12658220
submission
7-Vodka writes:
In an interview with Fortune, Balmer first admits that vista was badly done then when asked about Google giving away Android for free versus Microsoft, which charges smart phone carriers, Ballmer took issue with that assessment, stating, "And there's nothing free about Android. I mean at the end of the day as we certainly have asserted in a number of cases you know there's an intellectual property royalty due on that. Whether they happen to charge for their software or not is their business decision."
Read the rest of the interview Here
9637314
submission
7-Vodka writes:
I read via http://www.hardocp.com that the Electronic Frontier Foundation is conducting a new experiment called Panopticlick.
Panopticlick tests your browser to see how unique it is based on the information it will share with sites it visits. Follow the link to https://panopticlick.eff.org/ and you will be given a uniqueness score, letting you see how easily identifiable you might be as you surf the web.
As for myself, I suppose it's a bad thing that the message I receive is "Your browser fingerprint appears to be unique among the 633,402 tested so far." However I'll check back when the database grows.
7377674
submission
7-Vodka writes:
Time has posted a top 50 inventions of 2009 list. There are plenty of pictures and a few videos covering recent innovations which made the cut and also a few entries for worst inventions of 2009.
5404305
submission
7-Vodka writes:
Xcel Energy customers who have their own solar panels are worried about a new fee being proposed by the company.
The monthly fee to pay for transmission and distribution of energy would be charged to customers who have solar panels irrespective of their energy use for the month.
An Xcel Energy spokesman said that the fee is to ensure that regular customers don't subsidize the "connectivity fees" for the solar panel customers who don't pay their fees when they use no electricity.
Unfortunately, when pressed the spokesman admitted that nobody actually pays a "connectivity fee" yet however they wanted to prevent the mooching from occurring in the future (presumably when they hit everyone with such a fee) and also called the absence of a connectivity fee for solar customers a "double subsidy" because many solar customers receive rebates to install the panels.
427060
submission
7-Vodka writes:
Most political campaigns are run from the top down. Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul's campaign is a self-organizing distributed movement with virtually no central control that uses the Internet as it's infrastructure. This campaign was receiving very little attention until last month when an independent supporter, Trevor Lyman, helped to organize a fundraiser that raised $4.3M on November 5th. Because the November 5th fundraiser had a Guy Fawkes theme and the political shock waves were massive, it was nicknamed the 'Money Bomb'.
Today December 16th Trevor has organized another Money Bomb fundraiser, this time to celebrate the Boston Tea Party. The big news is that the total number of donations and funds raised are already shattering all previous records. Please take this as an opportunity to get to know Dr. Ron Paul, a 10 term congressman from Texas and where he stands on issues. If like all of us who are breaking records today, you feel Dr. Paul has more to offer than any other candidate out there you will know what to do.
