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Comment Sorry students, Family Members *AND* "Amazon Moms" (Score 4, Informative) 218

Nor to anyone who currently get free Amazon shipping via a family member who is a member of Amazon Prime. The free video only applies to the single Amazon Prime member account:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200572880

"Prime instant videos require an Amazon Prime membership and are not included with the free shipping benefits provided by Amazon Mom, Amazon Student, or if you are a guest of an Amazon Prime member. To watch Prime instant videos, sign up for a $79 Amazon Prime membership at http://www.amazon.com/primevideos. If you are a member of Amazon Mom and sign up for a $79 Amazon Prime membership, you will lose any additional months of Amazon Prime shipping benefits you may have earned."

Amazon video on demand:
http://www.amazon.com/Video-On-Demand/b/ref=&node=16261631

Subset of "Prime Eligible" movies that Amazon will stream free to Prime members today (2153 results):
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=s9_al_bw_srch?rh=n%3A16261631%2Cp_85%3A1&page=1&rw_html_to_wsrp=1&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-3&pf_rd_r=1G4XGFTBQHGKXW5S6ZP3&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1288998822&pf_rd_i=16261631

Portables

Submission + - Dual Screen Laptops Coming Soon

evw writes: When a gigantic desktop replacement laptop isn't enough, try one of these dual screen laptops. All joking aside, when they finally have thin enough flexible screen technology that it doesn't add appreciable weight to the thing, I'll be the first in line. For now this just smacks of "because I can". Gizmodo estimates it will weigh "at least 12 pounds" and is skeptical of the promised end of year availability.
Technology (Apple)

Submission + - Steve Jobs had a liver transplant two months ago

evw writes: The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required, or google the url and click from Google) that Steve Jobs had a liver transplant two months ago. He is on track to return to work at the end of June. William Hawkins, a doctor specializing in pancreatic and gastrointestinal surgery at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., said that the type of slow-growing pancreatic tumor Mr. Jobs had will commonly metastasize in another organ during a patient's lifetime, and that the organ is usually the liver. Having the procedure done in Tennessee makes sense because its list of patients waiting for transplants is shorter than in many other states. There are no residency requirements for transplants. Also in the Mercury News.
Security

Submission + - Apple: Is Mac OS X wide open by default?

evw writes: Subrosasoft has announced MacLockPick that claims to grab all the passwords stored in the Key Chain including but not limited to logins, disk images, Wi-Fi passwords, iTunes, iChat, Remote Desktop, email, all your banking info, and peer to peer information. MacNN, Gizmodo and other blogs review it.

This sounds like snake-oil to me. Granted, anyone with physical access to your machine to plug in this USB based device can probably pwn you to start with, but this device seems to rely on the user leaving everything wide open. If you use FileVault, turn off auto-login, require a password to wake from sleep, use a decent password and don't grant KeyChain Access blanket permission to access your key chains, does this thing really work? It seems to me that it relies on the digital equivalent of the password written on a post-it stuck to the monitor.

But even if the claims are true, don't panic because it's only for sale to licensed investigators.

Feed Denied Entrance Into The US Thanks To A Google Search Of Your Permanent Record (techdirt.com)

For a long time, people have talked about how Google has effectively created the infamous "permanent record" teachers always warned us about in school. And, now, it appears that it's not just being used for background checks on dates and job reference checks, but for official government purposes as well. Joe McEnaney writes in to alert us to a story of a Canadian man who was denied entrance to the US after border guards did a Google search on his name and discovered a peer-reviewed academic paper he'd written years earlier that mentioned his own LSD use over 30 years ago. Setting aside any thoughts one way or the other on whether or not that should be a criteria for entering the US, just think of what this means for teens today who are discussing their lives very publicly on sites like MySpace. We've already wondered what will happen once the MySpace generation runs for office, but right now they might just want to be careful leaving and entering the country.
Television

Submission + - Aqua Teen stunt costs Turner and Agency $2M

evw writes: The NYTimes reports that the Turner Broadcasting System and the ad agency responsible have reached a $2M settlement with the city of Boston and state and federal agencies that treated the light boards placed around the city as an act of terrorism (as covered earlier on /.) Half of the money is to cover direct costs associated with the response. The other $1M goes to "goodwill funds" that will be used for response training and public outreach.
PlayStation (Games)

Submission + - Playstation 2 was Best Selling Console at Xmas

evw writes: The numbers are in and the best selling console this past Christmas was the six year old PlayStation 2 at 1.4 million units! The Xbox 360 sold 1.1m, Wii sold 600k and PS3 sold 491k. The lessons? 1) The new consoles were supply constrained. Analysts thought the Wii would sell twice as many but they couldn't ship enough of them. 2) Price is important. Consumers would rather buy an old machine with tons of games available than drop a lot of money on something new. I'll bet PS3 picks up when people start upgrading and the prices have dropped. Interestingly, other news sources took the same data and neglected to mention the part about PS2 coming out on top.
Movies

Submission + - Blu-ray says NO to porn, porn says NO to Blu-ray

Sarusa writes: If this is true, it's Beta vs VHS all over again and HD-DVD may be the foregone winner of the format wars. First, Heise reports (summarized from the German by sgknox.com) that Digital Playground (NSFW), who were committed to Blu-ray last year, are now producing HD-DVD titles instead. No Blu-ray disk manufacturer would make their disks because Sony doesn't want porn on Blu-ray (just as with Betamax). Second, as reported by tgdaily, the porn industry at CES overwhelmingly favors HD-DVD because it's much cheaper and easier to produce. As noted in the tgdaily article, porn was a huge factor in VHS winning the VHS/Beta format wars even though most people don't like to acknowledge it. Porn, like gaming, pushes tech adoption.
Portables

Submission + - Microvision Turns Cellphone Into Digital Projector

Art Vanderlay writes: Microvision will unveil at CES an ultra-miniature full-color digital projection display designed to be embedded into handheld electronic devices such as cellphones, PDAs, or multimedia handhelds. This would allow images to be projected onto a nearby surface, such as a wall, whiteboard or desktop. Pricing or availability not yet set, you can be sure it won't be cheap.
The Media

Submission + - PC World Editor Killed in Drug-related Homicide

NightDragon writes: "PC World editor Rex Farrance was killed In his Pittsburg, California home Wednesday from what may be a drug-related home-invasion. From the article:

according to police, Farrance, 59, was involved with illegal drugs and possibly dealing them along with his wife at their Pittsburg home. The activity, police said Wednesday, led to a home-invasion robbery Tuesday night in which Farrance was killed and his wife, a registered nurse, was pistol-whipped.
"
Displays

Submission + - HDTV retro-gaming blues

MadHatter writes: I am a proud new owner of a LG 42 inch Plasma HDTV (42PC3D). However I was disturbed to find out that when I plugged my classic NES into it to play Mario on the big screen, I noticed a lag between the time I pressed the buttons and when he jumped. I thought maybe this was a bad controller, but after I tried the other one, the same thing happened. I tried different ratio aspects... no change. I started doing some research and found out that there is a large problem with HDTV's and older generation consoles. It has to do with the time it takes to upscale the image to the native resolution of the tv. Some tv's have a "game" mode that help a little, but mine does not. This seems to me a big problem that more people should know about when buying a HDTV — even some games on systems as new as PS2 have problems with it. I have read on some forums about VGA upscalers, but these are expensive themselves. Has anyone had any success with these and is it worth it to buy one? How have other people had success playing retro consoles on HDTV?
Movies

Submission + - South Korean firm LG has first dual DVD player

An anonymous reader writes: The first DVD player to play both rival high definition DVD formats has been announced by South Korean firm LG. The dual-format player will be able to play the Sony-backed Blu-ray discs and the Toshiba-led HD DVD discs. The introduction of two next-generation formats has split both the electronics industry and Hollywood film studios. The player will be launched at the same time as a hybrid double-sided Blu-ray HD DVD disc, developed by Warner Bros. The Total HD discs and the LG player will both go on display at the Consumer Electronic's Show (CES) in Las Vegas that starts on 8 January.
OS X

Submission + - Worried about moving from Windows to Mac

Steve Ryan writes: "The direction Microsoft are taking with Windows (for example, the DRM issues in Vista) have led me to believe Windows will soon be an OS which controls the user, rather than the other way round. I like XP, and I find it stable, but I do not want to upgrade to an OS (Vista) which is restrictive. This leaves me with either Linux or OS X. I like Linux, but it may not work with my laptop, so I don't really want to risk it. OS X seems nice. I spend most of my time writing documents and surfing the web, so it should handle everything I want, and I would be happy to buy a lovely MacBook Pro. But... will Apple follow Microsoft's lead and implement a DRM loving policy? If so, Mac is not an option.

End result? I'm confused. Help!"
Microsoft

Submission + - Now Is Not the Time for Vista

narramissic writes: With nearly a month of Vista availability behind us, businesses don't seem to be in any rush to take the leap. An article on ITworld cites two significant reasons for the foot-dragging. First, Microsoft's case-by-case approach to Vista patches, which is leaving some problems unpatched until after the consumer release in January. Second, application (in)compatibility. From the article:
Some of the applications that still aren't compatible with Vista include IBM Corp.'s Lotus Notes e-mail and collaboration suite; Cisco Systems Inc.'s and Check Point Software Technologies Ltd.'s VPN clients; Intuit Corp.'s accounting software QuickBooks 2006 and earlier versions; and anti-virus (AV) software from Trend Micro Inc.

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