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The difference between edits being 'applied' and 'visible' is of course one that can be debated endlessly and no doubt will be. The reality - that many users will not see the most recently edited version of a page - is most interesting to me. Whether this makes Wikipedia more or less wiki-like may be left as an exercise for the reader - I know where I stand.

Uh no. It isn't. After watching a program on CyberTerror on the Internet and how terrorists are using steganography to communicate back and forth, I am convinced that it is efil. :P Ok, it may have use for some things, but it IS being used to communicate amongst terrorists without being detected by the NSA. They are working on technology to be able to detect altered bits in graphics, but it has a way to go yet. What I saw being tested was impressive - basically, the software scans the *.jpg for pixel irregularities - ones that have more or less data, etc. Granted, it was limited, but then... the program is probably 3 years old. It did not make mention of the March 2004 Witty Worm, which was one of the most devastating attacks I've seen yet. It was clearly cyber warfare attack, based in Europe, designed to target a nearby US Military Base. We got hit by this because of stupidity at the executive management level, and it wiped out our data center. *gah* So, if this wasn't mentioned, I'd say that the program is definitely outdated.

I appreciate the skill and magic of Steganography, however, I see the inherent dangers that it possesses, and hope to goodness that there are monitors out there for it by now. It's clear that this method has been used to transmit operational data - the researchers suggested it may have been used to help coordinate 9/11.

Oh, the source - Histories Mysteries, History Channel - it aired yesterday afternoon. :P I'd link it, but can't get to the site through Websense. It was an excellent program, and it gave me a lot to think about in terms of disaster planning, infrastructure protection and threat assessment.

If radio shack cuts anymore costs , what will be left?

Wanna go for overdose?

http://news.com.com/Let+the+PS3+games+begin/2008-1 043_3-6110352.html From Cnet news
"We look at our products having a 10-year life cycle, which we've proven with the PlayStation. Therefore, the PlayStation 3 is going to be a console that's going to be with you again for 10 years."
I wonder if the PS3 will be a better price in four year when the PS2 is through its 10 year life cycle?

Of course, I don't think Wired's article is all doom and gloom. Really, it's just pointing out Sony is betting the house on this one; something that I and many other Slashdotters had already realized. It could go the other way too, though. If the PS3 is a success, it could be bigger than the walkman for Sony. I may not wish to see Sony succeed, but I have to admire their courage to risk so much.

"The iPod makes money. The iTunes Music Store doesn't." Apple won't die (in the music industry) as long as the iPod does well, and it's plainly obvious that iTunes has virtually nothing to do with the success of the iPod. I don't like DRM any more than the next guy, but I'm not about to claim it's the sole reason Apple isn't six feet under.

Unix-based OS X is "not a server OS?"

I think OS X Server operations like this disagree with you.

Sure recall the laptop batteries, but they do nothing for GX270 & 280 owners that have machines stuffed with a failing batch of Nichicon capacitors produced in 2003... The Nichicons produced before and after that batch are perfectly fine, just that one batch from is bad.

http://www.badcaps.net/forum/attachment.php?attach mentid=1553&stc=1

http://www.badcaps.net/forum/attachment.php?attach mentid=431

Dell is doing something about the problem, but for the most part, a lot of people are not even aware of the problem...

http://news.com.com/Bulging+capacit...742.html?tag =nl

http://news.com.com/Dells+third-qua...630.html?tag =nl

http://news.com.com/Dells+dilemma--...26477&subj=n ews

Sure recall the laptop batteries, but they do nothing for GX270 & 280 owners that have machines stuffed with a failing batch of Nichicon capacitors produced in 2003... The Nichicons produced before and after that batch are perfectly fine, just that one batch from is bad.

http://www.badcaps.net/forum/attachment.php?attach mentid=1553&stc=1

http://www.badcaps.net/forum/attachment.php?attach mentid=431

Dell is doing something about the problem, but for the most part, a lot of people are not even aware of the problem...

http://news.com.com/Bulging+capacit...742.html?tag =nl

http://news.com.com/Dells+third-qua...630.html?tag =nl

http://news.com.com/Dells+dilemma--...26477&subj=n ews

Sure recall the laptop batteries, but they do nothing for GX270 & 280 owners that have machines stuffed with a failing batch of Nichicon capacitors produced in 2003... The Nichicons produced before and after that batch are perfectly fine, just that one batch from is bad.

http://www.badcaps.net/forum/attachment.php?attach mentid=1553&stc=1

http://www.badcaps.net/forum/attachment.php?attach mentid=431

Dell is doing something about the problem, but for the most part, a lot of people are not even aware of the problem...

http://news.com.com/Bulging+capacit...742.html?tag =nl

http://news.com.com/Dells+third-qua...630.html?tag =nl

http://news.com.com/Dells+dilemma--...26477&subj=n ews

CNET version of the article

I can see abuse over this technology. News stories used to rejuvenate Liberals will be viewable only in liberal areas, and they'll put a different twist to the same story and make it interesting & viewable in Conservative areas. That's kinda what happens now, except it comes from different sources, but now with this new technology it could come from the same sourcd!

Under the agreement, Spiralfrog will offer Universal's songs online in the US and Canada. "Offering young consumers an easy-to-use alternative to pirated music sites will be compelling," Spiralfrog Chief Executive Robin Kent said.

Under the agreement, Spiralfrog will offer Universal's songs online in the US and Canada. "Offering young consumers an easy-to-use alternative to pirated music sites will be compelling," Spiralfrog Chief Executive Robin Kent said.

When iTunes was young, some guy tried to resell a song on ebay:
Here is the story .

Amazon.com is taking orders for Windows Vista.

http://news.com.com/2300-1016_3-6110494-1.html?par t=rss&tag=6110494&subj=news

No... maybe... how do you know for sure?

Blogger "Mickeleh" saw some irony in the name Zune; In Hebrew, if you pronounce the "u" like in the word "tribune," it translates into a vulgarity beginning with "f" that means screwed, "which apparently all the vendors who followed Microsoft down the 'plays for sure' road seem to be," he wrote.

If Slashdot could figure out a way to monitor Bill Gates bowel movement habits and patterns

"Adding security to an existing, large insecure system will, in my judgment, prove an impossible task" Bill Joy, 2002

Oh. My. Fucking. God!

Way to make yourself look like an imbecile to the entire console world!

http://news.com.com/2100-1040-250632.html

"One of the basic premises of the Xbox is to put the power in the hands of the artist," Blackley said, which is why Xbox developers "are achieving a level of visual detail you really get in 'Toy Story.'"

Way to go idiot!

"The MGS4 trailer is nice, but it's a CG trailer with no Hud or actual gameplay"

Bwhahaha!!

Every Metal Gear trailer ever shown is all real time in game engine including this latest one.

No HUD, what a moron...

Ok, can you elaborate on that? Normally, the cases where the prosecutors ask Google for Orkut user info normally involve child porn or drug distribution, and at least one case involved "virginity auctions" of ten-year-olds.

FAQ: What does the Google subpoena mean? The GP is right--the DOJ was fishing, and expected search engines to assist in their witchhunt to support their tenous position.

People on Google Brasil have access to the data just like people from the Google US.
That doesn't mean that they have the right, or can be compelled, to divulge that information.

And even if nobody in Google Brasil has access to such data, they can ask Google US for the data.
Which is what was suggested that they do.

For those playing at home: we just learned why Google is hesitant to build data centers in countries that have weaker protection for freedomes than does the US.

It is said that they who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it:

http://news.com.com/2100-1023-279561.html?legacy=c net

Microsoft tolerated piracy because they knew damn well it was hurting smaller companies more than it was hurting Microsoft. Selling an office suite for a tenth of the "official" asking price of MS Office is irrelevant if the "street" price of MS Office is £nil. Basic human nature -- specifically, the hunter-gatherer instinct, a remnant from caveman times which lives on in us today and explains why some people think paying full price is cheating, why some people will consider a pair of shoes a great bargain even if they do not fit and why your dog prefers food stolen from someone else's plate -- suggests that the more expensive product will get pirated and the less expensive product will get ignored. If MS Office had not been so easy to pirate, then less expensive, competing products would have gained a greater market share.

MS would rather you were using pirated Microsoft software than Open Source -- after all, if you're using pirated MS software, there's at least a small chance that you can be strong-armed into buying legitimate MS software {the other way to get legal would be to go Open Source, which has happened but is admittedly a rare occurrence}. Whereas, there's no reason why anyone who is already happy with Open Source would want to change to Microsoft.

Meh. Both have their issues though. Plasma has a life span that really isn't determinable. Its user dependent. However the older notion of it dying in like 5yrs has changed, as more recent technology has more or less fixed this issue in plasmas. However I fail to see how they can still out last an old school crt that has been well cared for. LCD = dead pixels, which are factored into the return policies and not for the good.

"...Under Dell's policy, which considers a screen defective only if it has six or more faulty pixels..." - from an article on cnets page about dead pixels cnet article
-note that the quote is pulled in reference to a laptop ...and an article on plasmas
article

FTFA: "allows making online purchases with a slide of a dinger across the scanner" (emphasis mine)

really.. a dinger..? you don't say...

The whole fingerprint-for-payment-at-the-store thing has been debated here plenty before, so i'll steer clear of it.. but TFA (well, TFblogpost) is centered around Pay By Touch launching a service that lets you scan your fingerprint at home and autopay at various online websites with a simple swipe of your finger. I don't know who steered them down this path, but they should be fired.. promptly.

I can recall several dotbombs that had this same business model (an e-wallet that had all your info in it already so all you needed to do was purchase from participating vendors and a username/password/whatever was all you'd need to make each purchase), and they all failed miserably. Anyone remember flooz? Maybe i'm just a cynic and these guys will have a fresh new approach that will catch on like wildfire.. but it seems a nonstarter to me, since none of the failed dotcoms so much as required you to have a biometric scanner in your home.

Are we so Backwards in Europe? Now there's a thought

1. The judge's opinion was so poorly thought out and written that even the far-left blog sites (e.g. DailyKos) are acknowledging that it will probably be reversed or at least be sent back for review. Legal professors are saying that they would give a 2nd-year law student an F if she turned in a homework assignment this poor. To say it assumed the conclusion is to give it more substance than it had. (see http://news.com.com/2060-11199_3-6107326.html?tag= nefd.blogCaro)
2. Even if the above were not true, to crow that corporations that cooperated with the NSA will be punished is just a ridiculous leap of speculation with no basis in anything.

Is Ops the new zilla? While the Netscape brain has been contending with a life of hard knocks, LiveOps appears to be attracting most of the gray matter. http://news.com.com/Where+are+Netscapes+pioneers+t oday/2100-1032_3-5406730.html

EMI music videos to land on Zune

And all you have to do is turn the crank madly to see anything. These poor kids are gonna end up with right arms like Hell Boy.

As initially envisioned, the laptops sported a hand crank on the side to generate power, but Negroponte has scrapped that idea because the twisting forces that would be bad for the machine. Instead, some form of power generation device, likely a pedal, will be attached to the AC power adapter, he said.

Ari Virtanen said on CNET "Once you put a SIM card in, it's automatically controlled by the operator."

I don't want to buy any hardware where I am not likely to control both ends of a connection. WiFi uses peers, but WiMAX uses a $15,000USD base station. I'm not likely to buy one of those ever.

So I'll skip out on GPRS, UMTS, WiMAX, or any other technology where I must talk to an expensive base station that will be controlled by a vendor.

I might buy a pocket widget that lets my Nokia 770 talk to the mobile phone network via bluetooth, but I don't want to be forced to buy that.

but there is going to be hell to pay once their server farm of Vic-20s sends all those viruses through Fidonet at 300 baud in order to bring America's SychroNET and C-NET C64 BBS user base to its knees.

Nope, they've seen the latest Norwegian research and are moving up to ip-packet-carrying birds. The good news is that you can disable that network with a 20-gauge shotgun, and in a pinch, those pigeons are actually edible. Pheasants (which originate in Asia) are better eating, but don't home as well, and they're bigger targets. Though they might work well in a Token-Ringneck network topography.

I know that everyone is just having fun at Dell's expense, however, the problem is with the Sony manufactured Li-ion batteries. There have been reports of Apple MacBooks suffering the same fate (Apple also procurs its batteries from Sony http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/laptops/who-else-beside s-dell-used-the-sony-batteries-apple-194728.php), however, since they ship far fewer laptops per year than Dell, they have had fewer laptops burst into flames. And then there were the cell phone batteries that were catching fire a few years ago -- http://news.com.com/Cell+phone+batteries+Avoid+get ting+burned/2100-1041_3-5420061.html.

The problem also extends to the shipment of Li-ion batteries. A shipment caught fire on a UPS plane a few months ago - http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/ 17/1857232&from=rss.

The problem is linked to poor quality control and flawed designs.

I know this is off topic, however, this is becoming a serious problem and may lead to further restrictions when traveling on commercial aircraft.

...

As to "how come they aren't warning Apple about their iPod naming"; sounds like a fallacious point to me, since the answer is pretty clear: they apparently chose not to "warn" anyone. Also, see the previous point above.

The iPod is practically on the cusp (if not already) of being one of those universal words that is synonymous with "portable music player" - and, in this case, not even because of the same reasons as Kleenex and Xerox, but because nearly all - over 92% - of all hard drive-based portable music players actually are iPods.

So when Apple vigorously protects a mark of a product that is so well known and universally popular and desirable (yes, it is "desirable" to most people - that's why there are so many of them, at the price of entire entry level computer systems, no less), even when individual instances could be deemed questionable by others, is it any surprise?

Also, both of these products - Profit Pod and TightPod - are new products, released long after the iPod has been established; while it might be questionable that the former is could be mistaken for an iPod, the latter is an accessory for portable music players. And regardless, Apple needs to defend the mark against real or perceived threats, lest an entity in the future claim that Apple wasn't vigorously protecting it from even possible infringement.

For a mark and product as important as iPod, is it surprising that a company would be very thorough in protecting it? (Does this suck for smaller companies who might not have intended infringement, like Profit Pod? Yep. But if there is a possibility of non-defense in that instance ever being used against Apple as an argument that the mark wasn't properly defended, well, I'm sure you can at least understand the reasoning. Further, the "TightPod" was clearly chosen to play of iPod, unless you ca argue with a straight face that the word "Pod" was just coincidentally included on a protective cover for "portable music players".)

You know what they say about trademarks: protect them, or lose them - especially in an environment where someone might claim the owner didn't protect it.

"The mere fact of placing a copy on a shared directory in a computer where that copy can be accessed via a P2P service does not amount to distribution," Finckenstein wrote. "Before it constitutes distribution, there must be a positive act by the owner of the shared directory, such as sending out the copies or advertising that they are available for copying."

Maybe the SEC is starting to ask Larry and Sergey awkward questions about some of those shares they sold.

http://news.com.com/Google+co-founders+cash+in/210 0-1030_3-6030223.html

In brief, AMD is putting together 4 cores on a single die, like their current dual core design. Intel just got to the 2 cores per die stage. Their 4 core design is 2 dual cores slapped together.

Intel's 4-core is supposed to be out before AMD's 4-core. What will be interesting is to see what happens when Intel gets 4 cores on a single piece of silicon. Will they release an 8-core that's two 4-cores "slapped together"?

The real question here is what's a better approach: Being first to have X number of cores on a piece of silicon, or being first to "slap together" two (x/2) core pieces of silicon?

Here's what the police are saying

But the point seems to be that the device supports Wifi, which is fast enough for Skype.

Shadow of the Colossus - Note the jagged edges and overall muddy appearance.
God of War - Same.
Resident Evil 4 - Getting better but still muddy, some jaggies.
Halo 2 - Same as RE4, some jaggies.
Oversized(remember, 480p, up to 16:9) Red Steel shot 1 and shot 2 - Crisp, no jaggies, decent lighting, texture detail is good.

Shadow of the Colossus - Note the jagged edges and overall muddy appearance.
God of War - Same.
Resident Evil 4 - Getting better but still muddy, some jaggies.
Halo 2 - Same as RE4, some jaggies.
Oversized(remember, 480p, up to 16:9) Red Steel shot 1 and shot 2 - Crisp, no jaggies, decent lighting, texture detail is good.

Shadow of the Colossus - Note the jagged edges and overall muddy appearance.
God of War - Same.
Resident Evil 4 - Getting better but still muddy, some jaggies.
Halo 2 - Same as RE4, some jaggies.
Oversized(remember, 480p, up to 16:9) Red Steel shot 1 and shot 2 - Crisp, no jaggies, decent lighting, texture detail is good.

Shadow of the Colossus - Note the jagged edges and overall muddy appearance.
God of War - Same.
Resident Evil 4 - Getting better but still muddy, some jaggies.
Halo 2 - Same as RE4, some jaggies.
Oversized(remember, 480p, up to 16:9) Red Steel shot 1 and shot 2 - Crisp, no jaggies, decent lighting, texture detail is good.

13. google.com - changed the Internet maybe. The WORLD? nah

Changed the web, yes, the internet is their next target.....

Dell market Cap: 49$bln
AAPL Market Cap: 55$bln

Actually, AAPL would be more able to buy Dell.
Not vice versa, as you suggest.

Also this article from 2002 w/ Michael Dell:
http://news.com.com/2102-1001_3-203937.html?tag=st .util.print

From cnet

HP's offer will apply to the current "Sarge" version 3 of Debian and to version 4, "Etch," due in December. (Debian versions are named after characters in the movie "Toy Story.")

That sounds a lot like AvantGo, only that uses Palm OS so you can use the bigger touchscreen. If you are going to have an encyclopedia put on your iPod, why not use a real one like Britannica instead of Wikipedia? That way you could cite it,

See title... VMWare make software virtualisation products. Of course they're going to try and find that software methods are better.

Disclaimer: I work for VMware.

1. VMware already supports VT, but it's not enabled by default because for normal workloads it's slower. If VT really were faster, do you really think we'd be choosing to use a slower approach and making customers unhappy?
2. Even Intel admits the first generation of VT hardware wasn't so great and now claims that they were aiming for correctness instead of performance:
   • http://x86vmm.blogspot.com/2006/04/intel-quietly-b acking-away-from-vt.html (from Keith's weblog)
   • http://news.com.com/Intel+feeds+virtualizations+ne ed+for+speed/2100-1006_3-6048217.html

As usual, Brazil is ahead of the rest of the world in social things. Ricardo Semler has been doing open source business for 20 years, as Chief Happiness Officer. Here's a review of his book, The Seven-Day Weekend: Changing the Way Work Works. Some people are extremely enthusiastic about Semler's ideas: He's my idol.

Normal CEO's are Chief Unhappiness Officers. They steal everything they can, and act out their anger toward everyone they can.

One of the most important examples of a business run in an adversarial way is Microsoft, of course. After all this time, major media outlets are starting to get it right. Here are quotes from the CNN article Microsoft security--no more second chances?:

"By now, Chertoff's people must be thoroughly frustrated that Microsoft still turns out poorly designed products."

"Here's something to consider: If bridge builders or airplane designers applied the same standards to their labors, do you believe that the public would so easily forgive the regularity with which bridges would collapse and airliners fall out of the sky?"

If you like the CNN article, don't forget to D I G G it.

"It is a interoperability hell from a competition perspective and a interoperability paradise from a plattform perspective. Happiness in proprietary slavery?"

"Hypocrite much? Microsoft pushes Trusted Computing on you, is threatening to lock users out of hardware space altogether, and you're going to talk to us about Open Standards and Proprietary Slavery?"

You sir are the hypocrite. Apple's Intel Macs already contain a Trusted Platform Module chip, currently used by Apple to make sure that OSX doesn't run on a non-Apple Intel system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Mighty_Mouse.

"It was announced and sold for the first time on August 2, 2005. Prior to the Mighty Mouse, Apple had sold only one-button mice, starting with the Apple Lisa 22 years earlier."

It is going to take a lot longer than one year to convince the public that a 22 year dog has learned new tricks especially when everybody knows that dog for it's tricks.

Who said anything about MS, but since you brought it up, remember this little news flash: http://news.com.com/MS+to+invest+150+million+in+Ap ple/2100-1001_3-202143.html. Make sure you put the event in perspective: http://money.cnn.com/quote/quote.html?pg=qu&sid=60 9&symb=AAPL&time=10yr&uf=0. Apple users should be a little bit more gracious towards the company that lend a helping hand in time of need. Imagine if Gates would have bought Apple and turn it into MS Windows' Screen Saver department. The world would be spared from all the FUD about all the FUD anytime anybody dares to say anything about Apple, and Windows would probably have a better GUI.