Cody Taylor

The first alpha release of Intel’s Linux-based Moblin 2 platform is now available for download. It’s designed to work on Atom-based netbook devices and it offers fast boot times and a unique Internet connection manager.

pgpark writes “I’ve been working as a key resource for a small IT consulting firm in the US. While the job has been interesting and the company’s growth quite impressive over the last few years, it’s been almost half a dozen years now and being ready for something new, I was ready to quit for consulting. It looks like the CEO would prefer to see me stay, as she is offering me ten percent of shares in the company in exchange for five additional years of my services. So the big question for me now is ‘should I stay or should I go now?’ Have you guys on Slashdot ever been dealing with such a situation? What points would you consider in order to make your choice?”

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ndogg writes “While other companies are throttling their services, and capping bandwidth, Charter Communications, the cable company, is launching a 60/5 Internet service, starting in St. Louis, MO. It’s certainly not cheap, starting at 129.99 per month (add another 10 if it’s not being bundled with television or phone.) Currently, it’s the fastest down stream speed available, and being a cable company, they potentially have greater reach than FiOS.” However, there may be a risk to putting too much money down on this service; Charter Communications as a company faces some serious financial problems right now. As reader Afforess writes, “rumors abound that Paul Allen may just cut his losses and run,” by selling the company. (Allen is the majority stockholder.)

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the4thdimension writes “While we may not be beaming up to the Enterprise anytime soon, a team of scientists from the University of Maryland and the University of Michigan have managed to teleport information between two atoms up to a meter apart. Until this point, only very tiny distances were able to be traveled. However, using a complicated system of photons, ions, lasers, and electromagnetics, scientists have managed to ‘teleport’ information contained on one atom to another atom that is in a separate sealed container. This can lead to a wide range of developments in computing and communications.” Update: 01/29 22:29 GMT by T : Sorry, it’s a dupe, but today’s article in Time is better reading than the abstract anyhow.

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An anonymous reader writes “The Swedish newspaper DN reports that the Israeli company Nemesysco has sent letters to researchers at the University of Stockholm, threatening legal action if they do not stop publishing findings (Google translation). An article called ‘Charlatanry in forensic speech science: A problem to be taken seriously’ was pulled by the publisher after threats of a libel lawsuit.” Online translations can be a little wonky; if your Swedish is as bad as mine, this English-language article describes the situation well.

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snydeq writes “Fatal Exception’s Neil McAllister offers five reasons why companies should re-consider concentrating their development efforts on browser-based apps. As McAllister sees it, Web apps encourage a thin-client approach to development that concentrates far too much workload in the datacenter. And while UI and tool limitations are well known, the Web as ‘hostile territory’ for independent developers is a possibility not yet fully understood. Sure, Web development is fast, versatile, and relatively inexpensive, but long term, the browser’s weaknesses might just outweigh its strengths as an app delivery platform.”

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Hesham writes “Carnegie Mellon University’s HCI Institute just released details on their “why-didn’t-I-think-of-that-style” 3D video conferencing application. Considering how stale development has been in this field, this research seems like a nice solid step towards immersive telepresence. I was really disappointed with the “state-of-the-art” systems demoed at CES this year — they are all still just a flat, square, video stream. Hardly anything new. What is really cool about this project, is that researchers avoided building custom hardware no one is going to ever buy, and explored what could be done with just the generic webcams everyone already has. The result is a software-only solution, meaning all the big players (AIM, Skype, MSN, etc.) can release this as a simple software update. ‘Enable 3D’ checkbox anyone? YouTube video here. Behind the scenes, it relies on a clever illusory trick (motion parallax) and head-tracking (a la Johnny Lee’s Wiimote stuff — same lab, HCII). It was just presented at IEEE International Symposium on Multimedia in December.”

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Greg Huang writes “In early January, the One Laptop Per Child Foundation laid off half its staff and shed work on the Sugar graphical interface. Now, OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte and president Chuck Kane for the first time detail the foundation’s new plans, describe how the XO laptop will do what netbooks can’t do, and share their hope to keep working with Sugar developer Walter Bender, who left OLPC last year.”

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