Free Republic

Well, here we go again with the strange and stupid software patents. Granted I haven't seen this in enough places yet to confirm it but it's so strange that I have to think it's probably true since it concerns a software patent. Article is here. The patent is here. In simple terms it seems to be saying that this patent is for the technique of displaying 3D information on a 2D monitor. Which means in case of this lawsuit nearly every game created in the last five to ten years. But it goes beyond that. FAR BEYOND. Any company that...

Rush is on here in Penna at 12 noon, EST; Savage comes on at 6pm, EST. I'm frequently either on the road, or with customers here at my nursery, and sometimes miss part or all of their streamed broadcasts. If anyone does record them, or anyother talk shows, what software do you like and use? My computer's TV tuner card/ (www.hauppauge.com) doesn't works for streamed audio; only for the cable modem. I went to ZDnet.com's downloads page, and found a boatload of players and recorders, but most seem to be for mp3/ mpeg files. I've downloaded UltraPlayer (www.ultraplayer.com) and upgraded...

Last January, on a warm afternoon in Tampa, 72,000 people walked into Raymond James Stadium and joined one of the largest, most high-tech police lineups ever.As they passed through turnstiles leading into the stadium, closed-circuit cameras linked to computers scanned their features using face recognition software. In a fraction of a second, the software looked for matches in a database of thousands of criminals' faces.Few people knew they were taking part in the police check. Most probably wouldn't have cared, since they were probably too preoccupied with taking their seats as lucky ticket holders attending Super Bowl XXXV.In all, 19...

Something to think about: American doesn't mean white; keep in mind how this country was founded, the melting pot has evolved to include a few new shades but the fact remains the same that we are all Americans. I may not look like everyone else, but I feel the same attachment to this country - please don't make me feel unwelcome.

Symantec has labelled a program that enables Chinese surfers to view blocked websites as a Trojan Horse. Upshot? Users of Norton Anti-Virus cannot access Freegate, a popular program which circumvents government blocks, the FT reports. Freegate has 200,000 users, Dynamic Internet Technology (DIT), its developer, estimates. It lets users view sites banned by the Chinese government by taking advantage of a range of proxy servers assigned to changeable internet addresses. But a recent update to Symantec's AV definition files means the latest version of Freegate is treated as malware and removed from systems protected by Norton. Short of disabling Norton...

Introduce a new product in our Office line called Microsoft Forger. Microsoft Forger is the ultimate product for pundit-proof forgery. Even if you are just getting into forgery or are an old hand, this product will deliver all the power that you need to turn out credible documents with little or no effort. Just look at some of the incredible features included: Output machine selection - Select from a variety of emulators for everything from manual typewriters, IBM Selectrics, early model word processors such as Wang and many others. Font selection - Once you have selected the machine type, font...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM - news) late on Wednesday rolled out a new version of its database software aimed at users of Linux (news - web sites) and Unix (news - web sites) operating systems that it hopes will help the company take away market share from market leader Oracle Corp. (Nasdaq:ORCL - news). IBM said the latest version of its DB2 software that runs on Linux and Unix automatically self-manages databases, allowing companies to better manage, process and retrieve data such as product pricing. Armonk, New York-based IBM said that the latest database software,...

Girlie-men. Flip-floppers. Liars, both President Bush and challenger John Kerry. Blue states. Red states. Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11. Vulgarity among politicians. Politically charged phrases and themes such as these spread faster than mold on a ripe Florida orange in today's fast-paced, Internet-driven news cycle. Curiosity about the phenomenon recently prompted Paul J.J. Payack, a Danville software engineer and fiction author, to devise an algorithm that tracks the rise and fall of common words and phrases used in newspapers, TV and the Internet. Payack releases a monthly top 20 list called the Political Sensitivity Quotient, or PQ Index. It's gotten so...

>>> John Collomosse research pages >>> Video demo of the technology [may be slow for dial-up users] The family portrait is set to become a great work of art thanks to new computer software that can turn photographs into cubist artworks in the style of Picasso.The Picasso-effect software is part of a unique suite of imaging technologies developed by computer scientists at the University of Bath that turns photo albums, videos and movies into drawings, paintings, and cartoons. The software could also revolutionise the way that animations are made.In order to create the software, the researchers had to teach...

One of the trends in modern computer science is the push for larger, more generic building blocks. In theory, this leads to faster development cycles but with a less granular flexibility. In practice, I've found that the arrangement of object files (the actual machine-readable code generated from the source code) and their interdependcies plays an often overlooked role in determining the effort necessary to complete a given project. What do I mean by this? Let's take an example from the physical world. A bed of rocks, perhaps alongside a river, "arranges" itself such that the smallest grains of sand slip...

just got a slightly faster web connection and am looking to download come quality freebies ;) What do you consier absolute "must-have" freeware programs? All opinions greatly appreciated.

Take a look at the largest companies in the world. Of them, only Microsoft makes the majority of its money from software licensing. A handful of them ..... make some of their money from software sales, genally a small part. A few... make a small portion of their revenue from retail sales of software. So the vast majority of large global companies consume software rather than produce it...if the cost of software is driven down by competition from open source, and thus a major cost of doing business is reduced for global industry, will it be a net gain or...

All, I hope this is the right place to post this.... I'd like to start my own listserv/majordomo type email list/discussion group on one of my virtual servers I monkey with. Anybody out here have any suggestions as to software or cgi script hat would allow me to do this? Ideally, I'd like to have several lists. Appreciate any guidance. day10

Finding open source software on the Internet can often seem like searching for a needle in a haystack. But with the development of a new search engine called AMOS, finding code has just become easier. Aimed at programmers and system integrators, but with the potential to be used by a broader public, the AMOS system applies a simple ontology and a dictionary of potential search terms to find software code, packages of code and code artefacts rapidly and efficiently. 'There is so much open source code and program elements available today that people often don't know what's available or where...

You might not think that Citizens Against Government Waste would be playing up the cost benefits of proprietary software for use by government, but the nonpartisan, nonprofit organization did just that with a recent press release. Praising the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for its memorandum urging agencies to consider the total cost of ownership including lifecycle maintenance, risk, and ensuring security when acquiring software, CAGW indicated that open source can cost more. CAGW President Tom Schatz said people mistakenly refer to open source as free software because it can be freely altered and distributed, yet while the...

A team of computer scientists and mathematicians at Palo Alto, CA-based Artificial Development are developing software to simulate the human brain's cortex and peripheral systems. As a first step along the way, the company recently disclosed that it has completed the development a realistic representation of the workflow of a functioning human cortex. Dubbed the CCortex-based Autonomous Cognitive Model ('ACM'), the software may have immediate applications for data mining, network security, search engine technologies and natural language processing. The first ACM computer 'persona,' named 'Kjell' in homage to AI pioneer Alan Turing, was activated last month and is in early...

Government and industry experts are reporting a mysterious, large-scale Internet attack against thousands of popular Web sites. The virus-like infection tries to implant hacker software onto the computers of all Web site visitors. Industry experts and the Homeland Security Department are studying the infection to determine how it spreads across Web sites and find adequate defenses against it. A government warning says even Web sites trusted by users may contain the potentially malicious code. The infection appears to target at least one recent version of Microsoft's Internet Information Server, which is popular among businesses and organizations. The United States Computer...

A forthcoming bill in the U.S. Senate would, if passed, dramatically reshape copyright law by prohibiting file-trading networks and some consumer electronics devices on the grounds that they could be used for unlawful purposes. The proposal, called the Induce Act, says "whoever intentionally induces any violation" of copyright law would be legally liable for those violations, a prohibition that would effectively ban file-swapping networks like Kazaa and Morpheus. In the draft bill seen by CNET News.com, inducement is defined as "aids, abets, induces, counsels, or procures" and can be punished with civil fines and, in some circumstances, lengthy prison terms....

SAN FRANCISCO - Renowned computer scientist and Silicon Valley legend Alan Kay will be awarded one of technology's highest honors, the Kyoto Prize, Hewlett-Packard Co., where Kay works as a researcher, said Thursday. It is Kay's third major scientific award this year, Palo Alto, Calif.-based H-P said in a statement.

A settlement has been reached in a class action lawsuit over McAfee VirusScan versions 3 and 4. If you are a U.S. resident and you bought a retail version of McAfee VirusScan version 3 or version 4, then you are a member of the class.