Ironkey 1GB Thumbdrive

Slashdot It! Here is the video review of the Ironkey 1GB Thumbdrive Get Daily Updates via Email Protect your computer with Windows Onecare

EPowerTech 650W Power Supply

Slashdot It! Here is the video review of the EPowerTech 650W Power Supply Get Daily Updates via Email Protect your computer with Windows Onecare

Lamptron will soon launch 5 Port Military Switch Baybus series

Slashdot It! Lamptron will soon launch 5 Port Military Switch Baybus series based on the low fan controller. This Baybus is specially designed and made for modders. It allows you to control fans, lights and any other 12 volt device with a high quality military switch.

Get Daily Updates via Email Protect your computer with Windows Onecare

Microsoft shows off multitouch sensor prototype

Slashdot It! Microsoft researchers on Thursday demonstrated a new, low-cost method for manipulating a digital desktop or wall display with two hands. Called LaserTouch, the prototype is the latest invention of computer vision specialist Andy Wilson, a researcher from Microsoft Research's Redmond, Wash., campus. Wilson has worked on Microsoft's Surface computing, among other projects. But more recently he's developed a sensing technology system that would allow people to retrofit any display--e.g., a desktop or projector--so that they could use their hands, instead of a mouse, to interact with the computer. The system uses a low-cost infrared camera and lasers to track how the user touches the screen in order to prompt a response from the software. The result could be a virtual chess game with a friend over a networked computer, or a better way to show off a PowerPoint presentation, Wilson said. "It's a simple technique," Wilson said Thursday during a presentation of the prototype. Wilson was referring to the low-cost camera and laser setup, but he said the magic is really in the software he's developed. On Thursday, Microsoft hosted its fourth research road show here at its Silicon Valley campus since the local arm opened in 2001. The event, which was open to press, academia, high-school students, and industry, was designed to demonstrate the company's research efforts and new technologies emerging from the labs. (The company has labs in Redmond, Mountain View, and, this summer, in Cambridge, Mass.) LaserTouch is the newest prototype from Microsoft Research, but researchers also presented other previously unveiled projects from the labs. Those included Microsoft WorldWide Telescope, a virtual telescope for scientists and the public to peer into the heavens. Researchers also previewed Boku, a programming language for kids on the Xbox 360 game controller. The technology lets kids guide, or "program," the behavior of a virtual robot through the use of visual cue cards in the game, rather than HTML (Hypertext Markup Language). Even though LaserTouch was billed as an "inexpensive" multi-touch sensor technology, Wilson didn't say how much such a system would cost. He said that there aren't any plans to turn LaserTouch into a product as of now, partly because there are still problems with the technology. For example, it doesn't support multiple users that well. If two people were attempting to manipulate the display, for example, one person's hands might block the laser from "seeing" the other person's hands. If turned into a product, however, it might save someone as much as $10,000 if they were in the market for a Microsoft Surface computer. Still, the company is working on bringing down the cost of computer vision-sensing technologies to improve products like games, according to Wilson. Get Daily Updates via Email Protect your computer with Windows Onecare

IPod Docking station

Dear readers, are you looking for an ipod docking station now? Then look no further, because I had just found the best place where you can get an iPod docking station at the best price you can ever think. The best and the cheapest products under their brand name. If you cannot decide your mind on which ipod dock to buy then I recommend this website. NavDock for iPod The website I am reviewing today is called Tekkeon.com. They are the experts in the market making things that is customized to your needs and wants. With no comprise on both price and quality. The first item that I am reviewing today is called NavDock 2000. It is a i_Pod dock that allows you to hook up your iPod to your TV and use your TV to browse the things on the ipod. And you can use the 16-button remote to adjust or mute volume, shuffle, repeat or skip songs, and fast forward or rewind through music or videos. The remote offers a five-way navigation pad and quick keys that jump directly to the videos, photos, music or settings menus. They also got some stuffs for iPhones. They have covers for the iPhone. Some hard cover like the Hard Case with Soft Touch for iPhone. It protect your iPhone with a hard case that offers a soft-to-the-touch, sleek protective shield. Leather Flip for iPhone The leather flip case features a removable clip and business/credit card pocket for the ultimate in style and function. myCharger USB Power Adapter Charge your iPhone at home or on the road with a single compact power adapter. An optional travel pack includes interchangeable international plugs for use abroad. Mobile Power myCharger USB Power Adapter myCharger lets users carry a single compact power adapter to charge iPod and many popular mobile phones at home or on the road. An optional travel pack includes interchangeable international plugs for use abroad. SO check them out

Lian Li PC V2010 Casing

Slashdot It! Here is the video review of the Lian Li PC V2010 Casing Get Daily Updates via Email Protect your computer with Windows Onecare

Microsoft Will Shut Down Book Search Program

Slashdot It! Microsoft said Friday that it was ending a project to scan millions of books and scholarly articles and make them available on the Web, a sign that it is retrenching in some areas of Internet search in the face of competition from Google, the industry leader. The announcement, made on a company blog, comes two days after Microsoft said it would focus its Internet search efforts on certain areas where it sees an opportunity to compete against Google. On Wednesday, Microsoft unveiled a program offering rebates to users who buy items that they find using the company’s search engine. Some search experts said Microsoft’s decision to end its book-scanning effort suggested that the company, whose search engine has lagged far behind those of Google and Yahoo, was giving up on efforts to be comprehensive. “It makes you wonder what else is likely to go,” said Danny Sullivan, editor in chief of the blog Search Engine Land. “One of the reasons people turn to Google is that it tries to be a search player in all aspects of search.” Mr. Sullivan said that the number of people using book search services from Microsoft and Google was relatively small, but it included librarians, researchers and other so-called early adopters who often influence others. These users are now likely to turn to Google with increasing frequency, he said. Both Microsoft and Google have been scanning older books that have fallen into the public domain, as well as copyright-protected books under agreements with some publishers. Google also scans copyrighted works without permission so it can show short excerpts to searchers, an approach that has drawn fire from publishers. Microsoft’s decision also leaves the Internet Archive, the nonprofit digital archive that was paid by Microsoft to scan books, looking for new sources of support. Several major libraries said that they had chosen to work with the Internet Archive rather than with Google, because of restrictions Google placed on the use of the new digital files. “We’re disappointed,” said Brewster Kahle, chairman of the Internet Archive. Mr. Kahle said, however, that his organization recognized that the project, which has been scanning about 1,000 books each day, would not receive corporate support indefinitely. Mr. Kahle said that Microsoft was reducing its support slowly and that the Internet Archive had enough money to keep the project “going for a while.” “Eventually funding will come from the public sphere,” Mr. Kahle said. Some libraries that work with the Internet Archive and Microsoft also said they planned to continue their book-scanning projects. “We certainly expect to go on with this,” said Carole Moore, chief librarian at the University of Toronto. “Corporate sponsors are interested in whatever works for their commercial interests and their shareholders. Long-term preservation is not something you can look to the commercial sector to provide. It is what research libraries have always done.” Microsoft acknowledged on its blog that commercial considerations played a part in its decision to end the program. “Given the evolution of the Web and our strategy, we believe the next generation of search is about the development of an underlying, sustainable business model for the search engine, consumer and content partner,” Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s senior vice president for search, portal and advertising, wrote on the blog. Microsoft said it had digitized 750,000 books and indexed 80 million journal articles. Google, which works with libraries like the New York Public Library and those at Harvard, Stanford, the University of Michigan and Oxford, said it had scanned more than a million books. It plans to scan 15 million in the next decade. Google makes the books it scans freely available through its search engine but does not allow other search engines to use its database. “We are extremely committed to Google Book Search, Google Scholar and other initiatives to bring more content online,” said Adam Smith, product management director at Google. Get Daily Updates via Email Protect your computer with Windows Onecare

Cellphone Pioneer Struggles to Stay Relevant

Slashdot It! Neeraj Choubey has not worked at the troubled cellphone maker Motorola for seven years. But from the number of calls and e-mail messages Mr. Choubey, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, has gotten in recent weeks, you would think he had never left his old colleagues. “People I have not heard from in eight years are adding me on LinkedIn,” said Mr. Choubey, referring to the professional networking site used, in part, by job seekers. “I’m getting calls from people I haven’t talked to in ages. Everyone, it seems, is looking at other options.” Morale is just one of many problems facing Motorola these days. Mobile phone sales continue to plummet. A parade of executives has left the corporate suite, including the company’s chief of strategy and technology, who resigned last week. And despite the recent détente with the activist investor Carl C. Icahn, whose representatives now sit on Motorola’s board, analysts and restive shareholders are wondering how soon — if at all — Greg Brown, the chief executive, can revive Motorola’s fortunes. To many investors and employees, Mr. Brown has yet to articulate a strategy for turning around the pioneering communications company, which popularized the handheld two-way radio, called a Handie-Talkie, during World War II and, in 1983, created the world’s first commercial portable cellular phone. “The question is, ‘What is the game plan?’ ” said Walter Piecyk, a managing director at Pali Research, an independent research firm in New York. “Motorola needs to decide what it wants to be. You can’t just keep saying, ‘I promise to come out with better phones.’ That is not enough these days.” Mr. Brown, who became chief executive five months ago after his predecessor, Edward J. Zander, resigned under pressure, contends his plan is simple: restore Motorola’s lost reputation as the premier maker of mobile phones in the United States. But in an interview, he said that executing is harder than he imagined when he took the job. Motorola’s reversal of fortune has been striking. The Schaumburg, Ill., company shipped about 27 million handsets during the first quarter of 2008, putting its share of the global market below 10 percent — a plunge from its 22 percent market share in 2006, when its Razr flip phone was a top seller. Already, Mr. Brown said, he has taken several steps to ease Motorola’s pain. The biggest: his March decision to spin off the mobile devices unit to make it easier to recruit a chief executive to run it. Mr. Brown, meanwhile, would oversee the company’s other businesses, which include television set-top boxes and computing and communications equipment. The split was expected by Wall Street, particularly because Mr. Icahn advocated for it last year. But some analysts said the problems facing the mobile phone division would remain the same for it as a standalone company. Motorola needs to better differentiate itself, much as Research in Motion has done with the BlackBerry e-mail device and Apple has with the iPhone, said Roger Entner, a senior vice president at IAG Research. Even Nokia, the volume leader in cellphone sales worldwide, is positioning itself as a maker of phones geared as much for entertainment as for calling. With Motorola, “no one knows what is in the design pipeline,” said Mr. Entner. “It’s like a black hole.” Mr. Brown acknowledged that Motorola has lagged behind its peers, largely because it was never able to come up with a successor to the Razr. But the company is responding, he said, preparing cellphones with more touch-screen functions to appeal to Asian customers. Motorola is also designing less costly mobile phones with third-generation technology, known as 3G, which it hopes to announce soon. The new products could be helpful to Motorola, said Mr. Piecyk, particularly if they are sold in Latin America, India and China, where cellphones are the main way many consumers access the Internet. Still, the analyst cautioned, Motorola would have to sell a lot of the new models to affect its bottom line. Motorola said last month that it suffered a net loss of $194 million, or 9 cents a share, for the first quarter, which ended March 29. In the year-ago quarter, the company lost $181 million, or 8 cents a share. Revenue fell 21 percent to $7.45 billion. Motorola also has something of an image problem with its customers, particularly wireless carriers like Verizon Wireless and AT&T that got burned when the company did not deliver promised phones on time. Mr. Brown said Motorola would be more careful not to hail new products unless it can deliver them. “We want to be thoughtful about not pre-announcing and making broad declarations before products are ready for delivery,” he said. Perhaps the trickiest challenge facing Mr. Brown, though, is how to motivate a work force that has been battered by layoffs. Many have watched the company’s reputation plummet from one of the most revered in the industry to an also-ran. “There is no shortage of smart people there,” said Jeffrey K. Belk, a former senior vice president for strategy at Qualcomm, who worked closely with Motorola executives. “What is changing is the environment around them.” Mr. Entner put it more bluntly: “That company suffers from a culture of failure.” Like many analysts, Mr. Entner does not blame Mr. Brown for today’s misfortunes. He said that the previous chief executive, Mr. Zander, should have been more aggressive in addressing the company’s misfortunes, including doing more to come up with a successor to the Razr. But it is Mr. Brown’s job to come up with a new vision to inspire the company’s about 66,000 employees — and keep them from fleeing to rival cellphone makers and startups. And that hasn’t been easy. One former longtime Motorola executive, who declined to be named because he still had relationships there, said he had left because he believed the company lost its way. “I had concerns about the strategic vision. They remain.” Mr. Brown said he has sought to address employees’ concerns. Recently, Motorola’s mobile devices division held a “town hall” meeting at company headquarters. Members of the new products team showed employees what they might see in 2009. While they did not unveil new phones — for fear the news would be leaked — they showed certain functions that designers and engineers would include. But in the interview, Mr. Brown said, “We don’t want to rely on a single hit product to get us back, which has been the case in the past.” Get Daily Updates via Email Protect your computer with Windows Onecare

Cable Prices Keep Rising; Customers Keep Paying

Slashdot It! Americans discouraged by higher gas prices and airline fares may decide to spend more vacation time at home, perhaps watching television. But that, too, will cost them more than ever. Cable prices have risen 77 percent since 1996, roughly double the rate of inflation, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this month. Cable customers, who typically pay at least $60 a month, watch only a fraction of what they pay for — on average, a mere 13 percent of the 118 channels available to them. And the number of subscribers keeps growing. The resiliency of cable is all the more remarkable because the Internet was supposed to change all things digital. Technology has led to more choices and lower prices for news and music as well as cellphone and landline minutes — not to mention computers, cameras, music players and phones themselves. Yet here is a rare instance where Silicon Valley has failed to break a traditional media juggernaut. And not for lack of trying. Technology companies keep insisting they will provide new low-cost ways to get video into the home, but so far their efforts have created more black boxes to stash under the TV, not real competition for cable that could bring prices down. “A couple of years ago, there was a thesis that we were at the twilight of Comcast as the gatekeeper,” said Craig Moffett, a cable industry analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Company. “That thesis still titillates some. But technologically and economically, it’s probably not going to happen.” So why hasn’t technology had a bigger impact? One answer is the alliance between cable companies and Hollywood producers of content to sell channels in bundles, rather than letting consumers pay only for the channels they want. The producers of cable television content share $15 billion to $20 billion a year in fees from cable subscribers, roughly equal to the $20 billion they receive in advertising revenue, Mr. Moffett said. Without those fees, the cable companies say, prices would go up. “If each channel depended on individual consumers electing to pay individually for it, this would slash potential viewership and seriously hurt the ability of most channels to attract their current level of advertising dollars,” said Jenni Moyer, a spokeswoman for Comcast. “Lost ad revenue would have to be replaced by higher license fees.” The industry says the digital era has brought its customers better image quality, more on-demand services and solid value through packages that combine cable, phone and Internet service. It also says consumers are actually getting more viewing value for their dollar, at least relative to inflation. The National Cable & Telecommunications Association says that from 1998 to 2006, the price consumers paid for each viewing hour was essentially flat. The chief economist of the Federal Communications Commission, Gregory S. Crawford, disagrees, saying the industry is not factoring in the real cost of the programming that subscribers are watching. By his analysis, the increase has been around 50 percent from 1997 to 2005. The F.C.C. and some politicians have been in a pitched battled with the cable industry, trying to get it voluntarily to offer so-called à la carte pricing. But cable companies insist that this is not economically feasible. Kevin J. Martin, chairman of the F.C.C., said in an interview that since 1996, when Congress increased competition in telecommunications, prices have dropped for many other services. “We’ve seen the opposite occur in the cable industry,” he said. “The dramatic increases in pricing we’ve seen are one of the most troubling issues from a consumer point of view.” In 2007, average monthly revenue for each Cablevision subscriber was $75, up from $65 in 2005, according to SNL Kagan, a research company. At Time Warner it was $64, up from $54.50. The cable industry has never felt the pricing pressures the music industry is feeling. The most obvious reason is that Internet speeds have not been fast enough to permit easy downloading of movies and other video material. That is changing, though. People are viewing millions of videos online each month — albeit mostly short video clips, and not Hollywood movies. At the same time, the use of file-sharing tools like BitTorrent to download illegally popular movies and television shows is growing. Get Daily Updates via Email Protect your computer with Windows Onecare

Antivirus is 'completely wasted money': Cisco CSO

Slashdot It! Companies are wasting money on security processes — such as applying patches and using antivirus software — which just don't work, according to Cisco's chief security officer John Stewart. Speaking at the AusCERT 2008 conference in the Gold Coast yesterday, Stewart said the malware industry is moving faster than the security industry, making it impossible for users to remain secure. "If patching and antivirus is where I spend my money, and I'm still getting infected and I still have to clean up computers and I still need to reload them and still have to recover the user's data and I still have to reinstall it, the entire cost equation of that is a waste. "It's completely wasted money," Stewart told delegates. He said infections have become so common that most companies have learned to live with them. "There are too many companies in the world that actually believe infection is just a cost of doing business and are getting used to doing it — as opposed to stopping it completely. That's dangerous," he said. A better way of dealing with the unknown is to use whitelists — where only authorised or approved software can execute, said Stewart. "I'm sick of blacklisted stuff. I've got to go for whitelisted stuff — I know what that is because I put it there," he said. Security software vendors did not agree. Gavin Struthers, regional director for McAfee Australia and New Zealand, said that although installing antivirus and updating patches are not a perfect solution, they certainly aren't a waste. "I disagree that it is a complete waste of money... Against today's sophisticated attacks, antivirus and patching won't stop these threats, so you need a layered approach and defence in depth," he told ZDNet.com.au. Chris Thomas, technology specialist for CA's Internet Security business unit, said that antivirus alone did not provide enough protection. "It's not a complete waste of money. If it's the only level of protection that someone has, it's probably not going to be enough. The arms race between the malware writers and antivirus researchers is a constant race," he said. Thomas agreed, however, that whitelists are a good idea: "The way security is moving now is, as John Stewart said today, whitelisting, as in 'trust what you know’, as opposed to the black list signatures." Get Daily Updates via Email Protect your computer with Windows Onecare

U.S. corporations massively read employee e-mail

Slashdot It! In its fifth-annual study of outbound e-mail and data loss prevention issues, Proofpoint found that large enterprises continue to incur risk from - and take action against - information leaks over outbound e-mail, as well as newer communications media such as blogs, message boards, media sharing sites and mobile devices. Outbound e-mail remains a key source of risk for U.S. enterprises with a record 44% of surveyed companies reporting that they investigated an e-mail leak of confidential information in the past 12 months. 41% of the largest companies surveyed (those with 20,000 or more employees) reported that they employ staff to read or otherwise analyze the contents of outbound e-mail. 22% of these companies said they employ staff primarily or exclusively for this purpose. Other key findings in the survey include: * 40% of companies surveyed investigated an e-mail-based violation of privacy or data protection regulations in the past 12 months. * 26% of companies surveyed terminated an employee for violating e-mail policies in the last 12 months. * 23% of U.S. companies surveyed said their business was impacted by the exposure of sensitive or embarrassing information in the last 12 months. * 34% of the largest companies (20,000 employees or more) reported that employee e-mail was subpoenaed in the last 12 months. E-mail is not the only source of risk for information leakage. Respondents to the survey indicated significant risk resulting from employee use of blogs, message boards and media sharing sites (such as YouTube), as well as mobile devices. Some of the key findings include: * 27% of companies surveyed had investigated the exposure of confidential, sensitive or private information from lost or stolen mobile devices in the past 12 months. * 11% of U.S. companies surveyed disciplined employees for improper use of blogs/message boards in the past 12 months. * 13% of surveyed companies disciplined employees for social network violations and 14% for improper use of media sharing sites in the past 12 months. * 14% of publicly traded companies surveyed had investigated the exposure of material financial information (such as unannounced financial results) on blogs or message board postings in the last 12 months. Get Daily Updates via Email Protect your computer with Windows Onecare

Microsoft offers cashback search

Slashdot It! Microsoft is offering "cold, hard cash" to persuade users to shop online using its Live Search engine and help the company catch up to rival Google. The savings range between 2% and 30% on products sold by select retailers through its so-called cashback service. Microsoft's new site is seen as an attempt to convince advertisers it can combat Google's increasing share of the online ad market. "2008 is the year that search got competitive," said Bill Gates. Speaking at the company's annual digital ad conference in Redmond, the company chairman laid out details of their latest product and told the audience to expect "big announcements around search to happen every six months". "The overwhelmingly positive feedback from all the partners confirms there is this opportunity for change," Mr Gates said in his keynote speech at the end of the two-day summit. Different enough Under the cashback service, the software giant promises to pay back a portion of the purchase price of anything shoppers buy online from any of its 700-plus selling partners who are offering more than 10 million products. Among the big box retailers who have signed up are Barnes & Noble, Sears, Overstock.com, Home Depot, J&R Electronics and a host of others. Money will be paid either via PayPal, a cheque or into a user's bank. It will only be open to people living in the US. While "cashback" is being talked up as one way to eat into Google's lead in the online market, Om Malik, founder of GigaOm, is not impressed. He told BBC news, "This is not going to affect Google. Google is so much better." "Microsoft is like a bad restaurant - no matter what the incentive, you don't want to eat there. Their product isn't working and their share of the market proves that." Google has a 60% share of the online market while Microsoft trails in third after Yahoo with just 10%. But Greg Sterling, an analyst at SearchEngineLand.com, is not so negative about the new Live Search offering. "I think it's an interesting idea. The challenge for Google competitors has always been 'are you different enough?'" "The thing with Google is that people are addicted to it. They are comfortable with it and there have been very few things so far to lure them away. But with a cash incentive tied to products, that might have some success with some people." Strong players So what is in it for advertisers and retailers? To persuade businesses to sign up to the programme, Microsoft is using an alternative payment model called Cost-Per-Acquisition instead of the Cost-Per-Click approach favoured by Google. This means advertisers only pay when the ad results in a consumer actually buying something and is less of a risk for the merchant. It is something that Mike Arrington at TechCrunch says advertisers will be attracted to. "Microsoft may find a warm reception from advertisers, who currently see a virtual monopoly by Google in the search advertising space. It's in their best interest to have as many strong players vying for their business as possible, so any competition to Google may be worth their time." Mr Sterling, at SearchEngineLand, told BBC News: "What this does for participating advertisers is eliminate concerns about click fraud and the fact they are only paying when an actual transaction happens." 'Not the worst idea' While Microsoft might hope Wednesday's announcement shows they can be regarded as a serious contender in the world of search, others say it points to their weakness and how a partnership with the likes of Yahoo is vital. Talks with Yahoo are said to be back on after Microsoft walked away from the table following their offer to buy the internet portal for $45.7bn. CNET's Charles Cooper says: "Truth be told, it's not the worst idea. What's the harm in giving it a shot? In a recession consumers are open to bribes or rebates. "But the reason people use Google is because it works better. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer knows this. That's why he still thinks making a move for some of Yahoo's assets makes sense." In something of a nod to the Yahoo situation, Mr Gates reiterated that Microsoft is a long-term player in the search market. And he put the best spin possible on the fact the company is lagging in third place by joking: "It's kind of fun to be an underdog. It's neat." Get Daily Updates via Email Protect your computer with Windows Onecare

Microsoft shows off multitouch sensor prototype

Slashdot It! Microsoft researchers on Thursday demonstrated a new, low-cost method for manipulating a digital desktop or wall display with two hands. Called LaserTouch, the prototype is the latest invention of computer vision specialist Andy Wilson, a researcher from Microsoft Research's Redmond, Wash., campus. Wilson has worked on Microsoft's Surface computing, among other projects. But more recently he's developed a sensing technology system that would allow people to retrofit any display--e.g., a desktop or projector--so that they could use their hands, instead of a mouse, to interact with the computer. The system uses a low-cost infrared camera and lasers to track how the user touches the screen in order to prompt a response from the software. The result could be a virtual chess game with a friend over a networked computer, or a better way to show off a PowerPoint presentation, Wilson said. "It's a simple technique," Wilson said Thursday during a presentation of the prototype. Wilson was referring to the low-cost camera and laser setup, but he said the magic is really in the software he's developed. On Thursday, Microsoft hosted its fourth research road show here at its Silicon Valley campus since the local arm opened in 2001. The event, which was open to press, academia, high-school students, and industry, was designed to demonstrate the company's research efforts and new technologies emerging from the labs. (The company has labs in Redmond, Mountain View, and, this summer, in Cambridge, Mass.) LaserTouch is the newest prototype from Microsoft Research, but researchers also presented other previously unveiled projects from the labs. Those included Microsoft WorldWide Telescope, a virtual telescope for scientists and the public to peer into the heavens. Researchers also previewed Boku, a programming language for kids on the Xbox 360 game controller. The technology lets kids guide, or "program," the behavior of a virtual robot through the use of visual cue cards in the game, rather than HTML (Hypertext Markup Language). Even though LaserTouch was billed as an "inexpensive" multi-touch sensor technology, Wilson didn't say how much such a system would cost. He said that there aren't any plans to turn LaserTouch into a product as of now, partly because there are still problems with the technology. For example, it doesn't support multiple users that well. If two people were attempting to manipulate the display, for example, one person's hands might block the laser from "seeing" the other person's hands. If turned into a product, however, it might save someone as much as $10,000 if they were in the market for a Microsoft Surface computer. Still, the company is working on bringing down the cost of computer vision-sensing technologies to improve products like games, according to Wilson. Get Daily Updates via Email Protect your computer with Windows Onecare

Linking to movies leads to $4 million in fines

Slashdot It! Hollywood has been granted another victory in its war against piracy, this time at the expense of two linking sites that the Motion Picture Association of America believes profited from enabling copyright infringement. Both ShowStash.net and Cinematube.net have been hit with multimillion dollar judgments recently for copyright infringement of various movies and TV shows. Even though ShowStash and Cinematube didn't host any of these files, both were found guilty of contributory copyright infringement, according to the judges' opinions, because they searched for, identified, collected, and indexed links to illegal copies of movies and TV shows. Aside from monetary damages, both sites are now prohibited from engaging in further activity that would infringe upon the studios' work. The damages totaled $2.7 million for ShowStash and $1.3 million for Cinematube, neither of which were particularly well-known to the general Internet community. The MPAA doesn't seem to care much that it gives free publicity to these tiny sites when it makes announcements of its litigation plans, however. The organization apparently hopes that others will merely feel threatened by the prospect of paying out millions of dollars and shut down voluntarily. "Our goal is to stop this kind of blatant and illegal activity," MPAA executive VP John Malcolm said in a statement. "These judgments indicate that the studios will not hesitate to vigorously pursue litigation against this type of site." The MPAA announced the two judgments just two weeks after the organization was awarded $110 million in damages from TorrentSpy. The MPAA hailed the decision as a clear victory for the movie studios that served as the icing on the cake after TorrentSpy's announcement that it would shut down for good on March 24. With two more (albeit relatively small) victories under its belt, the MPAA is even more confident in its stance against sites that merely link to potentially copyrighted material. It wouldn't be surprising to see ShowStash and Cinematube eventually mirror TorrentSpy's decision to shut down, too. It's not uncommon to find illegal movies being hosted on servers outside the US, which is why sites based in the US have not hesitated to merely tell users how to get to them. The increase in lawsuits against sites that point to illegal movies, however, may push more of them to move operations overseas too in order to skirt further litigation. Get Daily Updates via Email Protect your computer with Windows Onecare

Open graphics card available for preorder

Slashdot It! The Open Graphics Project has started accepting preorders for their OGD1, a graphics card with a completely open source design. This initial release is billed as a high-end FPGA prototyping kit specifically designed to test computer graphics architectures. The card has two DVI connectors, S-Video, 256MB RAM, and a 64bit PCI-X connector. The core of the system is a Xilinx Spartan-3 XC3S4000 FPGA. A nonvolatile Lattice XP10 FPGA is used to bootstrap the Xilinx at power up. Here's the layout of the specific components. An open design like this could prove very beneficial to the free software community. The open hardware makes driver development much easier; binary drivers from traditional graphics manufacturers have been very hard to work with in the past. The OGD1 could also be used with CPU architectures that wouldn't be unsupported by normal graphics cards. An FPGA based design means that CPU intensive processes like video decoding could be offloaded to the video card without needing a dedicated chip. There is still a lot of work to be done and at $1500 we're pretty sure most of you won't be buying the first generation. It's still exciting to see traditional PC hardware getting reinvented and opened up. Check out the OGD1's FAQ for more info. Get Daily Updates via Email Protect your computer with Windows Onecare

Moody’s error gave top ratings to debt products

Slashdot It! Moody’s awarded incorrect triple-A ratings to billions of dollars worth of a type of complex debt product due to a bug in its computer models, a Financial Times investigation has discovered. Internal Moody’s documents seen by the FT show that some senior staff within the credit agency knew early in 2007 that products rated the previous year had received top-notch triple A ratings and that, after a computer coding error was corrected, their ratings should have been up to four notches lower. News of the coding error comes as ratings agencies are under pressure from regulators and governments, who see failings in the rating of complex structured debt as an integral part of the financial crisis. While coding errors do occur there is no record of one being so significant. Moody’s said it was “conducting a thorough review” of the rating of the constant proportion debt obligations – derivative instruments conceived at the height of the credit bubble that appeared to promise investors very high returns with little risk. Moody’s is also reviewing what disclosure of the error was made. The products were designed for institutional investors. In the recent credit market turmoil, those who still hold the products will have suffered some paper losses while others who have bailed out have lost up to 60 per cent of their investment. On discovering the error early in 2007, Moody’s corrected the coding glitch and instituted methodology changes. One document seen by the FT says “the impact of our code issue after those improvements in the model is then reduced”. The products remained triple A until January this year when, amid general market declines, they were downgraded several notches. In a statement to the FT, Moody’s said: “Moody’s regularly changes its analytical models and enhances its methodologies for a variety of reasons, including to reflect changing credit conditions and outlooks. In addition, Moody’s has adjusted its analytical models on the infrequent occasions that errors have been detected. “However, it would be inconsistent with Moody’s analytical standards and company policies to change methodologies in an effort to mask errors. The integrity of our ratings and rating methodologies is extremely important to us, and we take seriously the questions raised about European CPDOs. We are therefore conducting a thorough review of this matter.” Credit ratings are hugely important within the financial system because many investors – such as pension funds, insurance companies and banks – use them as a yardstick either to restrict the kinds of products they buy, or to decide how much capital they need to hold against them. The world’s other major credit agency, Standard and Poor’s, was the first to award triple A status to CPDOs but many investors require ratings from two agencies before they invest so the Moody’s involvement supplied that crucial second rating. S&P stood by its ratings, saying: “Our model for rating CPDOs was developed independently and, like our other ratings models, was made widely available to the market. We continue to closely monitor the performance of these securities in light of the extreme volatility in CDS prices and may make further adjustments to our assumptions and rating opinions if we think that is appropriate.” Get Daily Updates via Email Protect your computer with Windows Onecare

PayPal founder Peter Thiel launched The Seasteading Institute

Slashdot It! Tired of the United States and the other 190-odd nations on Earth? If a small team of Silicon Valley millionaires get their way, in a few years, you could have a new option for global citizenship: A permanent, quasi-sovereign nation floating in international waters. With a $500,000 donation from PayPal founder Peter Thiel, a Google engineer and a former Sun Microsystems programmer have launched The Seasteading Institute, an organization dedicated to creating experimental ocean communities "with diverse social, political, and legal systems." "Decades from now, those looking back at the start of the century will understand that Seasteading was an obvious step towar