohio Linux Fest 2004. Last year, IBM, Novell, Apache, Beowulf, Mozilla, along with Jon "Maddog" Hall made Ohio Linux Festival 2004 a huge success along with tons of swag, freebies, and door prizes (including a Linus-autographed cdrom of the original source release of Linux). This year IBM, Novell, Apache, Digium, KDE and others will be doing sessions on Asterisk, KDE, Digital Forensics,Unified Threat Management, Ubuntu, Server Farms and lots of other topics. Check it out this October 1st!

Source: Slashdot

MySQL and SCO Join Forces

2005-09-04T21:16:00.000+03:00

CNET is reporting that MySQL and SCO have signed a partnership to work on "joint certification, marketing, sales, training and business development work for a version of the database for SCO's new OpenServer 6 version of Unix." Why would MySQL decide to work directly with a company that has deemed the GPL as unconstitutional?

Source: Slashdot

Economist Looks at the Digital Home

2005-09-04T18:11:00.000+03:00

There is an excellent article this week in The Economist looking at the "digital home" and at what cable, telecom, internet, and hardware companies are doing to create the new entertainment nerve centers of the future. The article touches on what exists today (CDs, DVDs, etc), what is in production or preparation from various companies (MS MCE, IPTV, music downloads, etc), DRM, interoperability, and competing standards, among other topics. Although there is no mention of MythTV or Linux, it is a pretty solid analysis of the market as it is now and concludes that vendors are trying to hype a market into existence where there is no great consumer demand. A choice quote: "'If consumers even know there's a DRM, what it is, and how it works, we've already failed,' says Peter Lee, an executive at Disney". The article concludes: "As John Barrett, research director at Parks Associates, says, 'it seems that we've concocted a new variant of the 'paperless' office.' This, you recall, was the consensus a decade or so ago among technophiles (but almost nobody else), that computer technology would save our forests by freeing us from having to read and write on paper. Today's variant, says Mr Barrett, is 'no more tapes, CDs, DVDs, discs.' In other words, expect them to be around for a very long time to come.

Source: Slashdot

Microsoft Lashes out at Massachusetts IT Decision

2005-09-04T16:35:00.000+03:00

Infoweek is reporting that the plan to eliminate the use of Office by the Massachusetts state government (previously covered on Slashdot) has not gone over well with Microsoft. Microsoft's Yates said the company agrees with the adoption of XML but does not agree that the solution to "public records management is to force a single, less functional document format on all state agencies." Microsoft also states they will not support the OpenDocument format. Looks to me Microsoft is scared their biggest cash cow is in danger from a free alternative. Soon I'm sure we'll see a Microsoft funded comparison between Office and OpenOffice.

Source: Slashdot

Singapore's Creative says Japan shipments had virus

2005-09-04T13:55:00.000+03:00

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Creative Technology Ltd. said some of its MP3 player shipments to Japan contained a virus worm and it was recalling affected products from stores.

Singapore-based Creative (CREA.SI: Quote, Profile, Research)(CREAF.O: Quote, Profile, Research), which makes Nomad and Zen brand players, said in a statement late Thursday on its Japanese Web site that some of its Zen Neeon devices, which started shipping in late June, contained a "low-risk worm."

The company estimates that fewer than 50 units were affected, out of 2,900 devices that had been shipped to Japan since September 1. "The system with the problem has been disposed of and the problem has been fixed. We verify that Creative Zen Neeon shipments going forward will not have this problem," the company said.

Creative shares fell 2.2 percent to S$13.60 on Friday. The stock has slumped about 24 percent over the last 12 months.

(Additional reporting by Yukari Iwatani Kane in Tokyo)

MSN Launches Pay-Per-Click Search Ads

2005-09-04T13:47:00.000+03:00

ZDNet is reporting that MSN has launched its first paid-search advertising application. The system will first be launched in Singapore and will be followed by France in September and a pilot run in the United States in October.

Source: Slashdot

PayPal Freezes Hurricane Relief Account

2005-09-04T13:45:00.000+03:00

SomethingAwful's forum denizens, on the call of site admin Richard "Lowtax" Kyanka, raised over $20,000 dollars to be donated to the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. This was done via a PayPal donation link, and PayPal has now frozen the account on a twofold basis: one, that there have been reports of "suspicious behavior" from the "buyers," and two, that no shipping records have been provided for the donations.

Source: Slashdot

Sony PSP console hits UK high streets

2005-09-04T01:22:00.000+03:00

Sony's first handheld games console, the PlayStation Portable (PSP), finally went on sale in the UK this morning after months of delay.

The much-hyped games machine, which also plays films and music, was originally set to go on
sale in Europe in March. But, after supply shortages caused by huge demand in Japan and the US, Sony was forced to postpone the launch to 1 September.

However, gamers hoping to get their itchy fingers on this year's must-have gadget could still face a long wait. Retailers fear that demand for the £179.99 unit will severly outweigh the number of PSPs to hit British shores.

'History suggests that the video game market is driven by new technology launches,' Simon Soffe, spokesperson for retailer Game, told the BBC,

, 'We've been taking orders for a long time and we expect that demand will outstrip supply, at least initially.'

WHSmith and HMV have also reported that pre-orders swallowed the majority of their first supply.

However, Sony has pledged to supply 1 million consoles to stores by Christmas to avoid disappointment.

The PSP is the first serious contender to both Apple's iPod and Nintendo's DS given that it allows users to play games, films and music; take photos and browse the web - all while on the move.

Apple is expected to retaliate with the launch of an all-in-one mobile phone and iPod next month.

Head of Sony Computer Entertainment UK, Ray Maguire, hopes that the PSP will keep competitors at arm's length for some time.

'The PSP is in its own space. It delivers so much more than any other device,' he told the BBC, 'It's difficult to see where Nintendo goes from here.'

The PSP comes complete with extras in a special Value Pack. The package includes a protective pouch, Memory Stick Duo (32MB), Battery Pack, Headphones with Remote Control, AC Adaptor, Demo Disk and a Wrist Strap.

For more information go to www.yourpsp.com.

Source: PCPro

Firefox 1.5 Beta set for September 8

2005-09-04T01:14:00.000+03:00

Mozilla has announced its beta schedule for the upcoming release of Firefox 1.5, according a posting on its developer news Web site. Beta 1 will be released on September 8, followed by a second beta on October 5.

Furthermore, the first release candidate of the browser is expected on October 28, which indicates the final version of Firefox 1.5 would likely come sometime during the month of November.

Read more...

Source: BetaNews

Linspire to give away desktop OS for free

2005-09-04T01:08:00.000+03:00

Linspire said yesterday that it would give away free copies of its Linux desktop operating system until Sept. 6. Linspire Five-O was launched in March and retails for $49.95.

The company said it decided to give away the software because a package called Freespire has caused confusion in the marketplace. Freespire is comprised of various open-source components taken from the freely available source repository of Linspire.

Source: Tom's Hardware

DVD Jon hacks Media Player file encryption

2005-09-04T01:06:00.000+03:00

Norway's best known IT export, DVD Jon, has hacked encryption coding in Microsoft's Windows Media Player, opening up content broadcast for the multimedia player to alternative devices on multiple platforms.

Jon Lech Johansen has reverse engineered a proprietary algorithm, which is used to wrap Media Player NSC files and ostensibly protect them from hackers sniffing for the media's source IP address, port or stream format. He has also made a decoder available.

Read more...

Source: The Register

Mambo Changes its Name to Joomla!

2005-09-04T00:18:00.000+03:00

The popular open source content management system named Mambo has changed its name to Joomla! -- released under the GNU Public License. Some of the reasons for the name change are explained at MamboPortal.com. Joomla! is used by a very wide array of organizations and companies

Source: Slashdot.org

If you are a Winamp user . . .

2005-09-04T00:03:00.000+03:00

. . . you might want to check this out. Yes, it is a leak of Winamp 5.1, and among the new feature set, according to the link, are the following:

5.1 surround sound
8X CDR ripping (on the free version)
AACPlus encoder

Did I mention you can download it here or here?

Apple iPod battery settlement

2005-09-04T00:01:00.000+03:00

If you qualify for the class-action settlement, you can get instructions and the claim for right here; claims must be received 2 years after the date of purchase of your affected iPod or by September 30, 2005, whichever is later.

Watch OSX boot and run on a Sony Vaio

2005-09-03T23:48:00.000+03:00

Right here.
Filesize: 4661565 bytes
requires Quicktime

Kodak and Nikon duel with Wi-Fi cameras

2005-09-03T14:26:00.000+03:00

By Humphrey Cheung

September 2, 2005 - 14:31 EST

Westlake Village (CA) - Not content with ever-increasing mega-pixels, Kodak and Nikon are giving consumers something else to look forward to - wireless picture transfer capability. This month, Nikon will be releasing its Coolpix P1 and P2 cameras, while the Kodak EasyShare One will be available in October. All three cameras offer at least 4 mega-pixels of resolution in addition to wirelessly beaming pictures to computers, printers and the Internet.

Nikon will be the first out of the gate and the optical specifications look promising. The Coolpix P1 will have 8.0 megapixels of resolution with a 4X optical zoom. The Coolpix P2 will also come with a 4X zoom, but with less megapixels (5.0). Both cameras can record 30 frames per second movies at 640 X 480 pixel resolution.

Kodak's EasyShare One will ship next month and will have a 3X optical zoom and take pictures at 4 megapixels. While all three cameras offer wireless transfer, the feature is enabled differently between the announced snapshot cameras.

All the cameras offer wireless transfer direct to a printer, but an extra wireless adapter must be purchased. For transferring to a computer, the Nikon cameras beam pictures directly into the "PictureProject" software. This means users are either tied to their desktop PC, bring their notebooks along or install the software on a friend's computer to be able to get their shots off the camera in a wireless fashion.

Kodak has partnered up with Hotspot providers like T-Mobile to offer direct-to-the-Internet transfers. Users can completely ditch the computer and drop by any Starbucks. Pictures can be sent directly to an Internet picture gallery from participating hotspots or wireless networks.

The Nikon Coolpix P1 and P2 will be available for $550 and $400 respectively, while the Kodak EasyShare One will sell for $600.

Source: Tom's Hardware