angry tapir writes "Lenovo has taken the crown from Hewlett-Packard to become the world's top seller of PCs, research firm Gartner said in a study released this week. Lenovo took the top spot during a quarter in which PC shipments dropped overall due to a weak economy and pressure from mobile devices. Of the top four PC vendors, only Lenovo was able to grow its shipments. Its PC sales increased by almost 10 percent to 13.77 million units, giving it 15.7 percent of the market, Gartner said." Not so fast, says analysis firm IDC. They say that HP is still in the lead but Lenovo is very close.
coondoggie writes "It's not a totally new concept, but the Air Force is testing the idea of flying gas-guzzling cargo aircraft inline allowing the trailing aircraft to utilize the cyclonic energy coming off the lead plane- a concept known as vortex surfing — over long distances to save large amounts of fuel. According to an Air force release, a series of recent test flights involving two aircraft at a time, let the trailing aircraft surf the vortex of the lead aircraft, positioning itself in the updraft to get additional lift without burning extra fuel."
Michael Ross writes "With the advent of graphical user interfaces (GUIs) decades ago, most of the commercially-available software transitioned from command-line usage to point-and-click interfaces, with the majority of these applications completely phasing out all command-line capabilities, or never implementing them in the first place. But for programmers — most of whom are comfortable working on the command line — performing administrative actions within a GUI can become tedious and time-consuming, and there is a growing movement toward adding command-line support back to software development applications. An example of this is Drush, which is a command-line interface for the Drupal content management system. Drush, whose name is derived from "Drupal shell," was originally developed six years ago, and is seeing a resurgence within the Drupal community. However, what appears to be the primary information resource for Drush, the community documentation, currently has a status of "incomplete." Fortunately, there is now a book available that provides more extensive coverage, Drush User's Guide, authored by Requena Juan Pablo Novillo ("juampy"). The book was released by Packt Publishing on 10 April 2012, under the ISBN 978-1849517980. The publisher's page offers descriptions of the book, its table of contents, a brief author biography, the known errata, the example code used in the book, and a free sample chapter (the third one, "Customizing Drush"). This review is based upon a print copy kindly furnished by the publisher; an e-book version is also available." Read below for the rest of Michael's review.
jfruh writes "The mobile patent wars continue, with two of the world's biggest tech companies about to blunder into direct conflict. Microsoft holds a number of patents that it claims give it rights over mobile map applications that overlay data from multiple databases (map info from one database and store location info from another, for instance). Many Android vendors already pay Redmond licensing fees for their mapping apps; now Redmond is going to court in Germany to sue one of the holdouts: Motorola Mobility, which is of course owned by Google."
pigrabbitbear writes "Mother Jones reports that, 'In recent weeks, a host of liberal types have complained that their Facebook accounts have erroneously "liked" Romney's page, and some are floating the theory that the Romney campaign has deployed a virus or used other nefarious means to inflate the candidate's online stature. This conspiratorial notion has spawned a Facebook community forum, and its own page: "Hacked By Mitt Romney" (cute url: facebook.com/MittYouDidntBuildThat)' So what's going on? Is the Romney campaign engaging in some tech wizardry to hijack Americans' Facebook pages? Seems unlikely, but Romney did somehow manage to acquire millions of fake Twitter followers. But it looks like the Romney campaign isn't behind this one — Facebook and its mobile app is."
First time accepted submitter Stiletto writes "I work for a traditional 'old school' software company that is trying to move into web services, now competing with smaller, nimbler 'Web 2.0' companies. Unfortunately our release process is still stuck in the '90s. Paperwork and forms, sign-off meetings, and documentation approvals make it impossible to do even minor deployments to production faster than once a month. Major releases go out a couple of times a year. I've heard from colleagues in Bay Area companies who release weekly or daily (or even multiple times a day), allowing them to adapt quickly. Slashdotters, how often do you push software changes into production, and what best practices allow you to maintain that deployment rate without chaos?"
mykepredko writes "C-30, Canada's version of SOPA, would grant the federal government and law enforcement agencies the power to obtain information about individuals who are online without having to apply for a warrant is dead in committee. 'I don't know whether it was because the Minister so screwed up the messaging, or whether they've had some other input saying they went too far or it just can't be salvaged,' Nathan Cullen, House Leader for the NDP, speculates."
concealment writes "Dotcom confirmed to the Associated Press in a telephone interview that he has completed 90% the work on "new Mega" and "Megabox", a music site that he announced in June. Megabox will allow users to download music for free in exchange for accepting some advertisements and, 90% of the revenue will go to the artists."
Monday you had a chance to ask Linus Torvalds any question you wanted. We sent him a dozen of the highest rated and below you'll see what he has to say about computers, programming, books, and copyrights. He also talks about what he would have done differently with Linux if he had to do it all over again. Hint: it rhymes with nothing.
jdavidb writes "46 years ago, occupying an abandoned WWII platform off the coast of Britain, Paddy Roy Bates declared independence, naming himself Prince of the Principality of Sealand. Today, Bates has passed away at 91. Long time Slashdot readers will remember Sealand as the site of HavenCo, an unsuccessful data warehousing company that tried to operate from Sealand outside the reach of larger nations' legal structures. They may also remember plans that the Pirate Bay had at one time to buy Sealand. Bates had moved to a care home a few years ago, naming his son Michael Regent of Sealand."
First time accepted submitter cpt kangarooski writes "While it's not a final victory in the long-running Google Books matter, the related case by the Authors' Guild against the universities working with Google in the digitization project has produced a ruling that their book scanning is a fair use. You can read the opinion here. This bodes well for Google's case, although note that this wasn't directly about them."
Curseyoukhan writes "With its economy struggling, New Zealand hopes to cash in on 'The Hobbit' by turning it into actual cash. The nation is releasing special commemorative coins depicting characters from J.R.R. Tolkien's beloved book. The coin release coincides with the premiere of the first installment in Peter Jackson's film adaptation of the book. It is also part of a publicity campaign aimed to rebrand the country '100 percent Middle Earth.'"
WikiLeaks has for years relied on donated time and money to publish the scoops that it has; now, concealment writes "As of Wednesday night, the secret-spilling site now shows a 'paywall' to any visitor who clicks on one of its leaked documents, including the 13,374 emails from the private intelligence firm Stratfor that it published earlier in the day along with the teaser that the messages regarded presidential candidate Mitt Romney. The pop-up message that blocks access to the site's content shows a video parodying Barack Obama's stump speeches and asking visitors to instead 'vote for WikiLeaks' by making a donation to the site or buying its promotional gear like tote bags and hoodies."
An anonymous reader writes "The details of a Canadian spying case are coming to light, including the method of copying the sensitive data from the 'secured' computer linking five countries and the Russian handlers: Copy Data into Notepad; Save File to Floppy Drive; USB Key; ???; Profit! For $3000/mo in prepaid credit cards and wire transfers."
Director Guillermo del Toro reveals key details about the comic book that will prime audiences for his epic sci-fi action movie.
Tuesday morning, "Fearless" Felix's death-defying jump was postponed again due to strong winds, and disappointment spread throughout the web. Red Bull, which is sponsoring the stunt, assured fans that "it is definitely not off for good. We are just waiting to see when better weather conditions arrive." Until then, join us and other fans at #wiredextra to discuss Felix's dream of a record-setting skydive.
After shooting it with lasers and X-rays, NASA's Curiosity rover has determined that a rock nicknamed "Jake Matijevic" is of a variety that no other rover has ever spotted on Mars.
You do it in the morning in bed, at night on the couch, and occasionally at work. Turns out, it's one of the hardest activities to resist. It's not smoking a cigarette or having sex, it's getting online to check your Facebook or email.
Outwitters has been a financial disaster. One Man Left has spent nearly a year and half working on the game, which cost over $300,000 to create. Stewart says the free-to-play game has been downloaded about 560,000 times, but has only made back $40,000.
Controlling your smartphone from the screen, that's boring. Controlling a smartphone with a capacitive touch case from the back, that's the smudge-free display future.
Like the fabled Kraken, Humboldt squid are enigmatic. No one has seen them mate or lay eggs. No one has watched them develop from egg to adult. No one knows how many exist.
Google's Executive Chairman and former CEO Eric Schmidt said that Microsoft's Surface tablet will mean a lot for the company, with one big catch -- the product has to work.
Another day, another launch date set for Felix Baumgartner's stratospheric skydive into the record book.
A U.S. appeals court reversed a preliminary injunction on Samsung's flagship Galaxy Nexus smartphone Thursday. The case is being sent back to California district court for reconsideration because it "abused its discretion in entering an injunction."Apple sued Samsung for infringing on eight of its patents in February and won won a preliminary injunction against Samsung's ...
Peek wants to simplify your travel planning experience by offering a one-stop site to discover and purchase handpicked activities.
LOS ANGELES — Hollywood might be the only place in the world where you can see a chain-smoking redneck mamma deliver a baby on stage during an arm wrestling tournament. This wasn?t just any arm wrestling tournament, though. It was LA LAW, the catchy, if copyright-challenging, acronym for Los Angeles Ladies Arm Wrestling. This being ...
A new election system being used in next month's presidential elections in Florida promises to give election officials the ability to independently and swiftly audit the performance of their optical-scan voting machines.
After nearly two years of testing and improving, Google is removing the beta label from mod_pagespeed, the company's open-source effort to speed up websites running on the popular Apache web server. The Pagespeed Apache module automatically optimizes webpages on the fly, making sites load faster.
Contract fraud in Afghanistan has yielded a major unexpected threat to U.S. troops from homemade bombs, according to the U.S.' contracting watchdog in the country. And the watchdog agency considers the threat so dire that it took the rare step of tipping its hand on an active criminal investigation to warn the military command in Afghanistan.
Four young boys with a rare, fatal brain condition have made it through a dangerous ordeal. Scientists have safely transplanted human neural stem cells into their brains. Twelve months after the surgeries, the boys have more myelin?a fatty insulating protein that coats nerve fibers and speeds up electric signals between neurons?and show improved brain function, a new study reports.
For television buyers who prefer LCD over plasma, few manufacturers are doing as much to earn their dollars as Sony.
America is an air power. And for every kind of air power, the U.S. has different, iconic warplanes.
We already know PCs aren't cool. But it's starting to look like they're also not needed.
Researchers at Cornell University and Microsoft have cooked up a recipe for a wireless data center. That's right, an entire data center that shuttles information among thousands of machines using not cables but thin air. Their design throws out traditional switches and networking cables, but it also borrows from a very unusual source: the 19th ...
Our patent system grants drug companies the exclusive right to sell their innovations without "generic" competition for years. Big Pharma points out that such patents are necessary because without them it can't recoup the massive costs of creating new products. There's another solution to this problem: a way to directly fund the drugs we're not getting and avoid the high cost of artificial monopolies.
As Charlie Chaplin once said, "A man's true character comes out when he's drunk," and true character usually makes for great photos. It's a phenomenon that photographer Maciej Dakowicz has tapped into in his new book Cardiff After Dark.
#wallet-sidebar {float:left;padding:20px 15px 10px 0px;}#wallet-sidebar ul {margin-top: 10px;list-style-type:none;width:200px;}#wallet-sidebar ul li {margin-bottom:7px;}When Will Your Smartphone Really Replace Your Wallet?I?m Going to Spend the Next Month Using My Smartphone as a WalletLiving Walletless, Week One: My Kingdom for a BagelGoogle Wallet Wins and Fails: Walletless Week 2"You don't have your ID?" the TSA agent asked, half incredulous, ...
Frankenweenie features young actors in key roles. Charlie Tahan plays Victor Frankenstein, Robert Capron plays Bob, with Atticus Shaffer as Edgar "E" Gore. I had the opportunity to meet these young men and discuss the movie and their careers.
Therapists often run into a curious problem during treatment: Clients aren't very good at describing their emotions. How exactly do you express the nature of your depression?So this spring, relationship counselor Crystal Rice hit upon a clever idea. She had her clients use Pinterest, the popular picture-pinning social network, to create arrays of images that map out their feelings. It's a brilliant epiphany: While emotions can be devilishly difficult to convey in words, they're often very accessible via pictures. "This way we can really identify what's going on," Rice says.
Naming your startup can be an excruciating exercise. Get it wrong and you company's name can spark mocking, giggles, or repeated questions about what your company does because no one can figure it out on their own.
A new exhibit shows off concept art and other surprisingly detailed props whipped up to conceal a secret mission.
BMW hopes to get the connected car up to speed by using an open-source Web- and browser-based application platform known as "webinos."
A burnout in slow motion? That's so last century. How about a burnout shot at 1,000 frames-per-second, followed by a massive, bumper twisting tire explosion?
Think of every smartphone as an endless stack of interactive flash cards. Pick a free vocab tutor and you'll be counting to by bedtime.