Mozilla Offers Firefox 6.0

Found on eWEEK on Monday, 15 August 2011
Browse Software

Mozilla is now offering Firefox 6.0, a mere two months after Firefox 5.0 made its debut. Mozilla's sped-up release cycle could give the enterprise some headaches.

The organization also moved Firefox 7 to beta, according to a posting on the MozillaWiki.

"Enterprises are built of people," Mozilla CEO Gary Kovacs tweeted June 28, "and Mozilla is fundamentally about people. We support Firefox users wherever they are."

Hurry up Moz and release Firefox even faster so that you can be ahead of Chrome. Seriously, this is so ridiculous and annoying. It's a pain for plugin developers; and those are people. People who make Firefox useful. Scaring them off by forcing them to support a wide range of different versions isn't the brightest idea. Besides, having a foot in the "useless" enterprise market in a key element to success.

Apple Offers Flawed Evidence in Lawsuit against Samsung

Found on PC World on Sunday, 14 August 2011
Browse Legal-Issues

Last week, the German court ordered a preliminary injunction against the distribution of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in all of Europe, except the Netherlands, where a separate and broader case is under way.

But it appears that Apple has failed to provide the German judge with accurate evidence. At least one of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 pictures that Apple provided as evidence in the German case is either wrong or manipulated.

Groen explains that litigating parties are required by law to provide "complete and truthful" evidence to the judge. This applies regardless of whether flawed evidence is provided intentionally or mistakenly, says Groen, adding that this obligation is even more crucial in an ex parte decision, as the evidence presented to the judge is one-sided.

That's one way to try and win a court battle. Sadly, Apple will probably wiggle its way out of this somehow and blame a "technical error" or an "overly enthusiastic employee who has been fired already".

The Death of Booting Up

Found on Slate on Saturday, 13 August 2011
Browse Computer

Remember "booting up"? It was the first thing you did every morning-you waited two minutes, three minutes, sometimes even longer while your computer ran through a series of self-tests, loading screens, and an error prompt or two before settling into any kind of useful state.

Apple's MacBook Air loads up in 16 seconds, and machines based on Google's cloud-based Chrome OS boast boot times of under 10 seconds. Even Windows computers are fast-with the right set-up, your Windows 7 laptop can load just as quickly as a MacBook.

That's nice and spiff, but pretty useless. I wonder if people really sit down in front of their PC and switch it on, waiting for the desktop to come up while gnawing on the desk. In most cases, my system has booted before I return to it; there are always a few things one does between pressing the button and starting to work. Besides, I boot only once a day, so a minute more or less doesn't really shorten my life.

S.F. subway muzzles cell service during protest

Found on CNet News on Friday, 12 August 2011
Browse Censorship

The operators of the Bay Area Rapid Transit subway system temporarily shut down cell service last night in four downtown San Francisco stations to interfere with a protest over a shooting by a BART police officer, a spokesman for the system said today.

Activists had planned to protest the fatal shooting of Charles Blair Hill, who BART police said went after them with a knife before an officer shot him on July 3.

Those officers would have probably killed everybody in London by now if they were there. The excessive abuse of police force keeps on increasing and naturally it's only a matter of time until citizens consider the situation unbearable and protest.

File Sharing Continues To Grow, Not Shrink

Found on Techdirt on Thursday, 11 August 2011
Browse Filesharing

The entertainment industry always seems to think that the next thing they do will suddenly kill off piracy. They file lawsuits, they shut down sites, they change laws, they, finally (kicking and screaming), agree to license innovative new services... and then they declare victory over "piracy."

None of the actions taken by the industry appear to have slowed down infringement online. Instead, it appears that it just keeps growing.

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein"

USB 3.0 could soon drive monitors, hard drives with 100W

Found on ArsTechnica on Wednesday, 10 August 2011
Browse Technology

The next USB 3.0 specification will provide up to 100 watts of power to devices, allowing users to power some of the more demanding gadgets on their desks without additional power supplies.

Since the new spec raises USB 3.0 power input and output by two orders of magnitude, the slate of products the ports could power is much larger and includes monitors, desk lamps, and even notebook PCs.

Yeah, that's such a great idea. The average John Doe will start plugging just everything into his PC, like desktop lamps, monitors and so on. Then suddenly that PC will make a little *fwump* noise and everything is dark, because the PSU didn't handle the required power. When your average PC comes with something like a 300W PSU, then there isn't much to plug in, considering that most of that power goes into the PC itself already. So perhaps we'll see 1kW PSU's by default now, just to save one or two wall plugs. I'm so sure that's perfectly power efficient.

Cameron threatens to shut down UK social networks

Found on Thinq on Wednesday, 10 August 2011
Browse Internet

In a move worthy of China's communist regime, UK PM David Cameron wants to shut down social networks whenever civil unrest rears its head in Britain's towns and cities.

"Free flow of information can be used for good. But it can also be used for ill. So we are working with the police, the intelligence services and industry to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality."

Funny, I remember the same happened in countries like Egypt, Libya, Syria and so on; and it worked oh so well there.

Reusable e-paper rolled out

Found on The Register on Monday, 08 August 2011
Browse Technology

A team of Taiwanese scientists have developed "i2R e-paper", which apparently needs no backlighting and thus uses no electricity.

The Institute has recently passed the tech over to a Taiwanese company and reckons the product could hit markets in a couple of years, where it has potential to be implemented in e-books and electronic billboards.

It sure would be nice to have an ebook where you can actually flip the pages, like in your traditional book.

TSA Apologizes For Confiscating Pregnant Woman's Insulin

Found on The Denver Channel on Sunday, 07 August 2011
Browse Various

The Transportation Security Administration is apologizing to a pregnant woman, one day after she said her insulin and ice packs were confiscated by screeners at Denver International Airport.

"He's like, 'Well, you're a risk.' I'm like, 'Excuse me?' And he's like, 'This is a risk ... I can't tell you why again. But this is at risk for explosives,'" the woman said.

The mother-to-be said she brought the appropriate doctor's note and the medication was labeled correctly, so she's perplexed as to why her insulin would be confiscated this time.

Clueless and badly trained people are left in charge of airport security.

Syrian tanks attack eastern city of Deir al-Zour

Found on BBC News on Saturday, 06 August 2011
Browse Politics

At least 50 people have died after the Syrian army stormed Deir al-Zour, the largest city in the east and a scene of frequent protests, activists say.

The army has continued its siege on the central city of Hama, which has become the centre of the uprising. Earlier, the Local Co-ordination Committees said the number of those killed since security forces launched an assault last Sunday was now more than 300.

More than 1,600 civilians have already been killed by the dictator and the world still cannot get their act together and use diplomatic pressure and sanctions to stop Assad from killing even more of his people.