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Comment Re:Not reviewing them in any way? Really? (Score 1) 117

"Shouldn't Palm at least be checking to see if the apps are malware?" maybe if they had infinite time and money.
A better solution would be to let us do it, the public will be better and quicker at judging apps than any offical body. All Palm need to do is provide a decent robust feedback system, and a support process for cases where the app causes damage.

Comment Hardware (Score 1) 745

The original problem with Android was the HTC hardware. It was severly lacking esp when compared to the iPhone, Pre and Symbian S60 devices. Slow processors with not enough memory, same as their Windows Mobile phones.

Take the Hero, good build quality, fancy and polished GUI, but not enough memory to use those 7 'desktops' with the widgets that they advertise!

I think Android really needs a Arm Cortex 8 based phone with a decent amount of RAM.

Comment AnandTech in Cursive??? (Score 1) 921

The death of cursive can also be attributed to what we are writing. Modern business is full of acronyms, trademarked names derived from various languages, code, formula's etc.

Anybody tried writing pseudo code in cursive?? Imagine reading AnandTech in cursive? It would be a complete mess.

Also who do most people write to? Myself its 100% to myself, as notes.

Comment Rights Mess (Score 1) 645

The core of the problem highlighted by this fiasco is not that a company can take away what you paid for in good faith. It's that a company that has a business model around distributing copyrighted works can't even work out who owns the copyrights!

I mean wtf?
How the hell can the media/entertainment companies go after the public for copyright infringement when they themselves don't have a clue who owns what.

This is issue that the governments need to sort, simplify the ownership of copyright and force any owners to keep acurate records (available to all) about what copyrights they own. Ideally also scrap one piece of work being under multiple copyrights for stupid things like geographic region, and the practise of altering/remarketting a public domain work just so you can claim copyright on the 'new' version.

Comment Re:I had to get my training from somewhere (Score 4, Insightful) 473

You forgot to mention that:
You've saved more people than Ghandi, Jesus, USA and the UNSC. You have saved millions more than you killed. You have built hundreds of ecological perfect cities that house thousands. You have helped evolve the human race from primates to space travellers. You have prevented the Earth from being destroyed by aliens, asteroids, gods and your evil twin brother. More than a few times you saved the entire solar system, and once you even saved the entire universe from destruction. You've built roller-coasters, hospitals and entire transport networks. You've read more about ancient history, engineering and advanced physics than anybody. You're worshipped by millions and your choices directly improve the lives of trillions.

Comment Same bits! (Score 1) 232

What I don't get is that the unlimited internet, is anything but unlimited, its 1/3gb fair use. What f**king difference does it make how I use it?
If I go over because I used my phone as a modem, the carrier/operator is going to charge me more (at stupidly high rates) or disconnect me.

The only plausiable explanation is that even the 'fair use' cap that all the carriers is actually more than they can handle (or their infrastructure is so innefficent that its too expensive for them). So without tethering no-one is likely to hit the 'fair use' cap, cause only the machosist would squint at a phone screen for that long!

Comment Just arrest them? (Score 1) 281

Surely, if this filter can find child abuse images so easily, then the authorities can investigate, remove the images and arrest the people involved...then the filter can be turned off?

All that blocking it does is...well...nothing at all. The images and the perpetrators are still around, and no children have been protected.

Comment but its your choice... (Score 1) 227

I just don't understand how Latitude can be considered a privacy danger:

a) YOU have to choose to install Google Maps.
b) YOU have to choose to turn it on.
c) YOU have to choose or accept friend tracking. (and to choose not to delete them)
d) YOU have to choose not to turn it off.

Google have put as many safeguards as is practical while still providing a cool service to those people that want it.

tbh the only real danger to privacy is modern government (esp. here in the UK)

Comment Failed Concepts (Score 1) 381

I think games that had an interesting concept but flawed execution should be considered.

Like when Marvel remade the Hulk, that was a good thing, and not something companies should be scared of.

Take the old 'favourite' Diakatana, is the actual concept of an FPS throughout different ages that bad? No I don't think so, its a nice twist on the usual concept. It was utterly flawed and moronically executed the first time around, but a different team could make a decent game out of it.

I also think that people would prefer an 'engine' update rather than a new version of their favourite oldie. Late 80's/Early 90's games would be perfect for this.

Comment Re:So Steam is DRM...and? (Score 1) 354

mmm, the trouble is your assuming that there is a possibility of a DRM-free entertainment world. Which although that would be ideal, is not going to happen.

So I would prefer a system that at least attempts to be fair.

As for your list:
Yes it needs installing, but also allows easy uninstall, better than every other DRM.
True, but then again it is an option, and doesn't need to run to play the game.
Ad's? The only ad's I see are when you start an unpatched game, and even then they are poor (as in wouldn't convince anybody of anything) advertising for valves own stuff.
Connected to the internet is a problem for mobile gamers, but MS and the other OS's also assume constant online, so can't blame valve there.
Force's updates, that's a good thing...most games are buggy even single player, at least you get a simple to use system (no arsing around with versions, patch levels etc)

10 years down the road, tbh who cares, it will have either been replaced or outdated. Tbh I think it now has enough backers, can't think of many publishers left not on it, that it will survive. Besides no worse or better than any other DRM.

Comment So Steam is DRM...and? (Score 1) 354

A lot of the posts seem to basically poke fun at the article, as EA haven't removed DRM, just used Steam instead, and then pick holes in Steam.

It's this level of argument that gets us no where. Steam is the type of DRM we should be commending, it does a damn good job of satisfying both sides.
The consumers get an easy to use product, and there no intrusive drm or over the top restrictions.

In the fact its only the right of sale that I think you give up, and yes it would be great if Steam had a built in 'demo' mode so that you could try without paying...that gets around the problem of buying 'blind'. But I think this is a small compromise, esp given the mass of information that is now available to potential customers.

Now if someone could explain why this is North America only? Why the hell would you purposely shrink your potential sales market???

Comment Re:Why? (Score 1) 176

oh I don't know, simple practicality maybe? A general user possibly just wants the features of their paid for hardware to work, without all this meaningless bitching about open, closed, slightly holey, source crap.

Windows

High-Quality HD Content Can't Easily Be Played by Vista 434

DaMan1970 writes "Content protection features in Windows Vista from Microsoft are preventing customers from playing high-quality HD audio/video & harming system performance. Vista requires premium content like HD movies to be degraded in quality when it is sent to high-quality outputs, like DVI. Users will see status codes that say 'graphics OPM resolution too high'. There are ways to bypass the Windows Vista protection by encoding the movies using alternative codecs like X264, or DiVX, which are in fact more effective sometimes then Windows own WMV codec. These codecs are quite common on HD video Bittorrent sites, or Newsgroups."
Microsoft

Microsoft Hires Director of Linux Interoperability 238

AlexGr sends us to Todd Bishop's blog in the Seattle PI for news that Microsoft has brought someone aboard to serve as its Director of Linux Interoperability and head up the Microsoft/Novell Interoperability Lab. "...his name will be familiar to people in the open-source community. In an e-mail late Thursday night, a Microsoft representative said the role will be filled by Tom Hanrahan, who was most recently the director of engineering at the Linux Foundation, the group created through the recent combination of the Free Standards Group and the Open Source Development Labs."
Windows

Inside the Windows Vista Kernel 298

Reader trparky recommends an article on Technet (which, be warned, is rather chaotically formatted). Mark Russinovich, whose company Winternals Software was recently bought by Microsoft, has published the first of a series of articles on what's new in the Vista kernel. Russinovich writes: "In this issue, I'll look at changes in the areas of processes and threads, and in I/O. Future installments will cover memory management, startup and shutdown, reliability and recovery, and security. The scope of this article comprises changes to the Windows Vista kernel only, specifically Ntoskrnl.exe and its closely associated components. Please remember that there are many other significant changes in Windows Vista that fall outside the kernel proper and therefore won't be covered."

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