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Operating Systems

Acer Launching Dual Android/Windows 7 Netbook 105

Posted by Soulskill from the now-make-them-fight dept.
Barence writes "Acer has unveiled an Aspire netbook that dual boots Google Android and Windows 7. 'User demand is not there for [other forms of] Linux [but] we never give up. We adjust,' said Jim Wong, Acer senior corporate vice president. 'We introduce Android with the Windows OS, and why Android? Because it has the best connectivity built into the OS.' Acer has also talked up Google's forthcoming Chrome OS. 'Chrome can be a viable alternative to Microsoft's OSes for web applications on different mobile devices,' he explained."
Nintendo

Next Nintendo Handheld To Be Powered By NVIDIA's Tegra Chipset 216

Posted by Soulskill from the tegra-his-arms-wide dept.
Vigile writes "When you sell over 100 million handheld gaming systems, everyone wants to be involved in your success; just ask Nintendo. As a company with many different obstacles in its path, NVIDIA could definitely use the boost in revenues that would come from partnering with a company like Nintendo on a handheld system, and it looks like the Tegra processor will make that happen. The NVIDIA Tegra processor is an SoC that runs a set of ARM cores, a GeForce-based graphics core and an HD video processor capable of 1080p output that would definitely give the current Nintendo DS/DSi systems a performance boost in line with the Sony PSP. The 'Nintendo TS,' as it has been dubbed, will apparently be ready for a late winter 2010 release and should put a spark in the mobile gaming market and give Nintendo's developers the power to bring higher quality games to the platform."
GUI

10/GUI — an Interface For Multi-Touch Input 344

Posted by Soulskill from the minority-report-without-the-arm-pain dept.
Naznarreb writes "R. Clayton Miller has an extremely impressive GUI concept he's calling 10/GUI (video; written description here). Essentially, it combines the high-bandwidth input possibilities of multi-touch interfaces with the ease and immediacy of a mouse. The video is quite interesting, and, for me at least, pretty jaw dropping. This is a dramatic re-imagining of the current mouse/screen schema, one that I think has significant potential."
Cellphones

Game Development On Android 211

Posted by Soulskill from the pong-on-a-positronic-net dept.
Gamasutra is running an article about the state of game development on Android. The author explains some of the strengths and weaknesses of the platform, and makes comparisons to development on the iPhone. Quoting: "While iPhone apps are written in Objective C, the Android SDK uses relatively more programmer-friendly Java. The iPhone store charges developers $99 a year to distribute their apps, while Android has a one-time $25 fee for developers. And the review process for iPhone apps grows increasingly lengthy — sometimes weeks or more — and it's somewhat arcane. Android apps go live as soon as the developer hits the publish button. Google handles the review process post-hoc, and is much more lax in terms of content. ... For now, if a developer decides to implement a game exclusively for a particular smartphone platform, and the choice is between the iPhone and Android, the tradeoff is between trying to get noticed in an incredibly crowded and competitive market where the potential payoff is huge for those at the top, or entering a market with low barriers, little competition, currently low returns, but the possibility of potential growth."

Comment Slackware was first (Score 1) 739

by Unxmaal (#27712161) Attached to: What Did You Do First With Linux?

In 1995, my pal Robert (or was it Jeff?) downloaded a Slackware distro -- via slow modem, onto floppies. It took about a week.

We all passed the floppy set around, installing Linux onto our computers. By February of 1996, id had released the Quake demo. I had Win95 on my old craptastic Packard Bell, but it simply wouldn't run Quake. I spent hours trying to get the SVGALib Quake to run. I distinctly recall nuking my system in an effort to get X running, and somehow typing (as root) "rm -rf / usr/local/lib". See that extra space? Yeah, that was fun.

I got a new computer, but couldn't get Win95 to run, so I switched to OS2/Warp. It wouldn't boot at all. Linux would run, but would crash a lot. I finally discovered that the scumbags who sold me the computer had swapped the new 486 Intel chip for a much older and slower Cyrix chip, and overclocked the hell out of it so that it'd show the appropriate Mhz at boot.

I finally switched that POS out for a new computer, and ran dual-boot Linux and Win95 for several more years. Today I use Macs, but they're mainly pretty window dressing for terminal sessions on Linux machines.

Comment Re:Webmail vs. Pine (Score 1) 204

by Unxmaal (#21779912) Attached to: Alpine 1.00 Brings Pine Back
Pine is still my mail reader of choice. Every so often, I'll try using mutt again, and every time I'll switch back to Pine, because those keystrokes are embedded in my brain. I know mutt can "be made to look almost like pine", but there's a big difference between 'almost' and 'exactly'.

Feed Engadget: Dateline "exposes" iPod thieves via hidden camera (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

There's probably nothing quite as embarrassing as being ambushed on national television by Chris Hansen for stealing a measly iPod. Of course, NBC's crack team of journalists are just trying to expose the growing trend of iPod theft in the world... or kick up their ratings. In a bizarre and somewhat convoluted "hidden camera" scheme, Dateline nabs thieves at their own game by allowing them to steal new iPods bundled with a "special" install disc which secretly hands over the user's information to the news program. The venus-fly-trap-like plot unfolds as the crew leaves "unattended" iPods in high traffic areas, and is then shocked to see people walking off with them. With all due respect, Dateline, you were pretty much asking for it. If you'd like to know how it all ends, hit the read link for the six page transcript.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Feed Techdirt: Japanese Entertainment Industry Still Very Confused, Very Wrong About YouTube (techdirt.com)

From feed by techdirtfeed
You may remember late last year that JASRAC, the group that represents various entertainment industry interests in Japan got very angry at YouTube and demanded the site prevent unauthorized videos from being uploaded. YouTube responded by trying to explain that it wasn't YouTube's fault, while also promising to put warnings about copyrights on the site in Japanese -- while also promising to travel to Japan and meet with entertainment industry officials there. This week a second round of those meetings happened and it appears that Japanese entertainment industry is still confused. They're not at all happy with YouTube, demanding that "all copyrighted material be removed immediately."

That was the statement from composer Hideki Matsutake, who apparently was the spokesmen for the coalition of entertainment industry interests that met with Google/YouTube execs. Of course, that doesn't make any sense. Thanks to current copyright laws, all new content automatically is copyrighted once created. In other words, nearly all content on YouTube is under someone's copyright. What the guy really means is that he wants all unauthorized content removed from YouTube and that's much more difficult -- because there's no easy way to know whether or not the content has been authorized. There are plenty of copyright holders who not only choose to put their content on sites like YouTube, but actually are thrilled when fans promote their content by uploading it to YouTube. Unfortunately, this Japanese group doesn't seem to understand that. Even more to the point, they apparently fail to understand that even if YouTube completely shut down today, all of that content would simply move to other sites -- and those sites are likely to care even less about what a coalition of Japanese entertainers and entertainment companies want them to do.
Businesses

Why You Can't Buy a Naked PC 367

Posted by Zonk from the put-some-clothes-on dept.
ZDOne writes "A piece up on ZDNet looks at the issue of naked PCs. ZDNet UK phoned around all the major PC vendors and not one of them would sell a machine without Windows on it. IT professionals are being forced to adopt Microsoft's operating systems — even if they tell their PC supplier they want a system free of Microsoft software. On the other hand, even if it's almost impossible to buy a PC without an operating system installed, companies like Dell and HP are now committed to supporting Linux as well. 'Murray believes there is a market for Linux in the UK but is also aware of the issues facing any large supplier who wants to make Linux boxes available. "It means diverting production lines and that is a lot of money and so we have to prove the business case," he said. However, he made it clear that he is enthusiastic about the idea and wants to make it work. "We just have to show it is worthwhile," he said.'"
Caldera

The Score is IBM - 700,000 / SCO - 326 316

Posted by Zonk from the that's-some-impressive-evidence dept.
The Peanut Gallery writes "After years of litigation to discover what, exactly, SCO was suing about, IBM has finally discovered that SCO's 'mountain of code' is only 326 scattered lines. Worse, most of what is allegedly infringing are comments and simple header files (like errno.h). These probably aren't copyrightable for being unoriginal and dictated by externalities and aren't owned by SCO in any event. Above and beyond that, IBM has at least five separate licenses for these elements, including the GPL, even if SCO actually owned those lines of code. In contrast IBM is able to point out 700,000 lines of code, which they have properly registered copyrights for, which SCO is infringing upon if the Court rules that it repudiated the GPL."
Google

Exec Confirms Google Phone 120

Posted by CmdrTaco from the let-the-battle-begin dept.
cyberianpan writes "The head of Google in Spain and Portugal has confirmed that Google is working on a mobile phone. "Some of the time the engineers are dedicated to developing a mobile phone," This could be the 20% free time development but publicizing that would be stupid. Obviously this phone could link in with Google Earth/Maps... it is a marketers dream for targeted advertising."
Windows

Vista Can Run Without Activation for a Year 357

Posted by CowboyNeal from the procrastinists-in-luck dept.
An anonymous reader gave us a heads up on this article for people who like putting things off. It begins: "Windows Vista can be run for at least a year without being activated, a serious end-run around one of Microsoft's key anti-piracy measures, Windows expert Brian Livingston said today. Livingston, who publishes the Windows Secrets newsletter, said that a single change to Vista's registry lets users put off the operating system's product activation requirement an additional eight times beyond the three disclosed last month. With more research, said Livingston, it may even be possible to find a way to postpone activation indefinitely."
Music

RIAA Has to Disclose Attorneys Fees In Foster Case 193

Posted by Zonk from the it-feels-good-to-come-clean dept.
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA has been ordered to turn over its attorneys' billing records by March 26, 2007, in Capitol v. Foster in Oklahoma. The 4- page decision and order, issued in connection with the determination of the reasonableness of Ms. Foster's attorneys fees, requires the RIAA to produce the attorneys' time sheets, billing statements, billing records, and costs and expense records. The Court reviewed authorities holding that an opponent's attorneys fees are a relevant factor in determining the reasonableness of attorneys fees, quoting a United States Supreme Court case which held that 'a party cannot litigate tenaciously and then be heard to complain about the time necessarily spent by his opponent in response' (footnote 11 to City of Riverside v. Rivera)."

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