No way we could figure out if he actually tried to email them, but the post/email states that he posted to the Bugtraq list when he found these bugs/holes. If they are in the archive, I'd be inclined to believe him rather than anyone at GameSpy.
You mean like this? It was posted back in June! Try a search for "Luigi Auriemma Gamespy" here and see what you get.
But the tool goes beyond Flash in delivering a.NET application that has access to all the APIs in Longhorn,
Wow, that sounds like a security hole just waiting to be exploited. I'm sure Microsoft will make some attempt to cover their butts, but they haven't had the greatest track record so far. Look at ActiveX - some unwitting user clicks a "yes" button on a popup, and suddenly a program can do whatever it wants to the machine. I know Microsoft has time to make it secure, and maybe they'll surprise me and do that, but I'm not holding my breath.
FSF is, in effect, charging a royalty that approaches 100% of the value of the licensee's product.
Not always - people still will buy boxed software and services from open source companies, and this seems to be working out quite nicely. Companies like Red Hat and Lindows seem to be doing quite a nice job of keeping their software within the GPL's terms and still profitable. Granted, it's not a model that would work for everything - I can't see something like Half-Life becoming open source, because nobody really needs a fancy boxed copy or a support contract - but all in all, I'd say the GPL a pretty fair deal, especially for people who write code just for the sake of making good software, not for turning a profit.
Where would it get the license to distribute phonorecords[1] of the underlying musical work? Put together, those cost much more than 10 cents to license.
Licenses to music are just bits of information - they're worth whatever the owner is willing to sell them for. You could even give someone a license to distribute as many copies of a song as they want. It probably wouldn't happen, but it's legally possible. It all ends with the record companies, as far as I'm concerned.
I really wish some big name company would have the guts to start a 0.10c service for non-DRM downloads, available worldwide, and see how it goes.
It probably wouldn't go very well at all. Your company could have the best intentions in the world, but good luck getting record execs let songs go for that price or not have DRM on there. That's $1.40 and album, and the company running the service will have to take a cut of the money to stay profitable. Record execs are looking at digital music as a way to increase profits. $9.95 might seem like a nice price for a cd, but after the service's cut it's pure profit - no costs for shipping or printing, and an online service could take less of a cut of the price than a bricks-and-mortar store would. And I'd imagine that few industry executives would be brave enough to offer non-DRM downloads. I don't think record companies would be too willing to let the company's products float off into what they see as the unregulated, pirate-filled chaos of the Internet - even though music from store-bought CD's can be distributed almost as easily as MP3's. It's an opportunity to increase control on music while offering new freedoms.
I'm not saying that your idea is bad - actually, I think it would be great - but I don't think music executives would bite. There's just not a whole lot in it for them - I'm not sure such a service would get them many new customers, and their old ones who used the service might have an easier time getting their hands on independent music. Indie musicians might like a system like this, although there's already stuff like Emusic and Ampcast out there. Again, I think that what you proposed would be great, but I just can't see it happening. From the perspective of a service provider, I don't think it's an issue of guts so much as realities of the way the industry works.
There ya go. It's just PressPlay with a different face and a different owner.
Well, not quite. This Press release states that pressplay was the "foundation" for Napster, but from the information on their site, it sounds like Napster has a bunch more features, a different pricing structure, and a larger catalog of music. So yeah, it's from the same company as pressplay, and it shares some of the same software, but it's hardly "PressPlay with the Napster's name."
So, this whole thing will probably get turned on its head after about 3 more years of litigation.
Even if it doesn't, by that time MS will have the patch done, included as a "critical update", and packaged with new copies of Windows. I'm not really sure this whole thing is worth Eloas's time. Legal cases aren't always about who wins - the RIAA cases are being settled out of court becasue the recording industry has lawyers and the random people they're suing don't. Bleem went out of business not becasue distributing emulators was found to be illegal (Connectix won a case involving its PSX emulator, if I remember correctly), but becasue the costs of litigation drove it to bankruptcy. There are probably similar, lower-profile cases like this that happen all the time.
Moral of the story: don't mess with someone who has money, laywers, and the will to use them. The legal system isn't evil, but it can be manipulated.
...ther are still a bunch of stops on the tour that will be going on. Admission is free, and there's more information here. They'll be all over the US, as well as in British Columbia. Maybe someone can stop by and say "hi" to the SCO folks.:)
The news is that they reached the 500-course mark, not that they opened up the library. That news was released yesterday.
In case you're wondering, the Wired article (printed in the Semptember issue) is here, and the September OpenCourseWare newsletter is here. At the time that it was published, OCW only offered 262 courses. I agree that MIT adding more courses to OCW isn't exactly earthshattering news, but it is a recent thing.
Well, it's good to see that someone who's kinda involved in government is going against the idea of making the Hollings Bill law, but I don't really see what the big deal about this article is otherwise. Barr is no longer in the House of Representatives, so he probably has little ability to directly do anything to stop the bill. The article - although an easy read for non-technophiles, which is good - really doesn't say anything we don't already know, and Bob Barr doesn't sound like he has much political clout.
I don't mean to rag on the editors or the person who submitted it, but I don't see how this is news. It would be nice if this article (or something similar) was published in a widely-read newspaper, but I think we've heard this story a few times before.
By the way, even if whatever law Hollings wants passed doesn't make it, what's to stop the TCPA's system from becoming a de facto standard? If most of the computers and content out there use it, you're stuck either keeping your old computer and hoarding old CD's and DVD's, or breaking down and using computers and content that are "protected" by the TCPA's technologies.
You're right in some ways, but I'd like to respond to a few things.
Difficult to read?
Well, "real" books have crisper text and are easier on the eyes. I have to agree, though, that the highlighting, notetaking, and bookmarking features of eBook readers beat carrying pens and highlighters and a bookmark with you.
Bulky? How do you figure a digital file is Bulky?
Well, I was thinking more of the dedicated e-book readers some people have. I guess if you use a PDA that's not an issue, though, but you're not going to have much screen real estate. And as great as a six-hour battery life is, I've never had to recharge a paperback book.:)
Like I said, there are some definite upsides if you're an early adopter - but I can't see my Mom or my Aunt or Uncle taking a Clie out to read an eBook, and that's ultimately where the market is. They don't own a PDA as it is, and aren't willing to spend money on something to bring their eBooks with them (you can't expect them to read a 200-page book on a computer screen). The benefit of cheap, out-of-the mainstream books just isn't worth all this (plus the hassle of learning a new gadget). And as for cost - well, you're right in some ways, but nothing beats the local library. As of right now, I can't get eBooks from there. I can see the reason why people like you like their eBooks, but I can also see why many people have stuck with "real" books - and I happen to be one of them. Maybe someday I'll convert, but right now I just don't see any compelling reason.
The eBook isn't dead - it's just immature. Anyone remember the Apple Newton? I don't mean to offend the legions of devotees that the machine apparently has, but the fact of the matter is that it was too young an idea to succeed, and we had to wait until US Robotics came out with the PalmPilot to see that kind of computer enter the mainstream. The same thing happened with Windows 1.0. I could go on and on. The problem with these kinds of things is that some solid ideas are lacking things - battery life, maybe, or size or reliability.
I think the same thing is happening with eBooks - they're too bulky, expensive, battery-hungry, difficult to read, and just generally inconvenient to read when compared with books. Not to mention that I don't like shelling out a few hundred dollars for a machine to read eBooks when I could use that money towards twenty or thirty paperbacks. And as many people have said, paper does have its charm.
I can see the convenience of eBooks, and it seems like some early adopters have, too. But they're just not ready for widespread adoption yet.
Yup. It's called Downhill Battle. They have some interesting information and links to relevant resources, including a site that will check to see whether a certain album has been released by the RIAA so you can avoid buying it. (Seems like it's down right now, though). Cool stuff.
...who the winners are in many cases. I'm not trying to be some kind of loony conspiracy theorist here, but the fact of the matter is that the free market sometimes plays less of a role than personal interests do in government purchasing. Unfair? I think so, but it's nothing new. At least with the cases described here, it seems like it's being done with the country's best interests in mind, not with the intent of generating business for a "friend." (Okay, I'm done ranting now).
I don't think people intend to use FreeDOS itself for anything big - the point is that you can buy a PC without the "Windows tax." If you're going to install Linux (or BSD or whatever) anyway, there's no reason to pay for a copy of windows to go with your machine. The FreeDOS I'd assume, is so that you can at least boot up the machine when you get it.
This page on Diebold's website mentions that "Election results are securely stored utilizing world-class encryption techniques." As far as I can see, that's all they tell you about their encryption. Does that mean it has the same 128-bit encryption as, say, Mozilla? (Which, I suppose, is still pretty darn secure, but probably not "world class.") Is the "world class" bit is just marketing hype? Diebold doesn't say anything, which makes me a little nervous.
And what about their wireless security? You can store votes in a steel box protected by voracious bears, but if they (the votes, not the bears) aren't protected on the way to wherever it is that they count them up, it doesn't make much of a difference. (I'm assuming here that that is what the wireless networking is used for). Is Diebold using WEP, which can be broken in a couple of hours? Unless Diebold has adopted WPA early (which, given their track record on security, I kinda doubt), some schmuck could sit in his car outside the polling place and run a wireless packet sniffer on whatever traffic is being sent.
The way that Diebold seems to be hiding information on its machines' security is disturbing - you'd think that if they had solid software they'd talk a little about it to impress potential customers, rather than just making vague blanket statements. Given everything that's happened, though, that's apparently is not the case.
As long as it's legible, the text blaoons are sort of invisible to me after so many years of reading comics of all kinds. I read the text without thinking that I am reading text.
I don't know about that... Penny Arcade always uses fonts, and I don't consider it any huge travesty, but I think hand-lettering does give the comic a certain personality. It's kind of a subtle thing, and it's certainly not the most important part of the comic, but it's nice to see different artists' lettering styles. Some of the big sound-effect type text can be kinda neat, too. I have to say, though, I'd rather see a nice, readable font than chicken scractch.
Should that read: "Now may be the time to stop cheating people and start paying for your music!"
I dunno... I have mixed feelings on the whole record industry thing. While I try to respect people's copyrights and don't use filesharing software, I don't like a lot of the record industry's practices, and so I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for them when they complain about people stealing music - especially when said people wind up purchasing that music if they like it.
That said, $19 is an outrageous price for a CD (that's generally what I saw at the Virgin Megastore the other day), and when I buy a CD, I want to be able to rip it onto my computer for easy access, or make Mix CD's or whatever. Copy protection is unfair, and at any rate looks like it's easily broken.
The solution to this isn't to steal the music; it's to start supporting the little guys who don't gouge you like the big labels do. After downloading a bunch of free songs by the Jazz-Electronica group Subthunk, I had good reason to buy their $11 CD from their website. MP3.com has some good, free music and cheap CD's if you're willing to do some looking, not to mention Ampcast and a bunch of other, similar download sites and independent labels.
I don't support posting copyrighted material on the Internet, but I do think that the RIAA should loosen up. The best way to get them to do that is to help the little guys give them a run for their money. It's been said before, but I'll say it again - vote with your wallet!
Automatic protection from running applications that break following a patch?
Well, you're right... but the alternative is to have this novice home user wondering no idea that a worm like Blaster is making the computer magically reboot. Malware like that is probably a more common problem than Windows Updates breaking software. And at any rate, I'd imagine that if a Windows Update wound up breaking something, it would probably be a more obscure program - which a novice wouldn't have anyway. Although I hate to defend the "Evil Empire", the automatic update seems like the better option to me.
The article isn't about how Fry's doesn't offer computers with Linux, it's about how nobody will actually *buy* those machines becasue the Fry's staff doesn't know squat about Linux and they're including ThizLinux, a distribution that is labelled on the company's website as an "Environment Tailor-made for Chinese" and is set, by default, to the Chinese language. Personally, I think the article is worth reading - it shocks me how little Fry's works to make Linux accessible. I mean, really, to put a sign up next to the machine offering to set Windows up on it - come on!
At any rate, please read the article before you complain about how worthless it is.:)
Re:Glucose = sugar!
on
Powered by Blood
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
...and it probably could be used on things other than blood, right? Does that mean that you could actually run a laptop on a can of cola? In all seriousness, if the technology gets more efficient (by a lot) this might have some interesting implications for cheap fuel cells.
Gartner estimates that Munich's migration to Linux will cost around 30 million euros. It would have cost 27 million euros to upgrade Windows, before some reportedly very steep discounts from Microsoft.
Huh? How did they get those numbers? Did they assume that IT technicians would have to be re-trained or new software would have to be purchased or something? I mean, maybe I'm missing something, but Linux is free, while Windows upgrades cost around a hundred bucks per license (although probably cheaper in bulk) So, really - where do those numbers come from?
What if you introduced a little bit of static or something into the MP3? Not enough to be annoying, or maybe even really perceptible, but just enough to throw the "fingerprinting" off. I wonder if the technology is good enough to detect that. Also, if you were to record a song from vinyl, clean it up, and post it online, it might be different from the "official" version of the file. Maybe the technology might be able to detect the general pattern of the song, rather than exact sounds, but if not, Fanning's technology might not work out.
Slashdot Mirror
See for yourself. Stop trolling.
No way we could figure out if he actually tried to email them, but the post/email states that he posted to the Bugtraq list when he found these bugs/holes. If they are in the archive, I'd be inclined to believe him rather than anyone at GameSpy.
You mean like this? It was posted back in June! Try a search for "Luigi Auriemma Gamespy" here and see what you get.
But the tool goes beyond Flash in delivering a .NET application that has access to all the APIs in Longhorn,
Wow, that sounds like a security hole just waiting to be exploited. I'm sure Microsoft will make some attempt to cover their butts, but they haven't had the greatest track record so far. Look at ActiveX - some unwitting user clicks a "yes" button on a popup, and suddenly a program can do whatever it wants to the machine. I know Microsoft has time to make it secure, and maybe they'll surprise me and do that, but I'm not holding my breath.
FSF is, in effect, charging a royalty that approaches 100% of the value of the licensee's product.
Not always - people still will buy boxed software and services from open source companies, and this seems to be working out quite nicely. Companies like Red Hat and Lindows seem to be doing quite a nice job of keeping their software within the GPL's terms and still profitable. Granted, it's not a model that would work for everything - I can't see something like Half-Life becoming open source, because nobody really needs a fancy boxed copy or a support contract - but all in all, I'd say the GPL a pretty fair deal, especially for people who write code just for the sake of making good software, not for turning a profit.
Where would it get the license to distribute phonorecords[1] of the underlying musical work? Put together, those cost much more than 10 cents to license.
Licenses to music are just bits of information - they're worth whatever the owner is willing to sell them for. You could even give someone a license to distribute as many copies of a song as they want. It probably wouldn't happen, but it's legally possible. It all ends with the record companies, as far as I'm concerned.
I really wish some big name company would have the guts to start a 0.10c service for non-DRM downloads, available worldwide, and see how it goes.
It probably wouldn't go very well at all. Your company could have the best intentions in the world, but good luck getting record execs let songs go for that price or not have DRM on there. That's $1.40 and album, and the company running the service will have to take a cut of the money to stay profitable. Record execs are looking at digital music as a way to increase profits. $9.95 might seem like a nice price for a cd, but after the service's cut it's pure profit - no costs for shipping or printing, and an online service could take less of a cut of the price than a bricks-and-mortar store would. And I'd imagine that few industry executives would be brave enough to offer non-DRM downloads. I don't think record companies would be too willing to let the company's products float off into what they see as the unregulated, pirate-filled chaos of the Internet - even though music from store-bought CD's can be distributed almost as easily as MP3's. It's an opportunity to increase control on music while offering new freedoms.
I'm not saying that your idea is bad - actually, I think it would be great - but I don't think music executives would bite. There's just not a whole lot in it for them - I'm not sure such a service would get them many new customers, and their old ones who used the service might have an easier time getting their hands on independent music. Indie musicians might like a system like this, although there's already stuff like Emusic and Ampcast out there. Again, I think that what you proposed would be great, but I just can't see it happening. From the perspective of a service provider, I don't think it's an issue of guts so much as realities of the way the industry works.
There ya go. It's just PressPlay with a different face and a different owner.
Well, not quite. This Press release states that pressplay was the "foundation" for Napster, but from the information on their site, it sounds like Napster has a bunch more features, a different pricing structure, and a larger catalog of music. So yeah, it's from the same company as pressplay, and it shares some of the same software, but it's hardly "PressPlay with the Napster's name."
So, this whole thing will probably get turned on its head after about 3 more years of litigation.
Even if it doesn't, by that time MS will have the patch done, included as a "critical update", and packaged with new copies of Windows. I'm not really sure this whole thing is worth Eloas's time. Legal cases aren't always about who wins - the RIAA cases are being settled out of court becasue the recording industry has lawyers and the random people they're suing don't. Bleem went out of business not becasue distributing emulators was found to be illegal (Connectix won a case involving its PSX emulator, if I remember correctly), but becasue the costs of litigation drove it to bankruptcy. There are probably similar, lower-profile cases like this that happen all the time.
Moral of the story: don't mess with someone who has money, laywers, and the will to use them. The legal system isn't evil, but it can be manipulated.
...ther are still a bunch of stops on the tour that will be going on. Admission is free, and there's more information here. They'll be all over the US, as well as in British Columbia. Maybe someone can stop by and say "hi" to the SCO folks. :)
The news is that they reached the 500-course mark, not that they opened up the library. That news was released yesterday.
In case you're wondering, the Wired article (printed in the Semptember issue) is here, and the September OpenCourseWare newsletter is here. At the time that it was published, OCW only offered 262 courses. I agree that MIT adding more courses to OCW isn't exactly earthshattering news, but it is a recent thing.
Well, it's good to see that someone who's kinda involved in government is going against the idea of making the Hollings Bill law, but I don't really see what the big deal about this article is otherwise. Barr is no longer in the House of Representatives, so he probably has little ability to directly do anything to stop the bill. The article - although an easy read for non-technophiles, which is good - really doesn't say anything we don't already know, and Bob Barr doesn't sound like he has much political clout.
I don't mean to rag on the editors or the person who submitted it, but I don't see how this is news. It would be nice if this article (or something similar) was published in a widely-read newspaper, but I think we've heard this story a few times before.
By the way, even if whatever law Hollings wants passed doesn't make it, what's to stop the TCPA's system from becoming a de facto standard? If most of the computers and content out there use it, you're stuck either keeping your old computer and hoarding old CD's and DVD's, or breaking down and using computers and content that are "protected" by the TCPA's technologies.
You're right in some ways, but I'd like to respond to a few things.
:)
Difficult to read?
Well, "real" books have crisper text and are easier on the eyes. I have to agree, though, that the highlighting, notetaking, and bookmarking features of eBook readers beat carrying pens and highlighters and a bookmark with you.
Bulky? How do you figure a digital file is Bulky?
Well, I was thinking more of the dedicated e-book readers some people have. I guess if you use a PDA that's not an issue, though, but you're not going to have much screen real estate. And as great as a six-hour battery life is, I've never had to recharge a paperback book.
Like I said, there are some definite upsides if you're an early adopter - but I can't see my Mom or my Aunt or Uncle taking a Clie out to read an eBook, and that's ultimately where the market is. They don't own a PDA as it is, and aren't willing to spend money on something to bring their eBooks with them (you can't expect them to read a 200-page book on a computer screen). The benefit of cheap, out-of-the mainstream books just isn't worth all this (plus the hassle of learning a new gadget). And as for cost - well, you're right in some ways, but nothing beats the local library. As of right now, I can't get eBooks from there. I can see the reason why people like you like their eBooks, but I can also see why many people have stuck with "real" books - and I happen to be one of them. Maybe someday I'll convert, but right now I just don't see any compelling reason.
The eBook is too young to die.
The eBook isn't dead - it's just immature. Anyone remember the Apple Newton? I don't mean to offend the legions of devotees that the machine apparently has, but the fact of the matter is that it was too young an idea to succeed, and we had to wait until US Robotics came out with the PalmPilot to see that kind of computer enter the mainstream. The same thing happened with Windows 1.0. I could go on and on. The problem with these kinds of things is that some solid ideas are lacking things - battery life, maybe, or size or reliability.
I think the same thing is happening with eBooks - they're too bulky, expensive, battery-hungry, difficult to read, and just generally inconvenient to read when compared with books. Not to mention that I don't like shelling out a few hundred dollars for a machine to read eBooks when I could use that money towards twenty or thirty paperbacks. And as many people have said, paper does have its charm.
I can see the convenience of eBooks, and it seems like some early adopters have, too. But they're just not ready for widespread adoption yet.
Yup. It's called Downhill Battle. They have some interesting information and links to relevant resources, including a site that will check to see whether a certain album has been released by the RIAA so you can avoid buying it. (Seems like it's down right now, though). Cool stuff.
...who the winners are in many cases. I'm not trying to be some kind of loony conspiracy theorist here, but the fact of the matter is that the free market sometimes plays less of a role than personal interests do in government purchasing. Unfair? I think so, but it's nothing new. At least with the cases described here, it seems like it's being done with the country's best interests in mind, not with the intent of generating business for a "friend." (Okay, I'm done ranting now).
I don't think people intend to use FreeDOS itself for anything big - the point is that you can buy a PC without the "Windows tax." If you're going to install Linux (or BSD or whatever) anyway, there's no reason to pay for a copy of windows to go with your machine. The FreeDOS I'd assume, is so that you can at least boot up the machine when you get it.
This page on Diebold's website mentions that "Election results are securely stored utilizing world-class encryption techniques." As far as I can see, that's all they tell you about their encryption. Does that mean it has the same 128-bit encryption as, say, Mozilla? (Which, I suppose, is still pretty darn secure, but probably not "world class.") Is the "world class" bit is just marketing hype? Diebold doesn't say anything, which makes me a little nervous.
And what about their wireless security? You can store votes in a steel box protected by voracious bears, but if they (the votes, not the bears) aren't protected on the way to wherever it is that they count them up, it doesn't make much of a difference. (I'm assuming here that that is what the wireless networking is used for). Is Diebold using WEP, which can be broken in a couple of hours? Unless Diebold has adopted WPA early (which, given their track record on security, I kinda doubt), some schmuck could sit in his car outside the polling place and run a wireless packet sniffer on whatever traffic is being sent.
The way that Diebold seems to be hiding information on its machines' security is disturbing - you'd think that if they had solid software they'd talk a little about it to impress potential customers, rather than just making vague blanket statements. Given everything that's happened, though, that's apparently is not the case.
As long as it's legible, the text blaoons are sort of invisible to me after so many years of reading comics of all kinds. I read the text without thinking that I am reading text.
I don't know about that... Penny Arcade always uses fonts, and I don't consider it any huge travesty, but I think hand-lettering does give the comic a certain personality. It's kind of a subtle thing, and it's certainly not the most important part of the comic, but it's nice to see different artists' lettering styles. Some of the big sound-effect type text can be kinda neat, too. I have to say, though, I'd rather see a nice, readable font than chicken scractch.
Should that read: "Now may be the time to stop cheating people and start paying for your music!"
I dunno... I have mixed feelings on the whole record industry thing. While I try to respect people's copyrights and don't use filesharing software, I don't like a lot of the record industry's practices, and so I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for them when they complain about people stealing music - especially when said people wind up purchasing that music if they like it.
That said, $19 is an outrageous price for a CD (that's generally what I saw at the Virgin Megastore the other day), and when I buy a CD, I want to be able to rip it onto my computer for easy access, or make Mix CD's or whatever. Copy protection is unfair, and at any rate looks like it's easily broken.
The solution to this isn't to steal the music; it's to start supporting the little guys who don't gouge you like the big labels do. After downloading a bunch of free songs by the Jazz-Electronica group Subthunk, I had good reason to buy their $11 CD from their website. MP3.com has some good, free music and cheap CD's if you're willing to do some looking, not to mention Ampcast and a bunch of other, similar download sites and independent labels.
I don't support posting copyrighted material on the Internet, but I do think that the RIAA should loosen up. The best way to get them to do that is to help the little guys give them a run for their money. It's been said before, but I'll say it again - vote with your wallet!
Automatic protection from running applications that break following a patch?
Well, you're right... but the alternative is to have this novice home user wondering no idea that a worm like Blaster is making the computer magically reboot. Malware like that is probably a more common problem than Windows Updates breaking software. And at any rate, I'd imagine that if a Windows Update wound up breaking something, it would probably be a more obscure program - which a novice wouldn't have anyway. Although I hate to defend the "Evil Empire", the automatic update seems like the better option to me.
The article isn't about how Fry's doesn't offer computers with Linux, it's about how nobody will actually *buy* those machines becasue the Fry's staff doesn't know squat about Linux and they're including ThizLinux, a distribution that is labelled on the company's website as an "Environment Tailor-made for Chinese" and is set, by default, to the Chinese language. Personally, I think the article is worth reading - it shocks me how little Fry's works to make Linux accessible. I mean, really, to put a sign up next to the machine offering to set Windows up on it - come on!
:)
At any rate, please read the article before you complain about how worthless it is.
...and it probably could be used on things other than blood, right? Does that mean that you could actually run a laptop on a can of cola? In all seriousness, if the technology gets more efficient (by a lot) this might have some interesting implications for cheap fuel cells.
Gartner estimates that Munich's migration to Linux will cost around 30 million euros. It would have cost 27 million euros to upgrade Windows, before some reportedly very steep discounts from Microsoft.
Huh? How did they get those numbers? Did they assume that IT technicians would have to be re-trained or new software would have to be purchased or something? I mean, maybe I'm missing something, but Linux is free, while Windows upgrades cost around a hundred bucks per license (although probably cheaper in bulk) So, really - where do those numbers come from?
What if you introduced a little bit of static or something into the MP3? Not enough to be annoying, or maybe even really perceptible, but just enough to throw the "fingerprinting" off. I wonder if the technology is good enough to detect that. Also, if you were to record a song from vinyl, clean it up, and post it online, it might be different from the "official" version of the file. Maybe the technology might be able to detect the general pattern of the song, rather than exact sounds, but if not, Fanning's technology might not work out.
The text of the Act is here, and there are explanations in regular English here and here.