A collection of stories tagged 'package' from Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/ Copyright 2006 RoomforMilk.com. RoomforMilk is not affiliated with Slashdot.org. Fri, 21 Nov 2008 05:46:44 EST NASA has built a new software package to track problems with the Space Shuttle using open source tools from Mozilla. '[Alonso Vera, the lead of the Ames Human-Computer Interaction Group] wouldn't say exactly how much the new systems cost to build, but he said they were an order of magnitude cheaper than what was being used before, closer to $100,000 than the $1 million it would have cost in the past.' The Space Shuttle Endeavor launched successfully on Friday, so the new system is being used to track any problems which may crop up in the current mission. As one commentator pointed out, 'A system like this could save more than money; it could save lives.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26195 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/71TMekbOdu4/article.pl Sun, 16 Nov 2008 11:05:01 EST mallumax notes Amazon's new Frustration-Free Packaging initiative. Over several years the retailer hopes to convince many of its suppliers to offer consumer-friendlier packaging. It's starting with just 19 products from Mattel, Fisher-Price, Microsoft, and Transcend. Until this program spreads to more products, better get one of these (ThinkGeek and Slashdot share a corporate overlord). From Amazon's announcement: "The Frustration-Free Package is recyclable and comes without excess packaging materials such as hard plastic clamshell casings, plastic bindings, and wire ties. It's designed to be opened without the use of a box cutter or knife and will protect your product just as well as traditional packaging. Products with Frustration-Free Packaging can frequently be shipped in their own boxes, without an additional shipping box. Amazon works directly with manufacturers to box products in Frustration-Free Packages right off the assembly lines, which reduces the overall amount of packing materials used."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25952 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/hxXKmmzy_dM/article.pl Mon, 03 Nov 2008 21:05:06 EST As recently as 2007, Linux users waited six months for Flash 9 to arrive. Now, with Microsoft pushing its Silverlight alternative, Adobe is touting the universality of its Flash format, which has penetrated "98 percent of Internet-enabled desktops," it claims. And, it today released Flash 10 for Linux concurrently with other platforms. Welcome to the future." Handily enough, Real Networks released this summer RealPlayer 11 for Linux, the first release for which they've included a .deb package, and offers nightly builds of their Helix player, for which Linux is one of the supported platforms.Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25550 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/GbdU6cyDkkU/article.pl Wed, 15 Oct 2008 18:05:06 EDT The Australian Prime Minister's plan to equip high schools with 'one laptop per child' may go open source. Kevin Rudd's $56 million digital revolution will include 'laptops [that will] run on an open source operating system with a suite of open source applications like those packaged under Edubuntu. This would include Open Office for productivity software, Gimp for picture editing and the Firefox internet browser.' So far this has been considered for New South Wales and I think other states may follow."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25531 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/oW-v0kogocE/article.pl Tue, 14 Oct 2008 20:05:00 EDT alphadogg writes to tell us that one freshman class has a little more than usual to be excited about. When students at Abilene Christian University showed up for their first days of class they were greeted with the choice of either a new iPhone 3g or an iPod Touch plus a package of custom web apps to use on them. "The hardware is part of the Texas university's pilot mobile learning project, which has been gestating for over a year. About 650 first-year students chose the iPhone, and about 300 the iPod Touch, which is a very similar device but without the 3G radio (both devices incorporate an 802.11g Wi-Fi adapter). ACU pays for the hardware, student (or their parents) select and pay for their monthly AT&T service plan."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25508 http://rss.slashdot.org:80/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/J8hYMytQCH8/article.pl Tue, 14 Oct 2008 02:06:02 EDT alphadogg writes to tell us that one freshman class has a little more than usual to be excited about. When students at Abilene Christian University showed up for their first days of class they were greeted with the choice of either a new iPhone 3g or an iPod Touch plus a package of custom web apps to use on them. "The hardware is part of the Texas university's pilot mobile learning project, which has been gestating for over a year. About 650 first-year students chose the iPhone, and about 300 the iPod Touch, which is a very similar device but without the 3G radio (both devices incorporate an 802.11g Wi-Fi adapter). ACU pays for the hardware, student (or their parents) select and pay for their monthly AT&T service plan."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25499 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/J8hYMytQCH8/article.pl Tue, 14 Oct 2008 01:05:03 EDT alphadogg writes to tell us that one freshman class has a little more than usual to be excited about. When student at Abilene Christian University showed up for their first days of class they were greeted with the choice of either a new iPhone 3g or an iPod Touch plus a package of custom web apps to use on them. "The hardware is part of the Texas university's pilot mobile learning project, which has been gestating for over a year. About 650 first-year students chose the iPhone, and about 300 the iPod Touch, which is a very similar device but without the 3G radio (both devices incorporate an 802.11g Wi-Fi adapter). ACU pays for the hardware, student (or their parents) select and pay for their monthly AT&T service plan."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25491 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/2OtQfvXBmTg/article.pl Mon, 13 Oct 2008 17:05:12 EDT Barence sends word of research out of Carnegie Mellon University calling for changes in the way Web sites present privacy policies. The researchers, one of whom is an EFF board member, calculated how long it would take the average user to read through the privacy policies of the sites visited in a year. The answer: 200 hours, at a hypothetical cost to the US economy of $365 billion, more than half the financial bailout package. Every year. The researchers propose that, if the industry can't make privacy policies easier to read or skim, then federal intervention may be needed. This resulted in the predictable cry of outrage from online executives. Here's the study (PDF).Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25407 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/E3weeX1zgzc/article.pl Fri, 10 Oct 2008 12:05:01 EDT According to a research report out of UCLA, released this morning, NVidia's high-lead bump packaging could last anywhere from 1/10th to 1/100th as long as AMD's advanced eutectic bump approach. (TG Daily has picked up the claim.) NVidia is currently in the midst of a $200M recall of bad GPUs, and the report suggests that the issue could be much deeper than NVidia's PR department suggests." The report lends credence to the strident claims of the Enquirer's Charlie Demerjian, which we discussed a month back.Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25127 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/3CXgNwdbBwo/article.pl Mon, 29 Sep 2008 20:05:02 EDT bigwophh writes to mention HotHardware is reporting that Nero has decided to try a new step forward for home theater PCs by bringing the TiVo service to your computer. The new LiquidTV / TiVo PC package includes a (USB-based) high definition ATSC digital/analog TV tuner, antenna, remote control, IR blaster, Nero's LiquidTV software, and a 12-month subscription to the TiVo service for around $200. You can cut that in half if you already have a compatible TV tuner. This is the first time that TiVo has licensed their intuitive interface for a PC package. In addition to the TiVo interface, the rest of the LiquidTV software package allows you to burn your TV recordings to DVD or transfer the videos to other computers, iPods, PSP, or "other mobile devices." This service is due to launch next month.Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25119 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/PXPIyb7ktQE/article.pl Mon, 29 Sep 2008 14:05:01 EDT Comcast has discontinued its provided usenet service, once provided to all its high speed customers. First with the cap put on its customers several years ago on amount of traffic provided as part of the customer high-speed package, as of September 16, the service is no longer provided. Without fanfare, this bastion of the internet is being removed from the mainstream."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/24964 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/rFqtWmFuNEI/article.pl Mon, 22 Sep 2008 10:05:15 EDT The LA Times and others are reporting the music industry is working with SanDisk to try unrestricted music files on microSD memory cards to improve sales of physical media: 'In addition to music, the slotMusic cards will come pre-loaded with other things, such as liner notes, album-cover artwork and sometimes video.' The important part: 'The music on slotMusic comes without copyright protection, so it can be used on almost all computers, mobile phones and music players — but it won't play on an iPod, which doesn't have a micro-SD memory slot. It has one gigabyte of memory, and the music tracks are played back at high quality.' Could it be the labels have finally recognized that providing features and convenience to customers is preferable to suing them?" Most computers also don't have microSD slots; according to EMI's press release, there will be a "tiny USB sleeve" packaged with each card, and the "high quality" format means up to 320kbps MP3. From the given description, it seems like it would be no harder to transfer the tracks to an iPod (via a computer) than to most other players.Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/24961 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/9ce4mQbbz4s/article.pl Mon, 22 Sep 2008 05:05:01 EDT The LA Times and others are reporting the music industry is working with SanDisk to try unrestricted music files on microSD memory cards to improve sales of physical media: 'In addition to music, the slotMusic cards will come pre-loaded with other things, such as liner notes, album-cover artwork and sometimes video.' The important part: 'The music on slotMusic comes without copyright protection, so it can be used on almost all computers, mobile phones and music players — but it won't play on an iPod, which doesn't have a micro-SD memory slot. It has one gigabyte of memory, and the music tracks are played back at high quality.' Could it be the labels have finally recognized that providing features and convenience to customers is preferable to suing them?" Most computers also don't have microSD slots; according to EMI's press release, there will be a "tiny USB sleeve" packaged with each card, and the "high quality" format means up to 320kbps. From the given description, it seems like it would be no harder to transfer the tracks to an iPod (via a computer) than to most other players.Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/24946 http://rss.slashdot.org:80/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/9ce4mQbbz4s/article.pl Mon, 22 Sep 2008 04:05:01 EDT ISPreview reports that T-Mobile UK has launched an interesting range of new off-the-shelf Mobile Broadband products that do not require customers to sign-up under a long-term contract. The pay-as-you-go (PAYG) style products cost from only £2 per day for 'unlimited' access (3GB Fair Usage Policy applies). To access T-Mobile pre-pay Mobile Broadband, customers simply need to purchase a USB (Modem) Stick 110, which includes a memory card, for just £49.99 and plug it into a laptop to access their favourite websites. Credit can be topped up direct from the laptop and customers are able to select whichever package suits them at the time." For American readers, that's about $3.66 right now -- plus shipping yourself to the UK.Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/24931 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/tbbmHDUzmRk/article.pl Sun, 21 Sep 2008 06:05:02 EDT Over 150 man-years of work were added to the Open Source community today when Zarafa decided to put their successful Exchange server replacement under GPLv3. This is not just the typical mail-server-that-works-with-Outlook, it is the whole package including 100% MAPI, web access, tasks, iCal and Activesync. (The native syncing works great with my iPhone!) Binaries and source are available for all major Linux distros."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/24909 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/obYPGflkRzA/article.pl Fri, 19 Sep 2008 19:05:16 EDT Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin have achieved a breakthrough in the use of a one-atom thick graphene for storing electrical charge in ultracapacitors. They believe their development shows promise that graphene could eventually double the capacity of existing ultracapacitors. 'Through such a device, electrical charge can be rapidly stored on the graphene sheets, and released from them as well for the delivery of electrical current and, thus, electrical power,' says one of the researchers. Two main methods exist to store electrical energy: in rechargeable batteries and in ultracapacitors, which are becoming increasingly commercialized but are not yet well known to the public. Some advantages of ultracapacitors over traditional energy storage devices such as batteries include: higher power capability, longer life, a wider thermal operating range, lighter, more flexible packaging and lower maintenance. Graphene has a surface area of 2,630 square meters, almost the area of a football field, per gram of material."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/24853 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/V-_KLcw2PtA/article.pl Wed, 17 Sep 2008 04:05:01 EDT The fine folks at Codeweavers performed an 11 day experiment in getting Google Chrome working on Linux and Mac. Their efforts resulted in the Chromium proof of concept. 'Not only does this give Mac and Linux users a chance to see what all the hype is about, it also lets the world see just how far Wine has come and how powerful it truly can be. In just 11 days, we were able to bring a modern Windows application across to Mac and Linux.' Caveat: their implementation is free as in beer but not free as in speech."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/24820 http://rss.slashdot.org:80/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/RIPaNvEeqIg/article.pl Tue, 16 Sep 2008 03:05:41 EDT The fine folks at Codeweavers performed an 11 day experiment in getting Google Chrome working on Linux and Mac. Their efforts resulted in the Chromium proof of concept. 'Not only does this give Mac and Linux users a chance to see what all the hype is about, it also lets the world see just how far Wine has come and how powerful it truly can be. In just 11 days, we were able to bring a modern Windows application across to Mac and Linux.' Caveat: their implementation is free as in beer but not free as in speech."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/24801 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/RIPaNvEeqIg/article.pl Mon, 15 Sep 2008 16:05:01 EDT Users of the upcoming Ubuntu release, Intrepid Ibex, are being confronted with an EULA the first time they launch Firefox. Mark Shuttleworth says 'Mozilla Corp asked that this be added in order for us to continue to call the browser Firefox... I would not consider an EULA as a best practice. It's unfortunate that Mozilla feels this is absolutely necessary' and notes there's an unbranded 'abrowser' package available. Many of the comments say Ubuntu should ditch Firefox as this makes it clear it's not Free Software, hence unsuitable for Ubuntu main, and just ship Iceweasel or Epiphany, the GNOME browser." A few comments take Canonical to task for agreeing to Mozilla's demand to display an EULA without consulting the community.Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/24787 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/FmgHg9DTZBA/article.pl Sun, 14 Sep 2008 19:05:03 EDT A lawsuit filed in a California court on Tuesday alleges Nvidia concealed the existence of a serious defect in its graphics-chip line for at least eight months 'in a series of false and misleading statements made to the investing public.' The lawsuit contends that Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang and CFO Marvin Burkett knew as early as November 2007 about a flaw that exists in the packaging used with some of the company's graphics chips that caused them to fail at unusually high rates. Nvidia publicly acknowledged the flaw on July 2, when it announced plans to take a one-time charge of up to $200 million to cover warranty costs related to the problem. That announcement caused Nvidia's stock price to fall by 31 percent to $12.98 and reduced the company's market capitalization by $3 billion, the lawsuit said. The lawsuit seeks class-action status against Nvidia and unspecified damages."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/24680 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/BSKS-7o4TF4/article.pl Wed, 10 Sep 2008 14:05:27 EDT Reader Otter points out in his journal a very neat use for the logic contained in Debian's package dependency resolver: solving sudoku puzzles. To me at least, this is much more interesting than the sudoku puzzles themselves.Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/24327 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/373142739/article.pl Sat, 23 Aug 2008 23:05:01 EDT In an email sent to the fedora-announce mailing list, it has been revealed that both Fedora and Red Hat servers have been compromised. As a result Fedora is changing their package signing key. Red Hat has released a security advisory and a script to detect potentially compromised openssh packages."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/24295 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/371907871/article.pl Fri, 22 Aug 2008 11:05:01 EDT On Tuesday, IBM was granted US Patent No. 7,407,089 for storing a preference for paper or plastic grocery bags on customer cards and displaying a picture of said preference after a card is scanned. The invention, Big Blue explains, eliminates the 'unnecessary inconvenience for both the customer and the cashier' that results when 'Paper or Plastic?' must be asked. The patent claims also cover affixing a cute sticker of a paper or plastic bag to a customer card to indicate packaging preferences. So does this pass the 'significant technical content' test, IBM'ers?"Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/23990 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/357143197/article.pl Wed, 06 Aug 2008 03:05:01 EDT An estimated 18 million laptops with NVidia G84 and G86 graphics chips sold in the past one and a half years are experiencing high failure rates. Various laptop models from multiple manufacturers (Apple, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and others) are affected. NVidia blames it on bad chip packaging causing thermal failure. BIOS updates that turn the laptop fan on more frequently or permanently have been released by Dell and HP. The cynical interpretation is that this is likely to only delay the problem until the warranty has expired."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/23891 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/352207491/article.pl Fri, 01 Aug 2008 01:05:01 EDT The Debian project's maintainer, Luke Claes, announced in an email Saturday that he will freeze the 'testing' or 'Lenny' tree, in preparation for a new stable release of Debian Linux in ... September! The freeze means that open source software developers have only a couple more days to package any applications that they want to be included in the next release of Debian — and by extension, in the inner sanctum source lists of distributions such as Ubuntu that are based on it. After the freeze starts next week, Debian maintainers will turn their attention to 364 release-critical bugs, and half-a-dozen high-priority goals. Given the work to be done, is September really feasible? Lenny always was a little slow getting back to his right place ..."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/23755 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/345216986/article.pl Thu, 24 Jul 2008 23:05:01 EDT