Sun is planning on creating Opteron-based servers. These are expected to include 2-processor and 4-processor models running either Solaris or Linux. This move isn’t surprising, given the performance and cost gaps between the Opteron and UltraSPARC processors. A move to Opteron would allow them to be more competitive in cost and focus more on what they’re good at, designing systems, not processors
Ran across an interesting software program this week. Boolean Dream‘s Hotmail Popper is a small application that allows you to check your Hotmail account e-mail from a normal POP mail client, such as Thunderbird or Eudora.
Interestingly enough, it also works for Netscape Webmail, which pleased a friend of mine no end. At least they now have the option of installing their own spam filters and escaping the avalanche of spam that is attracted to their Netscape Webmail account.
YahooPOPs provides the same service for Yahoo webmail accounts. Although it’s worth noting that if you run both, you’ll have to change the incoming mail server port for one program.
Microsoft forgot to renew their hotmail.co.uk domain. A Good Samaritan renewed it for them, but was unable to get a response from anyone at Microsoft. Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it
Internet search engine Google has unveiled free software that lets people search the web quickly — without launching a web browser
The FTC has shut down D Squared, a company that’s been spamming via the Windows Messenger Pop-Up Service. In some cases, ads would pop-up every 10 minutes, and only advertised a $30 product that disabled similar pop-up ads. The FTC is slamming the extortion gauntlet on them. Interestingly, the FTC only caught onto all this because one of their own commissioners was among those getting spammed
Telia, one of Sweden’s largest ISPs, has started blocking computers that send spam. The computers that Telia will block are primarily those that have been infected with ‘trojans’ which are being used, without the customer’s knowledge, to send enormous amounts of spam
Troubled software maker Novell has announced plans to acquire Germany’s SuSE Linux for US$210 million in cash, and entered talks with IBM to extend agreements between IBM and SuSE
OzEmail is giving away little information about an ‘upgrade’ which has prevented customers from accessing their e-mail via the web
Stepan Riha has some great Movable Type plugins available, as well as some handy hacks, two of which I’ve just added. One to avoid duplicate comments and the second the avoid duplicate trackback pings, both hacks work comfortably with Jay Allen’s MT-Blacklist
The ABC is under pressure to join a national internet peering network to relieve internet service providers of the cost of delivering the public broadcaster’s content to subscribers
Found an addictive little interactive Java toy via HogBlog. Tease the plague of flea, you know you want to…
Interesting, and very wiggly, fake stereoscopic photos using animated GIFs to rapidly switch between left and right images.
Jon Bower has some great portraits of Japanese non-conformists at Meiji Jingu subway.
Hilarious story about an experiment in which a San Francisco Bay Area 5th grade class listens to Radiohead, then draws what they hear. Some of the resulting images look like they could pass for actual Radiohead album covers.
And who can resist the lads of Thailand who get down with their funky selves by sticking unusual objects through their cheeks.
Citizen has unveiled a miniature PDA concept considerably smaller than existing PDAs. The 60 x 90 x 9.3mm 16-colour grayscale PDA is just a bit bigger then a credit card. It runs ITRON4 as an OS, and battery life is rated at 30 hours
The telecommunications watchdog is investigating abuse of a huge national database containing personal information on every Australian with a phone connection. They are concerned that companies may be misusing information stored in the database, which is meant to supply data for emergency services, law enforcement and directory services
Consumers and small businesses self-installing ADSL internet services could be interfering with their security systems. The Australian Communications Authority warned that self-installed ADSL could disable to back to base calling functions of some security services, which automatically dial the security company in the event of an alarm
Warren Ellis offers a tidy summation on a lengthy Scientific American physics article, Information in the Holographic Universe:
The universe is actually a two-dimensional plane packed with information, and the three-dimensions universe we perceive is nothing but an expression of that information. Matter and energy and life are, in fact, holograms. It leaves something very very interesting open for the future. If the universe is a vast two-dimensional plane of information — then it can be hacked.
Helen Carr picked the wrong person when she spammed an FBI computer crime agent. Her scam targeted AOL users with messages saying their credit cards were refused during the last billing cycle, and linked to a false billing centre page which demanded private information
Tom Coates has been discussing technical tricks for coping with message-board trolls on his Everything in Moderation blog, and, surpisingly, an avowed Slashdot troll has shown up to explain why he undertakes extreme technical measures to disrupt Slashdot’s message boards
The British Library is a government-owned library that legally has to hold a copy of every book, pamphlet, map, journal, newspaper and piece of sheet music published in the UK. That law has changed and now the Library will be able to collect non-paper resources, such as web sites, electronic journals, CD-ROMs and microfilms. Obviously, the library won’t be archiving everything in these categories, but will be keeping resources of national, historical or academic interest
Microsoft — desperate to capture a slice of the popular and ad-generating search business — approached Google within the last two months to discuss options, including the possibility of a takeover. Nothing much came out of that overture, but Microsoft may consider it again in the future. Dan Gillmor suspects Google stopped this talk for the obvious reason: a Google that was part of Microsoft would forfeit the search and advertising company’s most vital asset — the relatively high level of trust it’s earned with the Internet community
A super-fast computing processor that uses light, not electrons, to perform calculations has gone on sale for the first time. The device is called Enlight and can perform 8000 billion arithmetic operations per second, about 1000 times faster than a standard processor. Lenslet, the Israeli company that developed the processor, say its light speed calculations deliver the power of a supercomputer in a single device
RSS – Posts