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Comment Re:Artists who just lost album sales: (Score 1) 278

Except Dream Theater are on RoadRunner (a Warner subsidiary) rather than Warner directly. Even then Warner merely own a majority shareholding in the parent company - they don't own them outright.

RoadRunner may be a subsidiary (and by all accounts bastards in their own right), but they've had a notably different approach from Warner to this kind of thing, particularly in the case of YouTube.

Comment Re:Steve Jobs has gazed too long into the abyss (Score 1) 1634

Not quite. That was what the adverts creators intended the message to be, but Apple twisted the meaning to be anti-IBM at the very first screening of it ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSiQA6KKyJo ).

Given the rhetoric in the rest of your edit though, I suspect it's really not worth adding any more than that. You don't like them, you think people who do like them are sheep. People who do like a lot of the things they make think differently. Ho hum.

Comment Re:Steve Jobs has gazed too long into the abyss (Score 2, Interesting) 1634

I know, it was an easy shot, but there's an important difference.

The lockdown here is on *two* devices. You want a laptop or desktop you can do whatever you want with? There's the macbook, imac and mac pro for that. Want an expandable handheld appliance with a limited (albeit ever-expanding) functionality that'll have no hidden surprises? There's your iPad and iPhone.

You may as well criticise arcade machine makers for vetting all the roms you can put in their hardware. Or any of the console makers for vetting what's available for theirs. Or that kindle can't do anything but display books. Experience has shown them all, time and time again that as soon as you open up a platform to anyone and everyone, quality and reliability take a hit, not to mention susceptibility to attack. It's a specific product for a specific market and like the iPhone, will be hated by geeks everywhere, but loved by everyone else who want something that just works. Apple will likely do little to stop people jailbreaking these things, they'll just make it difficult enough that only determined people do it.
Displays

UK's Channel 4 To Broadcast In 3D 126

fatnickc writes "The UK's Channel 4, from the 16th of September, will be broadcasting a few programmes in 3D, the full list of which can be found here. While the likes of a 3D Miley Cyrus concert aren't exactly groundbreaking, this will give 3D viewing at home much more publicity, paving the way for even more interesting projects in the future. In partnership with retailer Sainsbury's, Channel 4 are producing free 3D glasses so that as many people as possible can watch them, although it's unclear which of the various types they'll be. "
Microsoft

Microsoft Opening Outlook's PST Format 319

protosage writes to tell us that Microsoft Interoperability is working towards opening up Outlook's .pst format under their Open Specification Promise. This should "allow anyone to implement the .pst file format on any platform and in any tool, without concerns about patents, and without the need to contact Microsoft in any way." "In order to facilitate interoperability and enable customers and vendors to access the data in .pst files on a variety of platforms, we will be releasing documentation for the .pst file format. This will allow developers to read, create, and interoperate with the data in .pst files in server and client scenarios using the programming language and platform of their choice. The technical documentation will detail how the data is stored, along with guidance for accessing that data from other software applications. It also will highlight the structure of the .pst file, provide details like how to navigate the folder hierarchy, and explain how to access the individual data objects and properties."
Emulation (Games)

Gameboy Color Boot ROM Dumped After 10 Years 124

An anonymous reader writes "Costis was able to dump the elusive boot ROM from the Gameboy Color by using various voltage and clock glitching tricks. The boot ROM is what initializes the Gameboy hardware, displays the 'GAMEBOY' logo and animation, and makes the trademarked 'cling!' sound effect. Even decapping the CPU had failed previously, but now the boot image and specifics on how it was dumped (along with many photos) are available for download."
Medicine

Researcher Dies After Studying Plague Bacteria 143

Malcolm J. Casadaban, a molecular genetics professor at the University of Chicago, died last Sunday, seemingly from an infection of a weakened form of Yersinia pestis, the bacteria that causes the plague. "Because this form of the bacteria is not known to cause problems in healthy people, special safety procedures are not required to handle it, said Dr. Kenneth Alexander, a virologist and chief of pediatric infections at the U. of C. Medical Center. Lab researchers who work with the bacteria would typically wear gloves, a lab coat and protective goggles, and the bacteria would be disposed of in a biohazard bag and heated for about two hours, Alexander said. Two key questions in Casadaban's death will be whether there was anything different about the strain of bacteria he was handling and whether Casadaban had any underlying conditions that may have made him more susceptible to infection."
Patents

Cato Institute Critique of Software Patents 242

binarybits writes "I've written an article for the free-market Cato Institute about how patents impede innovation in the software industry. It points out that people tend not to realize how vast the software industry is. It's not just Google and Microsoft; virtually every organization has an IT department producing potentially-infringing software. Organizations as diverse as J. Crew and the Green Bay Packers have been sued for patent infringement. It's crazy to expect all these organizations to worry about potential patent infringement. Hopefully the Supreme Court's Bilski decision will lead to new limits on software patents."
Medicine

Scientists Create Artificial Bones From Wood 138

steve_thatguy writes "According to Discovery News, Italian scientists have made artificial bone from wood. Created by blasting wood blocks with heat until they are nearly pure carbon then coating them with calcium, the scientists say the material allows bones to heal faster and more securely. Unlike titanium, the wood-based artificial bones flex slightly much like real bone, and the porous nature of the wood allows for better bio-activity with surrounding tissue. Though human testing is still likely years away, the material is currently being used successfully in sheep and may have other industrial applications."

Comment Re:COBOL error possibly.... (Score 1) 544

Agreed, though not with your code (underscores aren't valid, dude). More likely you had something like

01 WS-Temp-Variables-Rec.
03 WS-Data-1 Pic X(100).
...
03 WS-Working-Balance Pic s9(18)v99 Comp-3.
....

Followed by somewhere in the code:

*> Initialise working rec
MOVE SPACES TO WS-TEMP-VARIABLES-REC
...
*> Update the balance
ADD WS-CURRENT-AMOUNT TO WS-WORKING-BALANCE

Seen it done and seen the results far too many times...

NASA

NASA Has the Lost Tapes 256

The Shuttle launch may have been delayed by two days, but NASA has better news to report. caffiend666 writes "As speculated a few weeks ago, NASA has found and is starting to restore the lost Apollo 11 tapes. A Briefing will be held July 16th at the Newseum in Washington to 'release greatly improved video imagery from the July 1969 live broadcast of the Apollo 11 moonwalk... The original signals were recorded on high quality slow-scan TV (SSTV) tapes. What was released to the TV networks was reduced to lower quality commercial TV standards.'"
Data Storage

How Heavy Is a Petabyte? 495

Jon Morgan writes "Whilst heaving around numerous data storage systems to sell (they weigh A LOT!), we got to wondering: How heavy is a Petabyte of data storage? Our best guess is 365KG, which is 6 million times lighter than in 1980! But is there a lighter way to store a Petabyte?"
Patents

Microsoft Puts C# and the CLI Under "Community Promise" 465

FishWithAHammer writes "Peter Galli of Microsoft posted a blog entry on Port25 today, regarding the explicit placement of C# and the Common Language Infrastructure (the ECMA standard that underpins .NET) under their Community Promise: 'It is important to note that, under the Community Promise, anyone can freely implement these specifications with their technology, code, and solutions. You do not need to sign a license agreement, or otherwise communicate to Microsoft how you will implement the specifications. ... Under the Community Promise, Microsoft provides assurance that it will not assert its Necessary Claims against anyone who makes, uses, sells, offers for sale, imports, or distributes any Covered Implementation under any type of development or distribution model, including open-source licensing models such as the LGPL or GPL.'" Adds reader anshulajain: "Understandably, Miguel De Icaza is jumping with joy."

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