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I'm afraid it's not so simple. There are now many companies that have massively invested in patents, either to sue other companies or protect themselves against other patent lawsuits. They certainly don't want to see all this investment lost, although it would be net benefit for everybody involved, including them. Getting your congressmen to view this point of view instead of the lobbyists that will try the best to protect the patents of the companies they work for is the hardest part.

When I spoke with my Senator's office, and (later) with my Representative's office, they both talked about business and how business doesn't want software patent reform. They get this impression by talking to lobbyists, who are presenting one side of the store. But point out that this is costing businesses a lot of money in patent defense, and that some companies have come out asking for software patent reform, and the politicians do listen. When even a company like Google has to announce they are buying a patent portfolio just to use it in defense ...

http://www.toptechnews.com/story.xhtml?story_id=023000QNLD00&full_skip=1

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/Apple-Android-Sales-Soar-Despite-Component-Shortages-in-Q3-692598/

Last I heard, Android was activating 200k handsets per day.

Bedwetting over whether Android or iPhone is better is reaching tidal levels.

RIM continues to decline. WebOS is not setting any sales records.

WMP7 _could_ turn things around and make MS powerful in the cell phone market - but seriously, it just looks like too little, too late to me.

The new Android wave is driven by converts, unhappy with what was out there.

I see nothing driving a WMP7 wave beyond legacy users - and that's not going to be good enough.

Even the apologists are describing Android "like the new Windows on smartphones." God forbid they come out and admit that Android is Linux and that they never got that the OSes should work for us - not polarize us into fan camps.

But I could be wrong. It's entirely possible that the best thing you could do would be to completely trust Microsoft to build a compact operating system that works swimmingly on much-less-than-desktop hardware.

Meanwhile, Android and iOS are proving to be effective at driving handsets and tablets.

So how about if Microsoft makes the OS itself inherently more secure? If they made something comparable to the Unix security system (even if its mechanisms are quite different) then you would not need all of these scanners to double-check every last action taken or file opened or e-mail viewed etc. That would neatly avoid any anti-trust issues that might be raised by the likes of McAfee or Symantec and would be a significant performance boost as well. Of course such cottage industries may complain for a different reason, in that a more secure Windows could put them out of business, but if they really are obsolete then this is what should happen.

Like forcing the users to run under limited accounts and then prompting them when they need elevated privileges http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_Account_Control. Or locking down the kernel http://www.toptechnews.com/news/Vista-Security-Still-Issue-for-McAfee-/story.xhtml?story_id=11300C1NIA8R

Good ideas, might get some complaints though.

They haven't lost a laptop that we know about, but how about a hard drive with thousands of SSN#'s on it?

http://www.toptechnews.com/story.xhtml?story_id=03 3003P6Z4B6

"The agency said it did not know whether the device is still within headquarters or was stolen."

Tell me Bill, which version of Vista are you referring to?

"We made it way harder for guys to do exploits," said Mr. Gates. "The number
[of exploits] will be way less because we've done some dramatic things
[to improve security] in the code base."

http://www.toptechnews.com/story.xhtml?story_id=49 854

So I wonder if this[0] was just a run-of-the-mill dare where nobody really cares if you do it or not, or a double-dog dare, or the greatly feared TRIPLE-dog dare? Especially since "We made it way harder for guys to do exploits" [1]

[0] - http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=422
[1] - http://www.toptechnews.com/story.xhtml?story_id=49 854

Actually, the arguement from ignorance doesn't fit at all. You need some lessons on logic yourself. The post I originally replied to was arguement from ignorance, ie: Vista doesn't have exploits because I haven't been given a link to any.

When I wrote that post, I did two quick searches. "Vista exploit" and "Vista patch" if I remember correctly. Then I posted links to a first page result from both searches. It's a slashdot post, not a thesis, not a research paper, not professional journalism.

http://www.toptechnews.com/story.xhtml?story_id=41 034 This article (January 18, 2006) it titled "Microsoft Issues First Vista OS Patch" the article in my original post http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1911406,00.as p says "Microsoft Ships First Vista Security Patches" and says "A Microsoft spokesperson told eWEEK that the Vista patches address the same vulnerability that led to the WMF (Windows Metafile) malware attacks earlier this month." (emphasis mine)

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant with Sophos, calls it a patch for Vista. The unnamed Microsoft spokesman call it a patch for Vista. You think I'm misleading to call it a patch for Vista. Go figure. I think you need a reality check. If two (presumably) professional journalists can report it as a Vista patch and not be called to account, if the Microsoft spokesman called it a Vista patch and hasn't issued a retraction, then I can call it a Vista patch in a slashdot post without accepting your assertion that I was misleading.

Since Vista (then Longhorn) was supposed to be RTM in 2005 http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/longhorn_prev iew_2003.asp then a December 2005 patch is relevant to the topic. It's a Vista patch.

Mr. Bill recently said this:

"We made it way harder for guys to do exploits," said Mr. Gates. "The number [of exploits] will be way less because we've done some dramatic things [to improve security] in the code base. Apple hasn't done any of those things."

In another portion of the interview, he added, "Nowadays, security guys break the Mac every single day. Every single day, they come out with a total exploit, your machine can be taken over totally. I dare anybody to do that once a month on the Windows machine."

See article: http://www.toptechnews.com/story.xhtml?story_id=49 854

Microsoft needs a public shaming for the sorry state of Windows security that allows millions of these zombie machines to exist. I don't blame Joe User, sorry. No holy wars about security; statements that user should do x, y, z and be as smart as me, etc.

Windows: Defective By Design

They haven't blocked it:

http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid =57869 (posted at 2:18 PM EST)
http://www.toptechnews.com/news/China-Abandons-Wik ipedia-Censorship/story.xhtml?story_id=101009A5G2I Q (posted at 12:19 PM EST)

I don't know if I entirely believe it, but that's another story....

"The things you mention, intelligence, good looks, and social skills, can only be meaningfully measured in comparison with the societal norms."

Not really. Expressions of intelligence, attractiveness and social skills are measured against social norms. They correspond roughly to science, fashion and ettiquette. However, you can measure raw skills in each to some extent.

Fashion changes, but physical attraction is to a large extent biological. Before modern medicine, an attractive face was a sign of good health. Softer, more rounded facial features are linked to higher levels of estrogen, which is a sign of fertility. Studies have shown that makeup can duplicate many of the visual cues of high estrogen.

Similarly, knowledge of ettiquette is important, but rigidly applying rules of ettiquette does to equate to social skills. You need to be observant to pick up non-verbal cues and have some empathy with the people around you.

So, the enlightened folks at Google have a problem cooperating with the US government in pursuing lawbreakers, an arguably principled stand, but they have no problem cooperating with the Chinese dictatorship in suppressing the human rights of the Chinese people. Go figure.

Nasa is actually recruiting internet users to look at the data under a virtual microscope to find the dust particles. They are even gonna throw in some fakies just to see how good their recruits do. I tried posting something about that (my first /. post) but it was denied probably because they thought my wording wasn't good enough =)

http://www.toptechnews.com/news/Finding-Stardust-a t-Home/story.xhtml?story_id=023002D7XDIJ

From http://www.toptechnews.com/story.xhtml?story_id=36 318/

The paper said that attempts to input words in Chinese such as "democracy" prompted an error message from the site: "This item contains forbidden speech. Please delete the forbidden speech from this item." Other phrases banned included the Chinese for "demonstration," "democratic movement" and "Taiwan independence."

I personally think that this is an awesome compromise. Blatently reporting to a user that they are being censored is probably the most damning thing they could possibly do. Chinese censorship gets by because most of the time the people don't know that it is happening. They know that they are censored, but the when and where is what is in question. So, is it right that MSN is dealing with that government? No, but at least it is doing some less then subtle poking at it by blatently telling people they are being censored and writing articles about it.

Xbox is bigger than nintendo cube and posted a profit.
PocketPC has more market share than palm.
IE has ~90% market share.
MSN search traffic is up, google is declining
MSN is the second largest ISP in the world.

Microsoft doesn't know how to fail. They have taken over the PDA market by ousting palm. They will take over cell market. Growth of MSN search engine suggest they'll oust google. Only things i'm not sure about is game consoles, if sony doesn't live up to the hype, microsoft will own that market too.

Here's a link to a Forbidden Planet site, where they have a series of photos, one or two showing the vast power source beneath the surface of Altair IV, the "Forbidden Planet".

A setup like that is where the "100,000 times the energy" might come from. The actor who explained the power setup was Walter Pidgeon.

At that link they have movie posters and storyline on Forbidden Planet. I saw the movie when it was current in 1956, and we really believed in that vast power source after Dr. Moribus explained it to the movie audience! If you have not seen this movie, go rent it, it's great.

So, with a little luck, the new extremely fast processor will be a reality before long...BTW, here's a link to a new Hitachi 1000 GB hard drive that is now being tested, using a new twist on storage technology. Can't wait. (Isn't science fiction/fact wonderful?)