Slashback: Brilliance, Delay, Simputer

Slashback items of note tonight: One more report (the last word?) on the demise of Loki, a good move on the Brilliant/KaZaA front, and a little 12-month oopsie on the release schedule for the newest from Stephenson.

It's all fun and games until you end up in Bankruptcy. Born Game writes: "Loki was supposed to be declared dead today by the bankruptcy trustee. Dennis Powell has followed their story closely, and he has written a wrapup that will break your heart and make you mad."

I hope he's making it longer than Cryptonomicon. We reported that Neal Stephenson's new book Quicksilver was due last month. An anonymous reader pointed to this page at Amazon UK, writing "the book is due out March 6th next year, not this year. Meh."

Maybe calling it Brilliant wasn't such a bright idea. asv108 writes: "According to this article from MP3 Newswire, Cnet's Download.com has removed KaZaA media desktop due to concerns over Brilliant Digital Entertainment's hidden software."

It's still available elsewhere though; if you or someone you love wants to use such software regardless, TDScott writes: "In case anyone is having trouble convincing their friends that there's a problem with the b3d spyware installed with KaZaA, I've put together a quick summary page on what the problem is and how to remove it (use AdAware with caution) - pointing people to it might save you hours of explanation."

I hope these are available stateside, too. Pankaj writes "Simputer is All set to hit the market in India. The Open Source Computer (Both Hardware/Software) Has found its first makers in Encore Solutions who will start selling it within the next one month. {sources internal}. This will give the iPaq and Palms a run for their money, as the simputer is loaded with features like internal modem, smartcard reader and usb port. There are plans to add a gsm phone into it too -- watch out, Nokia! And one third the price; it's supposed to be 10,000 Indian Rupees. Thats around $210 try comparing it to the ipaq.

Did you ask what it is based on? It's Linux 2.4, man, with gtk and its developer kit it's as free as the hardware itself. This looks like hot stuff to go for.

Comments

Next on Fox: When bad ideas get called good

[Anonymous Coward]

The plan was a good one: Port the most popular Windows games to Linux. It would involve licensing the original titles, coding the ports, and selling them to a world full of eager Linux users and growing every day.

I think the word that they are looking for is "giving them away for free". Because that's what happened.

Quicksilver

[56]

I hear that Neal Stephenson is writing it (Quicksilver, his upcoming book) with a pen in an effort to make it shorter.

Here's hoping he fails.

Re:Quicksilver

[MaxVlast]

I tried it with code, but I can't read my handwritten code worth beans. With English, it isn't hard to guess, but try fudging a regex!

The editors are morons

[Anonymous Coward]

All these stories have been posted before.

Are you people actually paying for this???

That Simputer looks awesomely nifty!

[Osama, er, Jones]

Yes, the Indian Simputer is very good. I think that all Americans should buy one! Some people say that agents of our Islamic enemy have infiltrated the factory and altered the computers so that American national security would be compromised, but this is a silly idea!

I think that we should all buy a Simputer -- or maybe even two! -- and plug it into the Internet as soon as possible. It comes with much helpful Open Source software, such as BombRecorder, a program that American nuclear weapon workers can use to store information about American bombs! And it can synchronize with other Simputers using the power of the Internet! (Note that it is completely secure, because it is Open Source!) So I think that especially Americans who work for top secret military installations should purchase a Simputer.

And that is not all! As it says on the article page, Simputer also supports voice recognition technology! It requires broadband, though, because the microphone data is transferred to Simputer's voice recognition servers (located in Pakistan). This client-server model ensures that your data is secure, because it uses Open Source software, which never has bugs.

So go buy a Simputer today! And if you have a brother or perhaps a cousin who works for American intelligence agencies, he would probably appreciate a Simputer, which comes with advanced scheduling software such as ScheduleSpy, to help the federal employee manage his busy schedule! That is awesome, yes? It is phat! Wow!

The best line in the Draeker article

[rw2]

"""The deposition took on a surreal air at times, with Draeker refusing to say whether or not he is a lawyer and in one spectacular moment testifying that as president of Loki he could say how much had been paid to Scott Draeker and when, but as Scott Draeker he could not say whether he actually received the money."""

Re:The best line in the Draeker article

[suffe]

"...in one spectacular moment testifying that as president of Loki he could say how much had been paid to Scott Draeker and when, but as Scott Draeker he could not say whether he actually received the money."

Thus proving he was in fact a lawyer...

Re:The best line in the Draeker article

[colmore]

and this, ladies and gentlemen, is why Kurt Godel didn't become a CEO

Just one problem

[screwballicus]

My only concern with giFT is with the age of the current build, which, if the Download page is to be believed, was completed on January 1, 1900. Nostalgic computing is great and all, but...

Re:Kazaa Lite,

[Pope Slackman]

How about Gnutella?

Umm...Because it sucks?

C-X C-S

What Does KaZaA Consider Spyware?

[peter_gzowski]

Read what KaZaA has to say about your privacy:

http://www.kazaa.com/en/privacy/index.htm

and then answer my subject line. Their own website states that "spyware is any software (that) employs a user's Internet connection in the background (the so-called 'backchannel') without their knowledge or explicit permission." They also state that:

"The service downloads a collection of banner ads from a web server while you are online. As you use the KMD, the service rotates ads and intermittently polls the server for new ad collections. Statistics are sent to the webserver recording which ads were displayed and how often. This information is used to bill advertisers. It may also be used to target ads for you. For example, if you often click CD store ads, you will be shown more of these than pet store ads."

I don't remember giving them "explicit permission" to do all that. I know this is preaching to the choir, but I am stunned by the obvious contradictions on their website... Thank you to the above comment poster who pointed me to KaZaA Lite. I had not heard of it previous.