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Comment Re:Poor excuse (Score 1) 272

by Ikonoclasm (#27685729) Attached to: Piracy and the PSP
Homebrew apps are the only reason I bought my PSP. Well, that and the FFT remake since you can't find the original PSX disks any more. The easily available game rips didn't hurt, but they didn't really contribute anything either seeing as the PSP's game library is so anemic. The homebrew community has added waaaaay more value to the PSP than anything the professional development community has added. I think Sony would be wise to reconsider their business model and, instead of selling a closed platform for licensed developers, market it as an open platform for all developers with a subscription service that provides professionally coded versions of all the homebrew apps that run seamlessly with the factory/updated software. Their current business model isn't good (due mainly to there being no games worth buying), so they really need to adapt and figure out a way to monetize their biggest selling point: hardware that is superior to the competition.

Comment Honestly, now... (Score 5, Insightful) 642

by Ikonoclasm (#24368095) Attached to: WB Took Pains To "Delay" Pirating of Dark Knight
Do they really think those 38 hours bought them anything? Do they honestly believe that their profits would have been reduced had a crappy cam recording been available 38 hours earlier? I'm sorry, but I'm just not capable of managing that level of suspension of disbelief. Seems more like a set-up for a later date in Congress where movie execs get to testify that they spent $x million to stave off the camming and all they were able to manage was 38 hours. I wonder just how dedicated they were to these "delaying tactics."
Google

Google Funds Work for Photoshop on Linux 678

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the good-friends-to-have dept.
S point 2 writes "Google has announced that they have hired Codeweavers, maker of the popular Wine software to make Photoshop run better on Linux. 'Photoshop is one of those applications that desktop Linux users are constantly clamoring for, and we're happy to say they work pretty well now...We look forward to further improvements in this area.' It is unknown whether or not the entire Creative Suite will be funded for support, but for the time being it seems Photoshop-on-Linux development is getting a new priority under Google."
Education

Submission + - Bill Nye, The *Atheist* Guy? (functionalisminaction.com)

Submitted by
IConrad01
IConrad01 writes: "Functionalism In Action: Bill Nye The Atheist Guy? is a remix of news that might not have gotten the play it should have: Apparently, Bill Nye made the unforgivable cardinal sin — in Waco, TX no less — of correcting the Bible's Genesis story — specifically, Genesis 1:16, which reads "God made two great lights — the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars." Turns out, as a guest speaker at a community college, he pointed out that the moon is actually a reflector, not a light.

What's next? Shall we challenge the idea that the sun goes 'round the earth?"
The Internet

Submission + - Facebook Leaves Advertisers Exposed to Hate Speech (newscloud.com) 1

Submitted by
NewsCloud
NewsCloud writes: "Does Facebook believe that no publicity is bad publicity? Why else would they leave a group called, "Fuck Islam" open since July 21, 2007 despite more than 53,482 members joining an opposing group called petiton: if "f**k Islam" is not shut down..we r quitting facebook group. Furthermore, advertisers such as Sprint, Verizon, T Mobile, Target, Qwest and French's wouldn't be too happy to learn that they are paying for ads on the "Fuck Islam" group pages.

I'm not advocating a policy against free speech, just strict enforcement of Facebook's own Terms of Use. The group name is clearly vulgar and obscene. Arguably, inflammatory and hateful. Facebook has positioned itself as the darling of the social network world, without the spam, porn and the sex offender problems of MySpace. Yet, this sort of thing isn't new to Facebook (see Facing Up to Facebook Racism and Elder hate groups on facebook. There's even an active group called I hate Iraqis targeting Iraqi refugees fleeing to Jordan.
Shouldn't a startup like Facebook, worth reportedly more than a billion dollars with over a hundred employees be expected to comply with its Terms of Use in less than six weeks?"
The Media

Submission + - Bad Science (badscience.net)

Submitted by
DocDJ
DocDJ writes: "Ben Goldacre (who writes an excellent article in The Guardian called Bad Science, which regularly demonstrates how poor the mainstream media is at reporting science) points out the flaws in the recent reporting of research which purported to show the evolutionary basis of 'blue for boys, pink for girls'."
Microsoft

Submission + - Vista prevents users from playing high-def content (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
jbrodkin
jbrodkin writes: "The restrictive content protection rules in Windows Vista still prevent users from playing high-definition content, more than half a year after the operating system's release, researcher Peter Gutmann said at USENIX this week. The specifications are intended to protect Hollywood copyrights, but even home movies can be blacked out by Vista because camcorders are increasingly becoming capable of shooting in HD. And that's not the only problem: Vista content protection requires so much extra encryption that system performance is being harmed significantly, Gutmann says. Since Vista lacks numerous security features that could protect users from online attacks, Gutmann wonders why Microsoft seems more intent on protecting the rights of Hollywood than the rights of its customers."
Hardware Hacking

Chinese Pirates Copy iPhone, Make Improvements 716

Posted by Zonk from the that's-the-entrepreneurial-spirit dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Popular Science notes that manufacturers in China duplicate many well-know products. This includes the Apple iPhone, imitations of which are rolling off the assembly line already. That might actually be a good thing for some users, who might enjoy the user experience of China's own miniOne. 'It ran popular mobile software that the iPhone wouldn't. It worked with nearly every worldwide cellphone carrier, not just AT&T, and not only in the U.S. It promised to cost half as much as the iPhone and be available to 10 times as many consumers.' The cloned iPhone uses a Linux-based system. 'The cloners hire a team of between 20 and 40 engineers to begin decoding the circuit boards. At the same time, coders start to develop an operating system for the phone with a similar feature set. (The typical cloner either uses off-the-shelf code, writes something entirely new, or modifies a publicly available Linux-based system.)' Using the iPhone as an example, the PopSci site walks through the process of making imitation technology."
Windows

ATI Driver Flaw Exposes Vista Kernel to Attackers 248

Posted by CowboyNeal from the sneaking-in dept.
Shack0ption writes "An unpatched flaw in an ATI driver was at the center of the mysterious Purple Pill proof-of-concept tool that exposed a way to maliciously tamper with the Windows Vista kernel. The utility, released by Alex Ionescu and yanked an hour later after the kernel developer realized that the ATI driver flaw was not yet patched, provided an easy way to load unsigned drivers onto Vista — effectively defeating the new anti-rootkit/anti-DRM mechanism built into Microsoft's newest operating system. Ionescu confirmed his tool was exploiting a vulnerability in an ATI driver — atidsmxx.sys, version 3.0.502.0 — to patch the kernel to turn off certain checks for signed drivers. This meant that a malicious rootkit author could essentially piggyback on ATI's legitimately signed driver to tamper with the Vista kernel."
Censorship

Submission + - Porn to be blocked by Australian Goverment (news.com.au)

Submitted by wallior
wallior writes: In a bid to swing voters, John Howard is promising $189 million (AU) on 'cleaning up the internet'. Blocking pornography, removing terror sites and scouring MySpace and Facebook for online predators. Also included will be free internet blocking tools available for all families. The presentation was primarily aimed at Christian voters.

"...the federal Government will enter an unprecedented partnership with service providers to filter pornography at the source..."
Operating Systems

Submission + - 30 things I've learned from using Linux ... (zdnet.com)

Submitted by BBQ-buster
BBQ-buster writes: ZDNet's Adrian Kingsley-Hughes has an interesting article called "30 things I've learned from using Linux ..." where a long-time Windows user discusses some of the things that he's learned from dabbling with Linux for a few months.

1. That I don't have to pay money to get my hands on a credible operating system.
2. There are far more Linux distros available that I have time to try them out.
3. Switching to Linux does not mean trouble-free computing.
4. Whenever you ask a Linux user which is the best distro, invariably the answer you'll get is the name of the distro that they're using.
5. In my opinion, the best Linux distro is Ubuntu.
6. No matter how much I like a GUI, and no matter how lazy years of using Windows made me, there's a lot to be said for using a command line.


Overall it's a very positive Linux article that should inspire others to give Linux a go.
United States

Submission + - $ China threatens 'nuclear option' - To crash the (sloopo.com)

Submitted by
sloopo
sloopo writes: "Described as China's "nuclear option" in the state media, such action could trigger a dollar crash at a time when the US currency is already breaking down through historic support levels. It would also cause a spike in US bond yields, hammering the US housing market and perhaps tipping the economy into recession. It is estimated that China holds over $900bn in a mix of US bonds. Read the full story, click here"

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