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Movielink and Sonic Solutions also announced an alliance that would allow downloaded movies to be burned to DVD. Theirs also will use a DRM technology that claims to allow the DVDs to play in "standard DVD players," but will be a "protected format" so you can't copy them.

Given that pressed DVDs can't achieve this, and that CSS isn't possible on burned DVDs, I find this difficult to believe.

Xesdeeni

http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/in dex.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20060504006094& newsLang=en Some guy who calls himself 'PharmaMaster'

I see this time he's publishing his results through http://home.businesswire.com/ in instead of the New York Times. Ahhh, now there's peer review for you.

Every time I do a report on computer or console video games I wonder if I am targeting the correct market. I personally have been known to get addicted to a computer game here and there-- *cough* Unreal Tournament, Counter Strike, Halo 2 --and admit that I have been upset with myself many a time for wasting too many hours behind a controller or mouse. Heck, at one point I think I pulled in twenty-four hours in a two week period for Counter Strike; or was it Unreal Tournament?

Anywho, based on the latest survey it now looks like it is the adults, not the kids, who are more likely to be found behind a joystick.

Adults are Gamers

According to a report by the Consumer Electronics Association, about one-third of adult gamers spend ten hours or more playing video games per week. Compared to only eleven percent of teens, some have to wonder where we find the time.

• 58% of homes with consoles consider it their primary game platform
• 25% of adults used handhelds in the last 6 months
• 64% of adults play alone
• 55% of adults play online
• 5x more teens are playing mmogs than adults especially women
• 77% of teens used handhelds in the last 6 months
• 78% of teen males play online games
• 58% of teen females play online games

The Consumer Electronics Association finds the statistics startling while the people working on PS3 rejoice. According to the report put out by the CEA, adults will purchase 19 million of the next-generation consoles in the first year.

"The fact that adults are racking up more gaming hours than teens is startling, but there are several associated findings that shed light on this," said CEA's Senior Manager, Industry Analysis Steve Koenig. "Interestingly, a greater percentage of 12-14 year olds spend time gaming than older teens ages 15-17. Older teens simply may not have the free time for extra hours of gaming or they could be gaming on wireless handsets since 81 percent of teens own or use a wireless phone."

Through the new study, CEA also investigated gaming platform ownership and behaviors and found the data revealed the PC dominates the adult game market while teens spend more time using game consoles. For households owning a PC and a console, 58 percent consider the console to be their primary gaming platform despite its lower engagement. Additionally, the study showed portable gaming to be decidedly more popular with teens than adults. Only 25 percent of adult gamers who own a portable game device have used it in the past six months compared to 77 percent of teens.

Additional adult vs. teen behavioral differences emerge in the study when online game play is evaluated. The majority (64 percent) of adult gamers either mostly or always play console games by themselves and just over half (55 percent) play online. Conversely, teens are five times as likely to engage in multiplayer gaming with their consoles, especially teenage girls - an unexpected result. Teens also are much more likely to game online, but here males outnumber females - some 78 percent of teen male's game online in a given month compared to 58 percent of teen females.

The survey results also suggest female gamers outnumber male gamers in the 25-34 age category. This result stems from high rates of play of online games, many of which are free of charge (i.e. Yahoo! Games), among female gamers. The 25-34 age group also comprises the largest concentration among overall female gamers (29 percent).

In a promising trend for consumer electronics (CE) retailers, CEA found that some adult gamers purchase additional CE products specifically to enhanc

The website anonymousemail.com is currently suing the government saying that the law is unconstitutional as it violates the First and Fifth Amendments.

The trip to the enclosed observation deck is about 350 Taiwan dollars, around $12. If you're lucky, you may be able to go for a couple of elevator trips on one ticket.

That story could have been merged with this one, to give more information:

http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/inde x.jsp?epi-content=GENERIC&newsId=20060106005603&nd mHsc=v2*A1105016400000*B1136621288000*DgroupByDate *J2*N1002692&newsLang=en&beanID=1525802384&viewID= news_view

Or are the two not related? I think they are.

"Tech Companies Swimming in Lawsuits!!!"

turns out to be a survey taken by Fulbright & Jaworski Lawfirm.

I bet they just felt horrible when they figured this out. "Time to stop litigating, we've become TOO successful."

The fact that it was written by a bunch of lawers explains why Olga had such a hard time blogging it.

The fact that her blog made it into slashdot is still a mystery.

here
Doesn't include the information I was looking for, but does give a bit more detail.

...but Blizzard are hurting the industry, by abusing the DMCA to shut down open-source competitors for the "crime" of being compatible with their software. Remember, kids, the interoperability exception of the DMCA doesn't exist if the copyright holder says so. That's a matter of law now.

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 18, 2005--Electronic Arts (Nasdaq:ERTS), today announced that, based on internal data, Madden NFL 06 scored big at retail in its first week in stores and sold-thru more than 1.7 million copies, making it the biggest week one launch of a Madden NFL Football game in the franchise's sixteen-year history.

http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/in dex.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20050818005614& newsLang=en

The prestigious "Best Database Solution" award went to EnterpriseDB this year. The press release is here.

EnterpriseDB is built upon the PostgreSQL database, and contributes what they create back to PostgreSQL (often immediately). One of the improvements they made to PostgreSQL is an Oracle compatibility layer.

They competed against MySQL, Oracle, and IBM DB2.

Looks like they're working on it right now... and lots of people aren't happy about it:

http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/in dex.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20050623005497& newsLang=en

CRN, GeekCoffee, Business Wire, and eWeek

Am I the only one to notice a weird correlation between the race for putting more blades on razors (three or four) and the race for putting more layers on next gen DVD formats (three or four).

This is another instance of a savvy marketer using SlashDot as an advertising medium.

Editors, please check links thoroughly before posting articles. Better yet, add some method of killing/deleting a spam link after the article has been posted on /.

The hearing is set for Tuesday, May 3rd, which allows four whole days for Apple to sell Tiger.

Jim Freidah, Global Graphics' chief operating officer, says, "It is exciting to have been involved right from the earliest stages of this project and today, be at the leading edge of a new technology that will have a beneficial impact on a huge user base. We will offer products based on this next generation RIP technology and make them available under license to printer manufacturers and software integrators worldwide. Customers will reap the commercial benefit of our early involvement and development because they can get their own products to market earlier. In effect, we have made an investment on their behalf in an emerging print path and electronic document format that they will need to process in the future."

Not too many years actually. Here is a study from 2002 where she certainly isn't shilling. Compare the current feelings to those in the below 2002 article. MS has been doing a much better job (gotta give it to them), and some of the bad feelings may be subsiding. Don't shoot the messanger, lets just respond to this with better products instead of whining "they are out to get us".

link to report

Here is the main article:
Microsoft Corp.'s Windows desktop operating systems are and will remain the dominant client desktop standard for the foreseeable future, but don't count Linux and Apple's Mac OS/X out. That is the conclusion of a newly released Yankee Group Report, "The Desktop OS: Are There Real Alternatives to Microsoft?," which finds that interest in alternatives to Microsoft's client operating system is at the highest level in over a decade.

Apple's Macintosh has found a comfortable and committed niche among enterprise customers with sophisticated graphics and production departments. Linux, meanwhile, has gained a groundswell of support in the last three to four years due to its appeal as the "un-Windows" solution, according to Yankee Group senior analyst and Report author Laura DiDio.

"Corporate user resentment and dissatisfaction with Microsoft and some of its practices are at an all-time high," DiDio said. A myriad of issues ranging from Microsoft's perceived monopolistic practices, hyperbolic marketing, ongoing security woes, and habitually slipping ship dates of major new product releases as well as confusion surrounding the overall .NET strategy have undermined corporate customer confidence. A recent joint survey of 1,500 corporations by Sunbelt Software, Inc. and the Yankee Group found that nearly 40% of the respondents were so outraged by Microsoft's new licensing scheme that they are actively seeking alternative products.

"This cumulative dissatisfaction will not necessarily translate into corporate defections to rival operating systems. But it does open the door a crack and raises the possibility that Linux and Macintosh OS X can gain new footholds in an overwhelmingly Windows world," DiDio said.

RipGuard supposedly works on your present dvd player (RTFA), and Uncle George Lucas says, through THX, that it doesn't create artifacts.

If this thing stops 97% of rippers, it just means that the other 3% just gained total share of the market. Imagine the insider trading going on...

" Nine years after Microsoft invented it, there's no justification for Mac mice to not have a scroll wheel [...]"

I love how history revisionists always credit the winners with inventing everything. Microsoft did not invent the scroll wheel, it was invented by Mouse Systems in the early 1990s. It was *popularized* by Microsoft's Intellimouse in 1996.

In the same vein, I've seen more than a few polls in the last few years where many people think Microsoft is actually the most innovative company in the world. I guess if Greatest Advertising Expenditure = Most Innovative that might be true. Despite what their PR Dept is spouting, as far as tech companies go Microsoft is not an innovator.

Canon Digital still cameras run dos, specifically datalight ROM-DOS. However, it is probably very boring to hack, since all the hardware access and UI is probably in the camera.exe, and all the dos does is boot. So you would have to reverse engineer the camera app to do any hacks. Even then, you will probably run out of RAM for anything more sophisticated.

However, most cameras will have somekind of network connectivity in future (The All devices will creep in features until they can read and send email law). It's a big chance that some vendors will end up using Linux as the base OS - The axis surveillance cams already do!. That would increase the hacking chances. How about running an tiny httpd gallery right of the camera or an ftp server :-P

While researchers views might be that depressing, the beliefs of medical doctors is quite encouraging. Take a look at this survey.

72% believe that religion provides a reliable and necessary guide to life.
58% attend church once a month.
58% believe the Bible was inspired by God.

So while your article implies intelligent and influential scientists don't believe in God, a number I personally hope to decrease, the study of medical doctors shows a strong number of people with faith. I would say that medical doctors have 'scientific minds', which would dispute your second to last line.

On a related note, I don't think that it's fair to use the National Academy of Science as the survey pool. People who have made it into the NAS have devoted at least 90% of their waking energy to the scientific fields are not consistent with most kinds of faith anyways. As a Christian, there are things more important to me than scientific success. I have had dinner with many biochemists in the academy and family/friends/life/etc comes a distant second to their career. So I would suggest that these results are completely consistent with their life style. I would like to see a survey of PhD scientists or professors at a variety of universities, those results would be much more of a mixed bag.

I also hope that you don't take this as confirmation that education and faith are not compatible. I know plenty of PhD students who are practicing Christians.

~Dan

Which has a link to a preview of the report (pdf); the price to buy the report is $250 - both of which can be found here.

From Business Wire.

Chief Executive Officer of DataTreasury Corporation Steps Down; Nationwide Search for New Chief Executive Begins

MELVILLE, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 10, 2004--DataTreasury Corporation announced today the resignation of President and CEO Keith DeLucia, effective immediately. DeLucia, who is leaving to pursue personal interests, departs after a number of notable achievements, and it is with regret that DataTreasury's board of directors accepts his resignation. DataTreasury founder Claudio Ballard will serve as Acting CEO pending a nationwide search for a new chief executive. A leading systems and computer architect with more than 25 years' worth of experience in his field, Ballard invented the patented technology that forms the basis of the "Global Repository Platform," the world's most functional and secure informational management system. DataTreasury Corporation is a privately held company founded in 1998, and it was issued US Patent No. 5,910,988 and US Patent No. 6,032,137 in 1999 and 2000 for image capture, centralized processing and electronic storage of document and check information.

• Timothy Huff, CEO of GTEL, stated, "We are receiving increased interests in our Stratellite project on a daily basis. As we previously announced, we are having a summit on January 20 and 21, 2005 to create a commercial strategy for the deployment of the Stratellite.

Using Google Groups, people can search and participate in a variety of discussions. For example, someone looking to buy a new digital camera this holiday season can search for (digital camera recommendations) and find relevant posts from others about the best cameras to buy. A user can star (bookmark) this topic to watch and subscribe to receive posts from a group such as rec.photo.digital to regularly read more opinions on digital cameras. Similarly, users looking for advice on treating carpal tunnel or disputing a cell phone bill can find discussions from other people who have experience in these areas.

Larry Ellison's New Internet Computer. Complete failure. Need we say more?

You mean like these?

-Jesse

Sony supports MP3 on its CD products, but not in its best digital products which is what most people think of when it comes to MP3/music players.

The real story here is shift in business strategy. Sony was the king of portable music after the introduction of the Walkman, but has seen its share slip. It seems that someone at Sony has realized that using a closed, proprietary standard and forcing customers to listen to their music collections how Sony wants them to quickly turns them into ex-customers.

That is big news for Sony. The Sony PSP is coming and Sony has decided to introduce yet another proprietary standard: the Universal Media Disc, which will be hardly universal if Sony is the only one that uses it.

Original post follows:

2004-09-22 16:20:39 Sony to Support MP3 (Index,Music) (rejected)

CNet/ZDNet reports that Sony has confirmed 'it is working to add native MP3 support to its portable music players,' reversing its previous strategy of native support for its proprietary ATRAC music file format only. Currently, MP3 files must be converted into ATRAC format to listen to them on Sony music players. MP3 support will be included on upcoming flash memory-based players, with a decision on hard drive based music players to come later, but there's no word if the Sony Connect music store will offer anything but ATRAC-encoded music. The strategy reversal is seen as a way to compete with Apple's dominant iPod, which supports both MP3 and its own proprietary Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) format. The story was originally reported by ZDNet France (French) reporters Christophe Guillemin and Pierre Labousset. The move comes on the heels of an IDC study that projects a $58 billion MP3 player market by 2008, with the greatest growth coming from flash memory players (press release).

The following business reasons might explain why they are releasing the Nintedo DS in North America first:

2004-09-21 09:42:51 Nintendo DS to Launch in N. America Nov. 21 @ $150 (Index,Games) (rejected)

John Markoff at the New York Times (mirror at CNet) reports that the Nintendo DS handheld game system will launch in North America on Nov. 21 with a retail price of almost $150. Apparently Nintendo hopes to avoid a direct sales confrontation with the Sony PSP, which will launch in Japan later this year. However, Walmart still lists availability of the Nintendo DS Platinum on Nov. 30 for $199.82. The retailer was probably caught unaware since Nintendo published its press release on BusinessWire at 1:30 AM Eastern Time.

Apologies for the cross-post but it seems relevant here.

Here's a bunch of links to the New York Times/ CNet, our games pages and the Walmart site which lists some differing information in a rejected post from VERY early this morning:

2004-09-21 09:42:51 Nintendo DS to Launch in N. America Nov. 21 @ $150 (Index,Games) (rejected)

John Markoff at the New York Times (mirror at CNet) reports that the Nintendo DS handheld game system will launch in North America on Nov. 21 with a retail price of almost $150. Apparently Nintendo hopes to avoid a direct sales confrontation with the Sony PSP, which will launch in Japan later this year. However, Walmart still lists availability of the Nintendo DS Platinum on Nov. 30 for $199.82. The retailer was probably caught unaware since Nintendo published its press release on BusinessWire at 1:30 AM Eastern Time.

Consumers who have purchased an Evolution lock, KryptoLok lock, New York Chain, New York Noose, Evolution Disc Lock, KryptoDisco or DFS Disc Lock in the last two years are eligible for a product upgrade free of charge from Kryptonite. Customers will need to have either registered their key number, registered for the Kryptonite anti-theft protection offer or have proof of purchase to qualify.

Specifically, Kryptonite will provide for free cross bars featuring the company's new disc-style cylinder lock technology to consumers who have purchased Evolution and KryptoLok series products. In addition the company will replace for free recently purchased Evolution Disc Locks on New York Chain and New York Noose with its "Molly Lock", a heavy duty solid steel padlock. Kryptonite also will upgrade recently purchased disc locks.

Consumers who have had one of the Kryptonite locks mentioned with a tubular cylinder for longer than two years will be eligible for a sizeable rebate on the upgraded products. This program will be administered through Kryptonite dealers and distributors.

The marketing jargon goes a bit over the top, but it isn't impossible to translate code for one ISA to an intermediate form, optimize it, and then generate code for another ISA. I don't know that it's revolutionary either. Note that LLVM takes a similar approach, and has a very simple intermediate form. I hear someone on their team is working on a PPC front-end, and as for language front-ends, Java and C# is in the works.

Getting back to Transitives, in July 2001, they claimed to already be doing x86->MIPS translation, which bodes well for x86->PPC. However, doing things efficiently the other way around is tougher. And of course you need to support or translate a ton of the native OS API calls etc. It'll be interesting to see for Windows on Linux (for example) if they require a copy of Windows to run the binaries.

Articles on one insurer in the US doing this in the US include:

Insurer Eyes Driving Habits

Insurers offer discounts to customers who allow their driving to be tracked by electronic monitors

Progressive to Use Data-Logging Device To Help Drivers Save Money On Auto Insurance

In the current US trials, reporting the driving information is voluntary. Of course, if/when more consumers participate, I'd expect base rates to go up as the folks most likely to qualify for discouts increase their participation.

Fortunately (or unfortunately for me, since I develop auto insurance rates at another company) the rating algorithm is patented by one company, so I wouldn't expect to see widespread adoption of this technology in the US anytime soon.

Craigslist has its quirky charm, and it's free to use.

I certainly hope neither of those things will change.

It's always had a reputation for being a bit anti-corporate, so seeing a press release written in boilerplate corpspeak is more than a little appalling.

I also wonder about liability problems associated with the Erotic Services and Casual Encounters categories. That seems like the kind of thing a major corporation would be forced to neuter.

Still, it is a minority stake which I daresay gives them no rights at all. I wonder how much they paid for those no rights.

Oh ... is Pierre Omidyar in any way involved in eBay anymore? I notice that Craig thanks him in his announcement, and that seems odd. I thought Pierre had long since cut the cord and gone on to charitable stuff.

D

Case in point the "objective" lawyers that are prosecuting a lady *this year* for having a sex toy party where she sells toys to other ladies.

Note that the case was dropped.

I found this awesome summary on this site called slashdot.org, if you're interested.

mark_wilkins writes "Microsoft and Apple have been sued by Teleshuttle Technologies, LLC, alleging that their online software updating technology infringes a patent on providing online updates to software with a menuing system to permit the user to pick the updates. Apparently the work on which the patent is based supposedly goes back to 1990."

How's that for informative?

That's Informative?

Here is the press release in case you are interested

Here's the Eclipse 3.0 press release.

A quote from it:

" support for national languages through I18N-style internationalization".

How do you pronounce that? internationalization-style internationalization!

"Disposable" fuel cells have to be compared against primary batteries, not rechargeable ones. Rechargable batteries typically have about half the energy density of primary batteries. So claiming a 2.5x improvement in battery life for a nonrechargeable system is not a win.

Ballard is further along than anybody else in larger fuel cells. Even they don't have much more than prototypes. Their attempt to market a fuel cell under the Coleman brand was a failure. The Coleman Powermate was launched with great fanfare in 2002, and never shipped. It's not clear what's wrong at Ballard. Their 1KW units should be providing backup power for cell phone sites and such, but it isn't happening.

Ballard uses hydrogen in their fuel cells. Despite all the hype about the "hydrogen economy", Praxair, which sells hydrogen for fuel cells, has this to say:

• Clean burning and not considered an atmospheric pollutant, hydrogen is fast becoming the energy source of the future. Questions regarding cost, safety and infrastructure, however, need answers before hydrogen-fueled engines go into wide use.

  Fuel cell grade hydrogen is specifically designed to be used as a fuel in fuel cell applications. It contains extremely low levels of impurities (e.g. ammonia (NH3), carbon monoxide (CO) and sulfur compounds) that can harm the catalyst-coated membranes inside the fuel cell.

  It is supplied in high-pressure cylinders and can only be used by industrial customers, like factories, laboratories, universities, and military and government installations. Typically, industrial customers already use compressed gases as part of their daily activities. Its use requires adequate ventilation and/or monitoring systems appropriate to the size of the location, helping ensure the safety of personnel when non-air gases are present.

For many years the Ontario Teacher's pension fund was a major investor in Corel and Corel basically offered WordPerfect for free to Ontario schools. When Corel was stolen by Vector the pension fund lost over $500 mil. Now with no reason for a special relationship and with the WordPerfect - Student/Teacher version costing $99 and it makes sense that the Board of Education would look for a better deal. Bill Gates and Vector(owners of Corel) probally thought this would force the schools over to MS Office but in this case it back fired on them.

UPC's couldn't be read without an optical scanner; ie, you know when a UPC in your possession is being scanned. With RFID's, all you have to do is walk close enough to any scanner for it to pick up the ID.

I want some way to burn out RFID's after I buy something. If Wal-Mart won't supply it, I'll have to buy one.

Remember, HTML is your friend....... go here for the goodness.

You have to make it HTML code, like this:

<a href="http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/goo gle/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=200403260 05446&; newsLang=en">Family Guy</a>

(I masked the < and > signs using the HTML-Entities &lt; and &gt; (now requiring &amp; to display the &), otherwise it would have been displayed as a link directly, even if I chose "Plain Old Text"...), note that slashdot tends to break plain text urls by inserting spaces, this is not true if you "link" via HTML. The result will look like this:

Family Guy

here

the link doesn't work anyway. Posted as plaintext so you can see how to do it.

First off, neither Lindows nor Linux has proven that there's any money whatsoever in "selling" Linux. None. Neither one has made a dime from it, contrary to what non-business people think that Redhat did with their accounting games.

Actually, there is alot of money in using linux to sell hardware and support contracts. Linux server sales were $743 million just in the 3rd quarter of 2003. That's almost 3 billion a year.

Red Hat reported profits of 5 million last quarter and 4.1 million the quarter before that, whereas they were breaking even the same time last year.

What more proof do you want?

Read me

Set TiVos on 'stun'!

Troy McClure: Yes, the Simpsons have come a long way since an old drunk made humans out of his rabbit characters to pay off his gambling debts. Who knows what adventures they'll have between now and the time the show becomes unprofitable?

Forty-eight million dollars a season, for six voice actors? Give me a break. Their entire work-week is driving to a studio, and talking for three hours on a Saturday afternoon. Given the quality of today's episodes, $360,000 each is just unreasonable.

It's time for FOX to take a chance, and let another cartoon step up to the coveted 8PM Sunday night timeslot. My vote would be for Family Guy. They shafted it last time by moving it to a bad timeslot, and now, with The X-Files gone and The Simpsons waning, FOX's prime real estate is opening up again.

Currently, the 22 new episodes in production are set to run only on Adult Swim. If Family Guy DVD sales are any indication, this is a poor move for FOX. I think their viewers are ready for the kind of edgy, creative humor that The Simpsons just hasn't provided in years.