[Slashdot-mailer] Slashdot Daily Report (11/12/2000)
David Jacoby
jacoby@ecn.purdue.edu
Sun, 12 Nov 2000 11:00:02 -0500 (EST)
Slashdot Daily Report ( http://slashdot.org/ )
News for Nerds. Stuff That Matters.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
IBM Ships First 22" 200dpi Displays
A articles article from the "my-laptop-will-be-huge!" department
sent by timothy
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/11/1457202
wonko writes: "IBM has begun shipping new
monitors that are as much as 12 times sharper than
current displays, and 4.5 times sharper than HDTV.
These new 22-inch active matrix liquid crystal
displays use aluminum-based technology and have
over 9 million pixels. IBM will soon be licensing
the technology to other display makers, so you
could soon see these screens in laptops, PDAs,
cellphones, etc. Pardon me while I wipe the drool
off my keyboard ..." This is the same
high-definition display you read about here
earlier. They are not yet in CompUSA, to put it
lightly -- first examples are going to Lawrence
Livermore -- but the trickle-down effect in a
couple of years is promising.
--------------------
Is The Public Key Infrastructure Outdated?
A articles article from the "something-to-think-about" department
sent by CmdrTaco
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/11/1517235
dchat writes: "Roger Clarke, Visiting Fellow,
Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology
at the Australian National University claims that
the "Conventional, hierarchical PKI, built around
the ISO standard X.509, has been, and will
continue to be, a substantial failure", and then
he goes on to explain why. I'd be interested in
the views of Slashdot users, as my organisation is
contemplating considerable investment in X.500 and
PKI (including X.509)." Lots to read here.
--------------------
"KDE 2.0 Development" Is Online (And OPL)
A articles article from the "or-wait-a-few-days-for-the-print-version" department
sent by timothy
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/11/160215
kupolu writes: "'KDE 2.0 Development,' a new book
being published under the Open Publication
License, is now available in full online. Another
example of Open-ness at work. A quote from the
story says, 'Since the book is released under the
Open Publication License, it may be modified and
redistributed online, which means that the book
can be maintained (fixed, updated, expanded etc.)
in the style of a free software project. In this
spirit, volunteer translation of the book into
five other languages has already begun.'" The book
seems to be written in a nice, straightforward
way. It starts off by explaining the motivations
of the KDE project, but the bulk of the book is a
combination of explanations and code examples
covering everything from KParts to Mesa and OpenGL
to multimedia integration. Happily, this book also
serves in part as a user advocate -- programmers
are reminded about the importance of readable
dialogues and system responsiveness. You can go
straight to the book, or check out the excellent
andamooka project, which hosts the online version
of this soon-available-in-print book.
--------------------
The 3Dsia Project: More Than A 3DWM
A articles article from the "wouldn't-that-be-excellent" department
sent by CmdrTaco
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/11/1519218
xynopsis writes: "There's a virtual reality shell
in the making called the 3Dsia project which aims
to create a complete intuitive to use
3D-Environment. Inspired by William Gibson's
novels, their philosophy differs completely from
prevailing 3D-GUIs that just try to rebuild a
windowing System in a 3D space (read 3Dwm users!).
They think it's wrong ... When we are able to
immerse into a 3D-Space, why should we stick to
windows? Why to buttons and to form-oriented
programming? The power of three dimensions lies
within the freefloating forms and intuitive
interaction possibilities."
--------------------
CIA Chat Room Violates The Company's Policy
A articles article from the "should'na-dun-dat-fellas" department
sent by timothy
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/11/191225
code_rage writes: "An article in the Washington
Post says that some 160 employees and contractors
of the CIA are being investigated for operating an
unauthorized chat room. Two of those accused are
"innovative, out-of-the-box, unconventional
thinkers - these are essentially the hackers of
the CIA, in the most positive sense of the word."
The article raises issues of national security,
workplace monitoring, and worker's legal rights.
Although security was not compromised in this
case, the prospect of unauthorized software
running on secure computers might be a little
troubling. The article says that senior employees
have a keystroke monitor installed on their
computers. The 5-day timeline demanded by The
Company for response to accusations, seems to
preclude the employees the ability to consult with
legal counsel, given that clearances take months
to be approved."
--------------------
A Path To Perfect Lenses?
A articles article from the "sounds-like-a-dream" department
sent by timothy
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/11/2230236
Johan writes: "The Economist is reporting that a
British scientist has invented a way to make
perfect lenses. Previously, the smallest feature a
lens could resolve has been limited by half the
wavelength of the radiation used (for light this
is in the millionths of a metre range ... very
small but not good enough for many applications).
With perfect lenses, this limit has been
eliminated."
--------------------
Ejection From Fastest Known Revolving Neutron Star
A articles article from the "spin-spin-spin" department
sent by timothy
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/12/0341255
nachoworld writes: "In a similar vein to the
neutron star article posted earlier today, this
more interesting NS has emitted a 3-hour long
(1000x longer than normal) explosion by fusing the
mass of its mostly helium neighbor. In that
pluto-sized ejection, the NS emitted enough energy
to keep the sun burning for 20 years. On a side
note, this is the one and the same neutron star of
4U 1820-30, which is the fastest spining binary
known to man (11-minute cycles)."
--------------------
Hacking the City
A articles article from the "you-can-take-that-to-the-bank" department
sent by michael
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/12/0511251
Luddite Joe writes: "All you geeks should feel
empowered and important after reading this story
at Stating the Obvious about the young IPO rich
changing the world. The example focused on is
Jamie Zawinski, former Netscape coder turned
critic. Although the guy's just opening a
nightclub, stick with the article for the point."
--------------------
Cantametrix Plans To Track All MP3s On The Web
A articles article from the "even-the-awful-ones?" department
sent by timothy
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/12/0450221
Akilesh Rajan writes: "A Stereophile article
reports that Cantametrix is further developing its
MusicDNA system for identifying and tracking all
MP3s on the Internet. MusicDNA's use of DSP
(Digital Signal Processing) technology and
psychoacoustic modeling allows it to analyze an
MP3 and immediately tell what song it is, and so
also recognize who, if anyone, owns its copyright.
Company reps explain one possible application: 'A
MusicDNA Analyzer can be located, for example, on
the Web crawler of a large search engine, to
ensure that the search engine only points to legal
music.'" I could see this working a lot better if
all the music on the Web was pristine and complete
-- which it's not.
--------------------
The info is Rob Malda's
The code is mine
MOTD: -----------------------------------
I am no longer associated with Purdue, except for being a former
student, former employee, and active member of the Linux Users Group.
As such, I'll either be moving this service to another server or
killing it entirely. Your input is requested as to what you'd like.
Then again, when was the last time I changed the MOTD? And when was
last time it was read?