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And they're still big in Japan. http://news.com.com/2100-1001-279593.html?legacy=c net

I have an LG VX3200 or some such. I love it. It is a phone. It has a contact list and a calculator and that's about it. But, alas, I think it's discontinued. Here's one link.

Or at least an Intel-licensed derivative of it.

http://news.com.com/Apple+has+Intel+inside--sort+o f/2100-1042_3-5598783.html

I am not going to try to convice you that Firefox is better than IE, but here is an article that bolds some of the intresting parts of this article which was posted on Slashdot earlier today.

He suggested this years ago. I think they owe him a consulting fee.

"Apple should partner w/ Google and the recently announced Google Wi-Fi service. Two power houses, major distribution and mind share, not to mention the pile of cash they're both sitting on. Oh and they'd be getting free advertisements w/ 2-3 combined posts per day here on /."

More likely Google will buy AOL from Time Warner.

As theorized here:

http://news.com.com/Google+to+bid+on+AOL/2100-1038 _3-5873485.html?tag=nefd.top

And Dugg here:

http://www.digg.com/technology/Google_to_bid_on_AO L_

Google pulls anti-Scientology links, March 21, 2002. "The popular search company said it removed the links after it received a copyright-infringement complaint from the Church of Scientology."

Google Removes Links in Response to DMCA Complaint, August 31, 2003. They did so in response to a DMCA notice from Sharman Networks, Ltd.

They keeled over very fast. What's worse is that "the U.S. Patriot Act [sic] . . . specifically forbids companies from making disclosures about government requests for information." You don't even have to know when your records get seized -- assuming you're important enough to get inquired about, of course.

I find it difficult to see how anyone can claim IE is more secure than any other browser, unless there is one that purposely downloads malware, of which I am unaware. I'm not going to dupe all of the other comments about the design issues in IE, but it will be a frosty day on the sun when I browse with IE without some protection.

is the real problem. Piracy as I see it seems to be the only thing controlling prices on the music. Steve Jobs has just stated that Apple will resist price changes at the iTunes store. He cites their greed as the only motivation to increase the price. I have seen many recording artist (some still in their teens) that wealthy that they will not have work again in their lives. That is true today as it was 50 years. So, what is piracy real impact? I am no advocate for piracy but stopping piracy completely will opened the door to price gouging. Ultimately, their greed is going to have a significant impact on American culture.

Just to show that CNet News is not unbiased against open source. Bugs Found In Open Source AntiVirus Tool talks about a bug that was only in versions from June 23 and BEFORE. And yet it makes the headlines today. And with an advertisement for Trend Micro. How peculiar.

By accepting Yahoo's "typical" installation of YIM with Voice, it will also download Yahoo's Search Toolbar with anti-spyware and anti-pop-up software, desktop and system tray shortcuts, as well as Yahoo Extras, which will insert Yahoo links into the Internet Explorer browser. The IM client also contains "live words," which will automatically show an icon when the user highlights words online and then hyperlink to Yahoo search results, definitions or translation tools. Finally, the installation will alter the users' home page and auto-search functions to point to Yahoo by default.

To avoid these changes, users must actively choose the "custom" installation and uncheck five boxes.

Are you really sure that they are serious about security? Looks like they have some leach like qualities themselves!

OH! An optimist! :)

On a serious note, what makes you think security is in creasing? With added complexity comes defects...and applications to operating systems are constantly getting more complex.

It isn't whether someone can write a virus/worm/trojan. It's whether they can get such onto your box.

No doubt. Symantec used to create valuable products. I can't say that these days. It all seems to be scare tactics and insisting that they are in an important software category; they aren't ... and the category isn't security btw!

I prefer this comment

But I prefer these articles:

http://news.com.com/2100-1023-912695.html
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn2271

"Certain music CDs fitted with digital barriers to stop copying can also cause some Apple computers to crash and refuse to spit out the incompatible disc. The CDs can cause Mac computers to freeze and then reboot to a grey screen, according to an Apple technical support report."

To quote Ash: "WHO'S LAUGHING NOW?"

"Ensuring that CD's remained in a $17 - $22 price range from [literally, no joke] 1983 to the present,"

You're half right. CDs were about $18 in the mid-80s. If CD prices had stayed the same, that $18 CD you bought in 1983 would cost about $35 today. Instead, CD prices have been freefalling -- they were down to $13.29 in 2004.

"despite the fact that literally anyone will tell you that the reasonable retail price for a CD should more likely be around $9, max."

Hmmm... the free market disagrees with you. I don't dispute for one second that you and all of your friends think that CDs are worth about $9, but the free market has deemed that CDs are worth about $13.29 and online tracks are worth about $0.99. Whether they'd sell more at $9 to make up for the lost margin is one of those classical supply/demand curve analysis issues (and you can bet that the record industry has hired smart people to do that analysis) but keep in mind that the record industry nets about 20% on physical CD sales (although I suspect it's much higher on downloads). There's not much more to shave off.

"LP's and Cassettes were priced around the $7-$9 range range when CD's were introduced (1982)."

Also correct -- I was buying LPs around then as well. $9 in 1985 dollars is about $17 today. While unfortunately it's not the case with gas or property, at least we pay less for music today than we did in the 80's. This is not due to the kindness of the record executive's hearts, but because it's a much more competitive market today Record companies need to compete with all other sorts of entertainment -- and they need to compete with piracy, too. Record companies are slaves to the laws of supply and demand just as everybody else is.

"Even with inflation there is literally ZERO reason for a CD to be "on sale" at $16 or so."

As mentioned above, the average price of new CDs is down to about $13 and change. Some CDs may be more (two-disc sets, audiophile versions, and so on), but that's because the record industry gets to reap the same benefits of supply and demand that other industries do. Logitech could sell that mouse for $20, but they sell it for $50 because they know people will pay for it. It might cost Kenneth Cole $10 to make a shirt, but they'll charge $100 because they people will want it at that price. And so it goes, in virtually any industry you can name. So if a record company thinks they can create an audiophile special edition version of a CD and sell it for $16, and people buy it because they think it's worth the few extra bucks, then God bless 'em.

Bringing supply and demand home, if you've made the efforts to get the education and training that allows you to compete for jobs (say, as an IT manager or a development lead) that pay $80K - $100K, but your cost of living is such that you could scrape by on $40K, you'll still gladly take that $80K job if somebody's willing to pay you. There's nothing illegal or even immoral about that.

"Ensuring that their artists - even the ones who pull in the lion's share of profits for a label - only earn a maximum of $0.70 per cd sold (and not returned), yet making sure that that same artist is the one responsible for paying for the $100,000+ video they just made which will be played precisely one (1) time on your alleged music video station of choice."

Eh, mechanicals alone can run up more than $0.70. Royalties typically run $1 - $2 per CD. Not sure where you got your figures on video plays, either.

"Failing to offer any consumer, anywhere, any sort of online alternative that actually makes financial sense. People know that digital files to not require things like packaging or shipping costs. Yet a song on iTunes = $1. That is flatly ridiculous. I don't get artwork, liner notes or anything else - I get the song. It's also not a high-quality version of the recording. My guess, that's worth $0.50 at

So unless you are complaining that 266mhz PII and 128mb of RAM are too high system requirements, then you really don't know what you are talking about.

Don't blame me, I'm just going by what I've been told by the official press releases. A PC World review said here:

[Microsoft] advises getting 512MB of RAM and a "modern" CPU--more than Windows XP needs

Past experience with prior releases from this vendor has shown that if they say 512M, you will probably really need more than that. As far as the video requirements, don't blame me, this is what a WinHEC reviewer had to say about it in this article:

for those with an older video card, Longhorn will look a lot like Windows 2000

So, if you had been hoping to get a sample of all that wonderful eye candy technology that we're supposed to be all hyped up about, the sad fact is that you didn't really get to see it. Aw... You have posted here to rave about the look and feel of a new Windows 2000 theme. Congratulations.

The same article mentions:

The top-of-the-line interface... will demand a high-end video card with at least 64MB of video memory

Note how it says "at least." So, I'm left to wonder whether the 128M you were talking about wasn't what you had in your video card instead of the motherboard.

So, then, I went to Tom's hardware, and found this:

Windows Vista's new display driver model may compel users to upgrade to a PC with 2 GByte of DDR3 SDRAM and a graphics card with at least 256 MByte memory [...] As for system RAM, Page reportedly said, 512 MByte is "heaps" for a 32-bit system. For a 64-bit system, however, "you're going to want 2 gigs of DDR3 RAM."

I can only conclude from this that you know more about this than Tom's Hardware and PC World and News.com. 128M indeed!

Oh, and we were running some of the 2D and 3D WPF applications on it, and they even worked.

Great to hear that your beta software actually runs. That's some high standards there.

As it stands now, the technologies Microsoft are starting to disclose to its partners and Developer are bombshells of technology

I'm so excited for their partners. Those lucky partners must really be on the floor hyperventilating in an epic fashion. And I thought it was just an overmarketed eyecandy-riddled program launcher disguising a rat's nest of hidden vendor lock-in schemes. But it launches bombshells too? Now that's exciting... There wouldn't be any pterosaurs flying around nearby would there? (Never mind that.)

especailly if people in here are trying to even remotely keep up with the R&D that has been producing this stuff in some hidden closet for the past 5 years.

Stuff classified as R&D expenses qualify for tax breaks don't they? So you're saying that we're actually paying twice for this thing, even if we choose not to use the convicted monopolist's lock-in product? We're almost as lucky as their beta testers, er I mean partners.

other parts of Linux and BSD that are only scrambling to catch up to Windows

Really? Tell us more about this modern technology you would like to see in Linux and BSD. No doubt I can read more about it in your newsletter.

I challenge you to find a laptop manufacturer that hasn't had those types of problems. Dell's had it's share of exploding battery packs and fire hazard power adapters. HP's had it's share problems, including the memory problem that was recently subject to a recall (also affected Toshiba). The floppy drive issue on the Toshiba laptops involved more than just Toshiba -- a few other laptops had similar issues (including Compaq).

I forgot to mention that, if they think they can mislead customers, Microsoft employees often lie. This article provides today's example: IE flaw puts Windows XP SP2 at risk. It is quoted in this Slashdot story with the same name: IE Flaw Puts Windows XP SP2 At Risk.

Here is a quote from the CNET article: "A Microsoft representative confirmed that the company had received the report from eEye and said it will be investigating the issue. Because the details of the vulnerabilities have not been made public, users are not at risk of an exploit being developed to take advantage of the flaw, the representative said."

The statement "users are not at risk" is a lie, and I'm guessing that the Microsoft representative either was completely aware he was lying, or was completely aware he was too technically ignorant to make an assessment.

If one company can find a new vulnerability, other people can, too. The fact that eEye found the vulnerability means especially that well-funded organizations, like the U.S. government's NSA department, could find the vulnerability, also. If your government uses Microsoft products, your government is vulnerable to spying.

If $100 Million dollars won't make you want to switch to Vista, what will?"

How about:

          *New Communications services
          *Better File Search Abilities
          *A Better Disk File System
          *No New DRM
          *Improved security for the system and internet applications, to protect me from Spyware and Virues.
          *and System Requirements that don't require me to buy a new PC.

That's not asking for much is it? :-)

There was already the Google blogger who was fired for "recording his impressions of his new employer, including criticisms, in his blog" (emphasis mine) as also mentioned in this Slashdot story.

"Gartner remains concerned that viruses and worms will continue to attack IIS until Microsoft has released a completely rewritten, thoroughly and publicly tested, new release of IIS," the report says.

The difference, real or perceived, is enough that sites are going out of their way to choose Apache.

Iwata also said he hoped Revolution would give small developers an opportunity to create games for a next-generation console without the multimillion dollar budgets and years of development time required for today's top titles.

"Small developers can compete on creativity, not on scale or staff size...Nintendo is willing to help bring these ideas to life," Iwata said.

Iwata said he was looking forward to seeing how developers will use the pointer, which can be used for both quick action or slow, precise motion. A Nintendo video during the keynote even showed one player using the controller as a dentists' drill.

This one is so awful. From the looks of it, Linus Torvalds was forced to play the trademark game, because of a slimeball lawyer.

But it appears that because he didn't defend it from early on, he's now unable to claim it in Australia. So he should have been demanding money from all the Linux-name-using folks all these years if he wanted to become the trademark.

How ironic: to frustrate a lawyer slimeball at the behest of his users, Mr. Torvalds makes himself look silly in front of the court.

To get an idea of how scummy the first lawyer was:

Torvalds didn't plan on gaining trademark protection for the word "Linux" when he began work on his OS, but by 1996 he started wishing he had. That's when William R. Della Croce Jr. of Boston first started demanding 10 percent royalties on sales from Linux vendors, based on a trademark claim he had filed in 1994. The Linux kernel was still free software, but according to Della Croce, the name itself was his property.

That's 10 percent! What a parasite! It makes me think he deserves the Mr. Hands treatment.

If you want to buy a Creative player, that's fine. You can do so, and use every online music provider that's not Apple--none of which will let themselves work on an iPod, either, I might add.

It's not about "letting themselves work".

Remember Real's attempt to make files from their own music store work on iPods, since Apple won't license FairPlay to other stores? Remember how Apple went out of their way to break Real's software, which they called "the tactics of a hacker"? It's Apple who won't let files from other music stores work on iPods.

If you want to buy a Creative player, that's fine. You can do so, and use every online music provider that's not Apple--none of which will let themselves work on an iPod, either, I might add.

It's not about "letting themselves work".

Remember Real's attempt to make files from their own music store work on iPods, since Apple won't license FairPlay to other stores? Remember how Apple went out of their way to break Real's software, which they called "the tactics of a hacker"? It's Apple who won't let files from other music stores work on iPods.

If you want to buy a Creative player, that's fine. You can do so, and use every online music provider that's not Apple--none of which will let themselves work on an iPod, either, I might add.

It's not about "letting themselves work".

Remember Real's attempt to make files from their own music store work on iPods, since Apple won't license FairPlay to other stores? Remember how Apple went out of their way to break Real's software, which they called "the tactics of a hacker"? It's Apple who won't let files from other music stores work on iPods.

"Research group Gartner is advising businesses to "immediately" replace their Microsoft Internet Information Server software with a more secure server application, following attacks on IIS by the worms Code Red and Nimda."

Gartner approves of Microsoft more often than not, and this was by far the most negative opinion I've ever seen them express about MS. Too bad hardly anyone took their advice.

here

Apple sued Microsoft, the lawsuit was settled in 1997 when Microsoft agreed to buy $200 million of Apple's stocks (http://news.com.com/2100-1040-843145.html).

Sun Microsystems sued Microsoft, got a settlement in 2004 when Microsoft agreed to shell out $1.95 billion (http://news.com.com/Sun+settles+with+Microsoft,+a nnounces+layoffs/2100-1014_3-5183848.html).

AOL sued Microsoft in 2002 alleging the latter crushed its Netscape, and now...well, you get the picture.

Apple sued Microsoft, the lawsuit was settled in 1997 when Microsoft agreed to buy $200 million of Apple's stocks (http://news.com.com/2100-1040-843145.html).

Sun Microsystems sued Microsoft, got a settlement in 2004 when Microsoft agreed to shell out $1.95 billion (http://news.com.com/Sun+settles+with+Microsoft,+a nnounces+layoffs/2100-1014_3-5183848.html).

AOL sued Microsoft in 2002 alleging the latter crushed its Netscape, and now...well, you get the picture.

Already done http://news.com.com/2100-1032-1011296.html/

According to this article, the new interface is optional. You can actually switch between the two interfaces.

You mean like the FBI remotely activating the On-Star system and using it to track people and record conversations?

Note that the most disturbing part of that article is the fact that the courts didn't have a problem with the FBI doing this--they were only forbidden to do so because it was making OnStar fail during emergency contact.

Think they got that bug worked out during the last two years?

Here's a link to a CNET article about the FBI using OnStar to listen to people: http://news.com.com/2100-1029-5109435.html

According to the article, they can't do it anymore (as of 11/2003), although that may have changed since, I have not researched it heavily.

Regardless of what the FBI legally can or can't do, I'm willing to bet that some bored OnStar employees listen in for entertainment. Even if you believe they don't, this proves the capability to activate your mic and listen to you without your knowledge exists, so I would suggest that from a privacy POV it must be considered a threat.

when you're making it in the back seat?

Yes: http://news.com.com/2100-1029_3-5109435.html

Until whatever complex authentication they've put in place breaks, anyway.

http://news.com.com/2100-1029_3-5109435.html

So it can be used to eavesdrop on stolen cars, and only by a split 2-1 decision is the FBI blocked from using it as a "wiretap"

I'd say yes, they could tell when you're making out with a real doll.

Panasonic has been using Linux for a while with their set top boxes. I found this old cnet story here. http://news.com.com/2102-1016_3-996984.html?tag=st .util.print

apple's lack of support and bad attitude toward end users is well known, apple's support went into the shitter bigtime in the mid 90's and never recovered.

Then why does Apple rate high in customer satisfaction surveys?

In the personal computer category, Apple Computer scored 81 and led Dell by seven points. Toyota led the automobiles category with an 87. Honda trailed just behind at 86.

Chimner is not the only customer at odds with a PC maker. Our most recent survey of 29,593 subscribers reveals growing frustration with computer service. Last year, PC World readers told us they were unhappy with technical support. This year's survey shows little--if any--improvement. Dell, for example, tumbled in service overall--especially in hold times. The other big news: Apple rated higher than any other computer maker.

i was talking about HP and IBM and Sun in terms of non-pc support, eg unix servers. which all three companies sell. their support is very generally excellent.

And why are you comparing servers to desktop computers?

Week attempt to "change the story" and take the focus off the company's lack of performance. See CNET coverage of USB analyst Jason Maynard's "Castigation" of Novell Leadership. http://news.com.com/2061-10795_3-5854831.html UBS owns 1% of the company. Here's a quote: "We believe the current management team has been afforded ample time to produce results and turn Novell into a sustainable and profitable business, yet has provided little evidence of progress and does not instill confidence in their ability to execute. Without a change at the top we believe the company will continue to languish."

Maybe the 'confidential Microsoft information' he took advantage of was how to steal employees from competitors!

There is a long history of disputes between Apple Computer and Applecorps, dating back to the founding of Apple Computer. Check out Forbes and other news or just search on Apple vs. Apple.

It would appear MS has again fouled up a simple concept - "Applications". Other OSes have had this concept for a while. Instead of building functionality, like a web browser, into the OS and selling it as different versions, how about making a single version and then selling "applications" that add functionality to the OS.

The article sums things up nicely: My initial reactions are reserved, because there's just not that much detail available. Pricing, for instance, would be really nice to know. Will Home Basic Edition debut below the price point of XP Home today? Place your bets. The one thing I will say is that I fear that this may cause a great deal of confusion on behalf of your average consumer. Two versions of XP were enough to cause confusion, and now Joe Blow has four choices that may fit the bill.

Another thing that annoys me about this is the coverage of this flaw seems to indicate that this was unpatched for a while. This one is an example http://www.securityfocus.com/news/11308. Yet the original discovery was 9/4/2005 according to Tom Ferris' website http://www.security-protocols.com/advisory/sp-x17- advisory.txt

This bug was found and a work around was provided 6 days later. Is this unreasonable? If a patch were provided a week from now, would that be unreasonable?

I think that full disclosure is good, but giving a reasonable amount of time to patch a flaw is better. If we find out that Tom Ferris provided a patch to Mozilla that they ignored or rejected, then it changes things little, but releasing the vulnerability after 5 days due to a "run-in with Mozilla staff" http://news.com.com/Unpatched+Firefox+flaw+may+exp ose+users/2100-1002_3-5856201.html does not portray Tom Ferris in a good light.

This Ferris guy seems to have it in for Firefox. He gave them only 48 hours notice before publishing the exploit to the buffer overrun.
However, he also discovered some exploits in IE (http://news.com.com/Microsoft+investigates+anothe r+IE+flaw+report/2100-1002_3-5844431.html?tag=nl), however he in this case no exploit details were given at all.

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

"Shellcodes are typically injected into computer memory by exploiting stack and heap-based buffer overflows, or format string attacks. Shellcode execution can be triggered by overwriting a stack return address with the address of the injected shellcode. Thus when the subroutine tries to return to the caller, it instead returns to the shellcode that opens a command line for the cracker to use."

Definition of a Heap Overflow:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heap_overflow

A real example of a heap overflow:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin /MS04-028.mspx

Yes, that says "Remote Code execution"

"All this is is a heap corruption bug." Thats why it was released as a Buffer Overflow?

Maybe you should read the article:
http://news.com.com/Unpatched+Firefox+flaw+may+exp ose+users/2100-1002_3-5856201.html

"The security vulnerability is a buffer overflow flaw that 'allows for an attacker to remotely execute arbitrary code' on a vulnerable PC, Ferris said. An attacker could host a Web site containing the malicious code to exploit the flaw, he said. Though his proof of concept only crashes Firefox, Ferris claims he has been able to tweak it to run code."

You must be smarter than the researcher that discovered this, congrats! Maybe you should send your findings in to them as well.

According to this link, ""The existing deployments of Palm OS, including Palm OS Garnet, will continuously be supported. The purpose of the agreement is to maximize the synergy between the two companies. We really don't expect any changes in the relationships that we have with licensees."

Kind of like this article from 5 years ago, or this one from 3 years ago, or this one from Dec. 2000.

In 5 years, there will be an in every garage. Yawn...

Maybe you should quote what Nintendo themselves have, 1 gigabit. Your number is 32 times bigger than Nintendo's. Not plausable

Given that the cost of producing a cart is currently hovering around $2,

Given the cost is $10/meg, Id love to see where you got $2 from

A 64MB Matrix memory card will sell for about $10, Matrix said

Don't confuse application lag with load time

Have you even played the game? It was specially labelled "LOADING"

Links to $10/64meg please.

Then links to the $2, links to the 4 gigabytes, dont demand proof from me when your numbers can just as easily be made up. (And seem so unrealistic that they most likely are made up)

Making things up to defend calling someone else a liar is simply craven

Then you're craven, cause you're guilty of it

Eesh, I forgot about that.

Here's a link to an article about Google hiring people with experience in buying dark fiber capacity: http://news.com.com/Google+wants+dark+fiber/2100-1 034_3-5537392.html

The question to me is, how does this tie in with Cerf's hiring?

Pure speculation, but is Google trying to build its own backbone with proprietary protocols?

Or will Cerf be working on implementing current protocols, either for Google's internal needs, or for an entrance by Google into telecom?

Are phone.Google, video.Google, etc too far away?

Does Google want to get into content delivery as well as search?