With the app I mentioned, xbmcmythtv, you would want a backend MythTV server (which you'd want with a PS3 anyway since it's limited to a 60-80GB HDD at the moment). If you wanted an all in one box, you can throw in a much larger HDD into your Xbox, install Linux and MythTV locally to it (which I mentioned as an alternative), and have it act as a standalone box.
If you can deal with component video (which supports 1080p) and optical (TOS-link) audio, then you can just pick up an original Xbox, mod it, and install Xbox Media Center (XBMC) and you'll be all set. There's a plugin called xbmcmythtv which is simply a MythTV frontend written in Python that's easy to configure and works with various versions of Myth. Alternatively, the Xbox Linux ports also have MythTV packages available (but make involve more work).
For those who already have Fedora installed, there's an excellent guide available at http://wilsonet.com/mythtv/fcmyth.php which is simple to follow and worked for me on the first try (I went with a Hauppage 150 card). Personally, I preferred installing it the software myself, so I have a better idea of where to look when something breaks. I have yum cron'ed to run nightly, and so far I haven't had the install broken by any new packages since the install (4 or so months ago).
It amazes me that the movie industry remains convinced that they save more money by developing and implementing DRM than they would lose to piracy. The cost for a system like AACS must have been well into the millions, and I hope they realize that with all DRM systems it takes orders of magnitude less money to bypass them then it does to create them (and once a crack is known, that's all it takes). At the very best, DRM only buys them some time until it is cracked, and at worst is frustrates consumers to the point that they boycott the product. While the number of pirates may increase a bit if all media was DRM free, I don't believe it would be a significant increase from the amount who pirate now. I do believe the amount lost to new piracy would be less than the amount spent developing DRM, and perhaps the increase in sales due to people who only pirate because they hate DRM will off set that even more.
I disagree, I believe the Wii is an apropos choice. I do not know how the control scheme will end up, but I believe a simple version which could work rather well is to have movement tied to the nunchuck and have tricks based on wiimote (use it in a wand/baton fashion). I hope they maintain the rails system similar to what was used on the original NiD, and considering how Sonic for the Wii is on rails, I believe this is a real possibility. Another reason I'm glad they're choosing the Wii over the DS is because half the experience of the original NiGHTS was in the music. In NiD, the nightopians' mood (based partially on your performance) determined the music, and I'd love to hear it done right on a good stereo. I've been waiting for a new NiGHTS for many years, and the moment I played the Wii I'd knew it would do well there. I'm glad one of my hopes is making it, now where's that remake of Panzer Dragoon Saga...
All signs indicate NiGHTS will be making its (long overdue) return to the Wii this year, so I have a lot of hope. With that said, Samba is a perfect candidate for a Wii game as well. I wouldn't mind a new Seaman either, but I won't hold my breath.
I definitely agree, $0.99 is way to high for lower quality DRM encumbered audio files. I'm fortunate enough to have lived in urban areas of California, and have the option of buying most of my music used. Used CD's typically range in price from $1.99-8.99 for a full CD (which is often 12+ tracks). With used music you're paying much less than $0.99 per track, the quality is significantly better, you can make as many backups as you want, and you can transcode to any format you want (no DRM). Furthermore, most major distributors (Walmart, Best Buy, etc.) often offer the latest music as loss leaders which typically run $9.99-11.99 which is still pretty close to iTunes prices except the music is lossless and DRM free. Until online music can compete with loss leaders from big stores and used CD's, I don't see any compelling reason to buy online.
However after writing this, I should qualify it by stating that I'm not the type of person who just buys a couple tracks. If you only buy one good track for $.99 versus spend $5.99 for a CD with 12 tracks total and only two you care about, then you might be better off using the iTunes model. In my personal experience I've often found some of my favorite songs were never singles and I would have never heard them had I not bought the whole CD.
I was fortunate enough to get a Wii at launch (hour and a half in line at Costco), but I have become someone disappointed at the selection of games thus far. In my opinion there's too many mini-games (Wii Sports, Wii Play, Rayman, Wario, Mario Party, etc.), and not enough full fledged ones like Zelda. Now I'm not saying the mini-games are horrible (they're excellent for when you have multiple people over), however they are starting to make the Wii feel more like a gimmick.
I picked up Madden over Christmas, and I was quite impressed; in fact it's the first Madden that's impressed me since the 16 bit era (I always liked the NFL 2K/ESPN sports more). I wish more sports titles come out and are able to execute as well. I'm definitely interested in a dedicated tennis/golf game, and I'm a bit concerned that I haven't heard of any coming out. I hope it's not due to the lack of accuracy of the wiimote. The Wii has a ton of potential, I just hope the Wii lives up to it.
The PSP scene is reminiscent of the Dreamcast mod scene, although unlike Sega, Sony is making a lot of futile effort to fight it every step of the way. I picked up a PSP when it dropped to $200, and although I only own one PSP game (GTA:Liberty City Stories, I bought it because it had an exploit to run homebrew on firmware 2.5, this was when the only downgrader was for 2.0), I am very satisfied with my purchase. The emulators on it run quite well, and furthermore the screen is gorgeous. One of the most amazing gaming experiences I had was playing Street Fighter 2 on it for the first time, and remembering back around 1992 when SF2 was topping all the arcades and thinking at that time that a portable version would never be possible.
I think an interesting move may be for Cingular to offer to pay the Early Termination Fee (which happens to be in that $100-200 range) for people who'd consider getting the iPhone but are stuck with another carrier. Obviously they'd need other incentives for customers not in that situation, but I definitely think that would be a big shot against Verizon, etc.
I agree, they ought to finish Shenmue, but that's just the tip of the iceberg for Sega series I'd love to see brought back. In addition to Shenmue I'd like to see sequels to:
NiGHTS: Into Dreams (esp. for the Wii -- perfect platform for it)
Skies of Arcadia 2
Panzer Dragoon Saga (either a remake or a sequel), in fact any new PD game would be great
Lunar, I know there's one for the DS, but I've only heard bad things
Shadowrun (an upate or sequel of the Genesis version)
Shining Force 4 (or a full English remake of SF3 with all three scenarios)
I am so disappointed at where Microsoft is taking Shadowrun. Arguably my favorite game of all time is Shadowrun for the Genesis, and when I initially heard MS owned the rights I had hope that it might show up on the original Xbox. Back when GTA III was the biggest game out there -- and exclusive to the PS2 -- I thought for sure someone at MS would wake up and turn Shadowrun into a competitor (borrowing 3D free roaming and adding RPG elements). Anyone who has played the Genesis version of Shadowrun should know how well it could have made that transition. I would have bought a Xbox 360 just for good Shadowrun, but alas that's not to be. A remake of Panzer Dragood Saga might make me pick one up though...
On a side note, my other great hope would be a new NiGHTS Into Dreams for the Wii. NiGHTS on the Saturn is way up there in my opinion as well, and the offers the perfect platform for a modern version.
I'm curious if majors had a significant correlation. At first I'd expect electrical/computer engineering/science majors to fair well. However when you factor in that this is ofter more of a test of research skills and critical thinking, than I can see that helping liberal arts majors as well.
Section 9 (Desktop Effects) Looks like its just AIGLX, not Xgl (in fact there's no mention of Xgl).
Section 17 (Virtualization) FC6 uses Xen 3.0.2, I know Xen was in FC5 but I haven't had a chance to play with it. The release notes mention something about it being connected with the installer, so perhaps I'll get a chance.
Section 22 (Package Changes) Interesting removals IMHO are: mozilla, xscreensaver, gkrellm. I'm sure all can be found in the Fedora Extra's Repo or some place similar. I'm not a big fan of where some of the desktop apps are going (eg. I hate gnome-screensaver), but the beauty of Linux is it's quite simple to solve this problem.
WiFi and 3G cellular networks are a huge reason; they're also a huge security whole. While (I hope) most enterprises have taken security precautions for working in public WiFi networks, I doubt most small and medium sized companies (esp. non-technology ones) are aware of how risky it is. It would be an interesting experiment to park next to Starkbucks and leave a laptop running ethereal, dsniff, etc. on for a couple hours -- something tells me not everyone there is connecting through VPN's, SSH, etc.
The problem with this argument is virtually no one these days pays the full retail price for Windows. Most people (esp. "mainstream" users) don't build their own PC's, rather they buy them with the OS pre-installed (and the OEM's don't pay anywhere near full retail for the OS). With the growing trend of portable computers (which are almost never self built), and big producers like Dell offering full systems under $300, even more computer knowledgeable users are building their own systems less frequently. Pretty much unless you're considering making a high end gaming machines (which command high premiums), you're better off buying from an OEM because the discounts they get to due to economies of scale cancel out the "Microsoft Tax".
People do still buy a lot of PC's without MS Office; so in my opinion OpenOffice has a better hope of becoming mainstream before Linux (esp. if the project can get more advertising to college students). Linux is still somewhat imtimidating for most users because it requires dealing with stuff like repartitioning before the install (yes, I'm aware there's workarounds, but nothing -- not even old projects like ZipSlack -- is well polished). With OpenOffice, it's simple enough for most people to install, and it doesn't have any significant risks of messing up their system.
When I was in college I picked up 100 Banned Books: Censorship Histories of World Literature [1] from my college bookstore. It does a great job of categorizing the books based on why/where they were banned, sumarizing the criticism, etc. Also another good list [2] is published by the American Library Association; it's supposedly the most challenged books from 1990-2000.
Although I wouldn't consider a DRM'ed movie on its own, I'd consider a packaged deal where I get the DVD in the mail, but in the mean time can download the DRM protected movie immediately (and obviously I'd be willing to pay slightly more than the typical DVD).
This would benefit Amazon because I'd be willing to pay more to be able to view the movie sooner. This will benefit the studios because in addition to the higher price, I'm less likely to rip the DVD into a DRM free file since I already have a soft copy on my PC. This would benefit me because I'm an American and like instant gratification.
The band Pearl Jam basically did this for live shows on their 2003 tour. You could buy MP3's of the show roughly within 24 hours, and they would mail you an audio CD (acutally most shows were two CD's, some three) of the show in a couple weeks. For fans this was great, and although I don't foresee the movie studio's allowing a non-DRM format for video, I'd still be a heck of a lot more motivated to buy a downloadable movie if I knew I'd be eventually receiving a full DVD copy.
An older (60's) friend of the family is wanting her first computer for basic functions like email, etc. I have an older machines that is just collecting dust and was planning to throw Linux on it (it originally came with ME), but I have been debating what distro -- obviously I'm looking for the simplest, most straight forward one I can find. I primarily use Gentoo and Fedora/RHEL personally, and I have a little experience with Ubuntu, but I'm not sure how suited they would be for total beginners (Gentoo is definitely out). Is there any advantages over Fedora or Ubuntu in going with *spire? I doubt she'll be adding any software, and it seems like it would be a lot easier to keep her updated with a yum/apt-get cron job. Also I've heard MEPIS is geared toward beginners, but haven't given it a shot. Any other distros (including *BSD) I should consider? More than likely I'll set up a Gnome desktop with an icons labelled Internet, Emai, Word, etc. and keep the rest of the machine as locked down as a cyber cafe terminal; I'm just concerned about maintenance/updates.
It ought to be interesting to see if there will be enough bonus features to compete with homebrew emulators. If the price is reasonable ($30 or less) and the games are at least slightly updated (eg. the Sonic Jam or GBA versions of the games), then I'd consider it.
It's good to hear Firefox use is increasing, but it has always frustrated me how many people have never even heard of OpenOffice.org. While I was working at a university last year a few times I had to pick up some cables from the bookstore, and on two occasions the person behind me in line was planning to buy MS Office. In both cases I suggested OO.o -- something the person had never heard of -- and in both cases the person decided to post pone purchasing MS Office until after they try Open Office. Since it's free, I've found most people are willing to at least give it a shot; however it amazed me that I've never seen OO.o advertised in a campus bookstore. You would think that a university campus, full of students who could use that extra hundreds of dollars saved from not buying MSO more than most people, would be a perfect place to push Open Office.
I understand the fear that the guy might be involved with the drug dealer, but just deleting the pictures (or confiscating the memory card so it can be securely erased down at the station) ought to have been sufficient. At my previous job I was a researcher working on wireless medical devices to assist in distaster management; my group was invited to participate in a major disaster drill in southern california (many emergency response organizations, from local police to the FBI). We were allowed cameras on the scene to document and evaluate our work, but we were explicitly forbidden from taking pictures of certain responders (eg. the SWAT team, people in HVAC suites, etc.). One of my coworkers got caught violating this (he was taking pictures of the victoms but guys in HVAC's could be seen in the background), and was cuffed and arrested; fortunately they ended up just erasing the pictures and he was never charged.
I believe Sony ought to consider an update which allows access to program memory for homebrew, but not kernel memory so that commercial games can't be launched. I believe the number of people attempting to crack the update would be significantly less since the homebrew dev's have no motivation to crack it (it would only be people interested in pirating who care). Personally, I refrain from updating solely because of the homebrew apps/games scene, but if such an update was available I'd go for it even if they tightened security to further prevent running pirated commercial UMD ISO's.
I've been running Xgl in Gentoo for roughly 6 months now using my X300 card in my Dell D610. Check out the http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_XGL page for details as well as Xgl threads in the Unsupported Software forums at forums.gentoo.org. The latest version (well nearly latest, I just svn'ed up and aparently a new version came out) is very stable and only a handful of apps crash it (GoogleEarth being the big one, but I imagine other OpenGL intensive apps may cause issues).
I'd be happy if ATI released an Xorg 7.1 compatible driver; I've had to mask Xorg 7.1 in Gentoo since I run Xgl and need the proprietary driver. To be fair, ATI tends to be relatively quick in supporting their latest cards with their Linux drivers. For example when I got my Dell D610 with the mobile X300 in Feb. 2005 (the D610 was one of the first machines with the new PCIe vid cards on a laptop), there was a compatible binary driver within a month. Unfortunately, the driver had a bug and hung on systems with >732MB of RAM, and this bug took 3 months to be fixed -- but initial support was quite fast for the card.
I hope with the increase in popularity of Xgl, and with Xorg breaking the ABI for both nVidia & ATI's proprietary drivers, we may see more of an effort fo Linux support by the vid card makers.
Slashdot Mirror
With the app I mentioned, xbmcmythtv, you would want a backend MythTV server (which you'd want with a PS3 anyway since it's limited to a 60-80GB HDD at the moment). If you wanted an all in one box, you can throw in a much larger HDD into your Xbox, install Linux and MythTV locally to it (which I mentioned as an alternative), and have it act as a standalone box.
If you can deal with component video (which supports 1080p) and optical (TOS-link) audio, then you can just pick up an original Xbox, mod it, and install Xbox Media Center (XBMC) and you'll be all set. There's a plugin called xbmcmythtv which is simply a MythTV frontend written in Python that's easy to configure and works with various versions of Myth. Alternatively, the Xbox Linux ports also have MythTV packages available (but make involve more work).
For those who already have Fedora installed, there's an excellent guide available at http://wilsonet.com/mythtv/fcmyth.php which is simple to follow and worked for me on the first try (I went with a Hauppage 150 card). Personally, I preferred installing it the software myself, so I have a better idea of where to look when something breaks. I have yum cron'ed to run nightly, and so far I haven't had the install broken by any new packages since the install (4 or so months ago).
It amazes me that the movie industry remains convinced that they save more money by developing and implementing DRM than they would lose to piracy. The cost for a system like AACS must have been well into the millions, and I hope they realize that with all DRM systems it takes orders of magnitude less money to bypass them then it does to create them (and once a crack is known, that's all it takes). At the very best, DRM only buys them some time until it is cracked, and at worst is frustrates consumers to the point that they boycott the product. While the number of pirates may increase a bit if all media was DRM free, I don't believe it would be a significant increase from the amount who pirate now. I do believe the amount lost to new piracy would be less than the amount spent developing DRM, and perhaps the increase in sales due to people who only pirate because they hate DRM will off set that even more.
I disagree, I believe the Wii is an apropos choice. I do not know how the control scheme will end up, but I believe a simple version which could work rather well is to have movement tied to the nunchuck and have tricks based on wiimote (use it in a wand/baton fashion). I hope they maintain the rails system similar to what was used on the original NiD, and considering how Sonic for the Wii is on rails, I believe this is a real possibility. Another reason I'm glad they're choosing the Wii over the DS is because half the experience of the original NiGHTS was in the music. In NiD, the nightopians' mood (based partially on your performance) determined the music, and I'd love to hear it done right on a good stereo. I've been waiting for a new NiGHTS for many years, and the moment I played the Wii I'd knew it would do well there. I'm glad one of my hopes is making it, now where's that remake of Panzer Dragoon Saga...
All signs indicate NiGHTS will be making its (long overdue) return to the Wii this year, so I have a lot of hope. With that said, Samba is a perfect candidate for a Wii game as well. I wouldn't mind a new Seaman either, but I won't hold my breath.
I definitely agree, $0.99 is way to high for lower quality DRM encumbered audio files. I'm fortunate enough to have lived in urban areas of California, and have the option of buying most of my music used. Used CD's typically range in price from $1.99-8.99 for a full CD (which is often 12+ tracks). With used music you're paying much less than $0.99 per track, the quality is significantly better, you can make as many backups as you want, and you can transcode to any format you want (no DRM). Furthermore, most major distributors (Walmart, Best Buy, etc.) often offer the latest music as loss leaders which typically run $9.99-11.99 which is still pretty close to iTunes prices except the music is lossless and DRM free. Until online music can compete with loss leaders from big stores and used CD's, I don't see any compelling reason to buy online. However after writing this, I should qualify it by stating that I'm not the type of person who just buys a couple tracks. If you only buy one good track for $.99 versus spend $5.99 for a CD with 12 tracks total and only two you care about, then you might be better off using the iTunes model. In my personal experience I've often found some of my favorite songs were never singles and I would have never heard them had I not bought the whole CD.
I picked up Madden over Christmas, and I was quite impressed; in fact it's the first Madden that's impressed me since the 16 bit era (I always liked the NFL 2K/ESPN sports more). I wish more sports titles come out and are able to execute as well. I'm definitely interested in a dedicated tennis/golf game, and I'm a bit concerned that I haven't heard of any coming out. I hope it's not due to the lack of accuracy of the wiimote. The Wii has a ton of potential, I just hope the Wii lives up to it.
The PSP scene is reminiscent of the Dreamcast mod scene, although unlike Sega, Sony is making a lot of futile effort to fight it every step of the way. I picked up a PSP when it dropped to $200, and although I only own one PSP game (GTA:Liberty City Stories, I bought it because it had an exploit to run homebrew on firmware 2.5, this was when the only downgrader was for 2.0), I am very satisfied with my purchase. The emulators on it run quite well, and furthermore the screen is gorgeous. One of the most amazing gaming experiences I had was playing Street Fighter 2 on it for the first time, and remembering back around 1992 when SF2 was topping all the arcades and thinking at that time that a portable version would never be possible.
I think an interesting move may be for Cingular to offer to pay the Early Termination Fee (which happens to be in that $100-200 range) for people who'd consider getting the iPhone but are stuck with another carrier. Obviously they'd need other incentives for customers not in that situation, but I definitely think that would be a big shot against Verizon, etc.
NiGHTS: Into Dreams (esp. for the Wii -- perfect platform for it)
Skies of Arcadia 2
Panzer Dragoon Saga (either a remake or a sequel), in fact any new PD game would be great
Lunar, I know there's one for the DS, but I've only heard bad things
Shadowrun (an upate or sequel of the Genesis version)
Shining Force 4 (or a full English remake of SF3 with all three scenarios)
Kid Chameleon 2
Vectorman 3
I am so disappointed at where Microsoft is taking Shadowrun. Arguably my favorite game of all time is Shadowrun for the Genesis, and when I initially heard MS owned the rights I had hope that it might show up on the original Xbox. Back when GTA III was the biggest game out there -- and exclusive to the PS2 -- I thought for sure someone at MS would wake up and turn Shadowrun into a competitor (borrowing 3D free roaming and adding RPG elements). Anyone who has played the Genesis version of Shadowrun should know how well it could have made that transition. I would have bought a Xbox 360 just for good Shadowrun, but alas that's not to be. A remake of Panzer Dragood Saga might make me pick one up though... On a side note, my other great hope would be a new NiGHTS Into Dreams for the Wii. NiGHTS on the Saturn is way up there in my opinion as well, and the offers the perfect platform for a modern version.
I'm curious if majors had a significant correlation. At first I'd expect electrical/computer engineering/science majors to fair well. However when you factor in that this is ofter more of a test of research skills and critical thinking, than I can see that helping liberal arts majors as well.
Things I'm finding interesting are:
Section 9 (Desktop Effects) Looks like its just AIGLX, not Xgl (in fact there's no mention of Xgl).
Section 17 (Virtualization) FC6 uses Xen 3.0.2, I know Xen was in FC5 but I haven't had a chance to play with it. The release notes mention something about it being connected with the installer, so perhaps I'll get a chance.
Section 22 (Package Changes) Interesting removals IMHO are: mozilla, xscreensaver, gkrellm. I'm sure all can be found in the Fedora Extra's Repo or some place similar. I'm not a big fan of where some of the desktop apps are going (eg. I hate gnome-screensaver), but the beauty of Linux is it's quite simple to solve this problem.
WiFi and 3G cellular networks are a huge reason; they're also a huge security whole. While (I hope) most enterprises have taken security precautions for working in public WiFi networks, I doubt most small and medium sized companies (esp. non-technology ones) are aware of how risky it is. It would be an interesting experiment to park next to Starkbucks and leave a laptop running ethereal, dsniff, etc. on for a couple hours -- something tells me not everyone there is connecting through VPN's, SSH, etc.
People do still buy a lot of PC's without MS Office; so in my opinion OpenOffice has a better hope of becoming mainstream before Linux (esp. if the project can get more advertising to college students). Linux is still somewhat imtimidating for most users because it requires dealing with stuff like repartitioning before the install (yes, I'm aware there's workarounds, but nothing -- not even old projects like ZipSlack -- is well polished). With OpenOffice, it's simple enough for most people to install, and it doesn't have any significant risks of messing up their system.
[1] http://www.amazon.com/100-Banned-Books-Censorship- Literature/dp/0816040591 k s/100mostfrequently.htm
[2] http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/bannedbooksweek/bbwlin
Although I wouldn't consider a DRM'ed movie on its own, I'd consider a packaged deal where I get the DVD in the mail, but in the mean time can download the DRM protected movie immediately (and obviously I'd be willing to pay slightly more than the typical DVD). This would benefit Amazon because I'd be willing to pay more to be able to view the movie sooner. This will benefit the studios because in addition to the higher price, I'm less likely to rip the DVD into a DRM free file since I already have a soft copy on my PC. This would benefit me because I'm an American and like instant gratification. The band Pearl Jam basically did this for live shows on their 2003 tour. You could buy MP3's of the show roughly within 24 hours, and they would mail you an audio CD (acutally most shows were two CD's, some three) of the show in a couple weeks. For fans this was great, and although I don't foresee the movie studio's allowing a non-DRM format for video, I'd still be a heck of a lot more motivated to buy a downloadable movie if I knew I'd be eventually receiving a full DVD copy.
An older (60's) friend of the family is wanting her first computer for basic functions like email, etc. I have an older machines that is just collecting dust and was planning to throw Linux on it (it originally came with ME), but I have been debating what distro -- obviously I'm looking for the simplest, most straight forward one I can find. I primarily use Gentoo and Fedora/RHEL personally, and I have a little experience with Ubuntu, but I'm not sure how suited they would be for total beginners (Gentoo is definitely out). Is there any advantages over Fedora or Ubuntu in going with *spire? I doubt she'll be adding any software, and it seems like it would be a lot easier to keep her updated with a yum/apt-get cron job. Also I've heard MEPIS is geared toward beginners, but haven't given it a shot. Any other distros (including *BSD) I should consider? More than likely I'll set up a Gnome desktop with an icons labelled Internet, Emai, Word, etc. and keep the rest of the machine as locked down as a cyber cafe terminal; I'm just concerned about maintenance/updates.
It ought to be interesting to see if there will be enough bonus features to compete with homebrew emulators. If the price is reasonable ($30 or less) and the games are at least slightly updated (eg. the Sonic Jam or GBA versions of the games), then I'd consider it.
It's good to hear Firefox use is increasing, but it has always frustrated me how many people have never even heard of OpenOffice.org. While I was working at a university last year a few times I had to pick up some cables from the bookstore, and on two occasions the person behind me in line was planning to buy MS Office. In both cases I suggested OO.o -- something the person had never heard of -- and in both cases the person decided to post pone purchasing MS Office until after they try Open Office. Since it's free, I've found most people are willing to at least give it a shot; however it amazed me that I've never seen OO.o advertised in a campus bookstore. You would think that a university campus, full of students who could use that extra hundreds of dollars saved from not buying MSO more than most people, would be a perfect place to push Open Office.
I understand the fear that the guy might be involved with the drug dealer, but just deleting the pictures (or confiscating the memory card so it can be securely erased down at the station) ought to have been sufficient. At my previous job I was a researcher working on wireless medical devices to assist in distaster management; my group was invited to participate in a major disaster drill in southern california (many emergency response organizations, from local police to the FBI). We were allowed cameras on the scene to document and evaluate our work, but we were explicitly forbidden from taking pictures of certain responders (eg. the SWAT team, people in HVAC suites, etc.). One of my coworkers got caught violating this (he was taking pictures of the victoms but guys in HVAC's could be seen in the background), and was cuffed and arrested; fortunately they ended up just erasing the pictures and he was never charged.
I believe Sony ought to consider an update which allows access to program memory for homebrew, but not kernel memory so that commercial games can't be launched. I believe the number of people attempting to crack the update would be significantly less since the homebrew dev's have no motivation to crack it (it would only be people interested in pirating who care). Personally, I refrain from updating solely because of the homebrew apps/games scene, but if such an update was available I'd go for it even if they tightened security to further prevent running pirated commercial UMD ISO's.
I've been running Xgl in Gentoo for roughly 6 months now using my X300 card in my Dell D610. Check out the http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_XGL page for details as well as Xgl threads in the Unsupported Software forums at forums.gentoo.org. The latest version (well nearly latest, I just svn'ed up and aparently a new version came out) is very stable and only a handful of apps crash it (GoogleEarth being the big one, but I imagine other OpenGL intensive apps may cause issues).
I'd be happy if ATI released an Xorg 7.1 compatible driver; I've had to mask Xorg 7.1 in Gentoo since I run Xgl and need the proprietary driver. To be fair, ATI tends to be relatively quick in supporting their latest cards with their Linux drivers. For example when I got my Dell D610 with the mobile X300 in Feb. 2005 (the D610 was one of the first machines with the new PCIe vid cards on a laptop), there was a compatible binary driver within a month. Unfortunately, the driver had a bug and hung on systems with >732MB of RAM, and this bug took 3 months to be fixed -- but initial support was quite fast for the card. I hope with the increase in popularity of Xgl, and with Xorg breaking the ABI for both nVidia & ATI's proprietary drivers, we may see more of an effort fo Linux support by the vid card makers.