Slashdot Mirror
Single-play DVDs a Hoax
psy writes "Ed Bott's blog states that in relation to a previously posted slashdot story "a hoax can spread just as fast as a genuine news story. That's the lesson from the bogus story published in an obscure UK business magazine yesterday that claimed Microsoft is about to unleash a new single-play DVD format.
Paul Thurrott reprinted the story without giving credit to the original source. Bink.nu picked up the story from Paul and reprinted it verbatim.
Techdirt commented on the original story, with attribution but without any fact-checking. So did John Walkenbach.
The funny part? There's no truth to the story. None whatsoever. In fact, the original story sparked a flurry of e-mails around Microsoft as people in different groups tried to figure out where on earth this story came from. After the head-scratching stopped, a spokesmen told me, they concluded that the story was not true. "It appears to be confusing an existing feature within Windows Media DRM that allows for single-play of promotional digital material. This has been an option for content owners to use for some time for the Windows Media format - it does not apply to MPEG2 content found on DVDs."
After the head-scratching stopped, a Microsoft spokesman told me, they concluded that the story was not true.
How do we know Ed Bott's comment is not a hoax too? He just said a MS spokesman told him so, but where's the source?
I believe the real story is, MS did invent this Play-Once DVD, however due to huge amount of negative comments from Slashdot, they pulled a PR spin, and instructed that spokesman to tell Ed that it's a hoax.
Don't you all feel bright now for bashing Microsoft? Perhaps it isn't only the editors that should check the credibility of a story?
Slashdot? propagating rumors? noooooooooooo..... must be some other blog....
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
I'm very glad that this was a hoax. It's a total waste to make disposable dvd's. Major environmental hazard, since no one would dispose correctly. Unless they also used the biodegradable (did I spell that right?) stuff I read about a while ago.
In Soviet Russia, hoax spread you!
The fact that so many people believed it leads me to believe that we will still see another single use DVD format one day, dispite the failure of Circuit City's Divx.
I find it's difficult to trust any "journalist". Take the complete failure of the journalistic trade before and during the ongoing war in Iraq, for instance. That's proof enough that the vast majority of journalists aren't qualified to perform their job.
Unlike engineering or medicine, for instance, there is no penalty for those journalists who fail to do their job properly. The complete lack of accountability had resulted in most mainstream newspapers, magazines and television news programs being nothing but farcery.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Microsoft originally designed a single-play DVD. That much is true. It also had a new case. However, as time went by, they had to drop a number of features. The first to go was the 'DVD' part. Then they dropped the 'single-play' part. Now they just have a new case full of nothing.
Having said all that, do you think it is "real" this time?!? ;-)
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
OK, they aren't "single-play," but disposable DVD's have been around for YEARS. This was the first hit on Google:
wired news, 2003
I saw these for sale in a convinience store (Circle-K) TWO YEARS AGO. I haven't seen (noticed?) them lately, so they certainly didn't blow up in sales, but for heaven's sake: what are all of you smoking! Doesn't anybody read? (I'm not even talking about the article, I'm talking about tech news in general!) You guys call yourselves nerds? I can't believe all of these people are "up in arms" about a product that's been around and already failed in the marketplace. The only "hoax" is the idea that it was Microsoft; in fact, it was the arguably equally evil Disney that came up with this one.
Repetition does not transform a lie into the truth. - FDR
Factual errors are always going to happen. Humans make mistakes. Thurott published a story as fact with no sources. This is just as bad as making up a story. The Times fires people for making up stories.
Remember... ZG9uJ3QgZm9yZ2V0IHRvIGRyaW5rIHlvdXIgb3ZhbHRpbmU=
called it DIVX, sold three disks and ten players, and folded. didn't help circuit city one bit, the principal money behind it, and curiously, the only place that sold those doomed discs of death. disney tried it again last year, bombed. the market doesn't want bs in a box. stop trying to sell it to us.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
actually I thought of a really good way to do that.
just make really, really, really crappy movies.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
The New York Times has had its problems, but their reporters are some of the best in the business, and while there is an editorial slant, it isn't extreme. The Atlantic provides good monthly material, and The Economist does so on a weekly basis. Those are my picks for daily, weekly, and monthly news, but there are other sources. The Christian Science Monitor is a great daily paper, for example. You may agree or disagree with my picks, but the profession of journalism isn't dead, and good sources of news are available.
I would also advance the notion that just because the editorial bias of a newspaper is disagreeable to you doesn't mean that the organization is corrupt. Newspapers are run by people, and people sometimes make mistakes. Note that during the runup to the Iraq invasion, The Atlantic provided excellent coverage and made many warnings that the Administration's plans were misguided. To me that is proof that following only one news source is a bad idea. You have to read from more than one source, whose biases you know, and make your own assessments from there.
I realize that it's de rigeur to bash on the news media, whether you're attacking from the Right or the Left, but the media is a business, and it gives people what they want. Americans need to take responsibility for at least some of the sorry state of our media. We have consistently voted in politicians who allowed the media conglomerates more and more power. We watch trash like Fox News. We read USA Today. That's not proof of a lack of credible journalism. It's proof that we're lazy.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ