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As usual, the liberal shit for brains has no clue and can't even do a quick google to cover his ignorance. ROFL.

Full on Windows is not competitive in it's native language, so the notion of "stripped down sounded odd to me too, but what I found was even more surprising. Just a little reading is very enlightening. No one but Microsoft and end users will know what's going into the package but Windoze is even less competitive in Thai.

What could they remove for this obvious region based dumping project? Calc? Notepad? The clock on the button bar? Oh wait, I see that they have a "stripped down" version of Office Standard, itself already stripped down.

I have to wonder what they could remove from such a basic set of software. Office Standard comes with a word processor, spreadsheet, email client and a presentation program and DRM that you have no control over. I suppose they could remove the presentation software and leave the user with ascii or Microsoft's crappy html code generation for information sharing. Spell checker, do they have a Thai spell checker? Do they have Thai anything at all? The user will still be looking for a paint program, pdf writer, a browser and email client worth using and third party software to do anything real that's business related. Who knows when M$'s not talking?

Microsoft Thai page does not say as far as I can tell without their special software. They have the same bogus "facts" presentation, but you have to have "active scripting" to have the right characters appear. Mostly, the site is in English, the rest is broken, some advert that is. M$ gets its ass kicked by Gnome's beautiful Thai page which rendered perfectly with Mepis / Debian unstable. This page is fun too!

Given the above differences in software quality and the ease of "piracy", I doubt that M$'s little dumpting scheme is going to work. Their "People's Software" initiative might suck in a few clueless government types but people who know software are going to continue to chose Linux. They could give their stuff away and it would not be taken up.

The biggest problem that I've seen so far with mail on my phone is that it limits the size of the messages. Then you add in the fact that it takes forever, even with predictive text input, to type a message and it starts to become less useful.

I will admit that I was considering a PDA/phone for a bit recently, but I decided that the extra bulk wasn't worth the addition of a PDA... and then I realized that all I really need is simply, just-a-phone. If I want any of the other features I'll just get a PDA that can use my phone as a modem. I think what it boils down to for me is that when I'm out and away from home I just don't want any of those extras with me, and if I do I can bring only the device I need for that added functionality. I.E. bring Nomad IIc when I want mp3s, Canon SD100 when I want pictures, and my laptop for many of the other features.

I guess it just boils down to what your needs and wants are. Personally, I prefer discrete devices for specific functions, and really wish that I could just get a really small phone without a whole bunch of features other than those that I mentioned.

Like this one here: http://reviews.cnet.com/Siemens_SL56/4505-6454_7-2 1008701.html. Too bad I'm switching to Sprint in the near future and they don't have anything like it. That is probably the first cell phone that I've actually lusted after.

In all seriousness, the really odd bit about this article is that the author doesn't seem to know his audience . . . he writes about the most basic of features at a very high level for the novice (like metering, b&w, & sepia features), but then spends an inordinate amount of time describing camera raw files . . . which would be more appropriate for the more advanced user. Then he goes on do describe digital SLR features which are pro and pro-sumer level cameras. But when the author writes about advanced features, he writes about them in a very condscending way . . . like he is coddling a newbie.

I would guess that the author wrote the article with the entire audience in mind (from beginner to pro), but because of this, the author has created a mediocre article that is not very useful for anyone. It's like building the perfect automobile for everyone, without regard to the needs of specific end consumers . . . you wind up with a single product that is not very good for anyone.

Beginners would do better to read tutorials on Cnet etc. and advanced users would find more benefit at sites like luminous landscape

The author claims that he will write reviews next . . . Based on the quality of this article, I would read these with caution. I'd suggest the reviews at DPReview instead.

Sample Pics 1 - may appear dark on non-Macs with bad graphics cards

Sample Pics 2 - may appear dark on non-Macs with bad graphics cards

1080i - ... 1,080 vertical pixels by 1,920 horizontal pixels ... Contrary to myth, 1080i is not superior to 720p; 1080i has more scanning lines but also suffers the disadvantages of interlaced scanning.

720p - ... 720 vertical pixels and 1,280 horizontal pixels... Contrary to myth, 720p is not inferior to 1080i; 720p has fewer lines but also has the advantages of progressive scanning and a constant vertical resolution of 720 lines, making it better able to handle motion.

Because Sony wants to sell some.

The base prices don't differ much. But the point is, any time something like this comes up someone will bring up Apple portables, as if nobody else makes good notebooks.

The base prices don't differ much. But the point is, any time something like this comes up someone will bring up Apple portables, as if nobody else makes good notebooks.

"iRiver really should learn how to design nice looking hardware from the experts"

I don't think they need to. The PMC-100 looks really, really slick to me.
Random linky for image

And even this PMP-120 isn't all that ugly imho. likes/dislikes is always subjective, of course.

I'll never understand why Fry's doesn't want people looking at their ads on the web, given what they sell...

CNet: Fry's shuts down frysad.com

Sadly it seems this site you refer to doesn't have info about deals for the Austin store, unless that's what "Dallas area" means...

And THAT will be the problem with these video players.

Whaddya mean "will be"? These things exist now. No need for speculation! Let's check out the reviews and see how many hours of battery life these video players actually have (when playing video, that is):

RCA Lyra RD2780: 4 hours max
Archos AV320: about 3 hours
Archos AV340: 3.5 hours

So no, you won't get your 5 hours from any f the current players.

I think the real problem here is that the manufacturers are trying to make these players too similar to audio-only players (e.g. the iPod). They're trying to use the same wimpy 800-1000mAh custom battery packs that most mp3 jukeboxes use. This makes sense from a business standpoint -- you only have to make one battery for your various jukebox products, and you get to sell those custom replacement batteries for $50. But from a practical standpoint, this just won't do.

The solution: video players are bound to be larger than mp3 players anyway, if only because of the screen size, and they're all an inch or more thick. It's time to start making these things use standard batteries, just like digital cameras. They'll fit, and the capacity of regular batteries is plenty high. I've seen AA batteries advertised with as much as 2300mAh of capacity. One of those would do the trick for sure, and two would rock! Even two AAA batteries with a 800mAh capacity each would be an improvement.

While the original PlayStation was commonly known as the "PSX", the PSX in this case is here

This isn't the first time.

Check out these reviews for Rio Karma on CNET and IGN. They also review a lot of other MP3 players. That's what made me buy a Rio Karma. Still waiting for it, because it has to be delivered to Colombia.

This distro. Excellent audio hardware support, a free searchable knowledge base maintained by professionals, and support for 5 years for this low one-time fee. It comes with lots of free software too including image and text editors, a web browser, video and audio player, lots of good stuff. Check it out.

2004 will see the first handheld devices using the same 3D technology that powered the Dreamcast gaming console.

Of course nVidia and ATI and others are also going to release 3d for mobile phones.

In the last video game generation people were shocked at the unbeliveable power the consoles had. The n64 featured an advanced 64bit 100MHz MIPS RS4?00 chip with SGI level 3d graphics designed by SGI for $200. Only a few years before that a slower 32bit 33Mhz MIPS 3000 chip with worse graphics would've cost many thousands of dollars. Just wait a couple years and we'll have $20 watches with gigs of memory to replace our iPods and more power than the xbox ;)

.... Sun is making inroads with StarOffice. Sun signs StarOffice deal in India

According to this review of the ipod mini, firewire is slowered [sic] than usb.

According to this review of the ipod mini, firewire is slowered than usb.

The Mini comes with both FireWire and USB 1.1/2.0 connections. Over FireWire, our songs transferred at 2.6MB per second; over USB 2.0, they synced at a brisker 3.18MB per second.

What's the big deal?
CNET India

> how much does thatn X40 cost? $1500? i think not.

Starting from 1499, at the moment on sale from IBM for 1424.

> So i ask you slashdotters, what good slim laptops do you like?

I'm using a Thinkpad X23, 866mhz, 384mb RAM. I had a smaller Toshiba Portege and Sony Vaio before, but their keyboards were pretty lousy. I might upgrade to the Thinkpad X40 in the future, but the X23 still does everything I need.

remember this[cnet.com] crazy event.

apparently windows ce was for some reason intergrated into a BMW that was being used to escort a high ranking offical of Thailand.

Think Linux inroads has got Msoft shitting in its pants so this comes as no surprise. If you can't beat it technologically, create FUD around it--In Malaysia and Thailand, our redmond fiend has launched a so-called Windows XP "Lite" for cheap...Y? Cos the govts "threaten" to launch desktops with Linux!

Sure, that's good... until they outsource those jobs, too. What we should watch out for is that companies don't start a race towards the bottom, where everyone is fighting for scraps and the jobs go to the lowest bidder.

Well, you know that Microsoft maybe evil, a monopoly, and a lot of other things, but it is not stupid. they are not going to send their knowledge/knowhow out to India.

What!? they already did it...oh well, it is just tech support, but it is a start. Forget everything I said.

I get 2.5 on my 12" PB, max. Usually closer to 2.

Hutchison Global Communications, a Hong Kong based telecommunications company and ISP, has been offering broadband internet access to Hong Kong residents over their power lines for over a year now.

At downstream bandwidth upwards of 1.5mbits (and infrastructure to cater to upgrades of up to 10mbits) and at a cost of less than US$18/month, the service has been quite successful thus far, and as a subscriber, I cannot recall a single outage due to problems with the power lines (and not trouble at their network centres or regularly scheduled maintenance operations).

On Aug 20 of last year Chris Sontag is quoted as saying, "the company has uncovered more than a million lines of copied code in Linux, with the help of pattern recognition experts."

Then on Feb 6 of this year, in court before the judge, IBM states that SCO has publicly made such a claim but has in fact only shown a few lines of code in 17 files to which SCO replies, "With respect to the overriding issue, that SCO failed to identify line-for-line code copying", Heise (SCO's attorney) claimed "that has not and is not what the case is about." At that point, Heise said SCO cannot identify the violations.

Now, either they had the evidence they said they had when they filed the suit in the first place or they didn't. It's beginning to look more and more like they didn't and the whole affair was merely a fishing trip. If this is the case they should be held accountable for everyone's time and money that they wasted since they never had the evidence they claimed in the first place.

An electronic malfunction in his BMW locked him and his driver inside. This happened back in May 2003.

CNET Asia has more on that or you can google it HERE

The Sony DVM1 is a 'Walkman' style portable DVD player. It has a 3.5 inch LCD screen and comes with a stand, carry pouch, stereo headphones, remote control, lithium ion rechargeable battery and an ac adapter. It can play DVD-video discs, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW and standard audio CD's. It is truly portable, weighing just over a pound and providing up to 4 hours of playing time per charge.

This one raised my eyebrows Sony MPD-AP20U

The company's new external drive is a battery-operated portable that not only reads CD, MP3, and DVD discs, but writes CDs too.... also sports a Memory Stick slot to read audio and video files stored on the company's proprietary flash media. While many such attempts at integration often ended by the wayside, Sony manages to pull this one off rather nicely.

Dude, the market is flooded with basic phones. Have you seen the Verizon catalog lately? They have a huge selection of basic phones for $30 or less. So if you "just want a fricken phone + phone # storage", hey, knock yourself out.

Second, what makes you think bells and whistles automatically make for a bad phone? I can use my phone for a lot more than just calling people, and you know what? It's still a really good phone. Don't knock it till you try it.

Surprisingly enough, I got all the information I needed on CNET (which I've hated since they killed winfiles, BTW).

I did actually look at some of the more pro places, but I was seeing on various message boards strong suspicion that a lot of reviews were just advertisements (No! Say it ain't so!), so I figured a place that allowed user reviews and provided general specs would be the place to go.

I ended up with a JVC GR-D30U, which is a low-end Mini-DV camera. I do semi-pro animation, and I'd been wanting something that would capture video at a decent resolution so I could play with green screening. This one does 520 lines horizontal, has a 680,000 pixel CCD, 16x Optical Zoom, and is better than a military grade starlight scope when you turn on the night alive feature (only about .5fps, though); I have night video of a herd of deer on my property from about 300' where you can count the points on the antlers easily.

A copy of Ulead Media Studio, Firewire, and this camera is all you really need. I fully expect it to either wear out or be hopelessly obsolete with 1.5-2 years, but at less that $500, who cares?

As I remember here this not to long ago.

I'd prefer the Porsche laptop.

I do remember when this came out, though. It was a flop. It was overpriced (more than the TiBook at the time), and fragile.

Which would you rather have: possible bursts of 3MB/sec or dependable 1.5MB/sec?

Service in my area has not been burstable, it has been constant, so far..
I can pull my full 3Mb/sec at any time during the day or night on any day of the week. I have never seen a time when the speed delivered to my house was less then 3Mb/sec (or roughly 350-380KB/sec of actual downloaded data). My speeds are noted when pulling from Giganews which averages about 5 ms away. Speed tests to other sites like CNet vary widely and are not consistant as is any ftp or web site.

As most of you know, it's been done already for ages, using pigeons instead of motorbikes. The IP-over-Pigeons technology even has itw own RFC, which of course predates the implementation. Talk about a mature technology !

Bill Gates meets Darl McBride:

- I told it a long time ago: GLP is viral
------
.sig attached

I think he gets it, but his point is that there are still as many points of potential failure. Two of these drives, for example, are effectively eight drives, and if any given IDE drive has, say, a 5% chance of failing per month (obviously, I'm making this up to illustrate the math involved, rather than trying to show real life failure rates), then two drives would have a 10% chance of failure. This isn't actually two drives though: it's eight drives, meaning you have a 40% chance of at least one sub-drive failing.

Wouldn't it be more robust to be able to treat each of these devices as a single, four disc, 250gb RAID array? If you want to store 1tb of data, then 4 of these, configured as RAIDS rather than monolithic nodes, seem like they would be more reliable.

I mean, I see what you're saying, but the earlier point is still valid. Your suggestion treats two of these as a Redundant Array of Inexpensive Discs, but I'd argue that a $1200 Disc wouldn't fit well with most people's idea of "inexpensive". On the other hand, a quartet of 250gb "more traditional" RAIDs would consist of sub-drives of about $180 each -- even if you have to replace all four discs in one of the RAID nodes here, that's still cheaper than the $1200 unit.

Like I say, I see your point, but I think that to do what you're suggesting would be both more expensive and less reliable than other approaches. I'd be willing to consider well-reasoned counter-arguments, though :-)

CNet has a picture of the device:
http://www.cnet.com/4520-7912_1-5116369-1.html?tag =top

CNet.com review
NewEgg.com listing
It doesn't look like the iHP-120 plays FLAC, but it is firmware upgradable so it may someday. USB mass storage device so it will work with Mac, Linux, and Windows without extra software (If that's important to you). The Rio Karma's ethernet interface is Java/Swing based, so you must have that on your computer. However, I don't own either of these, yet; this is just the research I have done. I'm seriously considering the iHP-120, but it is rather expensive.

This looks really tempting, especially with the Ogg support, but I just hope they'll support Macs. Currently, the iHP-120 only has limited Mac support:

After loading new music, you can right-click the Database file in the player's root directory to start a scanning process that harvests song information for use in browsing by artist, album, genre, or song title. If you fail to do this, you'll be able to browse only by directory. Since the software is currently Windows-only, browsing by artist, album, and genre is disabled when songs are loaded from a Mac [...]

But it is not particular cheap either. It's comparable to the other mini-HD based players.

But it is not particular cheap either. It's comparable to the other mini-HD based players.

Does anyone remember C-Net, a rather common and rather annoying BBS program for the Commodore 64?

I'm sure there were still some C-Net BBS's running when someone decided to use the name as an Internet news/download site. When I first heard of www.cnet.com, I wondered "Why bring a bad BBS into the Internet era?"

Microsoft already outsources to India. Just a heads up.

The battery on the iPod is the one and only reason I won't but one.
Here is a CNet article on other reasons not to buy one...

Japanese phone in US market? Take a quick look at the cell phones available in the US, Japanese vendors have very small percentage of the market. Korean vendors like LG or Samsung has much better share of the markets.

Japanese 2G system is based on Docomo's own TDMA technology and isn't compatible with the international standard GSM. While this allows Docomo to evolve the system faster and benefit from the success of i-mode in Japan, the incompatibility has casue Japanse phone vendors such as Panasonic, Sony and others the world market.

The world wide mobile phone market has been dominated by the MEN (Motorola, Ericsson, and Nokia) and three of them has combined market shares of 80% or so.

Right now, the battlefield for mobile phone market is in China who has 250 millions mobile subscribers and that's almost the whole population of the US. Chinese market is expected to double to 500 millions by 2007.

The battle in China is just the beginning and the next will be India with has only 5 millions of cell phone subscribers. With a population of 1 billions, there are plenty of growth opportunities.

Laying out the facts about the market, we can see how important Chinese cell phne market is today. Whoever gets Chinese market will get India market. Cell phone, much like computers, has almost the same price across the world. A handset costs $100 in the US will still cost $100 in China or Inida. In this regard, US market is relatively unimportant.

In late 2002, several Chinese vendors like Ningbo Bird, TCL, Haier and Legend announced that they would enter the Chinese cell phone market while was dominated by MEN with 80% market shares along with Samsung, Panasonic and Seimen for the rest, the Chinese vendors was laughed at by the press. The prediction was the Chinese vendors' combined market share would be about 10%. Early this year, the number was adjusted to 20% and the truth came out is that Chinese vendors now have 55% of the Chinese cell phone markets and Motorola was overtaken by Ningbo Bird which is now the #1 cell phone vendor in China.

However, with all the glory in gaining the market share, Chinese vendors was doing it by licensing, OEM, ODM the phones from vendors from other countries such as Korea, Taiwan, Europe, and US including Motorola. Lack of the control to the core technologies, the Chinese vendors can't gain huge profit from their market share and also means their market domination depends on the competitors to supply the technologies.

Now, with market shares at hand, the Chinese vendors will be able to support domestic vendors to develop technologies for cell phones. Europe GSM has long developing the model of having large companies like Nokia or Ericsson in charge of the global branding and marketing while supporting start-ups at home to do design and development. Same thing is going to happen in China. The company E28 in the story was founded by top level executive of Motorola's China operation.

In conclusion, Japanese vendors are niche in the global cell phone markets. US cell phones market isn't important because there is no market growth and the standard used in the US is also not standard compliant (GSM runs at 900/1800 Mhz while US GSM called PCS runs at 1900 Mhz). The real market of significant is China today and India tomorrow and whoever wins China today will have India tomorrow.

Japan police arrest two P2P users

There are around a quarter of a million users of the supposedly anonymous file-trading network, called Winny, which rides on the more well-known Freenet network.