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Domain: phaedo.cx
Stories and comments across the archive that link to phaedo.cx.
Stories · 21
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iPods at War
phaedo00 writes "Ars Technica has put together an outstanding piece of journalism about the use of personal technology in America's military and how these devices along with blatant piracy is causing new problems in the face of war: "While soldiers once deployed with little more than a backpack and a rifle, today's crop of infantry troops pack along MP3 players, digital cameras, DVD players, video games, movie collections, and computers of their own. The personal electronics have made modern American warfare the most comfortable it has ever been, but they've also brought a new set of problems onto the battlefield."" -
The History of Hacking DRM
phaedo00 writes "Ars Technica writer Nate Anderson has penned an in-depth look into past DRM-crackings and what the future looks like for people who are vehemently anti-DRM: 'Like a creeping fog, DRM smothers more and more media in its clammy embrace, but the sun still shines down on isolated patches of the landscape. This isn't always due to the decisions of corporate executives; often it's the work of hackers who devote considerable skill to cracking the digital locks that guard everything from DVDs to e-books. Their reasons are complicated and range from the philosophical to the criminal, but their goals are the same: no more DRM.'" -
Parallels Desktop for OS X Reviewed
phaedo00 writes "Ars Technica has put up a great review of the first full release of Parallels' virtualization software for OS X, Parallels Desktop 1.0. From the article: 'Move over emulation, virtualization is in and it's hotter than two Jessica Albas wresting the devil himself in a pit of molten steel. It's no contest, virtualization has it all: multiple operating systems running on the same machine at nearly the full speed of the host's processor with each system seamlessly networking with the next. Add to that the fact that it's cheaper than getting a new machine and you have the guaranteed latest craze. Not even the Hula Hoop can stop this one.'" -
Exploring the ATI/AMD Rumor
phaedo00 writes "Ars Technica writes about current speculation circling around the supposed imminent merger of ATI and AMD: 'Last week at Computex, however, Intel allegedly began telling folks behind closed doors that AMD is planning to acquire ATI. This news came courtesy of Tweaktown, who cited a trusted and reliable anonymous source for the claim. It wasn't clear from Tweaktown's report if Intel itself had heard a rumor to this effect, or if the company was reading the same tea leaves as the RBC Capital Markets analysts in the Forbes article and coming to the same conclusion.'" -
Making Money Selling Music Without DRM
phaedo00 writes "Ars Technica's Nate Anderson has an excellent writeup on the rise of eMusic and how they're suceeding despite their unwillingness to hop on the DRM bandwagon. From the article: 'The Holy Grail of online music sales is the ability to offer iPod-compatible tracks. Like the quest for the mythical cup itself, the search for iPod compatibility has been largely fruitless for Apple's competitors, whose DRM schemes are incompatible with the iconic music player. For a music store that wants to succeed, reaching the iPod audience is all but a necessity in the the US market, where Apple products account for 78 percent of the total players sold. Perhaps that's why eMusic CEO David Pakman sounds downright gleeful when he points out that there's only two companies in the world that can sell to them--Apple and eMusic.'" -
Ars Technica Reviews the MacBook
phaedo00 writes "Ars Technica has performed another of their in-depth and thorough hardware reviews. The subject in this review is the newly released MacBook. From the article: 'The Apple portable web site proudly announces that the "family is finally complete." What began with an announcement from Steve Jobs at the MacWorld conference in January has come full circle with the release of the MacBook this week. Every Apple laptop is Intel powered and moving in what I would consider is the right direction. The laptop line is finally better delineated by pro and consumer features, and the prices have been fixed at points that better reflect the minute differences in the models.'" -
3 High-End iPod Speaker Systems Reviewed
phaedo00 writes "Ars Technica has put together a round up of three high-end iPod speaker systems, including the new Apple iPod Hi-Fi. From the article: 'With the seemingly unending success of the iPod, accessories for the popular digital music player have become a more and more popular option for companies looking to hop on the bandwagon and make a quick buck. Companies that once had no business selling product accessories for consumer electronics are now jumping into the game because of the success of the iPod. With the growing number of stores carrying the personal audio device and a growing crop of users desiring to hear their music in more places, speaker systems have become an increasingly popular accessory.'" -
Red Hat Gives up on Fedora Foundation
phaedo00 writes "Ars Technica writes up Red Hat's giving up on the Fedora Foundation: 'In an open letter distributed to the Fedora community earlier this week, Red Hat employee and Fedora project leader Max Spevack states that Red Hat is no longer interested in establishing an autonomous, nonprofit foundation to manage the Fedora project. Instead, Red Hat will revive the Fedora Project Board, which will include five Red Hat representatives, four members of the Fedora community, and a chairman appointed by Red Hat who will possess veto power.'" -
Ars Technica Reviews Controller Keyboard
phaedo00 writes "Ars Technica has reviewed the AlphaGrip AG-5 handheld keyboard and mouse. From the article: 'After lots of research and five revisions, the perfectionists at AlphaGrip finally decided that they had a product worthy of marketing, and they released the long awaited AG-5. Although the AG-5 looks strange and intimidating, it is a unique and highly innovative product that deserves consideration, particularly by mobile computing enthusiasts. The AG-5 interfaces with computers via a single removable USB cable. It uses a simple chord-like keyboarding model and an integrated trackball to provide complete keyboard and mouse functionality in a unique form factor that looks a bit like a console gaming controller.'" -
ArsTechnica Reviews The Intel Mac Mini (Core Solo)
phaedo00 writes "Ars Technica has put together a review of the recently announced Intel-powered Mac mini. The model reviewed was the public's first look at a Core Solo desktop from Apple and the results are promising: 'Up until Apple's "fun" announcement on the last day of February, there was really no indication of how Apple's low-end Intel offerings would be presented. Now that Apple has disclosed the specification and price points for their entry-level machines, we can get a better idea of where Apple is trying to take their product line. For those people who might be unaware, two new Mac Mini models were released and by most accounts, the products have been well received aside from a few quibbles over specifications.'" -
MacBook Pro Reviewed
phaedo00 writes "Ars Technica has an in-depth review of the MacBook Pro that compares performance with a Dell Inspiron running a hacked version of OS X 10.4.4: 'Yes, you read that right. We at the Orbiting HQ were able to have some benchmarks run on an acquaintance's Dell Inspiron 9100 with a 3.2GHz Pentium 4 HT chip running OS X 10.4.4, and decided that including the benchmarks from this machine would prove to be both interesting if not illustrative of what non-Apple x86 machines may be capable of if they could run Mac OS X (legally). Please keep in mind that the data from the Dell laptop is for illustrative purposes only and that no one at the Ars Orbiting HQ hacked a machine. As David Letterman says, this is not a competition. No wagering.'" -
Indiana Tries to Pass Game Law Again
phaedo00 writes "Ars Technica has posted their take on Indiana's newest attempt at passing a game law that seeks to restrict the sale of violent video games. This, despite that fact that similar legislation has a track record of failing in every state it has been proposed in. From the article: 'The state capitol, Indianapolis, was one of the first cities in the nation to try and strike out at violent video games, first going after arcades and other entertainment vendors back in 2000. The quest ended up where they all do: in front of a judge, and left for dead. Now that California, Illinois, and Michigan have all suffered astounding defeats in their attempts to address PC and console game sales, Indiana wants to join the ranks of the failures.'" -
Analog Hole Legislation Formally Introduced
phaedo00 writes "Ars Technica is covering a recent bit of legislation introduced to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee this past week. The laws would seek to close the 'Analog Hole' that serves as a sort of last-ditch pirating mechanism when corporate DRM goes all crazy and tramples on your fair-use rights: 'Calling the ability to convert analog video content to a digital format a significant technical weakness in content protection, H.R. 4569 would require all consumer electronics video devices manufactured more than 12 months after the DTCSA is passed to be able to detect and obey a rights signaling system that would be used to limit how content is viewed and used. That rights signaling system would consist of two DRM technologies, Video Encoded Invisible Light (VEIL) and Content Generation Management System--Analog (CGMS-A), which would be embedded in broadcasts and other analog video content.'" We've previously covered this bill. -
Nokia 770 Internet Tablet Reviewed
phaedo00 writes "Ars Technica has reviewed the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet which is powered by a variant of Debian Linux. Eric Bangeman praises the device for its "wow" factor and has high hopes for its potential, but nagging issues with the implementation, relatively weak specs, and small software library lower the device's chances of becoming a hot item. From the review: 'The 770 could also use some beefier hardware. One of the attractive things about the 770 for me is the price--US$359. In order to hit that price point, I imagine Nokia had to make some hardware trade offs. Unfortunately, those make themselves glaringly apparent at times. 128MB of shared memory isn't enough; neither is a 250MHz ARM processor.'" -
Pocket Linux Server Showdown
phaedo00 writes "Ars Technica has put together a review of two pocket Linux servers (the Gumstix Connex 200 and the Waysmall 200BT). The review covers all aspects, including programming for the devices and their respective communities: "As with any OSS-based project, the community is what makes the Waysmall powerful. It's the community that comes up with novel applications, and develops new uses for the existing hardware. The Waysmall community is coming together as evidenced by several very involved projects and a healthy online presence in the wiki and mailing lists. Additionally, the Gumstix developers seem to be taking active roles in the community, folding community recommendations into their products as well as offering leadership and advice. Somewhat more organized and comprehensive documentation would be welcome, but not if it comes at the expense of accuracy, which the current documentation seems to have in hand."" -
Apple Adds New TV Shows To iTunes
Phaedo00 writes "Ars Technica is reporting that Apple has added eleven new and classic television shows from NBC, the Sci-Fi network, and USA. The new shows include Alfred Hitchcock, Battlestar Galactica, Monk, Surface, Conan O'Brien, Jay Leno, Dragnet, Law & Order, The Office and most importantly: Knight Rider!" From the article: "Steve Jobs took the opportunity to toot Apple's horn, stating that since the inception of video downloads on the iTMS, they'd sold nearly three million individual items. In addition to the sales figures, the PR from Apple stated that their current offering of video stands at approximately 300 episodes. All in all this looks like a slam dunk for Apple as they're rounding up their distribution deals and diversifying their suppliers. If the rumored deals with FOX and CBS are true then Apple will have a dominating lead in this market, much like their current domination in the digital music distribution arena." -
Apple's Aperture Reviewed
phaedo00 writes "Ars Technica has done an in-depth review of Apple's Aperture. Reviewer Dave Girard gives it a once over and walks away with a sour taste in his mouth. From the review: 'It is also disappointing to see form beat out function here, but hopefully this will be Apple's software equivalent of the G4 Cube. They have only themselves to blame: they set themselves up for a big fall by attempting to dig themselves a chunk of the pro market by purporting to have the lossless holy grail of imaging. The trouble with that is they obviously didn't have the engineering or expertise in RAW processing to pull it off or, if they did, they chose not to include it because of speed constraints due to Core Image.'" -
Creating Live Linux Distributions For Disasters
phaedo00 writes "The folks over at Ars Technica have an article up about Hannibal's experience volunteering in relief efforts and how a custom built Linux distribution can help people solve social and disaster related problems without costing an arm and a leg. From the article: 'I spent the two weeks after Katrina struck working with volunteers in Lake Charles, Louisiana and across the Internet to build, maintain, and upgrade such labs in two of southwest Louisiana's largest Red Cross shelters. The present article is a short introduction to one of the most important categories of tools to emerge from the efforts of myself and others to meet the shelters' need for free, zero-maintenance, bulletproof, Internet-connected computers: the shelter lab LiveCD build.'" Article partially paid-only. -
Apple Launches Video Podcasting For iTunes
phaedo00 writes "Apple has launched support for video podcasting in the Podcast section of the iTMS. Ars Technica has a decent write up of the news along with speculation on what this means in the way of a video iPod and Apple's recent application for a patent on the phrase 'iPodcast.'" From the article: "The quiet, fanfare-less launch (in fact, it's not even clear when it was launched) is a bit surprising for the company, but there may be a reason: there's not too many video podcasts out there in the wild. Furthermore, video podcasts are currently only playable on your computer, although it seems clear enough that a video iPod is on the way. If you didn't believe it before, you should definitely believe it now. For now, it looks like video podcasting support is limited." -
Spyware Based ID Theft Ring Uncovered
phaedo00 wrote to mention an Ars Technica article discussing a massive identity theft ring uncovered by security software firm Sunbelt. From the article:"According to one of their employees, Alex Eckelberry, during the course of one of their recent investigations into a particular Spyware application--rumored to be called CoolWebSearch--they've discovered that the personal information of those 'infected' was being captured and uploaded to a server." -
Google to Launch Mac Version of Google Desktop UPDATED
phaedo00 writes "Arstechnica is reporting that Google today announced that they are pursuing a Google Desktop for Apple's Mac OS X. Google chief executive Eric Schmidt saying it had to be rebuilt from the ground up because of the fundamental differences between the Mac OS and Windows. 'We intend to do it,' Schmidt said." Update: 10/30 23:51 GMT by M : Seems like Reuters and others may have heard wrong about a potential Mac version.