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I don't have a PDA yet and haven't looked for a while. This Helio sounds most promising since it runs on a form of Linux.

ZDNet Family PC Review Says it's okay

Cnet says it sucks (cool colors but little support)

It's still pricy for me, and who cares about lack of Outlook support (which I'm sure has been fixed by now anyways).

~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"

Here's the CNet article on the subject. All I have to say is Wooohooo! I love BeamIt (as well as many of MP3.com's other services) and will be glad to get it back. I also love the fact that their stock has practically doubled in the last few days.

http://new s.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-2045350.html?tag=st.ne. 1002.thed.ni

That one is more detailed.

As is pointed out in this C|Net article, Nike invited a number of inspectors to their manufacturing plants. The inspectors found numerous violations of workers' rights.

Nike has pledged to better the conditions in which their workers work and have even put up a web site for people to track their progress, but I don't know where exactly that is. It's called "Transparency 101" though.

Microsoft investors face split decision

The gist is that they'd put their money on the applications company and let the operating system company shrivel up. Wasn't Windows 2000 supposed to be a great platform?

Click here
Good for cnet's standards, of course. I guess I'll "bookmark" the writers, Ben Heskett and Mike Yamamoto.

The OS group would be at about $17/share, with earnings in the three-quarters of a dollar range.

The Applications group would be about $40/share, with earnings above a dollar per share.

What will be most interesting is to witness the impact this has on other stocks. If the WIndowsOS is only worth $17, then what's BeOS worth? Bugger all... (and this is, perhaps, accurately reflected in its current pricing).

--

Hmm. The USPTO is bad, right? Slashdot doesn't like patents applied to technology processes, right? That's funny. You guys seem to be happy.

Just cause a corporation you don't like (DoubleClick) got screwed doesn't make this a Good Thing. C|Net is being just as bad as DoubleClick. In all likelihood, C|Net will just license the patent out and make loads and loads of money. Nothing will change by this.

If, as a community, we're going to be against tech patents, we'd best actually be against tech patents. It's not a selective thing; if the geek community doesn't think that patents should apply to technology processes (Actual technology hardware patents are often times good, but patenting a technology process is silly; prior art is difficult to find but almost always existant, and re-innovation with no interaction with the patented art is common. In today's fast-moving world of technology, patents on processes are silly and frivolous.), then it should stand up against every single one. Just cause DoubleClick got shafted doesn't mean the day has been saved. This is just another process that was patented, and with each process the idea of patenting technology processes is reinforced.

It's not going across the Internet, just across "a typical fiber-optic network."

According to the C|Net News.com article:
"Qwest will use a private connection to send the file, alleviating the possibility that hackers could disrupt the transfer of the movie."
-----

I remember reading this a while back but I didn't think it was that long ago...

News.com: Basque site shut down

The date? July 18, 1997

Doing a search for "basque" on news.com turns up a bunch of related stories (if you want the backstory).

For starters, as far as I can tell, Napster has yet to make a single cent from all this. Last I checked, which was before my University banned Napster, there were no ads anywhere. And even if there were they sure as hell wouldn't make any money for the Napster team. So don't go shouting from the hills that this is hypocracy! Offspring on the otherhand was making money off their endeavour. Big, big difference. Remember people Napster was designed as a file sharing program for mp3s. Legal or illegal the program doesn't care.

I don't give a shit if you think that it was for piracy or whatever. Until the author of the program says yes it was for piracy, all you have are simple assumptions. And making those kinds of statements is dangerous thing, tantamount to libel even! This latest little twist is only fuel for the media fire. Something we don't need, it only ends up helping to fuel the ignorence of society. Its bad enough that Napster has been labeled as a tool of piracy (well okay it is a bandwidth pirate). It is unfortuantly a connection general society will always associate. In the end this only further hurts the free market of innovation.

Groups like the RIAA, MPAA, and businesses like Mattell (with its cyberpatrol and constant copyright battles) only work to stifle innovation in the free market by closing down anything that doesn't follow their way of thinking. Sadly it is something that progress always seems to have to fight through. This whole thing isn't about whether some kid at some college is downloading a song that he/she doesn't own. Its about keeping with the old way of doing things, and controlling them.

I'll leave you some interesting tidbits before I post. The RIAA claims to be losing money due to Napster. In an article in CNet it talks about the lose of sales around college campuses. However the loses start before Napster was introduced and when compared to National sales is really irrelivent. National sales continue to raise about 20 percent, while most college areas only experienced a 4 percent drop over two years. But this can be explained mostly with online sales (which college students are more likely to do), and the introduction of cheap CD Burners.

[ sarcasm ]Hmm, maybe we should go after the CD Burner manufacturers next, they were obviously made to pirate music and software. Oh and while we are at it lets ban Hotline Software, IRC, umm FTP, and well hell, just about any digital medium for its ability to make perfect digital copies. [ /sarcasm ]

Seriously, if you listen long enough to both sides neither speaks a whole lot of truth. But I can sure as hell tell you whose gonna lie more to get what they want. The ones that have the greatest perceived loss and they can be summed up with four letters, MIAA.

Rant done,
Josh

There's another version of the story on cNet> - and, unlike the cgi script, it's a real story.

Luckily, under the proposed regulations congress is looking at, the cgi script kiddie would be locked up for 20 years.

Oh, you don't think that's lucky? Well, since noone is complaining to their elected officials (and they screen you out if you don't gave name, address, and phone) you don't get any say in the matter. We already sold your privacy rights in the US, and now we're going to sell the privacy rights of all EU citizens.

What ya gonna do about it, cypherpunk?

The original /. story is here. The story generated over 1,300 letters to Archie Comics, causing them to back down. It'll take more than that to take Mattel on, I'm sure.

Strangly enough, www.veronica.org doesn't seem to be up anymore. Hmmm...black helicopters...

Dude where have you been in the past few years?
MSFTs competitors have been making better products for years... Netscape, Borland, Novell, Sun to name a few.

Maybe you need to read the findings of the fact and see how MSFT punished OEMs who tried to include competitor products in their installation packages, or how MSFT has deliberately reneged on contracts, agreements and deals they have made with both the government and other corporations when they thought they could get away with it. Frankly I am as much against the government becoming involved in the world of software as the next guy but this is a case where it is needed. For instance, do you think Linux would be such a mainstream success if not for the DOJ investigation? Hell, no. Do you think the Dells and Compaqs would be selling Linux servers today if not for the fact that they are sure there will be no reprisal from MSFT? Heck, they didn't even have the balls to defy MSFT and preinstall Netscape Navigator on their machines when Netscape was still clearly better than MSIE. And remember that these sell more linux servers than pure linux companies.

Dammit, I have to go, the girlfriend's getting mad but a quick wrap up. No matter how good Linux, Mac OS or BeOS etc are MSFT would still control the desktop server market by any means necessary and is now using all sorts of bundling and machinations (Kerberos, MS Java, etc) to leverage that into forcing a server monopoly. They need to be stopped and it looks like the market would never have done it.

http://www.ne wsweek.com/nw-srv/printed/us/dept/cs/a26254-1999no v7.htm -"Say Goodbye to All That Videotape"

http://www.adobepremierewo rld.com/.getarticle/.433537609 - "Sony's Maxi Mini: HD Discam DCM-M1"

h ttp://electronics.cnet.com/cgi/crunch/FReview2.asp ?ptable=Camcorders&PID=1000357

MD-Data2 Blank

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=001583620556586&r tmo=r3b92hXX&atm o=99999999&pg=/et/99/11/11/ecncam11.html

http://equip.zd net.com/digitalimaging/video/2aa6/overview_2aba.ht ml

http://beta.cdad.com/twice/art icle.cfm?InputKey=1150

http://www.e-town.com/news/article.jhtml;$sessioni d$H3JLEUYAAABO3UPZJE NSFEQ?articleID=1221#mdcamcorder (1st review)
http://www.e-town.com/news/article.jhtml;$sessioni d$IQWF23QAAABSTUPZJEFCFEQ?articl eID=1246 (2nd review)

http://fina nce.individual.com/display_news.asp?doc_id=PR19991 102NYTU083

http://www.watch.imp ress.co.jp/pc/docs/article/990901/ifa2.htm

http://www.watch .impress.co.jp/PC/docs/article/991008/Dsc01363.jpg

http://www.heise.de/newsticker /data/cp-29.08.99-001/

http://www.minidisc.org/sony_minidiscam

...blatantly ripped from minidisc.org

Disclaimer: there are well over 1000 comments in this thread. This one will necessarily be to some degree redundant. I apologize in advance, and will do my best to say things that are worth repeating anyway.

. . . I would say that I'm quite, I'd say, more than surprised, I'm quite stunned at the lack of communication and input from the record company. Obviously, you know, with record companies we never really usually depend much on what they have to offer in terms of creative things, but I am stunned at the low volume of support from the record company, both publically and privately.

I am too. One would think that the record company would jump to protect their investment. Unless, of course, they understand better than Lars that MP3/Napster is something they can't fight.

I mean, obviously, Peter and Cliff, our two managers -- they're our closest advisors -- we have been, they've been advising us for 18 years now. Our managers are basically the fifth and the sixth members of the band. They're a total partnership. We view both of them as equal. And they're equally involved in this.

. . . we don't take anything from anybody. We take advice from our two managers, but ultimately we override them a lot.

These two comments paint their managers in very different lights, I think. In the first, they're friends; in the second, merely advisors. After reading the first quote, I was surprised to hear the phrase "We take advice from our two managers," because I would have thought that those managers would be part of "we".

. . . when it comes to my relationship with the Internet and with my comptuer, the fact is that we don't spend a lot of time together.

I would never fault Lars for not using the web, or for not being a geek. These things aren't everyone's cup of tea. But I think it's important to note that Lars admits here to not being well-versed in computers or the internet. He is attacking something about which he is not adequately educated, and I think it shows. He and the band, and their lawyer too, would do well to familiarize themselves with the structure of Napster, the nature of the internet, and the concept of filesharing before they make themselves look foolish in court.

. . . when somebody fucks with what we do, we go after them.

What are they, a street gang? Never mind, that's not important. What's important is that it is Metallica themselves who are setting up the Us vs. Them dichotomy of this debate. People don't trade Metallica MP3s because they hate Metallica, they do it because they like Metallica. These people consider themselves fans, and if the band has not already alienated these fans by getting them banned from Napster, they will surely do so by insisting that they [the fans] are trying to "fuck with" them [the band].

You don't sit down and sort of try and sort of justify yourself, well, 'Maybe our time and energy would be better spent thinking about something a year or two from now.'

Why not? Everyone else in the music industry seems to be doing precisely that. (Or hiding their heads in the sand, I guess.) It is astounding to me that a band with as long a history as Metallica might not have extensive experience with either planning for the future, or adapting to the present. MP3 will force the industry to develop a radically new way of doing business, but there's no reason Metallica shouldn't be blazing that trail.

We really felt that it was time for somebody, an artist, with a potential of a public platform, to get involved with this.

I do applaud Metallica for using their fame to draw attention to an issue they believe in. At least they were at the head of some parade, even if it had to be a misguided one.

Now, are we aware of the Gnutellas and all these other things? Of course we are, but you can only take it one step at a time. And I believe, and the people that we talk to about this, we believe, that the minute some of these companies become active, when they basically come to a point that they become fully funcitonal, we believe that there will be technology and a way to go after them in the way they can invent this technology and make it untraceable. We believe that as quickly as they can make it untraceable we believe that you can find a way to fuck with it . . .

I believe it will be very difficult for Metallica to "fuck with" Gnutella. First of all, the last I heard -- and someone please correct me about this if I'm wrong -- Gnutella wasn't even supposed to be released. Its own developer doesn't support it (and barely acknowledges it). Who is Metallica going to sue to stop Gnutella? It's pirated music being transferred via pirated software. And even if I'm wrong about this, or if it changes, it's the concept that's important, not the implementation. Like CmdrTaco said, "Yeah, we should definitely ban peer-to-peer file sharing over the Internet, and NFS pisses me off, too." If we can't use Napster or Gnutella, we'll use DCC. Or FTP. Or HTTP. Or we'll invent a new protocol.

It's true, what Lars says, that as quick as hackers can find some way to facilitate the flow of MP3s, "The Man" can find some way to block it. But the cycle doesn't end there -- the hackers circumvent the block, the Man blocks the circumvention, etc. Where does it end? With the simple fact that, because of the way computers have been built from the early days, it is effectively impossible to prevent a string of bits from being copied.

So it's sort of like -- the thing about this sort of mob mentality, what we call the 'Internet Extremists,' it's all kind of cute -- 'Yeah, we want to fuck with the system,' 'Yeah, we have a right to get everything for free.' But I believe that if you have the energy and the resources to chase 'em -- and that's one thing we have is a lot of energy and a lot of resources . . .

Why doesn't he just walk around wearing a t-shirt that says "I Am The Man"? He dismisses the notion of rebellion as "cute" and brags about his vast supply of resources (read: money). I think this is a very damaging thing for Lars to have said, though I must admit I'm glad he's said it. It certainly does suggest that Metallica is firmly entrenched in the corporate world.

So of course there will be at some point -- we are not stupid, of course we realize the future of getting music from Metlalica to the people who are interested in Metallica's music is through the Internet.

This, on the other hand, is encouraging. It suggests that Metallica haven't doomed themselves to being legacy artists.

That ultimately is what the biggest beef about this whole thing [is], is that Napster could have so easily avoided this whole thing. It's like, OK, 'It's January, my name is Napster, or I'm Sean, or whoever the CEO was at the time, we have this service, we would like to know if you are interested in being part of it.' If we'd said Yes, then there's no issue, if we'd said No, then this whole thing would have never -- it's really what this is about, it's what this whole thing ultimately comes down to, you know.

This is plainly ridiculous. Either Lars simply does not understand how Napster works, or he is being deliberately silly in the middle of making what should be a critical argument to his side of the story. Napster never asked a single band if they wanted to be a part of their service. Likewise, Napster has never made available a single work belonging to a single band via their service. The service they are providing is not, as Lars seems to imply, to the bands. They are providing a service to their users, a service that allows them to transmit files of certain types across the internet. (Never mind Gnutella, which permits sharing of any file, period.) It is the users who share the files, and if anyone should have asked Metallica first, it's the users. I have said elsewhere that Metallica was right to finger individual users, if they feel they must persist in this attack, and I stand by that statement. (Actually, it was Dr. Dre to whom I was referring, but it's the same idea.)

Unfortunately, it seems that this comment is only a perpetuation of the consistent misunderstanding of the way Napster works that Metallica, Dr. Dre, and their attorney Howard King have shown since we first heard King say "Tha t [Napster's offer to ban usernames who were identified as sharing Metallica/Dre songs illegally] was not a satisfactory response. That was a comical response." Metallica, Dre, and King do not know how Napster works, and apparently, they do not care to find out. Worse, they do not seem to think they will need to.

It's sort of like, you know what, fair enough, I can certainly respect and I would certainly somewhat agree with the fact that paying 16 bucks for a CD is probably, you know, pushing too much. But, it's the marketplace that dictates that, not me.

Quite right. And this is what scares people who make money off of music. One of the rarer moments in the history of capitalism is upon us: for once, the consumers are going to tell the producers how the industry will be run. People are not willing to pay $16+ for a CD. In fact, people don't necessarily want the entire CD, and they may not be willing to pay a cent. The marketplace is speaking, and it's saying, music should be free. No one has told Metallica not to charge money for their music. But MP3 listeners worldwide are telling Metallica that they're not going to pay it. Is this frightening? Should this worry us? Only if we're the sort of people who think that music is created to earn the artist money. But if we believe that music is art created for art's sake . . . .

Understand one thing: this is not about a lot of money right now, because the money that's being lost right now is really pocket change, ok? It's about the priciple of the thing and it's about what could happen if this kind of thing is allowed to exist and run as rampant and out of control for the next 5 years as it has been for the last 6 months.

. . . look, our record sales have gone up in the last three weeks, OK?

You heard it directly from Lars, folks: the amount of money currently being lost due to MP3 trading "is really pocket change". And now he suddenly starts thinking about the future. Convenient.

Well, 1st of all, you have to remember that you're talking to somebody who advocates bootlegging, who has alwyas been pro-bootlegging. We have always let fans tape our shows, we've always had a thing for bootlegging live materials, for special appearances, for that type of stuff. Knock yourselves out, bootleg the fuck out of it, we don't give.

The bottom line is the size of it. The size of it and the quality of it. . . . So it's the quality, the quality and the scale.

So is it okay to make and trade MP3s of bootlegs?

I can't help feeling that this is a bit hypocritical. Metallica insists that their crusade is about principles, not money, but then say that it's okay if your illegal copying only costs them a little bit of money, but not if it costs them a lot.

So back to the question again, the 'commodity' really becomes about it being traded around illegally, and rather than the art that it is.

Is Lars trying to say that art isn't art if there's not a price tag attached? If someone doesn't receive compensation for it? Art is art because it has an effect on the audience. And I'm talking about an effect aside from the removal of $16 from the audience's wallets. Art's effect on the audience, 99% of the time, has little or nothing to do with how it got to the audience, or whether the audience had to pay for it.

Napster has the right to exist. I support Napster's right to exist, OK? But I want them to support my right to not be part of it.

This is a reasonable request, made to the wrong people. As Lars has already demonstrated he doesn't know, Napster is not responsible for the contents of their users' hard drives. This appeal ought to be made to the users.

. . . you have to remember that statistically, for every one band that you hear about, for every one band that a record company helps make successful, they lose their fucking shirt on the nine other ones you never hear about . . .

. . . which wouldn't happen if music were traded without restriction or cost. There would be no need for record labels, and thus the only money lost when a band failed to achieve its goals would be whatever money its members had contributed themselves.

But record companies will never be completely extinct, for one reason and one reason only, that there will always be a need to develop younger artists, and record companies will always be able to play a big part of that, because this whole thing about "I'm a young band, I'm an upstart band, I'm going to put my music on Napster, and then I'm going to become successful?" Fantasy. The only way you you will become successful is by having a publicity and promotion campaign behind you that elevates what you're doing above what your competition is doing.

This is not even true in the current music industry, where bands like Fugazi, a dedicated anti-commercial act, can do their own marketing and achieve a level of popularity that longevity that rivals many corporate-sponsored acts. But if the current music industry is rendered obsolete, and consumers go back to trusting their own personal tastes to decide what music they'll listen to, instead of advertisements, radio and TV, then not only will this scenrio Lars rejects be possible, it might be the only way to succeed as a musician.

It's very very simple. One of the -- when we monitored Napster for 48 hours three weekends ago, we came up with the 1.4 million downloads of Metallica music, there was one, one downloading -- one! of an unsigned artist the whole time.

Inconceivable. There is not a snowball's chance in hell that, in a 48-hour stretch, only a mere one out of the millions of songs transferred via Napster was written by an unsigned artist. I don't know what caused Lars (or NetPD) to make this massive error in calculation, but it is statistically as near to impossible as you could hope to get.

As for those 1.4 million downloads, here is a short list of things Metallica does not know about them:

• Metallica does not know whether or not the files were actually transferred, unless they downloaded them themselves, or shared them and watched them being uploaded. All they could know is how many were publicly available for downloading. To know how many actual downloads there were, they would have to monitor a host-to-host transmission as a third party, which is eavesdropping, and is illegal.
• Metallica does not know whether or not the files that purported to be MP3s of their music were actually MP3 files. They could just as easily have been empty files carrying the name of a Metallica song and a .mp3 extension.
• Even if they were MP3 files, Metallica does not know whether they were their MP3 files. Renaming another band's song would be child's play. The disk space required even to download and listen to a sufficiently large sample of 1.4 million MP3s is a lot more than Lars has on that computer he never uses. The task itself would be mind-numbing and eventually downright infuriating; I can't imagine anyone having the patience to do it.
• Metallica also does not know how many of those transfers were between two users who already owned the albums, and thus had legitimate rights to own copies of the songs. Doubtless these users account for a significant percentage of the 30,000 who challenged the ban Napster placed on them at Metallica's request.

You can sit there and talk about how this is great for up and coming artists or for unsigned bands, but a big counterargument that nobody gets is, me and you could form a band together, and we could like, make a demo and then we could put it up on Napster. Who is going to give a fuck? Nobody's going to care, because they don't know anything about what sets my and your band out from the gardener and the guy who cleans my pool's band. The record companies will never be extinct, because there will always be a need down at that level.

More bragging about how rich he is. In regards to this assertion, read The Brunching Shuttlecocks' An Open Letter From Metallica, which dispatches the notion better than I could, and more humorously too.

I believe ultimately -- and this is sort of what I was talking about before -- that the hardest thing about this is to try and come up with a system where it becomes an individual's right to choose how he will want to partake in this sort of stuff through the Internet. That's the hardest thing because it becomes very difficult, it's very difficult to generalize, like I said before. It's not fair to sit there and say, 'Napster can't exist,' because there are people who would like to use it. And it's not fair to sit there and say 'It has to exist and you have to be part of it,' for the people who don't want to use it.

This is a very good point, and an insightful one as well. Lars is right, this will be a very difficult problem, and in fact, I'm not sure I want to see how it gets solved. It also addresses a more important issue: the question of how to ensure that authors retain copyrights to their work, and how to ensure they're properly credited for it.

We believe based on the people we hired that we're probably not more than a year away from where you can basically download Mission Impossible 2 the same day that it opens in the theatre . . .

Another example of how much Lars hasn't bothered to find out. This is, of course, more or less possible today, though with the problem that a two-hour movie will generally be a much larger file than a five-minute song.

I guess that's all I have. I'm sure it's plenty. There was other stuff I wanted to respond to, but I can't remember what it was, and damned if I didn't waste enough time writing this already. I guess it's obvious where my sympathies lie.

I didn't even know there were such things as "music stores." I always buy my CD's online.

C|NETlink to the story

Favorite Quote: "Cash-strapped students have turned to online music swapping because the record companies have priced the CDs of many popular artists out of students' reach"
Then whose fault is it?

Devil Ducky

Found a story on that email here.

my perfect OS is apparently OS/2 Warp 4 and 5, PAH! pseudo scientific my auntie.
I would've answered other for all of the questions had there been the option.

The only reason they seem to have for comparing the two OSes is that they're both not Microsoft spawn. What the hey? They begin by saying they're aimed at completely distinct markets, and end saying the same thing.

Then in the 'hardware compatibility' section they start mixing compatibility issues with issues about actual hardware. Wouldn't it make more sense to compare two OSs that actually run on the same hardware, anyway? LinuxPPC, anyone?

I found myself feeling like neither "expert" did a good job of defending their OS. So as someone who uses Linux lots but Macs not if I can help it...

• Installation: If the MacOS can't be installed then how can you comment on its installation? This is meaningless!
• Interface: The bad part here was Rex's Rebuttal:
  1. Linux can open more than just Mac and PC formats.
  2. Rather than profiles we have accounts, need I go into their inherint superiority?
  3. Can Sherlock do regular expressions?
• Applications: Mac - the best that Microsoft has to offer; Linux - the best that the rest of the world has to offer.
• Hardware Compatibility: The only meaningful comparison here would be to compare USB and support for other platform independent devices (PDAs, printers, etc.).
• Internet Support: The only category that really makes sense: Mac - dumbed-down, easy to use; Linux - supreme power over time and space.

What really doesn't make sense is the criteria for the final decision. Linux is a rising star on the desktop, Macs are for niche markets and zealots.

A much better CNet article: Find Your Perfect OS.

http://news.cnet.com/news/0 -1006-200-809020.html?tag=st

Search for "G4+" on theregister.com

--

See CNet for more details.

Cheers,
Simon B.

I tried to post this with this news story. It's on C|NET. They both sat pretty much the same thing.

Devil Ducky

I never said it did. I was talking about the DMCA broadly. Regardless, DMCA was used as a weapons in this although incorrectly.

2. Sorry, you are mistaken. The DMCA is U.S. legislation. It is not based on a WTO treaty. The DMCA can only be applied in the U.S. Unfortunately, the DMCA is clearly not constitutional

The DMCA is US legislation, but it is at least somewhat based on the WIPO Copyright Treaty (Geneva, 1996). References can be found here

So, what happens when a treaty is unconstitutional?

C|Net and ZDNet are reporting that the new variant not only chooses random subject lines for its email carriers, but also adds comments to its own script, in an attempt to thwart fingerprinting.

My question: who actually needs email-attached scripts to have write access to the registry and filesystem? And who thought there were enough of these people to allow such access by default?

However, the S25 has a built in modem, which connects through the infra-red port.

It took me 5 minutes to set up a palm III (yes, the same as you already have) to surf the web and collect email directly (pdq), using my standard dial-up free isp.

A little slow, perhaps, but easy and cheap (you only have to buy the phone)

If you can stand to wait a few months, it will be interesting to see what exactly the new devices feature. I'm not even a big fan of wireless e-mail, and I can't wait. :-) It could prove to be a red herring, but it may be worth your time to wait and see what Palm has up their sleeve. (Hehe, I made a funny.)

--GrouchoMarx

If you can stand to wait a few months, it will be interesting to see what exactly the new devices feature. I'm not even a big fan of wireless e-mail, and I can't wait. :-) It could prove to be a red herring, but it may be worth your time to wait and see what Palm has up their sleeve. (Hehe, I made a funny.)

--GrouchoMarx

these 17,000 people were not liars before they used napster, and they would not have been liars had it not been for napster. as we all know, napster created these liars from formerly perfect law-abiding citizens.

Sometimes... Sometimes not.

- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)

But officially appealing to Napster involved giving out your true name, home address, etc., and that's more than I need them to know without them doing a little digging to get it. Besides ,according to copyright law according to copyright law, even though Napster had to remove the users, if the user appealed, Napster has to give Metalica your info, and Metallica has to sue you (and every other user) individually. If by the end of 10 days Metallica does not sue you, the Napster must reinstate you.

Why would Larry Ellison wish he was Bill Gates? Larry has more money.

c|net is reporting that >en. (Digital Entertainment Network) has informed its staff it won't be able to make its payroll. The site has retained an investment banking firm to start looking for a buyer.

It's another site that suffers from over design.

Am I the only one saw this? its like 2 months old

This article quotes a figure of $100,000 for the GS80, $500,000 for the GS160, and over a million for the GS320.
Damn.

Sure, do it in 4

1) Do a search on "slashdot.org" from Microsoft

2) Click the only result to go to Microsoft MacTopia - Industry News

3) Scroll down and select the story Microsoft wants to censor some open-source postings by CNet

4) Click that Slashdot link.

Choprboy

A few years ago AT&T started a program called "project angel" which was intended to replace POTS lines with a cellular system in the home. Check out this story at Cnet.com.

Coincidence? Hrmph.

On the lighter side, I just found the aforementioned Wired article...and the one on ZDNe t ...and the one on c|net...hoo hoo hoo ha ha ha hee hee ha ha hee hee...there is a M$ PR person somewhere that just wants to curl up and die.

Hang in there, Rob!

1. Trade secret
2. Copyrighted material

The first one is the reason why Jeremy Allison made a big fuss over the issue, and the second is why Microsoft is pressing on Slashdot. The document is clearly still copyrighted material - it could never lose that status. What happens to Andover/Slashdot is still very much in the open.

According to this article by C|Net, the document no longer enjoys the status of a trade secret:

Regardless of whether Microsoft is successful in getting the information removed from Slashdot, legal analysts say material that found its way on to the Internet may no longer be entitled to trade secret protections. It likely would be protected by less restrictive copyright protections, however.

"Most likely it's going to lose its trade secret status," said Ron Lemieux, a partner at Graham & James in Palo Alto, Calif. "It doesn't mean that Microsoft should try to do what its doing and get it pulled off."

So, if this logic was to be followed, the Samba team would be free to implement an open source SMB server that interoperates with Microsoft's Kerberos, without getting permission from Microsoft.

Looks like it's on cNet, according to this story here.

Anyone seen it on CNN in Tech, or NY Times, or Washington Post yet? How about Seattle Times or Seattle Post-Intelligencer or Seattle Weekly or The Stranger?

That is a very good point.

Make sure Intel replaces your whole motherboard or else you will be stuck having to buy the 6-8 times more expensive RAMBUS memory when you upgrade later.

It is almost as though Intel planned this so that RAMBUS will get some guaranteed sales early on. Then Intel and RAMBUS can get together and issue a press release detailing the huge initial adoption by consumers of RAMBUS memory over regular memory (without mentioning that the surge is an artificial byproduct of Intel's defective motherboards).

Some other links (also at C|net):
Intel launches expensive recall due to chip glitch
Rambus at the root of Intel's memory troubles

That is a very good point.

Make sure Intel replaces your whole motherboard or else you will be stuck having to buy the 6-8 times more expensive RAMBUS memory when you upgrade later.

It is almost as though Intel planned this so that RAMBUS will get some guaranteed sales early on. Then Intel and RAMBUS can get together and issue a press release detailing the huge initial adoption by consumers of RAMBUS memory over regular memory (without mentioning that the surge is an artificial byproduct of Intel's defective motherboards).

Some other links (also at C|net):
Intel launches expensive recall due to chip glitch
Rambus at the root of Intel's memory troubles

I read about this story this at news.com over my morning cup coffee...sure enough, my Napster account was blocked! Between Metallica's harassing Napster with their greed and NetPD's intrusiveness I've had it with them and every other corporate bastard trying to jack over the average Joe...RIAA, MPAA, Metallica, Dr. Dre (not that I listen to rap)...

You built your empire and fame off of people spending money on your records, t-shirts, and concerts. Ironically you'd never be where you are today if it wasn't for the underground/bootleg scene that got you started at the grassroots level.

I had only the Black album and Load before MP3 was big. Had it not been for the MP3 scene and some friends into it I never would have become a bigger fan of yours and probably would never have been exposed to your earlier works.

Well, today I'm pissed. For starters, I busted my Garage, Inc. album in two and *nailed* it to the wall over my desk, then I boxed up my copies of Load, the Black Album, Master of Puppets, and Ride the Lightning and mailed them back to the WHOIS registrant postal address for Metallica.com:

Registrant:
Metallica (METALLICA13-DOM)
P.O. Box 18327
Knoxville, TN 37928-2327
US

I'm so infuriated at being sold out as a fan that I don't know what else to do with your "commodity" -- you said the word, not me, Lars. You said you were gonna lose fans because of this, well guess what, you're right! I wish I could have been in California last week busting your CDs for the cameras.

About the only thing I respect is you guys grabbing your balls and fighting for what you believe in, damn the consequences -- that deserves some measure of respect, but there is a bigger issue for me and thousands of Netizens here...

The Internet is fast being transofrmed as a place for free expression of ideas to a bastion of corporate greed and government regulation. The Bill of Rights and ideals it was founded on like freedom and privacy are being trampled on left and right, and unless some serious democratic corrections are made to our society, we are headed for an Orwellian future of corporatism or a violent revolution as public outrage mounts. Put down your drumsticks for a minute and read up about the Echelon Project, UCITA, DMCA, DeCSS...they are all storm clouds. I understand if you're pissed off at me for taking an unpopular stance, but it's what I believe in.

Lars, you said on CNET Radio "...I can barely use AOL...I need help" So get out there and SEE...pull off those blinders that AOL pulls over your eyes and passes itself off as the Internet! Get a second PC -- I know you can afford one -- and your local Linux Users Group will be happy to install an operating system that lets you see the Net as it really is. Go watch The Matrix if you haven't already....FREE YOUR MIND!

I don't know how to show you what's out there, but you just might find the Open Source community to be alot better "against the man" folks than you give us credit for. Anyways, screw it, my envelope with your CDs is on the desk and it will stay there until I see what you guys have to say in your /. interview later this week...

Hey, there is a good CNET article on ithere.

kwsNI

If I were to play the causality game, I would hazard a guess that the fall in valuation has more to do with yesterday's news:

Red Hat rethinks news site, portal plans

Somewhat interesting read, mentions andover.net, too, and how it might have factored into Red Hat's decision.

This c|net article says that KODAK is working with Scientific-Atlanta to develop software that will allow cable TV subscribers to send and view photographs through their TVs. You could view pictures sent directly to you on a special cable channel.

As far as I can tell the set-top box would interface with digital cameras, so the proccess may not work with tradional prints.

But this would be a great companion device with the HP printer since you could send pix of the grandkids to Mom & Dad, and they could view and print them without getting a PC or Internet access. Assuming there would be a way to avoid printing the ads supporting the system.

At least, I thought so:

Red Hat rethinks news site, portal plans

Anyway, here are some links:

Genovation, Inc. numeric keypads
A long list from CNet (as low as $9!)
One of the most compact I've seen
and finally,
Ultra-Cheap numeric keypad from PCConcepts

They're called, oddly enough, TAPE DRIVES!

Tape Drives at KillerApp