Slashdot Mirror

"Hi Blaxthos, On slashdot: "Proper sourcing always depends on context; common sense and editorial judgment are an indispensable part of the process." In any case, there is plenty of material concerning IBM's dubious patents: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/06/ibm_paper_or_plastic_patent/ http://www.thestandard.com/news/2009/03/30/ibm-applies-patent-offshoring-math http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2008/12/ibm_patents_sys.html;jsessionid=4BEPM0NZUXQDAQSNDLRSKH0CJUNN2JVN http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2006/10/ibm-patent-policy-apparent.html http://joi.ito.com/weblog/2002/10/13/ibm-eliminates.html http://www.halfsigma.com/2009/03/ibm-makes-more-money-by-destorying-value.html I've assembled them all here: http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1227341&cid=27885503 But I don't think that a larger number of dubious patents is needed to make the case. I think one is enough. I am not biased against IBM, but I am biased against claims to have record number of patents and no wishes to see the highly dubious exposed in a NPOV. (My opinion: Society is not being improved by these patents, neither IBM.)"

In my little david vs goliath here, that's what I'm getting, and the page keeps being reverted. And here I'm thinking CowboyNeal is a reliable source...

In any case, if I lose, there are reliable sources for the "paper or plastic" patent, the "but I only had soup" patent, the offshoring patent, the "who is going to poo next" patent, the "terry is a boy, jeena is a girl" patent, etc. And here's a comment on IBM's patent schizophrenia. And here's another comment on how IBM makes money by destroying value.

I have nothing against IBM or other patent trolls, I just want them to look in the wikipedia mirror to see if they are happy with who they are. This will only stop with a big streisand.

I'll miss WSJ.com but I'll get over it.

Except that WSJ is the model he's basing this on. They offer some content for free, but many of us pay for full content. This is in direct contrast to what Murdoch originally planned which was to make wsj.com fully ad supported. Murdoch has pulled a full 180 and I think he's made the right decision.

Agreed. My knee-jerk reaction was "how dare they!", but after reading the article it sounds like a more realistic approach than the AP has taken.

I don't think the solution is bad in principle. I'm sure that in practice, however, it would be terrible.

Among the potential problems:

• Creation of an RIAA-like organisation which, not coincidentally, requires a certain amount of the funds it recoups in order to manage its own operations.
• Legitimacy granted by advertisers to such an organisation would encourage all parties to 'simplify' payments to such 'rights managers'.
• For small blog authors, chasing up these revenues would be onerous. Larger distributors of web content, on the other hand, would benefit from this. Yet another mechanism to keep the small guy in his place.
• Nonetheless, membership in such an organisation (because of course, authors would have to register to be eligible for repayment) would become a requirement.

Put simply, I'm worried about mission creep. A good idea becomes an institution, and we see the little guy suffering once again because large organisations prefer to deal with large organisations.

Most - but not all - organisations handling royalty payments are built in such a way that small fry don't get a fair shake. They have a relatively small voice in policy decisions, and inevitably get shouted down by corporate interests.

This group may claim to speak on behalf of bloggers like me whose content gets copied all the time, but I can't see it working out to my benefit. All I can see is yet another group empowering themselves at my expense.

Agreed. My knee-jerk reaction was "how dare they!", but after reading the article it sounds like a more realistic approach than the AP has taken. "Spam Blogs" republish work with the intent of generating ad revenue. Ad networks should direct that revenue to the authors. It's in their best interest, failing to compensate the authors will push them to take a hardline stance against news aggregators, and ultimately deter them from investing in new content.

My first thought was that if you start using words like "all OSes" then that includes smaller OSes that are mathematically provably correct and used in the safety critical industry. For example: http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2008/11/green_hills_sof.html

I dont see Apple/MS/Linux/any other huge OS putting out proofs of their OSes correctness anytime soon.

Yes, this is new. This is companies holding out on two releases of Windows for a significant time and in larger and larger numbers. Of course a small number of companies still run Windows 2000 or even older, it's a very small percentage compared to the data in this survey. Windows 7 really adds nothing significantly new to Vista, it's basically Vista SP2, but MS is rushing it out in order to get a new name on it to try to sweep all the bad PR from Vista under the rug. What this data is showing is that the strategy may not work as intended. While the article didn't specifically give the numbers of respondents that are planning to wait on 7 that had skipped Vista, based on how high the numbers are for those that are planning to wait for a significant amount of time on Vista, and how low the adoption rates of Vista have been, it is clear there are more companies than ever that are holding off on MS's products and more of them than before are skipping one of MS's releases and holding off on the next one. This survey with a large number of responses and thus more validity than your average junk survey is the first to confirm what many people had been suspecting.

Oh by the way, here's a single page link

Here at IBM, our company has just decided to stop reimbursing work-from-home employees for Internet access. Combined with this new data transfer capping trend, I fully anticipate having to explain to a customer why I can't take care of that server problem until next month because my daughter used up our bandwidth allocation on the Playhouse Disney web site. That's going to go over really well...

Apple didn't fool the press. This is being reported as "Apple raises prices 30%".

You don't *have* to update drivers in windows and, assuming you don't install some stupid spyware, you can pretty much leave a windows box alone and just install the standard updates.

Windows is the spyware. Windows includes WGA which phones home.

Falcon

He is correct.

"IBM Offers To Move Laid Off Workers To India" and "Everyone in Indian cities is at risk of consuming human feces, if they're not already, the Ministry of Urban Development concluded in September.

In fact, I'm going to contact my Congressmen today to recommend this stipulation. Please do the same if you love America.

BAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAAHAHHAHAAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAAHAAAAA*choke*

operagost, what have you been smoking?
Microsoft won't fix week-old vulnerability already being exploited
Microsoft prepares an emergency fix for a months-old data-stealing hole in IE
Microsoft launched Vista with 30 unpatched vulnerabilities

And those are just the RECENT ones. The only way your statement holds water is if you say "well, Vista had 130 security patches in the first month, missing 20 more exploits is almost nothing!"

UPS has gotten itself a lot of press over the years about how it has saved fuel, time, and money with its routing algorithms. There was recently an article in Information Week about some of their technology. It is amazing how even a small improvement can save big money AND positively impact the environment. Routing improvements save time and money. Better vehicle maintenance plans. Less idling. This is the printable article. It has a session Id so I don't know if it will survive. http://www.informationweek.com/shared /printableArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=34SPUBGP0QJA2QSNDLRSKHSCJUNN2JVN?articleID=212900815 This is the link with ads. http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212900815

UPS has gotten itself a lot of press over the years about how it has saved fuel, time, and money with its routing algorithms. There was recently an article in Information Week about some of their technology. It is amazing how even a small improvement can save big money AND positively impact the environment. Routing improvements save time and money. Better vehicle maintenance plans. Less idling. This is the printable article. It has a session Id so I don't know if it will survive. http://www.informationweek.com/shared /printableArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=34SPUBGP0QJA2QSNDLRSKHSCJUNN2JVN?articleID=212900815 This is the link with ads. http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212900815

'Google, Yahoo, IAC, AOL, and Lycos -- the major Internet search companies other than Microsoft -- on Wednesday filed a motion to compel the Software Rights Archive (SRA) to reveal who is behind its 2-year-old patent lawsuit against them'

'Microsoft today argued that US House and Senate Judiciary Committees that the proposed Google/Yahoo deal, claiming that Yahoo's agreement to support ads through a non-exclusive deal is anti-competitive and would allegedly hurt innovation'

We need to train users to look for the browser padlock icon

But this can spoof that as well for many users (and even for Firefox users it might make the unwary feel safe).

We need to add browser extensions that heuristically detect credit card numbers being entered into unencrypted sites and to warn the user.

He also mentions methods for using IDN (Internation Domain Names) and wildcard SSL certificates to spoof HTTPS versions that look even more like the real thing than https://yourbank.com.some.evil.website.com/... (also mentioned here)

I'd like to see fewer people using self-signed certificates that train users to ignore SSL warnings.

I'd like to see that as well, but for that to happen you need to provide a way for low risk and not for profit sites to get certificates that are accepted by browsers but without the fees. I've set up my email (Webmail, IMAP and SMTP) with SSL certificates, but it took some searching to find someone who would give me a free SSL certificate and even then the issuer isn't in most browser's approved list. I'm protecting a small amount of traffic from lazy eavesdroppers, not protecting a financial institution - I don't need the expense and the insurance.

The fault lies partly with browsers too. Firefox, particularly, should never have toned-down the non-EV SSL user-interface --- sure, making EV special is fine, but allowing sites to spoof the SSL UI with a favicon is unacceptable. People have been saying this ever since Firefox 3 came out, but maybe now someone will pay attention to us.

HTTPS puts a blue background behind the favicon and the padlock and certificate domain in the status bar. What kind of favicon can ever spoof the entire blue background. More importantly, what favicon can ever spoof the status bar section?

dude at informationweek wrote this. looks like not much end users can do.

I see he uses ARP-Spoofing to re-route the traffice via the infected host. A good managed switch comes a long way in defeating arp-juggling I guess.

dude at informationweek wrote this. looks like not much end users can do.

My favorite part is IBM offering to give their laid-off employees their jobs back... in India.
http://www.informationweek.com/news/management/outsourcing/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=213000389

The article may be wrong. Per http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/supercomputers/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=213000842&subSection=News it's 1.6 PB of memory

Could this be their big long-term plan? http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2009/01/microsoft_paten_1.html

Just an idea, Apple basically did this with OS X, only they put it on the desktop first, MSFT will just go in the other direction here

It's certainly worked for Apple in the last 5+ years.

The thing is huge, look at the size of the person's hand: http://www.informationweek.com/galleries/showImage.jhtml?galleryID=297&imageID=2&articleID=202103424

Flash logo shown in browser as "inline multimedia content":
http://www.informationweek.com/galleries/showImage.jhtml?galleryID=297&imageID=33&articleID=202103424

Video recording capability and camera timer:
http://www.informationweek.com/galleries/showImage.jhtml?galleryID=297&imageID=10&articleID=202103424

Strange skunk-like hand hitting touchscreen:
http://www.informationweek.com/galleries/showImage.jhtml?galleryID=297&imageID=42&articleID=202103424

Flash logo shown in browser as "inline multimedia content":
http://www.informationweek.com/galleries/showImage.jhtml?galleryID=297&imageID=33&articleID=202103424

Video recording capability and camera timer:
http://www.informationweek.com/galleries/showImage.jhtml?galleryID=297&imageID=10&articleID=202103424

Strange skunk-like hand hitting touchscreen:
http://www.informationweek.com/galleries/showImage.jhtml?galleryID=297&imageID=42&articleID=202103424

Flash logo shown in browser as "inline multimedia content":
http://www.informationweek.com/galleries/showImage.jhtml?galleryID=297&imageID=33&articleID=202103424

Video recording capability and camera timer:
http://www.informationweek.com/galleries/showImage.jhtml?galleryID=297&imageID=10&articleID=202103424

Strange skunk-like hand hitting touchscreen:
http://www.informationweek.com/galleries/showImage.jhtml?galleryID=297&imageID=42&articleID=202103424

I guess this differs slightly from the OLPC project, in that the laptop is only for distribution in India and that the MHRD (a.k.a Indian government ministry) is planning to play sugar daddy to this project "for perpetuity" to maintain the price at $10 (Which again no-one will pay, but will just be deducted off the grant to the participating government funded schools - I guess!!). Interestingly there is no mention of a display anywhere and the Bill of materials seems closer to $47 http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal_tech/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=199203891

what do you mean by full support from developers? Do you mean having software for the system like adobe? They are starting to get there as flash has been on a parallel release for a short time. There are other developers working on linux now too but your right it's not just there yet. Well if that's what you mean by full support of developers. But no OS has the FULL support can't run garage band on windows can you?

The main reason I wanted to respond was because you also said until you can go to walmart to buy linux software it will never work. I guess you haven't seen the news http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/10/200-everex-gree.html/ http://news.cnet.com/Walmart.com-to-sell-more-Linux-software/2100-1012_3-5066148.html/ or http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/linux/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=202805941/

Also typically the point of linux is that you don't have to go out and buy the software, it comes with the OS or with a quick apt-get from a repository. It's free typically you won't see it in the stores for that reason. I would like to see in the future stores selling the CD's and DVD's of distros, as well as openoffice and other alternatives for the cost of production and shelving but I don't think they need to for it to catch on. You just need enough people who have had a good experiance with it for it to start being a force.

I'm not a linux fan boi I don't think that it's had a large effect on Microsofts market but it has definatly changed it. Linux is a large part of the embeded market, they had Microsoft playing catchup in the netbook market, and distro's like ubuntu are getting closer and closer to being where they need to, to take on Microsoft. I would argu for most people it's there.

What consensus?

I'm going to go ahead and point to the topic of this thread: "Windows 7's Media Hype Having the Opposite Effect As Vista's." Now let's go to the quote machine for a backgrounder:

The fact that Windows 7 has been fast-tracked just proves that Vista is one of those mistakes that Redmond would rather forget, just like the woeful Windows ME.

Think about it -- there's clearly a (high) level of consumer demand for Windows 7, the likes of which never materialized for Vista.

[falling revenue] That's due, in part, to slowing growth for PCs powered by Microsoft Windows software and the mighty kerthunk left by the debut of Windows Vista.

If your goal is Vista advocacy, "What consensus?" isn't one of the questions you should ask on slashdot.

You tell 'em! Vista failed, because of ppl on Slashdot ranting about "Get A Mac"! That's right!

Not just slashdot. It pros with Vista experience everywhere. The difference I suppose is that the advocates say "works for me on my new computer" and the detractors get specific about bugs, platforms and features. If your perception is that this thing was enthusiastically adopted, I guess I have nothing to offer you - you're not going to believe me anyway.

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/20/1624253

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/21/1543234

It was also on Wired: http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/02/encryption-stil.html

Engadget: http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/21/cold-boot-disk-encryption-attack-is-shockingly-effective/

Schneier's blog: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/02/cold_boot_attac.html

Information week: http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal_tech/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=206801184

The Register: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/21/cold_boot_utilities/

Cnet: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10003167-83.html

PC World http://www.pcworld.com/video/id,762-page,1-bid,0/video.html

Boing Boing http://www.boingboing.net/2008/07/19/cold-boot-encryption.html

It was even on reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS163325+27-Feb-2008+PRN20080227

It's not an obscure thing, you are just ignorant of major technology news. Perhaps the summary should define "CPU" and "linux" for you as well, just in case you don't what they are either.

But it's not really just a game, is it? People are paying a premium price because they need the controllers for it as well. And where's Halo 3 on that list? After all, it sold for 300 million in just one week.

I doubt the weak link is often the actual administrator in charge of virtual security..

Surely not, but the fact that Google is now hosting business services, they are quickly becoming the information sink of the universe. They have a history of easily folding to law enforcement, which makes me uneasy about hosting corporate stuff online. I just don't like all the big brother business, and while I use GMail for personal stuff, I wouldn't start trusting Google with sensitive documents, memos etc.

Web based tools have another huge problem. You're at Google's mercy for upgrades, feature changes etc. Does anyone remember the crap they started with the iGoogle sidebar? That sort of stuff quickly discourages corporate clients.

Maybe.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/google/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212701654&cid=RSSfeed_IWK_News

Okie dokie, so instead of just saying they exist, name a few.

I'm sorry, you are unclear. You want me to come up with examples that support your argument? Its unclear because your examples jump to conclusions and ignore the first principles I was talking about like "all men are created equal" and "the right to a fair trial."

Or, I can release it with restrictions and you're free to take it or leave it (as would happen with your special bottled air). ...
Air goes everywhere, and you have limited control over which air you're breathing at any given moment. Your mp3 player contains songs that you intentionally put there

You seem to lack an understanding of the word excludable. It isn't about the choice of the consumer, it is about the natural control of the creator. Its a common misunderstanding in such discussions, generally stemming from a lack of knowledge beyond econ 101. Seeing as how your entire argument is predicated on that error, I won't be replying any further.

I've seen the way these go, you will either try to dispute the indisputable, haggling about the definition of excludable like so: "copyright is enforced pretty well on a daily basis" or try to apply some sort of moral justification lacking any firm root in first principles that the current law, despite all its costs and poor enforceability is "right." Been there, done that, horse to water and all. Good luck with the buggy whips.

Here:

http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/operatingsystems/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=M5E5UC51GCZZAQSNDLPSKH0CJUNN2JVN?articleID=212700410&_requestid=77696

That's odd...

Last night, the article also had a link to here which has that information. I wonder why that was changed.

Information Week has an internal email sent by Google management:
Q: Can I resell my phone?
Googlers should not resell any item given to them by Google. Please review our Personal Transactions policy [removed].

Its and older story but every time i think Novell i remember this

http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=6505527

i remember talking with one of the admins the day it happend - can't seem to find the pictures he sent me.

Information Week, PC Mag, The Register, and eFlux to name a few.

Depends on the state. Some states have strict notification laws - California & Indiana for example - many don't. You can look up your state here. For companies that cover the whole country, they typically comply with the strictest law to which they are subject, so you often get the benefit of the strictest law. Some states often require more than just notice, they may require you get several free credit reports, a free credit freeze, or some other remedial measure. Some states require immediate notification when a breach is discovered, but most permit or require a delay for law enforcement - theoretically so that law enforcement can catch the baddies before the baddies know they're being pursued. According to InformationWeek, "hard numbers about data breaches are hard to come by . . . [a]ccording to survey of about 300 attendees at this year's RSA Conference, more than 89% of security incidents went unreported in 2007." So who knows how much of it we're actually hearing about. I suppose this website will partially help with under notification.

In all seriousness, I thought the "Linux on the desktop" model was dead several years ago. I can see how Enderle's point applies to Apple, but it seems an enormous stretch to predict that consumers will generally examine the desktop market as it exists today and opt for Linux over Vista, XP, or OS X. I realize Linux has gained ground in the netbook market and done well when debuted on systems that used customized distros. What's the larger picture?

In all seriousness, Linux on the desktop spanks any version of Windows silly.

The new version of the KDE desktop, KDE 4.1.3 or later, has worked out its initial teething troubles and now represent the only GPU-accelerated desktop for Linux, and as such is easily the fastest desktop available today, bar none. Because they use software rendering, not even "lightweight" Linux desktops such as LXDE or Fluxbox are as fast. KDE4 runs all of the compiz-style bling (including the desktop cube and 4 desktops), it is scriptable, it runs KDE3 or GTK applications easily and pretty well integrated, and it has innovative new desktop facets such as strigi, nepomuk et al, and it can run Google widgets, OSX widgets or Plasmoids at the same time (KDE 4.2+).

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081202-hands-on-kde-4-2-beta-1.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KDE_4#KDE_4.2

If you desperately need to run the odd legacy Windows application, you can very likely run it under Wine with more compatibility than Vista offers, and faster than Vista can. If it fails to run under Wine, then you can still run a version of Windows virtually using your choice of two free and open-source Virtual Machine Managers:

VirtualBox OSE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtualbox

Kernel-based Virtual Machine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernel-based_Virtual_Machine
http://www.howtoforge.com/virtualization-with-kvm-on-ubuntu-8.10

Wine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_(software)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_(software)#64-bit_applications

Significantly, just this last year or so some larger OEMs have begun to offer desktop Linux pre-installed:

http://linux.dell.com/desktops.shtml
http://blogs.computerworld.com/with_hp_in_all_oems_now_ship_desktop_linux
http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/desktop/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212400561&subSection=News
http://www.workswithu.com/2008/12/12/system76-launches-biometric-ubuntu-linux-laptops/

Finally, desktop Linux has (according to some measurements anyway) finally started to gain a measurable adoption rate, just 1.5% behind that of Mac OSX:

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp

Vendors such as Canonical are actually finally putting some effort into promoting Linux as a usable, practical desktop OS:
http://www.workswithu.com/

No-one told Linux that it was "dead on the desktop". Linux is dominant in every other area of computing, from supercomputers to clusters to servers to infrastructure machines (such as routers) to embedded devices in general (such as cellphones),

XP would cost them something to keep on producing and supporting, it's not zero like Coke.

your argument doesn't make sense. The cost of producing XP is next to zero. Computer manufacturers do not ship boxed copies of XP. They are images that they load onto their computers. Microsoft only has to provide the licenses and charge the manufacturer. As for support, Microsoft is already committed to supporting XP through April 2014.

That 1.5M number is way higher than the actual sales.

http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2008/10/dont_buy_the_g1.html

(Note that URL truncates the full title, which is "Don't buy the G1 Sales Figures". It's not just an article telling you not to buy the G1)

While a hassle- and flash-free version of the article seems nice the linked page also does not seem to contain any adverstising. How does InformationWeek pay their authors and bandwidth bills (Slashdot seems to add a lot to the latter)?

Right: They pay the same way Slashdot does. With ads. It's a one page article:

  http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/open_source/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212202109

Maybe from people who find the article interesting and then go to the home page and see if anything else is interesting?

Think of it as an "ad-free" free sample.

While a hassle- and flash-free version of the article seems nice the linked page also does not seem to contain any adverstising. How does InformationWeek pay their authors and bandwidth bills (Slashdot seems to add a lot to the latter)?

Right: They pay the same way Slashdot does. With ads. It's a one page article:
  http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/open_source/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212202109

Okay I just looked at my dates and Apple sued Psystar in July, Psystar then sued Apple in August so I was off a bit in my post above. This is business as usual for corporations suing each other, BUT retaining the Carr & Farrell firm still looks way out of budget for a company operating out of a warehouse in Miami -- I mean the law firm itself employs two dozen people, which is probably about the same size as Psystar itself.

Here's a better article that's less inflammatory and also contains a statement directly from Apple:

"We have removed the KnowledgeBase article because it was old and inaccurate," an Apple spokesman said in an e-mailed statement. "The Mac is designed with built-in technologies that provide protection against malicious software and security threats right out of the box. However, since no system can be 100% immune from every threat, running antivirus software may offer additional protection."

Sounds a bit more reasonable than the story text posted here on Slashdot.

Guess you missed this antitrust lawsuit over the iPod?

http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml?articleID=212100714

Stupid information week split across 5 pages to fit more banners crap.

what are their entirely specious or bizarre and untrue claims? sounds like you're just exhibiting a typical knee-jerk reaction to being told that something you use/enjoy is not perfect.

despite the inflammatory title on Gametrailers.com the Greenpeace commercial isn't railing against video games. in fact, they seem to be primarily trying to reach out to gamers and raise awareness about the environmental hazards involved in manufacturing electronics. the PTFE (teflon) and epoxy resin used in PCB manufacturing, and various dopants and other chemicals used in IC fabrication are in fact toxic and can be bad for the environment.

that doesn't mean you have to give up video games or throw away your computer, but disseminating such information encourages consumers to make more environmentally conscious decisions. and it's not just Greenpeace that's pushing for more sustainable development in the electronics industry. green computing is increasingly attracting the attention of more and more computer manufacturers.

thanks to Greenpeace, a lot of companies like Apple are starting to clean up their act and even taking the initiative to encourage more corporate responsibility regarding sustainable development.

but in the end, it's the consumers who have the most influence on manufacturers. it's only because consumers are demanding greener computers now that manufacturers are starting to pay attention to their environmental impact. so what's wrong with Greenpeace trying to encourage gamers to do the same? modern consoles are just very specialized gaming/media PCs. and pushing console manufacturers to be a little more environmentally conscious can only be a good thing.