13 Oct 09 Is Working For the Gambling Industry a Black Mark?
An anonymous reader writes 'I'm a recent university graduate and I have been offered a software developer position in a company that supplies software to the gambling and betting industry. At first I was very excited about the opportunity, however, a few of my friends have told me that working for the gambling industry will put a permanent black mark on my career as a software developer. I don't know that many people in the industry with experience in hiring. Google has not helped, and everybody else I ask doesn't know. So I'm asking Slashdot. In your experience is this true? When you hire developers, is the fact that they worked for a gambling company a big turn off? Also, I'm currently in the UK, but would like the freedom of working in US or somewhere else later on in life. So experience from anywhere in the world is welcome.'Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Tagi: slashdot, google, software developer, university graduate, developers, peoe, freedom, recent university
16 Oct 09 Cisco, Motorola, and Other Companies Take Aim At Net Neutrality Rules
angry tapir writes "FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski announced last month that he would seek to develop formal rules prohibiting Internet service providers from selectively blocking or slowing Web content and applications. However, 44 companies — including Cisco Systems, Alcatel-Lucent, Corning, Ericsson, Motorola and Nokia — have sent a letter to the FCC saying new regulations could hinder the development of the Internet. A group of 18 Republican US senators have also sent a letter to Genachowski raising concerns about net neutrality regulations."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Tagi: alcatel lucent, fcc chairman, internet service providers, net neutrality, development of the internet, us senators, tapir, compas, slashdot, mth, lucent, fcc, alcatel, cisco, republican, motorola, mdash, aim, nokia
17 Oct 09 New Super Mario Bros. Wii Attempts To Bridge Casual/Hardcore Divide
When Nintendo returns to its roots next month by releasing a new, 2-D, side-scrolling Super Mario Bros. game for the Wii, it's trying to do more than simply hop on the retro bandwagon many publishers have ridden in recent months. Speaking at a roundtable discussion in New York this week, Nintendo game designer Shigeru Miyamoto talked about how they're trying to satisfy fans of the series who want challenging gameplay in addition to attracting new or casual players just looking for an entertaining platformer. Quoting: "... you can play the story mode single-player all the way through from beginning to end, and at any point along the way, you can add players from the world map and have up to four players cooperate to complete the levels. And beyond that, there are two dedicated multiplayer modes, one of which is free-for-all, which lets you select the stages from story mode ... so you can easily find the stage you like. And then there’s also a coin battle mode which is a competitive multiplayer mode, in which you’re actually competing for points and you’re getting ranked based on how many points you’ve collected. The free-for-all mode has kind of a similar feel to something like Mario Kart where you just happen to have four people over and you want to sit down and play a quick match in your favorite level."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Tagi: mario bros game, new super mario bros, super mario bros, mario kart, nintendo game, wii, battle mode, d side, game designer, story mode, slashdot, mths, ayers, world map, mth, super mario bros game, modes, match, peoe
29 Oct 09 Amazon Patents Changing Authors' Words
theodp writes "To exist or not to exist: that is the query. That's what the famous Hamlet soliloquy might look like if subjected to Amazon's newly-patented System and Method for Marking Content, which calls for 'programmatically substituting synonyms into distributed text content,' including 'books, short stories, product reviews, book or movie reviews, news articles, editorial articles, technical papers, scholastic papers, and so on' in an effort to uniquely identify customers who redistribute material. In its description of the 'invention,' Amazon also touts the use of 'alternative misspellings for selected words' as a way to provide 'evidence of copyright infringement in a legal action.' After all, anti-piracy measures should trump kids' ability to spell correctly, shouldn't they?"Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Tagi: scholastic papers, kids ability, amaz, slashdot, amazon, editorial articles, copyright infringement, including books, acti, short stories, anti piracy, hamlet, movie reviews, patents, news articles, product reviews, measures
05 Nov 09 Comcast's New Throttling Plan Uses Trigger Conditions, Not Silent Blocking
clang_jangle writes with this excerpt from The Inquirer outlining Comcast's new traffic-throttling scheme, based on information from Comcast's latest FCC filing. "Its network throttling implements a two-tier packet queueing system at the routers, driven by two trigger conditions. Comcast's first traffic throttling trigger is tripped by using more than 70 per cent of your maximum downstream or upstream bandwidth for more than 15 minutes. Its second traffic throttling trigger is tripped when the Cable Modem Termination System you're hooked-up to – along with up to 15,000 other Comcast subscribers – gets congested, and your traffic is somehow identified as being responsible. Tripping either of Comcast's high bandwidth usage rate triggers results in throttling for at least 15 minutes, or until your average bandwidth utilisation rate drops below 50 per cent for 15 minutes."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Tagi: bandwidth usage, high bandwidth, cable modem, clang, jangle, slashdot, comcast, inquirer, fcc, routers, 15 minutes, excerpt from, subscribers, alg, traffic
