Slashdot Mirror

Nowadays mostly here, and The Inquirer http://www.theinquirer.net/

Some times also Ars Technica, Tom's Hardware and Anandtech. Gizmodo is fun to check from time to time.

Porn on Blu-ray is okay, but Sony facilities won't be used to press it.
Gizmodo
High-Def Digest
The Inquirer

Yeah you sell more at a higher price. This is why Windows Vista is flying off the shelves right?

Or it could be because they're trying to sell a steaming load of cow dung under the guise of it being a gold nugget. Photoshop is good but its not worth $600 no matter how you slice it. The only reason companies artificially inflate their prices to these ridiculous extremes is so that they can also inflate their 'piracy' claims as well. Hey it worked oh so well for the RIAA and the $750 per song claim

At $1564 USD, the price is a bit steep for most of us, but I'm sure it'll find its niche.

I mean, I've been checking out the reviews out there... For example, http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39580/ http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39603/ http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39605/ http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39635/ http://it-review.net/index.php?option=com_content& task=view&id=1335&Itemid=1/ http://it-review.net/index.php?option=com_content& task=view&id=1325&Itemid=1/ http://it-review.net/index.php?option=com_content& task=view&id=1336&Itemid=1/ http://it-review.net/index.php?option=com_content& task=view&id=1337&Itemid=1/ http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/r60 0-architecture.html/ http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2988 / http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ATI/HD_2900_XT/ I see that everyone came to pretty much same results. I'm not sure this "HD2900XT" thing will be repairable. I think that perhaps AMD's announcement that they're targeting best-buy in high-end is more valid. Although that one might have been said in pure desparation....

I mean, I've been checking out the reviews out there... For example, http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39580/ http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39603/ http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39605/ http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39635/ http://it-review.net/index.php?option=com_content& task=view&id=1335&Itemid=1/ http://it-review.net/index.php?option=com_content& task=view&id=1325&Itemid=1/ http://it-review.net/index.php?option=com_content& task=view&id=1336&Itemid=1/ http://it-review.net/index.php?option=com_content& task=view&id=1337&Itemid=1/ http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/r60 0-architecture.html/ http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2988 / http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ATI/HD_2900_XT/ I see that everyone came to pretty much same results. I'm not sure this "HD2900XT" thing will be repairable. I think that perhaps AMD's announcement that they're targeting best-buy in high-end is more valid. Although that one might have been said in pure desparation....

I mean, I've been checking out the reviews out there... For example, http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39580/ http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39603/ http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39605/ http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39635/ http://it-review.net/index.php?option=com_content& task=view&id=1335&Itemid=1/ http://it-review.net/index.php?option=com_content& task=view&id=1325&Itemid=1/ http://it-review.net/index.php?option=com_content& task=view&id=1336&Itemid=1/ http://it-review.net/index.php?option=com_content& task=view&id=1337&Itemid=1/ http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/r60 0-architecture.html/ http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2988 / http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ATI/HD_2900_XT/ I see that everyone came to pretty much same results. I'm not sure this "HD2900XT" thing will be repairable. I think that perhaps AMD's announcement that they're targeting best-buy in high-end is more valid. Although that one might have been said in pure desparation....

I mean, I've been checking out the reviews out there... For example, http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39580/ http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39603/ http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39605/ http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39635/ http://it-review.net/index.php?option=com_content& task=view&id=1335&Itemid=1/ http://it-review.net/index.php?option=com_content& task=view&id=1325&Itemid=1/ http://it-review.net/index.php?option=com_content& task=view&id=1336&Itemid=1/ http://it-review.net/index.php?option=com_content& task=view&id=1337&Itemid=1/ http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/r60 0-architecture.html/ http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2988 / http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ATI/HD_2900_XT/ I see that everyone came to pretty much same results. I'm not sure this "HD2900XT" thing will be repairable. I think that perhaps AMD's announcement that they're targeting best-buy in high-end is more valid. Although that one might have been said in pure desparation....

Actually, it seems as though IT-review.net actually did the whole shabbang of testing on various platforms, check these: http://it-review.net/index.php?option=com_content& task=view&id=1335&Itemid=1 http://it-review.net/index.php?option=com_content& task=view&id=1325&Itemid=1 http://it-review.net/index.php?option=com_content& task=view&id=1336&Itemid=1 http://it-review.net/index.php?option=com_content& task=view&id=1337&Itemid=1 Also included, some links to other big websites with pretty much the same results: http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39580 http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39603 http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39605 http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39635 http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/r60 0-architecture.html http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2988 http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ATI/HD_2900_XT/

Actually, it seems as though IT-review.net actually did the whole shabbang of testing on various platforms, check these: http://it-review.net/index.php?option=com_content& task=view&id=1335&Itemid=1 http://it-review.net/index.php?option=com_content& task=view&id=1325&Itemid=1 http://it-review.net/index.php?option=com_content& task=view&id=1336&Itemid=1 http://it-review.net/index.php?option=com_content& task=view&id=1337&Itemid=1 Also included, some links to other big websites with pretty much the same results: http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39580 http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39603 http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39605 http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39635 http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/r60 0-architecture.html http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2988 http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ATI/HD_2900_XT/

Actually, it seems as though IT-review.net actually did the whole shabbang of testing on various platforms, check these: http://it-review.net/index.php?option=com_content& task=view&id=1335&Itemid=1 http://it-review.net/index.php?option=com_content& task=view&id=1325&Itemid=1 http://it-review.net/index.php?option=com_content& task=view&id=1336&Itemid=1 http://it-review.net/index.php?option=com_content& task=view&id=1337&Itemid=1 Also included, some links to other big websites with pretty much the same results: http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39580 http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39603 http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39605 http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39635 http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/r60 0-architecture.html http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2988 http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ATI/HD_2900_XT/

Actually, it seems as though IT-review.net actually did the whole shabbang of testing on various platforms, check these: http://it-review.net/index.php?option=com_content& task=view&id=1335&Itemid=1 http://it-review.net/index.php?option=com_content& task=view&id=1325&Itemid=1 http://it-review.net/index.php?option=com_content& task=view&id=1336&Itemid=1 http://it-review.net/index.php?option=com_content& task=view&id=1337&Itemid=1 Also included, some links to other big websites with pretty much the same results: http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39580 http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39603 http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39605 http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39635 http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/r60 0-architecture.html http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2988 http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ATI/HD_2900_XT/

The Inquirer has an article about this.

Is it a commercial success? We shall see. The ME II tag looks like it's beginning to stick. Another new client OS in 2009 makes the comparison even more pointed. Testimonials like these can't help vista.

The Inquirer has an article about this.

Is it a commercial success? We shall see. The ME II tag looks like it's beginning to stick. Another new client OS in 2009 makes the comparison even more pointed. Testimonials like these can't help vista.

Fortunately, there are articles that take a more rational view of how many copies of Vista are actually being sold.

The headline is simple, 40 million copies sold. Wow, we rox0rz! This is twice as fast as the XP adoption rate. What he didn't mention is that sales of PCs have more than doubled since XP came out. Silly Vole, no statistical cookie. The problem? Well, PCs sell at about 60 million units a quarter, and everyone we talk to expects sales of around 240-245 million units in 2007. Vista went on sale at the end of November for corporate customers, and one would expect a fair chunk of sales there from pent-up demand.

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39 636

Given that 60 million PCs were sold during that timeframe, it seems a lot those came without Vista.

A Google search will help...

Microsoft Patent Could Hamper E-Mail Authentication Group

John R. Levine provides an analysis

Microsoft patents E-mail addresses as clip-board objects

Microsot patents eternal E-mail

Another link

The Inquirer has an interesting bit in their article on the act:

"Gonzales said that this was critical as the US moved to digital television. This will strike EU readers as a bit odd as it was not vital when we all moved over to digital television."

As usual Anandtech is extremely thorough: http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2988 &p=26

[H]ardocp's take: http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTM 0MSwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

techPowerUp (Warning, streaming video at the start >.>): http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ATI/HD_2900_XT/

The Inquirers expected vapid coverage: http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39 580

I think I'll wait for more ATI drivers and some DX10 games before calling this one... Looks a little underwhelming at the moment though. I'm not regreting my 8800GTX purchase yet. ;)

Qoute from the article...

"They are full-time employees, with 401K stock options. Some work for IBM or Oracle. What does that mean? It means that Linux doesn't exist any more in 2007. There is no free software movement. If someone says Linux is about Love, Peace and Harmony, I would tell them to do their research. There is no free software movement any more. There is big commercial [firms]"

apparently he didnt read about this dude (the webcam driver guy - recent slashdot post)

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39 291

There are firms, there are unpaid hackers, there are Summer of Code students - Linux and Free Software are Booming in 2007 !

Enjoy.
Asustek confirms distaste for Microsoft Vista
Ballmer blames pirates for poor Vista sales

Enjoy.
Asustek confirms distaste for Microsoft Vista
Ballmer blames pirates for poor Vista sales

isn't affected by the endless hardware and software problems of the PC

I write for the Inq, and I have seen the whole paid for journalist thing crop up time and time again, although not at the Inq. I can say with certainty that if there was even an indication of this, anyone working for us would be thrown out so fast it would astound you.

A while back when it got particularly bad, I wrote this up:
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=30 042
And if anything, things have gotten quite a bit worse. It isn't the names you might recognize as much as tge power brokers behind the scenes, usually with a good chunk of site ownership.

All of the accused will blather on about firewalls between advertising and editorial people, but it is all a crock, usually worth the recycling value of the pixels it is printed on.

I have been offered bribes, both cash and other from people, but I have _NEVER_ gotten any pressure to change a story for content, although I have had edits made so we wouldn't get our asses sued off for libel/slander/whatnot. I agreed with these in the long run.

To put things in perspective, when I was in the process of ripping HP up and down, starting here:
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=11 542
I was at the last Comdex in the press room. I was sitting beside Nathan Brookwood and a CNet guy, and had written a particularly biting piece about HP/Carly (I forget which one, there were many). and I got an email from Mike Magee saying "HP wants to.....".

Needless to say, that was an asshole pucker moment. I clicked on it ready to call my lawyer next, and it read:
"....advertise with us.". I wrote him back and asked if it meant that I had to tone down the stories. I forget the exact wording of the response, but summed up it was "not a chance".

Basically, there are honest editors/owners/management and dishonest ones. The dishonest ones will lean on people to do things that they know better than to do. The honest ones will leave, the dishonest ones will stay, and you quickly get a dishonest organization. (As an aside, the same holds true for companies and PR)

Let me sum this up clearly, there are a LOT of rotten sites out there, and also a lot of good ones. The rotten ones are quite good at hiding/disguising their paid for status, you probably wouldn't recognize it if you saw it. Most people throw accusations of bias around as soon as they disagree with the conclusion a site makes, usually a fanboi-ish thing. This is wrong.

Where you get a lot of the bias is things like roundups of hardware that you can not get your product into if you do not have an advertising contract with the site. Hot samples that are not purchasable being overlooked if a banner ad is running prominently on the site, and other similar things. Things are bad out there. One great one is sites selling awards to companies, you know those logos gold/diamond/three thumbs up/whatever that you see on boxes, can be bought from a number of sites. Look for reviews where you see a mediocre review with a summation of 'Three Silver Starzzz!!!' at the end, and you can be pretty sure money changed hands.

There is also the good old fashioned sending of a review with a check, but that is less common now.

Basically, be skeptical. Read every review about a new release, and look for the one that stands out. Look for reviews that say 'kick-ass overclocking part' and the forum posts saying 'I can't get anywhere near that'. These are not 100% sure signs, but keep a tally, patterns will emerge.

In the end, things are bad. If you are moderately skeptical and have an IQ greater than a warm moist towelette, you will see the patterns. You are not imagining them.

            -Charlie

I write for the Inq, and I have seen the whole paid for journalist thing crop up time and time again, although not at the Inq. I can say with certainty that if there was even an indication of this, anyone working for us would be thrown out so fast it would astound you.

A while back when it got particularly bad, I wrote this up:
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=30 042
And if anything, things have gotten quite a bit worse. It isn't the names you might recognize as much as tge power brokers behind the scenes, usually with a good chunk of site ownership.

All of the accused will blather on about firewalls between advertising and editorial people, but it is all a crock, usually worth the recycling value of the pixels it is printed on.

I have been offered bribes, both cash and other from people, but I have _NEVER_ gotten any pressure to change a story for content, although I have had edits made so we wouldn't get our asses sued off for libel/slander/whatnot. I agreed with these in the long run.

To put things in perspective, when I was in the process of ripping HP up and down, starting here:
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=11 542
I was at the last Comdex in the press room. I was sitting beside Nathan Brookwood and a CNet guy, and had written a particularly biting piece about HP/Carly (I forget which one, there were many). and I got an email from Mike Magee saying "HP wants to.....".

Needless to say, that was an asshole pucker moment. I clicked on it ready to call my lawyer next, and it read:
"....advertise with us.". I wrote him back and asked if it meant that I had to tone down the stories. I forget the exact wording of the response, but summed up it was "not a chance".

Basically, there are honest editors/owners/management and dishonest ones. The dishonest ones will lean on people to do things that they know better than to do. The honest ones will leave, the dishonest ones will stay, and you quickly get a dishonest organization. (As an aside, the same holds true for companies and PR)

Let me sum this up clearly, there are a LOT of rotten sites out there, and also a lot of good ones. The rotten ones are quite good at hiding/disguising their paid for status, you probably wouldn't recognize it if you saw it. Most people throw accusations of bias around as soon as they disagree with the conclusion a site makes, usually a fanboi-ish thing. This is wrong.

Where you get a lot of the bias is things like roundups of hardware that you can not get your product into if you do not have an advertising contract with the site. Hot samples that are not purchasable being overlooked if a banner ad is running prominently on the site, and other similar things. Things are bad out there. One great one is sites selling awards to companies, you know those logos gold/diamond/three thumbs up/whatever that you see on boxes, can be bought from a number of sites. Look for reviews where you see a mediocre review with a summation of 'Three Silver Starzzz!!!' at the end, and you can be pretty sure money changed hands.

There is also the good old fashioned sending of a review with a check, but that is less common now.

Basically, be skeptical. Read every review about a new release, and look for the one that stands out. Look for reviews that say 'kick-ass overclocking part' and the forum posts saying 'I can't get anywhere near that'. These are not 100% sure signs, but keep a tally, patterns will emerge.

In the end, things are bad. If you are moderately skeptical and have an IQ greater than a warm moist towelette, you will see the patterns. You are not imagining them.

            -Charlie

/me grins

8800gtx owner here, upgraded from a pair of 7900gt a few months back (well, when the gtx first came out actually) and paired with a 24" screen can just keep games above that 35 fps with all details up @1920x1200

Yes, it is definitely worth the money for the gtx imho, however....

You will note the EVGA 8800gtx gives the same performance as a 8800ultra http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39342

This new breed is just a 8800gtx heavily over clocked, no wonder NV didn't want people OEM OCing the gtx.

Consider that it's likely that they want to be Sony, not MS--or rather, have been trying to become what Sony should've been.

Let's see:

• Jobs admires their products and studied their business model
• walkman--> ipod
• entertainment hub computing
• laptops to envy
• consumer/pro product lines
• partly earned rep for quality
• sleekness
• aiming for upper end of market
• brand premium
• and now, content distribution

consumer gouge adds up to dead goat.

The topless babes are OK, though.

Cody claims he reverse-engineered the Geometry Shader code, and that users will be able to run Windows games intended on the Mac OS X on x86-based Macinteltoshes as well as Linux.

Tor Braham doesn't just explain. He provides drafts to show what was proposed and the copyright transfer was proposed by Old SCO, rejected by Novell and explicitly excluded... SCO's witnesses "recall" what may have been intended. This guy knows and provides documents to prove it.

Today's The Inquirer MOTD is nice:

The palest ink is better than the best memory - Chinese proverb

The show isn't over until it's over, but it seems like it's getting close.

Subsequent events show how wise Novell was to protect their interest in this way. The trail of successors-in-interest has grown long.

I believe Novell will be found to own the corpse of Unix, which in no way diminishes the fact that Unix is still dead.

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39 034

"Web Developer: Fine - we can do all that and reach 90% of the market ..."

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=38 974

according to this.

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=38 945

The problem I read with the blue was that the material that was being used had a serious durability issue. It was rotting much faster than the green and red were (being organic and all) so i would imaging that they either found a new material or changed something in the manufacturing process. http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=23 515

That article is such a load of horseshit. Both NoScript and Adblock Plus break their ad serving so they choose to claim that they are bad and/or difficult to use. Bullshit. NoScript is easy enough for any noob to use with or even without a little backgrounding of it or a help file. Personally, I think such features should be integrated into Firefox 3.0. It is just too essential. Allowing any web site you might encounter while browsing to run scripting on your computer is and always was a very bad idea.. Now that virus/worm/trojan writers are mostly money motivated, they are going after serious stuff like your credit card numbers, bank account passwords, all that. The people writing those things now are not looking for street cred, but dollars. It's a whole new world.

I find NoScript to be incredibly easy to use. It, along with Adblock Plus, are the only reason I am not migrating to Opera. Opera is much faster on my computer at least. But the javascript whitelist functionality is too cumbersome compared to the single click ease of NoScript. And the new functionality of recent versions make it even easier to use. I recently got my computer clueless film school graduate friend to ad NoScript and he hasn't had any usability problems. This is just commercially motivated FUD.

That's no surprise. We have known for some time that Intel is planning to release a few new processors and slash CPU prices dramatically in about two weeks. AMD won't have anything new to show off until later this summer so all they can do is cut their own prices farther and sooner just to keep up.

VISTA hacked again? In about three years I predict this OS will actually be usable due to helper apps which allow end users to use the computer as they see fit, instead of how MS and friends think you should use it. DRM is such a waste of human resources, but I guess this is the game we have to play.

Bill Gates wants more cheap labor to waste of useless software. What a waste of human intellect and talent. How about making the computer RUN faster, be more intuitive, and reliable?

And it's easier to write drivers for BSD if you just copy them from Linux, right?

Personally I see nothing wrong with legal copying. Otherwise there never would have been an industrial revolution. However, fair's fair, and one should try to be consistent.

We hear the parts are going to be closer to 150W than 120W initially. If you think about it, Kentsfield at 120W is 2x 65W 2.67GHz Conroes. 2.93 Conroes are 80W, so two of them minus a little is about 150W. The math works out.

The real QX6800s will come out in Q3 with a new stepping of the core Core number core numeral 2. This new stepping will drop power we are told 'substantially', and pave the way for volume QX6800 production.

Say what? The 8800GTX may have crap drivers in Vista, but under XP, drivers are way more than fine. And OpenGL is something that ATI has NEVER been good at ( http://www.3dnature.com/ati.html http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=38 589 ). Why is this misinformation modded up?

If you read the actual source. Instead of the blog post you'd see they have a 64gb 1.8" IDE version too. I'm not sure if the current interface standard for 1.8" drives is IDE or S-ATA, but I'm sure they'll put the appropriate connector and interface chip on whatever they sell when they ship them.

p2pnet.net
Ars Technica
The Inquirer

Speaking of standards:

* "Microsoft breaks with standards effort" 03-25-2003
* "Microsoft quits W3C standardisation panel" 03/24/2003

How about a free and open standard in gaming?
* "Microsoft DirectX killing innovation" 03-27-2003

Speaking of standards:

* "Microsoft breaks with standards effort" 03-25-2003
* "Microsoft quits W3C standardisation panel" 03/24/2003

How about a free and open standard in gaming?
* "Microsoft DirectX killing innovation" 03-27-2003

Here you go.

Just get one of these. An external hard drive with built-in wireless networking and a built-in bittorrent client. No computer needed to download.

Set it up, let it leach off of an unsecured wireless network until the owner catches on, then switch to another one. No DMCA letters (at least not to YOUR door), and gaming performance on *your* network won't suffer at all!

Yes, that's bad in several ways. But it's still an interesting/funny thought!

We've become jaded because companies like Google are such an exception to the norm that it's ridiculous; we truly are becoming "like paper clips" in too many places, especially in the fields that Slashdot users work in. Or have none of us lost or known someone that has lost a job due to outsourcing? For God's sake, it was news when Microsoft brought back the stupid towel policy!

Not a good idea to do a price/performance comparison when prices and lineup are about to change.

Intel will be releasing a few new CPUs and cutting prices on April 22. The E6320 and E6420 for example, identical to their 6x00 counterparts except with 4mb of L2 cache. They'll go for $163 and $183 respectively.

Benchmarks for next month's processors with price list:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core2 duo-e6420.html

A 20-30% price cut is expected from AMD on April 9.

Even now the prices Techreport lists are outdated! The Athlon X2 4600+ dropped to $122 a week ago - faster and cheaper than the $170 4400+ techreport tested (which is actually more like $159).

DirectX 9L (available for both XP and Vista, Aero runs on 9L, not 10) has more better support for the latest graphics hardware and more features than OpenGL.