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There's a link at Ars Technica that has an interesting possibility.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/03/with-the-nintendo-dsi-xl.ars

Here is an article that has an embedded YouTube video of the 3D game from Japan http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/03/with-the-nintendo-dsi-xl.ars. Looks interesting.

However, I do not think it is enough for me to buy yet another DS product.

That sounds like what Apple patented in 2008: http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/12/apple-patents-automated-3d-point-of-view-displays-more.ars

Here (warning: US-centric). What's your opinion?

It's entirely possible that fingerprint "transplants" of the sort this thread is describing will have only temporary relevance. Moderately soon, simply copying and applying the shape of a fingerprint may be irrelevant if such methods fail to reproduce an adequately convincing sample of someone's personal microbial residue to suit the situation. While directly identifying someone by microbial traces may be some ways off, showing that a particular stain was, in fact, NOT one particular person in question may be much more achievable -- discover bacterial strains present in the fingerprint that are NOT present on the person in question, and you have separated the fingerprint from the person.

Fingerprints will nevertheless continue to be used for some time as evidence of presence and for routine identification. Additional means ought to be applied as the importance of correct identification increases. I'd welcome a fingerprint scanner at my local library -- worst case, I'm stuck paying for some lost materials, the cost of which would most likely be less than the cost of preparing false fingerprints. I'd blanch at using fingerprint identification (sans PIN/passphrase) to open my safe deposit box -- its contents will likely be more valuable than the cost of a simulated fingerprint, once this technology has matured. Similarly, if a criminal case involves petty theft, incriminating fingerprints in the presence of motive and ordinary corroborating evidence should be adequate; however, in felony cases, stricter scrutiny ought to be applied. "Bloody fingerprints on the murder weapon" may, in some few years time, NOT be adequate evidence of connection to a case.

Then if you look at iPhone OS, that has been highly, highly optimized. An iPhone 3GS with a 600MHz CPU outperforms a Nexus One with a 1000MHz CPU.

There is a difference between "highly optimised" and the iphone supporting hardware floating point while the nexus one doesn't (yet - the hardware does, but Android needs an update to support it).

As for another view on performance, it seems ars doesn't agree with you:

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/reviews/2010/01/nexus-one-review.ars/4

Those optimizations are part of the reason why Apple is currently undercutting both Android and Palm on price, which is the opposite of what was expected by Palm and Android developers and the entire industry.

Actually, no. They're not undercutting Android because Android is free. They're also not undercutting all Android hardware, only some of it. And if you compare the specs on the hardware with a higher price, you'll find it is generally of a higher spec. How it performs is definitely a question of optimisations in software etc. but almost everything you have quoted has little to do with optimising an OS to use all available resources.

It seems you are severely underestimating what GCD means to the application developer. I strongly suggest you read parts 12 and 13 of John Siracusa's excellent review very carefully. As Siracusa says,

Those with some multithreaded programming experience may be unimpressed with the GCD. So Apple made a thread pool. Big deal. They've been around forever. But the angels are in the details. Yes, the implementation of queues and threads has an elegant simplicity, and baking it into the lowest levels of the OS really helps to lower the perceived barrier to entry, but it's the API built around blocks that makes Grand Central Dispatch so attractive to developers. Just as Time Machine was "the first backup system people will actually use," Grand Central Dispatch is poised to finally spread the heretofore dark art of asynchronous application design to all Mac OS X developers. I can't wait.

yes, let's all wait for Apple to come to the rescue and ignore everybody else who's already trying to do that...
and of course, nothing is real unless Apple does it.

Stop your knee-jerking already (jeez, like a bull to a red cloth.) Apple doing so would be significant because they are a market leader in mobile devices and the biggest music retailer and they make a lot of software used by content producers. It's great others are already doing it, I'm waiting for Apple to do it too because I happen to be an Apple customer already.

but you do know that publishers don't just "publish", right? editing is a crucial step and good or bad marketing can make or break an author.
Even authors like Doctorow who freely distributes their contents online have editors and publishers. A good combination of the two means that even trash like D*n Br*wn's D* V*nc* C*d* can become a bestseller.

Oh I agree good editors are crucial. You don't need publishers to do that however. The whole industry could decentralize from big megalithic companies to smaller companies and transitory partnerships. You still need all the talent: authors, editors, marketers, cover artists, etc. you just don't need the cartel power structure behind it.

With actual links so you can download the patch to enable XP mode on previously unsupported processors, for instance:
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/03/microsoft-removes-vm-hardware-requirements-from-xp-mode.ars
Why the hell is this Exo-Blog post being cited? The author of TFA doesn't cite a goddamn thing.

Clearly it isn't Intel over AMD, it could support both Intel VT and AMD-V. Don't throw out the hate without justification!

ars technica
Thanks for pointing that out ColdWetDog.

Not only does this not 'beg the question' it's by our good friend Randal C. Kennedy of Devil Mountain Software fame. Come on guys, this is in the frigging Ars Technica.

The problem with Slashdot these days is that has no taste, absolutely no taste.

It's not as cut and dry as you might think. YouTube has done its share of dirty deeds in this whole fiasco.

Some choice excerpts include the YouTube cofounders discussing how 80% of the site traffic depended on pirated videos. So, they pretty much did whatever they had to get a massive user base so that they'd get bought out. From the article -

The basic argument here is a simple one. YouTube's founders hoped to build a massive user base as quickly as possible and then sell the site. "Our dirty little secret... is that we actually just want to sell out quickly," said Karim at one point.

Now, arguably, YouTube at that time does not equal Google, and one could argue that things have changed. However, don't be so quick to decide without hearing both sides of the story.

Viacom has unearthed a bunch of compromising emails. This lawsuit could produce lots of entertaining internal documents.

Microsoft Security Essentials is free, lightweight, and pretty good. Even Ars Techinca thought so, if you trust them.

This ars technica article says it's about 50 micrometers long.

Now that they're doing this for mp3 players (and I'm sure, PMPs in general),

This isn't new at all, they're just trying harder to legalize it. I paid a levy on my iPod Mini in 2004. It was later refunded when the levy was overturned.
http://news.cnet.com/No-iPod-tax-for-Canada/2100-1041_3-5809117.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/12/17/canada_ipod_tax_illegal/

Then they tried again in 2007.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2007/07/copyright-board-of-canada-gives-thumbs-up-to-ipod-tax.ars
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2008/01/ipod-tax-smacked-down-in-canada.ars

So it's on about a three year cycle.

Now that they're doing this for mp3 players (and I'm sure, PMPs in general),

This isn't new at all, they're just trying harder to legalize it. I paid a levy on my iPod Mini in 2004. It was later refunded when the levy was overturned.
http://news.cnet.com/No-iPod-tax-for-Canada/2100-1041_3-5809117.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/12/17/canada_ipod_tax_illegal/

Then they tried again in 2007.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2007/07/copyright-board-of-canada-gives-thumbs-up-to-ipod-tax.ars
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2008/01/ipod-tax-smacked-down-in-canada.ars

So it's on about a three year cycle.

Historically, Microsoft licensed the Unix code from AT&T in 1980 to make its own version of Unix: Xenix. At the time, the plan was that Xenix would be Microsoft’s 16-bit operating system. Microsoft quickly found they couldn’t do it on their own, and so started work with what was then a small Unix porting company, SCO. By 1983, SCO XENIX System V had arrived for 8086 and 8088 chips and both companies were marketing it.
It didn’t take long though for Microsoft to decide that Xenix wasn’t for them. In 1984, the combination of AT&T licensing fees and the rise of MS-DOS, made Microsoft decide to start moving out of the Unix business.

So why did MS suddenly decide they needed to buy $ 10M worth of old Unix licenses in 2003?
BTW, Novell claims they're entitled to 95% of those licenses SCO sold, in their 2005: breach of contract counterclaim. We'll soon see how this all plays out because the SCO-Novell case is finally in court now (the part that's still going on, whether Novell has or hasn't sold the Unix copyrights to SCO, is moving forward because SCO is sueing Novell with Novell's own money :-) ). If it turns out Novell owns the copyrights, all other SCO court cases should quickly collapse, which *might* in turn get people to understand that this whole SCOsource anti-Linux FUD was in fact a scam to scare potential customers away--but I digress.. sorry..
2004: Baystar connection (warning: by Enderle), and here in 2006 new info
I quote:

Buried in IBM's recent motion for summary judgment against SCO is a Declaration from BayStar general partner Larry Goldfarb. Near the beginning of the long-running legal soap opera, BayStar invested $50 million in SCO. In exchange for their investment, BayStar received 20,000 shares of preferred stock in SCO.
In his declaration, Goldfarb testifies that former Microsoft senior VP for corporate development and strategy Richard Emerson discussed "a variety of investment structures wherein Microsoft would 'backstop,' or guarantee in some way, BayStar's investment." Goldfarb then said that after BayStar committed the $50 million to SCO's cause, Microsoft "stopped returning my phone calls and e-mails, and to the best of my knowledge, Mr. Emerson was fired from Microsoft."

"The FCC set a long-term goal of 100 million households with connections of 100 megabits per second"

I remember seeing that statement somewhere else (I think it was ArsTechnica.com), and I can't help but wonder how the FCC thinks that will help consumers if the Internet backbones and servers don't also get improved? Here's what I mean - my local Telco recently rolled out fiber to my apartment building, so I now have a 10Mbs/2Mbs Internet connection - not blazingly fast by any means, but a nice bump up from the 5M/768k connection I previously had with DSL. Anyhow, what I've noticed is that, sometimes I get faster download/upload speeds, but with a lot of servers, I'm not coming anywhere close to fully utilizing the available bandwidth on my connection, because somewhere in the connection (whether it's the server, or some link in-between, I really don't know for sure), something is bandwidth-limited.

It seems to me that any governmental push to increase the speed of service for 100 Million households requires that not only do you upgrade the 'last mile' connection, but there needs to be a focus on getting the backbones and servers on faster connections too. Without that, it's kind of pointless, isn't it? I don't think I'd have any *use* for a 100Mbps Internet connection since almost no servers anywhere are going to be able to consistently feed me data at even a significant fraction of that speed.

Also, since ISPs typically give you a very small fraction of the upload speed compared to your download speed (Coming Soon! 100Mbps Ultra-Broadband Internet!* [fine print: upload speeds of 6Mbps]), users can't really even provide content to *each other* at anywhere close to that rate. So, what am I supposed to do with 100Mbps? I suppose if you have 5 people using computers all at once in your home/apartment/small office, it might be nice that they each 'get their own' 20Mbps, but what is the drive for this particular number? What's so special about 100Mbps?

Or this http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/08/dna-samples-used-by-crime-labs-faked-in-research-lab.ars

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/08/dna-samples-used-by-crime-labs-faked-in-research-lab.ars

Granted, they say it carries markers of having been lab-tampered, but that detecting the markers requires currently-unusual sophistication. Interesting, though.

This is completely incorrect. The European Parliament have demanded that the European Commission make public the nature of its discussions in the ACTA negotiations, and the EU Privacy Commissioner has expressed concern that the treaty might be incompatible with existing EU law, but the parliament have not passed any resolutions regarding the content of the treaty itself (not least because it's secret, so they don't know what it says).

The process through which the ACTA has be created is highly suspect but it does its opponents no service if those who campaign against it can't present an accurate case.

Signals of common-sense still exists

The resolution does not call for ACTA to scrapped, however. Instead, negotiations should center only on more effective "counterfeiting" enforcement. As Engström put it in a blog post on the new resolution, "If there is to be an ACTA agreement, the parliament wants it to be about combating goods counterfeiting (i.e., fake Rolexes and hand bags, fake Viagra on the net, fake cigarettes that are even more harmful that proper ones, etc.). It should not be about restricting our fundamental civil liberties on the net... Today is a day when it feels good to be a Pirate in the European Parliament."

To be noted that the ACTA treaty will need to be ratified by the EU Parliament, thus it seems that there are still hopes in regarding this.

You can get a 2nd controller with Wii Play which effectively gives you a "free" controller with a game. It comes with wireless where as, at least with the 360, you need to buy that and Wii games are generally at least $10 cheaper.

The attach rate as of last summer was 6 games per Wii which is a savings of $60 on software. http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=23308

Supposedly the attach rate jumped up to 8 games per Wii over Xmas giving purchasers a $80 savings on software. http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2008/01/wii-attach-rate-soared-to-81-for-december.ars

Sure some people will buy a lot of peripherals but even then they're generally better deals. For instance you can get Monster Hunter Wii and a classic controller together for less than a PS3/360 game.

http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/11/will-you-boycott-bing.ars

One criticism of the iPad that I can't really get behind is the price. I'd like to see a cheaper alternative, while still retaining the same horsepower, not to mention a 9.6" IPS panel.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/01/tablet-makers-rethinking-things-in-wake-of-ipads-low-price.ars

Competing tablet makers are reevaluating their pricing strategy in the wake of Apple's iPad announcement, according to a rumor in the Digitimes. The article cites the usual unnamed sources in claiming that companies like ASUS and MSI had expected Apple's iPad to debut at $1,000, and were planning to undercut that price by 20 to 30 percent with their own, presumably Android-based offerings. But with the iPad base model coming in at $499--the price of a decent netbook--the companies are now going to have to compete on something besides price.

True! So true! In fact it isn't even necessary to sit up, or even peak out from beneath the covers. Not since Apple has published specs. for a screen--rotation-lock switch!

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/03/bed-readers-rejoice-ipad-gains-last-minute-rotation-lock.ars

Pumping stuff into the ground that isn't normally there tends to give me the willies anymore. "Stick it where the sun don't shine!" isn't such a great solution, IMO.

Exactly what could go wrong? I suppose the pressure cave could rupture and you get an air volcano, so don't build on top of it. Pockets of gas under pressure are nothing new in the earths crust.

Besides which, why not just build Vanadium batteries or invest in carbon nanotube ultra-capacitors (which could have direct benefit to mobile energy storage)?

What is the duty cycle on Vanadium batteries, carbon nanotubes and ultra-capacitors? The battery in CAEF is just a big cave with little to wear out..

Pumping stuff into the ground that isn't normally there tends to give me the willies anymore. "Stick it where the sun don't shine!" isn't such a great solution, IMO.

Besides which, why not just build Vanadium batteries or invest in carbon nanotube ultra-capacitors (which could have direct benefit to mobile energy storage)?

What reviews of service? Stop spreading your garbage FUD. There were no reviews allowed due to the NDA for beta users.

The only review I ever read was done by a guy who wasn't authorized to use the service, using a friend's account, and played from twice the recommended distance to one of the game servers.

Half the time the servers refused to let him on because his lag was too high. And yet despite being 2000 miles away and being constantly warned of poor performance and lag by the servers, he *still* had a positive experience with several of the games.

These beta testers disagree with you. Not FUD, Fact.

Some species of Human too.

Back in Jan the performance didn't exactly get two thumbs up even from actual beta testers who complained about the lag issues.

Back in Jan the performance didn't exactly get two thumbs up even from actual beta testers who complained about the lag issues.

Actually, the Social Science Research Council (whoever they are) found that non-users DO see the benefit. It's a matter of cost and availability (even in some major cities in the US, access sucks).

Ars had a story yesterday about Cisco: Cisco: Internet to change forever Tuesday (place your bets!)

Is this the thing that will change the internet??

However, I'm willing to go out on a limb and say that the iPhone platform would have much more software available if Apple treated it like they treat Mac OS X or how Microsoft treats Windows,

Yeah, they might get the other .6% of the mobile app market....

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/01/apple-responsible-for-994-of-mobile-app-sales-in-2009.ars

Well, Wikipedia does.

If it is matter of core-war, IBM's latest Power7 also has 8 cores. It is actually based on 45nm technology compared to Intel's latest 32nm. What makes Power7 exciting is that it has on-die 32MB L3 cache. They achieved this by introducing eDRAM (embedded DRAM) in the technology. Both Nehalem-EX and Power7 are targeting low-end server market, so it should be interesting battle.

http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2009/09/ibms-8-core-power7-twice-the-muscle-half-the-transistors.ars

Since when is the "low-end server market" made up of 8-core 8-socket machines? Are you from the... future?

http://www.sun.com/processors/UltraSPARC-T2/

And the future Ultrasparc T3 will have 16 cores and 8 threads per core for a total of 128 threads per chip

http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2010/02/two-billion-transistor-beasts-power7-and-niagara-3.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss

http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2009/09/ibms-8-core-power7-twice-the-muscle-half-the-transistors.ars

Half of the people out there with Windows machines infested with malware got that malware because they DID NOT use privacy and security extensions.

According to Caesar, the bug from Ars Technica behind this attack on ad blocking, it's their fault for not keeping up to date with security patches. Yes, really.

Which Ars already does: http://arstechnica.com/subscriptions/

Paywall here we come!!!

FYI: Ars has a paywall for their premium content.

See: http://arstechnica.com/subscriptions/

"If you're not willing to unblock our ads, we're fairly happy for you to not read the content we work very hard on, or to just stop visiting the site altogether." (in comment thread here)

Ok, your terms are acceptable. See ya.

the problem is the content industry really don't want those terms.

If enough do that, they will run to the government and claim free and pirating is killing their business model and demand/pay for laws go take away your choices and stack the deck in their favor.

The media content is fully ready to push for solutions that control every aspect of your lives (laws, chiefly) and equipment (DRM) to get back the control they consider their birthright.

There is an oft-stated misconception that if a user never clicks on ads, then blocking them won't hurt a site financially. This is wrong. Most sites, at least sites the size of ours, are paid on a per view basis.

http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2010/03/why-ad-blocking-is-devastating-to-the-sites-you-love.ars

Well, it figures that the ads would be at their tamest right now, since Ars Technica is trying to encourage people to turn off ad-blocking. They've had problems in the past, though, and apparently even deliberately run obnoxious ads:

As for the larger, more intrusive ads: they are here to stay, provided they abide by our guidelines. We have two options: run these kinds of ads on a limited, select basis (usually one per reader per 24 hours), or stop publishing. That was true 5 years ago, and it is even more true today. Ideally, we'd be able to run these ads without them breaking stuff. We're trying to address that. But these kinds of ads, rare as they may be, are essential to our business. While I am well aware of many of your personal theories as to the ultimate detriment of these ads on a longterm basis, I do not agree and will abide by my data. I have 11 years experience running this business, through worse times than the present, and I remained convinced that we are making the right moves 90% of the time.

Also, note that stuff like obnoxious expand-on-rollover ads is apparently also entirely within the rules.

http://arstechnica.com/subscriptions/

When you disable Flash completely, we serve up static backup ads. Flashblock, however, breaks this so it's effectively the same as running a dedicated ad blocker. It's more a technical problem with Flashblock, though.

"If you're not willing to unblock our ads, we're fairly happy for you to not read the content we work very hard on, or to just stop visiting the site altogether." (in comment thread here)

Ok, your terms are acceptable. See ya.

* The content was blocked without warning, leading many to think Ars was broken
* Readers who complained were called "leechers" who were "held in contempt".
* They use Doubleclick and serve animated Flash ads
* Apparently text ads (e.g. Google AdSense) don't pay very well

Many of us do understand that Ars is more expensive to run than Stack Exchange or (maybe) Slashdot, because Ars has to pay writers. However the fact that web advertising is so inflexible and user-hostile is very sad and says something about the industry. BoingBoing and Daring Fireball seem to be doing well with their homegrown ad networks, maybe someone will take some ideas from them and come up with a non-evil ad network.

http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/03/winmob-65-to-windows-phone-7-series-upgrades-to-be-rare.ars
"The bad news is that it comes at the loss of many of its current faithful Windows Mobile customers."