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I can cite one example of software piracy costing a software publisher: Ernie Ball.

Ball manufactures my favorite guitar strings, the "Super Slinky". In 2000 he was raided by the BSA, couldn't find all the licenses, and settled with the BSA for $100,000. Enraged, he said he wanted all Microsoft products out of his offices and factory. "I don't care if we have to buy 10,000 abacuses," he said, "We won't do business with someone who treats us poorly."

It's now a Linux shop. All the money he hasn't spent on Microsoft products in the last ten years and in the forseeable future is money lost to MS. The BSA's insane zeal to make sure that every piece of software has a license and that the license can be found has cost Microsoft hundreds of thousands of dollars, and will cost far more.

I don't see Microsoft acquiring EMC anytime soon.

EMC's market cap is $42B

Microsoft's market cap is $217B

(Rumors occasionally circulate that Cisco might be a buyer for EMC. Their market cap is $125B.)

If Cisco could buy EMC, then I don't suppose much would stop Microsoft from buying EMC either.

That presumes that Microsoft would want Novell/SuSE and that VMWare would somehow snatch it up before Microsoft could. I'm sure Novell would love to see a bidding war between EMC/VMWare and Microsoft.

I don't see Microsoft acquiring EMC anytime soon.

"there isn't a benchmark for pigeon data speeds"

There is, but it used a 64-byte packet. Likely because the standard calls for the packet to be hand written on a piece of paper in Hex. While I'm usually in favour of sticking to standards, I think in this case I'll make an exception.

What AC was trying to convey with his usual 2nd grade vocabulary level was that HTC upsets the no-patent crowd by paying the ransom Microsoft demands of Linux users for alleged patent infringement, thus creating a precedent and helping bid bad Redmond scare others.

They really should go to FIVE, or [#%$!$ it] all the way to SIX, because Sharp's pixels already go to four (which they call "Quad Pixel" technology, which at least makes sense).

I am typing this on a 1.8Ghz Sempron with XP circa 2005, the same kind of machine you'd find at a yard sale for $50 nowadays (in fact I got it for $50 from a customer as a trade in on win7 build) and have on average a half a dozen programs running besides FF, as well as doing the usual burning CDs and playing tunes. Firing up Process Explorer my peak was at 1145Mb of RAM, and I average around 745Mb for the whole smash.

Lets be honest folks: RAM is cheap, it is incredibly cheap. I'd much rather have the extra performance and use a little bit more RAM than be frugal and deal with slowness, even on a nearly 6 year old machine. But if someone was to really care about FF memory usage in windows I'd say use Minimem which is free, originally designed for FF when the 2.xx branch was out but now has been updated to work with just about any running app, and only takes up a couple of hundred Kb itself. I've run it on ancient machines with only 256Mb of RAM, and it really made FF just about as comfortable to use as it is on this 1.5Gb. So it isn't like this problem can't be fixed easily if you are RAM starved, but if that is the case it would be better all around for the life of the PC just to pick up a stick at Newegg.

Gateway also had one like it in 2005 running Windows XP. The video on the netbook shows it better then the older review pictures though. All in all, it's a (what I feel) gimmicky twist on an old design, and possibly a bad move since I feel the screen without the case boarder would make it more delicate and more likely to be broken by Joe User.

I know I've seen this design before... the only difference is the Dell's screen (glass part) flips instead of the whole top. I feel that I would prefer the other design since it has a bigger hinge, less likely to break then that Dell's.

Um, the US government wants this, with the rational of "the war on drugs", but mostly because they hate any communication they can't track. I am somewhat surprised that cash is still printed.

Of course, the US government is also the best reason to not use email services. All your subject lines are considered "metadata", and they can access them without a warrant, or even telling you they are. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-9890761-38.html

Is it me, or are people having a hard time believing the technology actually exists?

Two Companies Already Have Products:

http://www.powercastco.com/
http://www.witricity.com/

NY Times Covered this stuff in 2007

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/magazine/09wirelessenergy.html?_r=1&ref=magazine

Here's CNET demoing powercast's tech in 2007!
http://cnettv.cnet.com/powercast/9742-1_53-25606.html

You can buy full blown evaluation boards online that powercast manufactures that implement wireless electricity:

http://www.futureelectronics.com/en/technologies/development-tools/rf-wireless/Pages/9660812-P1110-EVB.aspx

Why is everyone having such a hard time with this concept?

Dear Microsoft, Seriously? Anyone remember the Microsoft Kin, launched in 2010? If the iPhone has died, then the Microsoft offering was a stillborn. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-20009336-56.html

Read the full article?? Cmon does anyone really do that???
 
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Why dont they take the money and print another 10,000?
 
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This is eerily similar to Microsoft being praised for Windows 7 after pushing Vista. Sure the situation is completely different, but praising a company for finally listening to consumers is the wrong way to go about it.

You could argue that they didn't listen to consumers, or developers, but did it because they were under investigation for anti-competitive behavior on this, both in US and EU. A conviction on this would be tough on the image, even for Apple.

It's quite right of them to try this, of course. But I disagree with some of these implications. Individual academic experts may be less likely to be wrong about specific facts - but may also miss relevant facts due to the increasing amount of specialization in all fields of knowledge.

Whereas, ideally, crowds picking over and adding to articles means all the verifiable information from many different sources stay, and all the bad information goes.

I think this restriction of information to academics only also shows a deeper distrust and actual elitism in general. They have their reasons, and no doubt many of them are justified. But a fearfulness of opening the editing to the public implies that they don't trust the public to recognize facts and evidence - an opinion which, on the whole, I disagree with.

If things were otherwise, Nature's study of Wikipedia would have shown it to be far less accurate than the Encyclopedia Brittanica - or even more accurate, depending on how you compare the articles.

http://news.cnet.com/Study-Wikipedia-as-accurate-as-Britannica/2100-1038_3-5997332.html

Yes they do.

They all do the same the Corporate Welfare Government is sustained by plutocratic dejure/fiat means of corruption camouflaged as Public-Interest. Public-Interest (taxes) to bail them out, Public-Interest tax-breaks as profit not good economics, and 40 years of Public-Interest fear of change/new and dogma-delusion to promote Corporate Welfare Governance as a solution to every public/economic problem (Patriotic Warriors, Blacks, Jews, Liberals, Education, Unions...).

Corporate Welfare Government is intransigent to change/new is always private-interest BS-artist plutocrats/politicians that want to do the same thing that fails, because it is profitable and works extremely well for for the few when the many are exploited. We lost many retirements and investments due to Corporate Welfare Government manipulation of the market. When will "We The People" wake up and disenfranchise business and religion from Public-Government.

There is a clear argument for keeping Google's algorithms behind closed doors, even for a company that loves to work the word "open" into nearly every public statement it makes. http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-20010696-265.html
Google is a target for using the word "Open" as a noun that describes a new/change Alt-Economy model.

The global drug-lords (even with C*O-Dogma government oppression) are more Capitalistic than any C*Os in the US, EU, RU, CN....

Doing a little math you find those asymmetric connectors costs more than 4 Million man-hours per year.
That's as much as Pac-Man on Google.

source: http://blog.bottomlessinc.com/2010/08/usb-connectors-wasting-4-million-man-hours-per-year/

Got a citation for that? Everything I see says otherwise, for instance this.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20015493-261.html

has more weight than you. Will they go to jail, or prison? Thay may wish they had just
stolen" stuff. As it is, they are in for a world of hurt. They can't hude anymore. Maybe you're on list. Or maybe this time you got lucky. Do you really want to argue it's not stealing then? You'll be crying to mama before it's over, and yes, your life being a living hell is the point.

Hmm, where have I heard that one before?

Probably when Michael Dell said it about Apple.

"What would I do? I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders," Michael Dell said before a crowd of several thousand IT executives.

Isn't it funny when people start suggesting that you take your own advice?

http://www.powercastco.com/

Not magnetic induction charge plate based, actually over the air over medium distances, already here, products available for immediate delivery.... and nobody seems to cares. They've been around for a few years with shipping product and everything.

It's almost like people can't believe their product is real. It's so very strange.

Even won a best of CES in 2007: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-12760_7-9673092-5.html?tag=ces2007;mcol

TRUE WIRELESS POWER
Powercast’s technology provides true wireless power for continuous charging and power-over-distance for one or more devices. Wireless power transmission is based on commonly used radio waves and Powercast's patented RF-to-DC conversion technology. The combination enables low-power electronic devices to become finally untethered with trickle-charge embedded wireless power.

However, given the second most common complaint, I can't help but wonder: which string theory?
 
Exactly, if this turns out to be false it won't disprove all string theory.
 
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And the flying spaghetti monster!
 
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what? the part where you cant even remove their logo at all so you basically advertise for them regardless unless you get a case?

Right, unlike Dell, HP, Lenovo Lenovo, Acer (Acer . . . .

No, really.

reminder that wikipedia is most useful on subjects of media rather than a trusted encyclopedia

[citation needed]

Is the Encyclopedia Britannica a trusted encyclopedia?

http://news.cnet.com/2100-1038_3-5997332.html

(and yes, I also see there are other articles claiming that the study was flawed...)

Other crap you can do with the device that does not make them any money they don't care about.

If a customer buys your product because of feature "x" (other OS) then that is making them money.

I bought the PS3 because of Other OS,specifically because that made it a bit more "open" than the 360. But if you remove that function and considering this: http://news.cnet.com/microsoft-has-xbox-360-blu-ray-drives-ready-to-go/ you have just removed any reason for me to buy a PS3 or even continue to buy games for it. I KNOW that MS won't make a system that has stuff like Other OS so I have no expectation that would lead to disappointment. But when I pay for something and THEN you remove it I am disappointed.

Disappointed to the extent that I am done with the PS3 and any games for it. Furthermore, it seemed there were many academic folks that like using the PS3 for number crunching. MS seems to think a lot of having schools use their product which is why you can buy a student version of Office (at a discount) with just a *.edu email address.

I get your points about this affecting only a small percentage of the user base and that it matters way more to developers. But as you said PS3 is being overshadowed and therefore you would think they would want to differentiate themselves from the evil empire. As you said, PR is mostly BS anyway so why would it matter to leave the Other OS function in there?

Regardless of a developers motivation, the only practical effect is accurately characterized.

In that case, it's the same effect of the GPL as well.

companies, given the choice, will always retain their IP

Many companies contribute code to BSD-licensed projects, and even more fund them to continue their work. In short, you're utterly wrong about the practical effect.

IBM widely publicised their billion dollar investment in Linux in 2001 alone ( http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-249750.html ) Oracle has their own distro, and is funding btrfs. HP has made installating their printers under linux easier than on windows. The biggest contributors to linux kernel in order are: individuals 18%, Red Hat 12%, Intel with 8%, IBM and Novell with 6% each, and Oracle 3%. The scale of corporate contribution to Linux is many orders of magnitude than anything in the BSD world. (http://apcmag.com/linux-now-75-corporate.htm)

BSD's aren't unified because the license sets up incentives for forking and keeping changes proprietary.

The various BSDs are all BSD licensed, yet they remain non-unified. Repeating your blanket assertion won't make it any more true the second time around.

If you're not going to attempt to reconcile reality with your assertions, everyone should ignore all assertions you make.

see above for evidence of the greater size of corporate contributions to GPL kernel vs. BSD system. Now you argue that any disparity of any kind results from network effect. I will point out that Linux has no shortage of court cases in it's history. have a look at sf.net where the overwhelming majority of projects use GPL or LGPL. The top ten downloads from sf.net? 8 GPL, 1 LGPL, 1 a mix (portable apps.)

http://sourceforge.net/top/toplist.php?type=downloads_week

As for the effect of LSB, for example it specified the standard packaging format to be .rpm... ever used debian, ubuntu, arch, or gentoo?

Yes, though it's no their preferred format, they ALL include utilities for handling RPMs.

It's the native format and normal idioms that we are talking about here. By your logic, BSD is linux because you can install RPM's on it: http://onlamp.com/pub/a/bsd/2006/01/12/Big_Scary_Daemons.html?page=1

He gives you exactly the same freedoms he has.

Nonsense. He can go back and re-license all of his stuff at any time. The GPL is not binding to him. He binds everyone else with it. Sure, with the GPL, you're giving up your freedom in exchange for someone else's code. It may be a reasonable trade, but it's NOT freedom.

The problem with your analysis, is that it assumes a single copyright holder. The proper way to use GPL, as is done in the linux kernel, is for all contributors to retain copyright on their contributions. In that scenario, as soon as the original author changes the license, he has to revert his code to the state it was before he accepted any contributions... So he is in the same position as anyone else. Anyone can take their marbles (and no one else's) and go home.

The security comes from the fact that in any GPL project that becomes sufficiently important, there will be distributed copyright holders, and it becomes impossible to make it non-free. That is why everyone, including the original author, has the same freedom. They can only withdraw with what they themselves have contributed.

Your assertion that Linux is more popular BECAUSE IT IS GPL'ed is utterly laughable. Any number of very liberally-licensed s

... except that everyone who owns an XBox is a potential customer for XBox live.

By "Xbox" did you mean Xbox 360? Xbox Live service for the original Xbox has ended.

until they start charging for youtube views... (e.g. http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10221501-93.html)

The basic technique used is as follows: Windows uses the Autorun.inf file on these drives or devices to know which action to take whenever they are connected to a computer. This file, which is on the root directory of the device, offers the option to automatically run part of the content on the device when it connects to a computer.

By modifying Autorun.inf with specific commands, cyber-crooks can enable malware stored on the USB drive to run automatically when the device connects to a computer, thus immediately infecting the computer in question.

I just did a little googling, and it appears you can easily shut it off.

From CNET:

Unlike with CDs, Autoplay on a USB flash drive will run a program immediately, no questions asked. Quoting Leo "USB Thumbdrives or flash drives are a non-obvious but easy way to spread malware." The only thing most malicious software needs is for you to run the program. The Windows Autoplay feature, for flash drives, hands this service to the bad guys on a silver platter.

Why does MS insist on lax security? Autorun should be off by default, not on. This is just plain stupid. It's not a bug, it's a design error. CNET adds that if you're running XP, TweakUI will work.

And, it looks to me like TFA is a slashvertisement. Its bottom line:

To prevent this, Panda Security has developed Panda USB Vaccine, a free product which offers a double layer of preventive protection, disabling the AutoRun feature on computers as well as on USB drives and other devices.

At least it's free.

You know your government has tanks, missiles, stealth bombers and is on its way to warships with laser cannons right?

And all that did so well against the Iraqis, Afghans, and Vietnamese. Those countries are smaller population and area wise and its a lot easier to drop bombs on foreigners than your own people.

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I've thought about this also.

I bet cops (and military units for that matter) have a distinct EM signature.

Radios, Laptops, Same Engines, and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting.

How hard would it be to detect all those frequencies simultaneously and triangulate the emission source? (hard I would imagine)

How far away could you pick things up from?

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The problem is just cause 4 million people watched something on TV doesnt mean you could get them to each pay $1.

Even then credit card companies charge $.20+ a transaction and the distributor is going to take a healthy cut too.

Distribution is a huge barrier. Especially once (if?) pay per episode downloadi catches on. Right now there is a limited number of TV channels, when anyone with a camera can make and sell episodes for $1 audiences are going to fracture.

Whos going to win, $4 million dollar scripted TV shows, or $10,000 reality TV shows?
 
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Actually, netflix is coming to canada with only the streaming service: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-20010936-17.html

But who thinks theyll be using atoms? I remember reading that Microsoft, and others were looking into clustering them. The current atoms are more powerful than a P4 and use only 13 watts, 18 at 100% cpu.

At 18 watts each and 26 amps at 110 watts thats about 158 atoms.

158 x $100 each = $15800

2.86 kw x 24 x 30 = 2059 kwh

$0.20 (the outrageous price I pay for electricity) x 2059 = $411 a month to run this thing

$0.04 (the price I wish I payed for electricity) x 2059 = $82 (Now thats reasonable!)

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I, as a reasonable person, would not be too surprised to find an actual Jedi-branded "mind control" system. Actually, I think I saw one is ToysRUs once.

If you are thinking of this, then you should look closer next time. Not a mention of Jedi there.

We've seen this before: CBS Embeds a Video Playing Ad in a Print Magazine

 
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I don't think this is the first instance of this technology. I remember hearing about it last year. It was CBS and Pepsi.

It was discussed last August.

This is now a year after the first people did this. I suspect Slashdot covered it then too.

If you want something more substantiative, there's Mattel's licenced Star Wars mind-controlled "Force Trainer" toy. Clearly Lucasfilm thinks there's enough of a connection between moving objects with thoughts and Jedis' use of the Force to manipulate objects with thoughts, for them to put out an official licenced product on that premise.

Well, there's the licenced Star Wars brand mind-controlled toy, for a start.

Have u seen farmville?
 
"Gamers" arent the only ones who play games.
 
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Really? So you don't think a ruling stating that monitoring an American citizen's internet activity would require a court ordered search warrant would have any bearing on something like this? http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9926899-7.html

Does this mean the trojan writer can be tried for murder?
 
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As for other brilliant ideas, like New York State wanting me to collect taxes from my ebay buyers and file a tax return, they can rot in hell. I owe zero allegiance to that government, nor do I have any voice speaking for me in its legislature.

Well its only a matter of time before your state does the same thing. Maybe all the states will get together and do it all at once.
 
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Lou Gehrig May Not Have Had Lou Gehrig’s Disease

My head just exploded

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What about Lou Gehrig? How many times could he have gotten hit in the head playing baseball? I would be not that many...

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Super interesting Wikipedia article! You would think that if they were so good at it (the french judges) they could at least tell the difference between American and French grapes (even if they secretly found the American taste "Better")...

Actually, the snobs of both fields probably do have something in common: They enjoy spending money on things (Even if it's only for spending's sake)... Behold: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13580_3-9849949-39.html, a study that demonstrated the ability of something to be better (read: more enjoyable) so long as (and solely if) it is more expensive. Maybe the Audio guys aren't so crazy after all... Just deluded by their medial orbitofrontal cortex!