Stony Stevenson - Slashdot User

Submission + - Web creator apologises for his strokes (news.com.au)

Submitted by Stony Stevenson on Tuesday October 13, 2009 @10:42PM

Stony Stevenson writes: A LIGHT has been shone on one of the great mysteries of the internet. What is the point of the two forward slashes that sit directly infront of the "www" in every internet website address?
The answer, according to the British scientist who created the world wide web, is that there isn’t one.

Google Pulls Map Images At Pentagon's Request 217

Posted by kdawson on Friday March 07, 2008 @10:39AM from the limits-to-openness dept.

Stony Stevenson alerts us to a little mixup in which a Google Street View crew requested and was granted access to a US military base. Images from inside the base (which was not identified in press reports) showed up online, and the Pentagon requested that they be pulled. Google complied within 24 hours. The military has now issued a blanket order to deny such photography requests in the future; for its part Google says the filming crew should never have asked.

New Lock Aims To End Chip Piracy 312

Posted by kdawson on Thursday March 06, 2008 @06:29PM from the can-you-unlock-me-now dept.

Stony Stevenson writes "Pirated microchips based on stolen blueprints could soon be a thing of the past thanks to computer engineers at Rice University and the University of Michigan. The engineers have devised a way to head off this costly infringement by giving each chip its own unique lock and key. The patent holder would hold the keys, and the chip would securely communicate with the patent holder to unlock itself. The chip could operate only after being unlocked. The Ending Piracy of Integrated Circuits (Epic) technique relies on established cryptography methods, and introduces subtle changes into the chip design process without affecting performance or power consumption. With Epic protection enabled, each integrated circuit would be manufactured with a few extra switches that behave like a combination lock."

Submission + - Turn in a software pirate, collect $500 1

Submitted by Stony Stevenson on Tuesday December 18, 2007 @04:17PM

Stony Stevenson writes: The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) is offering consumers up to $500 for reporting software counterfeiters who sell their goods on online auction sites like eBay. Under the plan, anyone who unwittingly buys fake software from an online fraudster can receive up to $500 if they report the scam. SIIA said the program is a "don't get mad, get even" approach to stopping software piracy. It's "a way for unsuspecting buyers to get even with auction sellers who rip them off," said SIIA VP Keith Kupferschmid. The campaign, launched December 13, is slated to run through January 30, 2008.

Submission + - OpenOffice online now available for beta testing

Submitted by Stony Stevenson on Monday December 17, 2007 @06:38PM

Stony Stevenson writes: In the latest challenge to Microsoft's dominance of the productivity software market, a group of Linux developers has begun testing an online version of a free office applications suite. Developers at online software provider Ulteo said in a message posted on their Web site site that a hosted version of OpenOffice.org 2.3 that they plan to offer is now available for public beta testing. The trial version of the software can be launched from within Ulteo's Online Desktop package, which is itself currently in beta testing. The Ulteo Online Desktop aims to offer users a range of open source, Web-based applications and services. The project is led by Mandriva Linux creator Gael Duval.

Submission + - FireWire spec to boost data speeds to 3.2 Gbps 1

Submitted by Stony Stevenson on Thursday December 13, 2007 @05:11PM

Stony Stevenson writes: A new set of specs for data transfer technology will quadruple top speeds to 3.2 Gbps. Formally known as IEEE 1394, the technology is called FireWire by Apple and i.LINK by Sony. The new version is called S3200 and builds on the earlier specification approved by the IEEE, according to the trade association that is preparing to unveil the details this week. The technology will be able to use existing FireWire 800 cables and connectors while delivering a major boost in performance. "It will probably go into storage products first," said 1394 Trade Association spokesman Richard Davies in an e-mail Wednesday. "It should turn up in set-top boxes and maybe Blue-ray devices, too. It's too soon to tell how fast consumer electronics makers might adopt it."

Submission + - Google keeps what Ask.com erases

Submitted by Stony Stevenson on Thursday December 13, 2007 @04:49PM

Stony Stevenson writes: This week Ask.com launched its new AskEraser program to eliminate a users' IP addresses, user IDs, session ID cookies, and the complete text of search queries if users ask for it. In some cases, however, gone from an Ask.com server does not mean gone for good. AskEraser may remove user search query data from Ask.com's servers, but deleted data may live on, in part at least, on Google's servers. That's because Google delivers the bulk of the ads on Ask.com, based on information provided by Ask..

"We pass information to Google, including the IP address and the search query, in order to get search results on the site," explained Doug Leeds, senior VP at Ask. Google uses that data to fight click fraud and to present contextually relevant ads. It may well use the information for other purposes, such as measuring the responsiveness of its systems. However, Leeds said he could not disclose the specifics of the contractual relationship between Ask and Google.

Submission + - Iran builds supercomputer from banned AMD parts 2

Submitted by Stony Stevenson on Monday December 10, 2007 @08:25PM

Stony Stevenson writes: Iranian scientists claim to have used 216 microprocessors made by AMD to build the country's most powerful supercomputer, despite a ban on the export of U.S. computer equipment to the Middle Eastern nation. Scientists at the Iranian High Performance Computing Research Center at the country's Amirkabir University of Technology said they used a Linux-cluster architecture in building the system of Opteron processors. The supercomputer has a theoretical peak performance of 860 giga-flops, the posting said. The disclosure, made in an undated posting on Amirkabir's Web site, brought an immediate response Monday from AMD, which said it has never authorized shipments of products either directly or indirectly to Iran or any other embargoed country.

Submission + - Microsoft wants OLPC system to run Windows XP

Submitted by Stony Stevenson on Thursday December 06, 2007 @04:06PM

Stony Stevenson writes: In a move sure to provoke controversy, Microsoft wants the designers of the XO laptop to add a port through which the storage capacity required by Windows XP can be added to the system. Making the laptop compatible with XP would give students in poor countries access to "tens of thousands of existing educational applications written for Windows," said James Utzschneider, a Microsoft general manager, in a blog post Wednesday. Utzschneider says a shrunken version of Windows XP could potentially run on 2 Gbytes of flash memory. The XO, however, can only hold 1 Gbyte. As a result, Microsoft wants the XO's designers to add a slot through which more memory can be added via a secure digital (SD) card, Utzschneider said. Microsoft's renewed interest in participating in OLPC might be viewed by skeptics as an admission that a rival offering for developing markets called Classmate — which uses an Intel processor on Microsoft software — has failed to catch on.

Submission + - BBC rules that Wi-Fi radiation findings were wrong 1

Submitted by Stony Stevenson on Tuesday December 04, 2007 @02:15AM

Stony Stevenson writes: A Panorama programme claiming that Wi-Fi creates three times as much radiation as mobile phone masts was "misleading", an official BBC complaints ruling has found. The team involved in the research came under fire from the school where the "investigations" were held for scaremongering, but now the BBC has come out with an official ruling.

"The programme included only one contributor (Professor Repacholi) who disagreed with Sir William, compared with three scientists and a number of other speakers (one of whom was introduced as a former cancer specialist) who seconded his concerns," the ruling said. "This gave a misleading impression of the state of scientific opinion on the issue." Stewart claimed in the programme to have found evidence that low-level radiation from devices such as mobile phones and Wi-Fi could damage health, and called for a review. The claims prompted a council body in north London to call for Wi-Fi use to be suspended in schools until an investigation had been carried out.

Submission + - Klausner sues iPhone for $360M over voicemail

Submitted by Stony Stevenson on Tuesday December 04, 2007 @01:27AM

Stony Stevenson writes: Klausner Technologies said on Monday the company had filed a $360 million suit against Apple and AT&T over voicemail patents that Klausner claims the Apple iPhone infringes. New York-based Klausner said the lawsuit also names Comcast, Cablevision Systems and eBay's Skype as infringing its patent for "visual voicemail." The plaintiff seeks an additional US$300 million from the three. The suit alleges asserts that the defendants' Internet-based voicemail products and services violate a Klausner patent. It seeks damages and future royalties estimated at $300 million, according to the press release.

Comment If you had read the other article... (Score 4, Informative) 271

by Stony Stevenson on Monday December 03, 2007 @05:26PM (#21564467) Attached to: Peru Orders 260K OLPCs, Mexico to Get 50K

If people had bothered to read the "OLPC Lawsuit-Bringer Has Past Fraud Conviction" (http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/03/0526202) article, they would have seen that it mentioned Peru's and Mexico's purchasing plans.

Submission + - Google purges thousands of suspected malware sites (itnews.com.au) 1

Submitted by

Stony Stevenson

on Wednesday November 28, 2007 @06:37PM

Stony Stevenson writes: "In response to a concerted effort by cyber criminals to infect the computers of Google users with malware and make them unwitting partners in crime, Google has apparently purged tens of thousands of malicious Web pages from its index. Alex Eckelberry, CEO of Sunbelt Software, noted that many search results on Google led to malicious Web pages that expose visitors to exploits that can compromise vulnerable systems. Sunbelt published a list of search terms that returned malicious pages, the result of search engine optimization (SEO) campaigns by cyber criminals to get their pages prominently ranked in Google — Sunbelt refers to this as "SEO poisoning."

Let's hope Google has done its research and hasn't purged legitimate sites."

Submission + - Torvalds on where Linux is headed in 2008

Submitted by Stony Stevenson on Sunday November 25, 2007 @08:59PM

Stony Stevenson writes: In this new interview, Linus Torvalds is excited about solid-state drives, expects progress in graphics and wireless networking, and says the operating system is strong in virtualisation despite his personal lack of interest in the area.

From the article: "To get some perspective on what lies ahead in 2008, we caught up with Linus Torvalds via email. His responses touched on the Linux development process, upcoming features, and whether he's concerned about potential patent litigation."

Torvalds on Linux biggest strength: "When you buy an OS from Microsoft, not only you can't fix it, but it has had years of being skewed by one single entity's sense of the market. It doesn't matter how competent Microsoft — or any individual company — is, it's going to reflect that fact. In contrast, look at where Linux is used. Everything from cellphones and other small embedded computers that people wouldn't even think of as computers, to the bulk of the biggest machines on the supercomputer Top-500 list. That is flexibility. And it stems directly from the fact that anybody who is interested can participate in the development, and no single entity ends up being in control of where it all goes.

Submission + - Researchers blast Vista Service Pack 1

Submitted by Stony Stevenson on Thursday November 22, 2007 @04:47PM

Stony Stevenson writes: A group of researchers has described Microsoft's upcoming Windows Vista Service Pack 1 as a "performance dud". Researchers from the EXO Performance Network claimed that a series of in-house benchmark tests showed that users hoping to receive a speed boost from the update will be disappointed. "After extensive testing of Release To Manufacture and SP1-patched versions of Vista it seems clear that the hoped-for performance fixes that Microsoft has been hinting at have not materialised," the group said.

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