I own a cheap no-name PSU. ("A1 Power" anybody?) I wish I had my digital camera around, but it's in another state. This PSU is rated at 300W - the system it's powering isn't the server or anything. But it has two fans. The outside 80 mm one is quiet through most of its RPM range, but the inside one is a little smaller and is really noisy. They're both DC brushless.
So I did some measurements and found the RPMs I wanted to run them at -- measured the voltage drop and current. Then I soldered in some resistors. The PSU is still very light, and I'm not running it at its peak power. But it's the quietest thing in the system now. The disk and CPU fan are my next targets.
Sure, but I believe Microsoft will find a way to loose money on the 360 anyway. In the Desktop OS market, they made money because they could out-pirate the cutthroat businessmen. They made most of their profits with corporate tactics.
In the gaming market, they will loose money, because it is even more consumer-driven than the entertainment industry. They will try to kill off innovative games on other platforms, try to tie people to Xbox Live with restrictive licensing, and try to cut into the home theater market profits.
What will really happen is exactly what you said: there is no scarcity in the console market. Microsoft can't compete in the open source arena for this reason -- they waste 80% of their money going after the 20% of the server market they don't own, instead of peacefully coexisting with other platforms.
And so, in the console market, I predict* that their games will be clones of previous successes, that Xbox Live will degenerate into the same kind of experience as you get at msn.com, and that the home theater market will largely ignore them as being way too expensive.
* IDNWFM$ (I don't work for...) so my predictions are worth $0.02
From the article:
Gameplay innovation could range from the original Halo's ability to create a playable first shooter experience on a console controller, to the creation of completely new genres such as the first RTS, FPS, or RPG.
2001: Halo is released (XBOX)
Innovation: Console friendly controls for FPS games.
Okay, I'm not trying to start a flamewar here, but I wasn't that impressed by Halo's controls. Now, Splinter Cell on the other hand, had innovation in the way the controller was used. But "Console friendly controls"? 007 Goldeneye for N64 was a console friendly first person shooter. It doesn't matter whether you judge it by number of units sold, or that Goldeneye became the game packaged with the N64... Clearly, it was a Console Friendly FPS.
Am I just missing something? Did somebody discover that Up-Up-Down-Down-Left-Right-Left-Right-A-B-A-B-Sele ct-Start worked in Halo? Because otherwise, I'm really confused...
Linux needs to get on the Mactel first because this shoots down Microsoft's opportunity to do either of the following:
1. Claim Linux is just copying Windows, and/or lagging behind. "Linux is not innovative," they say. "Linux does not support hardware." That claim just went out the window.
2. Downplay the importance of Apple's offering. "You have to use Windows to be productive, and Windows won't run on Apple hardware." Well, everything else will. At least, it will now, as the EFI driver is now actively developed in the open source community.
I realize that EFI can replace ACPI, but it looks like they just took the easy route.
I'm looking at the dmesg listing, and it runs through EFI first...
But then it identifies and runs through the standard ACPI listing. Processors identified, power states, the works.
Not to say you aren't right about needing to throttle the processor, but Apple made it a little easier by using ACPI instead of reinventing the wheel...
So... funny comments about black and white displays, eh?
From Apple's website, 1002:71c5 *might* be the Radeon X1600. (This is the PCI vendor:device ID for the video chip.) An ATI Radeon X1800 is 1002:7109, but ATI doesn't always number their devices in any reasonable way.
The ATI linux driver should support it... let's wait 'til the weekend and see if they get the graphics driver working. Should be SWEET!
The link is to the coral cache of the original page. Even that is slashdotted right now. Here's the article: (it's a Wiki)
Main Page
Mactel-Linux is the effort to adapt the GNU/Linux operating system to Intel-based Apple Macintosh hardware.
This requires changes/additions to at least the following projects:
the elilo bootloader
the Linux kernel
several drivers
This site is not about Linux distributions for Intel-Macs, but about developer communication.
Status
Using elilo and a modified Linux kernel, we can boot from a USB hard disk on the 17" iMac Core Duo. We are using the hacked vesafb driver to inherit the bootloader's framebuffer, keyboard and a USB network card work. Gentoo runs and can compile the Linux kernel with a compiler that runs on linux, which was compiled in linux, on a mac running the new intel duo processors.
lspci 00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS/940GML and 945GT Express Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS/940GML and 945GT Express PCI Express Root Port (rev 03)
00:07.0 Performance counters: Intel Corporation Unknown device 27a3 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 02)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #2 (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #3 (rev 02)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #4 (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev e2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 02)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) IDE Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7 Family) Serial ATA Storage Controllers cc=AHCI (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 02)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Unknown device 71c5
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8053 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 22)
03:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4310 UART (rev 01)
04:03.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Agere Systems FW323 (rev 61)
Not quite. The kernel boots, and you can interact with the system on the command line, but that's as much as you can do with it at the moment. If you're a developer, though, that's a starting point.
[edit]
Why Linux? OS X is so great!
Sure OS X is great. But this is fun.
[edit]
Why Linux? Why not Windows?
Windows isn't fun.
[edit]
Why not OS X on non-Apple PCs?
That's way uncool.
[edit]
The Intel-based Macs are standard PCs, aren't they?
They share many characteristics with PCs, yes. Though, their firmware is
EFI, not the old 1982 PC-BIOS.
From the article: "How can these companies be so oblivious? Playing Devil's Advocate, I thought to myself that maybe, just maybe, by the time Windows Vista comes out, most people are going to upgrade their GPU. If the HDCP support was very expensive, then paying for the HDCP license now would be like paying for something you don't use. So I dug around for HDCP licensing costs. Turns out, that the answer is available at the HDMI website. HDCP licensing requires a $15,000 annual fee and a per-device fee of $0.005, i.e. a fraction of a cent. That's not too expensive. There goes that argument."
"If you compare that to licensing fees for HDMI, you'll see that while both have the same $15,000 annual fee, HDMI licensing is 4 cents/per unit (if you use the maximum discount as an example)."
"What about NVIDIA? Personally, I think they have the least blood on their hand for two reasons. One, they aren't a board manufacturer. That excuse alone wouldn't be good enough for me though.
What really gets them off the hook is that NVIDIA has been offering their board manufacturing partners designs with HDCP support since May 2005. Likewise, NVIDIA has actually shipped HDCP-enabled GeForce 6200 and 6600's in Sony Media Center PCs. Those boards just aren't manufactured at retail. In retrospect, they did their part. It was the board manufacturers who failed us. I don't need to name names, because they ALL failed us."
I may be stating the obvious, but the sooner you release your copy protection scheme to the general public, the sooner they will get around to cracking it. Now what would Hollywood say after fretting for months on the AACP copy protection scheme, if there was a crack that would unlock the digital content before blu-ray drives even became widely available? Isn't this just security through obscurity? They're making a gigantic effort to get end-to-end security, and it really does seem that movie piracy is way too easy on DVD's. IMHO. Hypothetically, I would design a workaround where I would play the protected content on a GPU that could decode it, one that had the HDCP decryption key, and since all my software can run with administrative privileges, I would just run another program with a shader that hijacked the frame buffer where the decrypted video was streaming through. That's just one way of doing it...
My 2c says this was unintentional on the part of the graphics board makers, but intentional on the part of Digital Content Protection, LLC, the spin-off from Intel that makes the chips with the decryption key on them.
A comparison of DVI, HDCP, and HDMI, leaves me wondering, is this just another format war?
I live in the Bay Area. SBC advertises all the time here, trying to boost their image with "feel-good" ads like "SBC...powered by AT&T." But while they're buttering up the customers with TV ads on one hand, they're lobbying for government protection against the cable companies,setting up a tiered internet to double-charge for traffic, and generally lobbying heavily to maintain their position as the premier supplier of landlines.
Here's an example of how SBC is trying to win back the consumer. (The reason for this blog was SBC's incredibly poor customer service. The U.S. lags considerably behind other countries on price and speed. Taiwan: $23 USD. Hong Kong: $19 USD. etc.)
You should probably know that SBC has expanded outside California, even before it merged with AT&T. And you are right about them having a bad name. Not that AT&T has a much better one.
Having been a long-time reader over at the IBM forums, there are a lot of similar questions and answers going on over there.
There were a couple that would be really helpful:
1. An implementation of zlib for the SPE architecture, with a speed comparison to the PPE. (Hopefully, the SPE is very fast...)
2. Examples of direct SPE-to-SPE streaming.
More than just "what he said:" as a kernel driver developer (linux) and as a professional working in just about any related field, there are a couple of huge holes in the way things are done right now.
A lot of good hardware is left on the shelf when I'm buying. Because if it doesn't have an open source driver (even a wrapper with a link-in binary portion a la nVidia) I make it a point not to buy it. I'll just regret it later, even if I'm just RFP for my employer (large government organization that buys hundreds of units). They'll come back to me later and say either "we decided to switch to linux" or "can you help us debug such-and-such obscure problem with hardware"... if it doesn't have published driver source, that's already a bad sign.
Although I'm fine with source most of the time, sometimes I need a tech spec in addition to the source code. (sound drivers especially)
As many as 60 members of the group, many of whom work in the computer field and live across the United States, tapped into their tightly controlled computer servers loaded with stolen merchandise that would fill 23,000 compact discs and was valued at $6.5 million, prosecutors said. Initially, the stolen software was sent to servers set up overseas.
So of the 60 members, how many had all 14 TB at home? After all, that's enough illegal mp3's to keep me happy in prison until 2034, loooong after five years plus three years maximum sentence.
Go Debian! One of the last strongholds of The True Linux(tm).
Okay, maybe I'm just a little unaware, this is not flamebait. Can anyone compare Debian's freedom to Gentoo's freedom. I'm a Gentoo user, and I found this: Gentoo Social Contract. IIRC, Debian is GPL'd also.
I think I can take a guess where each of these companies stand with respect to OSS:
Alcatel: The parent company is based out of France, with close ties to the government. Probably pro-open source.
Ericsson: Sony owns them. This won't last. Sure, they've got a good track record, but...
Motorola: they're in it to make money, acquiring open source companies and selling linux-based phones.
NEC: They jumped on Itanium for their cluster platform, so they joined OSDL two years ago, probably to make sure their investment paid off.
Siemens: Just barely joined the OSDL. Siemens Communications is primarily a hardware company; from my POV they're just trying to push their profit margin.
Nokia: they seem pretty secure as a cell phone company; I think they're into OSS genuinely to benefit the community. Take a look at what they're Open Sourcing.
Their contributions to open source notwithstanding, it looks like they want to:
1. Form alliance, apply magic words "Open Source"
2. Post article on slashdot, improve public image
3. Wait for OSS community to write their software
4. Sell COTS hardware to upgrade cell networks
5. Profit!
Of course, maybe they're working on Carrier Grade Linux just so they don't have to buy Micro$oft products any more.
Still, it's a good question. In the aerogel, they have Oxygen? What if the particles are reactive? Moreover, what kind of structures have they destroyed by opening it in Texas, near sea level? I mean, these things haven't ever been exposed to that much pressure. It probably has an effect on them.
From the article: The survey also examines the barriers that impede open source adoption. Licensing concerns, software cost allocation policies, and software selection process difficulties are cited as the most frequent problems.
In other words, FUD ("Licensing concerns") is actually having an effect in the US. Partially, it's because the larger the company (in the US), the more likely they will be hit with license violation lawsuits. (e.g. SCO aims for IBM)
Partially, companies have licensing concerns because they don't understand the GPL. They don't believe they can get something for nothing.
Who else thinks that Beyond TV 4 Server, at $69.99, is a really great price for software that can keep all those eleven tuners busy at once? !!
Is this the result of open source driving the price of software down? If this were a Microsoft product, just the word "Server" on the package would cost you an additional $300 or more.
I am a robotics researcher. We focus on completely autonomous systems. Realistically, there are some significant technical problems with just a web-controlled robot. Where will South Korea get the high-bandwidth wireless infrastructure? The robots will only work within range of the towers, and what if the towers are taken out?
Like it says in the article, they will probably just be remotely-operated robots (most of the time). If anyone had a fully autonomous machine ready for combat, then why the DARPA grand challenge? It's coming, but it's not as close as that.
The article also says "if the robots prove to be viable technically and commercially, we will be able to begin developing them late next year." I read that as: maybe motion detection and some automated patrol route (easy to outwit if the human is careful). Once the alarm is tripped: tele-operation from the base station.
So what will happen when Korean teenagers hack the police robots, and start committing crimes. Maybe they should break into cloning research laboratories and steal Snuppy.
Most of Ars Technica's articles are well written. But this one is missing some key facts.
From The Article Mac and Linux users are still waiting for a version of Google Earth and Google Desktop Search
Google Earth for Mac is already out.
I'm wondering if Google rushed this product out the door because of the timing of CES and because everyone expected them to. Google has carefully chosen places where it wants to compete, with the result that its product releases have mostly been a string of successes.
So we'll see if the article is right or not. We'll see if Google Video takes off. I'm betting it will.
How do big companies spam the rest of us? Advertising. They can't spam our inboxes (unless you're hotmail). They run ads on TV, so we buy TiVos. Then they do product placements, but the shows and movies tank because we're not fooled.
So this is their strategy now (IMO):
1. Run articles saying DVD (and Blu-Ray) are dead.
2. Force people to buy an HD-DVD for their Xbox.
3. Sell new games in HD-DVD format only.
4. Profit.
Blu-Ray is struggling to keep up despite backing from Hollywood studios and a wider support base among electronics firms. Companies including Philips and Panasonic announced new players at the electronics show, but they are not due in shops until at least the second half of this year and are likely to be expensive.
Another blow came when Microsoft chairman Bill Gates confirmed his company would be making a plug-in HD-DVD drive for the Xbox 360 games console.
But it won't work: someone (soon, hopefully!) will produce a combo drive that can read HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. Hurry up, please!
Slashdot Mirror
So I did some measurements and found the RPMs I wanted to run them at -- measured the voltage drop and current. Then I soldered in some resistors. The PSU is still very light, and I'm not running it at its peak power. But it's the quietest thing in the system now. The disk and CPU fan are my next targets.
Sure, but I believe Microsoft will find a way to loose money on the 360 anyway. In the Desktop OS market, they made money because they could out-pirate the cutthroat businessmen. They made most of their profits with corporate tactics.
In the gaming market, they will loose money, because it is even more consumer-driven than the entertainment industry. They will try to kill off innovative games on other platforms, try to tie people to Xbox Live with restrictive licensing, and try to cut into the home theater market profits.
What will really happen is exactly what you said: there is no scarcity in the console market. Microsoft can't compete in the open source arena for this reason -- they waste 80% of their money going after the 20% of the server market they don't own, instead of peacefully coexisting with other platforms.
And so, in the console market, I predict* that their games will be clones of previous successes, that Xbox Live will degenerate into the same kind of experience as you get at msn.com, and that the home theater market will largely ignore them as being way too expensive.
* IDNWFM$ (I don't work for...) so my predictions are worth $0.02
Or is it "Even if CDs do become damaged, replacements are readily available at affordable prices.".
I mean, the RIAA might sue them for not damaging your CD's! I see a way to make a lot of money here. ;-)
2001: Halo is released (XBOX)
Innovation: Console friendly controls for FPS games.
Okay, I'm not trying to start a flamewar here, but I wasn't that impressed by Halo's controls. Now, Splinter Cell on the other hand, had innovation in the way the controller was used. But "Console friendly controls"? 007 Goldeneye for N64 was a console friendly first person shooter. It doesn't matter whether you judge it by number of units sold, or that Goldeneye became the game packaged with the N64... Clearly, it was a Console Friendly FPS.
Am I just missing something? Did somebody discover that Up-Up-Down-Down-Left-Right-Left-Right-A-B-A-B-Sele ct-Start worked in Halo? Because otherwise, I'm really confused...
1. Claim Linux is just copying Windows, and/or lagging behind. "Linux is not innovative," they say. "Linux does not support hardware." That claim just went out the window.
2. Downplay the importance of Apple's offering. "You have to use Windows to be productive, and Windows won't run on Apple hardware." Well, everything else will. At least, it will now, as the EFI driver is now actively developed in the open source community.
I'm looking at the dmesg listing, and it runs through EFI first...
But then it identifies and runs through the standard ACPI listing. Processors identified, power states, the works.
Not to say you aren't right about needing to throttle the processor, but Apple made it a little easier by using ACPI instead of reinventing the wheel...
From Apple's website, 1002:71c5 *might* be the Radeon X1600. (This is the PCI vendor:device ID for the video chip.) An ATI Radeon X1800 is 1002:7109, but ATI doesn't always number their devices in any reasonable way.
The ATI linux driver should support it ... let's wait 'til the weekend and see if they get the graphics driver working. Should be SWEET!
(drums fingers impatiently...I'm at work)
Main Page
Mactel-Linux is the effort to adapt the GNU/Linux operating system to Intel-based Apple Macintosh hardware.
This requires changes/additions to at least the following projects:
This site is not about Linux distributions for Intel-Macs, but about developer communication.
Status
Using elilo and a modified Linux kernel, we can boot from a USB hard disk on the 17" iMac Core Duo. We are using the hacked vesafb driver to inherit the bootloader's framebuffer, keyboard and a USB network card work. Gentoo runs and can compile the Linux kernel with a compiler that runs on linux, which was compiled in linux, on a mac running the new intel duo processors.
lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS/940GML and 945GT Express Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS/940GML and 945GT Express PCI Express Root Port (rev 03)
00:07.0 Performance counters: Intel Corporation Unknown device 27a3 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 02)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #2 (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #3 (rev 02)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #4 (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev e2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 02)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) IDE Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7 Family) Serial ATA Storage Controllers cc=AHCI (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 02)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Unknown device 71c5
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8053 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 22)
03:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4310 UART (rev 01)
04:03.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Agere Systems FW323 (rev 61)
dmesg click if you want to see it
Instructions and Patches
Coming this weekend.
FAQ
Can I already run Linux on the iMac Core-Duo?
Not quite. The kernel boots, and you can interact with the system on the command line, but that's as much as you can do with it at the moment. If you're a developer, though, that's a starting point.
[edit]
Why Linux? OS X is so great!
Sure OS X is great. But this is fun.
[edit]
Why Linux? Why not Windows?
Windows isn't fun.
[edit]
Why not OS X on non-Apple PCs?
That's way uncool.
[edit]
The Intel-based Macs are standard PCs, aren't they?
They share many characteristics with PCs, yes. Though, their firmware is EFI, not the old 1982 PC-BIOS.
[edit]
Then what took you so long??
"If you compare that to licensing fees for HDMI, you'll see that while both have the same $15,000 annual fee, HDMI licensing is 4 cents/per unit (if you use the maximum discount as an example)."
"What about NVIDIA? Personally, I think they have the least blood on their hand for two reasons. One, they aren't a board manufacturer. That excuse alone wouldn't be good enough for me though.
What really gets them off the hook is that NVIDIA has been offering their board manufacturing partners designs with HDCP support since May 2005. Likewise, NVIDIA has actually shipped HDCP-enabled GeForce 6200 and 6600's in Sony Media Center PCs. Those boards just aren't manufactured at retail. In retrospect, they did their part. It was the board manufacturers who failed us. I don't need to name names, because they ALL failed us."
I may be stating the obvious, but the sooner you release your copy protection scheme to the general public, the sooner they will get around to cracking it. Now what would Hollywood say after fretting for months on the AACP copy protection scheme, if there was a crack that would unlock the digital content before blu-ray drives even became widely available? Isn't this just security through obscurity? They're making a gigantic effort to get end-to-end security, and it really does seem that movie piracy is way too easy on DVD's. IMHO. Hypothetically, I would design a workaround where I would play the protected content on a GPU that could decode it, one that had the HDCP decryption key, and since all my software can run with administrative privileges, I would just run another program with a shader that hijacked the frame buffer where the decrypted video was streaming through. That's just one way of doing it...
My 2c says this was unintentional on the part of the graphics board makers, but intentional on the part of Digital Content Protection, LLC, the spin-off from Intel that makes the chips with the decryption key on them.
A comparison of DVI, HDCP, and HDMI, leaves me wondering, is this just another format war?
Here's an example of how SBC is trying to win back the consumer. (The reason for this blog was SBC's incredibly poor customer service. The U.S. lags considerably behind other countries on price and speed. Taiwan: $23 USD. Hong Kong: $19 USD. etc.)
You should probably know that SBC has expanded outside California, even before it merged with AT&T. And you are right about them having a bad name. Not that AT&T has a much better one.
There were a couple that would be really helpful:
1. An implementation of zlib for the SPE architecture, with a speed comparison to the PPE. (Hopefully, the SPE is very fast...)
2. Examples of direct SPE-to-SPE streaming.
A lot of good hardware is left on the shelf when I'm buying. Because if it doesn't have an open source driver (even a wrapper with a link-in binary portion a la nVidia) I make it a point not to buy it. I'll just regret it later, even if I'm just RFP for my employer (large government organization that buys hundreds of units). They'll come back to me later and say either "we decided to switch to linux" or "can you help us debug such-and-such obscure problem with hardware" ... if it doesn't have published driver source, that's already a bad sign.
Although I'm fine with source most of the time, sometimes I need a tech spec in addition to the source code. (sound drivers especially)
Anyway, cool post! Wish I had mod points right now... :-/
As many as 60 members of the group, many of whom work in the computer field and live across the United States, tapped into their tightly controlled computer servers loaded with stolen merchandise that would fill 23,000 compact discs and was valued at $6.5 million, prosecutors said. Initially, the stolen software was sent to servers set up overseas.
23,000 CD's! Nooooooo! That's 14 x 1 TB drives.
So of the 60 members, how many had all 14 TB at home? After all, that's enough illegal mp3's to keep me happy in prison until 2034, loooong after five years plus three years maximum sentence.
Apple has had speech technology for years!
Okay, maybe I'm just a little unaware, this is not flamebait. Can anyone compare Debian's freedom to Gentoo's freedom. I'm a Gentoo user, and I found this: Gentoo Social Contract. IIRC, Debian is GPL'd also.
What am I missing here?
Alcatel: The parent company is based out of France, with close ties to the government. Probably pro-open source.
Ericsson: Sony owns them. This won't last. Sure, they've got a good track record, but...
Motorola: they're in it to make money, acquiring open source companies and selling linux-based phones.
NEC: They jumped on Itanium for their cluster platform, so they joined OSDL two years ago, probably to make sure their investment paid off.
Siemens: Just barely joined the OSDL. Siemens Communications is primarily a hardware company; from my POV they're just trying to push their profit margin.
Nokia: they seem pretty secure as a cell phone company; I think they're into OSS genuinely to benefit the community. Take a look at what they're Open Sourcing.
Their contributions to open source notwithstanding, it looks like they want to:
1. Form alliance, apply magic words "Open Source"
2. Post article on slashdot, improve public image
3. Wait for OSS community to write their software
4. Sell COTS hardware to upgrade cell networks
5. Profit!
Of course, maybe they're working on Carrier Grade Linux just so they don't have to buy Micro$oft products any more.
Still, it's a good question. In the aerogel, they have Oxygen? What if the particles are reactive? Moreover, what kind of structures have they destroyed by opening it in Texas, near sea level? I mean, these things haven't ever been exposed to that much pressure. It probably has an effect on them.
In other words, FUD ("Licensing concerns") is actually having an effect in the US. Partially, it's because the larger the company (in the US), the more likely they will be hit with license violation lawsuits. (e.g. SCO aims for IBM)
Partially, companies have licensing concerns because they don't understand the GPL. They don't believe they can get something for nothing.
Is this the result of open source driving the price of software down? If this were a Microsoft product, just the word "Server" on the package would cost you an additional $300 or more.
Like it says in the article, they will probably just be remotely-operated robots (most of the time). If anyone had a fully autonomous machine ready for combat, then why the DARPA grand challenge? It's coming, but it's not as close as that.
The article also says "if the robots prove to be viable technically and commercially, we will be able to begin developing them late next year." I read that as: maybe motion detection and some automated patrol route (easy to outwit if the human is careful). Once the alarm is tripped: tele-operation from the base station.
So what will happen when Korean teenagers hack the police robots, and start committing crimes. Maybe they should break into cloning research laboratories and steal Snuppy.
...is that CmdrTaco's Karma needed a little boost, and oh man, he just got like ten billion +5 insightfuls!
From The Article
Mac and Linux users are still waiting for a version of Google Earth and Google Desktop Search
Google Earth for Mac is already out.
I'm wondering if Google rushed this product out the door because of the timing of CES and because everyone expected them to. Google has carefully chosen places where it wants to compete, with the result that its product releases have mostly been a string of successes.
So we'll see if the article is right or not. We'll see if Google Video takes off. I'm betting it will.
And revery said:
Okay then. Let's open the Slashdot Patent Office. Imagine how many one-click patents would get modded redundant.
I for one want my patents to be +5 Funny.
So this is their strategy now (IMO):
1. Run articles saying DVD (and Blu-Ray) are dead.
2. Force people to buy an HD-DVD for their Xbox.
3. Sell new games in HD-DVD format only.
4. Profit.
Blu-Ray is struggling to keep up despite backing from Hollywood studios and a wider support base among electronics firms. Companies including Philips and Panasonic announced new players at the electronics show, but they are not due in shops until at least the second half of this year and are likely to be expensive.
Another blow came when Microsoft chairman Bill Gates confirmed his company would be making a plug-in HD-DVD drive for the Xbox 360 games console.
But it won't work: someone (soon, hopefully!) will produce a combo drive that can read HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. Hurry up, please!