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Barnes & Noble is standing up to Microsoft. (buy a Nook to help out!)
http://www.crunchgear.com/2011/04/27/barnes-noble-microsoft-patented-nook-features-trivial-licensing-fees-exorbitant/

Just because previous attempts were badly done doesn't mean that current attempts aren't derivative of those previous attempts.

And, there's always the HTC Touch - it was meant for FINGER use, ran WinMo, and came out before the iPhone.

Came out before the iPhone? The iPhone was introduced in January, 2007. The HTC Touch was introduced in June, 2007.

Meant tor FINGER use? Not hardly.

Ran WinMo. Are you seriously trying to list that as an ADVANTAGE???

It is inevitable at this point. At the last pwn2own competition, security researchers were able to launch an application and write a file once the user visited a webpage. The article does not say whether or not the file was written to a protected directory or not. They just mention that the browser's sandbox feature was defeated.

http://www.crunchgear.com/2011/03/09/os-x-and-safari-first-casualty-at-pwn2own-hacking-contest/

It's news because some of these pre-orders are nearly a decade old. TF2 was announced, un-announced, went through it's own epic development hell, was released, had over a hundred patches released, all in the time between some of these preorders being made and the game finally coming out.

Not only that, but some of those pre-orders may be for ports that no longer exist - can you transfer a Saturn edition pre-order into an XBox360 preorder? A PS1 preorder into a PS3 preorder?

There are plenty of geeks working on that right now...

If you live in the USA, EULAS are enforceable. Remember Psystar ?

It also has a general IO port in the middle, several other pictures show a small wireless module plugged into the io port.

There is a general IO port on the board that you can attach a copule of devices. here is another picture. I think that s the wireless module on top.

The link I meant to post was this: http://www.betanews.com/article/Bluray-Disc-Sales-Surpass-HD-DVD/1172267610

Here is another link:

Blu-ray outsold HD DVD by a nearly 2-to-1 margin for the first nine months of the year, selling 2.6 million units to HD DVD’s 1.4 million.

Again, this story was like 8 months before Warner switched. Sorry, but your post is historical revisionism nonsense.

I wish I had been making it up. The thing is you need a custom kernel just to get it to work!

Yeah, I'm sure Slashdot is completely immune to those tactics. And I suppose you think /. is too insignificant a community to manipulate? It's not like the government operates sock puppet software allowing a single user to operate multiple user ids for just this purpose. I'm sure they just keep that software on the shelf, not really actually using it on live sites.

I'd rather wear a tin foil hat than protect my head by plunging it in the dirt.

Anyway, I've long since moved on to the more effective MuMetal hat!

And then it will vanish and no one will admit it ever existed.

And then it will come back with horns and nuclear symbols, and was apparently "always like that".

when you ran out of fuel in the other cars, you took a few minutes to fill up and could go back out. The Tesla, on the other hand, was done for the day as it took something like 12 hours to recharge

An issue, yes, an insurmountable issue, no, and an issue that was only in the minds of the Top Gear hosts rather than reality.

Running out of charge and pushing the car to the shop was a stunt, a hoax, it was fake, neither car ran out of charge.

I like watching most of the Top Gear shows but I expect them to flog cars not their egos and stubborn pride.

They never claimed the car DID run out of charge, as in "why is it suddenly not moving anymore". The exact words from the film were "we calculated that on our track it would run out after 55 miles". And that number came from the Tesla technicians themselves (see the linked article). Yes, they showed the car stopped on the track, maybe a cheap shot to show "this is what WOULD have happened", but nobody from Top Gear stated that a car actually stopped on the track - neither due to a flat battery, nor due to the overheated engine. Which does not change the fact that a.) one car's battery was not enough to do all the filming, they had to switch to the second car while the first one was recharging b.) the brakes on one car broke (just a sensor apparently, but a normal customer would have had to drive to the shop to get it fixed) and c.) on one car, the engine was overheating so that you could only drive at low speed. I see nothing faked there. All they said was true.

when you ran out of fuel in the other cars, you took a few minutes to fill up and could go back out. The Tesla, on the other hand, was done for the day as it took something like 12 hours to recharge

An issue, yes, an insurmountable issue, no, and an issue that was only in the minds of the Top Gear hosts rather than reality.

Running out of charge and pushing the car to the shop was a stunt, a hoax, it was fake, neither car ran out of charge.

I like watching most of the Top Gear shows but I expect them to flog cars not their egos and stubborn pride.

Confirmed here as well.

Mr. Hassan and NetworkWorld better hope Samsung doesn't sue their asses into oblivion for libel.

Yup.

Apple is one of four companies to buy Google, having sufficient cash to do the job

Uh, what? Apple has cash reserves of about $60bn, Google is currently worth about $195bn.

In the event of a takeover, Google's market cap would obviously increase. So no, nobody is going to buy Google.

Two articles this and one refered to by the first state "facts" that are in opposition.

The first states that the accused ran their tool June 5 to June 9th, and released on July 10th.
The second states that AT&T fixed the hole on June 8 and told affected users about the breach on June 9th.

I see reports that this information was on Gawker on the 9th, not the 10th.

I see reports from June 14 that AT&T sent messages claiming to have learned of the fault June 7th. This seems likely to have been because Auernheimer and Co. tipped them off through a third party, and waited for AT&T to close the hole. This also explains the claim "we never heard from (these people)", as well as the hole being closed before the news went public.

Virgin == Richard Branson.

Now how the hell am I supposed to get a full VR Metaverse pipe when I'm shreddin' the Santa Monica on my Smartwheels(tm) if I can't get any kind of pipe up to the Street? Totally lame.

Richard Branson ==

Totally lame.

Richard Branson may get his panties in a twist. (see 2:09)

Thank you. That's the one that lingered in my mind. So the time-bomb failures are
1) Sony PS3 leap-year bug in 2010
2) Microsoft Zune bug 2 Januaries ago
3) An iPhone DST bug for Europe in November 2010
4) The latest iPhone's January 2011 one-time alarm bug

All are large companies and don't account for the indie app bugs we don't get to hear about on the front page. This furthers my point that something is seriously wrong with developer training in the past 5 years, both degree-less and degree-holding.

I'm far more concerned about TSA's new pat-down procedure than I am about not being allowed to bring toner with me on a plane. Not that the ink/toner cartridge ban makes much sense, but how often do you bring printer supplies with you on a plane?

As a large-format graphic printer tech, I used to regularly travel with 1-litre ink cartridges in my baggage for emergency repairs. Were I working in the US, I would now not be able to do my job...

I'm far more concerned about TSA's new pat-down procedure than I am about not being allowed to bring toner with me on a plane. Not that the ink/toner cartridge ban makes much sense, but how often do you bring printer supplies with you on a plane?

"Accidents were few but far from nonexistent, though I suspect the greater stress was from the fact that these vans had to charge 8 hours for every 3 hours of driving."
http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/10/28/driverless-vehicles-complete-trek-from-italy-to-china/

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/innovation/10/27/driverless.car/index.html
"We weren't worried about not making it," though, Broggi said. "This big trip was an intermediary step in a longer process. We have something new planned for 2012."

Uh oh..

All any company need do, when threatened by this typical deceitful bullshite from Microsoft, is site the case THEY ALREADY LOST in court, then slam the door in their face and ignore them to death.

The END of SCO (aka Microsoft) case:

SCO loses another round in Unix fight, must pay $2.55M to Novell
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9110258/SCO_loses_another_round_in_Unix_fight_must_pay_2.55M_to_Novell_

SCO loses again: jury says Novell owns UNIX SVRX copyrights
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/03/sco-loses-again-jury-says-novell-owns-unix-svrx-copyrights.ars

SCO/Novell suit is over, SCO loses
http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/06/11/sconovell-suit-is-over-sco-loses/

And so forth...

When you can't compete: Litigate.

Well they would have done it, but they're still trying to fix this.

And I'm sure Gates would say '3 significant figures is enough for anyone,' but I accept no fewer than 5 in which case a year is, more accurately, 364.24 days.

Yes, the writing is on the wall for companies like Samsung. This video shows much of what Samsung's tablet can do. Personally, I am impressed by it and joyous that I did not get 'infected' with heard mentality by buying the iPad when it was released.

yes it does

The actual book title is Wookie The Chew as evidenced in this photo and this article.

Is that you, Stephen Hawking?

Given that Blizzard monitors local weather in places where they have data centers, to be aware of potential power supply and cooling issues before the alarms go off, I'm going to take a shot in the dark and guess their SANs use redundant controllers.

http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/09/18/blizzard-reveals-some-technical-data-about-world-of-warcraft/

Yep. An ad.

Choose-Your-Own Adventure lost its appeal for me once I got my first 8-bit computer. Text adventures like Zork or graphics adventures like Activision's MindShadow offer the same appeal, but with many more forks that the limited ~200 page book format. In fact, here is Zork if you want it for your iGadget: http://www.crunchgear.com/2007/08/14/zork-for-the-iphone-you-were-eaten-by-a-grue/

Heck you could turn your iPhone into a Commodore=64 if you wish and play any of its ~5,000 game library

But they share some characteristics. For example, neither can display Flash animations.

Additionally, people who buy them enjoy the superiority complex that comes bundled.

TechCrunch actually gave a very detailed explanation on how 3D display technology works. Everyone who wants to know more should read about this.

I can buy and enjoy a single song without owning the rest of the album.

Unless you get to things like Pink Floyd's albums, all of whose tracks show up as "album only". Nor can you buy one scene from a movie.

It falls plumb between trademark and copyright stools, but take a look at the uncropped picture of the laser. Ask 12 good men and true if it's not blindingly (ho ho) obvious that this device has been deliberately designed to look like a lightsaber, and I think you'll get an answer in the affirmative.

Whether that's actionable or not is a more nuanced question, but can we please be honest about the design remit at work here. This is a lightsaber clone, with enough small differences that they can make a fight of it, grabbing more publicity all the way.

Slashdotted, here's another one... http://www.crunchgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/The-Skin-Melting-Spyder-III-Pro-Arctic-Laser-Is-a-Real-Life-Lightsaber.jpeg

Even if it was specifically meant to look like a "lightsaber" it can be argued that the shape is the most practical for handling and mounting and if there wasn't a beam of fucking light coming out of it it could be mistaken for a dozen other things.

The original posting cites a May report from NPD that says that Android beat iPhone sales in Q1 of this year. However, that was now found to be erroneous: that survey was only for the consumer market. When business/enterprise sales were counted and reported in June by Nielsen, then iPhone beat Android by 3-to-1 and is closing in on RIM. Furthermore, most likely the only reason Android beat out iPhone in Q1 for consumers was because people were already anticipating the newest iPhone 4 released today. Apple sold 600K iPhone 4 during pre-orders, which as 10x the sales for the iPhone 3GS.

If you set the MTU settings for the XBox, that could be your issue when transferring files from PC to AP.

Thanks for the advice, but it happens only on wireless traffic and no matter what I use (WinXP on Vostro 1500, WinXP on Aspire D250, Win7 on GW LT3201u, Jolicloud on EEE 701) and basically everything but whoever is doing the transfer gets hammered. I suspect it has to do with my crap netgear AP, which I'm going to have to replace with something with GigE anyway (and thus I may as well get WiFi-N, since I now have a number of devices which support it) since I just hit woot.com which has the corniest iteration of the sheevaplug or whatever (possibly also the most useful, but it's got lowest memory) for $25 shipped today. 128MB, GigE, 3xUSB2, and a connection for seagate freeagent (high-power USB2 as well?) The dependence on a website for configuration is absurd but it can be hacked (I heart page title) Instructions are provided for gentoo, I intend to install debian, hopefully I can just debootstrap.

Dude! WTF do you think the KINDLE is!? Which has been out for ages - and on avg gets better reviews then that iPad.

You do realize that the iPad has fairly big uphill battle taking on Amazon as they only have 1 of like 7 publishers that Amazon has on side.

Amazon has recently released this ...

http://mashable.com/2010/05/19/amazoncrossing/

IMHO this opens them up to a new dimension here one that is Apple has so far away from competing in. Apple still needs to get their book publishers under control.

Current tablets ..

http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/04/02/seven-more-ipad-alternatives/

Up and coming tablets

http://mashable.com/2010/01/27/9-upcoming-tablet-alternatives-to-the-apple-ipad/

Read my sig mate, it sums up Apple in nutshell, they get on the news and everyone knows about them. Meanwhile the rest of the market uses traditional forms of marketing to get their message out and gets to their targets audiences.

I have a tough time trusting the news when it comes to half the crap they put out there, i certainly don't trust them when it comes to whats the "best" technology out there.

Has no one seen the WePad? It's an Android based tablet that gives the iPad a run for it's money. http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/04/12/the-wepad-gets-a-price-and-launch-date/

... Its DRM is rather simple: a one-time online activation. After that, you can play online or off without having to worry about Blizzard’s mommy-state servers keeping tabs on your authentication status. ...

That being said, I have no problem with a one time activation as long as is in twenty years when I want to sit down a play the game again I still can, which I doubt will be possible. Eventually they will decommission the sever thus rendering the game useless unless it's cracked.

Did they not honestly believe that a disaster could occur? Did the right people not talk to each other? Or was the urge to cut corners simply so great that people ignored the risk?

From the ABC interview with one of the survivors, the BP people were arguing with the Transocean people, insisting that it would be ok to skip some phases of sealing the well because they wanted to move the schedule up. I wonder what that BP manager was thinking.

As someone who has found himself on both sides of this thought process, it is actually very easy to fall into the trap of making bad assumptions. People inherently underestimate risks. This leads to the common belief that cutting a few corners once in a while is acceptable. 60%-80% of Americans use a cell phone while driving on a regular basis, in spite of the fact that almost everyone agrees that this is a dangerous habit, and study after study has shown that it overwhelmingly increases your chances of being in an accident. The root of the problem isn't this particular set of people making the decisions, the problem is that people have any say in the process at all. Decisions at this level should be made by following a rigorous procedure without exception. When safety is concerned, no exceptions should ever be made. If exceptions can be necessary to proceed, then either the situation is unsafe, or the procedure was inadequate to begin with.

-=Geoskd

He wins the whole internet if he uses THIS instead of a floppy drive:

http://www.crunchgear.com/2007/09/24/1gb-then-and-now/

I think we should have taken the Russian suggestion of nuking the sucker. I find it hard to believe a small nuke deep under the ocean would have a worse effect than millions of barrels of oil flooding into the ocean. http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/05/05/russian-advice-nuke-the-oil-spill-thatll-fix-it/

Now first of all to the Wild Fox project maintainers, this is the right move. Fight to win the whole war, not one battle. Don't die as a martyr and lose it all just by demanding something to happen right now.

Additionally, it looks like Firefox is actually starting to lose support even from the Open Source front. Even Ubuntu is probably changing to Chronium and dropping Firefox. It kind of looks like Firefox lost the track of what they were doing a long time ago.

Apparently Ubuntu, the most popular Linux distribution, is considering dropping Firefox for Chrome. ...
it could be a sign that people are starting to feel less, um, “loyalty” to Firefox.

Not that I'm anymore happier Google's products taking over everything...

The interpolation he refers to is not the 24fps movie thing. Most modern up-market screens have per-frame interpolation - eg for a 30FPS input signal it will interpolate 3 extra frames to smooth the motion.

Then the math really doesn't work. 3 extra frames brings it up to 27fps. Unless you're saying throw in 3 frames for every frame, which gives ... 96 frames. Still doesn't work. With 5:1 frames get 120 fps, which works, but the interpolation process will always produce artifacts, just like upscaling isn't as good as "the real thing." Of course, if you like the "soap opera effect", more power to you, but plenty of people disagree.

My desk also happens to be right next to the break room where people religiously burn popcorn, microwave fish, and speak to each other as if they are in a stadium because the television is turned up loud enough to drown out said people. There is someone about 12 feet behind me in a similar such cube whom I constantly hear sucking on one of those water bottles and randomly taking a bite out of an apple or other similar food product

Try some noise canceling head phones - I recommend Bose QuietComfort 15, and most background noise just disappear. I've had noise canceling headsets before, but this one was leagues ahead of my old ones (in price too... but it was worth it).

You don't have to play music for them to be useful, I often just turn them on to blank out noise. It won't protect you from emails constantly arriving, or co-workers approaching you, but it will help with noise not targeted at you.

understandable. Here's to hoping the keyboard i saw demoed a while back that had analog style inputs for every key comes to market. http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/10/08/microsofts-pressure-sensitive-keyboard-gets-some-apps/ not the original article, but if this becomes common, it seriously puts keyboard/mouse on the forefront of gaming.

You mean like USB ports,

With an adapter: http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/01/27/apple-has-a-solution-for-the-ipads-missing-sd-card-slot-and-usb-port-adapters/

the ability to create and run your own software,

as others have mentioned - dev cert

the ability to chose your own OS,

This is limited to your time and effort. It's possible to run another OS on it - it's just that no one's done enough work to make it worthwhile for anyone but a tinkerer... Here's Linux on an iPhone from 2008: http://linuxoniphone.blogspot.com/2008/11/linux-on-iphone.html

the freedom to download software from anywhere you chose,

Jailbreak

Flash support,

This has been beated to death - I have nothing new to add.

the ability to export and import files at will, etc.?

Again - easy with jailbreak - openssh and a myriad of other options

http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/04/12/the-wepad-gets-a-price-and-launch-date/

As much as I wish it was that simple, a lot of these huge corporations just threaten to move overseas (more than they are already) rather than pay taxes.