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Posted by CmdrGrits on Monday October 18, @09:42AM EDTfrom the it's-the-y2k-dept dept. frostbyte writes "Owners of the Kelvinator-Plus NetChill 2000, the fridge that e-mails you when you're out of milk, have discovered that it thinks January 1st 2000 is January 1st 1900. Since milk bought in 1999 will then be 99 years in the future, the fridge has decided all of it has expired and is scheduling a self-defrost. The vendor says a patch will ship on floppy disk 'well before the holidays.'" Nothing says the future like a refrigerator that needs a firmware upgrade. I'm keeping my milk in a cooler. ( Read More... | 20 of 24 comments | 622 bytes in body )
Posted by Pixelfish on Monday October 18, @08:15AM EDTfrom the more-megahertz-than-sense dept. overclocked_otter writes "Intellon today announced the Pentode III at 600MHz, featuring a new 0.18 micron process and an on-die cache that actually runs at full speed. The chip lists at $669 in quantities of a thousand, which means about $1,100 at the store down the street. Benchmarks show it beating last month's chip by a margin noticeable only to benchmarks." Meanwhile Advanced Micro Gizmos says its Marathon will hit 700 before Christmas. Your move, Intellon. ( Read More... | 13 of 18 comments | 280 bytes in body )
Posted by jamie_k on Monday October 18, @07:30AM EDTfrom the click-here-to-infringe dept. Prior Art Pete writes "The online bookseller Orinoco.com has been granted U.S. Patent 5,999,999 covering 'a method and system for placing an order by means of a pointing device actuated a single time.' The claims appear to cover any web store where you buy something with one click. Competitors are said to be considering a two-click workaround, or in one case, a long press." The patent office appears to be granting patents on anything that runs on a computer and has been done before, as long as it is described with enough words. I'm patenting 'a method of reading Dashdot at work.' ( Read More... | 15 of 22 comments | 221 bytes in body )
Posted by Hemlock on Sunday October 17, @11:05PM EDTfrom the development-kernels-are-for-developers dept. kernel_kid writes "The latest development kernel is out, with USB updates, a reworked VM, and a new filesystem driver for reading disks formatted by a 1987 word processor. As always, this is a development series. It will eat your disk, your cat and your homework. 2.4 is expected 'when it is done,' which is the official release date of all good software." Download it from your nearest mirror. Please, the nearest. The main site is hosted on a 486 in a closet. ( Read More... | 35 of 48 comments )
Posted by Pixelfish on Sunday October 17, @08:12PM EDTfrom the 128-bits-of-fun dept. RetroRaccoon writes "Sego's new Daydream console has reportedly moved half a million units since its 9/9/99 launch, making it the fastest selling console ever, at least until the next one. The box has a built-in 56k modem, which means it is the first game console that can tell you your mom is trying to use the phone." I've been playing Soul Spatula for twelve days straight. Send help, or more controllers. ( Read More... | 10 of 11 comments )
Posted by Rotundo on Sunday October 17, @05:40PM EDTfrom the it's-like-a-typewriter-but dept. sysadmin_steve writes "I'm a Unix system administrator. Every Thanksgiving my grandmother asks what I do, and every year I say 'I keep the computers running' and she asks if I can fix her VCR clock. This year I want to do better. How do you explain sysadmin work, network engineering, or (heaven help you) database administration to someone who still writes checks at the supermarket?" My personal approach: 'I'm a plumber, but the pipes are invisible and the water is made of numbers.' ( Read More... | 18 of 22 comments )
Posted by CmdrGrits on Sunday October 17, @02:02PM EDTfrom the this-headline-is-not-here-yet dept. Speculatron writes "The famously quiet chip startup Transmuta has changed its web page. Where it previously said 'This web page is not here yet,' it now says 'This web page is still not here yet.' Analysts are reading the extra word as a signal of an imminent product launch, or possibly of a new web designer." Rumors range from a low-power x86 clone to a quantum toaster. I'm putting my money on the toaster. ( Read More... | 8 of 15 comments | 221 bytes in body )
Posted by Hemlock on Sunday October 17, @11:25AM EDTfrom the what-could-possibly-go-wrong dept. dormroom_dj writes "A freshman has written a program called Snapster that lets you search other people's hard drives for MP3s and download them directly. It has a chat room, a hot list, and about 30,000 users who are apparently all in my dorm, judging by the network. Our campus admins have started muttering about bandwidth. The record labels have not said anything yet, which is probably the calm before something." This is either the future of music or the future of a lot of lawyers. Possibly both. ( Read More... | 25 of 36 comments )
Posted by CmdrGrits on Sunday October 17, @08:20AM EDTfrom the ho-ho-http dept. ShopperSheila writes "Analysts predict this will be the first holiday season where millions of people do their shopping online. Toy sites like eToyz are hiring warehouse staff by the thousand, and auction sites like uBid are bracing for a flood of novelty plush toys. Shipping companies say they are ready. Shipping companies always say they are ready." Prediction: at least one large web store will promise delivery by Christmas and deliver in February. ( Read More... | 17 of 24 comments )
Posted by Rotundo on Saturday October 16, @10:48PM EDTfrom the my-desktop-can-beat-up-your-desktop dept. WindowManiac writes "Both of the big free desktops shipped point releases this week. GNUME adds a new panel applet that shows the phase of the moon, while KDX now has a control center for its control center. Flame wars on the mailing lists have reached a level not seen since the great vi versus emacs conflict of last Tuesday." I run twm. Get off my lawn. ( Read More... | 17 of 23 comments )
Posted by Hemlock on Saturday October 16, @07:30PM EDTfrom the should-have-used-cubits dept. RocketRandy writes "An investigation board has concluded that the Mars Weather Probe was lost because one contractor's software reported thrust in pound-force seconds and the navigation team assumed newton-seconds. The $125 million spacecraft is now believed to be either in a very low orbit or a very small crater." Let this be a lesson to everyone who ever skipped the units in physics class. I'm looking at myself here. ( Read More... | 28 of 35 comments )
Posted by jamie_k on Saturday October 16, @04:10PM EDTfrom the forty-bits-of-security dept. Linixdvd writes "A program called DeScramble that decrypts DVD video has appeared on the net, apparently because one software player left its key lying around unencrypted. The goal, according to its authors, was to let Linix users watch DVDs they had bought. The movie studios do not appear to see it that way." Forty-bit keys in 1999. Somewhere a cryptographer is crying into a pocket protector. ( Read More... | 24 of 28 comments | 225 bytes in body )
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Y2K Bug Found in Smart Refrigerator Firmware
