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Submission + - Apple Sues $399 Mac Clone Maker Psystar (computerworld.com)

Submitted by

CWmike

on Tuesday July 15, 2008 @02:17PM

CWmike writes: "Gregg Keizer reports that Apple has sued Psystar, the computer maker that in April started selling Intel-based systems with Mac OS X pre-installed for $399, for copyright and software licensing violations, according to court records and a Florida attorney, Jorge Espinosa, who says Apple's lawsuit charges Psystar with violating its shrink wrap license, as well as with trademark and copyright infringement. "Psystar has been manufacturing and selling a line of computers which sell pre-installed with Apple's OSX operating system," Espinosa noted in an entry to his blog today. "Apple's shrink wrap license which comes with OSX specifically requires that the software be installed only on Apple branded computers.""

Newspaper Ad Network Shuns Google, Yahoo, MS 71

Posted by Zonk on Friday February 15, 2008 @02:51PM from the anything-you-can-do-we-can-do-better dept.

Ian Lamont writes "The New York Times, and the Tribune, Gannett, and Hearst companies have launched their own ad network, called QuadrantOne. It will let advertisers place ads on media sites in 27 major markets, and let them target readers by content type, demographic information, and online behavior. Notably absent from the deal: Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft. Both Google and Yahoo have their own ad networks focused on newspapers, but, as the article says, 'if newspapers develop better ways to sell their own online ads, they may not have to share revenue with their Web counterparts such as Yahoo and Google.'"

$150 Linux Laptop for the Masses 434

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday July 25, 2007 @12:15PM from the on-the-cheap dept.

Xemu writes "Inspired by Negroponte's laptop for children, the Swedish company Medison is now taking orders for their US$150 Linux laptop, the Medison Celebrity. The laptop is a 1.5 GHz Celeron M 370 with 14 inch screen, wireless network and it comes with Fedora Red Hat pre-installed." Update 2035 GMT by SM: As many readers have pointed out, the more you dig into the details of this company the more fishy it starts to seem. I would suggest any potential buyers be wary on this one.

Submission + - Microsoft do Ruby (iunknown.com)

Submitted by Etrigoth on Wednesday July 25, 2007 @07:59AM

Etrigoth writes: Following on from their Silverlight/DLR announcement recently, Microsofts John Lam has released the first preview of IronRuby, a Ruby compiler targetting the .Net CLR. Early benchmarks claim that IronRuby is already significantly faster then Ruby 1.8.6 in Method Invocation and on a par for Library performance.
Interestingly, Microsoft have released this under what is their essentially open source Permissive License and a further suprise comes from Microsofts intention to release IronRuby to the popular Ruby community Ruby Forge instead of their own Open Source hosting network CodePlex. Microsoft intend to accept Source Code submissions for IronRuby but presently, one may only submit code for the IronRuby libraries. John Lam says "once the DLR matures and reaches 1.0 status with fully supported public interfaces, we will fully open up all parts of the IronRuby project for external contributions."
A Mono developer, Seo Sanghyeon, has already created a kit to allow the IronRuby preview to function under Mono/Linux. More information on that here.

Submission + - Google Sends Disgruntled Blogger Superman Cape

Submitted by

rulesaremyenemy

on Tuesday May 01, 2007 @11:31AM

rulesaremyenemy writes: "Google's sense of humor strikes once again:

"While at SXSW, I tried out the new Google Transit service. I was far away from the hotel and wanted to find an efficient way to get back. Well, Google got me close, then expected me to cross an eight-lane highway on foot. Um, no. I had to explore for a long time to find a way to get across the damn thing and back to my hotel. I bitched at my blog.
Today, I got a package from Google at my workplace. At first, I saw the hand-written "Google" return address and thought "anthrax", but figured, what the hell. I ripped it open. I was treated to the single greatest customer service experience I had ever had. Enclosed was a hand-written note from Joe Hughes at Google. The note said:

Dear Superman, Reading your blog post about Google Transit at SXSW made us wonder if you were losing your powers — I mean, how hard could it be to leap over a simple 8-lane highway intersection, man of steel? We've enclosed a new cape — hopefully it will help you find your powers again.
...seriously, though, Adam, we're sorry that Google Transit sent you on such an expedition, and we wanted to let you know that we've since improved our routing, so that it returns more plausible walking sections at the start & end of transit routes.

Cheers, Joe Hughes Google Transit"

(Picture of the Cape and Letter on Flickr)"

Submission + - Global Warming "Scam" documentary to air o

Submitted by sf_basilix on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @04:50PM

sf_basilix writes: A documentary being broadcast on TV this week claims that Global Warming is "the biggest scam of modern times." After all the articles on global warming we continue to hear, it will be nice to finally hear another side. An article from the Washington Times describes how these panel of scientists claim "...that [carbon dioxide] has no proven link to global temperatures... Solar activity is far more likely to be the culprit...Scientists in the Channel 4 documentary cite what they claim is another discrepancy involving conventional research, saying that most of the recent global warming occurred before 1940, after which temperatures around the world fell for four decades...Mr. Durkin's skeptical specialists view this as a flaw in the official view, because the worldwide economic boom that followed the end of World War II produced more carbon dioxide, and therefore should have meant a rise in global temperatures — something he says did not happen."

Submission + - Google Maps has Traffic Information

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @03:14PM

An anonymous reader writes: Has nobody else noticed that Google Maps now has Traffic information?

Submission + - Define: /etc

Submitted by ogar572 on Friday March 02, 2007 @03:24PM

ogar572 writes: There has been an ongoing and heated debate around the office concerning the definition of what /etc means on *nix operating systems. One side says "et cetera" per Wikipedia. Another side says it means "extended tool chest" per this gnome mailing list entry or per this Norwegian article. Yet another side says neither, but he doesn't remember exactly what he heard in the past. All he remembers is that he was flamed when he called it "et cetera", but that "extended tool chest" didn't sound right either. So, what does it really mean?

Submission + - Lunar Eclipse, Saturday, March 3rd

Submitted by Quince alPillan on Friday March 02, 2007 @11:56AM

Quince alPillan writes: According to NASA's website, the will be a total lunar eclipse Saturday evening visible from every continent.

In the USA, the eclipse will already be underway when the moon rises on Saturday evening. ... Rising moons are often reddened by clouds or pollution, but this moon will be the deep, extraordinary red only seen during a lunar eclipse.

Submission + - Five things Nintendo did right in 2006

Submitted by

Reinhart

on Thursday March 01, 2007 @04:12PM

Reinhart writes: "The early results are in, and they're looking pretty damn good for Nintendo: their Wii console sold some 436,000 units in the U.S. in January, compared to 294,000 for Microsoft's XBox 360 and 244,000 for the Playstation 3. Wii Software did well too, with both Wario Ware Smooth Moves and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess charting in the Top 10 titles for the month.

Even more telling than all that data, however, is that it's three months past launch and it is still impossible to find a Wii. People still line up in front of Best Buys when new shipments are announced, and for the impatient (like me) the only way to get your hands on one is through craigslist scalpers (like I did). I'd compare it to similar sold-out-everywhere phenomena like Tickle-Me-Elmos or that robot pet that blinked and plotted your demise, except for one thing: it's January.

Consumer chaos, huge line-ups and shipment sell-outs are something that happen over Christmas, not in January. We expect them in December. It's that wonderful time of year where everyone goes nuts and decides that what their bachelor apartment really needs in a 50 Plasma Television and so much IKEA furniture that the excess multitools can be melted down into a cube and exhibited in a museum as some sort of post-modern critique of consumerism and giant cubes. Everyone loses their shit in December, and so sales from that month are largely irrelevant. What's hot in December is in the bargain bin in January, as generally kids wake up and realize that the thing they wanted — whether it was that version of Battleship that actually talked to you or some sort of voice-activated water pistol that attached to your finger — actually really sucks.

But that didn't happen with the Wii. Their sales in January 2007 were the highest January sales for any console ever.

So how did Nintendo do it? I certainly didn't think they would. My expectations with the Wii started low, and only got lower as Nintendo seemingly made moves that were, not to put too fine a point on it, really stupid. It's only twice as powerful as the Gamecube! It can't output to High Definition! It has a controller that looks like a television remote! They named it "Wii"!

They looked doomed.

And now here we are, with Nintendo for the first time in a decade looking like they might actually have a chance of winning the worldwide 'war' for console userbase supremacy. How they did it exactly is anyone's guess, but here are five moves Nintendo made in 2006 that, in retrospect, seem really brilliant. Original Link: http://www.wiipals.net/index.php?categoryid=1&p2_a rticleid=9"

Submission + - Oracle to Buy Hyperion for $3.3 Billion

Submitted by Oolala on Thursday March 01, 2007 @03:43PM

Oolala writes: Business software maker Oracle Corp. will buy Hyperion Solutions Corp. for $3.3 billion in cash, renewing a shopping spree aimed at toppling rival SAP AG. The deal announced Thursday will give Oracle an arsenal of Hyperion products that are widely used by SAP's customers. Hyperion's tools, known as "business intelligence" software, help chief financial officers and other top corporate executives track their company's performance.

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