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Comment HP tm2t (Score 1) 401

by N!NJA (#31119608) Attached to: IdeaPad U1, What We Wanted the iPad To Be
more affordable?! from Lenovo?! you're are kidding, right? HP has been making Tablets for years and, unlike Lenovo's, they have been truly affordable. compare the tablets below. both are current and have similar specs.

- Lenovo Thinkpad X200 Tablet ($1,500).
- HP tm2t ($950).

 and HP is cooking up another Tablet to be released this summer. this new one will be a slate (ie, no physical keyboard). it was briefly showed by Ballmer during the last CES. no doubt the iPad will sell like hotcakes. Apple's hype can sell fridges to Eskimos! however, if there's a company with any chance of competing with Apple on this category, this company is HP! period!

i'm glad Apple got into this market. competition is great. it will lead to cheaper tablets from all manufacturers.

Comment Re:LOL! The Standard iPad Damage Control Meme (Score 1) 401

by N!NJA (#31118838) Attached to: IdeaPad U1, What We Wanted the iPad To Be

The iPad is the laughing stock of the computer world.
It has become the poster child for joke overhyped products.
Most of the Apple Hipster Douchebag Starbucks iPhone crowd are distancing themselves from the stench of the epic iPad fail.

agreed. the only tablet worth my money is the HP tm2t! that's a real computer, not an overpriced toy.

Submission + - MS Learned of IE Zero-Day Flaw Last September (wired.com)

Submitted by N!NJA
N!NJA writes: Microsoft was aware months ago of a critical security vulnerability well before hackers exploited it to breach Google, Adobe and other large U.S. companies but did not patch the hole until Thursday.

The software giant had intended to release a patch for the flaw in February — more than four months after learning about it — but had to speed up that plan and role it out this week in the wake of news that Google and others had been hacked through the flaw, the world’s largest software maker acknowledged Thursday.

Meron Sellen, a security researcher at BugSec, an Israeli firm, quietly reported the vulnerability to Microsoft in September, according to security firm Kaspersky.
Apple

Submission + - GPU-Accelerated Flash for Smartphones and Windows (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by N!NJA
N!NJA writes: from ArsTechnica:

[...] the update to the rather ubiquitous browser plugin will finally synchronize the Flash experience on all platforms with the exception of arguably one of the most successful smartphones: Apple's iPhone. [...] The company announced today that RIM is joining the project and will collaborate with Adobe to bring Flash Player 10.1 to its BlackBerry operating system. Adobe said that betas of Flash Player 10.1 will available for Windows Mobile and Palm's webOS later this year, and expects betas for Google Android and SymbianOS to be ready in early 2010. It will be optimized for netbooks and so-called "smartbooks" in addition to smartphone platforms, and will utilize GPU acceleration whenever possible.

-----------------------

from The Register
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/17/flash_mobile_10_point_one_air_2_betas

Today, Adobe made Flash Player 10.1 and AIR 2.0 available for beta, but only for use on familiar old PCs, laptops and notebooks running Windows, Linux, or Mac. [...] Tom Barclay, Adobe Flash platform senior product marketing manager, said a lot of the work done tuning the player for mobile will also benefit developers and users of desktops. [...] A subset of Flash is already on mobile devices, but Flash Player 10.1 will bring the full player to Symbian S60, Google Android, Palm Web OS, and Windows Mobile 6.5. Apple's iPhone browser will not be supported, although developers will be able to build content using Creative Suite 5 and post applications to Apple's AppStore for download. [...] In lieu of mobile-operating support today, Barclay instead called out features in the Flash 10.1 and AIR 2.0 beta built for mobile but suited to PCs, notebooks and nethooks. These included H.264 hardware acceleration for video on chipsets that Barclay said is significant for netbooks, because it delivers smooth-quality video on relatively inexpensive machines without soaking up the battery life or CPU.

---------------------

from Adobe
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplayer/articles/fplayer10.1_hardware_acceleration.html

Hardware-accelerated H.264 decoding is supported on some video cards and drivers running on Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. Linux and Mac OS X hardware-accelerated decoding is not supported in this version. See the Flash Player 10.1 public beta release notes (http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashplayer10/releasenotes.pdf) for supported hardware and links to download supported drivers.

Comment Re:Uncle Scrooge and Nephews in the 50s (Score 1) 127

by N!NJA (#30021996) Attached to: Comic Books Improve Early Childhood Literacy
Barks' work has been inspirational for Spielberg and Lucas...

from Wikipedia:

Steven Spielberg and George Lucas have acknowledged that the rolling-boulder booby trap in the opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark was inspired by the 1954 Carl Barks Uncle Scrooge adventure "The Seven Cities of Cibola" (Uncle Scrooge #7). Lucas and Spielberg have also said that some of Barks's stories about space travel and the depiction of aliens had an influence on them.[3] Lucas wrote the foreword to the 1982 Uncle Scrooge McDuck: His Life and Times. In it he calls Barks's stories "cinematic" and "a priceless part of our literary heritage".

those comics were of a remarkable quality! they expanded both my knowledge of history (Greeks, Romans, Vikings, etc) and vocabulary immensely. it was also through Barks' stories i learned English (painfully translating word-by-word with a dictionary). it's sad that those characters and stories got so over-simplified for the "Ducktales" cartoon.

for more info on Barks works, check out:
inducks.org
BarksBase

Submission + - What's Hulu's future if Comcast buys NBC? (nytimes.com)

Submitted by
N!NJA
N!NJA writes: "from The New York Times:
http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/30/comcast-denies-talk-of-deal-for-nbc-universal/

Is a mega-media deal â" a merger of Comcast and NBC Universal â" imminent? Comcast, the nationâ(TM)s biggest cable company, says no. Word of a Comcast-NBC Universal deal was reported by TheWrap, a media-focused blog run by Sharon Waxman, a former reporter for The New York Times. Ms. Waxman reported that âoedeal points were hammered out at a meeting among bankers for both sides in New York on Tuesday,â citing unnamed executives.

from The Wall Street Journal:
http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2009/10/01/comcast-linked-to-nbc-universal-stake/

Negotiations for Comcast to buy about 50 percent of NBC Universal have been under way for at least two months and a deal would depend in part on Vivendi SA making a decision to sell its 20 percent holding, said one of the people, who declined to be identified because the talks are private. GE, based in Fairfield, Connecticut, controls 80 percent of NBC Universal, owner of the NBC television network, a film studio, theme parks, and cable channels including USA Network, CNBC, MSNBC and Bravo. No agreement is certain, the people said."

Submission + - Obama makes a push to add time to the school year (dailycomet.com) 2

Submitted by
N!NJA
N!NJA writes: "Obama says American kids spend too little time in school, putting them at a disadvantage with other students around the globe.

"Now, I know longer school days and school years are not wildly popular ideas," the president said earlier this year. "Not with Malia and Sasha, not in my family, and probably not in yours. But the challenges of a new century demand more time in the classroom."

"Our school calendar is based upon the agrarian economy and not too many of our kids are working the fields today," Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a recent interview with The Associated Press."
Patents

Submission + - Dell says Re-Imaging HDs a Burden If Word Banned (pcmag.com)

Submitted by N!NJA
N!NJA writes: In an amicus curiae brief filed on Aug. 24, Dell asked the judge overseeing the Eastern District Court of Texas to reconsider its order blocking sales of Word, part of the original ruling in favor of Canadian software developer i4i. In the worst case, the brief argued, the injunction should be delayed by 120 days.

"The District Court's injunction of Microsoft Word will have an impact far beyond Microsoft," Dell and HP wrote. "Microsoft Word is ubiquitous among word processing software and is included on [redacted] computers sold by Dell."

"If Microsoft is required to ship a revised version of Word in Dell's computers, a change would need to be made to Dell's images," Dell wrote. "Making such a change would require extensive time- and resource- consuming testing."

An addendum to the brief notes that it was authored in Microsoft Word, part of Office 2003.
Privacy

Submission + - Laptop Searches to Continue But More Transparently (wsj.com)

Submitted by N!NJA
N!NJA writes: The Obama administration said Thursday it would continue peering into the files of laptop computers and other electronic devices carried by travelers arriving in the U.S., including U.S. citizens. But officials pledged to add more transparency and other reforms to the program, which has been criticized by privacy advocates.

In response, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano pledged to review the program earlier this year. She announced new checks Thursday, but the underlying guidelines for when searches can be conducted remain largely unchanged. She cited concerns about terrorism and child pornography.

Among other changes, Ms. Napolitano promised to more closely track searches and seizures, to conduct annual audits and to return laptops to travelers faster. Border agents now will be limited to holding laptops for five days, while Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, who are charged with investigating potential crimes, will have 30 days to hold devices, barring extenuating circumstances, officials said.

Comment little indeed. (Score 3, Insightful) 197

by N!NJA (#28774573) Attached to: Open Source Languages Rumble At OSCON
from TFS (emphasis mine):

The argument is still going on, of course, but maybe a little light will be shed on the issue this week at OSCON. On Wednesday night at 7PM Pacific, representatives of the 5 major open source languages [...]

5 geeks.... 90 minutes.... that will be a very dim light to be shed on such unanimously-agreed subject.

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