Slashdot Mirror

seriouslywtf writes in with a look at the current state of the question: will people eventually be able to run Mac OS X in a virtual machine, either on the Mac or under Windows? Ars Technica has articles outlining the positions of two VM vendors, Parallels and VMWare. Both have told Ars unequivocally that they won't enable users to virtualize OS X until Apple explicitly gives them the thumbs up. First, Parallels: "'We won't enable this kind of functionality until Apple gives their blessing for a few reasons,' Rudolph told Ars. 'First, we're concerned about our users — we are never going to encourage illegal activity that could open our users up to compromised machines or any sort of legal action. This is the same reason why we always insist on using a fully-licensed, genuine copy of Windows in a virtual machine — it's safer, more stable, fully supported, and completely legal.'" And from VMWare: "'We're very interested in running Mac OS X in a virtual machine because it opens up a ton of interesting use cases, but until Apple changes its licensing policy, we prefer to not speculate about running Mac OS X in a virtualized environment,' Krishnamurti added."

Sweet Harmony writes "ArsTechnica is reporting that the European Union may soon require online music stores to accept returns. A review of European consumer protection laws has highlighted online sales of 'digital content services' as an area where existing consumer protection laws need to be harmonized. 'The EC would like to standardize cooling-off periods along with other aspects of the EU's consumer protection laws. One of the issues being considered is whether the rules on consumer sales should apply to 'digital content services' like music.'"

Clant writes "Google has been accused of benefiting from certain piracy websites because of the Adsense program, according to reports. Several major media companies have called on Google to properly screen their AdSense partners and stop supporting sites that are benefiting from piracy. 'Legal filings show that Google worked with EasyDownloadCenter.com and TheDownloadPlace.com from 2003 to 2005, generating more than $1.1 million in revenue for the sites through the AdSense program. Google reportedly noticed the amount of traffic and advertising served by the two websites and assigned them an account representative to help optimize their efforts.'"

rwven writes "In the October firmware update to the Xbox 360, Microsoft added the capability for their new console to reach the coveted 1080 resolution. EA and Sega have both announced new titles that will reach that resolution, the first for the system. They're not the most visually intense games (NBA Street Homecourt, and Virtua Tennis 3), but this is another symptom of the tight race between all three consoles. Does this change the playing field at all between Sony and Microsoft?" Moreover, does the resolution of a title matter all that much to you yet? Do you have an HDTV that can even reach 1080p? If you do, does reaching 1080p make you more likely to buy a game?

Crouch and hold writes "Are closed DRM schemes like FairPlay more secure than interoperable ones? Based on the number of cracks, it doesn't look like it. 'When it comes to DRM, what history actually teaches us is that one approach is no more secure than the other in practice, as they relate to the keeping of secrets. Windows Media DRM has had fewer security breaches than Apple's FairPlay, yet WM DRM is licensed out the wazoo: there are more than a dozen companies with WM DRM licenses.'"

VE3OGG writes "Debbie Foster, one of the many caught-up in the RIAA's drift-net attacks who was sued back in 2004 has recently seen yet another victory. After having the suit dropped against her "with prejudice" several months back, Foster filed a counter-claim, and has just been awarded "reasonable" attorney's fees. Could this, in conjunction with cases such as Santangelo, show a turning of the tide against the RIAA?"

Via Ars Technica's Opposable Thumbs blog, and their commentary on the device, a review of the first Wii mod chip at the MaxConsole site. The review offers step-by-step instructions for putting it in place, and then rates the resulting options opened up by the device. Most interestingly the chip is apparently updateable via a DVD, allowing for new functionality to be released for as time goes on. At $50 and with just a little soldering to get in place, the Wii CycloWhiz sounds like a great deal for anyone looking to do some outside-the-box thinking with Nintendo's console.

An anonymous reader writes "According to Ars Technica Seagate has unveiled a new portable drive that fits in the palm of your hand and has a 20GB capacity, but most importantly features Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity. It's called DAVE, which stands for Digital Audio Video Experience and it lets you stream music, videos and other data to your mobile. It can also interact with a variety of other devices, such as PDAs, laptops, PCs and cameras, making it perfect for transferring data from your phone to another device or vice versa." Update: 02/02 14:06 GMT by Z : Indeed, you may have enjoyed our recent discussion on this technology. Feel free to draw from it for another round of portable-cell-drive-related conversation.

Umaga's Purse writes "Will ISPs still be able to throttle BitTorrent traffic now that a significant proportion of it is legit? It's a tough question, especially for ISPs like AT&T (which agreed to run a neutral network in order to gain approval for its merger with BellSouth from the FCC). It's not just a problem for AT&T, though: 'ISPs that have made no such agreements may not need to worry about BitTorrent taking over their networks, but they do need to wrestle with the issue of how to handle it now that so many legal uses of the protocol are available. Do they want to irritate their BitTorrent-using contingent, or let BitTorrent flow unhindered at the risk degrading the experience of those who don't download torrents?'"

Hippie Hippie Shake writes to mention that Google has just lost the right to use the name 'Gmail' in Europe, according to the EU. "Daniel Giersch, a German-born 32-year old entrepreneur, has just announced that his company received a positive ruling last week from the Harmonization Office supporting his claim that "Gmail" and his own "G-mail" are confusingly similar. G-mail is a German service that provides a "gmail.de" email address, but also allows for a sort of "hybrid mail" system in which documents can be sent electronically, printed out by the company, and delivered in paper format to local addresses." It looks like "Google Mail" from here on out, at least in the Old Country."

Ars Technica's Opposable Thumbs blog links to a piece chock full of gaming history. The StarCraft Legacy site offers up a historical record of the evolution of StarCraft . Written back in 2004, it is still relevant today. A game title that, lo these many years later, not only has an avid cult following but may be the most popular sport in South Korea is something you want to keep in mind. We may even hear word of a sequel this year. The piece runs down the numerous changes the game underwent, from the ugly alpha days through to the upheaval of Brood War (damned Lurkers). Tidbits like this make the article well worth checking out: "The game made a weak first impression at [E3], and it received much criticism. There were many remarks that the game looked too much like 'Orcs in space.' When Blizzard came back from E3 that year, they decided to scrap the idea. Their decision? 'Let's step it up a little more, let's revamp the engine, let's do more than what we're showing. We can't do Orcs in space.' Thus, StarCraft was reborn. The basics of the Warcraft II engine were still used, but more work was being put into the design and programming."

As cranky as IT folks are about having to roll out new Vista installs, support them, update them, etc, gamers are matching them in irritation. Ars Technica recommends you dual-boot XP and Vista if you want to keep gaming on your PC. Voodoo Extreme explores Vista's crappy audio setup, while Computer and VideoGames reports that some small developers think Vista will ruin PC gaming (a comment we've heard before). C&VG does have a slightly more hopeful article up too, talking about the future of Vista gaming and what the new OS could mean for games ... once all the kinks are worked out.

kapaopango writes "Ars Technica is reporting that upgrade versions of Windows Vista Home Basic, Premium, and Starter Edition cannot be installed on a PC unless Windows XP or Windows 2000 is already installed. This is a change from previous versions of Windows, which only required a valid license key. This change has the potential to make disaster recovery very tedious. The article says: 'For its part, Microsoft seems to be confident that the Vista repair process should be sufficient to solve any problems with the OS, since otherwise the only option for disaster recovery in the absence of backups would be to wipe a machine, install XP, and then upgrade to Vista. This will certainly make disaster recovery a more irritating experience.'"

Beckham's_Ponytail writes to mention an Ars Technica article, with some disturbing news out of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Vint Cerf, one of the 'fathers of the internet', has stated that the number of botnets online is larger than believed. So large, in fact, that he estimates that at this point one in four computers is infected with botnet software. We've discussed the rise of botnets numerous times here on Slashot, but the image of 150 million infected computers is more than a little bit sobering. With the extremely lucrative activities that can be done with botnets (such as password ripping, spamming, DDoSing), as well as reports of organized crime adopting 'cyber-terrorism' as a new line of income, is it likely that law enforcement will ever be able to curb this particular bane?

seriouslywtf writes "The AACS LA, those responsible for the AACS protection used by HD DVD and Blu-ray, has issued a statement claiming that AACS has not been compromised. Instead, they blame the implementation of AACS on specific players and claim that the makers of those players should follow the Compliance and Robustness Rules. 'It's not us, it's them!' This, however, does not appear to be the entire truth. From the Ars Technica article: 'This is an curious accusation because, according to the AACS documentation reviewed by Ars Technica, the AACS specification does not, in fact, account for this attack vector. ... We believe the AACS LA may be able to stop this particular hack. While little is truly known about how effective the key revocation system in AACS is, in theory it should be possible for the AACS LA to identify the players responsible for the breach and prevent later pressings of discs from playing back on those players until they are updated. As such, if the hole can be patched in the players, the leak of volume keys could be limited to essentially what is already on the market. That is, until another hole is found.'"

flyhalf writes "A new report says that hybrid players will force an early end to the HD DVD/Blu-ray format wars. Some of the projections seem optimistic: $200 hybrid players by 2009 and several manufacturers cranking them out. But reality will likely be different: 'standalone units of any format aren't selling terribly well. Recent research determined that 695,000 consumers owned either a Blu-ray or HD DVD player, but most of those are tied to a console — 400,000 of the 425,000 Blu-ray players sold by the end of 2007 were PlayStation 3s and 150,000 of the 270,000 HD DVD players were Xbox 360 add-ons.' Most importantly, consumers aren't early adopters: 'DVD players needed over a decade to supersede the VCR in the living rooms of the United States and there is little reason to believe that HD DVD and Blu-ray player adoption will outpace that of the DVD.'"

Bangor writes "Google is planning to turn Google Video into a search index of all the world's available video online. The change will see YouTube becoming Google's only platform for user-generated video and premium content sales, and Google said that YouTube content would be immediately added to the Google Video search index. The company plans to expand that to eventually include all video online. From the article: 'The company said that they 'envision most user-generated and premium video content being hosted on YouTube,' which clearly suggests that the Google Video storefront will eventually give way to YouTube.'"

seriouslywtf writes "Europe is upping the pressure on Apple to open up its restrictive DRM that ties iTunes to the iPod. Norway ruled last year that the iPod-iTunes tie-in was unreasonable and gave Apple a deadline to make a change to its policies, but was unsatisfied with the response they got. Now France and Germany have joined forces with Norway, making it a lot harder for Apple to just walk away from those markets. From the article: 'France's consumer lobby group, UFC-Que Choisir, and Germany's Verbraucherzentrale are now part of the European effort to push Apple into an open DRM system, with more countries considering joining the group. However, the company has been under some fire over the last year due to those restrictions, first with France and then Denmark looking to open up restrictive DRM schemes (including, but not limited to iTunes) ... Norwegian consumer groups were unimpressed by Apple's response. Norway has now given Apple a new deadline of September of this year to change its policies, and the pressure on Apple will likely grow in the months leading up to the deadline.'"

seriouslywtf writes "The Center for Public Integrity (CPI) wants to access data from the FCC on broadband subscriptions in various parts of the US, but the FCC won't hand it over. Why? Because the FCC thinks giving the CPI the data will give a competitive advantage to the other broadband companies. The FCC says everything is fine and has generated reports saying nothing needs to be done. From the article: 'But the agency's methods for generating these reports have come under scrutiny, and CPI wants to take a look for itself. When talking about broadband deployment, for instance, the FCC says that any particular ZIP code has broadband access if even a single cable or DSL connection exists there. It also classes "broadband" as anything above 200kbps — a woefully low standard for any true broadband connection.'"

Second five-eighth writes "The Amiga is alive and sort of well (you can get the OS, but not the hardware), and Ars Technica has a review of the final version of AmigaOS 4. New features include limited memory protection, 3D display drivers, an improved suite of applications (the bounty for porting Mozilla to AmigaOS has yet to be claimed), and much better 680x0 emulation. Perhaps most telling, the reviewer was able to move his daily writing workflow from Windows XP to AmigaOS 4.0: 'Not only was it possible to do this, but having done so I feel no urge to switch back. It is nice to not have any distractions when working — there is no waiting for the system to swap out when switching between major applications, no constant reminders for updates or to download new virus definitions and even if the worst happens and the system locks up, it takes only seven seconds to reboot and get back to a functional desktop.'"

a_nonamiss writes "Doesn't look like Sirius and XM are going to merge any time soon. I'm not sure how I feel about this one. Logically, I know that competition is a good thing for consumers, and monopolies are generally only good for companies. Still, I don't like having to choose a car based on which satellite radio service comes pre-installed, or considering whether I'd rather have Howard Stern or Oprah, because there is no practical way to get both. Frankly, it's probably all this exclusivity that has caused me not to purchase either system." From the article: "Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin told reporters after an FCC meeting that the Commission would not approve a merger between satellite radio rivals Sirius and XM Radio... When the FCC initially licensed the two satellite radio companies in 1997, there was language in the licensing barring one from acquiring control of the other... Even if the FCC were to have a change of heart..., it would still have to pass antitrust scrutiny by the Department of Justice."

Aryabhata writes "Ars Technica reports on a survey by investment firm J.P. Morgan Securities, stating that Google Checkout has had a relatively quick and modest market penetration of six percent since its launch in June of 2006, but lags behind in customer satisfaction vs PayPal. On the customer satisfaction front, only 18.8 percent reported having a 'good' or 'very good' experience with Google Checkout, while 81.2 percent indicated a fair to poor experience customer experience compared to PayPal's 44.2 percent reporting good experiences. Some users have reported anecdotally that Google Checkout mistakenly canceled sales without warning or that the checkout process took too long."

Loosehead Prop writes "A U.K. startup called Streamburst has a novel idea: selling downloadable video with watermarks instead of DRM. The system works by adding a 5-second intro to each download that shows the name of the person who bought the movie along with something like a watermark: 'it's not technically a watermark in the usual sense of that term, but the encoding process does strip out a unique series of bits from the file. The missing information is a minuscule portion of the overall file that does not affect video quality, according to Bjarnason, but does allow the company to discover who purchased a particular file.' The goal is to 'make people accountable for their actions without artificially restricting those actions.'"

If, back in the day, you ever wondered why your old Super Nintendo tended to discolor, your curiosity will now be sated. Via Ars Technica's Opposable Thumbs blog, an article on the Vintage Computing and Gaming site which explains the mysteries of plastic discoloration. From the article: "Since ... different batches of plastics had ... different aging results ... then there must have been a difference of additives between them. Perhaps in one of the production runs of plastic, they didn't get the catalyst or flame retardant mixture quite right and more residues were left over in the top half's plastic batch, thus causing it to degrade more rapidly over time. And by the time Nintendo produced the later runs of Super Nintendos, they had perfected the manufacturing process of their plastic, meaning that those later models aren't as susceptible to oxidation as the earlier models are."

Ars Technica reports that the first HD DVD movie has made its way onto BitTorrent, showing that current DRM efforts to prevent illegal sharing of copyrighted content are still futile and fighting an uphill battle. From the article: "The pirates of the world have fired another salvo in their ongoing war with copy protection schemes with the first release of the first full-resolution rip of an HD DVD movie on BitTorrent. The movie, Serenity, was made available as a .EVO file and is playable on most DVD playback software packages such as PowerDVD. The file was encoded in MPEG-4 VC-1 and the resulting file size was a hefty 19.6 GB."

Several readers wrote in to tell us that the open source media software development company Fluendo has announced plans to sell native Linux implementations of proprietary video codecs such as Windows Media, MPEG-2, and MPEG-4. (Press release here.) From the article: "Currently, many Linux video applications facilitate Windows Media video playback using Windows DLL files and Wine, which provides suboptimal performance, particularly with streaming video. Fluendo's codecs could potentially provide better integration for streaming Windows Media playback in Linux web browsers as well as through GStreamer-based desktop applications like Totem."

shadowmage13 writes "Hollywood privately admits that DRM is not really about piracy. From the article: 'In a nutshell: DRM's sole purpose is to maximize revenues by minimizing your rights so that they can sell them back to you... Like all lies, there comes a point when the gig is up; the ruse is busted. For the movie studios, it's the moment they have to admit that it's not the piracy that worries them, but business models which don't squeeze every last cent out of customers.' You can take action on Digital Restrictions Management at DefectiveByDesign of the Free Software Foundation, Digital Freedom, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation."

JAFSlashdotter writes "If you enjoy MP3 or OGG streams of internet radio, it's time to pay attention. This week U.S. Senators Lamar Alexander, Joseph Biden, Dianne Feinstein, and Lindsey Graham decided to reintroduce the 'Platform Equality and Remedies for Rights Holders in Music (PERFORM) Act'. An Ars Technica article explains that PERFORM would restrict our rights to make non-commercial recordings under the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992, and require satellite and internet broadcasters to use 'technology to prevent music theft'. That means goodbye to your favorite streaming audio formats, hello DRM. The EFF said pretty much the same when this bill last reared its ugly head in April of 2006. It's too soon to get the text of this year's version (S.256) online, but it likely to resemble last year's S.2644, which is available through Thomas."

Gr88pe writes "The One Laptop Per Child product has clarified that they have not made a decision on whether or not to carry out a consumer release of the XO laptop, despite previous reports. From the article: 'OLPC told Ars Technica in a statement that the company has no plans for a consumer version of the laptop. "Contrary to recent reports, One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) is not planning a consumer version of its current XO laptop, designed for the poorest and most remote children in the world," said Nicholas Negroponte, OLPC chairman.' They are considering a number of plans, but have made no formal decision."

alexwcovington writes "CBC reports that AMD is launching DTX, a new motherboard layout about the size of micro-ATX. Their goal is to provide a small, energy efficient board that's compatible with as much hardware as possible. In the DTX, they're hoping to produce a new standard for desktops, and somewhat reverse the decline in consumer interest. From the article: 'Most desktops still have motherboards that operate using a standard laid out in 1995 by Intel called ATX, which stands for Advanced Technology Extended. ATX was designed to allow everything from memory cards to mouse ports to have a standardized spot alongside the central processing unit on a typical desktop motherboard. While there have been other standards since, ATX remains the most common standard for desktops, though its design is not suited for smaller, more energy-efficient desktops, AMD said.' Ars Technica has further details on the board."

parvenu74 writes "Arstechnica is running an article pointing out that while some pockets of the entertainment industry are experimenting with DRM-free distribution, Apple Inc, which announced that they have now sold over 2,000,000,000 songs on iTunes, is now the strongest pro-DRM force in digial media. From the article: 'DRM is dying. It's a statement being echoed with increasing frequency around the Web over the last few weeks, and is perhaps best articulated in this Billboard article. But there's a powerful force standing in the way of this DRM-free panacea, and it might not be the one you expect: Apple, Inc.'"

Flag waver writes "Senator John Sununu (R-NH) will introduce legislation that will prevent the FCC from creating technology mandates for the consumer electronics industry. As a result, the FCC would be hamstrung in its efforts to revive the broadcast flag. '"The FCC seems to be under the belief that it should occasionally impose technology mandates," Sununu said in a statement. "These misguided requirements distort the marketplace by forcing industry to adopt agency-blessed solutions rather than allow innovative and competitive approaches to develop."' Sen. Sununu previously tried without success to remove the broadcast flag provisions from the massive telecommunications bill that died before reaching the Senate floor during the last Congress."

The upcoming release of Guitar Hero II for the Xbox 360 has fans of the unique rhythm game very much excited. Ars Technica's Opposable Thumbs blog has a look at the additional songs that are to be included with the release. They also point out that downloadable tracks will be available right away at launch, with more slated for later this year. For some hands on impressions of the new version of this old favorite, Chris Kohler over at Game|Life can help us out: "I'll just stick with this version of GHII when it ships in March. It'll contain ten new songs, five of which were announced today (below) and two of which will have to be unlocked. But the real draw is the possibility of downloadable songs later. They're coming, but they haven't been announced yet. I've always said that this is the kind of microtransaction I wholeheartedly support. Well, depending on how much the tracks cost, I mean. As long as they're still microtransactions and not macrotransactions, Activision and I are good."

In yet more displays of solidarity with the creator of Super Columbine Massacre RPG, additional Slamdance finalists have withdrawn. The incredibly creative Toblo, as well as the titles Once Upon a Time and Everyday Shooter have taken themselves out of consideration in protest of the Columbine game's removal from the competition. Only eight of the original 14 finalists are still in the competition, with several of those having gotten together to write a letter of protest to the contest's organizers. Danny Leddonne, creator of the Columbine title, has spoken with Ars Technica and Next Gen in recent days, and touches on both his controversial title and the hoopla that now surrounds it. Update: 01/10 20:21 GMT by Z : It doesn't end. Slamdance has now lost a sponsor over this.

Vitamin_Boy writes "Sling has a new product out, the 'SlingCatcher.' It sends video from the PC to the TV and does it for $200. Oh, and it works with iTunes. Will this undercut Apple's iTV? The Ars Technica article thinks it might: 'The SlingCatcher... is media-agnostic. It doesn't care what codec videos are encoded with, nor whether or not they have been purchased from an approved online store. It is designed to take video output and stream it, which means that you could use the SlingCatcher with video purchased from other online services, such as the iTunes Store or CinemaNow. In this way, the SlingCatcher may turn out to be a one-size-fits-all solution in a field populated with specialty products.'"

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In its professed battle to protect the 'confidentiality' of its 70-cents-per-download wholesale price, the RIAA has now publicly filed papers in UMG v. Lindor in which it admits that the 70-cents-per-download price claimed by the defendant is 'in the range'.(pdf) From the article: 'The pricing data really may not be all that secret. Late in 2005, former New York Attorney General (and current Governor) Eliot Spitzer launched an investigation into price fixing by the record labels, alleging collusion between the major labels in their dealings with the online music industry. Gabriel believes that making the pricing information public would 'implicate [sic] very real antitrust concerns' as the labels are not supposed to share contract information with one another ... Beckerman argues in a letter to the judge that the only reason the labels want to keep this information confidential is to 'serve their strategic objectives for other cases,' which he says does not rise to the legal threshold necessary for a protective order. The proposed order would force the labels to turn over contracts with their 12 largest customers. Most details--such as the identities of the parties--would be kept confidential, but pricing information and volume would not.'"

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In its professed battle to protect the 'confidentiality' of its 70-cents-per-download wholesale price, the RIAA has now publicly filed papers in UMG v. Lindor in which it admits that the 70-cents-per-download price claimed by the defendant is 'in the range'.(pdf) From the article: 'The pricing data really may not be all that secret. Late in 2005, former New York Attorney General (and current Governor) Eliot Spitzer launched an investigation into price fixing by the record labels, alleging collusion between the major labels in their dealings with the online music industry. Gabriel believes that making the pricing information public would 'implicate [sic] very real antitrust concerns' as the labels are not supposed to share contract information with one another ... Beckerman argues in a letter to the judge that the only reason the labels want to keep this information confidential is to 'serve their strategic objectives for other cases,' which he says does not rise to the legal threshold necessary for a protective order. The proposed order would force the labels to turn over contracts with their 12 largest customers. Most details--such as the identities of the parties--would be kept confidential, but pricing information and volume would not.'"

Jezebel writes "Avis is bundling a 3G-to-802.11 bridge with their rental cars that will turn the vehicles into WiFi hotspots. Will we now have to worry about laptop use on the Interstate?" From the article "Autonet Mobile CEO Sterling Pratz told the International Herald Tribune that the In-Car Router will function in around 95 percent of the country, including all major US cities. Pratz claims to have minimized the problem of dropped signals with a technology similar to that used by the space shuttles to maintain an Internet connection."

An anonymous reader wrote to mention an Ars Technica post stating that, for the first time, more U.S. consumers own a DVD player than own a VCR. The DVD player dropped below $100 quite some time ago, but the third quarter of this year saw the percentage of DVD player ownership reach 81.2. Only 79.2% of consumers now own VCR players, reports Nielsen. From the article: "For all of the talk about the battle between HD DVD and Blu-ray, both technologies are far, far away from most family rooms. Yes, the two are just now beginning what could be a long battle for entertainment-center supremacy, but keep in mind that the technology that they are vying to replace has only recently gained the upper hand against the previous-generation technology--a decade after first being introduced. Even if Blu-ray or HD DVD unexpectedly routs its opponent from the market in the next two or three years, it will still be several more years before the victorious format supplants the DVD."

An anonymous reader writes "Jimmy Wales, founder of the Wikia corporation, has revealed plans to offer a user-driven search engine. Ars Technica reports that the plan is to leverage user preferences to pick the 'best' site for any given search term, while at the same time utilizing advertising for commercial gain. The article admits this may not be the ideal solution: 'Users may be reluctant to contribute to the betterment of a commercial site that may end up being bought by a bigger company. Consider, for example, the tragic death of TV Tome, a comprehensive community-driven television content guide that was eventually bought by CNET and transformed into a garish, excessively commercialized Web 2.0 monstrosity of significantly less value to users.' Just the same, Wales seems very enthusiastic in the Times Online article highlighting this venture."

Rahul writes "Fusion is a new VMware product that enables Intel-based Macs to run Windows and Linux in virtual machines on Mac OS X. The Mac virtualization market is presently dominated by Parallels and it will be worth watching if VMware can gain the mindshare despite its late entry. Ars Technica reports: 'The nice thing about VMWare Fusion is that it already supports some of the stuff that the Parallels Beta2 released yesterday just added, such as USB 2.0 and most USB devices, CD/DVD drive support, and drag-and-drop between environments (unless the guest environment is Linux, that is). You can also run multiple Fusion environments at once or assign multiple processors to your virtual machine(s), if you're into that sort of thing.'"

Frankencelery writes "In a 3-2 vote, the FCC has altered cable franchising laws in the U.S. to the advantage of AT&T and Verizon. 'The FCC order imposes a 90-day limit on local communities' franchising decisions, but, more importantly, does away with build-out requirements. Those requirements generally insist that companies offer service to all the residents in the town, rather than cherry-picking the profitable areas.' Good news for the telecoms, but bad for cities who want a say in the fiber deployments."

Tighthead Prop writes "Sony executive Phil Harrison has made some brash comments about the Cell processor and the PlayStation 3. Harrison says that the current PS3 game lineup is using less than half of the machines power, adding that 'nobody will ever use 100 percent of its capacity.' Is he right? 'The major reason Harrison wants to hype up the "unlimited" potential of the PS3's architecture is to downplay comparisons between games running on Sony's console and Microsoft's Xbox 360. The two systems are not completely dissimilar: they both contain a PowerPC core running at 3.2 GHz, both have similarly-clocked GPUs, and both come with 512 MB of RAM.'"

The field of on-demand video services continues to grow. Both Sony and Skype have announced their intentions to challenge the dominance of iTunes via download services. Sony is going to be offering movie downloads via the PSP, no doubt as a partial rebuff to Microsoft's entry into the field. Meanwhile, Skype is planning to roll out a broadband television service they are calling 'the Venice Project'. Funded with the money made when Skype was sold to eBay, the beta version was apparently launched last week. From the article: "On his blog, Mr Friis said the partners had been 'quietly testing with a small circle of people' for a few months, and that they would now expand the circle. The service will offer high-quality programs through an ad-supported platform. The project aims to bring quality TV programs free to consumers who have a broadband internet connection, the spokesman said."

The field of on-demand video services continues to grow. Both Sony and Skype have announced their intentions to challenge the dominance of iTunes via download services. Sony is going to be offering movie downloads via the PSP, no doubt as a partial rebuff to Microsoft's entry into the field. Meanwhile, Skype is planning to roll out a broadband television service they are calling 'the Venice Project'. Funded with the money made when Skype was sold to eBay, the beta version was apparently launched last week. From the article: "On his blog, Mr Friis said the partners had been 'quietly testing with a small circle of people' for a few months, and that they would now expand the circle. The service will offer high-quality programs through an ad-supported platform. The project aims to bring quality TV programs free to consumers who have a broadband internet connection, the spokesman said."

Tyler Too writes "AT&T is facing heated opposition from some communities where it wants to deploy its U-Verse fiber network. Ars Technica has a feature looking at the situation in the suburbs of Chicago. 'Legal uncertainty is the rule when it comes to IPTV deployments by telecommunications companies. Neither Congress nor the FCC [has] weighed in on whether services like U-verse require their operators to take out a cable franchise from cities, and no federal judge has issued a definitive ruling.' It's not just Chicago, either: 'With AT&T set to upgrade its infrastructure to support U-verse across its wide service area, this is a battle that could play out in thousands of communities across the country over the next few years.'"

ernesto99 writes "MacHeist began selling a software bundle of ten highly sought-after OS X applications last week with the stated goal of raising the profile of Mac shareware developers. 25% of the money brought in goes to charity. The bundle sale will go down as possibly the biggest success in Mac shareware history, as total revenues are approaching $650,000 after only six days. But some observers, including Daring Fireball's John Gruber, have called into question the ethics of MacHeist. MacHeist advertises itself as 'The Week of the Independent Mac Developer,' yet the MacHeist organizers stand to make vastly outsized gains relative to the very developers they have championed. Gruber calculates that MacHeist will record double, if not triple, the profits of all ten participating developers combined. (In fact the promotion has done so well that the promoter-to-developers profit ratio now stands at about four to one.) In an interview, Delicious Library developer Wil Shipley defends his involvement in MacHeist, saying that the publicity and reach of MacHeist has already paid him dividends. The whole affair has created a heated dialogue, resulting in a direct clash among some of the biggest names in the Mac community."

Ant writes "According to Ars Technica, security researcher Ben Edelman revisited his May 2006 report on the relative risk of search engine results. In the original report, Edelman found that 5 percent of the results provided by search engines were marked as either "red" or "yellow" by SiteAdvisor, indicating that they presented some risk to the user. Now, Edelman says that his new study has shown that only 4.4 percent of such sites are risky, representing a drop of 12 percent since May... ... The study found that not only can regular links found by search engines be dangerous, the sponsored links that appear in prominent positions in the results pages can also be harmful. In fact, in the May study, sponsored links were more than twice as likely to be linked to malware than non-sponsored links (8.5 vs. 3.1 percent)."

Gamasutra reports that both Nintendo and Sony still have a few kinks to work out from their newly launched systems. It may seem funny to an onlooker, but the spectacular Wii strap blowouts are being taken very seriously by Nintendo. People are evidently 'even more excited' by playing the little white console than the company anticipated, and they're investigating the possibility that the straps aren't strong enough. Meanwhile, Sony has updated the PS3's firmware to 1.30 in an effort to take care of the much-complained-about resolution scaling issues. Ars Technica (and several other sites) are saying that the fix doesn't really do anything, despite Sony's reassurances. From that article: "The priority of resolutions has been changed, putting 1080i over 720p. So if you prefer 720p as a resolution, be sure to uncheck 1080i as a possible resolution on your television, or else games that support both resolutions will automatically display at 1080i. Of course, if you uncheck 1080i as a resolution, your Blu-ray movies will display at 480p. So you'll have to just manually switch the resolution yourself depending on what you're doing ... If you have a 720p set, not only has Sony not fixed the scaling issues, they've made the process of playing games and watching movies less user friendly. Sony really wants you to upgrade into a 1080p set, and they seem to want to punish you if you don't have one."

Country Lawyer writes "Washington state's anti-spyware law has just resulted in a $1 million victory for the state, the first successful prosecution under the new law. The weird thing? They sued an anti-spyware vendor." From the article: "Washington State went after the company after 1,145 state residents purchased the software and the complaints began rolling in. Secure Computer president Paul Burke will now pay $200,000 in penalties, make $75,000 worth of restitution to Washington residents, and pay another $725,000 to cover the state's attorneys' fees. The irony of an anti-spyware law being used against an anti-spyware vendor was not commented upon."