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Yesterday's News
Recent reviews from Slashdot readers:

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

IT: US Homeland Security to Support Open Source

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday January 11, @07:22AM
from the read-the-grant-carefully dept.
Security
An anonymous reader writes "CNET is reporting that the US Department of Homeland Security is extending its support to open source software. The DHS will be giving Stanford University, Coverity, and Symantec a $1.24 million grant to improve the security of open source software. From the article: 'The Homeland Security Department grant will be paid over a three-year period, with $841,276 going to Stanford, $297,000 to Coverity and $100,000 to Symantec, according to San Francisco-based technology provider Coverity, which plans to announce the award publicly on Wednesday.' It's nice that our tax dollars are being used for the right stuff."

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Science: Stardust@Home Lets Public Search Grains of Dust

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday January 11, @05:29AM
from the bad-excuses-to-get-out-of-a-date dept.
Space
An anonymous reader writes "In a new project called Stardust@home, UC Berkeley researchers are inviting Internet users to help them search for a few dozen submicroscopic grains of interstellar dust captured by NASA's Stardust spacecraft. Rather than relying on the user's spare PC cycles, though, the system depends on their eyes." From the article: "Though Stardust's main mission was to capture dust from the tail of comet Wild 2 - dust dating from the origins of the solar system some 4.5 billion years ago - it also captured a sprinkling of dust from distant stars, perhaps created in supernova explosions less than 10 million years ago."

Your Rights Online: Microsoft FAT Patent Upheld

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday January 11, @03:34AM
from the fat-getting-fatter dept.
Patents
theodp writes "After initially rejecting Microsoft's File Allocation Table (FAT) patents, the USPTO has ruled them valid. From the article: 'Microsoft has won a debate where they were the only party allowed to speak, in that the patent re-examination process bars the public from rebutting arguments made by Microsoft, said unimpressed Public Patent Foundation President Dan Ravicher.'"

Science: Slowly Pulling Facts from Black Holes

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday January 11, @01:27AM
from the cosmic-vacuum-cleaner dept.
Space
lee1 writes "Astronomers have proven the existence of the event horizon, the 'point of no return' that surrounds black holes. An MIT and Harvard team said they showed its existence by looking for X-ray bursts from neutron stars and more compact objects thought to be black holes." Relatedly beuges writes "IOL is reporting that by tracking the death spiral of cosmic gas at the center of a galaxy called NGC1097, scientists figured that material moving at 177 000km an hour would still take eons to cross into a black hole. 'It would take 200 000 years for gas to travel the last leg of its one-way journey,' Kambiz Fathi of Rochester Institute of Technology told reporters at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society."

Science: Phase Change in Fluids Simulated

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Tuesday January 10, @11:26PM
from the trying-for-real-life-in-a-lab dept.
Technology
brendotroy writes "After decades of work by the physics and computer science communities, scientists at the University of Rochester have finally created a mathematical model that will allow scientists to simulate and understand phase changes. This discovery 'could have an impact on everything from decaffeinating coffee to improving fuel cell efficiency in automobiles of the future.'"

Games: An Interview With 2old2play's Doodi

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Tuesday January 10, @09:32PM
from the never-too-old-to-play dept.
The Internet
vinnie2k writes "This is an interesting interview with the founder of 2old2play.com. In it he discusses the future of gaming for older people, why we need communities like 2old2play, and how the gaming industry needs to refocus its efforts on the games it makes. Cool insight and worth the read for any older gamers."

Ask Slashdot: Equipment Suppliers You Can Trust?

Posted by Cliff on Tuesday January 10, @07:22PM
from the maintenance-emergency dept.
Technology
Steve Gray asks: "It has happened to all of us at some time or another. You're two weeks from deploying an application, but suddenly your testbed server falls over, and just won't get back up. After fighting with a variety of companies to try and get parts delivered for Tuesday, I'm finding that most companies will stall your order for days for reasons from random extra checks through to migration of lesser known species of Vole, business needs be damned! Who do Slashdot readers turn to when technology goes wrong? Do you trust them to deliver by tommorow, without fail?"

IT: Microsoft vs. Computer Security

Posted by Zonk on Tuesday January 10, @06:38PM
from the looking-for-the-right-tactic dept.
Windows
ArieKremen writes "The Slate has a piece written for the average user attempting to explain why Windows is `still` grappling with security issues. Although Gates made security and privacy top priority four years ago, not much progress has been made." From the article: "Microsoft customers haven't stopped worrying. A year later, Windows was hit with several nasty worms, including Slammer, Sobig, and Blaster. The viruses caused major traffic bottlenecks throughout the world, which cost tens of billions of dollars to clean up. Vulnerabilities deemed 'critical' have forced the company to release an almost unending stream of patches and fixes to the Windows operating system, Microsoft Office, and Internet Explorer." An interesting look at the whole issue.

IT: Two New WMF Bugs Found

Posted by Zonk on Tuesday January 10, @05:53PM
from the patch-patch-patch-senora dept.
Windows
Resident Egoist writes "Via PCWorld the news that two new Metafile bugs have been found, just a week after the patching of previous critical WMF issues." From the article: "All three flaws concern the way Windows renders images in the Windows Metafile (WMF) format used by some CAD (computer-aided design) applications, but these latest flaws are far less serious than the vulnerability that Microsoft patched last week, according to security experts. That vulnerability was serious enough to cause Microsoft to take the unusual step of releasing an early patch for the problem, ahead of its monthly security software update."

Hardware: Analysts Predict Dell to Use AMD

Posted by Zonk on Tuesday January 10, @05:11PM
from the grain-of-salt dept.
AMD
An anonymous reader writes "CNet reports on an analyst's prediction that Dell will begin using AMD chips, instead of their much-touted Intel processors." From the article: "Dell likely will reverse course and begin selling computers with Advanced Micro Devices' processors, Piper Jaffray analyst Les Santiago predicted Tuesday, sending the chipmaker's stock up 4 percent in midday trading."

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