IT News

EagleHasLanded writes "The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence is 50 years old next month, and still no sign of intelligent alien life. Paul Davies of the Beyond Center (also Chairman of the SETI Post-Detection Taskgroup ) says it's time to re-think and expand the search for ET."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Data Protection: "Worried about preserving your privacy in an online world where privacy is disappearing? Here are seven Firefox add-ons that will help."

Acidspew writes "The Australian Government's plan to filter the Internet has caused furore and has been with vehement objection. Many people have put their opinions forward regarding this matter but this time around, M86 Security — the vendor that provided many ISPs equipment during the initial filter trials — has finally weighed in on the discussion. Six of the nine ISP participants in the URL-based Internet filter trial last year used M86's R3000 filtering kit. According to ARN: 'Internet filtering won't prevent people deliberately looking for inappropriate material from accessing blocked content, according to security vendor, M86 Security.' The company continues by saying its filter gear was designed to be implemented into schools and enterprise businesses, not for an entire country. The article also touches on M86's views on censorship."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Web regulator defers decision until June on whether to create a ".xxx" internet suffix as an online red-light district.

portscan writes "There is an entertaining and telling article in the Wall Street Journal about iPhone use by Microsoft employees. Apparently, despite it being frowned upon by senior management, iPhone use is rampant among the Redmond rank and file. The head of Microsoft's mobile division tried to explain it away as employees wanting 'to better understand the competition,' although few believe this. Nowhere does the article mention attempts by the company to understand why the iPhone is more attractive to much of Microsoft's tech-savvy workforce than the company's own products."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter. This is Issue #184 for the week March 7th - March 13th, 2010 and is available here.

In this issue we cover:

* Lucid Kernel now Frozen
* Ubuntu 10.04 beta 1 freeze now in effect
* Intel, Eucalyptus and Canonical join forces to help user build cloud infrastructures confidently
* Call for Testing: Cluster Stack – Load Balancing
* Google Summer of Code 2010: Ubuntu application
* New Ubuntu Members: Asia Oceanic Board & Americas Board
* Request for input for Lucid Beta 1 technical overview
* International Womens Day “How I Discovered Ubuntu” Winners
* Ubuntu Stats
* Ubuntu Global Jam(LoCo Style)
* Getting started with launchpadlib: Launchpad’s Python library
* Ubuntu Global Jam – what’s it all about?
* New stuff for the Ubiquity slideshow(Proposed)
* Alan Pope: Why (I think) Ubuntu is Better Than Windows
* In the Press & Blogosphere
* Ubuntu hits HTC’s Touch Pro2, is any Windows Mobile handset safe?
* Upcoming Meetings & Events
* Updates & Security
* And much, much more!

This issue of The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter is brought to you by:
* John Crawford
* Craig A. Eddy
* Dave Bush
* Amber Graner
* J Scott Gwin
* Liraz Siri
* And many others

If you have a story idea for the Weekly News, join the Ubuntu News Team mailing list and submit it. Ideas can also be added to the wiki!

Except where otherwise noted, content in this issue is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License BY SA Creative Commons License

Canonical kingdom spans 10 million machines

When you have Mark Shuttleworth as your backer, as commercial Linux distributor Canonical does, it is a bit like having money in the bank when the bank also believes fervently in your cause. It is a rare combination, and one that has allowed the Ubuntu project to reach out from its Linux desktop beginnings into commercial servers - and with the latest releases, cloudy infrastructure - without having the profit pressure that most startups have to deal with as they try to grow.…

The power of collaboration within unified communications

At some unspecified point in the future

Google is now "99.9 per cent" certain it will shut down its Chinese search engine, according to a report citing "a person familiar with the company's thinking."…

Case Study: WhatsUp keeps Legoland turnstyles ringing

boarder8925 writes "In a move sure to surprise no one, Obama has come out on the side of the MPAA/RIAA and has backed the ACTA: 'We're going to aggressively protect our intellectual property,' Obama said in his speech, 'Our single greatest asset is the innovation and the ingenuity and creativity of the American people [...] It is essential to our prosperity and it will only become more so in this century. But it's only a competitive advantage if our companies know that someone else can't just steal that idea and duplicate it with cheaper inputs and labor.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

nixCraft: "How do I display shell command history with date and time under UNIX or Linux operating systems?"

paulproteus writes "I'm a Debian developer and a part-time contributor to a few smaller projects. I do a lot of free software-y and open source-y things. Sometimes, though, I don't do them. I figure some other Slashdotters might have similar hang-ups — we contribute to a project, but there are parts that we really dread thinking about. So I wrote a post about having these hang-ups, and I made a place on the web to share how others can help your project. What are the parts that, in your projects, you would be relieved if someone else looked at for you?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

andylim writes "It's been rumoured for some time now that Apple will include RFID technology in a future iPhone. An RFID-packing iPhone could interact with various objects including opening doors and it could even be used in shops to register items at the checkout. Beating Apple to the RFID punch, last year a company called Wireless Dynamics announced an iPhone RFID accessory called the iCarte but if you'd rather make your own reader then a research assistant at University College London has managed to build his own RFID iPhone accessory."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Hugh Pickens writes "Techflash reports that Classmates.com has agreed to pay up to $9.5 million to its users to settle a lawsuit that accused the social network of sending deceptive emails that made people believe their old friends from high school were reaching out to connect — only to discover, after paying for a membership, that their long-lost buddies were nowhere to be found. Lawyers for the plaintiffs asserted that Classmates had 'profited tremendously from their false or deceptive e-mail subject lines and related marketing tactics.' Under terms of the proposed settlement, Classmates.com members who upgraded to premium memberships after receiving one of the 'guestbook' emails will be able to choose either a $3 cash payout or a $2 credit toward the future purchase or renewal of a Classmates.com membership. Classmates.com is also among companies that have come under scrutiny for their use of 'post-transaction marketing' tactics — in which customers are given additional offers as part of the online payment process, sometimes in such a way that they aren't aware they're also signing up to pay more. A November 2009 US Senate Committee report said Classmates made more than $70 million through its relationship with post-transaction marketing firms. The Classmates Media unit posted $58.8 million in operating profit for 2009, up more than 24 percent from the previous year, making Classmates 'the most profitable social network in the world,' according to CEO Mark Goldston."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An editorial at Eurogamer delves into what Sony and Microsoft hope to achieve with their upcoming console motion control systems, despite entering the market several years after Nintendo set the standard. "The cards Sony has placed on the table this week suggest one answer to that question. It sees PlayStation Move as being an upgrade path for Wii owners — an invitation to the tens of millions of consumers who have invested in Nintendo's platform to swim upstream to the more powerful, HD-enabled system. Yet even Sony's most optimistic view of the market will be tempered by a dose of realism here. ... What's more likely — and what Sony are probably quietly hoping to achieve a significant proportion of the Move's success through — is that the technology will expand the appeal of the PS3 in the family setting." The Digital Foundry blog has an in-depth look at the PlayStation Move from Sony's event at the Game Developers Conference, saying, "... if there was one positive you could take away from the event, it was that Move is clearly a far more precise implementation than the Wiimote. Some of the games felt clearly more 'tactile' than the Wii equivalents."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Jamie's Random Musings: "Sometimes, though, it is possible to get a bit too far ahead of the general development/release cycle. The HP Pavillion dm1-1020ez that I purchased in January is a case in point."

terets1 writes "Reuters reports that Venezuela's leader, Hugo Chavez, issued a call on Saturday for 'internet controls' to prevent rumors and inaccurate reporting from spreading. He specifically cited a case in which a website incorrectly reported that a senior minister had been assassinated and kept the story up for two days. Many of Venezuela's opposition movements use social networking sites to communicate. It is not apparent at this time exactly what kind of controls Chavez has in mind or whether those controls will be similar to the controls in Iran that have been used to silence opposition movements. Chavez said, 'The Internet cannot be something open where anything is said and done. Every country has to apply its own rules and norms.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

theodp writes "Formerly only available to Apps Users, Google has made Apps Script available to everyone (sample script), including you Google Docs low-lifers. Apps Script lets you automate actions across spreadsheets, sites, calendars, and other Google services. No spamming, kids!"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

FleaPlus writes "The US Air Force is currently preparing for the launch of the secretive X-37B OTV-1 (Orbital Test Vehicle 1) spaceplane, which was transferred from NASA to DARPA back in 2004 when NASA opted to focus its budget on lunar exploration. The reusable unmanned spaceplane is set to launch in April on top of a commercial Atlas V rocket, orbit for up to 270 days while testing a number of new technologies, reenter the atmosphere, then land on auto-pilot in California."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Barence writes "Mozilla has announced plans to redraft the open-source license underpinning projects such as Firefox. The Mozilla Public License 1.1 has been used to distribute numerous projects including Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenSolaris and Flex for over a decade. In the first phase of this process, Mozilla will release an alpha draft based on feedback already received. This will be followed by 'commentary, discussion, and further drafting, followed by beta and release candidate drafts.' Mozilla intends to 'seriously investigate' whether it can make the MPL compatible with the Apache license, in an effort to 'help projects using the MPL become more flexible about using Apache-licensed code.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Linux.com: "This month marks the one-year anniversary of Linux.com in its newest form. A year ago, we built the site based on your rankings of features on IdeaForge. Today, we want to hear how you're using Linux.com and what is most useful"