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"The PSP Go isn't a direction that I like. I don't want my "licensing" of a game to be present on a server; I'd rather have a physical disk/cartridge/whatever instead. It's bulkier, sure, but at least I can sell the thing when I'm done with it!"

I wouldn't mind if the games only cost a dollar or two like iPhone/Touch, but considering the price to download a PSP Go game is more than Amazon or Best Buy makes it not worth it. Why pay $40 to download when it's $29 at Walmart and then I don't even have something I can resell or trade?

Not only that, but it takes 40 minutes to download a gigabyte thanks to the slow 802.11b connection. Wow! I have a PS3, and I'm tired of the constant forced updates of everything. iPhone/Touch doesn't force updates, they tell you they're available but nothing makes you download an update to the app store or apps to work. And now they slap a 11 mBit/s connection to it? Are they kidding? Sure the PSP had the same connection but that was 2005 and the game was on a 1.8gb UMD, no download required. For 2010 I expected something better.

Sony just doesn't "get" it's customers, they continue to make glaringly obvious mistakes and we keep scratching our heads saying "why Sony?" Maybe it's time we stop scratching and just buy something else.

So if ya want to bring about "The Year of the Linux Desktop" helping Microsoft turn the screws on unlicensed installs is probably the most productive thing a non-coder can do. Especially outside the US.

Three stories the geek will studiously ignore:

Microsoft revealed that it had sold over 60 million Windows 7 licenses through the second quarter. This not only made it a record quarter for Windows units in general, but it makes Windows 7 the fastest selling operating system in history. Windows 7 leads the way to record quarter for Microsoft [Jan 28]

Apple's Aug. 28 release of its Snow Leopard software resulted in a boost of 1 point to 65 percent in the first week. Through the end of the year, the increase was 6.9 percent.
The percentage of customers satisfied with Microsoft reached 73 percent on Dec. 31, the highest since YouGov started surveying in 2007. Microsoft's reputation is benefiting from the positively reviewed Windows 7, after some customers held off personal-computer purchases to avoid the product's predecessor, Vista, said Matt Rosoff, an analyst at Kirkland, Washington- based Directions on Microsoft.
"People are saying, 'Okay, Microsoft got its mojo back,'" he said. "People who were thinking about buying a new PC are more likely to do so now. You'll see slightly better sales." Rosoff said the boost is probably also due to the June release of Microsoft's overhauled Bing Internet search engine.
  Microsoft Outpaces Apple in Customer Satisfaction: Chart of Day [Feb 1]

For the last day in January Windows 7 Breaks 10% in Daily Tracking. Global Market Share Statistics [Feb 1]

_____

Highest Windows 7 Usage in U.S. - Redmond Area
Surprise! The Redmond, WA area has the highest usage share of Windows 7 in the U.S. Within the actual city of Redmond, 42% of internet users are on Windows 7. Market Share By Postal Code [Feb 1]

It's a shame you felt the need to be so sarcastic that you posted anonymously. Your post has useful information and might lead folks to actually try opera.

This is part of the reason linux has had trouble getting traction... instead of patiently explaining (probably for the dozenth time) they attacked anyone who didn't know about it already.

Opera is at .7% (and dropping) per http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/04/march-2009-browser-stats-ie-and-opera-drop.ars.

It sounds like a nice browser. It may need some nicer users to grow.

Well, as it turns out, it actually does... Take a look at the Ars Technica article on SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) and you'll see that SIP was modelled after HTTP. For those who don't know, SIP is the protocol most often used in making open video and voice calls over the internet (open as in non-proprietary. e.g. Skype doesn't use SIP, but interestingly enough, iChat does)

Of course, I think it's pretty obvious that it was HTTP and HTML (aka the world wide web) that brought about the huge explosion in communication and networking technology that makes voice and video over the internet possible. But I think you knew that and were just being pedantic...

I've had to use a soldering iron to replace my iPod nano battery. Yes, I would prefer a removable battery, but more than that I prefer to have something that can be run over by a car twice and still play music.

Ars Technica had a nice article explaining the differences when Vista was released: "Buying OEM versions of Windows Vista: the facts"

Apparently, Ars Technica is using the Fox News definition of facts... Some of these may have been true at a time (XP days, quite possibly), but are no longer (at least not on Vista).

My summary (in order of importance):

• An OEM or "system builder" version of Windows is tied to the computer on which it is initially installed. Unlike retail versions, OEM versions cannot be transferred to another computer, even if you remove it from the first computer.

This can be done, I know as I have done it myself. Didn't even need to do phone activation. There IS however a certain timeperiod after successfully activating an installation that will cause a new installation on a different computer fail to activate, requiring phone activation. It may be as long as three months.

• OEM versions include either 32-bit Windows or 64-bit (not both), so you must choose before you buy. Retail versions come with both.

Mostly false. The true part is that you can't get the other installation media in the box or by mail (or other means) from Microsoft. Of course, there are other ways to get the installation media, including borrowing a friend's official disk or simply downloading the official ISO from P2P network (yes, both are probably a bit of a grey area legally, but it works, and I doubt MS will hunt you down for it, since you'll still be using a valid license key on just one computer anyhow). Once you have the official installation media, you'll find out that your 32-bit OEM key will work just fine on a 64-bit installation and vice versa. Don't even need to be the same language version, which is nice, since finding the official ISOs in languages other than English is hard enough not to bother.

To me, the only important limitation is the no-transfer limit. However, since the OEM version is roughly half the price of the full retail (not upgrade) version, I don't think it's a big deal. Also, I've read in many forums (including Slashdot) that MS will provide a new activation code for OEM versions if you say you "had to replace the motherboard" on your PC.

Like I said above, Vista should activate through Internet just fine if your last activation wasn't very recent. My experience with XP was that I had to do phone activation, although that was an automated process on MS's part, no need to actually talk to a live person (and yes, the "motherboard had to be replaced" excuse I've heard of being used and probably should work, if you actually have to convince an actual person, but my guess is you won't have to).

Newegg: $105 I'm still a little confused though as to what, exactly it is that you don't get with the system builder edition that you would get with the full retail version.

Ars Technica had a nice article explaining the differences when Vista was released: "Buying OEM versions of Windows Vista: the facts"

My summary (in order of importance):

• An OEM or "system builder" version of Windows is tied to the computer on which it is initially installed. Unlike retail versions, OEM versions cannot be transferred to another computer, even if you remove it from the first computer.
• OEM versions include either 32-bit Windows or 64-bit (not both), so you must choose before you buy. Retail versions come with both.
• OEM versions cannot be returned once opened. That makes the 32/64 bit decision important.
• No pretty box, no user manual, and no free support. Experienced computer users don't need that stuff, anyway. OEM users still get free windows updates, MS's support web site, knowledge base, and paid support options.
• OEM versions only allow clean installations. No "in place upgrades" are allowed, which no sane techie would do anyway. Windows Easy Transfer is available for those that want to easily transfer files, settings, and accounts.

To me, the only important limitation is the no-transfer limit. However, since the OEM version is roughly half the price of the full retail (not upgrade) version, I don't think it's a big deal. Also, I've read in many forums (including Slashdot) that MS will provide a new activation code for OEM versions if you say you "had to replace the motherboard" on your PC.

Yup, they're *so* anti-DRM that they chose to restrict application sales on the iPhone/iPod Touch to iTunes, with mandatory DRM even for developers who don't want it and no way to distribute or install outside of their proprietary methods.

Apple were happy to go anti-DRM for a bit of geek cred once iTunes and the iPod were both already dominant and they no longer had to rely on technological lock-in. When it gives them more control they're all for it. Ars have an article that sums up the iPad's restrictions on freedom.

Your argument that Apple succeeding with a closed DRM'd model forced open music is also counter-intuitive - their leverage over the music industry may have hastened DRM-free music, but that was at best an unintended side effect. Indeed, it's possible that without the success of iTunes the industry would never have bothered shoving DRM on us and we'd have seen a natural progression from CDs (although that may be a bit optimistic...)

IE6 has long been known to be non-standards compliant and insecure, and quite frankly these companies should have had the foresight to be moving away from it years ago.

Microsoft themselves wants companies to abandon IE6.

Consider it a little tough love from Google. If they announced they'd end support for IE6 in 18 months, nobody would do anything for the next 15 months.

I've wondered about the handwriting recognition; you just don't see/hear much about it anymore. But then, would you end up going back to a stylus or something? Handwriting with just your finger isn't going to be the same as if you're holding a pen. But I'd bet dollars to donuts Hell would freeze over before Apple includes any sort of stylus peripheral with one of their products!

The Microsoft Courier will use a stylus (actually it appears to accept both touch and stylus). Given that the most desirable feature of tablets for many is the ability to write on them and annotate documents, I'd say this puts it in a strong position over things like the iPad for any "serious" usage. At least if the Courier has enough processing power and OS support for these things. I'm assuming that it will inherit Windows 7's hand-writing recognition technology so potentially this could be a great device. I'm holding off from getting a laptop until I see it as the main reason for a laptop for me is making notes and reading / browsing whilst travelling. The iPad falls down very badly on the first of those.

Oddly, although I've been slating the iPad since it was demo'ed, I may actually end up buying one. Not for me, but for my mother who whilst very bright, isn't experienced with computers and also has less strength and mobility in her hands than she used to. I'm thinking that for her purposes (browsing, light emails), an iPad is pretty older parent friendly. Still overpriced, but if it's the best thing for her, it's what I'll get. I'm not sure Apple would be happy to know that I've finally found their target audience though - technologically inexperienced parents with slight arthritis. She does wear turtlenecks sometimes, though.

News Flash bro.

You may not like/need Flash, but a lot of people like it, maybe most.

Why don't you check out the current Ars Technica poll on how many people would like to have Flash on the iPad:
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/01/poll-technica-do-you-want-flash-on-the-ipad.ars

And yes, Flash is a gaming platform unparalleled on the browser. You may not like Flash games, but a lot of people do. Flash has also ushered back the golden age of game development in the 80s where you could have just 1-3 people teams pumping out fun games, unlike in the late 90's to early 2000s before the explosion of casual gaming where to push out a game in the industry meant spending millions of dollars with tens to hundreds of developers per project, and it was all 3D, 3D, 3D and idea rehashes.

The ease with which authors can ties together together animation, illustration, design, sound & interaction on Flash is has no equal. Not everyone is a developer and that's why HTML5 will not kill Flash.

Coding slick GUIs and programmatic animation ain't an easy task and designers/animators/multimedia artists without programming backgrounds can't pull those off easily. Flash changed that.

H.264 video is also here now with YouTube, but Mozilla Foundation ain't willing to pony up for the proprietary codec so don't expect to see an H.264 bundled video player on Firefox soon. These HTML5 in-browser media players ain't as easy to reskin and meld with other interactive elements as Flash though so you can go stay in your bland Jakob Nielsen-esque world for all everyone else cares.

Btw, re: Flash's sub-par performance on the Mac, it's not all Adobe's fault. See this post from Lee Brimelow of Adobe (scroll down to comment #62):

http://theflashblog.com/?p=1703
"Apple is not cooperating in our attempts to improve the performance of the Flash Player on the Mac. Microsoft is, and in FP 10.1 we cut the CPU utilization in half for watching video. Same with other mobile device manufactures. We would love to work with Apple to do the same but they are making a strategic decision not too so that they can increase their revenue. Hey thats business. Another thing to note is that the site you showed is filled with Flash and just because it takes up a lot of CPU doesnt mean that kids will not want to play with it. Give people the option is what Im saying."

It is a humorous world in how Microsoft is much more open than Apple.

Actually the iPad mounts a folder for putting files on, this was confirmed in the announcement, and ars talk about it here:

Thankfully, Apple has addressed this in the iPad-only iPhone OS 3.2. The documentation for the SDK indicates that it uses a "shared folder" that any iPad application can read and write. This shared folder will also mount as a disk whenever an iPad is plugged in to a Mac or PC, allowing easy file transfer.

True, she makes the RIAA guys look like the good folks.. and that's hard.

Now, “Here’s what I’m telling them,” says Jammie.

“You guys can settle this on my terms or take it to trial and try to prove the damages.

“You’re going to be lucky to prove more than $24 ”

I do not understand why Slashdot continues to support this woman.
Some background from the Wiki and http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/06/jammie-thomas-takes-the-stand-admits-to-major-misstep.ars

The RIAA first warned Thomas with a cease-and-desist letter and settlement offer.[when?] Thomas refused to settle, and was then sued on April 19, 2006, by several major record labels for copyright infringement.
In the trial, the plaintiffs alleged that on February 21, 2005, Jammie Thomas shared a total of 1,702 tracks online. The plaintiffs, however, sought relief for only 24 of these.

Two weeks after MediaSentry noted the infringement of "tereastarr@KaZaA" (and notified the user via KaZaA instant message that he or she had been caught sharing files) back in February 2005, Thomas-Rasset hauled her Compaq Presario down to the local Best Buy. There was a problem with the hard drive, so Best Buy replaced it under warranty.

That might sound like no big deal until you realize that Thomas-Rasset later provided this new hard drive—and not the one in the machine during the alleged February infringement—to investigators and to her own expert witness. It becomes an even bigger deal when you realize that she swore under oath—twice—that she had replaced the hard drive in 2004 (a full year earlier) and that it had not been changed again since.

Next up was Eric Stanley, who had been hired by Thomas-Rasset before her first trial to examine the same hard drive that was turned over to recording industry investigators. Thomas-Rasset at first told Stanley that the drive had been replaced in 2004, well before the alleged infringement, so this evidence looked like it would be great for Thomas-Rasset... until recording industry lawyers deposed Stanley and Thomas-Rasset on the same day. At some point during that day, Stanley heard something that led him to examine the physical drive once more during a break. It was then he found the sticker with a manufacturing date—of early 2005.

Stanley realized he was looking at a drive that had likely not even been in the machine when the alleged infringement took place.

So she refused a settlement offer at the very beginning even before being represented by a lawyer, then repeatedly lied under oath to judge and jury(no wonder the damages were soooooo high, juries hate being blatantly lied to and want to teach such people a lesson) and now is still being...well... a dick. Imagine if the only punishment if you get caught stealing(stealing real goods, pedants please note) was to just pay up later, everyone would just steal then and pay up later if got caught. On top of that, the $1/song is for downloading the songs, not uploading which has a bigger punishment under law since the plaintiffs potentially lost revenue. I am sure this distinction will be lost on most of the posters here again who will repeatedly say the actual damages are just $24.

Anyway this was one of the worst cases that should have gone to court against the RIAA. They sued wrongly lots of times but this one case should've been settled long ago by Thomas, she knew she was in the wrong and tried to weasel her way out of it by lying.

More, if you want to read:

Why was Thomas-Rasset's password-protected computer running KaZaA in February 2005, and with the "tereastarr" name, if she had not set up the software? And since no one else ha

Software patents stifle innovation.
Yet they are still around.

Many of us hate software patents. (myself included).
They limit what we can do, so we have to find innovative ways to avoid them.

That they are only a problem when abused. If company X develops some new way of sorting data that allows them to produce a better database, then they deserve an opportunity to profit from their work, just as an inventor deserves a chance to profit from an invention. The fact that company X's invention is not embedded within a specific piece of hardware doesn't change the fact that they have contributed something.

(And, unlike copyrights, software patents have a chance of dying before the product being patented becomes obsolete).

Besides litigation, how do software patents benefit their holders?

Besides paying for your hospital bills, how does health insurance benefit you? Litigation, or the threat of litigation, is the main benefit for patent holders. If somebody steals your idea, you have a legal recourse against them. That's the only good thing that comes from patent law, but it is sufficient.

1) The figure of 80-90% piracy is generated by the industry, and since it is largely unmeasurable it is an estimate (i.e. made up) I suspect no-one has any real idea how much is pirated

World of Goo piracy rate near 90 percent. And it's an indie game, which makes it even more sad.

It's very depressing to hear this, considering that World of Goo is an independent production; this is the kind of story that makes big-name publishers believe even more strongly in DRM.

The company went out of its way to remove all DRM from the title, labeling the move an "experiment."

Software patents stifle innovation.
Yet they are still around.

Many of us hate software patents. (myself included).
They limit what we can do, so we have to find innovative ways to avoid them.
Meanwhile we are happy when some large companies get bitten by patents.

Besides litigation, how do software patents benefit their holders?

Arstechnica has a pretty good write-up on what it is and how it works. I've been using it for several months now. I don't give out my real number anymore and trying to get people to delete my old number and use my Google Voice number to reach me. As It gives much more control.

And yeah, it's somewhat cumbersome to initiate a call from the website but (much) less so than it is to do that from your phone. A native iPhone app would solve most of the hassles of initiating calls..

The smoking gun I'd heard about was the IP Addresses of the command servers, not this CRC algorithm.

While these machines could be rouge agents in the Chinese Gov't. infrastructure they're even less likely to admit a security compromise that than espionage.

Why all the harping on different flavors of Red Chinese?

The smoking gun I'd heard about was the IP Addresses of the command servers, not this CRC algorithm.

While these machines could be rouge agents in the Chinese Gov't. infrastructure they're even less likely to admit a security compromise that than espionage.

You are misreading the charts. Modern Warfare 2 has sole way more than 10 million copies total

They sold a billion$ worth of product: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/01/what-we-and-activision-learned-from-modern-warfare-2.ars
That is about 17 million copies.

to use vgcharts, you would have to total up all the systems
Adding xbox 360 (http://vgchartz.com/games/game.php?id=28848)
To PS3 (http://vgchartz.com/games/game.php?id=28847)
To PC (http://vgchartz.com/games/game.php?id=28849)

This tab thing makes Slashdot front page and the following didn't?

Of course the tab thing made Slashdot front page. Some people here virtually LIVE in Visual Studio, and code indentation is a heavily entrenched basic function of coding that people get surprisingly fired up about. Even if this particular aspect of code indentation isn't going to effect people, it's just begging for a heated emacs level discussion.

Your article, on the other hand, basically confirms that people like Windows 7 more than Vista, and that Windows 7 continues the well known and understood tradition of Windows outselling OSX by a factor of 10 to 1. These are things we already knew. Also, the article you site isn't even the source of the information, but refers to a much better Ars Technica article, which itself gets the data from Net Applications. I wonder if you didn't link the Ars Technica article directly because it claims that "Linux was the only operating system [in December] to show positive percentage growth in market share." Or maybe this one "When putting this into perspective across the whole year, though, we see that Windows was actually sliding steadily throughout 2009 (93.66 percent in January 2009), while both Mac OS (4.71 percent in January 2009) and Linux (0.90 percent in January 2009) have been gaining." Or maybe the fact that Windows XP continues to hold onto 2/3rds of the active Windows installbase.

Also, it might be nice to point out that you're work at Microsoft in the Windows org as a development manger. It would boost your credibility as a poster, and reduce potential conflicts of interest.

Google said the attacks "originated from within China". They said there were "sophisticated attacks" against human rights activists, which involved accessing their accounts by use of the "correct username and password". I have yet to find where they have said there is any evidence to believe it was the Chinese government "as a nation" who carried this out

Google isn't going to say that outright as long as they have employees in China. You're supposed to connect the dots.

Verisign, on the other hand, apparently has no problem pointing the finger at China:

Verisign blames China

if you stole Windows, expect the genuine advantage to show up .. I love this, because it weeds out the PC makers that are cutting corners and pocketing the extra money

Do you have any hard evidence that WGA only shows up on pirated Windows or that PC makers are cutting corners. And regardless, WGA phoning home with details of what's on my PC is a breach of privacy laws.

To remind you of what the case is about ..

'Microsoft this week was sued in a Washington district court for allegedly violating privacy laws through Windows XP's Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) copy protection scheme. Similar to cases filed in 2006, the new class action case accuses Microsoft of falsely representing what information WGA would send to verify the authenticity of Windows and that it would send back information [daily IP address and other details that could be used to trace information back to a home or user]. The complaint further argued that Microsoft portrayed WGA as a necessary security update rather than acknowledge its copy protection nature in the update

Ars Technica has all the download links you need

And here they are...

deafies aren't the only ones who want captioning, but I do support it. There are lots of times where I'd like youtube muted and/or if they had captions in another language it would ease translation, and also enable youtube to be a useful teaching tool for other languages. Meanwhile I'd rather see ogg as an option over H264. H264 is an improvement over flash, but that issue will rage on for a while.

nobody RTFAs.

Um, ever hear of a little thing called the Slashdot effect?

Whoosh

To be fair, you have to go into the comments because half of the stories/summaries are at least misleading, at worst plain wrong, an the first few modded-up comments correct the crappy-ass summary.

I'd actually be more alarmed if somebody read Slashdot without reading the comments. Imagine what kind of trash would fill their brain if they actually thought this was a genuine story! (That particular summary was so bad, other news sites picked up on it.)

Is this the same FCC that took a "save the children" stance over some wardrobe malfunction a while back?

I wonder why intelligent people would flee an organization guided by puritanism..

(FCC, free advice, stick to regulating wavelengths and you'll get more support from scientists and engineers)

Except it wasn't the FCC who really wanted to do it, but the fact that a puritanical lobby group got offended, and flooded the FCC with complaints. The Parents Television Council offers ways to easily send in complaints, and it's estimated that 99% of the complaints came from the PTC. Unfortunately, by legislation, the FCC has to act on these complaints, even if they're stupid.

Source: One boob == 963,000 FCC complaints

I concluded 7 years ago that there was really no hope for the current music industry, and that the only rational thing to do was to wait for it to crater. Nothing has changed, except the smell of desperation is ever more palpable. Yesterday, I heard Steve Marks of RIAA talked about their graduated response plan. He denied it was a "3 strikes plan," which of course means that it is. It is no more likely to work than any of their previous plans.

Someone asked me afterwards why the industry continues to be so disastrously stupid. All I could come up with is that the people executing the stupidity are getting paid, and paid well, for continuing to hold out hope to the old men running the business that things can get put back the way that they were. As long as the people in charge have such delusions, and as long as they still have something to be in charge of, nothing will change,

Of course, bands like OK Go are basically serfs in this process. As they admit, they have no actual power whatsoever, and are just along for the ride.

That's what I thought was going to happen with "Light Peak".

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/09/apple-inspiration-behind-light-peak-optical-connection-standard.ars

I guess it's going to be yet another format/standard war.

none of those involved with making or receiving the phone calls were inconvenienced

I'm inconvenienced when my tax money goes to bullshit like this, especially when the FBI was already having trouble paying for the wiretaps they actually needed.

If it had discovered a plot to blow up some major building and those involved were arrested the FBI would probably have been hailed as heroes and given medals.

And making up fake terrorism threats would have discovered one?

I think Ben Kuchera said it best at the end of a recent Ars article

You mean the one in the summary? The actual FA? You've taken not RTFA or summary to new heights my friend...

I loved both Modern Warfare 1 and 2, don't get me wrong...but IMO the buzz surrounding them is way over the top. They were good games that broke some new ground in terms of intensity, but when you get down to it they were still shooting galleries wrapped up in a fancy package.

I think Ben Kuchera said it best at the end of a recent Ars article: "Modern Warfare 2 can be a fun game. The single-player is short, but intense. It's not a $1 billion game in our opinion, however, and the precedents set by its release and success aren't pointing towards good things for the industry. Of course, after selling all those games, why should Activision care?"

I wonder if it has something to do with fixing this

We asked Microsoft how it was planning improve Bing's indexing problem. "We're always working to improve the crawler," a Microsoft spokesperson told Ars. "With our latest crawler release still in beta, we doubled our crawling capacity worldwide. We increased our sitemap URL size to 50K and we made it easier for webmasters to control the crawler's aggressiveness."

They don't bother with social engineering. China's industrial espionage program is extensive and very well organized.

As said below, never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. (Insert lame joke about MSFT being full of stupidity here).

Given the back-story on the whole Danger data loss affair, stupidity is the FIRST thing I'd ascribe to Microsoft these days...

Its not a bug, its a feature to index a site with a new, rapid, powerful, direct, personalised crawler :)
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/01/microsoft-outlines-plan-to-improve-bings-slow-indexing.ars

according to this link, they still have some way to go..

If you want to talk about those updates, then you have to also acknowledge that h264 is supported out of the box, too

The post to which I was replying didn't mention h264, so why would I acknowledge it? ;)

A common annoyance with many media players, WMP included, is not having the right codec. WMP will try to detect which codecs are required and provide a location to download them, but this is hit-and-miss and less than convenient if all you want to do is play a video. In recognition of this, WMP12 includes support for H.264 video, AAC audio, and both Xvid and DivX video, in addition to all the formats supported by WMP11 in Vista (MPEG2, WMV, MP3, etc.). With these new codecs, WMP should support the majority of video found on the Internet out of the box.

he RIAA announced that they were terminating their practices of filing hundreds of civil lawsuits [google.com] so your jaywalking children should be okay.

And then they proceeded to continue filing lawsuits like they never said that: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/03/hypocrisy-or-necessity-riaa-continues-filing-lawsuits.ars

"Apple and third-party developers have lost $450 million due to App Store piracy since the store launched in July of 2008, according to an analysis by 24/7 Wall Street. This number might seem shocking at first, but the buzz generated by this report is misleading—the estimate is based on questionable numbers and an optimistic assumption that pirates would otherwise buy the software they steal."

See http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/01/450-million-iphone-piracy-figure-not-grounded-in-reality.ars for details.

EA realized this and as of June of 2009, all new games will not have software DRM and replaced it with a cd key check.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/06/eas-new-motto-please-pirate-our-games-er-storefronts.ars

Yet someone else regurgitating the music industry's same old, tired, phony claims and bogus madeup numbers about "losses".
Just because someone doesn't buy, doesn't make it a loss. It could be a 100% piracy rate, and it still wouldn't matter, because the vast majority wouldn't have purchased anything anyway, so there is no loss.

And yet more writeups that show how stupid these phony claims and their madeup numbers are:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100113/1434217734.shtml
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/01/450-million-iphone-piracy-figure-not-grounded-in-reality.ars

From an earlier /. article: http://arstechnica.com/security/news/2010/01/researchers-identify-command-servers-behind-google-attack.ars

From the article in this post: The previously unknown flaw in the IE browser was probably just one of the vectors used in the attacks .
I love the "probably"

Displaying an image on a computer screen is in no way novel, nor has it been for decades. Just because there's a CCD hooked up to the computer doesn't make it any more novel. There was a Supreme Court ruling a couple years ago on the obviousness test. In that decision Kennedy wrote "The results of ordinary innovation are not the subject of exclusive rights under the patent laws." This is an entirely ordinary innovation.

The premise is that China hacked Google to access the accounts of these Chinese Human rights activists. Given that Google already complies with Chinese law, why did China not openly contact Google over this?

Because the attack's targets go beyond the authority of their laws: a coordinated effort to target specific human rights advocates not just in China but around the world .

yes they want to change the US mind set, make every packet golden, like Australia, Nz.
The last gasp of a big rustbelt bell's and other telcos.
Start your own community efforts and by pass the evil telco with their living in "Australia" packet profits.
If your state has a ban, unban it :
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/01/municipal-fiber-needs-more-fdr-localism-fewer-state-bans.ars
Run for any local office, then move up your state political ladder, exposing the lock in and lock out of telco options :)
Name and shame the bribes, the theft and kickbacks, shine a bright light at the hidden telco lobby.

They can only sue you for money that you have

Really. Hmmm... $1.92 million verdict against Jammie Thomas-Rasset. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/06/jammie-thomas-retrial-verdict.ars

You really, really haven't been paying attention, have you?

Lemme guess: you think hotmail doesn't datamine. You think yahoo doesn't datamine. These companies think so little of their users' privacy that they treat their users' private email as if it were their own private billboard, and you think they don't datamine.

This is really stretching the "can be adequately explained by stupidity" half of the old dilemma, dude.