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Don't want to burst your bubble, but... this technology already exists for Blu-ray. See here and here.

More Roland stories here and here.

Just a few years ago, a federal judge ruled that the ADA only applies to physical spaces. From the article:

In the first case of its kind, U.S. District Judge Patricia Seitz said the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) applies only to physical spaces, such as restaurants and movie theaters, and not to the Internet.

"To expand the ADA to cover 'virtual' spaces would be to create new rights without well-defined standards," Seitz wrote in a 12-page opinion dismissing the case. "The plain and unambiguous language of the statute and relevant regulations does not include Internet Web sites."

Since you now have a couple of federal judges in different districts disagreeing with each other, the Supreme Court may ultimately decide this one.

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9584_22-6112975.html

Given the obviously questionable 'science' of Roland's submissions I just looked into his background. First [1], he works as an IT consultant and worked with performance computing / visualization in the past. If he were producing any sort of useful scientific interpretation or appreciable contribution to the identification and popularization of interesting science, I might understand his high frequency of successfully posted articles on Slashdot. However, as a professional scientist myself (working in the field of bionanotech research), I find his choice of scientific material and discussion to be downright silly.

Second, I found that this Slashdot story is the currently second ranked source of hits to his blog [2]. Given that he is obviously spinning bunk science (and his own maligned conclusions from it) for profit, I strongly encourage fellow slashdotters to avoid contributing more hits to his site.

Third, after checking his blog (in effort to locate his bio and being embarrassed for adding another hit to his site) I found nothing more than some crap text surrounded on three sides by Google ads. Given the very high advertisement density and lack of any useful development of his blog, I also wonder if Roland has some sort of connection with at the ever-pressing Slashdot editorial team.

In short, Roland is not a scientist and draws poor conclusions from an ad-revenue-motivated and not science-motivated site. An open question to the editorial team: if not due to some backroom deal, why does his blog continously show up in the science section of slashdot?

[1] http://blogs.zdnet.com/bio.php
[2] http://radio.xmlstoragesystem.com/rcsPublic/refere rs?site=0105910&group=radio1

Asked why it has taken Microsoft 25 years to get trustworthy computing into the forefront of its efforts, he said: "Because customers wouldn't pay for it until recently."

I don't get all this "won't happen" bah humbug. We have ray tracing - heck, we have real time ray tracing, and it's about to go open source: http://blogs.zdnet.com/OverTheHorizon/?p=10

If you're under a gag order, there's a decent possibility that the gag order forbids you to talk about the gag order.

Considering that they are willing to talk about the issue with some people, I don't think that excuse is applicable here.

I do find it interesting that Mac fans always point to Dell as their preferred price comparision. I mean....Dell? Is that really the space Apple is competing?

Well, the reason is simple -- every Mac fan online has been bombarded for years by Windows fans using low-end Dell computers to "prove" that Apple's computers are overpriced. Like here, and here.

Obnoxious Windows zealots have been making such a comparison for years -- do you really expect Mac zealots to stay silent now that the opposite is true?

Yaz.

I do find it interesting that Mac fans always point to Dell as their preferred price comparision. I mean....Dell? Is that really the space Apple is competing?

Well, the reason is simple -- every Mac fan online has been bombarded for years by Windows fans using low-end Dell computers to "prove" that Apple's computers are overpriced. Like here, and here.

Obnoxious Windows zealots have been making such a comparison for years -- do you really expect Mac zealots to stay silent now that the opposite is true?

Yaz.

Can you please show us all where Linux is eating Microsofts lunch? I have yet to see a report showing linux eating anything other than college hobbyists and a very small server markets left overs. At best Linux is eating into Unix market share, specifically the small scraps Windows doesn't consume as it grows.

Even OsX has over taken linux as a desktop OS.

As for there being more linux developers than windows... thats great, let me know when they write something other than yet another version of minesweeper (or some other crappy knockoff game), the 32nd chat client that sucks, the 200th+ text editor we don't need. Better yet, the 50th crappy desktop shell. Quality over quantity here. Sad to say, Microsoft has better quality (clearly not security, but in every other way, they have quality).

Before you bitch about bloat and blue screens (the common misinformed linux answer), lets look at KDE and emacs for bloat, and find me a knowledgeable computer person that ever gets blue screens anymore. Yes they happen, but with linux they actually patch IN blue screens. I know I don't get them and haven't seen one since XP was released(other than with beta drivers or intentional bad configurations).

Refer them to a video.

From the page:

ZDNet Executive Editor David Berlind suggests that CRAP or Content, Restriction, Annulment, and Protection, is a catchier phrase than DRM - Digital Rights Management. Why does he think this technology is crap? Once you've bought music or other content to play on one device, it won't play on any other device because of the proprietary layer of CRAP.

This was torrented a while back. Maybe someone will put it on Youtube. It is quite funny and makes the point well.

vista is the first of many to come for sure. Here's a breakdown of the brokenness of each version

Starter Version: Really REALLY broken (supposedly for developing nations)
Home Basic: DVD burning is broken, Eye-candy is half broken. Desktop search is broken
Home Premium: Desktop search still broken. Will it be able to join a domain? I bet it won't. You'll have to pay extra for that. FYI: it appears that if the OEM PC has a DVD burner, you *must* buy home premium so they can protect you from your own entertainment media.
Ultimate: Media playback is broken. (DRM) Protects you from your own media.

It is reasonable to assume this is the first step towards even more segmentation.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=12

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=124 It's the second link in the summary. Yesterday MS's Canadian website listed the prices, and then immediately pull them.

Interesting link, but it's missing MS' use of "charitable contributions", epsecially in the developing world.

• Democrats attack Gates' "charity"
• Gates gives $100m to fight HIV, $421m to fight Linux
• Virtual Philanthropy
• E-México favors windows over linux

There's more published, especially in local papers, but as you see in the Salon article, it's part of an combination investment/PR campaign and both MS reps and shills come down on any thing other than "Yay Bill!" So questions and/or critique stay low profile and is hard to find.

Also, the mention of tax breaks is a bit of an under statement. MS pays almost nothing: IT giants who don't pay tax part 2: how Microsoft does it. There's a bit of a stink about MS in Europe using foreign tax havens. And, by the way, MS seems to make more money buying and selling its own stock that in does even from sales of MS Windows. Bill hopped off as CEO the same year MS ran an $18,000,000,000 USD loss. Now he's stepped down completely. That could be interpreted to suggest that this summer's massive stock buyback could be an indication of real bad situation in Redmond.

One problem with this concept is that many hotspot operators require you to authenticate through a browser. That won't work on Wi-Fi enabled phones. George Ou wrote about this. 802.1x may be a solution but there are currently few operators that support it.

Please!! I beg you!! Just click on the fucking link a few times. That's all I ask. You don't even have to read it if you don't want to. My popularity is waning, and I'm almost done for. For the sake of Christ, can you please just help a chap out and click a few times?

Thanks,
Roland Picklepacker

Please!! I beg you!! Just click on the fucking link a few times. That's all I ask. You don't even have to read it if you don't want to. My popularity is waning, and I'm almost done for. For the sake of Christ, can you please just help a chap out and click a few times?

Thanks,
Roland Picklepacker

Microsoft Research only gets about $250 million (see http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ratcliffe/?p=133) of the $6.6 billion R&D budget mentioned. The rest is the cost of maintaining and creating new versions of Windows, Office, SQL Server, Visual Studio, etc. The Zdnet blog entry by Mitch Ratcliffe sounds right - the instant Microsoft slashes spending on these areas why would anybody continue to buy them? Microsoft's sales would rapidly fall to zero as people switched to Macs or Linux instead of Windows, Oracle instead of SQL Server, etc.

Urm... no.

Wikipedia: "Malware is software designed to infiltrate or damage a computer system, without the owner's informed consent."

I think the media companies mean "malware" in the more basic sense: "software that does things we don't like"

This blog article http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=292 talks about a DEFCON presentation which discussed how to bypass Vistax64's signed driver requirement. I'm guessing that is how HD DRM is going to get cracked.

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-976005.html

"Setting himself apart from the open-source movement, the founder of the Free Software Foundation doesn't believe proprietary software is OK under any circumstance. That remains a tough sell, but Stallman says the realization of his goal will help bring computer technology to people stuck on the losing side of the digital divide."

This is Stallman imposing HIS definition of freedom on others. The base definition of fascism--imposing your will on others under the guise of "freeing" them. Proprietary software is a limitation on your freedom only if you believe that to be the case. You should have the freedom to choose it if you wish, because let's face it, a lot of the time it does the job better than the OSS alternatives.

This stupid idea gets predicted every few years. Check this one out from early 2000, and I remember earlier ones. It makes sense to Linux-Heads, but from Microsoft's standpoint it's a 100% loser, and it would require a great deal of effort for probably trivial revenues.

The artice is not exactly accurate. A better article can be found here.

Rgrds,
Roland

Dude, he was just joking.

Rgrds,
Roland

Good point.

You can find more info here.

Thanks,
Roland

(and yes, I work for Sun...)

Probably not much longer...

Sun layoffs hit high-end server group

Coverity's own site shows how many defects each product has fixed. the number of outstanding defects on AMANDA is now zero. zdnet reported the fixes back in April.

Those that follow amanda-hackers will know that there was less than a week between when coverity released the report on March 6th and it was announced that all bugs were fixed in AMANDA on March 12th.

Do they mean install the same patches that made machines unusable a few months ago? http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-6062026.html I'll hold off for a month.

two weeks ago i had forgotten aol even existed... and now they've got their name all over the internet. this comes in the face of big changes there- including giving away email and webservices for free now: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6099072.html

they say any publicity is good publicity, but i'm not so sure if i can agree in this case. this is a desperate attempt for aol to get their name back out there. if aol wasn't doomed before, i think this "stunt" should just about do it for them.

very well, i grant you that.. if you'd done more than just read the ars technica article, you'd know what i was saying isn't bollocks.
More information on the demonstrators can be found here and here. Apologies for the Amazon link, but David is a hard man to pin down and i'm busy. ;)

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=255 "Earlier today I posted a story about about two hackers from the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas and how they supposedly demonstrated how to exploit a vulnerability in Apple's wireless device driver to remotely access and control a MacBook over a network. The story was based, in part, on a blog entry by Brian Krebs at the Washington Post. As it turns out the hack described does not apply to MacBooks as it relies on third-party wireless hardware rather than the wireless cards supplied by Apple. FTA: "Maynor said the MacBook used in the demonstration was not using the wireless gear that shipped with the computer."

I'm sure these had no effect on DirectX taking off:

Microsoft claim shakes graphics world
3D graphics world shaken by patent claims
Standards stalled over royalty disputes
Microsoft clarifies OpenGL position...sort of
OpenGL 1.4 unveiled

I'm sure these had no effect on DirectX taking off:

Microsoft claim shakes graphics world
3D graphics world shaken by patent claims
Standards stalled over royalty disputes
Microsoft clarifies OpenGL position...sort of
OpenGL 1.4 unveiled

Why did you bring up the Turion? Mobile is the one place where Intel has consistently beaten AMD in the past four years

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Spyware/index.php?p=845

No a pro laptop from Apple with a dozen features you neglect to match up will not be the same price as the cheapest piece of junk you can get from Dell. I think we all know that. Now go get the full specs for the Macbook and try to build it at a reputable computer company (you know not Dell, the one consumer reports rates has having the worst reliability and customer service in the industry). Apple consistently ranks at the top of that list, usually with Sony and IBM/Lenovo. Others have already pointed out the point by point failures to match up features, but really that is less important than overall quality. Dell builds cheap junk. You have to not only compare the same features, but make sure it is from a reputable vendor, not one where companies keep 15% extra gear so they can swap out all the failures they have.

I have a Dell 600m that I've owned for two years. I took it with me to Japan, and part of my time there was spent ferrying between the islands of Ogasawara, which has very choppy water. I've basically beat the living crap out of it. It's still performing quite well. Do I think Dell makes high-quality parts? No, not really. But I don't consider their main competitor, HP, to make any "better" computers. Lenovo/IBM's dominance is in the business arena--they compete very poorly in the home-user segment, and Lenovo is trying to turn that around. (Whether they'll be able to is the subject of many an investor's meeting.) Meanwhile, Apple's marketshare has declined since last year, and is now at 5.3%. (Source.) So really, as far as the average home computer goes, Dell is in line with the rest of the market.

Apple makes a niche product. Dell mass-produces machines. Does Apple make better "quality" laptops than Dell? Well, their marketing apparatus has certainly succeeded in convincing the world it does. But until I can see numbers on MFT, I'm not really inclined to believe Apple computers are built to this mythical higher standard. If it's worth an extra $1250 to you, great. But to act like it should naturally be worth the same to everyone else is to be very naive. I've been very pleased with my 600m. It's a travel laptop, and in that role it has succeeded admirably. For my heavy lifting, I use a rig I built. And I know that's high quality, because I bought the parts.

Quicker than ZDNet Asia: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-6097733.html/

Embrace, extend, and extinguish.

The server at ZDNet has crashed. I posted the text below.

Thanks for clicking,

Roland

Keeping time with a mercury atom
Posted by Roland Piquepaille @ 10:07 am
Digg This!

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has announced that a new experimental atomic clock based on a single mercury atom is now at least five times more precise than NIST-F1, the U.S. standard clock. This mercury atomic clock "would neither gain nor lose a second in about 400 million years" while it would take "only" 70 million years to NIST-F1, based on a "fountain" of cesium atoms, to gain or lose a second. But even if this new kind of optical atomic clock is more accurate than cesium microwave clocks, it will take a while before such a design can be accepted as an international standard.

An experimental atomic clock based on a single mercury atom is now at least five times more precise than the national standard clock based on a "fountain" of cesium atoms.

The experimental clock, which measures the oscillations of a mercury ion (an electrically charged atom) held in an ultra-cold electromagnetic trap, produces "ticks" at optical frequencies. Optical frequencies are much higher than the microwave frequencies measured in cesium atoms in NIST-F1, the national standard and one of the world's most accurate clocks. Higher frequencies allow time to be divided into smaller units, which increases precision.

The NIST Time and Frequency Division built a first prototype of such a mercury optical clock six years ago. But now, this single atom based optical clock is the world's most precise one.

The current version of NIST-F1 -- if it were operated continuously -- would neither gain nor lose a second in about 70 million years. The latest version of the mercury clock would neither gain nor lose a second in about 400 million years.

Here is a picture of this experimental optical clock (Credit: NIST). This image comes from the Spring 2006 issue of JILA Light & Matter, a publication from NIST (PDF format, 8 pages, 1.52 MB). This clock is described on page 6 in "Partnership in Time."

The mercury atomic clock from NIST

Jim Bergquist's optical clock team produced the first optical atomic clock based on a transition of a single mercury (Hg+) ion in 2001. The newest single-ion clocks, using either Hg+ or aluminum (Al+) ions, show the best time-keeping performance ever measured, neither gaining nor losing a second in a billion years.

And below is a picture from Jim Bergquist holding "a portable keyboard used to set up the world's most accurate clock. The silver cylinder in the foreground is a magnetic shield that surrounds a cryogenic vacuum system, which in turn holds the heart of the clock, a single mercury ion (electrically charged atom). The ion is brought to rest by laser-cooling it to near absolute zero (Credit: Geoffrey Wheeler, NIST)

Setting up the mercury atomic clock from NIST

For more information about this optical atomic clock, please read another NIST document, How the Mercury Clock Works.

The latest research work on this clock has been published by Physical Review Letters under the title "Single-Atom Optical Clock with High Accuracy" (Volume 97, Number 2, Article #020801, July 14, 2006). Here is a link to the abstract.

Finally, you might want to know if such an accurate clock is useful for. After all, there is only a very small chance that you're there in 400 million years. Let's return to the NIST news release for a conclusion.

Ultra-precise clocks can be used to improve synchronization in navigation and positioning systems, telecommunications networks, and wireless and deep-space communications. Better frequency standards can be used to improve probes of magnetic and gravitational fields for security and medical app

This link is much faster (that is if you are in the USA, of course): Web site that evaluates open-source projects.

Just remember to keep OpenOffice.org up to date as well. Current version is 2.0.3 - updated to patch 3 security holes.

Even that's not quite true. . .Intel takes back lead in US retail | Tech News on ZDNet

MS announced it today. Must be pure coincidence.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtualpc/default .mspx

I've heard it doesn't totally suck anymore.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=95

You see MySpace as a threat? I didn't read that in your parent post. Care to elaborate?

Well, since you asked so nicely, sure. Ok everyone, tinfoil hats on...

Turn on your TV. If you're like me, you probably have well over 100 channels available to you. As such, you would probably mock any talk of "conspiracy" as absolutely silly; after all, who could control all those channels? But take a closer look. How many of those channels are owned by News Corp, Warner Bros, Disney or Viacom? Why, almost all of them. Odd.

So what? I love Futurama (FOX) and thought The Matrix (WB) was a great movie. What does it matter if they happen to be owned by super-national mega corps? After all, TV shows and movies are very expensive to produce, and they require massive amounts of capital and risk.

After all, we still have newspapers and magazines, right? After all, even if *everything* on TV was total bullshit, the truth would still get out. In fact, I've got my copy of "Wired" right here with me now. But wait a minute- take a closer look at some of your favorite publications and you will see that a shocking percentage tie back to one of those aforementioned parent companies.

Well, so what? I'll listen to radio instead. After all, some doofy talk radio host is far too irrelelvant to be part of this "conspiracy", right? Wrong.

The way I see it, the Internet is probably the last refuge for "truth" in the world today. Of course, that is not to say that everything on the Internet is true, far from it. But among the massive amounts of misinformation out here, I have been able to find a few truly independent sources that *I* feel are trustworthy, and most importantly, free of any specific political/business agenda. Not even slashdot is immune; is it any wonder that this fourm owned by the OSTG (open-source technology group) is home to so many GNU/Linux fans?

News corp is not alone is wanting a piece of this pie, Viacom and others have been eyeing the "online social network" phenomena for awhile now. But with the Internet, there is NO legitimate barrier to entry. Any bobo with $20 can start a "branded" website, or launch a free blog (+1 BILLION hits on Google!) in a matter of minutes. When a mega corp comes in spending HUNDREDS of MILLIONS of dollars for a WEBSITE, the agenda is clear: they wish to "grow the brand" and "stay in touch" with their consumer base. Rather than attempt genuine, organic growth, they prefer to buy the most popular destinations. After all, writing a check is a lot easier (especially when using other people's money).

These mega corps already control TV, print, and radio, and they are buying more and more of the Internet everyday. First they profit from the creation of this media, then profit from the first-run distribution of the media (movies, premium tv), they profit from advertising as the media is offered "freely", and then finally profit yet again as you discuss this same media with your friends on the web. Lest we forget, these are the real puppetmasters behind the MPAA, RIAA and all of the DRM-esque nonesense we love to berate here on slashdot.

Now, in case your crack-pot-o-meter is already in the red, I love many, many "properties" (tv shows, movies, radio shows, publications, etc) controlled by these parent corps. Not *everything* they do is bad. However, without *genuine compeition*, collusion and corruption become the norm. What do I mean by this? I'll say it like this: why is it Lou Dobbs and Bill O'Reilly both lead with the same "major stories" every night, and voice the same "issues" and "positions" again and again as

Yes, Virginia, Linux really is inherently more secure than Windows. There are many ways that one can make the point; one of the more graphical illustrations is here.

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9584_22-6091780.html I also saw some of the same numbers in another place but frankly forget where.

Hackers will figure it out sooner than most realize. Just look at one of the unexpected side effects of WGA. I thought that was hilarious! And as you said, some are too niave to believe that it won't happen again? Come on!

[...] a stopgap measure that will probably not be acceptable to government's around the world over the long term.

Microsoft is on the record as saying it will not be offering technical support to end-users for this translator. In fact, as far as I know, no one will officially be offering support (perhaps one of the three companies involved will, for a fee). As said earlier, Microsoft will accept bug reports and forward them on to the project's developers.

Most of you know that Google is pretty much poised to become a direct rival of ebay, or at least Paypal. The fact that ebay also happens to own Paypal gives them great incentive to stifle Google payment solutions in order to try to prevent an loss of market share. This just sounds like normal business competition to me guys/gals. Why berate a company for protecting itself? Google suing Ebay for this would be like Microsoft suing Apple for not allowing it to sell Music through Itunes.

But seriously, the point of really "good" bio-metrics is that they can't be duplicated without some major invasive measure such as cutting off their hands eyes or head to place before a camera.

You should chat with my computer security professor. He has a great story about a student in Japan who was able to bypass the top-of-the-line commercial fingerprint biometric systems using Jello with an 80% success rate.

I wouldn't put so much faith in biometrics if I were you. Not yet, at least.