Comment Re:Get it in the stores (Score 1) 324
So? "Free" might trigger the "you get what you pay for" mentality. You could charge $50-$75 and still easily undercut Windows 7.
Comment Re:Been there, done that, got the T-Shirt... (Score 1) 191
Tip: Don't sign your name when posting anonymously.
Comment Re:Flash Drives (Score 1) 324
Most OS installs probably happen from a rescue partition in the HDD...
Netbooks and smaller laptops no longer have optical drives (even my thinkpad doesn't have one by default). More machines can probably boot from USB today than from CD.
Comment Re:Makes sense (Score 1) 250
Smell is just tasting from a distance. (Think about that the next time your in a public bathroom and the guy next to you forgets the courtesy flush.)
Comment 3D & the Environment (Score 1) 245
Finally, perfecting this technology will be the final introduction of *true* 3D (2.5D).
(Without the need for extra glasses
And it will be the end of big TV screens sucking up power and manufacturing resources.
As a bonus, in games I can really look around with my head.
Can't wait...
Submission + - MS Office Web Apps vs. Google Docs vs. Zoho (infoworld.com)
snydeq writes: "InfoWorld's Neil McAllister provides an in-depth comparative review of office suites in the cloud, and while it takes mere minutes to find where Microsoft Office Webs Apps, Google Docs, and Zoho fail to live up to desktop expectations, each promises greater integration with the Web, including collaboration and publishing features not available with traditional apps. 'If the goal was simply to mimic the current office paradigm on the Web, Docs would be a miserable failure, but Google is looking at the bigger picture,' McAllister writes, one in which everything will move to the cloud. Zoho, for its part, makes more of an effort to mimic the look and feel of traditional desktop apps. The results are mixed, McAllister finds, but 'Zoho's real strength lies not in the merits of its individual applications, however, but in its offering as a whole.' Microsoft's defensive move to the Web, tested here as a Technical Preview, provides surprisingly effective integration with the Office desktop suite. 'But there must be a catch, right?' McAllister writes. 'Sure, and it's a doozy: Microsoft's applications don't really work.' That said, in the long run, 'Microsoft's model will resonate best with most customers.'"
Submission + - Why science fiction authors just can't win (sffmedia.com)
bowman9991 writes: 'Science fiction is rockets, chemicals and talking squids in outer space,' mocked Margaret Atwood, one of her many attempts to convince people that she is not a science fiction author, even though one of her most famous novels, 'A Handmaid's Tale', is exactly that. To some, the label 'science fiction' has become synonymous with trashy, pulpish, commercially driven gutter fiction, works you would never nominate for a major literary award. SFFMedia documents the abuse of science fiction by the established literary and academic world. Brian Aldiss, Ursula Le Guin and Kim Stanley Robinson leap to its defence. Will science fiction authors ever escape the publication ghetto?
Comment Re:Still dangerous (Score 1) 853
The other major problem with nuclear power is it's massive carbon footprint. An average nuclear plant will have about 75%-80% the footprint of a gas/coal powered station. This is due in no small part to the 'carbon cost' of extracting the nuclear ore from the ground, shipping, enriching, shipping, turning into fuel rods, shipping
...
Solar thermal is a much more efficient system of 'nuclear power' and it is very very very clean, with the nuclear reactor being 93 million miles away.
Please, somebody mod parent up as informative.
Comment It is always unethical to withhold information (Score 1) 635
It is ok to archive those pirctures, as long as you have taken all precautions to avoid too-easy exposure.
For instance, the wikipedia's page should not include the pictures unprotected,
but should rather use CSS to hide them with a click-of-a-button.
Euro Parliament Warns Against Overzealous IP Enforcement 73
An anonymous reader writes "Days after New Zealand dropped
its support for the 'three strikes and you're out' approach for
terminating Internet subscribers, the European Parliament has now similarly
rejected the proposed approach. Today the EP adopted
a new report on security and fundamental freedoms on the Internet that
expressly rejects disproportionate measures for IP enforcement and the use of excessive access restrictions placed by IP rights holders."
Comment Since we are always recipients of the code... (Score 1) 633
GPL protects the freedom of the many (the *recipients*),
since almost all *producers* are recipients of code for any used libs.
Submission + - Crackdown on Greek blog, excuse for Anonimity law (dontkissthefrog.net)
sperxios10 writes: "A new censoring-effort in Greece erupted, (after having illegalized gaming), due to a Google-aided identity revelation
of a Greek blog owner and journalist(EL) due to felony allegations for black-mailing, and it steadily evolves into Mass-Media Frenzy about the Anonymity and the Defamation through blogs. The TV channels are aggressively seeking to demonize the Internet while the Government announced that it will pass a new law(EL) limiting the Anonymity of "Journaling Blogs", and almost all political parties seem to agree, with the exception of a left-wing party(EL).
Although the initial evidence seem to exonerate the blog-owner, he was laid-off from the news-paper he worked (the same happend to a friend of his, who was the seignior secretary at the Ministry of Economy(EL)). The initial felony allegations were based on just 2 mails demanding money (sent from an unknown and unrelated account) in exchange for not publishing infos on the blog, and many believe that they were just used as an excuse for Google to reveal the blog-owner's identity (here is another view)
That blog(EL) has been widely criticized for not moderating comments that anonymously accuse public figures and as many as 100 defamation-plaintiffs had been filed against the blog the last 16 months (among them, those of Finance Minister's and Merchant Marine Minister's), and 50 more were allegedly filed since the owner-identities became known.
At the same time the blog had evolved into an unofficial news-paper, revealing important evidences or clues about many recent scandals plaguing Greek politicians.
There are already suggestions for demonstrations against the new law.
(marked with (EL) links are in Greek, international press has not catch-up yet)"
Although the initial evidence seem to exonerate the blog-owner, he was laid-off from the news-paper he worked (the same happend to a friend of his, who was the seignior secretary at the Ministry of Economy(EL)). The initial felony allegations were based on just 2 mails demanding money (sent from an unknown and unrelated account) in exchange for not publishing infos on the blog, and many believe that they were just used as an excuse for Google to reveal the blog-owner's identity (here is another view)
That blog(EL) has been widely criticized for not moderating comments that anonymously accuse public figures and as many as 100 defamation-plaintiffs had been filed against the blog the last 16 months (among them, those of Finance Minister's and Merchant Marine Minister's), and 50 more were allegedly filed since the owner-identities became known.
At the same time the blog had evolved into an unofficial news-paper, revealing important evidences or clues about many recent scandals plaguing Greek politicians.
There are already suggestions for demonstrations against the new law.
(marked with (EL) links are in Greek, international press has not catch-up yet)"
Submission + - Is JCP neccessary for the open-source JDK 7? (jroller.com)
sperxios10 writes: "When Jean-Marie Dautelle asked about Java Committee Process and How to make it better?,
Stephen Colebourne asked back: Is the JCP broken?.
Stephen based some of his assumptions on the controversy surrounding Java 7's modularization efforts and miss-communications of Sun with OSGi group. He initially suggested 5 remedies, such as "... a guarantee 20%, or maybe 25%, of seats to individuals", but eventually concluded:
Stephen based some of his assumptions on the controversy surrounding Java 7's modularization efforts and miss-communications of Sun with OSGi group. He initially suggested 5 remedies, such as "... a guarantee 20%, or maybe 25%, of seats to individuals", but eventually concluded:
The real solution would be to redefine Java as a core kernel, and an OSGi module system, with a central repository of modules that could be downloaded on demand. Vendors could then group together ad hoc to build new modules for everything from date-time to JSF. The market would then decide the winners. Thus the JCP would simply be the guardian of the language syntax and core libraries, an actually manageable task!
Does this proposal make any sense to you?"
Submission + - Futures market for gaming can help the industry
An anonymous reader writes: A futures market for gaming has opened to predict the success of console hardware and games software. For gamers, this plays like fantasy football for video games in which you compete with friends or the world in your picks for a portfolio of game stocks.
For the video game industry, the simExchange can be much more. 1UP says: "Futures markets are (natch) eerily prescient when it comes to divining the future, and there isn't a company out there who wouldn't give its eye teeth for the chance to score an accurate assessment of their game or console in the public eye. simExchange isn't a tool for you and me so much as it is a tool for companies who seek to gauge public opinion before making their marketing or production decisions. Because futures markets can fluctuate as quickly as word-of-mouth, a piece of news — such as the release of a new demo, or the admission of a launch date pushback — can drastically effect how a game will perform when it hits the salesroom floor. simExchange offers companies the opportunity to watch their game's 'stock price' rise or fall in 'real-time' in the minds of gamers everywhere (and adjust accordingly) each time they do something right or wrong."
For the video game industry, the simExchange can be much more. 1UP says: "Futures markets are (natch) eerily prescient when it comes to divining the future, and there isn't a company out there who wouldn't give its eye teeth for the chance to score an accurate assessment of their game or console in the public eye. simExchange isn't a tool for you and me so much as it is a tool for companies who seek to gauge public opinion before making their marketing or production decisions. Because futures markets can fluctuate as quickly as word-of-mouth, a piece of news — such as the release of a new demo, or the admission of a launch date pushback — can drastically effect how a game will perform when it hits the salesroom floor. simExchange offers companies the opportunity to watch their game's 'stock price' rise or fall in 'real-time' in the minds of gamers everywhere (and adjust accordingly) each time they do something right or wrong."
Feed Nokia Siemens Networks drops the axe on 9000 jobs (engadget.com)
Filed under: Wireless, Networking
While this doesn't come as a huge surprise -- this layoff was predicted last year -- it still hurts to see such massive cutbacks in an industry held so near and dear to our hearts. Apparently 2,900 jobs in Germany and 1,700 in Finland will be cut on the road to finding savings to the tune of $2 billion by 2010. The final cut will be about 9,000 employees which is roughly 15 percent of the joint venture's workforce of 60,000. The joint venture was founded to help both companies compete with the likes of Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent with 5 major business units focusing on Radio Access, Broadband Access, Service Core and Applications, IP / Transport, and Operations Support Systems. Of course, the verdict is still out on how successful this venture will ultimately be, but Nokia's track record in the mobile space has been strong for as many years as we care to remember.Permalink | Email this | Comments
Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
