94940
submission
Bearhouse writes:
See http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=37 701
The article's a little shrill, but the news is good.
Also http://www.slysoft.com/en/anydvdhd.html
Should get the anti-DRM boys going...
94938
submission
Bearhouse writes:
Many places are reporting that MS's Steve Ballmer is 'blaming poor Vista sales on piracy'...
This seems to be one of the sources (http://www.arnnet.com.au/index.php/id;7680622;fp; 16;fpid;1)
From the article, it seems that's not quite what he said. FTA "We have new technologies built into Windows Vista, something we call Windows Genuine Advantage [that] we've really dialed up in capabilities with the Vista release," he said. "I do think that will bring some revenue growth."
and
"Last fall, when Microsoft announced details of Windows Genuine Advantage in Vista — which included new counterfeit-sniffing software as well as the crippling or disabling of important features....the company took heat from both users and analysts."
and
We [will] really ferret through how far we can dial it up, and what that means for customer experience and customer satisfaction,"
Balmer also said that (outside analyst's) sales forecasts for Vista had been 'over optimistic'.
So what's the real story here? Is poor takeup of Vista due to little added value and high resource consumption / patchy driver support or is it piracy? Will 'enhanced' WGA increase exiting concerns about upgrading and recovering Vista? Most important, what do people think about MS 'disabling' security features on 'pirate' software, especially in the light of recent posts about S. Korea and China being the source of many attacks? (High rate of piracy = high rate of malware)
88678
submission
Bearhouse writes:
BBC news reports that Microsoft will be 'supporting' Open ID
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6339813.stm
From the article:
"The Open ID scheme uses web addresses that people already own to help authenticate their identity.
As part of the deal Microsoft is sharing some of its technology with Open ID developers and will include it in future identity-related products."
and
"Microsoft has got involved to supply a technology it is developing called InfoCards to add more flexibility to the scheme."
More on OpenID here:
http://openid.net/specs.bml
One wonders:
1. How secure is this really?
2. Based on experience with Microsoft's 'passport', what will InfoCards bring to the party?
At the end of the article:
"Microsoft has committed to putting Open ID technology into future identity servers but it is not yet clear how this will affect existing sign-on systems for MSN or Hotmail."
3. Well, perhaps the Zune give a clue here.
