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There were actually two companies with that dumb business model -- Kozmo.com

AT&T & friends spent 1.4 billion on Net2Phone and then sold it for $28 million

I look at the other end of the spectrum. WebVan may have burned through $1b on a flawed business model. But BlueMountain.com was able to sell their site for $780m. They are a fricking electronic greeting card company.

"it seems that this is a piece of software that will turn you computer into a dvr"
I don't see this on their website, rather, I see instructions on how to connect your computer to your TV so that you can view media on your TV.

• Use the DVR to record TV shows and movies for future viewing.
• Find what you want to watch with personalized TV listings and customized channel lists.
• Search TV listings by title, keywords, or names in the cast and credits.
• Do it all without major start-up costs, set-top boxes or ongoing monthly fees.

Note that Yahoo! announced their purchase of Meedio (which provides the DVR funcionality) just two weeks ago, so "beta" might not be a good description (alpha?).

"and act as a google desktop search sidebar"
The most important feature in Google Desktop is its Spotlight-like indexing. Again, I don't see this listed as a feature of Yahoo! Go.

Search , Maps, Address lookup, Mail notifier and thousands more widgets put your Internet on your desktop.

Apple sells 5-8 million macs a quarter.

As another poster pointed out, you're waaaay off on this number. According to cnet Apple sold 1.25 million Macs in the quarter ending December 31st.

I understand that one shouldnt feed the trolls.

However - this fucking macfanaticism is getting even worse than the linux-fanboying around these parts. Now here's a question for you:
Apple sells around 1 million computers a quarter*.
Xbox360 has so far been selling almost 2 million units per quarter.
Add in whatever the PS3 will sell.
Add in whatever amount of Cell chips IBM will be able to sell on its own.
Now - which is more profitable, selling, oh, lets say 5 million cpus/quarter to various companies or 1 million to one single company? Make a wild guess!

ps. Nobody but stupid mac fanboys never believed a word that Steve Jobs was saying about the PPC. Nobody. Sorry.

*) http://news.com.com/Apple+earnings+continue+to+hum +along/2100-1045_3-5669710.html

Nice writeup submitter as you presented an excellent balanced example rather than the often one-sided point of view.

Yes Lets put Our back stabbing congress men and women over the shuttle's wings to protect the RCC from foam. After trying stuff like this http://news.com.com/Congress+may+consider+mandator y+ISP+snooping/2100-1028_3-6066608.html?tag=nefd.t op They have it comming.

Apple's customers are like no others--a rich blend of the most sociologically elite with those seeking elegant, simple computing... Unlike users of Intel/Windows computers, a significant portion of Apple's users are active , exploratory , avant-garde and early adopters . The activities they enjoy are unique in the way that they more often incorporate rich media such as video and music as well as more active prosumer behavior than many more passive Windows [and Linux] users.

-- MetaFacts, Inc.

With above-average household income and education levels, the Mac population [is] very attractive [ intellectually as well as physically .]

-- Nielsen/NetRatings (as quoted by C|NET)

We'll see HBO distributing episodes for $1-2

Are you so sure about that?

Good luck on getting rid of both the Republicans and the Democrats.

Good luck on getting rid of both the Republicans and the Democrats.

I'm getting 504s on TFA and Google News' link to the ZDNet article covering it. Is it very different from what Reuters is repoting on what Zimbabwe's doing?

The author of the article didn't understand his research. He said that according to Nielsen Ratings, 68% of US internet users connect with broadband. That's not true.
The Nielsen information for 2005 says that 68% of Americans use the internet - not necessarily through broadband. No statistics are given for broadband specifically, but they're definitely much lower. According to this article, US broadband usage will reach about 62% in 2010, and was 29% in 2004. I don't know about current stats, but it's probably near 35-40%.

At the software company I work for...

Right. A software company. Of course you and your company SHOULD be comfortable on Linux.

But for the other 97% out there, Linux is just nowhere near ready for desktop use.


(and I am no MSFT fanboy, I just think it's better for a large proportion of the population. And apparently, I am not alone. They have 85% of the desktop market for a reason other than just being a monopoly.)

Certainly not Steve Ballmers statement back in September: "I'm going to f***ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to f***ing kill Google."

Secondly, Intel is far from out...their soon-to-be-released latest generation of processors are going to blow AMD's current offerings out of the water in practically all aspects, including cost per watt. And they've even bumped FORWARD the release date of the Woodcrest processors to June. On top of that, they've engaged in a major restructuring effort and a price war. Intel was caught with its pants down resting on its laurels. However, the sleeping giant has been awakened, and Intel has the tech and the fab capability to make magic happen. AMD has an "in", which is great...competition is good in any market. But they're hardly replacing Intel, nor are they even going to be superior at this point. With P4 and Netburst going the way of the dodo, Intel is looking vicious. Now all they have to do is trim the fat to get lean and mean.

As a direct reply to some posters here:

The Conroe will launch when promised.
That it is a real launch with the product in stores, not just a paper launch.

Release dates have been pushed forward and Intel wouldn't dare goof this release...their stockholders are pissed enough as is.

That the performance will be as great as promised.

Plenty of benchmarks and specs and reviews have been released already. I haven't seen one that didn't decimate the existing chips. On a side note, Core Duo is an equally impressive release that is tearing up the benchmarks.

I'm just shocked at how cool Intel managed to make the new chips...Conroe's MAX will be 65 watts...that's already 30 watts below the P4's max. And the ultra low variants of the Conroe are slated to be like 40 watt max.

Intel has always had a process technology advantage over AMD. That never stopped AMD from shipping competitive products.

Process technology is not the end-all of making a respectable chip. Intel hampered themselves heavily by investing WAY too much in trying to stretch out a 6 year old architecture. Most of Intel's new architecture releases have been monsters...Pentium M, Core Duo, and the upcoming Conroe. Intel is in a fundamental generational gap. AMD has been beating the old platform. Lets see them keep up with the newer architecture. At the moment, K8L aside, I see nothing on the horizon. And frankly, as far as anyone knows at the moment, K8L is vaporware...nothing is known or even predicted about it.

Also, note that AMD's fab situation has gotten a lot better in the last year - with Fab 36 (and soon Chartered), AMD has the capacity to take on Intel in the market

While noted that AMD's fab capabilties are increasing, you go too far in claiming they can take on Intel's capacity. AMD's new fab gives them the ability to ship about 100 million units by 2008, which btw is roughly equivalent to Intel's capabilities way back in pre-2003.

AMD has always been conservative in launching new processes, and it has benifited them in the past. Intel's 90nm process turned out to be the nail in the Prescott coffin, but AMD's 90nm launch resulted in CPUs that clocked much higher, used less power, and cost less money.

But once again, AMD was competing with an aging platform, one that AMD largely always had a slight edge over. I want to see how they respond to Conroe.

While I'd agree that Conroe is looking quite good, note that Athlon 64 is not sitting still. Even a simple d

Well, at least they didn't name it "Monday".

Actually, with the proposed Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2006, wiretapping in copyright violation investigations will be legal. The previous domestic wiretapping scandal was argued for in the sense that not wiretapping "doesn't make sense in a post-911 world". While I won't go into the fact that the terrorists have indirectly (or directly) succeeded in removing civil rights, but the wiretapping was also justified to target terrorists.

I hardly think that downloading a song off the internet likens one to a terrorist, yet the government et. al want to use the same tools of investigation. This is just the first step of wiretapping justification and before you know it, we will be living in a police state, if not already.

I was testing the bot and seems to work

I just enter the article from here: http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6064016.html
"Congress readies broad new digital copyright bill"

and it say
"This text had been classified as
INAUTHENTIC
with a 33.9% chance of being authentic text"

seems to be very accurate.

The idea of a self-correcting mechanism is nice, and would indicate their is some sanity left in our government, but somehow I doubt that. It's sad that we have to depend on Corporations will get sick of other corporations doing this and will bring a correction to things - that's not how our government ought to be. For the people, by the people, indeed.

With patent auctions all over the place (even online), I'm not surprised about Intellectual Ventures.

If you are in the mood to swallow some Grade A tripe, check out their business plan.

1. Invention Labs.
2. Invention Research & Development.
3. Invention Library (tm).
4. Market Enablement.
5. Profit!

By the way, the "tm" after the Invention Library means trademark. Yes, they've even patented terms in their business plan.

http://news.com.com/A+high-tech+way+to+defrost/210 0-11395_3-6061333.html

"We built a solar cell made of ice," he recalled. "While it is not as efficient as a silicon solar cell, it costs a penny a square mile."

We can make super cheap photovoltaics, but you have to factor in usability. There's a very limited part of the world where you can use a solar cell made of ice.

Also, silicon solar cells aren't going to get any cheaper in the near future. The demand for polysilicon has been booming and (like oil) the refining/purifying capacity hasn't kept up.

Still, at least Microsoft Bob was not a completely wasted effort - after all, you still have Rover the retriever to help you with searching in XP - and we all know that was worth waiting 10 years for...

Hey, Bob was a success for at least one person:

Who was the Microsoft project manager in charge of Microsoft Bob? A woman named Melinda French... who now has the married name Melinda French Gates.

I think from your orginal perspective you were right, but I doubt that Java has been profitable. Consider what former Sun executive John Shoemaker said in April as reported in a CNET story:

Sun's Java software initiative was costly, too, he said, employing more than 4,000 developers to create a product adopted by IBM and other competitors. "The cost burden was staggering: Hundreds of millions of R&D dollars per year, plus the huge opportunity cost of all the highly skilled technical people who could have been working on direct revenue-producing products. Had some of these resources been devoted to Solaris, for example, it would have potentially made a big difference." see http://news.com.com/Ex-Sun+exec+lambasts+Suns+late +layoffs/2100-1014_3-6059491.html?tag=nl

I'm not opposed to showing ID to board a plane. I don't, however, like the thought of my email, phone calls, and other communications being secretly monitored because I might be 'a person of interest', said monitoring being approved by a secret court.

I'm not anti-military and I'm not anti-government. I just feel that the provisions of the constitution regarding things like freedom of speech and unreasonable search and seizure are there for a reason. Many people have died so that we could have these rights and we're giving them up quietly, one by one, in bits and pieces.

I'm sick tired of our rights being taken away because of some submarine legislations (DMCA, patriot act, etc. etc).

Aw, you ain't seen nothin' yet...

W

A list of McNealy zingers. I have to say, I'm gonna miss reading absurd quotes from this guy.

You are mixing up two things (and perhaps I did too, though I thought I spelled them out).

1) The family copyright act thing was signed into law last year, I quoted from some of that.
2) the H.R.4077 from which I was quoting is NOT law.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d108:h.r.0 4077:
"Latest Major Action: 9/29/2004 Received in the Senate."
Which incidentally confirms what the article linked by this story says:
"The provisions were included in H.R. 4077 as passed by the House."

But this new proposal (which again has NOT passed into law):
H.R. 2391 The Intellectual Property Protection Act
Includes elements from all the bills listed in the article, INCLUDING H.R.4077.

So your quote"Get it through your thick, thick head: this became the law of the land LAST YEAR. It's done. It is not a bill, it is not something that might be signed into law, it is signed, and it is the law, right now. Has been for a while."
Is not correct. At least not in reference to that portion of what I was actually talking about, which was the proposed legislation HR4077 that exempts ad skipping from being infringment.

Quote from you:
"And you know what I don't recall? I don't recall lawsuits around ad skipping buttons. In fact, as a copyright lawyer, who knows more about copyright law than you ever will, I don't even see how that would be possible."
Your expert legal copyright career must have been pretty short up to this point. Starting around 2003 or 2004 perhaps, so you missed the sonicblue/replaytv lawsuit?

Lets pick a couple hits from google regarding sonicblue (original owners of replayTV driven into bankruptcy)
http://news.com.com/2100-1041_3-1015121.html
"The company said its upcoming ReplayTV 5500 boxes, which are expected to be released in August, will not contain the Send Show and Automatic Commercial Advance tools as the company tries to "address the concerns of copyright holders.""
"Two years ago, the major movie studios and TV networks filed a lawsuit against Sonicblue, which at the time owned ReplayTV."

The exact name (if you want to do more specific research):
Paramount Pictures v. SonicBlue

http://www.eff.org/IP/Video/Paramount_v_ReplayTV/2 0011031_complaint.html
There's the complaint.
Since you said
"I don't recall lawsuits around ad skipping buttons. In fact, as a copyright lawyer, who knows more about copyright law than you ever will, I don't even see how that would be possible."
Well here's how its possible, quotes from the complaint:
"Defendants' unlawful scheme attacks the fundamental economic underpinnings of free television and basic nonbroadcast services and, hence, the means by which plaintiffs' copyrighted works are paid for. Advertisers will not pay to have their advertisements placed within television programming delivered to viewers when the advertisements will be invisible to those viewers. In effect, by eliminating the embedded advertising, defendants' copying-and-commercial-deletion feature will (as to those viewers who employ the feature) eliminate the source of payment to the copyright owner for the very program being viewed."
"For subscription television program services that depend in part on advertising revenues, use of the AutoSkip feature has the same effect. In both cases, the AutoSkip feature would fundamentally and inevitably erode the means by which copyright owners are paid for their works and hence the value of the programming they create."

Apple's customers are like no others--a rich blend of the most sociologically elite with those seeking elegant, simple computing... Unlike users of Intel/Windows computers, a significant portion of Apple's users are active , exploratory , avant-garde and early adopters . The activities they enjoy are unique in the way that they more often incorporate rich media such as video and music as well as more active prosumer behavior than many more passive Windows [and Linux] users.

-- MetaFacts, Inc.

With above-average household income and education levels, the Mac population [is] very attractive [ intellectually as well as physically .]

-- Nielsen/NetRatings (as quoted by C|NET)

I've not seen any such endorsement on the SIAA site. I'm not accusing you of spreading FUD, but I am extremely interested in verifying for myself that Red Hat, Sun, etc. are actively supporting this bill.

It surely seems to be true:

• The article mentions SIIA halfway down the page.
• The SIIA board membership page lists Mark Webbink as the chair of the board.

Maybe if modern copyright law weren't so obviously aimed at giving money to people who didn't earn it, it'd be easier to persuade people to respect it

Microsoft doesn't release patches fast enough and they don't do adequate testing. They don't win on either count.

But you have to admit... they at least get their press releases about their upcoming patches out in time.

This is the same administration that objects to creating a .xxx top level domain. Come on, make the tld so all the porn can be put into it's own niche and filtering software will actually prevent children from viewing it. And with all porn legally required to be tucked away in the .xxx it would make it that much easier to get action when someone tries to put it in a .com. Gonzales wants porn to carry an identifying mark - well a .xxx domain would be that and would work within the existing infrastructure of the Internet.

One thing I'm surprized is that the RIAA/MPAA haven't tried to shut down the P2P programs with the goverment saying that they harbor child pornography.

Never mind seems like they already have.

Didn't the president of China visit Bill Gates before Pres. Bush?

Ok, take this ;-).

Things weren't rosy for Apple. Markt share was declining massivly. Most quarters were in the red, some of them really bad; the loss for 1996 was more than 700 millions.

OK, "nearly bankrupt" was a bit harsh, but things didn't look good for Apple at all ... And some more quarters unchanged would have been the end for Apple ...

Ok, take this ;-).

Things weren't rosy for Apple. Markt share was declining massivly. Most quarters were in the red, some of them really bad; the loss for 1996 was more than 700 millions.

OK, "nearly bankrupt" was a bit harsh, but things didn't look good for Apple at all ... And some more quarters unchanged would have been the end for Apple ...

I thought Tivo and Comcast were putting together a new box for mid-late 2006? news from last year. What's the status on this I wonder?

Yes, nearly bankrupt with 1.2 billion in cash

On the same website that is reporting the Gonzales/censorship story, we find the following piece of hilarity and counterpoint to Gonzales obsessive need to be frightened of the mere mention of sexuality:

http://news.com.com/Kids+outsmart+Web+filters/2009 -1041_3-6062548.html?tag=nefd.pulse

Like so much of the spew that the current US Regime continues to produce, this is clearly another case of "distract them while we slip it to them". I am actually surprised that out of the 40-some-odd posts I've read here about this resurrection of Tipper's late abortive attempt at protecting the Internet from Children, only one of them has even mentioned the real thrust of this legislation - which unsurprisingly has nothing at all to with pr0n or protection of netizens from it.

Gonzales also warned that Internet service providers must begin to retain records of their customers' activities to aid in future criminal prosecutions -TFA

This is wrong on a number of levels, and Gonzales' attempt to exploit minors as "victims" of the Internet and its alleged pr0n is just that: Another Republicrat attempt to exploit children as a means of manipulating their parents.

Furthermore, fuck Gonzales and his repeated and ongoing assertions that use of the Internet is de facto evidence of some "criminal activity". He is at the heart of what is arguably the most criminal Regime ever to control the US - the crimes of his mentors in this administration start with treason and continue down thru spousal abuse and criminal malfeasance. How can it not be obvious that this pathetic smokescreen is simply backing for his attempts to force ISPs to aid in government efforts to regulate and control political Speech?

A headline has been running for several days now concerning Yahoo's apparent liability in the imprisonment of a Chinese national for political speech in China. How much longer before we see reports that ATT, Google, Yahoo, or MSN have supplied information leading to the political imprisonment of US citizens? Careful, that's a trick question - if that Chinese fellow had been in the US, he would have been labelled a terrorist, and there would have been no reports, since there is no longer any requirement that the govt announce the fact once they have imprisoned a citizen for this new class of "crimes"....

HIGHLY doubt that. Do you really think they want to be accused of enabling terrorists?

http://news.com.com/Microsoft+Vista+wont+get+a+bac kdoor/2100-1016_3-6046016.html?tag=nefd.top

BTW there are tons of articles on this topic, this is just the URL I had on my desktop from the last article on this subject I read. Do a Google with Microsoft FBI BackDoor...

And actually Microsoft has been selling the NO BACKDOOR feature to the security agencies, so THEY don't have to worry about their data falling into the wrong hands, and can use the new technology to ensure the data doesn't get in ANYONE'S hands, especially terrorists...

Wow, and if you actully found an article not from 1999, maybe one like...

http://news.com.com/Microsoft+Vista+wont+get+a+bac kdoor/2100-1016_3-6046016.html?tag=nefd.top

You would see that NO ONE gets a backdoor, not even the FBI or NSA...

I wonder why they couldn't keep developing Internet Explorer??

Because (to paraphrase their official statement) they could not hope to compete, because they couldn't get the kind of access to OS X that the Safari team could.

It's actually kind of funny when you remember that Microsoft always disputed other Windows developers' claims that they couldn't compete against Microsoft's own Windows applications for much the same reason. The term "Chinese wall" comes to mind.

~Philly

32 bit Vista will run 16 bit apps. There isn't much out there to persuade home users to migrate to 64 bit Windows. Who wants or needs 64 bits?

it seems that the company is finally, if belatedly, fixing things. Stephen Sinofsky, a Gates confidant who oversaw a steady and regular set of Microsoft Office releases over the past decade, is now running the development of future Windows versions.

compared with:-

Sadly, Gates, too, is part of the Bad Microsoft

Here's what I'm missing...

He's described as a confidant to Bill Gates and http://news.com.com/Microsoft+to+shake+up+Windows+ leadership/2100-1016_3-6052572.html describes him, as "a trusted lieutenant of Chairman Bill Gates and CEO Steve Ballmer".

My experience of people who become "trusted lieutenants" is that they are generally people with a similar outlook. The sort of managers who are micromanaging pricks don't generally like free spirits working for them.

I'd really be interested to know where the "good Microsoft" is. All my experience is that the attitude of a corporation comes from the top. The chief exec hires people with his attitude and it cascades down. Those staff who are flexible follow the new order, those that hate it leave, and new starters will be picked based on likelihood to fit into it.

The moon is not fully subjugated. I demand a second assault wave preceded by a massive nuclear bombardment.

There just about to do it to look for water, time to change your sig.

An invention from Royal Philips Electronics prevents TV viewers from switching the channel during commercials or fast-forwarding past commercials when watching DVR content.

http://news.com.com/Philips+device+could+force+TV+ viewers+to+watch+ads/2100-1041_3-6062861.html