Free Republic

PRAGUE, Czech Republic - Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates on Wednesday launched an initiative to accelerate innovation in science and computing in Europe. Speaking to journalists in Prague, Gates said the EuroScience Initiative will bring together talented people from universities and research centers all over Europe. "Software has become a key tool for many types of research," Gates said. The initiative also wants to support the Lisbon Strategy, a plan to make Europe the world's most competitive economy by 2010. Within the strategy, EU governments are expected to boost research and development spending, cut bureaucracy and social spending and increase education...

A former Microsoft staffer yesterday pleaded guilty to conspiring with three others to run a massive software piracy ring that raked in millions through the sale of stolen software between April 2001 and November 2002. Finn Contini, 36, of Redmond, Washington yesterday pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and four counts of money laundering, Reuters reports. Click Here The former group assistant admitted personally making $2.3m through selling 2,700 items of software valued at $7m. The software, including SQL Server 2000 packages with a retail tag of $15,000, was obtained through Microsoft's internal ordering programme...

GUEST OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR Carlisle, Mass. — THE Federal Bureau of Investigation has officially entered what computer professionals call "software hell." After spending $170 million to create a program that would give agents ready access to information on suspected terrorists, the bureau admitted last week that it's not even close to having a working system. In fact, it may have to start from scratch. Shocking? Not at all. A look at the private sector reveals that software debacles are routine. And the more ambitious the project, the higher the odds of disappointment. It may not be much consolation to taxpayers, but...

Andrew Damico wants to be Larry Ellison's hit man -- uh, mergers and acquisitions hit man, to be exact. After all, the highly competitive software industry is a kind of warfare. And Ellison, chief executive of software giant Oracle, has just completed his own conquest, taking over software rival PeopleSoft.Damico placed a billboard pitch on Highway 101 just south of Woodside Road in Redwood City that reads, ``Larry . . . Get Bill.'' It refers Ellison to a Web site, http://ellison.

MPs are fighting the corner of small software developers to clarify a new EU law on patenting that could spell bankruptcy for thousands of independent UK writers. Science Minister Lord Sainsbury has been told by Liberal Democrat IT minister, Richard Allan, that he must clearly spell out the implications of the Directive to allay fears of an innovation shut down. According to the Times, he believes small UK IT writers are entitled to know “how high the hurdle is to get a patent,” because of current proposals tipped in favour of big business. Microsoft has already labelled anyone opposing the...

A team of Korean researchers have developed software capable of identifying cancerous and other illness-causing genes from a DNA chip, a government-run IT research institute said yesterday. The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute hailed the development of the software as a case that has maximized synergy effects between the fields of information technology and biology. The software, the institute said, marks the highest level of IT technology applied to research of serious diseases such as cancer and diabetes. Along with the software, ETRI researchers also developed a system that forecasts changes in gene evolution. The development is expected to speed...

I am trying to eventually get everyone who works for my employer, a nonprofit group, to switch over from Internet Explorer to Mozilla Firefox. I have been playing around with Firefox and like what I see. Herein lies the problem: we have to use geocoding in Internet Explorer to map street addresses. How can I do that with Mozilla Firefox. When I try to map locations in Firefox, I get a message "JavaScript Application: You must install the NCompass Labs Plug-In to access the GIS software." I have done search engine searches and cannot find this said plugin. Can any...

By Gene J. Koprowski Published 1/12/2005 11:21 AM CHICAGO, Jan. 12 (UPI) -- The Web browser wars of the mid-1990s saw Microsoft devastate Netscape and the Internet Explorer emerge as the de facto standard for surfing the Web. That was not the end of it, however, experts told UPI's The Web. Like a rebel force hidden in the hills for years, remnants of Netscape have reorganized and now are moving forward with a new offensive, so to speak. They have debuted a new browser, called Firefox, which is intended to compete with Internet Explorer and win the hearts and minds...

Fellow Freepers...I would welcome recommendations for anti-spam software. Obviously, freeware or shareware would be preferred, but I'm open to purchasing software if it works as advertised. My preference would be for anti-spam software that downloads from the server only email from a list of approved senders that I create. All other email would be deleted from the server. My ISP is Time Warner's RoadRunner service, and, until recently, it was rare for me to receive spam at all. Now, the floodgates appear to have opened. I even created a separate email account and was prepared to notify family and friends...

More than 25,000 people have registered their signatures on a Web site to thank Poland for stopping the EU from ratifying the patent directive last week. A Web site set up to thank Poland for its last-minute intervention, which prevented the EU Council from ratifying the Computer Implemented Inventions Directive last week, has collected over 25,000 names. The directive was due to be adopted, without discussion or a vote, during an Agriculture and Fisheries meeting on 21 December. But the Polish undersecretary of science and information spoke out at the meeting to ask that the directive be removed from the...

Having so often been the bearer of bad news from the legal front, I am thrilled to have some good news to report for a change. The old-fashioned shrinkwrap license appears to have suffered from what may well be a mortal wound. Microsoft, Symantec, Adobe, CompUSA, Best Buy, and Staples have agreed in the settlement of a California lawsuit to change their ways, and you can already see the first results at the software retailer nearest you.   In January 2003, California resident Cathy Baker walked into her local CompUSA store to return copies of Windows XP and Norton AntiVirus...

SAN FRANCISCO (CNN/Money) - A Rice University computer scientist and two of his students discovered a potentially serious security flaw in the desktop search tool recently distributed by Google, a newspaper report said Monday. The glitch, which could permit an attacker to secretly search the contents of a personal computer via the Internet, is what computer scientists call a composition flaw, the New York Times said. "When you put them together, out jumps a security flaw," Dan Wallach, an assistant professor of computer science at Rice in Houston, told the newspaper. Wallach and graduate students Seth Fogarty and Seth Nielson...

A Fatal Blow to Shrinkwrap Licensing? By Ed Foster, Section Columns Posted on Mon Dec 20th, 2004 at 08:02:57 AM PDT In January 2003, California resident Cathy Baker walked into her local CompUSA store to return copies of Windows XP and Norton AntiVirus she'd purchased there. When trying to install the programs, she had of course been confronted by all the obnoxious terms in the Windows and NAV End User License Agreements. Instead of clicking OK, she took them back to the store for a refund, as the EULAs said she was supposed to do if she refused to...

Chris Kleponis/Bloomberg NewsJohn W. Thompson, chief of Symantec, will lead the merged company. Analysts say his I.B.M. background gives him a good perspective. ARTICLE TOOLS E-Mail This Article Printer-Friendly Format Most E-Mailed Articles Reprints & Permissions TIMES NEWS TRACKER   Topics Alerts Symantec Corporation Veritas Software Corporation Mergers, Acquisitions and Divestitures Computers and the Internet Track news that interests you. AN FRANCISCO, Dec. 16 - The Symantec Corporation, a leader in security software and one of Silicon Valley's oldest companies, announced early Thursday that it would acquire Veritas Software, a maker of data storage programs, to create the world's fourth-largest...

The Reg launches downloads site By Team Register Published Thursday 16th December 2004 12:05 GMT Site offer We’re absolutely delighted in the run-up to the Festive Season™ to be able to offer our readers a little something from the Vulture Central “get-something-for-free-pay-nothing-ever” department.Indeed, we’re sure that fans of El Reg will find this a refreshing change from the inexorable “buy-now-pay-2020-at-86%-APR” Yule orgy of capitalism which has so sullied the spirit of Christmas.So, with all temptation to utter "bah humbug" pushed firmly from our minds, we direct you immediately to our all-new downloads service, offering a range of gratis and shareware...

Ask me about my latest bug. Honk if you love to crash software. My other car is a bug. Have you hugged your software tester today? Software Testers: Always looking for trouble. Software Testing is Like Fishing, But You Get Paid. Software Testers: "Depraved minds...Usefully employed." Software Testing: Where failure is always an option. Software Testing: When Your System Actually Has to Work Software Quality: Don't ship without it. I don't make software; I make software better. Improving the world one bug at a time. Software Testing: You make it, we break it. Software Testers don't break software; it's broken...

Enter for a chance to win the grand prize of a suborbital space flight -- a once in a lifetime opportunity to travel 62 miles above the surface and look down at the brilliant curvature of the Earth. Participate in the birth of the commercial space travel industry and inspire future generations of explorers. Simply fill out the online registration form, then launch a tutorial and answer a quiz to complete your sweepstakes entry. See the Official Rules and the Prize Details for more information, including restrictions and additional prizes.

This is a useful program, allows You to download interactive maps, photo or topo, to use with a GPS. Useful even if You don't have one. Amazing accuracy. USAPhotoMaps 2.51 [url]http://jdmcox.com/[/url]

The first time Ravi Venkatesan, chairman, Microsoft India, met Bill Gates was when he was offered his current job by the software firm in 2003. Having met with Microsoft officials in India, Venkatesan flew to Redmond, the headquarters of the $36 billion software pioneer, to meet the Big Bill. Venkatesan was earlier the CEO of Cummins India and it took a great leap of faith for the 42-year-old to move from diesel engines to software. But Gates convinced him the risk was worth taking. The meeting, which was supposed to last 30 minutes, extended to one-and-a-half hours and Venkatesan recalls:...

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Air Force's chief information officer John M. Gilligan will be available to discuss the launch of the Air Force's enterprise-wide Microsoft software initiative tomorrow at 4 p.m. at the Pentagon. The Air Force consolidated 38 previously decentralized software contracts for Microsoft products and nine support contracts into two mandatory enterprise-wide agreements in support of the One Air Force, One Network initiative. This effort is expected to save the service more than $100 million during a six-year period. Core Microsoft desktop and server software, capabilities, and configurations will be standardized and mandated for use by Air Force...