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Quote from where the parent linked to, link:

"new Office XML specifications are freely available for anyone to download and Microsoft offers perpetual, royalty-free licenses to use them"

If the format is efficient and simple enough to handle, this seems good enough for me. ofcourse Microsoft is hardly an independend organisation, and i think these kinds of standards should be from such a organisation. Is the ODF more independend?

Here is an other article on this: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060303-6313 .html It's a few days old though. (March 3rd)
Cheers!
~Allen

Actually, if you look closely, the average battery time is 3 minutes 17 seconds, because as the reviewer says, "Times in minutes and seconds"

There's some comments in the Ars Technica forum following the article which says that Spotlight indexes the data from your old machine, causing it to be a bit busy. Once that's over, you should be up to full speed (which they cite from the MacWorld review of a 2.0GHz MacBook Pro).

http://media.arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/macb ookpro.media/bench0.png
Wow! I wish I could get battery life like this on my laptop. All I can manage is a whole two minutes. This thing can get three!

Don't worry. It's just a conservation of positive attributes (assuming that's a real image of her).

As a side-side note, I found the benchmarks for the PowerMac dual 2.5 GHz G5's here, in a review for the iMac Core Duo.

Looks like they still have some bugs to work out, as the PowerBook G4 still outperforms the MacBook in some of the benchmarks.

MPAA speaker finds "choir" unreceptive.

To quote: "This is a room full of people whose living depends on this working. You're getting pushback to the point of hostility. If you can't sell this to us, how are you going to sell it to the target 16-45 demographic?"

Correct my if I am wrong, but doesn't shared memory mean that the CPU and the GPU will compete on access to the memory, making the bus a potential bottleneck? And as very much of the eye candy of OS X is done by the GPU, this is not something one wants, if I understand the ars technica article correctly.

http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/macosx-10.4.ars/ 13
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/macosx-10.4.ars/ 14

Correct my if I am wrong, but doesn't shared memory mean that the CPU and the GPU will compete on access to the memory, making the bus a potential bottleneck? And as very much of the eye candy of OS X is done by the GPU, this is not something one wants, if I understand the ars technica article correctly.

http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/macosx-10.4.ars/ 13
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/macosx-10.4.ars/ 14

So, thought these were basically the same, but I'm rooting for HD-DVD.

It's got managed copy required, not optional for movie companies. You are guaranteed to be able to make a copy to play around your house, stream etc. With the RIAA now saying listening to your CD's on your iPod is a violation of copyright, this is an important thing. This will also mean a consistent experience for folks buying disks.

http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/hardware/mi crosoft-hd-dvd.ars

Also important, while DRM in general tends to be very consumer unfriendly, Sony seems to play the unfriendliest of anyone in this space.

Rootkits, and everything proprietary. They had minidisk, memory stick, and Universal Media Disk, which of course only every played in sony products. They also seem to dislike apple for developing a simple easy to use music DRM solution, and so keep on dropping out of new itunes launches.

That all said, whose to say which will end up winning. If the retailers just retailed a single product it would solve things. As it is, probably best to hold of buying those HDTV sets and next gen DVD players. Some folks are going to be really burned by this.

Remember that the RIAA is already trying to push the idea that backup copies are not fair use.

As of last month, downrezzing over component was an optional restriction that was left up to the individual content providers, not an absolute requirement. Maybe that's changed within the past month, but since the Sci Fi article provides absolutely no source, I'm loath to uncritically accept their claims.

The [submitted arguments in favor of granting exemptions to the DMCA] provide no arguments or legal authority that making back up copies of CDs is a noninfringing use. In addition, the submissions provide no evidence that access controls are currently preventing them from making back up copies of CDs or that they are likely to do so in the future. Myriad online downloading services are available and offer varying types of digital rights management alternatives. For example, the Apple FairPlay technology allows users to make a limited number of copies for personal use. Presumably, consumers concerned with the ability to make back up copies would choose to purchase music from a service that allowed such copying. Even if CDs do become damaged, replacements are readily available at affordable prices. Similar to the motion picture industry, the recording industry has faced, in online piracy, a direct attack on its ability to enjoy its copyrights.

In Microsoft's case, I have never heard of a government agency requiring ordinary citizens (not contractors/vendors to the agency) to use Windows.

Uh, hello? Didn't you get the memo about FEMA's disaster-assistance web application form? You know, the one that requires you to use Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 (a Windows-only browser) in order to fill out the paperwork?

Microsoft is pushing both ATI and NVidia to move their Driver technology to allow for overlapping of the two operational modes, and also adding in virtualization of the GPU RAM space - the WDDM/LDDM that will ship with Vista, as it will be the first consumer OS that has a full time 3D accelerated accessible UI environment active.

Is Mac OS not a consumer OS? I guess "consumer OS" here means "spelled W-i-n-d-o-w-s".

Also by virtualizing the GPU RAM, Vista drivers (WDDM) are pushing the cards to pull off some interesting tricks, like pushing to System RAM lower priority applications Video, without out of memory considerations - Just like Virtual Memory on Hard Drive did years and years ago, and leaving a full 3D environment and 'appearance' of GPU RAM continually available to applications no matter how many remain active.

Hmm, sounds almost exactly like what Mac OS has been doing since last year.

Why would you need to make backups when replacements are readily available at affordable prices?

I am sorry, but I don't understand why that is a mis-statement or exaggeration.

Google has confirmed that they do in fact use Ubuntu internally (see link below) and Ubuntu is a collection of open source software (which is in fact, an understatement, if anything).

link: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060131-6087 .html

From the article:

'Google press relations office, technology spokeswoman Sonya Borälv responded very quickly to my query on the topic. She said that "[w]e use Ubuntu internally but have no plans to distribute it outside of the company."'

As for Shuttleworth, I've no doubt he is more charismatic than ESR and would likely make a better PR face for OSS than ESR, but is he ever actually mentioned out of context of Ubuntu? My point is that his recent publicity are mostly linked to Ubuntu, and not really other Linux/OSS related things.

Don't forget about the people who d/l it from kazaa or bittorrent?

Most Slashdot readers probably know about a pirated "corporate" version of Windows XP Pro that's widely available on peer-to-peer networks. This version's volume licensing (and no activation requirement) is what makes this pirated version easy to use by illegal downloaders.

For Vista, the only versions availabe through volume licensing (Business Edition and Enterprise Edition) are missing features that most pirates want (Media Center features and other goodies). The versions that pirates want (Home Premium and Ultimate) will require activation, so illegally downloaded copies of these versions will be a pain in the ass to use (in theory). Doesn't MS block "cracked" versions from downloading updates?

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060220-6224 .html

According to Ars Technica:

...if a Safari user has the "Open 'safe' files after downloading" option checked (which enables movies, images, music, text, PDF, and a few other automatic documents to be automatically opened upon completion of a download), a specially designed shell script can be executed. Normally, shell scripts will not be executed after Safari downloads them without user confirmation. However, if the script lacks a "shebang line" (e.g., #!/bin/csh) and the Finder is set to open scripts using Terminal, the Finder will pass the scripts to the Terminal application, where they will be executed.

No, the serious pirates can for example buy "magic box" from countries outside of DMCA/EUCD reach, that will decrypt HDMI signal using the weaknesses found in the HDCP before it even was implemented in a single device.

It will be just like someone at Ars Technica wrote: your HD player sometimes won't play your legal HD content on your computer or HDTV. But it will always play illegaly downloaded HD content from the Internet -- talk about shooting yourself in a foot.

Robert

There is no reason why you must enter this contract, but under our current legal code the only way to not enter the contract is not purchase and open the package.

Unfortunately I cannot currently afford a Mac, so I won't.

I'm amazed the people are still using this excuse.

New Mac Minis are $500.00. New. From Apple. With OS X and software. New. Not used. New. $500.00.

Here's arstechnica's take on the mini.

Is $500.00 too much to spend to be free of Windows and its associated trevails for good and all?

Okay. How about this one from 2002. And, I quote, "Quartz Extreme is Apple's name for the new GPU accelerated version of the Quartz Compositor."

Here are a few. Searched on "Windows Vista and Monitor and DRM" http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/12201 http://crn.com/sections/breakingnews/breakingnews. jhtml?articleId=167101066 http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/hardware/hd cp-vista.ars

Eye-candy: Microsoft is the first to use 3D graphics cards for the UI.

Gosh, that's got to be embarrassing for you.

From an old ars technica article, 15 vids (30-45 mins each) with MS programmers talking about and showing the system:
http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2006 /1/22/2614

the thing I like most about Vista (or what i've heard about Vista) is the new per-app volume control.

1. You seem to be using 'permissions-based file systems' to refer to the default permissions? And not to refer to the fact that the file system supports permissions of various levels. For instance, Windows ACLs permissions have finer granularity that Unix-style permissions (Tiger added support for ACL style permissions). Or am I misunderstanding?
2. So is opening a socket deemed to be a function call that requires administrative authorisation? I find it somewhat hard to believe that MSN Messenger, Fire, iChat etc all require you to authorise them with system permissions whenever they open a connection to a server or peer? (Mainly because I've used Messenger on OS X, and I don't remember it ever asking me for an admin password.)

So my point is, in case it's not clear, if you can get the user to run a program in this fashion, then the program can propogate across the internet without needing admin privileges?

You're exactly right. The number one named brand of 2005 defied the United States Government, risking all sorts of possible reprecussions just to get more recognition. Surely they're not actually trying to uphold their customers' trust... That would be ludicrous.

Why is that since you hold an unpopular opinion you have to adopt a victim mentality? Do you think that whining about being some downtrodden minority, on some nerd web page, is the way to highlight the 'merits' of your views? Yes- mod points are being misused to penalize people with different opinions. No one disagrees with this, but get the fuck over it; It's not going to change anytime soon.

It's just a web page; you're not being disenfranchised. Just go somewhere else. Shoo. Fuck off. Bye.

The 3rd technology has already emerged.

H.264 on standard DVD, with the upgrade path being ANY sort of higher capacity device.

That would be awsome, but will the popular content providers (controlled by MPAA and the like) release their content in hi-def H.264 without DRM restrictions that downgrade the resolution on non-HDCP outputs? If they do, will the studios allow set top DVD players to playback hi-def H.264 playback?

The current selection of popular titles in hi-def on DVD (to playback on computers, not set tops) is paltry and I don't see the selection expanding without software DRM (and OS requirements, like Vista) that restricts HD playback to HDCP devices. For example, since Terminator 2 Extreme Edition DVD with 1080p WMV HD was released in 2003, where are all the other popular titles? Now that Terminator 2's DRM has been cracked, I have a hard time believing the studios will trust any DRM that does not require HDCP and other restrictions built into the OS.

BTW, the output restrictions (requiring HDCP) built into Vista doesn't apply only to AACS (HD-DVD, Blu-Ray). It looks like it can be applied to any video content, including streaming downloads and H.264 on DVD. I predict popular content providers will restrict their hi-def content to OSs that have this DRM, like Vista and (I'm pretty sure) Tiger. I think the selection of HD on DVD content for legacy displays and OSs will be like today's selection of non-DRM legal music downloads.

It's hard to believe the major studios would not try to sell HD content to such a huge existing market. But with the Terminator 2 crack and the AACS fiasco (HD-DVD has been waiting for the spec to finalize), I think they probably are paranoid enough to require new hardware and software (including OS) for any HD content.

From the article:
An ATI representative said: "People will not be able to turn on HDCP through a software patch since the HDCP keys need to be present during the manufacturing. We are rolling out HDCP through OEMs at this time but we have not finalized our retail plans yet."

As I pressed for more information about potential retail plans (i.e. trade-in programs, whether existing boards already have traces for the HDCP hardware where it can be plugged in), I got only a vague response: "We cannot get into more detail at this time, as any further discussion would get into our trade secrets. However, we do promise to give you a full update on our retail plans once they are finalized."

I'm not going to speculate on whether ATI's reticence is because they're trying to downplay a big fiasco, or if they're trying to keep their super generous solution secret to throw off the competition. There's actually no way to know. Well, what about NVIDIA? They were actually very direct: "The boards themselves must be designed with an extra chip when the board is manufactured. The extra chip stores a crypto key, and you cannot retrofit an existing board after the board is produced."

It's everyone, not just ATI. Plenty of nVidia cards advertise it and don't have it. In fact, no video card in public release truely supports HDCP. So anyone who advertises it is lying.

While saying this might make me off-topic or flamebait, I suppose http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060215-6190 .html would make it (ripping our own cds) moot and academic.

This is off topic, but I'm wondering if there are legal issues when it comes to copying the content of web-pages. Recently a judge ruled that Google could not be held guilty for "direct infringement" of copyright, because such infringement requires "a volitional act by the defendant". While this might not be the case when Google caches web-pages, it is definitely volitional when a Slashdot user copy&pastes the content of a web-page. I guess there's no problem as long as nobody sues Slashdot, but, it is probably just a matter of time until either an American or German lawer decides to do so...

Steve, just promise me you won't break any chairs of fucking kill anyone when your little wet dream does not work any better than Xbox or tablet PCs.

the market has chosen features over minimalism (it always does, BTW). No matter how ridiculous it is to watch movies on a 4" screen, this is what consumers want and Microsoft answered a call while Palm actually tried to tell consumers that they actually would not want to do that.

PDA sales are in the dirt right now. I suspect it has something to do with a planned lack of choices outside expensive but underperforming WinCE machines and constantly breaking Windoze syncs. Those losers can't even get handwriting recognition right. Saying that Windoze mobile has won in a market like that is not saying much. They might have "won" but they did it by killing the market and it's not going to get any better till choice comes back.

Oh yeah, one more reason for poor sales is good devices. I'm still happily syncing my handspring visor with Kontact and KPilot and those programs continue to improve it's capabilities. Here's three cheers for marking contact birthdays in my calendar.

Not true for WMA DRM files See here

BTW, according to Ars Technica, AMD now sells 21.4% of all desktop and laptop CPUs worldwide. AMD's mobile chip sales have rising to 15.1 percent of the market.

AMD's Opertron architecture finally managed to cream Intel at just the right transitional period. AMD is now leading development rather than following. I find that to be a rather shocking turn of events, especially on Intel's own property. (x86)

In addition (correct me if I'm wrong here), Apple has made absolutely no move against those who have cracked the FairPlay DRM, such as the move that RealNetworks made a short while back.

You're wrong.

Does anyone have an idea as to how hard it would be to break the encryption scheme being placed on the next gen technology?

Have no fear, DVD-Jon is here.

That's funny. My car has two motors under the hood, and it uses them quite well. And it's front wheel drive.

As usual, if you want good CPU info, Ars Technica is the place to look. They have a blurb on Intel's 4-way core plans here.

Basically, they point out that Intel's dual core processors are already starved on the FSB, and loading two more cores isn't going to do very much. He seems to expect that, until Intel gets their FSB in order(which won't happen until 2008), AMD is going to stomp all over them. He says that Intel's cores are excellent, but without CSI (their new FSB), it may not matter much.

My own projection is that the extra contention may end up imposing a net speed _penalty_ for many workloads. That is, however, pure speculation from an amateur, based mostly on the dismal performance of the first dual-CPU G4 Macs.

$23.45? Ars Technica is saying the price will be from $23 to $39 for consumers, with newer releases tagged with the latter one. They'd better offer something major for me to be interested in paying that much.

Bring on the links! A favorite of mine-- Cable camera rig.

Sure, although trying to describe the level risks spoiling it a bit. But read the end of this link here, which is a review of the game:

http://arstechnica.com/reviews/games/tds.ars/4

In case you think that ars is a more credible source than cnn, heres some more along with an even more credible source. Anti-FUD is in fashion I see..

Ahh, but they are...

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060118-6008 .html

BusinessWeek: How concerned are you about Internet upstarts like Google (GOOG ), MSN, Vonage, and others?

SBC CEO Ed Whitacre: How do you think they're going to get to customers? Through a broadband pipe. Cable companies have them. We have them. Now what they would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain't going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it. So there's going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they're using. Why should they be allowed to use my pipes?

The Internet can't be free in that sense, because we and the cable companies have made an investment and for a Google or Yahoo! (YHOO ) or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes [for] free is nuts!

Hurrah - someone with research skills!

The actual rule:
http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/fedreg/final/200502017 6.htm
Obligation To Solicit Race and Gender Data for Agency Enforcement Purposes

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060207-6127 .html

Do you know what the OFCCP is? It is the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, and that little taste of bureaucratic alphabet soup is a part of the Department of Labor's Employment Standards Administration. The OFCCP's job is to ensure "that employers doing business with the Federal government comply with the laws and regulations requiring nondiscrimination." In essence, that makes the OFCCP one of the many departments that exist within the government to monitor activities and make sure things are done properly and fairly. A noble goal, to be sure, but the OFCCP has distinguished itself with a new rule going into effect this week regarding the tracking of those who apply for jobs on the Internet, and it may have repercussions for anyone using electronic means to search for a new career.