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

Kazaa Lite,

[nexex]

Better yet, have your friends use Kazaa Lite. Same great taste without the fat

Re:on losing

[fishbowl]

>I don't think he ever deliberately acted
>criminally; he just didn't have a clue what he
>was doing.

Certain types of failures when you're running
a public corporation *are* crimes.

There are plenty of situations where being in
a position where you "should have known better"
is enough to be charged with federal crimes.

The tax issue is a big one to me. If you, the employee, have filed w-4 forms for withholding,
and the company withholds the money from your checks but doesn't pay the taxes AND YOU HAVE
NO WAY TO FIND THIS OUT or to correct it, how
can you be held responsible?

I think the person who did that needs to pony up
the tax bill, then go to jail for 50 years.

Re:Thank you Loki programmers!

[Paul Komarek]

And thanks for the code. SDL, OpenAL, and the Loki installer/uninstaller/updater are still with us. As is my stack of 8 Loki games (2 copies of tribes).

-Paul Komarek