Seems like Wikipedia has finally been discovered by the mainstream, the article in The Guardian actually does a decent job in describing the strenghts and weaknesses of the encyclopedia. Wikipedia is a great resource because the articles are written, edited and updated by the users. This makes it extremely up-to-date, Read more
This is an oldish study, but we believe that it deserves all of the attention that it can get. The study analyses the economic impact to CD sales of music downloads. The study confirms what many of us music downloaders already knew (I hope that the BPI doesn’t sue me). Read more
eBay has been a lot in the news recently with reports of some rather interesting listings. There is the great one about a guy in Aberdeen flogging a wedding invite: Everything is being sold on eBay these days, but one should always look at the lenghthy list of restricted items. Read more
The Register reports on a new study that attempts to settle once and for all the Linux v Windows security debate. Unsurprisingly, Linux comes out smelling of roses, while Windows is attacked for having a bad track record in fixing vulnerabilities. This would seem quite straightforward, telling us stuff that Read more
Yes, there is somebody who has a better job than me. No, I am not talking about being an actuary, which is supposed to be one of the best jobs in the USA (and confirms my general impression about the mental soundness of some people who live in the land Read more
I hadn’t heard this one before: DDoS. This means distributed denial of service, which is being used to attack sick servers that are being used to serve child pornography. It works in a similar manner to the distributed computing technology of SETI@Home, where users pool their collective idle processor power Read more
The BBC reports that phishing is on the increase, spearheaded by hi-jacked computers that serve emails. This vulnerability happens from virus attacks that exploit several Windows vulnerabilities and leave computers open to hacker manipulation. I promise to migrate to Linux when I get my *!ӣ$%& wireless card to work.
A software patents conference will take place in Brussels between the 9 and 10 November 2004, organised by the Open Society Institute, the Greens and FFII. We support the attempts to curb software patents in Europe. Software patents = bad.
Judge Edwin Cameron delivered the British Academy Inaugural Law Lecturein the Playfair Library Hall on the 19th October. In his lecture”Patents and Public Health: Principles, Politics and Paradox”, JudgeCameron talked about his own experience of living in South Africa as anAIDS sufferer and the difficulties posed by intellectual property protection Read more
The Register reports that popular video manufacturer Nvidia has been sued by patent holder Opti Inc. This is a worrying development as it seems that the battle that is raging through the software industry is about to spill out into the chip manufacturing industry. Let’s hope that software patents are Read more