Slashdot Mirror

I was too lazy to try and find an amazing source for you, so I just used "I'm Feeling Lucky"...

http://education.zdnet.com/?p=2143

Also, you have google answer #2, which states some pretty low requirements for a new SKU:

http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/01/microsoft-to-google-we-already-offer-that-see-windows-live.ars

Also, here's a nice article to read on someone that actually contacted the UK MS office:

http://labs.vnunet.com/2009/02/windows-7-and-n.html

Nope, not very. There is an interesting story on Ars about the rise and fall and rise again of eBooks.

Interestingly, Safari OnLine (an O'Reiley site) doesn't mention this new initiative at all.

When someone offers you a give horse, it's sometimes wise to inspect it to make sure it's not a trojan horse.

Yes, I can just see the lines of linux users just queuing up in anxious trepidation waiting to be able to use Windows Media Video and Audio files on their beloved linux systems...

The day this article hit slashdot I said that the purpose for this was to insert Microsoft IP into Linux. People called me crazy. Well, we're here! Let's all get comfy in this brave new world, shall we?

Does anybody still trust Novell? Why?

Oh, and Windows Media Player is way cool, because it has the codecs for Plays For Now.

Silly me. I thought the price was $699.

They must have got a slamming discount for volume.

As some support for this position, Ars had a nice story on a game that is little other than art. Link

PCMark 2005 has been shown to yield wildly varying results for the nano depending on which CPU ID (CentaurHauls, GenuineAMD, AuthenticIntel) it is being presented with: http://arstechnica.com/hardware/reviews/2008/07/atom-nano-review.ars/6. Not surprisingly, if PCMark is made to think it is an Intel CPU, the benchmarks suddenly jump up across the board. Intel money buys good benchmarks.

I checked out the article at Ars because the name PearC bore a resemblance to PearPC (which itself reminds us of the CherryOS controversy, see the linked Wikipedia article).

It's important to note that PearC's business model is built upon a particular reading of German law, which will require the German authorities to weigh in on its correctness. That reading wouldn't apply outside of Germany.

Since each Chrome tab runs in a separate process, will users not be able to open several Chrome tabs?

Likewise for each plugin Chrome runs.

This article mentions that IE7 starts new processes when following a link from one "security zone" to another, and IE8 starts new processes for each tab. So MicroSoft will break their own browsers as well if your concern that applications and their processes[/threads?] differ has any weight :)

warrantless wiretaps of overseas calls

You must have missed this story:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/01/nsa-whistleblower-says-journos-were-targeted.ars

"The NSA had access to all Americans' communications: faxes, phone calls, and their computer communications," said Tice. "It didn't matter whether you were in Kansas in the middle of the country and you never made any foreign communications at all. They monitored all communications."

Oops this link didn't make it into my last post - must have messed up the HTML. Basically, a Microsoft representative is claiming that any edition of Windows 7 will be lightweight enough to run on a netbook (read: we are really canceling XP this time), however they will be marketing Starter Edition to the OEMs worldwide that want a low cost alternative.

The reason that Vista Starter Edition was never seen in US/Europe was because Microsoft would only license it for computers sold in developing countries. However, from what I've read, this time around Home Basic is going to be for developing countries only, while Starter Edition is going to be available to OEMs worldwide. The rational being that Windows (including Home Basic) is too expensive for small computers like netbooks, so Starter Edition will be the inexpensive alternative.

That said, I think it would be idiotic for anyone to sell a computer with Starter Edition on it, even a netbook, but Microsoft is making it an option this time, and business world doesn't have any shortage of idiots when it comes to cutting costs on products.

that 70% of Windows users have between eight and 15 windows open at any one time.

4. You would have thought a Slashdot poster would understand the difference between an application, a window, and a process. The limit appears to be process based, with no limit on application windows per process. From the Vista Starter Edition information (which I suspect will very closely resemble Windows 7 Starter Edition once finished):

With Windows Vista Starter, first-time home computer users can run up to three programs concurrently with no limit to the number of windows open.

This is not uncommon, for instance, Firefox will run all tabs and browsers under one process. If I'm running an e-mail client, I may well have numerous windows open, but all stemming from one process.

Make no mistake, Windows 7 Starter Edition is a thoroughly crippled operating system, I suspect will represent extremely poor value for money, is completely unnecessary in the product lineup, and ideally, should be dropped. However, this doesn't legitimise the usage of FUD (or bullshit, if you prefer) when discussing it.

Frankly, it's rubbish enough that FUD shouldn't be necessary in the first place.

"Microsoft's decision to limit Windows 7 Starter Edition to running only three concurrent applications could force up the price of netbooks as many manufacturers opt for the more expensive Home Premium.

This is a call to hackers everywhere to release a tool that will defeat this nonsense the moment Windows 7 is released.

Or let's all help improve KDE 4.2 so that we can do what ever we want on the Windows platform. I see that the start of KDE on Windows was not bad at all.

No. Once upon a time there was the Cyrix MediaGX; Cyrix merged with National Semiconductor, who rebranded the MediaGX as Geode, and subsequently sold the design to AMD.

The only involvement VIA had in the business was buying the Cyrix trademark and some of its IP from National. This IP supposedly helped them tremendously in getting Intel off its back. And VIA keeps happily doing business in the x86 world: C3, C7, and now x86-64 with the Nano.

Intel licensed a bunch of stuff to VIA after a legal battle some years ago.

here: http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2003/04/397.ars

The RIAA does in fact get armed thugs to forcibly break into people's houses: they're called marshals and police, and they're very good at ransacking houses and seizing personal property, and in general just taking orders from TPTB and not asking any critical questions.

My understanding is that they don't bust down your door, confiscate your computer, and search your house. Instead, there is a court order to turn over your hard drive: http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2006/10/8095.ars

It hardly matters that copyright is codified in the Constitution; it's not an infallible document, any more than the people who drafted it were infallible.

It's a starting point. The Constitution is widely regarding as a solid document. We have procedures to change it and the primary one is via the ballot box. If you think violence and murder are the way to enforce your views then you'll see just what a hellhole a country can become when everybody with their pet-peeve issue responds in kind. No doubt you'll be on somebody's list.

A few references for the broadcast coverage problems.
http://www.centris.com/pages/viewnews.aspx?newsID=34&SiteID=9
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26858298/
http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2008/11/fcc-oks-digital-workaround-for-dtv-signal-range-problems.ars

TV, like radio, is a way to get news out quickly to the population.

News like people have to get off their fat asses before a certain date to get a DTV converter, else they'll no longer get TV?

That is, IF they don't
a) have cable OR
b) don't have satellite

This reduces us to 19.5% of households, from 130 million US households (Census) to 25.3 million households (ABI Research via Ars Technica).

Figure 2.1 sets/household (again, Census), and the converter production should have been at least 54 million; not allowing for distribution inefficiencies and bad/broken converters.

The aforementioned Ars Technica article noted estimates (again, sourced from ABI Research) that 20% households will let one or all sets go dark, and 10% will switch to cable or satellite.

The remaining 70% either are ready, or will get in line for converters and antennas.

Yea I agree.

Microsoft's actions and strategy is based on their philosophy which is fairly Machiavellian. The problem is they have to compete, and work like crazy to try and convince/control people, that will believe what they want anyway.

It's the difference between blue ocean strategy or red ocean strategy. Nintendo recently took on the blue ocean strategy (red ocean because it runs red with blood from competition). And you can see that it's not really working for them.

Ars doesn't think the story is so ridiculous. http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/02/intel-is-shooting-for-playstation-4-but-has-it-scored.ars

A click-through license isn't really any different than a website's Terms of Service. Both are essentially contracts agreed to by clicking instead of signing. There is established precedent that violating a websites TOS amounts to computer hacking under federal law. Given that this software accesses network resources, violating its EULA may also expose you to federal computer hacking charges.

The only time when such a contract wouldn't be valid is when you don't have a chance to read the license before agreeing to it. e.g. shrink wrap licenses where the contract is not readable before opening the shrink wrap.

It would also be a helluva lot more successful if we could eliminate most of piracy.

Yes it would, but is it the most efficient business model? I don't know, but unless people try other models we'll never know. Oh hey look, people are and they are being successful, and their business models don't rely on checking or curbing piracy, which means they don't have to resort to more expensive litigation and DRM and "educational campaigns" that add to their costs but contribute nothing to their revenues.

I can also say that if we condone piracy, then we have a lot to lose.

Not so, if the business models moved to not only allow but perhaps even encourage piracy then we lose nothing and gain a lot. And that "would make distribution easier, benefiting publishers, the artists working for them, and especially, indie artists who can't survive piracy sapping their few profits." So I guess it does come down to business model issues. There are people out there right now experiment and changing their business models with great success to where they don't care if their stuff gets pirated and some even want their stuff on bittorrent.

Proving what? That pirates buy media?

Again you are missing the point on the piracy buying media thing. Did you read any of those articles? They don't say pirates buy media, they say pirates buy more media than the average media buyer. It might be because of guilt. It might be because they like to support those that create stuff they like. It might be that they pirate because they really like media more than others and thus of course are going to be spending more on that media. Does it matter why they do it? Perhaps, but as of right now, they buy more on average than non-pirates.

Also, it doesn't show guilt is in play. None of those studies showed that was the reason. They only reported on the findings that pirates buy more on average, not the reasons why. You are jumping to that conclusion and so the rest of that paragraph is useless conjecture at this point. I will venture a useless guess as well and say that people pirate because they love music/movies/games and because they love it they buy it, and because they've bought so much they can't afford to buy more, so by pirating they didn't cost any one a sale since they weren't going to buy it anyway. In short, they pirate because they bought so much they couldn't afford any more.

As a final note, I'd like to add that since your first comment in this thread you have not provided one source or link to back up anything you've said. On the other hand, I have given over a dozen links various websites, articles, studies, blog posts, artist forums, etc that backup my claims. I'll

It isn't the stations, and it isn't the consumers. It IS these people.

I'm sure R Gerard Salemme, AT&T, and Clearwire are very grateful for this decision.

I'm also sure they'll find some way to express that gratitude during the next Congressional campaign.

to any great extent, it was an article about someone who had cloned a passport, altered the data, and then tried the RFID on an airport reader, which showed the passport holder to be Elvis Presley.

The important part of course being that the personal data (not just an ID) can be altered. I have already discussed the problem with the encryption key.

Here is a link to an article about the prior data diddling that has been done:

http://arstechnica.com/security/news/2008/10/rfid-passport-hack-has-scanners-seeing-visions-of-elvis.ars

With very little effort you can find more information via Google, for example about the 45 signatory countries and the difficulty of not having them all aboard. That's how I found out about the situation... a few minutes with Google.

Again, though, you're talking a matter of interpretation, not of the letter of the law. Compare this with how Lexmark's DMCA case was struck down. They developed software to prevent other software other toner refills from being used in their products.

Furthermore, the court noted that even if these programs were copyrightable, SCC's copying of protected portions of the work would likely still enjoy fair use protections, because the courts have ruled that "fair use doctrine preserves public access to the ideas and functional elements embedded in copyrighted computer software programs." Additionally, while the court ruled that the Toner Loading Program is not copyrightable, it agreed that the Printer Engine Program was a copyrighted work. However, the argument that SCC's Smartek chip provided unauthorized access to the Printer Engine Program was dismissed on the basis that it was the consumers' purchase of the printer that established such access, and the program in question was freely available to read electronically in memory. SCC's actions thus constitute a legal replacement of Lexmark's Toner Loading Program.

Emphasis mine. This really does seem a pretty direct parallel. The main difference I see here is in the printer being a piece of hardware and WoW being software only. However, it could be strongly argued that the consumer purchases the WoW software (just like it purchases a printer with driver software) and only pays the monthly fee for continued access.

The Warden client should never have been considered copyrightable, unless you think the Lexmark case is a bad decision. As it stands, they're not really in sync.

But again, you kept making it out as black and white and acting like I wasn't agreeing with the law. I hope at least I've shown that the law is far from black and white and a good percentage of it is opinion. Some people expressing their opinion just happen to wear long black robes.

South Koreans consume LOTS of bandwidth just watching "broadcasting" and films/"pirated" DVDs. Probably there is little crackdown on at least the piracy of DVDs and related material because ultimately sales downstream probably depend upon or are enhanced by it. Plus, in the South, there are seriously dedicated gamers who'd probably put to shame just about any of the rest of the world.

The Bandwidth Capital of the World
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.08/korea.html

Korea Broadband Archives (12)
http://www.websiteoptimization.com/bw/broadband/korea/

Who Wants To Watch Full Length Movies On Their Mobile Phones?
http://techdirt.com/articles/20080401/105208716.shtml

south korea, bandwidth
http://www.zdnetasia.com/tags/south-korea+bandwidth/

Until and unless US bandwidth consumers need or demand higher speed and quality and demand it for reasonable (to consumer, not to the execs/investors or excessive R&D or boondoggling) pricing, people here will just shrug it off.

Afterall, don't forget:

Two-thirds of Americans without broadband don't want it
http://arstechnica.com/telecom/news/2009/01/two-thirds-of-americans-without-broadband-dont-want-it.ars

Most Americans without broadband don't want it
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/23/poll_most_without_broadband_dont_want_it/

(Captcha: maleness)

Hell, Microsoft ist selling non-resellable OEM copies without media now, as well as several versions of Windows designed to only work on the first computer they are installed on, codified in the so-called license. Have fun.

Yet another reason people should ditch Microsoft and their appalling excuse for a operating system.

Letting a private company own your ways of communication and expression is pure stupidity. In doing so you allow that company to ruin your work and intrude upon your life.

http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2007/07/microsoft-patents-the-mother-of-all-adware-systems.ars

If they wanted to do that, they wouldn't be so stupid as to make it an extension that's clearly visible in the Firefox preferences.

After some recent events, I'm starting to suspect that Microsoft may indeed be stupid.

Correct. The only activation limit on the retail copy is that you can only activate online the first five times. After that, you call the automated phone line. You say your product key, wait 5 seconds, and have the activation code read back to you. Doing it by phone isn't hard at all; it's even toll free.

Microsoft was going to limit the number of activations ("device transfers"), but they made it unlimited again because of all of the pissed off consumers (I was one such person).

Correct. The only activation limit on the retail copy is that you can only activate online the first five times. After that, you call the automated phone line. You say your product key, wait 5 seconds, and have the activation code read back to you. Doing it by phone isn't hard at all; it's even toll free.

Microsoft was going to limit the number of activations ("device transfers"), but they made it unlimited again because of all of the pissed off consumers (I was one such person).

It is Clearwire that has a vested interest in this delay. They are attempting to roll out WiMax service to compete with the broadband 4G service Verizon is planning to offer on the freed up analog frequencies.

And guess which company one of the executives on Obama's DTV transition team works for? That's right, Clearwire...

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/01/4g-war-conflict-of-interests-loom-behind-possible-dtv-delay.ars

This is a space that I've observed for a long long time. I can assure you that if anyone ever gets even remotely close to a replacement for Outlook against an Exchange server (or Exchange against an Outlook client), Microsoft will change the APIs so fast your head will spin off and fly away.

MAPI, AD and such are PROPRIETARY protocols folks, and Microsoft knows they are the keys to the kingdom. That's why all the Exchange clients ever created work ok at the start, but before they can really get going they fall back several steps.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1064

http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2007/12/antitrust-pact-payoff-samba-gets-protocols-from-microsoft.ars

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13580_3-9836784-39.html

http://news.samba.org/announcements/pfif/

You are quite a bit out of date with that thought.

Every PC that I own has at least one game on it, and all but one PC that my employer owns has a warehouse management application written in Access+VBA.

Every PC that I own has dozens, if not hundreds of games on it.

My employer's in-house apps are pretty much pure Java these days, and run just fine on Linux.

Oh, and Access+VBA apps tend to run just fine on WINE. If not, well, there's always the RDP/Citrix etc. option for those handful of cases. Not a major issue.

With no games, and nothing like Netflix, I assume.

No streaming Netflix video. Is that a crucial part of your entertainment?

With no niche apps, I assume.

None that don't work just fine.

Until the camera maker or Apple leaves Linux users without compatibility by implementing a custom connection protocol that works only with proprietary clients for Windows and Mac OS X. Apple has already been doing this by DMCAing the reverse engineers trying to talk to the new iPod.

<shrug>. Now you're just trying to invent issues that don't even exist.

And *I* might point out that a very important application to me, kphotoalbum, does not yet exist on Windows in any usable form. There is no other app that doesn't cost significant money that handles large photo databases as well.

Were I to switch to Windows, I'd have to keep a Linux (or *BSD) box around just for that.

Not to mention the fact that all of the apps I'd need to buy for Windows to achieve the same basic level of functionality Linux gives me would costs thousands of dollars.

Whether or not the apps are there depends on your needs, and unless your needs are for games or for niche applications (e.g. custom in-house corporate apps), Linux has got everything now.

Every PC that I own has at least one game on it, and all but one PC that my employer owns has a warehouse management application written in Access+VBA.

I'm on my computer nearly every hour I'm awake. I use it as my entertainment center

With no games, and nothing like Netflix, I assume.

my workspace

With no niche apps, I assume.

And for the vast majority of people who really only use e-mail and chat, browse the web, download photos from their camera, put music on their iPod, etc., Linux has them covered and has for years.

Until the camera maker or Apple leaves Linux users without compatibility by implementing a custom connection protocol that works only with proprietary clients for Windows and Mac OS X. Apple has already been doing this by DMCAing the reverse engineers trying to talk to the new iPod.

Right now I'm in a market for a 15" MBP to replace a PPC Powerbook but the glossy screen is preventing me from purchasing it.

Anti-glare covers only about $35 and might do the job, but Techrestore is offering a $199 matte screen swap for the 15" MBP. Here's the arstechnica article.

Somebody clever will start offering a mail-in service for people to get eyeglass-quality anti-glare coatings applied to their Macbooks. It's not going to be cheap as a retrofit, though.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/01/techrestore-offering-matte-conversion-for-15-macbook-pro.ars

[citation provided]

Eircom adapts this voluntarily.

Reminds me of the speed cameras - after years, just as the UK discovers that speed cameras do essentially nothing for road safety, Ireland plans to hand out a license to private companies to get hundreds installed.

I hate some of the stuff on this Island.

Plausible deniabiliity kinda like this? If the RIAA put the lawyers on that case, it could be assumed that a paper thin defense like that wouldn't stand up in court.

Basically they are suggesting that the WiMax people are lobbying Congress to delay the switch to DTV.

Their rival, Verizon, cannot deploy Verizon's 4G Long-Term Evolution wireless broadband network until the spectrum is freed up by the elimination of analog TV signals. The longer the delay, the more market penetration for WiMax, and the more trouble for Verizon.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2008/12/fcc-oks-analog-nightlight-rules.ars

That's it. I'm so sick of these companies I'm going to get ClearWire, I don't care if it's slower at least it's independent and not in bed with the Government/RIAA.

Doesn't Sprint basically own Clearwire?

Lets see (googling).

"It's official. Sprint and ClearWire are combining their WiMAX business to form a new joint venture. Sprint will have 51 percent ownership, ClearWire 27 percent, and new investors Intel Capital, Time Warner Cable, Bright House, Google, and Comcast will own 22 percent."

he's a mac user anyway ...

"The aim of the KDE project for the 4.0 release is to put the foundations in place for future innovations on the Free Desktop. The many newly introduced technologies incorporated in the KDE libraries will make it easier for developers to add rich functionality to their applications, combining and connecting different components in any way they want."

From the 4.0 beta 4 release notes. Apparently someone forgot that paragraph in the final notes, but it still stands.
Anyone who actually cared at the time, and was looking over things, playing with pre-release versions, looking over blogs, actually listening to what people were saying, it was said countless times. One KDE developer joked it was the 'eat your children' release.

Even in the KDE keynote address (at the launch event, available online), they talked about how it was more of a foundational release.

Several months later, they officially countered many of the points being put forth about KDE 4.0 and 4.1.

People are happy enough to complain, but people, including KDE developers, were talking about this for months in advance of KDE 4.0's release, and after. It's been widely expected that KDE 4.2 would be the 'proper' release for a long while.

It's not that KDE fanboys, or developers (I'm neither) have revisionist history, it's that some people who'd prefer to argue or complain after the fact, weren't paying attention or conveniently develop amnesia.

Who was expecting the KDE folks to pull a magical perfect fully functional release, all of a sudden out of their collective arses, concurrently with KDevelop, KOffice, Amarok, and other software versions, when they had to rewrite major portions to take full advantage of Qt 4.4? KDE 4.0 was internally in development for over two years. It took them a scant year to circle the wagons after a "we're eating children and releasing early to sync up with third parties and make it possible to develop against more conveniently" release to make a stable user-oriented version. Big deal. According to other posts and snarky comments on Slashdot, it's taking Windows 7 3 years (with no development libraries or early previews to target as an average developer, until Beta 1 SDK released, concurrently with Beta 1 itself) to release an annoying graphical update to Windows Vista. People tend to be 'slightly' overreacting and skewing for their own fan base there as well.

KDE 3.5.10 was released just this last August (2008). I'm not saying that 4.0 or 4.1 was a great idea, just that it was sensible from their point of view, and warned about in a copious manner. It's fairly unbelievable that people would freak out -that- badly if they weren't interested enough about the software or desktop environment to read anything surrounding the event, including previews, beta notes, statements from individual developers, color commentary from the peanut gallery, or much of anything else.

When KDE 3.0 was released, did every possible feature and customization for 2.x somehow survive immediately? People used to be more on the fence until a few releases in.

I bet that by the time KDE 4.3 is released (currently scheduled for July), it won't even matter that everyone was so eager to complain about the developer versions when the stable version (3.5) was still available, worked, was maintained, and could easily be installed side-by-side.

Even if, somehow, you were confused about the nature of KDE 4.0 or 4.1, no one was holding a gun to your head to force

Hey, now that KDE has been ported to Windows, you just have to wait for KDE to look like you like!

When they finally do it, instead of shutting off all analog signal they need to make every station in the country broadcast a repeating message for a week explaining what happened and giving instructions plus a phone # to call for more details. That's about the only way to limit the number of angry phone calls that everyone from the electric companies to the stores that sold the remote controls will get.

There is supposed to be a 30-day analog "night light", along these lines at least according to the Feb. 17 turn-off plan. Not sure what the deal is if they push the cut-off to June.

I don't disagree that the connections to Clearwire and WiMAX smells fishy, but important to note here is that Verizon has changed its original stance and is now supporting a DTV delay, so maybe the LTE rollout wasn't as ready as they'd have hoped.

http://arstechnica.com/media/news/2009/01/verizon-does-180-says-it-now-supports-a-dtv-delay.ars

Personally, I think the bandaid just needs to be ripped off. The same idiots that aren't ready, won't be ready.

When the analog signals turn-off, the digital signals move into the former space. So for example, when WBAL-11 turns-off their analog channels, it will immediately be replaced by WBAL-DT-11.

How do you explain the channels that are already broadcasting in both formats then?

There will be no way for an analog station to exist after the 2/17 cutoff, because a "new tenant" has already moved-in and filled the space.

Are you sure about that?