Slashdot Mirror

...to why it was cancelled is right here:

http://www.engadget.com/2007/08/21/dear-palm-its-t ime-for-an-intervention/

Palm actually listened as they mentioned in their reply:

http://blog.palm.com/palm/2007/08/thanks-engadget. html

There's a tough part of that issue though. When it comes to a legal standpoint they can't look at it as an opinionated issue, which is a problem. It's like a legal grey area that has to be defined in black in white-law is about strictly facts, not opinions (although the latter sways some parts of trials).
Morally - I/most of us don't like it. Factually, if they choose to degrade service, they can do so. The problem is that they might not allow a law to be partial to certain situations. Many companies already do it but how is part of the issue. If everyone's packets but mine have higher priority then the question is whether it can be considered an emotional non-factual decision. If it is just "they have priority" you have 0 in court. But if you have "it was malicious in nature" that is another story. That in itself is hard to pin on a corporation. For better explanation look here: http://www.lectlaw.com/def2/t032.htm - This is the legal definition of Tort. More specifically http://www.lectlaw.com/def2/t061.htm which is tortious wrongful interference. Note the difference between them, yet how close they run to malice. Read very carefully this line: businessman has no legal complaint concerning a loss resulting from lawful competition. Therefore if they don't enforce net neutrality 100% (which can cause its own problems), it can be considered completely lawful. If they do enforce it 100%, well VOIP seems to be a good example. Please note I am not a net neutrality expert not even a network tech, but I read up when I can. Please note that if we don't enforce net neutrality that QOS could be abused in order to bypass direct net neutrality abuse.
This engadget article seems to have some good info as well - http://www.engadget.com/2007/03/29/net-neutrality- and-the-fcc-whats-being-done-to-preserve-it/ - note that the neutrality mentioned here was the exact same google requested for the wireless spectrum. It was not something they created outright. They simply requested the same fairness on wireless as wired networks are supposed to have. Please note as well another side that I'm guessing applies to the "against" net neutrality side is the blocking of zombie PCs. So I think this is a tough one to say how to feel about it. Of course I prefer net neutrality.
I personally say that if we had the bandwith we are supposed to have that such things would not be an issue. If you have 25mb up/down having even decent quality audio while downloading wouldn't matter. That's my own opinion, though, and I have no factual basis to back that up other than saying that VOIP presumably only needs 128K upload/download range. Which is about 1.5mb or something. So no, unfortunately, its not a moral issue. It's a question of whether it is something a business is entitled to if it is a municipal business like cable, where common carrier stands, and other things. At least it seems that way to me. The question is whether comcast/etc is private or not it seems? Sorry I think I'm rambling, I'll stop here.

Your arrogance amazes me. If people like me are the reason why HTML coding sucks, people like you are the reason the entire industry sucks.

Service providers should provide service. You're advocating typical finger pointing crap, 'oh, not my problem, I won't fix it and I don't care if my customers suffer, let Microsoft fix it'.

Yeah, I'm dumb; I mistakenly believe that both parties should do something to provide a fix or workaround for the services people pay for.

And like I said before, I'll write in HTML strict, I'll even write XHTML strict, but if my users say 'I can't see your content' I'm not going to get on a soapbox and say, 'Blame Microsoft', I'm going to work around it. Anything else is just typical arrogance, the type that eventually puts you out of business.

By the way, do you know what appears to be the problem with the DHCP setup? http://www.engadget.com/2007/09/02/vista-users-in- swedish-community-cant-get-online/ http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/92823 3 Sounds like the ISP is at least partially to blame.

http://www.engadget.com/2006/04/26/apple-patent-em beds-thousands-of-cameras-among-lcd-pixels/ I dunno, sounds like this is just for touchscreen applications, but Apple was focusing on using the screen as a webcam. What the difference between "optical sensors" and "thousands of cameras" is I do not know.

Engadget reported on this here

I haven't searched, but I wouldn't be surprised if it made it to /. too.

Engadget has a helpful rumor roundup - just to keep the /. discussion lively with speculation. Aside from the next-gen touchscreen iPod, there's the Beatles' catalogue on iTMS, direct-to-iPhone (iPod) music store downloads, and increased capacity in the Nano. "Analysis" (i.e., educated speculation and wishful thinking) available from CNet, ArsTechnica, and AppleInsider (1, 2, 3).

here's the iPhone component price. i realize that doesn't include a price on R&D of the OS/Apps/etc, but using the component price to judge the cost to the manufacturer is at least more valid than saying "they must be charging X because that's what it cost to make" (which seems to be the main theme of the grandparent post)

Why do you think Applet should get a cut from *calls* made with an iPhone?

I pose the question why do shops like Universal think they should get a cut of the sales of the Zune (which was paid by MS) and the iPod (which was not paid by apple). Perhaps we should that Universal has also implied that Apple should pay them for (by Universal's estimation) "the typical iPod contains a significant amount of illegally downloaded material"

Not to mention that Universal-NBC wants consumer to pay significantly for downloads of shows that they could buy on dvd for less.

This all boils down to a the last throes of a failing business model.

you can't move music from one computer to another with an iPod

You don't need low serial baudrates. I was thinking, why not use software defined radio like the USRP. And the sentence from the article "modern computers can't work that slow" is nonsense, think of PSK31.

I'm pretty sure modern digital signal processing techniques can kick the old analog technology's ass any day.

I'm not sure that math scans... Taking ER as an example from your chart, a 30 second spot is $400,000. Assume 20 minutes of ads (an overestimate, given that show run about 42-43 minutes and some of the ads are for other shows on the same channel), that works out to revenue of $16 million. The same season they got about http://loneswordsman.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!D545 4D646CBAAB6B!198.entry12.3 million viewers or about $1.30 per viewer. I believe that the wholesale rate for TV shows http://www.engadget.com/2006/06/19/steve-jobs-figh ting-for-9-99-itunes-movie-downloads/is 70%, so if the TV show costs 1.99 to download, 1.393 will go to the studio. Therefore, the studio is making about the same amount of money, possibly a bit more from each viewer who downloads a TV show from iTunes as they make per viewer from advertisers. I'm sure this is not a coincidence. Ad rates are set by number of viewers, so, although I didn't check, I'd expect this to scale to shows with higher or lower viewership, maintaining about the same revenue per viewer. Furthermore, if more and more viewers switch from watching on the buying from iTunes, the decrease in the amount they make from ads will be balanced by more revenue fro downloads. This isn't about maintaining the amount of money they make off of broadcast, it's about increasing it, and, more importantly, increasing their control.

Hopefully, next spring they will stop doing that since:

http://www.engadget.com/2007/08/13/leaked-vista-se rvice-pack-1-analyzed/

"...new feature is an option to create a recovery disk..."

Parent is right, they should have used a voting machine.... Maybe one of these

Actually, it looks more like Engadget jumped the gun. Ryan Block from Engadget says:

Yeah, about that Nokia iPhone -- they were trying to demo touchscreen Symbian S60

So yeah, we talked to Nokia today about that iPhone knockoff of theirs. Turns out they totally neglected to mention that they were trying to show off the iPhone-esque software, not the iPhone-esque hardware. The concept they were driving at is they want to take Symbian S60 into the wonderful world of touchscreen, and that kind of input system they demoed could show up on any form factor device. Why they decided to show off said S60 touchscreen software on a total ripoff of the iPhone (and not, say, on some mockup N-series device) is a little less clear, but it certainly made for some hilarious fodder this morning. Seriously though, don't forget to check the video, you can almost hear the soothing sounds of the iPhone ad mandolin playing.

Here is a follow-up from Engadget. Sorry if it has already been posted. http://www.engadget.com/2007/08/29/yeah-about-that -nokia-iphone-it-was-really-about-symbian-s60/#com ments

Sheesh. Doesn't anyone actually surf the web and actually read web pages anymore? This is old news: http://www.engadget.com/2007/08/24/know-your-right s-is-it-illegal-to-unlock-my-iphone/

Bottom line: this is all in a gray area. Disclaimer: IANAL.

Mangled summary: while the DCMA does have exemptions for this, they appear to assume that the sole purpose is for lawfully connecting to wireless networks. Once you start to sell/produce unlocked phones, lawyers can argue that the sole purpose is profit, and not for connecting to networks, and can possibly sue.

Oh, that's right. one of the worst factories ever with regard to the environment; an Integrated Circuit Fab. I like it when hippies talk about how perfect solar is. Let's not forget that we need nasty chemicals like Arsenic to make solar cells.

*ahem ahem*

Berkeley Scientists Synthesize Cheap, Easy-to-Make Ultra-thin Photovoltaic Films
40% efficient solar cells to be used for solar electricity
Titania nanotubes could boost solar cell efficiency
Pink solar cells provide green power on the cheap
Carbon nanotubes could help make nanoparticle-based solar cells more efficient and practical.
Quantum Dots Enables New Advances in Solar Cell Industry

Green and cheap enough for ya?

From the engadget article mentioned in the summary:

The unlock process took only a couple of minutes. From our end it was totally painless.

Remember it's a simple software patch. That doesn't sound like much inconvenience. Put a nice, simple UI on it and there's nothing left preventing the "simple folk" from "hacking" their iPhones.

Actually, from what I understand, AT&T themselves did a terrible job at activating iPhones during the launch. Still no problems selling, apparently.

FM Radio cards:

http://www.cel-soft.com/RadioCard.htm

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTool s/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2905632&CatId=1425

USB radio:

http://www.engadget.com/2004/07/13/usb-radio-dongl e/

http://www.redferret.net/?p=7760

The Tigerdirect link is also a TV tuner card. You can record more than just the radio.

I have one in my Ubuntu box. It's kind of a pain to tune with the command line, but it works well. As an added bonus, it ignores Macrovision for converting your old VHS tapes. (oops is saying that a DMCA violation?)

"Recording off the radio onto tape produces a lower fidelity analog copy and subsequent generations of copying of that copy introduces more noise at each generation."

You just time traveled from what decade?

FM Radio cards:

http://www.cel-soft.com/RadioCard.htm

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTool s/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2905632&CatId=1425

USB radio:

http://www.engadget.com/2004/07/13/usb-radio-dongl e/

http://www.redferret.net/?p=7760

So how is saving a stream off the net any different than recording from one of these?

--
BMO

Now that Paramount has lost Michael Bay as a result of this (for better or worse) I wonder if they'll re-evaluate their position...

Well I've just read that this move may cost them Michael Bay, for better or worse...

When technicians pulled up the affected cable, it appeared to have been shot up over a length of a kilometer

They apparently managed to piss of Michael Bay royally. http://www.engadget.com/2007/08/21/michael-bay-res ponds-to-paramounts-abandonment-of-blu-ray-no-t/

They're out there, but for the asking price you could buy one player of each format and still have cash left over...

here http://www.engadget.com/2007/08/13/iphone-bill-unb oxed-by-justine-tv/

Combine that with a 32GB express card and you've got real ultimate power.

There is a partial solution. Thanks to the telephone investment earlier, you can get a T1 anywhere, and pay from $300 to $600 / month for 1.5Mb service. Get the neighbors together for a coop, add some WLAN, and you have almost broadband in the sticks that doesn't have multi-second latency like satellite. Get enough neighbors together with a lily pad WLAN, and you can upgrade to T3. (I know people who have done this. Don't use consumer WAPs designed for indoor use. Use outdoor models for a few $100 more that have lightning protection.)

If you can get line of sight to a friend/business partner in a nearby city, you can get 54Mb via a point to point wireless connection. With parabolic antenna, you can go quite a ways. The current record is 237 miles from a city to the side of a mountain in Venezuela (the mountain is critical to this setup as otherwise the horizon would block line of sight at this distance).

Finally, cell phone service goes many more places than broadband, and cell carriers offer broadband plans via their network. (So long, and thanks for all the honey...)

quoted from engadget:

The car itself will be cooled through "ice bath cooling" because the front is sealed in order to keep the drag coefficient as low as possible

http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/11/ford-fusion-999 -fuel-cell-car-goes-for-land-speed-record/

They aren't charging for the protocol, they are still making it available but only in an SDK kit

the higher cost of entry may be helping the PlayStation 3 in this respect.

Since when does higher cost mean higher quality, regardless of what it can do?


Seeing as I haven't had one ring of death or scratched disc on my PS3, I'd say it's a pretty high quality machine.

They also updated the Mac Mini.

"Didn't mention Mac mini today, how is it doing?"

Tim: "We're refreshing the Mac mini today."

The iMac will also come with a new Bluetooth keyboard that will look like this prototype./a

slightly off topic, I apologize.

..but does anybody know what happened to the "morse code" mobile texting input people were discussing a few years ago? after all it is well proven that morse code is a lot faster then texting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhsSgcsTMd4

..and on topic I know there are some patents in this area..

http://www.engadget.com/2005/03/12/nokia-files-pat ent-for-morse-code-generating-cellphone/

Here is another example of security gone, really bad.

http://www.engadget.com/2005/03/31/the-downside-to -using-a-biometric-car-lock/

Medeco offers several levels of key control to insure that its patent protected blanks cannot be copied, replicated or simulated. In many systems, proprietary keyways are available to further ensure that keys cannot be improperly compromised. Although the m3 is a very secure lock, we were able to simulate Medeco keys that can be made to bypass the keyway and slider protection of almost any system -- all without infringing on any Medeco intellectual property. It turns out that a standard paper clip will depress the slider precisely to the correct position. A wire or paper clip, fashioned as shown, is inserted into the keyway and wedged at the end of the body of the slider.

Dell's Ubuntu laptop deal showed that Microsoft Vista at $50 (according to engadget), but Red Hat's Enterprise desktop varies from $80 to $339 which isn't exactly cheaper for Aunt Tillie. Note that Canonical support is cheaper for 9x5 ($250) but they also offer 24x7 support ($900).

But is Red Hat trying to follow in Microsoft's steps confusing users with 4 desktop package options? Although Canonical is catching up with Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Edubuntu, Gobuntu, Ubuntu Studio, and Ubuntu Media Center.

Now the thieves are going to cut off my head, instead of just taking my finger.

With Blockbusters selection of Blue Ray, it would seem HD-DVD would be in trouble: http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/17/blockbuster-cho oses-blu-ray-is-the-war-over/

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1751567,00.as p
http://www.engadget.com/2005/03/01/class-action-la wsuit-against-verizon-over-bluetooth-on-the/
http://www.kirtlandpackard.com/v710/

I've never heard of a "Samsung Upstage" but I imagine that you must have looked pretty hard (or been unlucky) to have discovered another phone with a soldered-in battery. I've never heard of it in over 12 years of owning and reading about mobile phones.

If you want pictures that really shows the benefit of this technology... try these ones... look how thin the dell monitor looks like... http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/18/dells-ultra-thi n-concept-lcd-with-displayport-going-retail/

Sorry thats all I can find without taking forever to research, also perhaps Tivo preventing skipping (drm lock) would also be relevant. Oh and I found the original limiting storage article
  Personally I'm all for Tivo but in reality spending 50$ on a HD tuner card and 150$ on a 500gig+ hard drive to use in a PC seems better for recording/control/etc. However I hope this shows some problems with Tivo that are DRM related, including the bugs last year that you mentioned.

"IF" they built a waterproof phone?

Obviously you're not in Japan. That's old hat. Fortunately, it's now available to the masses:

http://www.engadget.com/2005/12/15/lg-canu-502-wat erproof-cellphone/

Google released some info about statistics on their hard drives recently - see here.

Relevant part:

That's not to say drive temperature has no effect, of course.

See comments from Engadget:
http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/25/medison-celebri ty-150-of-linux-laptop-for-the-people

This one looks particularly concerning:

Johan Löfgren @ Jul 25th 2007 12:02PM

Hello fellas. I came across this site, when searching for information about this computer. With that pricetag, it would be a brilliant surf & chat computer for me.

I'm a swedish student, and I found an article in a larger web-newspaper in sweden and was amazed..

Sadly though, when reading comments all over, at swedish sites, this thing starts to smell very very rotten..

The speculation is about this beeing a scam, in the same way that you've mentioned above.

There's bankrupcy issues, lies at the homepage, weird and incomplete messages from the people behind this "madison" company. The screenshots of the computer, has been found at other manufacturers. Companies, that Madison claim to work with, hasn't heard of the connection..

The things above, has been discovered by many people, at different swedish sites. Even more than that.

The 4-6 week delivery time, sounds perfect to grab as much cash as possible and run.

No-one can find anyone with an example of this computer. People doesn't believe this thing even exist.

I recommend all of you, to wait and see how everything turns out here in sweden, before you buy this. As most swedes do right now.. Wait and see if the first computers arrive at all.

I hope that this isn't a scam. I'd love to buy one. I'd love if the promised "future generation" will arrive.

But this thing doesn't feel safe.

Cincearly
-Johan Löfgren. Orebro, Sweden

You fool! There is nothing else worth talking about in the entire industry!

You might think people are obsessed.