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There was confusion as to whether or not it would replace NTFS, so thank you for clarifying that point, asshole.

OK - how's this?

Back in April, Slashdot reported the announcement of a Universal 3D File Format by Intel, Microsoft & others - to be "as open as MP3". Of course, that's not all that open. And this turns out to be the sneaky part. There is a real open standard already - X3D is ISO-ratified, royalty-free, and has multiple open source implementations. U3D is "going to be submitted to ISO" - one day - but right now they're talking to ECMA, which allows royalty-bearing patents.
I found this article by Tony Parisi, co-chair of the X3D Working Group a fascinating insider's picture of the standards wars, along with insights into what it takes to release an online game, what really killed VRML, and why open standards do (and don't) matter.
I mean, a royalty-bearing, pseudo-open universal 3D format from Intel and Microsoft? Sorry, guys. That trick doesn't work anymore


BTW, I need to get a life.

Ok, lets get this straight, once and for all - WinFS IS NOT A NEW FILESYSTEM!

by Have Blue (616) Alter Relationship on Saturday August 28, @08:46AM (#10096257) (http://slashdot.org/)
I thought the buffer overrun protection was AMD's idea, with the NX page flag.

Yup it was, AMD's X86_64 arch is the first to support the NX page flag. To bad MS screwed it up in SP2 and is now recommending people with Athlon 64's don't upgrade to SP2. See the story here:
http://news.com.com/Windows+update+harbors+AMD+con flict/2100-1016_3-5326707.html?tag=st_lh

Well, now that you mention it. It seems like an apt moniker.

...The success of Bose is not due to superior products, but superior marketing. This article, this one, and this one all point to Bose offering low quality products with some heavy duty marketing to back them up. I'm really not impressed by this latest invention, it just sounds to me like the "Just add magical magnets" effect. Put on some magnets, call it magic, make some money.

Better times for techies? and the an article it references Study supports controversial offshore numbers. This is just voodoo economics revived.

Better times for techies? and the an article it references Study supports controversial offshore numbers. This is just voodoo economics revived.

What VeriSign was originally supposed to do was manage the .com, .net & .org domain extensions. In and of itself, that isn't a monopoly service, all they had to do was make sure registrars didn't double-dip on domain addresses and things like that. It wasn't until VeriSign bought Network Solutions, however, that a conflict of interest came up. *Then* VeriSign became both the manager of the gTLDs and it's own customer.

Sorry, you're a little backwards. Network Solutions operated the Registry for .com and .net (and .org and .edu), in addition to being a registrar (in fact, the only registrar for these TLDs before five years ago) before Verisign bought them in 2000. Over the next three years, the Registry and NSI registrar were separated, and Verisign sold off the Registrar while continuing to operate the Registry themselves.

What VeriSign was originally supposed to do was manage the .com, .net & .org domain extensions. In and of itself, that isn't a monopoly service, all they had to do was make sure registrars didn't double-dip on domain addresses and things like that. It wasn't until VeriSign bought Network Solutions, however, that a conflict of interest came up. *Then* VeriSign became both the manager of the gTLDs and it's own customer.

Sorry, you're a little backwards. Network Solutions operated the Registry for .com and .net (and .org and .edu), in addition to being a registrar (in fact, the only registrar for these TLDs before five years ago) before Verisign bought them in 2000. Over the next three years, the Registry and NSI registrar were separated, and Verisign sold off the Registrar while continuing to operate the Registry themselves.

Its already here.
WPA uses AES (implimented using the Rinjdeal or however its spelt,algorithm). FYI there was nothing seriously wrong with the encryption in WEP. RC4 is a strong algorithm.
However the poor key exchange and flawed generation of Initilisation vectors within WEP are the cause of the flaws. The algorithm itself is solid.
For all intents and purposes WEP would be just as insecure if it used AES insted of RC4.

Apple isn't scheduled to release the first 64-bit version of OS X until the first half of next year and even then, it is not guaranteed to be fully 64-bit (though this is what most people, including me, believe).

in which its International Open Source Network (IOSN) will educate Asian users on the benefits of Free and Open source Software

That's kinda funny. From what I hear, Microsoft products are all "free" (as in beer) in many parts of Asia.

You'd think that Microsoft would be thrilled to replace its products with FOSS ones on Chinese computers, for example. With a piracy rate over 90% in China, Microsoft must be "losing" billions of dollars there every year. If Chinese users simply switch over to Linux, they'll instantly become legitimate, fully licensed users instead of software pirates, Microsoft will no longer "lose" billions! What enterprising business wouldn't like to stick its rival with a market where piracy is rampant?

Erm, no, I guess that won't work. Chinese users switching to Linux means Microsoft suddenly loses control of the largest emerging market in the world, and the only thing it'll actually lose is the opportunity to wring as much money out of China as it can. And since you can't lose what you don't have, Microsoft doesn't actually lose money in China, it just doesn't realize all the potential sales. Microsoft would likely lose more sales in China if users there rampantly copied someone else's product than it does now with users rampantly copying Microsoft products.

This would explain why they just released a guide on switching to Open Office.

A combination with these monitor simulating goggles would be the perfect solution to solve this problem.

why even bother filing?

CNet Story Here tells a different side.

The battle over this song is just part of the larger war to maintain our Fair Use rights. The outcome of this war, with battlegrounds ranging from JibJab to MP3.com, Linux to Microsoft, could well define the future progress, or lack thereof, of democracy. Every major political movement needs its anthem and I think that "This Land is made for You and Me" would be serve well for the Fair Use Movement.

you would have to show that the two acts (providing a copy and receiving a copy) were dependent.

Incorrect, and there are plenty of sources. Just to go with my first Google hit reporter Declan McCullagh of C|Net news communicated with the very author of the NET act, representitive Bob Goodlatt. In his article he writes:

"if someone logs on to a file-trading network and shares even one MP3 file without permission in 'expectation' that others will do the same, full criminal penalties kick in automatically."

There are more refferences including Ivy League tenured copyright law professors. They all say there need not be any quid-pro-quo. The mere expectation that others will be sharing qualifies.

Note that the received copy, as referenced in the law, doesn't necessarily have to be an unauthorized copy. If I offer you a copy of a program I wrote in exchange for a copy of a song you ripped, it would still constitute "financial gain" as defined in that statute.

Right, though there need not be any express conditions on "exchange". by your example I threw an infringing contribution into a communal "conspiracy pot" with the expectation of being able to receive something from someone out of that communal "conspiracy pot" - even if I made no contribution.

Ah, the person who says "share or be banned" is perfectly happy if I share items that are free to be redistributed, and nothing else?

Quite likely. Share quantity qualifications are not unusual, but I don't think I've heard of share type qualifications, much less "infringment" qualifications.

I have a directory with several hundred megs of perfectly legal MP3s. It was over a gig before I trimmed it down. If I had more harddrive space handy I could easily get it up to a few tens of gigs of legal MP3s.

I would be extremely surprized if someone "kicked" me for sharing such a collection.

I also defy you to claim anyone has any objection to perfectly legal porn, though I admit I'd have to pick and choose what parts of my collection to share if I only wanted to share those images and movies I had good reason to believe were specifically legal.

I have a handful of books/texts which are specifically legal. I have a couple tech documents which are perfectly legal

I also have some rather interesting computer generated images and video for which *I* am the artist, and some software and source code for which *I* am the author, some game support/mod files for which *I* the author, a rather advanced game strategy guide *I* wrote.

I don't think I happen to have any right now, but I know some people specifically host perfectly legal and rather interesting government documents.

I don't happen to have it, but Michael Moore has publicly stated he has no objection to Fahrenheit 911 being distributed on the internet.

What exactly do you think "share or be banned" means, then?

It's about getting rid of leeches. Sharing legal content is not leeching. I would be shocked to see someone "kicked" for sharing a mere fraction of what I listed above.

Hell, on P2P variety is generally more valuable than redundancy. Someone logging on with 100 public domain [aka OLD] books from Project Guttenberg is more far more valuable then someone logging on with the 234th copy of Metallica.

It is rediculous to claim that a "share or be banned" status is "incitement to infringe". There could certianly be some people who intend it that way but I doubt there are many, and it certainly is not legally valid to assume that intent.

-

But having said that, you are right. Word file format compatibility is the #1 problem.

Most of Dvorak's commentary is just grumbling about a bad product, but here is what might be the core of the problem:

"The ever-changing .doc format.
Even saving to older .doc formats or .rtf seldom gets perfect results. I'm always amused by the warning that things will change if I save in some format or other, yet after the save absolutely nothing has changed."

A more stable format is needed by businesses, agencies, organizations and individuals that value the information stored on their local drives, archives and file servers and/or is finds a benefit from the access or re-use of such information. This is especially true for documents that must be reusable or must be stored for longer than the half-life of the MS-Word formats (about 18 months). For these, there should be some concern about choosing a more stable file format at least.

A more stable file format is not an option when toeing the MS line, because MS uses changes in [default] file formats to drive the sales of new versions of MS Office. Especially since 68% of MS Office sales come from sales of new hardware, where in contrast for MS Windows this is 90%. That means that some portion of that 32% represents the sale to owners of earlier versions and is presumably driven by file format incompatibility. Given that MS-Office is one of the two *profitable* lines for MS, that's not likely to change for the better. In fact, Microsoft has recently quit the U.N. standards group:

" Microsoft quits U.N. standards group."

" OASIS calls for OpenOffice XML spec" Most people can connect the dots and see where MS is heading with this. The way out is to insist on products that use file formats well documented for interoperability and long term preservation. Legal issues aside, look at how well GIF and PDF have weathered the years. Try the same with a word-processing document of the same vintage!

Enough harm has been done. Every month for the last 5 or so years, billionns go down the drain unnecessarily. The nation (world) needs to get back to work and stop using its time to fiddle with or clean up after defective products...

Fold.

Or drop the pretense of being a software company and play on the area of domain expertise: marketing.

Of course with Morpheus's recent win in court...

Morpheus? Morpheus has been dead since they (were forcibly) switched to the Gnutella network. And if you read the legal opinion of the appeals court, it doesn't say that file sharing is inherently legal, just that the makers of the software are not liable for what their users do -- that's quite a large difference.

Yes there is, but that's not relevant. The RIAA doesn't go after downloaders, they go after sharers. And there is no legal difference between sharing for free and sharing for pay, with the sole exception of the amount of damages that can be awarded.

I'm pretty sure that if someone accused of downloading music actually proceeded to go into court that they could have a reasonable chance at getting off

Luckily for them, the people being served are retaining actual legal council who don't talk out of their ass.

Oh, and for the record, only about 600 people have settled as of June. The rest of the 3,249 are still going slowly through the court process.

http://reviews-zdnet.com.com/AnchorDesk/4520-7297_ 16-5142452.html

From a recent C|Net article about Yahoo!'s Instant Messaging client:

"According to research firm Nielsen/NetRatings, about 17 million people, or 12 percent of the Net population, actively used Yahoo Messenger in November. It trails MSN with 27 million users, and market leader AOL with 28 million users. ICQ and Trillian follow the three, serving only a fraction of their users."

So AIM is still on top, with MSN behind it. It should be noted that ICQ is owned by AOL and is compatible with AIM - so it's marketshare reflects the install base of the ICQ application, not the number of users. Even Apple's iChat can talk to ICQ users.

Joseph Elwell.

Did somebody say plagiarism? Hmmmmmmmm... 1 2

The best part is, the indiatimes article is obviously a direct ripoff of this one (link-ified for convenience). They have the same structure and flow, and several complete paragraphs were simply ripped verbatim. What is this, second grade?

Yes, clearly IBM would never have donated major pieces of code to open source, like development environments or database systems, if it hadn't been forced to do so.

no, I think you missinterpreted me. I claim (from what I've read (scientific or otherwise )) that feng-shui is a fake thing. Hence the "AFAIK".

I don't claim I know more then I know, and if you know you know more then I know, then by all means, let me know. I sure would like to know as much as you know, you know?!

>In other words, you probably should have placed a disclaimer saying "I really have no proof or statistics to cite, so I made them up, thanks for reading my post!"

ok - it's a totally fair counter-argument you make, let me relpy by quoating - "Since shattering that 50 percent mark the level of global spam e-mail has continued to skyrocket. By most measures that figure is now somewhere around 75 percent". And that was July 15, 2004.

I seem to recall there are already web-based office suites available - Hyperoffice comes to mind as one...

Microsoft announced they were going to provide Office through the Internet back in 1999 . I think it was called "Microsoft Office Online", but MS seems to have decided to use that name for a simple homepage about Office. I actually recall inadvertently running into a web page that was a web-based version of Outlook that ran through Internet Explorer years ago. It was sluggish, using DHTML for the GUI, although it looked identical to the desktop version.

I think Microsoft was doing this as a response to websites like HyperOffice that were cropping up at the time. I remember these sites were referred to as "Application Service Providers", although the definition of that term seems to have changed. I recall several but the sites don't seem to be up anymore. They were websites that provided a window manager within a browser. One was Desktop.com and another was Blox.com. Yahoo has a list of web-based desktop sites. There are some like GraphOn.com and WorkSpot.com that allow you to run remote desktops of actual operating systems through the web. WorkSpot seems sluggish, but Linux users might find it interesting to be able to access a Linux desktop through a Java Applet. There is a demo page that lets you try it out for 10 minutes.

This is the correct approach.

The Grokster ruling basically reinforces the notion that the only people that rightsholders can sue at this point are the endusers.

Personally, I agree that you shouldn't generally hold a technology accountable for how some may misuse it. Along those lines, the EFF themselves used to suggest that the RIAA should be suing infringers.

On the other hand, I think Kazaa is just a scuzzy operation, and I'd rather see them get sued than a bunch of end-users. But the Grokster ruling means that's not going to be the way it works, at least not for now.

If you don't like the RIAA, don't buy their stuff, and don't copy it. Go find new independent artists, and support them directly.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Oh - incidentally, you may be able to resell aac's you bought from iTMS (but again ... it comes down to those tricky bastards in control of copyright law):

http://www.macobserver.com/article/2003/09/09.4.sh tml

http://news.com.com/2100-1027_3-5072842.html

That would be this watch?

First of all, as someone already mentioned, MS has deliberately kept Passport low-profile, especially since this Passport became Passport to nowhere

Secondly, I think alike Google, the mailbox size increase has happen selectively, since (I believe) this is still in testing stages. Try keeping your mailbox usage in high 80% and see what happens in a week or so.

Finally, from the end user's perspective, it doesn't matter whether its passport or just hotmail, most users related MSN messenger to their hotmail account, which is precisely the user base that MS is exploiting and trying to retain

Paid Hotmail = 2 gigs (now)
Free Hotmail = 250 Megs (in fall)

http://news.com.com/Hotmail+to+offer+250MB+of+free +storage/2100-1032_3-5245523.html?tag=nl

I remember this company. It figures that they would go under. Never trust a business that emulates the Divx model.

Maybe the other 60% are using avian carrier protocol

Rather annoying and shameful for [Dell, Nokia] that is should happen in one of the most popular [laptops, phones].

http://news.com.com/Dell+recalls+notebook+batterie s+suspected+of+fire+hazard/2100-1040_3-247023.html

http://news.com.com/Verizon+recalls+cell+phone+bat teries/2100-1039_3-5248584.html

Rather annoying and shameful for [Dell, Nokia] that is should happen in one of the most popular [laptops, phones].

http://news.com.com/Dell+recalls+notebook+batterie s+suspected+of+fire+hazard/2100-1040_3-247023.html

http://news.com.com/Verizon+recalls+cell+phone+bat teries/2100-1039_3-5248584.html

ZDNet Story
Forbes

I had always felt there was an overheating problem. People in the newsgroups and suggested that I recondition my battery... which maybe helped some.

Anyway, glad to know that I'll be getting a new battery out of it.

AC

.... cause we all know how much damage piracy does to the music industry. Ba-zing!

Here is the deal name those stores you buy from. I'm talking about those with wide variety of selection. New selection.

People, Apple has no intention of allowing any one near the iPod.

"The major issue I have with Real is that they tried to cut a deal with Apple and *THEN* decided to go and 'hack' the iPod."

Actually, they've been working on this for awhile. They tried to get an agreement when they were successful. When Apple refused, they decided to go with it anyway.

Many companies do this. You develop something and then worry about getting the rights. If you can't get them, you have a decision to make and the lawyers get involved. An example would be "one-click shopping."

"It seems to me that Apple has no problem with an agreement with Motorola -- so what did Real do wrong?"

Keep in mind that Apple is still in charge with the HP and Motorola deals.

The HP device is an Apple iPod with different branding on it. It is not a device developed by HP. Apple is still in control.

Apple's agreement with Motorola states that Apple will create a new iTunes mobile music player. Again, Apple is still in control. They're not licensing their DRM code to Motorola, but they're building an iTunes which uses it.

In other words, Apple will not license what Real wants--namely, the DRM code. Yes, Apple has every right to not license it. But Real has every right to reverse-engineer it (depending, of course, on how it was done).

Seems like the kind of flaw that Alcatel hopes to profit from...
Alcatel hopes security will get users to switch
Although as we all know if Alcatel was the market leader more people would be finding flaws in Alcatel products instead of Cisco...

Then tey had the stupid idea and buddies decided to kick out Hewlett (who at least knew that the employee loyalty went both ways, and recognised the strength in their printers), and decided to , support Carly's silly idea of

1(HP) + 1(Compaq) + 1/2(Dec) = 0.95(HPQ)

which made them #1 for a very brief moment until they decimated themselves with the first major layoffs in cocmpany history making themselves #2 or worse in most things within a quarter or two after they were #1. Amazing that they try that hard to become #1 (which for some reason they pitched to investors as being more important than having a sustainable business), only to then trim themselves down to be #2 to save costs.

Turns out Hewlett was right in the ind. They were a great printer company, and if they ditch the Compaq crap and the random software that they bought and never used (remeber the "$470 million mistake in buying Bluestone"), they might become a great printercompany again.

Between Compaq&HP this should be a case study of how stupid executive decisions can kill a company. They had the best CPUs (Alpha, and PA-RISC), the best search engine (Alta Vista), etc. They could dhave been Intel+Google.

Now what the hell have they become? A more expensive(at least til they finish their layoffs)-than-Dell reseller of Wintel. God what an embarassment.

Bring back Walter Hwelett!!!! At least he rememberd and understood what HP once stood for.

I don't think that is true. No company *has* to go public. Also if there is pressure from the SEC to go public, why did they reject Google's recent IPO bid?

Also, also, how would their competitors have an edge? They only have to disclose their balance sheet. That doesn't reveal any sensitive information that would benefit another company.

Yeah MS is really on top of the ball.

Adware anxiety gives Claria cold feet The decision by adware leader Claria to postpone its initial public offering comes as the fast-growing business of advertising-supported software is increasingly coming under pressure.

For years, millions of people have acquired adware as the price of using free applications such as file-trading software from the likes of Kazaa. The adware, designed to track Web-surfing behavior and deliver targeted ads such as pop-ups, has become profitable enough to draw investors' interest. (snip)

Here's the link - now, what in that made it necessary to be distributed as a PDF, and not as an HTML/XML document? The proliferation of PDFs for information that can be displayed consistantly in other, more compact and less processor hungry formats, is frankly disturbing.