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I know there are a lot of people interested in what some of the former TechTV employees are doing now. Most of them have webpages but Patrick Norton does not. For those wondering Patrick is currently doing freelance writing. Recent articles have appeared on ExtremeTech, CNet and PC-World amongst others.

Again, Patrick does NOT have a website or blog but I do try to post links to articles he's writen on my blog as I run across them and as time allows.

The PC World article links to a "how to protect yourself" article.

http://www.pcworld.com/news/graphics/119016-n_1229 04_ads3b.jpg

The pic of the after-effects in the PC World article shows the file they tried to play as "Paris Hilton CD1." So they're even spreading this crap with ambiguouslty titled files that imply the content is a non-MPAA porno anyway?

Or PC World faked the picture. I wouldn't put the former above the MPAA, though.

Their first chip Crusoe, although saving power, underperformed [pcworld.com] badly. And the Efficeon doesn't look fast compared to its rivals. The Efficeon TM 8000 can do 1.1GHz consuming 7W. Intel's Pentium M does 1.7GHz for the same power consumption.

I don't think there's anything particularly cool about this news. It is the same as the discovery of the new planet [mithuro.com]. There are better ones already out there. bx

Their first chip Crusoe, although saving power, underperformed [pcworld.com] badly. And the Efficeon doesn't look fast compared to its rivals. The Efficeon TM 8000 can do 1.1GHz consuming 7W. Intel's Pentium M does 1.7GHz for the same power consumption.

I don't think there's anything particularly cool about this news. It is the same as the discovery of the new planet [mithuro.com]. There are better ones already out there. zd

What will they think of next?

Or just put it all in your Dead Man's Switch, by DaisyMan of Ars Technica fame.

For Windows

And if you find the link dead try...

Here

Dupe from 9 months ago! They even have the same CD "Vacation in Hawaii" pictured on both sites.

When 3DFx went under, NVidia acquired them, remember? As such, they probably hired a number of ex-3dfx employees. Those people are now a part of NVidia's decision-making process. If they haven't learned from their mistakes, a repeat of the events that dragged 3dfx down is entirely plausible.

Sounds like it's time for the not-so-paranoid to join the paranoid and really-god-damn-paranoid in using the Dead Man's Switch:

http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/ 0,fid,23183,00.asp

You set it so as if you don't login and reset the timer before a certain date/amount of time has elapsed, it will:

- Send an email out to people to warn them/tell them you're dead/imprisoned/abducted by that blind date

- Poo all over your sensitive files.

Awesome.

...battery life and practical viewable area on a phone.

Well, the obvious question to me is what is new about this?

Is it just because we're talking United States here? If you read through this thread, people are acting as if watching TV on a phone is some kind of new idea. (Your post being one example.) I mean the size of the screen and the battery life are not open questions, because TV-enabled phones have been on the market for over a year (if not more) around the world.

Am I missing something?

Here
and Here
and Here

This has a nice timeline of time warner.

Still - it could have been Worse . Imagine an ISP owned by microsoft. no... wait... :D

I've always thought its effectiveness would be limited because most spammers wouldn't ever see the bounce message. But if what the submitter says is true...

So I have some more links for y'all.

Technology News' Report and PCWorld's Article on the new disc that will contain a backwards-compatible (4.6 GB) DVD layer and a higher definition (15 GB) HD-DVD layer of which production is planned to begin in October or November of next year.

This seems like this could be a major factor in the format war between HD-DVD and the higher capacity Blu-ray.

Firstly, Apple does not have a monopoly over all uses of the word "iTunes", if that were true then Microsoft could sue anyone that criticised Windows for trademark infringement.

Like this?

Remember: right or wrong, you can sue anybody if you've got cash to feed the lawyers.

Ironically, while they're known for totally shitty inkjets, they make really nice but expensive laser and color laser printers. Weird.

Yeah, that would have been nice. Unfortunately, my Satellite was one of these. It can't even play a DVD smoothly, much less any 3D game.

In Korea, regular computers are for old people. They have everything they would ever need in their cell-phones. https://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,118327, 00.asp/

It's a freeware Windows utility called Push That Freakin' Button (PTFB). Drag the PTFB finger over a button on any annoying dialog, and it will automatically close it for you from now on. Actually it is meant to work with standard Windows widgets, which Firefox does not use. But the PTFB author has cleverly supplied a way to push non-standard widgets: when you drag the PTFB finger over the button, hold down *both* mouse buttons - this will tell PTFB to click by *coordinate*. Using this technique, you can make PTFB work with Firefox (or any other web browser) !!!!! Goodbye annoying login screens !!!!!

PCworld just did a review on 9 MCE machines, they might help you find a cheaper MCE machine if you are in the market for one.

PCworld.com review

I have 2 MCE machines, 1 in the bedroom (Antec Overture case), and one in the living room (the CyberPower model listed in the PCworld review), and while they aren't really that quiet, it doesn't bother anyone once the TV has been turned on.

This looks like a win-win for both. Kazaa get the respectability it seeks and Skype get the huge customer base of Kazaa.
Especially as recently Dutch Supreme Court ruled Kazaa legal

It's a freeware Windows utility called Push That Freakin' Button (PTFB). Drag the PTFB finger over a button on any annoying dialog, and it will automatically close it for you from now on.

Actually it is meant to work with standard Windows widgets, which Firefox does not use. But the PTFB author has cleverly supplied a way to push non-standard widgets: when you drag the PTFB finger over the button, hold down *both* mouse buttons - this will tell PTFB to click by *coordinate*.

Using this technique, you can make PTFB work with Firefox (or any other web browser) !!!!! Goodbye annoying login screens !!!!!

This stories tells of another Microsoft techniques to increase no. of licensed users :-)

You can get it now if you want it. It's a pre-release with a self-destruct timer, but it's available.

here is one I found real quick, with a price tag of 449 USD. Color laser printers are not limited to big businesses anymore, they are only double the price of a cheap b/w-laser printer. Dunno about their quality, though. But I'm sure they embed their serial numbers, too.

Well I'm glad someone else here is reading Engadget and followed the subsequent link to the PC World article.

Well I'm glad someone else here is reading Engadget and followed the subsequent link to the PC World article.

It's also interesting to see the lawsuits that Microsoft has filed:

Microsoft sues controversial system assembler

Microsoft Sues Lindows.com Over Name

Microsoft takes on teen's site MikeRoweSoft.com

Microsoft sues Lucent in old dispute

Microsoft sues Brazilian magazine, IT official for defamation

Microsoft files lawsuit against five Md. firms

Of course, since they usually either buy out the company, develop and market a competing product, they don't need to resort to lawsuits for those type of situations.

No Life on Mars, But Many Bugs

Three Minutes With Mike Deliman

Out-of-memory problem caused Mars rover's glitch

MarsNews.com :: NewsWire :: Mars Exploration Rovers :: Archives

Red Rover's master coder

Remember sometime ago Spirit was continously rebooting due to a flash memory problem. The usage of FAT file system in the embedded systems was partly responsible for the mess.

The problem, Denise said, was in the file system the rover used. In DOS, a directory structure is actually stored as a file. As that directory tree grows, the directory file grows, as well. The Achilles' heel, Denise said, was that deleting files from the directory tree does not reduce the size of the directory file. Instead, deleted files are represented within the directory by special characters, which tell the OS that the files can be replaced with new data.

By itself, the cancerous file might not have been an issue. Combined with a "feature" of a third-party piece of software used by the onboard Wind River embedded OS, however, the glitch proved nearly fatal.

According to Denise, the Spirit rover contains 256 Mbytes of flash memory, a nonvolatile memory that can be written and rewritten thousands of times. The rover also contains 128 Mbytes of DRAM, 96 Mbytes of which are used for data, such as buffering image files in preparation for transmitting them to Earth. The other 32 Mbytes are used for code storage. An additional 11 Mbytes of EEPROM memory are used for additional program code storage.

The undisclosed software vendor required that data stored in flash memory be mirrored in RAM. Since the rover's flash memory was twice the size of the system RAM, a crash was almost inevitable, Denise said.

Moving an actuator, for example, generates a large number of tiny data files. After the rover rebooted, the OSes heap memory would be a hair's breadth away from a crash, as the system RAM would be nearly full, Denise said. Adding another data file would generate a memory allocation command to a nonexistent memory address, prompting a fatal error.

Source: DOS Glitch Nearly Killed Mars Rover

BTW, there is another interview of Mike Deliman I read sometime ago in PCWorld.

Speaking anecdotally, I know many people who used to purchase several CDs every month and haven't purchased a single one since P2P came about. I bet you do, too.

Argue that the RIAA should've made it easier for us to download music legally earlier. Argue that they've alienated their customers through threats and lawsuits. But you cannot ignore the fact that P2P has had a negative impact on the industry.

-Insectmuffin

why doesn't he RELEASE said filters and help the rest of the world out? Actually he's trying to do that through this project. (They are creating an RFC to have mail authentication using "Microshit" patented methods) But I doubt we would like to accept :) . It's just market Mr. Gates is predicting money from.

Right, and he could also forward his daily mail to the DOJ, so there aren't any more losses of that pesky incriminating evidence...

We all know how well the "friends helping friends" mentality helped them out against the RIAA and "Greater Good" (tm)(r)(patent pending).

Teleshuttle Technologies, LLC - software updates

Eolas - browser plugins

Interactive Data (TVI) - autoplay of cds

Research Corporation Technologies - resolution enhancement

InterTrust Technologies - software registration and activation

And don't forget Allan M. Konrad, who sued hotels and airlines for using MS (and other) software to accept reservations online. He didn't sue Microsoft. Why? Because Redmond's revenues were chump change compared to the revenue from all those travel reservations. Konrad lost, but he won't be the last to try.

AOL alone deletes approximately 2 billion spam messages each day (reference here), and has won a lawsuit against a company that single-handedly sent a billion. Nine years is approximately 284 million seconds, so I suspect we are talking small fractions of a second per spam message.

...where the hell did that "6% of the market" figure come from. Yesterday, the statistics all the news sites that were covering the launch quoted that Firefox had 3 percent - I know that the launch was successful, but not enough to double the share overnight.

I think you're being a little short-sighted. You assume user interfaces will stay constant and 2-d. However, when things like http://desk3d.sourceforge.net/this and http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,114615,0 0.aspthis become the norm, those "high end video platforms" will be necessary.

That depends on how the technology might be applied. If in that 20" you had a storage density of...say...1Gb per square inch(hard drives have areal densities of greater than 50Gb per square inch)...and if my math is correct, approximately 400 square inches per side, that would be about 800Gb(100GB) of storage in a medium that may very well be incorporated into your screen's chassis. Depending on the level of vibration and the thickness of the enclosure, this would be an interesting technology for the next generation of tablet pc's.

To add to the longevity issue, Sanyo delayed production on its corn disc due to temperature issues, I wonder if Pioneer got the bugs out?...

"There was a concern that if the disc was exposed to heat greater than 50 degrees Celsius that it wouldn't work properly," says Watson. "A timely topic now as the heat is blazing down on Tokyo, so the main obstacle that they are working on now is trying to improve the disc's resistance to heat. They can easily improve its resistance to heat with a mix of material but that kind of defeats the purpose of the MildDisc." http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,116852,0 0.asp

According to this article, they started by selling Napster source code back in July and then stopped but have started again.

According to this article, they started by selling Napster source code back in July and then stopped but have started again.

You obviously have no idea how these scams work.

And you obviously have no idea about my specific knowledge of it. Allow me to explain...

As soon as you give out your PIN, all your "two-factor" authentication is useless.

Bzzzt.. Wrong.
What if the PIN is single-use only, because one of the two-factors is a semi-random number generator (e.g. RSA SecureID or low-tech scratch-off number sheets as used by some banks already.

Why?? Here is why. Your bank card is absolutely trivial to duplicate.

Bzzt... Wrong again.
Firstly, how can a remote attacker copy your card without gaining access to it? A Russian phishing scammer can attack plenty more and physically obtain the cards. You are getting your various forms of card fraud confused.

Secondly, have a look at the Cardholder Verification Code at the end of the digits on the rear of your card. That number is generated using an algorithm completely different from the usual CC number and thus can't be readily guessed.

All a theif needs is a card from the same bank (easy to obtain by simply creating an account), and a 50 dollar stripe reader/writer.

Bzzzt... Again.
What if the banks issue smart cards instead?
How does your thief copy the seed in a Java machine built into the card which handles all crypto and signing?

In fact, this was the very point of the Amex Blue programme yet it appears the banks got distracted from the original idea of giving away card-readers to end-users.

I stand by my original comments that banks could kill Phishing dead tomorrow if they wanted to. Every card in the marketplace expires within 2-3 years. They could replace every single one of them with a smart-card or enable some other form of two-factor (or multi-factor) authentication IF THEY WANTED TO.

You need to be a lot more careful before throwing around phrases like "you obviously have no idea"...

Oh, I dont suppose you are refering to PCWorld Bench?
AnandTech

Yeah, I know. Reading the article is tough, but some of us have to do it. More info here: PCWorld

Well, according to this article, the internet just turned 20 last year.
Here's one that said it turned 35 last month.
Here's yet another one at a reputable site that has it as 20 years ago, but this was Dec 31, 2002.
Any reason to celebrate, I guess.

Exactly. Google desktop search doesn't find anything that wasn't there before.

I agree with the gist of this thread... but the security issue is not just confined to computers in public places. If you download sensitive information to your own computer, should have easy-enough ways to destroy all evidence of it. Googling google+desktop+cache, you can find people raising legitimate concerns about the so-called google cache.

The BD-ROM version 1 format is expected to include MPEG-4 AVC and VC-1 support.. Also stated on blu-ray.com. It's also on Wikipedia's entry.

The news is over a month old, and reasonably well circulated. Not sure why it keeps being overlooked...

You draw your own conclusions as to what that will mean.

Its been demonstrated that although people are willing to put up with microsoft products, they are unwilling to "trust" microsoft. Remember Microsoft Passport? Good idea, not too popular.

Some relevant urls:

http://yahoo.pcworld.com/yahoo/article/0,aid,63244 ,00.asp

http://www.winnetmag.com/Article/ArticleID/22777/2 2777.html

http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/18366.html

http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/tech/software/1503 776.html