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CBS owns CNET, and said, you can't say nice things about someone we're suing!

And CBS released a statement saying 'CNET maintains 100% editorial independence, and always will'

BUT

that's 'in terms of covering actual news,', i.e. only when we say they can.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/14/3874682/exclusive-cbs-forced-cnet-editors-to-recast-vote-after-hopper-win

Well hey. You know, every creator is entitled to ruin their own creation. If this guy wants to do it too, then who am I to argue, but I'll always know that Barbara files suit first.
Originally the Streisand Effect was about trying to keep something from becoming public. That's not what's going on here. This was a product from a nationally known brand at the top of their field. A company that nearly every American is familiar with. And they've been publicizing the heck out of this product/feature. This product has been all over the news for the better part of the last year. It was WAY to late to attempt to suppress knowledge of this thing. And really, if that's what CBS wanted to do, they went about it the wrong way:

http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/14/3874682/exclusive-cbs-forced-cnet-editors-to-recast-vote-after-hopper-win:

CBS Interactive representatives told The Verge...that the ban on coverage is limited only to specific products implicated in ongoing litigation with CNET's parent company; and that the ban only applied to product reviews and that news coverage would be exempt.

So they supposedly wanted to suppress knowledge of this product but then said "oh, but it's alright to cover news stories about it"?

Sorry, but this isn't Streisand Effect unless you mangle the meaning of the term.

The fact that MSFT had to cut their Surface order in half [bgr.com] should be a surprise to nobody

I've seen you post this at least a dozen times. Every time you start a rant about Surface, you invariably bring up this unsubstantiated claim from unnamed Eastern component suppliers. After this "rumor" hit the web, Microsoft actually increased retail distribution, said they're increasing production, are increasing availability to more countries, and said they're expanding the product lineup. Together, these point to a completely different direction than your stale, 3 month old rumor.

You're starting to sound like a broken record.

Hell even with this, is it 23GB in base 2 like the OS, or is it base 10 like the manufacturers?

It's base 2.

all those people getting home and finding none of the Windows software they've accumalated for years will run on the damned thing, THAT is what is gonna make this into a megaflop.

All the software they've accumulated over the years WILL run on the Surface Pro. That's the entire point of this device. It runs full Windows 8 on an Intel Core i5. You don't seem to know much about this product you constantly are blasting. Even 23GB is enough for any application I've come across, but this can be expanded to 30+ GB by removing the recovery partition. This is the same you'd get with a Macbook Air at 64GB. You can even expand storage easily with an SD card.

Twitter's video-sharing app now blocks many searches for pornographic terms. Trying to search for the #porn hashtag (and other terms such as #sex, #boobs, and #booty) brings up no results at this time.

Effectively, it is: See the Verge for a discussion. Unless they used his actual voice, he has no leg to stand on.

From the article you link: "If Glee's producers used clips of Coulton's actual recording, like the duck sound, it's different: that would be copyright infringement of his sound recording." No mention of using JC's voice. Several people have analyse the recordings and concluded they are the same instrumental tracks.

Effectively, it is: See the Verge for a discussion. Unless they used his actual voice, he has no leg to stand on.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/18/3891836/glee-uses-jonathan-coultons-cover-of-baby-got-back-without-permission

There's no protection for a cover. However, the Glee people weren't nice because they didn't credit him for his ultra-boring cover of a great song.

Not that we're anywhere close to terabyte flash drives.

You sure about that?

http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/7/3847628/kingston-announces-1tb-flash-drive

They're not cheap yet, but they're here.

I still think this is all smoke and mirrors though, the REAL reason for Steam on Linux is Valve's Steambox which will run a GPL V2 only Linux (so they can use the hardware DRM that consoles require)

We'll come out with our own and we'll sell it to consumers by ourselves. That'll be a Linux box, [and] if you want to install Windows you can. We're not going to make it hard. This is not some locked box by any stretch of the imagination

-- Valve CEO Gabe Newell in an interview with The Verge earlier this month.

Besides, Steam is a software DRM system; why would they need hardware DRM?

I definitely agree. I don't think that we can reasonably use such a defense as justification for pirating (morally or legally), but I do believe that the RIAA would be well-advised to approach the situation with that sort of thinking and awareness. Rather than viewing these people as customers that have been saturated with advertising and the culture of music (as Neil Young put it, "piracy is the new radio"), they're treating them as opponents. Jobs had it right when he went to the music industry with the idea of the iTunes Store and said that people were "spending an hour to download four songs that you could buy for under $4 from Apple, which means you’re working for under minimum wage" and that they'd be willing to go to the services that provide a decent service at a decent price. And then they followed that up with the whole iTunes Match service, which basically acted like amnesty for all previous acts of piracy, thus encouraging people to break out of that habit while making it trivial (both in terms of simplicity and in terms of cost) to do so.

Other companies have been championing that cause as well, but it feels as if they're having to drag the RIAA along, kicking and screaming.

overseas labor is cheap because the operations needed -require- human hands, eyesight and abilities that robots still don't have. sheesh, if we COULD use robots for things (like iphone assemblies) we would (they would).

Robots are getting those abilities, and it is causing some manufacturing repatriation:

Foxconn begins replacing workers with robots ahead of US expansion

"In June 2011, Foxconn CEO Terry Gou announced plans to deploy one million robots across factory assembly lines, as part of a company-wide effort to adopt more automated manufacturing processes. The company has been reluctant to discuss any progress toward this goal, but according to the Wall Street Journal, the automation process is already underway, and some workers are beginning to feel its effects.

One such employee is a man known as Zhang, who has spent the last two years working on the assembly lines at Foxconn's Shenzhen plant. Zhang told the Journal that he and some of his colleagues were recently transferred to different positions after factory managers began deploying robotic arms to plug components into a motherboard. "There were about 20 to 30 people on the line before, but after they added the robots it went down to five people, who just pushed buttons and ran the machines," he said."

Woo struck a similar chord last week, when Foxconn announced plans to expand operations to North America. cite

You're right, more gun laws would just turn America into a police state.

This was my favorite "hands-on" post. Four pictures of a Panasonic 4K OLED TV. Not only is it not a "hands on" photo shoot showing actual interface features, there are no hands whatsoever in any of the photos. It's the TV sitting in its display area completely unattended. No Panasonic marketing men or booth candy even.

do you really want a 3d print of the fetus, like, REALLY? http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/8/3227461/3d-printing-fetus-japan-fasotec-hiroo-clinic

Clearly it was the Keynote

What made "headlines" is not really what the show was about. There are thousands of innovative retail ready or retail close items at CES. Just not ones that catch the big headlines. Phones are big right now in the media and blogs. Without big phone announcements for people to jump on does not mean CES is dead. TBieber and the Kardigans are not the only two out there.

Take a picture tour of some of the previous CES shows.
http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/4/3828848/ces-photo-history

It hurts like hell to use a touch screen for hours.

It sure does! But this whole idea of gorilla arm is a complete strawman. Yes, of course if you hold your arms out in front of you for hours it's going to be painful. Just like if you type for hours it will hurt your wrist, or if you use a game controller for hours your fingers hurt, or if you write with a pencil for hours your hand gets stiff. There's nothing surprising or unique about this "gorilla arm" term, except for the fact that it's being used to categorically disqualify touch on desktops.

It seems to me, this theory is being perpetuated by people who both a) never used touch on a desktop or laptop and b) lack the imagination necessary to recognize the usefulness of touch on a desktop or laptop. I've owned a variety of touch screen notebooks since 2008. Personally, I never held my arm our for hours because there is no need; I have a keyboard and a mouse for when they make sense, and touch for when it make sense. Sometimes it's more convenient to pinch-zoom. Sometimes it's more convenient to flick scroll. Sometimes targeting small buttons and controls is difficult with a track pad, and faster with touch. Dragging objects like windows is easier with touch than track pad. Rotating pictures is a simple gesture with touch.

The funny part is, after I let people use my various touch notebooks, they confess to me they end up touching their own notebook screens instinctively. It's just a natural input method. Now you have various sources backing up my own experience. The Verge recently covered this with their article Surprisingly, touchscreen laptops don't suck: How Windows 8 challenged the 'gorilla arm' — and won. Analysts are claiming touch screen PC demand is strong.

Gorilla arm is a myth. It's a complete misrepresentation of how touch screens are designed to be used, and how they fit into the overall landscape of UI inputs. Touch is supposed to be used when touch makes more sense. You're not supposed to type on your touchscreen when you have a keyboard right in front of you. That is stupid. Just like you won't use a mouse for multitouch input operations, you will use a touch screen when it is more convenient and makes sense, not for hours on end resulting in "Gorilla Arm."

Stop propagating the myth Steve Jobs started that few people bother to test first hand.

Here's some articles from people who actually USED Windows 8:

Surprisingly, touchscreen laptops don't suck

Touchscreens and the Myth of Windows 8 ‘Gorilla Arm’

See here for a more accurate version of this:
http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/17/2714044/google-contractors-sacked-vandalism-openstreetmap

No, this was quite a lottle bit evil. As were all the various anticompetitive practices they've been into recently. Many of those have even been directly trying to bring down open source competition, like deliberately polluting OpenStreetMap's data.

They're just so evil, I mean can you imagine how much better things would be if that stupid Android hadn't showed up?, we'd all be using phones made by Apple or running Windows, now those are companies you want to support, who on earth would want an Open Source OS to be relevant in a consumer market for once, that's preposterous.

And the OpenStreetMap data, it's so clear that this goes to the highest levels of the company.... oh wait.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/17/2714044/google-contractors-sacked-vandalism-openstreetmap

Sometimes it pays off to have some fucking perspective, here's an obnoxious smiley face right back atcha *:)*

The wife of a friend of mine has been using one of those on the iPad 1 for a few years now. She doesn't like touching the screen with her fingers.
Oh and see here: http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/10/2925937/best-stylus-ipad-review

In case anyone was wondering where Tizen came from.

Meamo (Nokia) + Moblin (Intel) = Meego - Nokia + Samsung = Tizen

For people who shed tears because they don't like Win8 or think it needs "feature X" I have three letters for you:

SP1

You may need 4 letters:

http://www.theverge.com/2012/11/28/3693368/windows-blue-update-low-cost

Of course, using 4 letter words to describe Windows releases is quite common!

TheVerge reports monies have been exchanged, it's over Johnny... http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/24/3801146/steve-jobs-yacht-freed-after-payment-dispute-philippe-starck-resolved

Oh ok, so something like this from 2006? I can't find a video, but that's the phone, and Android version details, they apparently revealed during the Oracle trial. I agree the prototype phone *looks* like a generic Blackberry but the OS implemented "functional apps included the dialer, home screen, messaging app, contacts, and an early example of Android's ubiquitous WebKit-based browser; implementations of Google Talk, Gmail, Calendar, MMS, "chat-based SMS" (presumably a threaded messaging app), and POP email".

Considering this was before the iPhone was released I suppose you could technically say that it was developed as a competitor to the Blackberry.

The "tutorial" plays while setting up your computer. It's a 10 second animation that says "Move your mouse into any corner." It depicts a giant cursor moving into the corner, which displays the charms bar. It loops this animation several times while your user profile is set up. If you have a touch screen, it also tells you to swipe in from any side and shows a hand swiping in.

See here: http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/2/3214795/windows-8-tutorial-setup-guide

Slow enough to be completely understandable for those who are slow, and if you want to skip it.... too bad. Your user profile is being set up and apps are being installed.

Probably right. In this case however, it's your IT department that's supposed to train you on how to use your work-required technology, not MIcrosoft. Here is what you missed: http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/2/3214795/windows-8-tutorial-setup-guide

That sentence was added to Instagram's terms of service yesterday, sparking widespread outrage —the most panicked analysis claims Instagram just gave itself permission to sell everyone's photos at will. Even the least icky hypothetical scenarios being tossed around are completely icky: your parents leave a comment on a photo of your kid, and five minutes later, they're looking at an ad for a new life insurance policy featuring that same intimate photo of their grandchild. Is this really the future of Instagram? Well, in a way. But it's a lot more like Facebook's current "sponsored post" system than anything else —there's no way Instagram can up and sell your photos to anyone, and advertisers are fairly limited in what they can do with those photos. Here's what's going on. "There's no way Instagram can sell your photos to anyone" Instagram's new terms of service, which go into effect on January 16th, clearly state that your photographs and associated information (like location data) can be promoted by companies without anyone notifying you about the transaction. It's not even hidden in legalese —it's right there in black and white:

"To help us deliver interesting paid or sponsored content or promotions, you agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata), and/ or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you." http://mobile.theverge.com/2012/12/18/3780158/instagrams-new-terms-of-service-what-they-really-mean

This article shed some light on the new TOS for me:

What the new terms of service really mean | The Verge

Samsung drops Apple injunctions in Europe.

Apparently somebody is on it - but not on a tablet; a phone.

Philips have had a TV with that format for a few years, the Cinema 21:9.

Couldn't find a non-Swedish site, as it's being discontinued.

Apple and Android platforms also suffer from hacking - their piracy rates are at 60% by some:
http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/7/3225154/dead-trigger-dev-interview-piracy-android-ios
This does not make Windows 8 any worse than the competition. In fact, it looks somewhat better from this article because the hacks are lengthier, at least for the present.

Interesting statistic for iOS. Because the only way to pirate is to either jailbreak (~10% of iOS users jailbreak, but not all of them are pirates), or pay Apple $99/year to get a dev certificate so you can run unsigned code, that would imply his game is only interesting to those kind of users.

So either it's completely a ripoff that people aren't willing to pay for it, or being advertised on the piracy sites was some of the best marketing he got.

(And yes, for iOS 6 and iPhone 5/iPad mini/iPad 4, the only way to pirate is $99/year, so you better find 100 99 cent apps to make it worthwhile...).

Apple and Android platforms also suffer from hacking - their piracy rates are at 60% by some:
http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/7/3225154/dead-trigger-dev-interview-piracy-android-ios
This does not make Windows 8 any worse than the competition. In fact, it looks somewhat better from this article because the hacks are lengthier, at least for the present.

You mean the ones that were seized without regard for due process? That is evil because it sets a precedent for abuse.

Oh, wait ... they've already abused it.

Forgot to include the Apple numbers reference:
http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/9/3232018/confidential-apple-samsung-sales-numbers-trial

I dunno, cost?

When the PlayStation 3 came out, it cost five hundred ninety-nine U.S. dollars. Nowadays, the PlayStation 3 is much cheaper, but so is a $300 PC.

Beefy PC? There are guides coming out on how to build a $300 DIY Steambox, minus the cost of OS and the cost of an optional XBox 360 controller which you can use on Windows or Linux. It'll be competitive against Microsoft and Sony's next consoles.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/11/30/3706718/forget-the-ps4-and-the-xbox-720-build-your-own-steambox-on-the-cheap

Well, technically, we were there, and the industry decided to start moving backwards.

I still use a Thinkpad X61 tablet which has a 1400x1050 screen (150 ppi) and a wacom digitizer. I've been using it to annotate PDF's for years. However, it's on it's last legs but there is still nothing to replace it with.

I made a paper cutout of the size of the screen for 10.1" and 11.6" and 13.3" Windows 8 devices at 1080p, which have respectively 218, 190, and 166 ppi. (In my opinion, 150 ppi is the absolute minimum to be able to read subscripts in a full-page maximized document). You'll notice that all these 16:9 screens are substantially narrower and taller than a sheet of paper. (16:9 is an aspect ratio of 1.78, while 8.5"x11" paper is 1.29) So maximizing the width of a full page on a portrait TV-screen gives you closer to 1.5 pages at a time. The old 4:3 monitors were perfect for documents in portrait mode (aspect ratio 1.33 -- so enough room for a toolbar). Why in the bloody dripping hell everyone decided to use TV screens for computer displays boggles my mind. On the most common Windows 8 screen size, 11.6" at 1080p, an 8.5"x11" document is compressed into a 5.69"x7.36" space. How good are your eyes? For those of you with your calculators out, that's less than half the area of the original 8.5"x11" paper. Sure you could zoom it, welcome to an unending hell of fiddling with scrollbars on a tablet device. Oh and don't forget those 1" document margins wasting screen space. Do you know a good PDF reader that can reliably zoom away margins for screen reading? Neither do I.

The only reasonable upcoming windows 8 device, in my opinion, is the Asus Taichi, the 13.3" version of which has been indefinitely delayed. :-(

Everything else on the market either has: too small of a screen or no digitizer. So, in case anyone from the industry is reading this, bring back 4:3 screens, make them around 14" diagonal with very small bezels and while you're at it, give us > 200 PPI or higher and resistive digitizers!!!. An 8.5"x11" sheet of paper has a diagonal size of 13.9". There's a huge market out there that is unsatisfied. Everyone on the damn planet uses paper, and we need devices that emulate paper use-cases. The OP and myself would definitely buy such devices. Screw Apple and their narrow-minded "no stylus" initiative. Paper has been in use for thousands of years. It's not going to stop tomorrow.

We've been looking at this all wrong. A touchscreen isn't a replacement for a keyboard or mouse, it's a complement. If I want to type things on my laptop and have enough room to comfortably open that clamshell and stretch out my arms, the keyboard's still my best bet. I'm not going to touch-type 70 words per minute on a touchscreen keyboard. But when I'm in the cramped quarters of a train, plane, or standing in a line — say, when the only thing standing between a critical email and its recipient is a few dozen words and a tap of the button marked "Send" — I can grab that Windows 8 laptop by its hinged section, one hand on either side of the screen, and tap out that message with my thumbs.

This is exactly what I'm saying. Best tool for the job. Best example I've encountered actually is scale/translate/rotate in photoshop. Currently scaling, rotating, and translating a layer in photoshop are serial operations, you have to perform one after another. This makes the process of properly resizing and placing an layer iterative: move it, then rotate it, then scale it, repeat until perfect. With touch, all three operations can be performed at once, with pinch, pan, and rotate gestures. Touch on a laptop or desktop would be much more productive in this situation, and I can think of many others. To unilaterally call it unusable is nearsighted.

Does that office version run on iPad, or are you being intentionally misleading (aka trolling)?

No (but Microsoft has announced it). But my point was that it does run on a MacBook Air which is only $100 more and is much better suited to using Office than is a keyboardless, stylus-based tablet.

That says nothing of $300 netbooks which can also run Office, but still with a full keyboard. Given that Surface Pro is the same size, weight, and cost as a full-fledged laptop, I can't imagine many Office users willing to trade in their keyboards for styluses and touch screens.

Darrell Issa strongly opposes net neutrality, with a Republican platform that supports some ironic thing called "internet freedom". Last year, Issa ripped into FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski at a Congressional hearing, accusing him of doing Obama's bidding regarding net neutrality (wtf?).

In short, Issa is a conservative Republican who has been on a mission to destroy net neutrality.

Darrell Issa strongly opposes net neutrality, with a Republican platform that supports some ironic thing called "internet freedom". Last year, Issa ripped into FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski at a Congressional hearing, accusing him of doing Obama's bidding regarding net neutrality (wtf?).

In short, Issa is a conservative Republican who has been on a mission to destroy net neutrality.

According to the Verge (see http://www.theverge.com/2012/11/27/3698060/nintendo-wii-mini-no-internet-no-future ), ", the Wii Mini comes with some unfortunate compromises, most notably the lack of any sort of online connectivity. Instead of being a media streamer-killing Netflix box that can also play a huge library of games, the Wii Mini feels more like a missed opportunity."

They were in negotiations about being acquired by Dice.

"but refuses out of hand to do the same for them"

Sammy says they'll never settle
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57549927-37/samsung-wont-talk-settlement-with-apple-yeah-right/
"Shin said he doesn't intend to negotiate at all with Apple, illustrating just how far apart the two companies are. While Apple scored a significant victory in the U.S., there are a number of legal clashes going on around the world, all with varying levels of success so far for either side."

but asks to see the terms of the HTC settlement? Why?

Apple won't settle? but the head honcho said on the Q2 earnings call - a PUBLIC forum (if you're a shareholder)

http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/24/2972621/tim-cook-on-apple-samsung-patent-litigation-i-highly-prefer-to-settle

"Tim Cook just told analysts on Apple's Q2 2012 financial call that he's "always hated litigation, and I continue to hate it."

Does breaking the PKI consist of break TLS?

What "breaking of PKI" are you referring to? If you mean certificates generated with non-random keys then this does not break TLS itself - though of course connections using weak certificates could be compromised. Ditto to certificates issues with short keys. The compromised CAs then this could be seen as a weakness in the whole idea of centralised trusted CAs. While I like the idea of decentralised CAs but think that it is not something to be rushed in to.

DVD playback is solved easily with VLC. You should have this anyway.

As for Media Center, this might interest you: http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/25/3553686/microsoft-free-media-center-upgrade-for-windows-8-pro-users

DVD off android? Yea, it's actually supported http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/26/samsung-intros-worlds-thinnest-external-dvd-writer/

500G HD? Funny enough, also mountable through usb http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/19/3167527/paragon-ntfs-hfs-android-app


Quad-Core x86? Yup, it's also not a 'real machine'. It's a virtual machine, on you know, a server that I can then access via ssh, citrix, xwindow support, or many other methods.

Good try on the troll, and marks for good points, but I have to give you a C- overall.

Not authoritative, but not good for MSFT: http://www.theverge.com/2012/11/16/3655882/windows-8-pc-sales-reportedly-well-below-microsofts-internal-projections