JLavezzo writes "Several news sites are reporting that the United States' largest ISP has laid off 750 employees. My sources at AOL put the actual number at approximately 950 regular employees and 300 contractors from various departments including new technology and marketing. The contractors aren't mentioned by the news outlets. Severance packages are known to include up to four months pay and keeping laid off employees on the AOL payroll through February (to retain health insurance). With most of the layoffs coming from the Northern Virginia offices, what are their hopes for finding new jobs?"

prostoalex (Alex Moskalyuk) writes "After the Presidential election process and U.S. foreign policy directions, outsourcing is a topic guaranteed to stir up heated debate. Bill Blunden's Offshoring IT is not a 'how-to' guide, as one might expect from the title. It's a collection of stats, figures and opinions on outsourcing information technology to foreign providers." Read on for the rest of Moskalyuk's review; watch out too for my upcoming review of N. Sivakumar's Debugging Indian Computer Programmers: Dude, did I steal your job?.

theodp writes "Courtesy of a Microsoft patent reassignment, MS spin-off Expedia was awarded its first patent Tuesday for Matching an offer with a quote, which essentially consists of pairing a customer with the supplier quoting the lowest rate. Prior to this invention, Microsoft explained, 'An effective electronic exchange system for satisfying an offer by a purchaser with a quote from a supplier has eluded those skilled in the art.'"

ej0c writes "We in Ohio are set to save you from Spam. The legislature, with AOL's help, passed a tough anti-spam bill (Reuters). Spam in Ohio, and you'll be in the can for 6 months, with fines of $25,000 per violation, or $2 to $8 per e-mail. Text of the Act."

An anonymous reader writes "Netscape has released their new prototype browser for Windows based on Firefox 0.9.3. The prototype's development was outsourced to Mercurial Communications and includes several Netscape specific extensions. The biggest difference from Firefox, however, is the ability to switch to the Internet Explorer rendering engine from within the browser using an IE ActiveX control. The browser is currently available for a limited download."

theodp writes "The USPTO disclosed Thursday that Microsoft is seeking an early childhood education-related patent for Providing instructional feedback to a user, which the software giant says covers the use of computers to teach little tykes to form the letter 'b', make a 'ch' sound, and divide 321 by 17. Let's hope LeapPad-toting preschoolers are indemnified against Microsoft lawsuits." "Unstructured" is the key word in this patent, which (like most) is written in language that does more to obscure than illuminate. Just how structured was Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing? How about GCompris?

igrp writes "Ever get annoyed with the seemingly endless stream of AOL CDs that make their way to your mailbox? Instead of just tossing them, you could collect about four thousand of them and build yourself an illuminated throne."

theodp writes "Amazon.com's Editors have announced their selections for the Best Books of 2004 in the Computers and Internet category. Their favorite book of the year? Excel Hacks, which edged out Head First Servlets & JSP (#3), a Grand Theft Auto Strategy Guide (#5) and The Data Warehouse ETL Toolkit (#8). Can Slashdot readers offer some more inspired choices?"

theodp writes "Lee Harvey Oswald-wannabes will be able to simulate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy when Traffic Games releases the $9.99 JFK Reloaded on Monday to coincide with the 41st anniversary of Kennedy's murder in Dallas. 'It is despicable,' said a spokesman for Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy, the late president's brother."

Daemon8666 asks: "I've searched for three days with no luck. A client of mine has developed a brand new type of 3D display. To make it work, he needs me to come up with a way to synchronize 3 simultaneous video feeds on one box, and output them to 3 separate devices, as follows: Comp playing Videos A, B, and C in sync, and outputting Video A to Monitor X only, Video B to Monitor Y only, and Video C to monitor Z only. He is currently using 3 off-the-shelf DVD players that he controls with one remote (he pushes play, and all three separate DVDs start together), but he really wants a single-unit solution. Any ideas what hardware/software I should use?"

buhatkj writes "Some former AOL staffers have come up with something interesting. Namely, a P2P/instant messaging/groupware tool called Grouper. Sounds to me a bit like the GAIM plugin suggested by downhill battle..."

An anonymous reader writes "BetaNews reports that Netscape has been revived with Firefox backing. 'Despite media reports and industry pundits over the years relegating Netscape to Internet history books, AOL has restarted the browser's development. The company plans to bring back a refreshed Netscape browser based on Firefox.'"

theodp writes "Microsoft alum Nathan Myhrvold so strongly believes intellectual property is the next software that he's studying for the patent bar exam. His company, Intellectual Ventures, doesn't actually make anything - only patent attorneys roam the hallways. Myhrvold isn't the only true believer. Microsoft, Intel, Sony, Nokia, Apple, Google, and eBay have contributed to a $350M bankroll which the firm is using to buy up existing patents that can be rented to companies who want to produce real products."

mijkal writes "Panic's Audion music software has been retired and made freely available. The developer has a nice write up on his experiences with Audion in relation to early-MP3 days, failed AOL deals, and the could-have-been iTunes app. It's an inspiring read on the history of a shareware developer and his adventures thus far."

unsupported writes "Just days after news that AOL will be breaking up into 4 business units, AOL is telling existing broadband customers in 9 Southern states to find a new carrier. This news comes after AOL stopped selling broadband services earlier this year. AOL plans a similar phase out of existing broadband customers for the rest of the country over the next year."

Artifex writes "BetaNews is reporting that the doors at Nullsoft have been closed: 'The last members of the original Winamp team have said goodbye to AOL and the door has all but shut on the Nullsoft era, BetaNews has learned. Only a few employees remain to prop up the once-ubiquitous digital audio player with minor updates, but no further improvements to Winamp are expected.'" The Register also has a story.

Shell writes "If they want to send spam, make them pay a price. Built on the widely available SHA-1 algorithm, hashcash is a clever system that requires a parameterizable amount of work on the part of a requester while staying "cheap" for an evaluator to check. In other words, the sender has to do real work to put something into your inbox. You can certainly use hashcash in preventing spam, but it has other applications as well, including keeping spam off of Wikis and speeding the work of distributed parallel applications." If you're specifically interested in hashcash for your mail server, Camram has some interesting ideas -- their Frequently Raised Objections page may be illuminating.

unsupported writes "AOL is apparently dividing into four units to provide a clear direction for each. The four divisions are as follows: Audience (Advertising, and AOL IM, Moviefon, Mapquest, Netscape.com), Access (dial-up, highspeed), AOL Europe (for the foreigners), and Digital Services (Premium services, phone and music subscription). "

A user writes "Four years ago, distributed.net users undertook the search for the optimal 24 mark Golomb Ruler. This year sees the successful conclusion of that effort. The diagram of the optimal ruler can be seen here. If you have no idea what a Golomb Ruler is, you can read up on them. Work on finding the optimal 25 mark ruler is still in progress."

gotroot801 writes "TheForce.net reports that the Episode III teaser trailer will be available today for viewing on several TV shows in the US (MTV's TRL, Access Hollywood) and Australia (Today Show). In addition, starwars.com Hyperspace members and AOL customers will be able to download the trailer today."