Discs cost $50 there so you can see why they are concerned about gray marketing the US discs back to Japan. Also the article says there aren't many players in Japan, so disc sellers need to keep the prices high to recoup production costs.
Since i-opener and the other net appliances work the same way, hopefully they will be made to comply with whatever decision the FCC comes up with for the "Free PCs". Hopefully just mentioning this FCC action will be sufficient to get refunds for anyone that was retroactively charged a subscription fee by i-opener when they didn't agree to the service.
These guys really are insane: * For doing this in the first place * For getting such an image-intensive, long site linked to Slashdot
Start here, to get to where they are actually starting to cool the thing and boot up.
What's really a shame is that they went to all this trouble and expense just to run Windows on a Celeron 366. For less than the $1,000 they paid for the Fluorinert they could have bought a new motherboard and an Athlon running at the same speed as they eventually got the Celeron clocked to.
I think they might be on to something. When Anakin turns to the darkside, there must be some sign to prove his loyalty. I would expect that this would be killing off a fellow Jedi. Since we know he doesn't kill Obi Wan, that leaves either Amigdala, or a Jedi to be identified (or revealed) in Episode II.
Having Jar-Jar fulfill that role will make everyone happy since Jar-Jar fans will get to see his character progress and become integral to the story line, and Jar-Jar haters (myself included) will get to see him die a horrible, bloody death.
It has to save the document into a file format that has complex formatting features. Usually this is something like Word Perfect,
WordPerfect also has their own export to PDF option built-in (they licensed the format from Adobe but wrote their engine). I don't know if it is in every version though.
Here is the article on eFront. And here is the Register article about FTC's request.
And here are some additional background links from c|net: 1 and 2. Each of those is extensively linked to additional information about AOL's previous runins with Tribal Voice and MS.
Valenti suggests that if a student wants to cite from a movie, that they use the analog version.
Here is the excerpt: Q. If a student wants to do a term paper, let's say do a video presentation on the holocaust -- do 20 minutes on the holocaust, and wants to take two or three minutes from a DVD from Schindler's List to put into that holocaust presentation and she has to de-encrypt the DVD to do that, is that illegal?
(lawyer interference deleted)
A. The student could do that by getting an analog version of Schindler's List, because that's not encrypted.
Though Valenti and his lawyer clearly did not want him to express any legal conclusions, this clearly shows that he thinks that the DMCA overides fair use protection. He is clearly indicated that fair use applies to analog works but not to digital works. So the wuestion would be, if a work is never released in analog, is therefore never to be given fair use protection?
Since fair use is a constitutional right, upheld by the Supreme Court, and DMCA is merely a statute, I think we Mr. Valenti's legal conclusion that DMCA is unconstitutional, and should therefore be struck down by the Supreme Court!
Another lesser point is that Valenti is wrong when if he is trying to imply because the analog copy isn't encrypted, that the DMCA doesn't apply to it. Though not encrypted, and not digital, analog video tapes are encoded with MacroVision copy protection. Which I think the DMCA would still apply to, since it is likely added digitally to the tape. But IANAL either.
I don't think you can waive rights like that, can you? I mean, if somebody has me agree that I will not sue them if they attack me, and then sneaks into my house and attacks me, then does their private contract really overrule federal law???
IANAL but... They would certainly be able to waive harm caused by unintentional errors. The example you give would obviously be intentional, and I expect unless that it is explicitly identified in the contract, they would be liable.
The waiver of unintentional harm wouldn't necessarily prevent the questioner's friend from suing altogether, but it would seriously shift the burden of proof on to them to prove that the security firm either knowingly made a mistake, or acted with reckless disregard for the truth. Another possible defndant would be the hiring firm, if they were given information from the security firm that was ambiguous, and then chose to interpret as negative for the job applicant, especially if they failed to combine it with any additional information they had. (for example the security firm reports that a Jane Smith was in prison for a felony from 1997-1998, and the employer has already verified a reference that the Jane Smith applying for the job was indeed working at company x, during that same period.
Bottom line answer to the original question - unless the employer, or security firm did something egregious, your friend likely did waive the right to sue either the employer or the security firm (as the employers agent in any case, if not directly), when they consented to take the job pursuant to a security check.
8M on a 386 are the requirements for the Linux version of ARACHNE, but some of the older DOS versions could run on ANY x86 machine. I had it running (but not connected to the net) on a 10 Mhz XT clone with 640k RAM and a 10M HD. Once Michael has the Linux release cleaned up a bit, I wouldn't be surprised if it were to run with 4-6M of memory. The 386 requirement is not likely to change though due to kernel requirements.
To rimez: The requirment to run it as root will change once it is out of alpha. And I think he was planning on open sourcing some of the project, but not the HTML rendering engine. I would hope that he can strike a deal with Caldera to get it bundled with OpenLinux, since he previously licensed them the ARACHNE for use as the WebSpyder browser in OpenDOS.
ARACHNE - the multimedia internet suite for DOS by dedicated Czech software developer Michael Polak, is now available in alpha for Linux.
Still sounds like a true alpha (he says it is guaranteed to crash, and since you must run the alpha as root, it can cause real problems), so don't try it on a production machine. But once it reaches the functionality of the DOS version you will be very impressed what you can do on a old 386 with 8 Meg of RAM. I expect this could become the OS/Browser combination of choice for a lot of schools and kiosk systems. By the way, the download is only 570k!
IANAL, but I'm not sure it is a FACT that it is illegal (i.e. that there is entry in the criminal code stating that it is a criminal offense), however, it is definately is illegal to disobey any order from a member of the flight crew, so if they tell you to turn off your phone, you must do it subject to having your ticket revoked, and/or being hauled away by airport security and being subjected to a fine.
Also available on the Cryptome site is a copy of Second Supplemental Declaration of Robert W. Schumann. This is basically his response to his own testimony where it gets to add any additional information he doesn't feel he explained adequately during the questioning.
He mostly emphasizes that despite the dificulty of making pirated DVDs, there is a real danger of pirating DVD movies by compressing the DeCSS'd movie files with DivX, which he claims can currently compress a movie to 1.2Gb, small enough to put on two CDR's, or to send over a 100Mbs LAN in 7 minutes.
He uses Gnutella & Freenet as examples of the real current threat, saying "the most concentrated activity in the unauthorized digital copying and Internet transmission of pirated copies occurs among college-age students. This is not only because of the demographics of age and interest, but also because access to wideband systems is readily available to them."
He also attacks the argument that DeCSS has "legitimate academic, commercial or scientific value", noting that if this were the case, then it would only be available in source code, since, it is hard to learn how a program works from a compiled binary.
Q. Tell me, what does DeCSS do? A. DeCSS, as described in my Declaration, DeCSS performs three -- has three parts to it, if you will. It authorizes the DVD drive to release the CSS protected information, it allows its user, through user interface, to select one or more files from the DVD to copy. Both select what to copy and also where to copy those data files, and that can be on any, I guess, connected drive or network connection that is attached to their computer in the standard Windows file system. And then after the user indicates what files they would like to decipher and store, it then proceeds to read -- decrypt the contents of those files and store them where indicated by the user. Q. And you indicated that you undertook that exercise; is that correct? A. I did run the DeCSS, yes. Q. What movie did you use? A. I don't recall. It may have been, I think, The Matrix came out around then. Q. Do you know how big the movie was, how many gigabytes? A. It was 4 or 6 gigabytes. It was probably 4 gigabytes. Q. Do you have a record of what movie you viewed? A. I doubt I kept a detailed written record of it. Q. You actually don't know what movie it was or how big it was? A. Not exactly, no. Q. Did you leave the deciphered or decrypted files on your hard drive? A. I doubt I did. I may have. Q. How big is your hard drive? A. I think the machine that ran on was, I don't know, 10, 12 gigabytes. Q. Did you have to clear files out in order to make room to store the movie? A. No. Q. You had between 4 and 6 open gigabytes of space on your hard drive? A. Yes. Q. You didn't play it, so you don't know if it would actually play? A. I played it from the DVD. Q. But you didn't play it from the stored files; is that correct? A. I did not.
So Schumann, the guy that is supposed to testify the DeCSS can be used to decrypt DVDs never played back the movie he copied! And, deleted the copy of the movie from his HD afterwards This has to hurt the MPAA case.
Most of the rest of the testimony deals with how Schumann became aware of DeCSS, what other methods of pirating DVDs already existed prior to DeCSS being written (using a video capture card to re-record to VCD); the impracticality of copying a DVD (DVD-R's not readily available, can't download a DVD movie over a 56k modem, loss of quality if put on VCD, etc.); and, whether there were any known cases of DeCSS being used for pirating.
They cannot afford the sheer level of staffing required to keep up with the patches, fixes, etc that problems like the recent outlook virii/trojan horses/worms have caused.
MS has just released a security patch that is to address the scripting vulnerabilities in Outlook (only Outlook 98, and Outlook 2000 patches available, no patches for older versions or Outlook Express that I can see).
According to the press release (written as a interview with Sr.VP Steven Sinofsky - You have to read it - it's really hilarious), it will provide "an unprecedented degree of security for computer users. With this update, Outlook will be a substantially more secure email application."
This was prompted because "virus writers have become very sophisticated and have made it very difficult for users to know if an email attachment is safe."
Also, the update "increases Outlook security protections by changing your Internet security setting within Outlook from 'Internet' to 'Restricted' zone. This disables most automatic scripting and ActiveX controls. Active scripting will also be disabled in the Restricted Zone by default."
WOW! What an innovation. Potentially hostile code will be disabled by default in the restricted zone! (Umm, what exactly is the point of the restricted zone if not to have active content disabled by default? Oh, I remember now, there might be "legitimate business scenarios where this is useful.")
The cnet article's main complaint of lack of 3rd party support would presumably be solved by the switch to Linux. You certainly wouldn't be able to say there was a lack of applications.
You make an interesting point, but I strongly disagree with your conclusion. Why is it bad to make cross platform compatible software if Corel's ultimate goal is to lessen MS monopoly on the desktop?
To me it is a "good thing"(tm) to have multiple applications developers pursuing multi-ways of developing applications. To say that one particular method is "Bad" because it doesn't adhere to your purist vision vision is being an OSS elitist.
You seem to think we live in a world where software developers are free to choose not to develop software for Windows, well for the most part that isn't true. Once a company reaches a given size, it needs to maximize its revenue, and minimize costs. Corel has chosen to do this by developing to a common interface. They tried to develop WP2k both ways, and found that running under WINE, rather than compiling the binaries natively was the most efficient way to meet their goals of cost effectiveness and cross-platform compatibility. As it is they can barely keep enough cash coming in to stay afloat, if they had to devote more resources (and likely postpone the release date several months) just to be able to meet your standards, they likely would be bankrupt now and MS would have claimed another victim and Linux users would have one less company contributing resources & applications to the open source movement.
If anyone is "Bad" then it would have to be IBM and MS who have chosen not to even attempt to release their office suites on an open source platform.
Aparently, they aren't interested. This Reute rs story quotes MS spokesman Jim Cullinan as saying:
'There is no truth to the reports of any intent to move the company,'
Why not? Because, he says:
'Microsoft believes we will win this (antitrust) case in the court of appeals and we are very happy here in Seattle. We believe we're going to win this case here in the U.S. court system.'
I think the real reason is that Bill only just completed building his multimillion dollar estate, and it would be a real pain to have to helicopter back and forth to Vancouver every day.
Here is his bio which seems to leave no doubt as to who he thinks invented packet switched networking. Of course in 1961 he would still have been in grad school.
According to The Living Internet (which seems to be as good a museum as any of the others mentioned):
Packet switching is a wonderful idea first discovered by Leonard Kleinrock, and then independently by Paul Baran and Donald Davies. This independent development, within just a few years, suggests that packet switching is a fundamental idea that wanted to be discovered.
Per this Obit from The Times of London, Davies worked with Alan Turing after the war to help build first ACE computer. Later in life he was an early advocate of security for networks, which he spent the last 20 years researching.
Davies was also awarded the Royal honor of Commander of the British Empire (CBE), essentially one level short of knighthood, for his contributions to computing science.
IEEE's Spectrum Online has an article with schematics of just how the Crusoe chip was developed.
Excellent detailed article on the chip, its design, and the history of Transmeta. Probably the most extensive and comprehensive article I've seen on the fledgling company. Of course it was wriiten before the AOL/Gateway deal so its now a bit out of date.
Also, if there is no fan AND no disk drive, then the entire thing would have no moving parts (well maybe the keys on the keyboard and the pointing device).
No moving parts means two things: - low maintenance costs - Possibly moving the whole thing to a single chip (heck, I think that the transmeta chip will eventually be made to emulate a whole PC just by itself, but you might want to put the memory on a seperate chip/card/stick)
Slashdot Mirror
Discs cost $50 there so you can see why they are concerned about gray marketing the US discs back to Japan. Also the article says there aren't many players in Japan, so disc sellers need to keep the prices high to recoup production costs.
Here's the article: DVD Players a Hard Sell in Japan
Since i-opener and the other net appliances work the same way, hopefully they will be made to comply with whatever decision the FCC comes up with for the "Free PCs". Hopefully just mentioning this FCC action will be sufficient to get refunds for anyone that was retroactively charged a subscription fee by i-opener when they didn't agree to the service.
* For doing this in the first place
* For getting such an image-intensive, long site linked to Slashdot
Start here, to get to where they are actually starting to cool the thing and boot up.
What's really a shame is that they went to all this trouble and expense just to run Windows on a Celeron 366. For less than the $1,000 they paid for the Fluorinert they could have bought a new motherboard and an Athlon running at the same speed as they eventually got the Celeron clocked to.
Excellent article.
I think they might be on to something. When Anakin turns to the darkside, there must be some sign to prove his loyalty. I would expect that this would be killing off a fellow Jedi. Since we know he doesn't kill Obi Wan, that leaves either Amigdala, or a Jedi to be identified (or revealed) in Episode II.
Having Jar-Jar fulfill that role will make everyone happy since Jar-Jar fans will get to see his character progress and become integral to the story line, and Jar-Jar haters (myself included) will get to see him die a horrible, bloody death.
By the way, the article also has a link to the Jar-Jar == Boba Fett theory.
It has to save the document into a file format that has complex formatting features. Usually this is something like Word Perfect,
WordPerfect also has their own export to PDF option built-in (they licensed the format from Adobe but wrote their engine). I don't know if it is in every version though.
(NOTE: Links blatantly stolen from LinuxToday)
And I quote them all. . .
Here is the article on eFront. And here is the Register article about FTC's request.
And here are some additional background links from c|net: 1 and 2. Each of those is extensively linked to additional information about AOL's previous runins with Tribal Voice and MS.
Valenti suggests that if a student wants to cite from a movie, that they use the analog version.
Here is the excerpt:
Q. If a student wants to do a term paper, let's say do a video presentation on the holocaust -- do 20 minutes on the holocaust, and wants to take two or three minutes from a DVD from Schindler's List to put into that holocaust presentation and she has to de-encrypt the DVD to do that, is that illegal?
(lawyer interference deleted)
A. The student could do that by getting an analog version of Schindler's List, because that's not encrypted.
Though Valenti and his lawyer clearly did not want him to express any legal conclusions, this clearly shows that he thinks that the DMCA overides fair use protection. He is clearly indicated that fair use applies to analog works but not to digital works. So the wuestion would be, if a work is never released in analog, is therefore never to be given fair use protection?
Since fair use is a constitutional right, upheld by the Supreme Court, and DMCA is merely a statute, I think we Mr. Valenti's legal conclusion that DMCA is unconstitutional, and should therefore be struck down by the Supreme Court!
Another lesser point is that Valenti is wrong when if he is trying to imply because the analog copy isn't encrypted, that the DMCA doesn't apply to it. Though not encrypted, and not digital, analog video tapes are encoded with MacroVision copy protection. Which I think the DMCA would still apply to, since it is likely added digitally to the tape. But IANAL either.
So is this an easter egg within an ester egg?
Why would they bother to run a webserver just to tell you to go away?
I don't think you can waive rights like that, can you? I mean, if somebody has me agree that I will not sue them if they attack me, and then sneaks into my house and attacks me, then does their private contract really overrule federal law???
IANAL but...
They would certainly be able to waive harm caused by unintentional errors. The example you give would obviously be intentional, and I expect unless that it is explicitly identified in the contract, they would be liable.
The waiver of unintentional harm wouldn't necessarily prevent the questioner's friend from suing altogether, but it would seriously shift the burden of proof on to them to prove that the security firm either knowingly made a mistake, or acted with reckless disregard for the truth. Another possible defndant would be the hiring firm, if they were given information from the security firm that was ambiguous, and then chose to interpret as negative for the job applicant, especially if they failed to combine it with any additional information they had. (for example the security firm reports that a Jane Smith was in prison for a felony from 1997-1998, and the employer has already verified a reference that the Jane Smith applying for the job was indeed working at company x, during that same period.
Bottom line answer to the original question - unless the employer, or security firm did something egregious, your friend likely did waive the right to sue either the employer or the security firm (as the employers agent in any case, if not directly), when they consented to take the job pursuant to a security check.
a giant lego brick? no, i mean a really big one
I think it would be great if you get lego bricks the size of a real brick. Then it would much easier to build a real house with them.
If you made them out of recycled plastics and filled them with a polyurethane foam, then they should be be pretty energy efficient.
I know I could Duplos for some size advantage, but these don't have the same relative strength as ordinary legos and are still too small.
No yellow available in bulk, but lots of black and white (see the catalog of bulk parts here and here), which is most of the surface area anyway.
The yellow you can get from regular Lego sets.
8M on a 386 are the requirements for the Linux version of ARACHNE, but some of the older DOS versions could run on ANY x86 machine. I had it running (but not connected to the net) on a 10 Mhz XT clone with 640k RAM and a 10M HD. Once Michael has the Linux release cleaned up a bit, I wouldn't be surprised if it were to run with 4-6M of memory. The 386 requirement is not likely to change though due to kernel requirements.
To rimez:
The requirment to run it as root will change once it is out of alpha. And I think he was planning on open sourcing some of the project, but not the HTML rendering engine. I would hope that he can strike a deal with Caldera to get it bundled with OpenLinux, since he previously licensed them the ARACHNE for use as the WebSpyder browser in OpenDOS.
ARACHNE - the multimedia internet suite for DOS by dedicated Czech software developer Michael Polak, is now available in alpha for Linux.
Still sounds like a true alpha (he says it is guaranteed to crash, and since you must run the alpha as root, it can cause real problems), so don't try it on a production machine. But once it reaches the functionality of the DOS version you will be very impressed what you can do on a old 386 with 8 Meg of RAM. I expect this could become the OS/Browser combination of choice for a lot of schools and kiosk systems. By the way, the download is only 570k!
Requires SVGAlib, and kernel 2.12 or higher.
IANAL, but I'm not sure it is a FACT that it is illegal (i.e. that there is entry in the criminal code stating that it is a criminal offense), however, it is definately is illegal to disobey any order from a member of the flight crew, so if they tell you to turn off your phone, you must do it subject to having your ticket revoked, and/or being hauled away by airport security and being subjected to a fine.
Also available on the Cryptome site is a copy of Second Supplemental Declaration of Robert W. Schumann. This is basically his response to his own testimony where it gets to add any additional information he doesn't feel he explained adequately during the questioning.
He mostly emphasizes that despite the dificulty of making pirated DVDs, there is a real danger of pirating DVD movies by compressing the DeCSS'd movie files with DivX, which he claims can currently compress a movie to 1.2Gb, small enough to put on two CDR's, or to send over a 100Mbs LAN in 7 minutes.
He uses Gnutella & Freenet as examples of the real current threat, saying "the most concentrated activity in the unauthorized digital copying and Internet transmission of pirated copies occurs among college-age students. This is not only because of the demographics of age and interest, but also because access to wideband systems is readily available to them."
He also attacks the argument that DeCSS has "legitimate academic, commercial or scientific value", noting that if this were the case, then it would only be available in source code, since, it is hard to learn how a program works from a compiled binary.
Q. Tell me, what does DeCSS do?
A. DeCSS, as described in my
Declaration, DeCSS performs three -- has three
parts to it, if you will. It authorizes the DVD
drive to release the CSS protected information, it
allows its user, through user interface, to select
one or more files from the DVD to copy.
Both select what to copy and also
where to copy those data files, and that can be on
any, I guess, connected drive or network connection
that is attached to their computer in the standard
Windows file system. And then after the user
indicates what files they would like to decipher
and store, it then proceeds to read -- decrypt the
contents of those files and store them where
indicated by the user.
Q. And you indicated that you undertook
that exercise; is that correct?
A. I did run the DeCSS, yes.
Q. What movie did you use?
A. I don't recall. It may have been, I
think, The Matrix came out around then.
Q. Do you know how big the movie was,
how many gigabytes?
A. It was 4 or 6 gigabytes. It was
probably 4 gigabytes.
Q. Do you have a record of what movie
you viewed?
A. I doubt I kept a detailed written
record of it.
Q. You actually don't know what movie
it was or how big it was?
A. Not exactly, no.
Q. Did you leave the deciphered or
decrypted files on your hard drive?
A. I doubt I did. I may have.
Q. How big is your hard drive?
A. I think the machine that ran on was,
I don't know, 10, 12 gigabytes.
Q. Did you have to clear files out in
order to make room to store the movie?
A. No.
Q. You had between 4 and 6 open
gigabytes of space on your hard drive?
A. Yes.
Q. You didn't play it, so you don't
know if it would actually play?
A. I played it from the DVD.
Q. But you didn't play it from the
stored files; is that correct?
A. I did not.
So Schumann, the guy that is supposed to testify the DeCSS can be used to decrypt DVDs never played back the movie he copied! And, deleted the copy of the movie from his HD afterwards This has to hurt the MPAA case.
Most of the rest of the testimony deals with how Schumann became aware of DeCSS, what other methods of pirating DVDs already existed prior to DeCSS being written (using a video capture card to re-record to VCD); the impracticality of copying a DVD (DVD-R's not readily available, can't download a DVD movie over a 56k modem, loss of quality if put on VCD, etc.); and, whether there were any known cases of DeCSS being used for pirating.
They cannot afford the sheer level of staffing required to keep up with the patches, fixes, etc that problems like the recent outlook virii/trojan horses/worms have caused.
MS has just released a security patch that is to address the scripting vulnerabilities in Outlook (only Outlook 98, and Outlook 2000 patches available, no patches for older versions or Outlook Express that I can see).
According to the press release (written as a interview with Sr.VP Steven Sinofsky - You have to read it - it's really hilarious), it will provide "an unprecedented degree of security for computer users. With this update, Outlook will be a substantially more secure email application."
This was prompted because "virus writers have become very sophisticated and have made it very difficult for users to know if an email attachment is safe."
Also, the update "increases Outlook security protections by changing your Internet security setting within Outlook from 'Internet' to 'Restricted' zone. This disables most automatic scripting and ActiveX controls. Active scripting will also be disabled in the Restricted Zone by default."
WOW! What an innovation. Potentially hostile code will be disabled by default in the restricted zone! (Umm, what exactly is the point of the restricted zone if not to have active content disabled by default? Oh, I remember now, there might be "legitimate business scenarios where this is useful.")
The cnet article's main complaint of lack of 3rd party support would presumably be solved by the switch to Linux. You certainly wouldn't be able to say there was a lack of applications.
You make an interesting point, but I strongly disagree with your conclusion. Why is it bad to make cross platform compatible software if Corel's ultimate goal is to lessen MS monopoly on the desktop?
To me it is a "good thing"(tm) to have multiple applications developers pursuing multi-ways of developing applications. To say that one particular method is "Bad" because it doesn't adhere to your purist vision vision is being an OSS elitist.
You seem to think we live in a world where software developers are free to choose not to develop software for Windows, well for the most part that isn't true. Once a company reaches a given size, it needs to maximize its revenue, and minimize costs. Corel has chosen to do this by developing to a common interface. They tried to develop WP2k both ways, and found that running under WINE, rather than compiling the binaries natively was the most efficient way to meet their goals of cost effectiveness and cross-platform compatibility. As it is they can barely keep enough cash coming in to stay afloat, if they had to devote more resources (and likely postpone the release date several months) just to be able to meet your standards, they likely would be bankrupt now and MS would have claimed another victim and Linux users would have one less company contributing resources & applications to the open source movement.
If anyone is "Bad" then it would have to be IBM and MS who have chosen not to even attempt to release their office suites on an open source platform.
Aparently, they aren't interested. This Reute rs story quotes MS spokesman Jim Cullinan as saying:
'There is no truth to the reports of any intent to move the company,'
Why not? Because, he says:
'Microsoft believes we will win this (antitrust) case in the court of appeals and we are very happy here in Seattle. We believe we're going to win this case here in the U.S. court system.'
I think the real reason is that Bill only just completed building his multimillion dollar estate, and it would be a real pain to have to helicopter back and forth to Vancouver every day.
According to The Living Internet (which seems to be as good a museum as any of the others mentioned):
Per this Obit from The Times of London, Davies worked with Alan Turing after the war to help build first ACE computer. Later in life he was an early advocate of security for networks, which he spent the last 20 years researching.
Davies was also awarded the Royal honor of Commander of the British Empire (CBE), essentially one level short of knighthood, for his contributions to computing science.
IEEE's Spectrum Online has an article with schematics of just how the Crusoe chip was developed.
Excellent detailed article on the chip, its design, and the history of Transmeta. Probably the most extensive and comprehensive article I've seen on the fledgling company. Of course it was wriiten before the AOL/Gateway deal so its now a bit out of date.
Also, if there is no fan AND no disk drive, then the entire thing would have no moving parts (well maybe the keys on the keyboard and the pointing device).
No moving parts means two things:
- low maintenance costs
- Possibly moving the whole thing to a single chip (heck, I think that the transmeta chip will eventually be made to emulate a whole PC just by itself, but you might want to put the memory on a seperate chip/card/stick)