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I'm sorry to say that, but I doubt that this shows a rising interest in Linux from mainstream customers in Germany. If you look at the customer reviews for the Asus notebook (in German) you will find out that a lot of comments deal with removing Linux and replacing it with either Vista oder Windows 7. Naturally, customer reviews are not a representative survey but I guess a lot of people simple save the money for the OS and install pirated copies of Windows.

Wrong. Around 250 Euros it is in Germany. Try searching for it on http://www.amazon.de/ for example.

That was one of the premises of an early German SF book: Hans Dominik's Atlantis. Barely readable by today's standards, but maybe an interesting glimpse on the thinking 80 years ago.

alles Lüge ;) Here in Germany I can download David Hasselhoff songs just fine, no need to worry!

I just have preferred things like Wolfenstein, Medal of Honor

Medal of Honor

and Call of Duty

Call of Duty

The games can only be sold to persons over 18 years, though. And AFAIK in Germany you can only sell the German version, without swastikas, which can not be used in games set in the Nazi era (while for movies for example that is acceptable).

I just have preferred things like Wolfenstein, Medal of Honor

Medal of Honor

and Call of Duty

Call of Duty

The games can only be sold to persons over 18 years, though. And AFAIK in Germany you can only sell the German version, without swastikas, which can not be used in games set in the Nazi era (while for movies for example that is acceptable).

That isn't true.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/
http://www.amazon.de/
http://www.amazon.fr/
http://www.amazon.co.jp/
http://www.amazon.ca/

I only checked the first few, but they all have music stores.

If I understand correctly, it's only a problem for certificates that use only a MD5 fingerprint. For two of the CAs they mention in their paper as doing this, it doesn't seem to be the case: Amazon Germany (certificate from Thawte) and Commerzbank (from TrustCenter) have both MD5 and SHA-1 fingerprints. Good luck generating a rogue certificate that generates a collision in both fingerprints...

I would assume all recent certificates have both fingerprints. Anyway, making sure that the certificate you just got from your online banking site has both fingerprints wouldn't be paranoia anymore...

Yes, some are getting it. For example, Tokio Hotel have been updating their youtube channel weekly for a year with concert footage and behind the scenes material. Now they are selling a DVD with those episode, extra footage, and band commentary. I have mine pre-ordered.

So, the total cost over two years is 888.75 euros (1,132.80 USD). Then of course, you continue paying 34.95/mo until you decide to go with another contract. Or, outright, the 901 less contract could be had for about 364.98 euros, a little more than a straight conversion from USD at 344.38 euros (438.95 USD). I hope they aren't hard to find in the coming months. I have no need for some ridiculous contract.

That's correct - we seem to have legislation like this in Germany already. If you have, for example, a disposable toothbrush with an electric vibration motor and battery built in you have to allow the consumer to remove the battery and dispose of it separately (all stores that sell products with batteries in them have to take them back, and most often you'll find large collection boxes near the entrance). In the case of this toothbrush you break off the lower half containing the battery compartment to get the battery out; the toothbrush is ruined in the process.

But prices for CDs are still cheaper than other countries.

Japan: 3100yen ($31) http://www.amazon.co.jp/CANT-BUY-MY-LOVE-%E9%80%9A%E5%B8%B8%E7%9B%A4/dp/B000MZHT7U/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1206475131&sr=1-2

Germany: 13.95 EUR
http://www.amazon.de/Spirit-Leona-Lewis/dp/B000ZNW6VS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1206475335&sr=8-1

UK: 8.99 BRP

It's just the way it is. Get a better job if you can't afford it.

Well, you can preorder them at amazon.de.

in the german amazon shop but they got a little more expensive. they're now 2 EUR (about $2.99 USD)

they also have 1G SDCards for 0,39 EUR (about 0.50 USD).

in the german amazon shop but they got a little more expensive. they're now 2 EUR (about $2.99 USD)

they also have 1G SDCards for 0,39 EUR (about 0.50 USD).

In my experience in Germany at least, the prices of books are entirely fixed by a cartel BY LAW and it's illegal to sell them below that cartel's set prices. Pretty sad in a country that values learning so highly.

I have two links for you amazon.de and amazon.com. 49.95€ versus 118$ (which is 80€) for the same frigging book. Heck, it's worse because the German version has been translated. Care to explain? I guess the European system does make sense when you value learning. (The English version is 80€ on amazon.de too, but you guessed surely guessed that, otherwhise I could make money by buying it here and sell it to US citizens)

Oh, and this is not an exception... It's pretty much the rule.

I know of people in the UK who have bought Wiis from Amazon in Germany or in France - there doesn't seem to be any problem with shipping to the UK. It's in stock now (ie 17:08 GMT on 29th November 2007) at Amazon.de. "Verfügbarkeit: Auf Lager." Means, "Availability: In Stock". Just at the moment it is out of stock at the French Amazon store.

You're being ironic, but the funny thing is that you're right. I just bought Undercover (not yet out in the US, so linking to amazon.de) and Touch Detective 2 1/2 for my DS, adding to a number of point-and-click adventures I already own for that system.

There's an actuall point-and-click adventure revival going on on the Nintendo DS. If you haven't already, check out Trace Memory, Touch Detective 1, Hotel Dusk: Room 215, or any of the Phoenix Wright games for the DS. Have fun :-)

I didn't think it was on Amazon, but here it is!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/0060813261 /sr=8-2/qid=ARRAY(0x66d11a30)/ref=dp_image_0/002-8 166626-0307252?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books&qid=117386 0727&qid=1173860727&sr=8-2

Nice Book, a eco-bio-sci-fi-thiller. Some characters are a lil bit stereotype, but all the katastrophes and scientific speculations are accurate. And it's pretty cheap.

The first time ever that the german version of the cover looks better than the UK/US one in my opinion.
http://www.amazon.de/gp/product/images/3596164532/ sr=8-1/qid=1173860930/ref=dp_image_0/302-6225487-6 896802?ie=UTF8&n=299956&s=books&qid=1173860930&sr= 8-1

Wiimote and Nunchuks aren't region-coded, are they? So why don't all you US gamers orders yours at amazon.de or amazon.co.uk for example, where there's still plenty available. It's only a couple of days of delivery, if you order stuff from amazon.com as a European, so I guess it's the same the other way around.

As for sustaining enthusiasm for the Wii: Obviously, I don't play 2+ hours per day every day anymore. I might even not use it all for a week occasionally. But I sure as heck still turn it on whenever friends come over. And I still play Red Steel every now and then, being one of the two people worldwide who actually like the game. Just the same, as with prior consoles, actually.

It's not really funny.

PS3 not yet available in Europe but already got incredible amount of bad press. Worst: most of the bad press comes right out of the Sony PR.

European prices + game availability (all good games are published half/year later in Europe) are enough to make the European launch to be a non-event.

BD player you say? - Amazon.de lists precisely 53 titles. And the number didn't changed since advent.

20 promised games at launch, 53 BDs ... well not much value for 600€ I'd say. Add here mentioned above general poor availability of video-games in Europe. Then add spring launch - because it's precisely spring when families start saving seriously for summer vacations.

Well, we have all the components for disaster - instead of European launch. Without price drop, there will be no European market for PS3. Next Christmas - not sooner. And I expect retailers and game producers to be well aware of the market seasonal fluctuations - with Sony's assurance of price remaining high in near future - would delay affordable European PS3 even further.

this is nearly half that http://www.amazon.de/MaxCell-3200mAh-Akku-Digitalk amera-usw/dp/B000MMQTT2

When I was at the Cingular store, I saw a Windows Mobile cellphone model with a large touch screen and minimal buttons. It also had a slip-out keyboard which I thought was really cool and very easy to use. If my memory serves the price was something like $419.

Pocket Internet Explorer rendered web sites very well, probably as well as the iPhone. But the screen didn't show the whole page; it only showed small segments of it at a time. I really fell in love with the iPhone feature that lets you see the whole page and then "pinch" in and out. The gestures might be harder to learn than Steve makes it look, but I susspect it will be really, really nice once learned.

I liked using the touchscreen, so I think Apple made the right decision to use it. Their product would have been even better with a keyboard, but I think Steve was obsessed with making the device as thin as possible.

Steve has mentioned that 3G is coming, relatively soon. I think it will be needed for the European version, which interestingly enough emerged on Amazon.DK yesterday. I think Steve's real problem is that Cingular's 3G coverage map is lousy. They either forgot to mention Los Angeles, or they don't have any 3G coverage there at all! (They have San Diego but not LA!) Where I live there is no 3G at all, and none likely for some time.

There may be problems coming with Cingular. The sales guy tried to discourage me from trying to pull up web sites on the phone. He said "I don't think this is going to work, we've had coverage problems here in the store." As it happens, web pages came up, just very slowly.

The cold truth is that after having very bad experiences with Windows in the past, I am disinclined to buy Windows phone products no matter how much better they are than the lamentably anemic competition. If I didn't buy the iPhone I would have probably bought the Blackberry Pearl. I don't think third party application support is a Blackberrry strength, although obviously perfect email is. The Palm UI and design don't look like they've been updated in years.

What sort of third party software are you looking for, or use frequently?

I encountered a cellphone virus while in the Philippines and that sort of turned me off of third party software, since the same mechanisms that make that possible make viruses possible too. The virus sent pornographic SMS messages that were a great embarassment to the phone's owner. Worse, it sent $300 worth of them, in a country where the average monthly income is $300! I don't know if my friend with the phone was ever able to pay the bill. She was well off by Philippine standards but that means $1,000 a month instead of $300. If I hadn't stepped in and eradicated the virus for her I don't know what her bill would have been, and in the Philippines, phone companies don't remove bogus charges like American ones would have.

I told myself then that I was very happy that my T-Mobile Sidekick ran no software that wasn't vetted by the phone's maker. So widgets, which let me do cool things without actually putting software on the phone, look like a pretty good compromise.

D

This is a tad OT but i thought I'd mention that for some reason the iPhone is available for pre-order at Amazon in Germany. It's 999 for the 8Gb model and already tops Amazon's top 10 sellers list. http://www.amazon.de/gp/bestsellers/ce-de/ref=pd_t s_c_th_head/028-5061788-4808524

Does anyone know who's taking pre-orders? Is anyone taking pre-orders yet?

Amazon.de takes preorders for the Playstation3.

Yesterday, on amazon.de, I wanted to listen to a snippet for a CD that I'm interested in -- and it didn't work, because I have RealPlayer 10, and that product has no codec for the older real audio format that was in RealPlayer 8. The codec is not downloadable on Real's Web site either. RealPlayer 8 is not downloadable from there as well, as a stop-gap measure. I had to dig out an old version from some old CDs.

And that's on Linux. On Windows, it's worse -- this is spyware that cannot be stopped easily contacting its home base. I spent five minutes in the configuration dialog to turn it off, and when my Windows firewall still informed me about outbound connections, I de-installed it.

So, I still consider Real software as crap; Helix not withstanding.

There IS a cure. You have to have discipline to get back to normal eating, but it's definitely possible.
I could not find the enlish translation of it, but if you can read german, just read the book(s) from Dr. M. O. Bruker.

For your problem: Zucker, Zucker... : http://www.amazon.de/gp/product/3891890346/302-207 2643-6631259?v=glance&n=299956&s=gateway&v=glance
Most important book: Unsere Nahrung, unser Schicksal: http://www.amazon.de/gp/product/3891890036/302-207 2643-6631259?v=glance&n=299956&s=gateway&v=glance

To compress it to a paragraph:
The more denaturated something is, the less natural its vital substances art. And this unnatural disequilibrium causes a disequilibrium in your body too. This disturbes your body's whole metabolism and makes you sick. Sometimes it takes decades, or even generations, but in the end you can still prove that this wrong nutrition was the cause, und that it's NOT some kind of "natural aging process side-effect". That's why there are more and more sick poeple out there.

So what's the worst denaturated stuff?
First of all: *industrial* Sugar. in all its forms. White sugar, cane sugar, saccarose, dextrose, fructose, maltit, maltose, there are dozens of names... but in the end it's still a highly pure, extracted, chemically processed substance. And this purety makes it so dangerous, because you need the vitamin Bs to digest it. So they're not only missing for important functions like thinking (right. geek++ == sugar--) but sugar evet removes it from your body.
And you can be sure that this disturbes your body's equilibrium...
Same goes for all kinds or non whole flour. This is just nearly pure starch, which is basically only a longer chain of sugar.
Milk as seen in the mart is also not what it was originally. This stuff is so changed, you should not be allowed to call it milk.

So the easyest thing is to just eat more *really* natural stuff like fresh vegetables, fruit, wohle flour bread and cereal products (like pasta, rice, ...)
That's all to make it much better and possibly even get free of it.

And: As sad as it is: A psychologist will tell you that doctors have a complex that lets them think that there is nothing outside of their knowledge. And you won't believe how mich the industry manipulates this knowledge... because profit is god... :\

There IS a cure. You have to have discipline to get back to normal eating, but it's definitely possible.
I could not find the enlish translation of it, but if you can read german, just read the book(s) from Dr. M. O. Bruker.

For your problem: Zucker, Zucker... : http://www.amazon.de/gp/product/3891890346/302-207 2643-6631259?v=glance&n=299956&s=gateway&v=glance
Most important book: Unsere Nahrung, unser Schicksal: http://www.amazon.de/gp/product/3891890036/302-207 2643-6631259?v=glance&n=299956&s=gateway&v=glance

To compress it to a paragraph:
The more denaturated something is, the less natural its vital substances art. And this unnatural disequilibrium causes a disequilibrium in your body too. This disturbes your body's whole metabolism and makes you sick. Sometimes it takes decades, or even generations, but in the end you can still prove that this wrong nutrition was the cause, und that it's NOT some kind of "natural aging process side-effect". That's why there are more and more sick poeple out there.

So what's the worst denaturated stuff?
First of all: *industrial* Sugar. in all its forms. White sugar, cane sugar, saccarose, dextrose, fructose, maltit, maltose, there are dozens of names... but in the end it's still a highly pure, extracted, chemically processed substance. And this purety makes it so dangerous, because you need the vitamin Bs to digest it. So they're not only missing for important functions like thinking (right. geek++ == sugar--) but sugar evet removes it from your body.
And you can be sure that this disturbes your body's equilibrium...
Same goes for all kinds or non whole flour. This is just nearly pure starch, which is basically only a longer chain of sugar.
Milk as seen in the mart is also not what it was originally. This stuff is so changed, you should not be allowed to call it milk.

So the easyest thing is to just eat more *really* natural stuff like fresh vegetables, fruit, wohle flour bread and cereal products (like pasta, rice, ...)
That's all to make it much better and possibly even get free of it.

And: As sad as it is: A psychologist will tell you that doctors have a complex that lets them think that there is nothing outside of their knowledge. And you won't believe how mich the industry manipulates this knowledge... because profit is god... :\

The A780 is quite easy to get. The early Motorola Linux phones were mostly sold in Asia, but the latest was readily available in Europe.

Argh. forgot to close the quotes in the anchor tag. Always preview when using that tag...

The best thing about being a man is that the whole world is your urinal.

Would the debate could be moot if we just followed the German Feminists?

I'm glad to see Amazon now not only allows these reviews, but marks the CDs as protected at the top. I will not buy protected CDs.

On top of that, there is no human intelligence in their faked-no-reply-possible-email-answered web support. They apologized that I couldn't play the CD-ROMs on my device (if I had tried, they wouldn't have taken them back), and went so far as to suggest that if I want to complain about the lack of those CD-ROMs beeing CD-ROMs and no AudioCDs, I should use the "correct error" link at the bottom which cannot be used to report those kinds of errors...

I'm glad to see Amazon now not only allows these reviews, but marks the CDs as protected at the top. I will not buy protected CDs.

On top of that, there is no human intelligence in their faked-no-reply-possible-email-answered web support. They apologized that I couldn't play the CD-ROMs on my device (if I had tried, they wouldn't have taken them back), and went so far as to suggest that if I want to complain about the lack of those CD-ROMs beeing CD-ROMs and no AudioCDs, I should use the "correct error" link at the bottom which cannot be used to report those kinds of errors...

Have you considered ordering blank media from a neighbouring country, such as Germany? You can get blank CDs and the like on amazon.de, for example, and IIRC, while there is a similar "copyright" fee in Germany, it's only applied to blank media specifically intended for audio and labelled accordingly.

In any case, you can get a spindle with 100 blank CDs for about 20 EUR, for example (other offers may be even cheaper, but this was the first I saw when checking briefly). Considering it's inside the EU, it's probably unlikely that the package would be stopped by the customs people, too, so you could most likely save quite some money that way.

> What the hell, Sony, where are the games?

Maybe.... Here?

If the Train Simulator was a complete flop, how do you explain this?

Amazon.de already offers this, too...

While I understand why a seller wants to offer the same thing at different prices for different customers (although I don't think it is ethical), it eludes me why they would want to present different delivery dates to different customers.

A while ago I was looking for a certain book. I came across a link to the same book sold at http://www.amazon.de/ (the German Amazon shop). I followed the link twice, but with two different browsers. I ended up looking at the same page with two different browsers, each with its own history and cookie cache. In one window I was presented with 1-2 days availability, in the other one I was told it would take 3 days. I reloaded both pages at the same time to rule out that any change in data was the cause for this. After I cleared all private data on both browsers, both showed the 3 days availability.

The only difference I can think of that Amazon could take into account for calculating the date is the data stored in certain tracking cookies. I don't have an Amazon account, so they can't have used my past buying behavior pattern, or even identified my as a previous customer.

I feel this behavior is hard to explain and unethical. It leaves me with the feeling of being lied at deliberately by an online shop, just based on their prediction of my buying or complaining behavior.

I also recommend you read "Das politische Leben eines Unpolitischen" by Elisabeth Heisenberg. (Link)

Well, in Europe a DVB box costs about $50, give or take dollar fluctuations. But since the US and Canada prefer to use their own "standard", maybe your ATSC boxes will be a little more on the expensive side. (Here's the link to one of many offers: Cyberhome DVB-T, 49Euros including tax and shipping from Amazon.de)

Like it's nice and convenient to have some dead trees in your hands when there's a wealth of up to date info on the net, having a semi-dated copy of Wikipedia on two 5 inch platters is nice to have if you don't have a constant network connection, (dialup, network outages, etc.)

It's 9.9 euros (about $13, American,) hardly a huge investment. And for the most part, the online changes aren't going to affect you a whole lot, assuming whatever you decide to look up was actually changed.

Perhaps it'll include a feature to notify if the entry has been updated since the disc's publication if you reeeeeeally need up to the minute information.
-gko

in DRM'd WMV 10 format (mplayer plays them fine)

Could anyone elaborate on this?
Last I heard, mplayer could not do DRM'd WM9 files.
Will it play high-def WM9 files with DRM too?
How about the ones with "phone-home" DRM?
How about the ones on a DVD-ROM like this WMV-HD Italian Job?

I can't recommend Reiner Knizia's Lord of the Rings boardgame highly enough. As with all of Reiner's games, it's extremely well designed and very well produced. It's unusual in the sense that each player takes the role of a hobbit, and the group plays cooperatively to attempt to destroy the Ring. It's quite complicated, and better to have it explained to you by someone who knows it, than having to play it from just the rules in the box, but that is possible. There's enough in it to be able to play it again and again, and an additional two expansion packs are available if you want an even greater challenge.

The game is complete in itself, but does stay remarkably faithful to the book. Consequently a working knowledge of the LoTR story is helpful, but certainly not necessary.

The Fabric of Reality. (Seeing your email address, I note there is a translation into German, among others.)

Ok after, Evil Dead 1http://gorenight.com/movies/edi/,
Evil Dead 2 http://gorenight.com/movies/edii/,
Army Of Darkness http://gorenight.com/movies/aod/
it must be called Evil Dead Reloaded.

Why? coz of http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0001GAV66/3 02-9968058-4210429

Not to nitpick, but "-1, Inaccurate."

Settlers of Catan is the English edition of Die Siedler von Catan, a German Board game created by Klaus Teuber, and published by Kosmos verlag GmbH in Germany, and Mayfair Games in most of the English-speaking world.

In it, you randomly build a hexagonal island out of smaller, hexagonal tiles. Each tile represends a resource (wool/sheep, lumber/wood, brick/clay, ore/stone, grain/food: These are some of the names that the five resources are known by), each with a number from 2-12. Etc, etc, etc. You know what, just look here, or here.

Part of the appeal of Settlers is its scalability: For beginners starting out for the first time, there's the basic set, which remains fun several plays later. More advanced players, or those craving a bit more variety, can snap in the Seafarers expansion, which adds the option for larger maps, alternate victory conditions, and scenario-specific points and goals, while those wanting a more micromanaged approach can try the Cities & Knights expansion, which allows players to build up their specific cities with improvements, and generally mess with the core game.

The popularity curve tends to favor Seafarers over the basic set and Cities & Knights, but they all have a pretty strong following.

Also of note are the other Catan games, including:

Starfarers of Catan
Starship Catan
Settlers of Catan Card Game
Candamir: The First Settlers (which is not yet released or even translated).

Then there's the novel, the computer games, and the whiskey bottle edition. No, seriously.

Not to nitpick, but "-1, Inaccurate."

Settlers of Catan is the English edition of Die Siedler von Catan, a German Board game created by Klaus Teuber, and published by Kosmos verlag GmbH in Germany, and Mayfair Games in most of the English-speaking world.

In it, you randomly build a hexagonal island out of smaller, hexagonal tiles. Each tile represends a resource (wool/sheep, lumber/wood, brick/clay, ore/stone, grain/food: These are some of the names that the five resources are known by), each with a number from 2-12. Etc, etc, etc. You know what, just look here, or here.

Part of the appeal of Settlers is its scalability: For beginners starting out for the first time, there's the basic set, which remains fun several plays later. More advanced players, or those craving a bit more variety, can snap in the Seafarers expansion, which adds the option for larger maps, alternate victory conditions, and scenario-specific points and goals, while those wanting a more micromanaged approach can try the Cities & Knights expansion, which allows players to build up their specific cities with improvements, and generally mess with the core game.

The popularity curve tends to favor Seafarers over the basic set and Cities & Knights, but they all have a pretty strong following.

Also of note are the other Catan games, including:

Starfarers of Catan
Starship Catan
Settlers of Catan Card Game
Candamir: The First Settlers (which is not yet released or even translated).

Then there's the novel, the computer games, and the whiskey bottle edition. No, seriously.

Hitler was a very neat and tidy man, who had trouble connecting to other people - he disliked touching, even his later-wife, Eva Braun.

Either I saw this in a Discovery documentary, but more likely I saw it in 'Im toten Winkel - Hitlers Sekretärinn. MSN, BBC, IMDB, Amazon DE
It is a very good movie, and I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in that era, and especially in the workings of a terror regime that kept it's society in a trance.
Be warned, though, that you might need a lot of coffee.

(Speaking of licensing, I believe only the PlayStation version and the Microsoft version will be "legit."

BUZZ! Incorrect sir!

In Germany and most of non-English speaking Europe, there have been PC versions of Catan for years. For the base set and Seafarers, there's Catan: Die Erste Insel (which was also available on the Playstation 1). If you're itching to play the cardgame online, why not try Catan - Das Kartenspiel, which features many online options, and a robust AI, not to mention an unofficial English translation.

If space is more your thing, you can always try Die Sternenfahrer von Catan, which is a bit of a departure from the cardboard-n-plastic version: It's realtime. Then again, you can always try the 2-player Sternenschiff Catan, which is chock full of scenario goodness. Rockazonga, the developer of the PC version of Sternenschiff, has been making noises of an English version, as well as a PS2 version.

Personally, I'd love for Microsoft to do all the Catan gams (which, by the terms of the agreement they signed, they are allowed to), since I love Starfarers, but have trouble talking people into playing a single game for 2 hours. They'd usually rather play several other games in that same time period.