6398773
submission
Penguinisto writes:
In a move almost designed to shock the geek world, Seth McFarlane of Family Guy (and Robot Chicken, American Dad, etc) fame has agreed to help Microsoft sell Windows 7. The combination of the two will see a pitch for Windows 7 featuring McFarlane's voice and the crew of the Fox television comedy 'Family Guy'.
3740287
submission
Penguinisto writes:
According to CNET, a request for information by Knowledge Ecology International about a pending copyright treaty was denied. Even stranger, the Freedom of Information Act request was denied for "national security" reasons (PDF). While it is not unusual for the White House of any administration to block FOIA requests for national security reasons, One would think that a treaty that affects civil interests alone wouldn't qualify for such secrecy. Not exactly sure what involvement the former RIAA mouthpiece Donald Verelli (a recent Obama pick for the DOJ) may have in this...
1703619
submission
Penguinisto writes:
It seems that after Comcast has successfully imposed a 250GB/mo. bandwidth cap on its users, AT&T wants to give it a try, starting in Reno, Nevada. However, they intend to have lower caps, based on your rate plan. For lower-end users (768Kb DSL),this means you only get 20GB/mo. max, while the highest-paying users (10Mb DSL) get 150GB/mo. at the most (compared to Comcast's across-the-board 250GB/mo. cap). Initially, AT&T will only impose this on new customers, or existing customers who break the 150GB/mo. limit, but expect to impose this to all customers. The relatively good news? Instead of being cut off, users who reach 80% of their caps will be contacted, then pay $1/GB for every GB used over the limit once it is reached.
820989
submission
Penguinisto writes:
Microsoft and Nikon had launched a recent competition called Iconic Britain", but had actively encouraged participants to scrape images off of the Web, and to submit the ones they thought best represented the UK. Problem is, this encouragement fell a bit short in the 'respecting others' copyrights' department... there has been a discussion thread on Flickr expressing various proofs and shades of outrage by users at having their photos ripped off. CNET News reports that they had contacted Microsoft and was told that Microsoft is currently "obtaining the rights", but does not have them yet (but still displays the images). Competition partner Nikon has pulled themselves out of the promotion entirely.
792411
submission
Penguinisto writes:
According to a somewhat jaw-dropping story in The Register, it appears that Microsoft has performed a trifecta of geek-scaring feats: They have joined the Apache Software Foundation as a Platimum member(at $100K USD a year), submitted LGPL-licensed patches for ADOdb, and have pledged to expand it's Open Specifications Promise by adding to the list more than 100 protocols for interoperability between its Windows Server and the Windows client. While I sincerely doubt they'll release Vista under a GPL license anytime soon, this is certainly an unexpected series of moves on their part, and could possibly lead to more OSS (as opposed to "Shared Source") interactivity between what is arguably Linux' greatest adversary and the Open Source community.
564534
submission
Penguinisto writes:
According to C|NET news, Martin Buckley, who was a product manager for Novell's Systems and Resource Management products (e.g. Zenworks), has quit. Buckley confirms it on his blog. He only cited "certain principles" in doing so. No word on whether those principles involves Zenworks possibly getting killed, or ...?
446616
submission
Penguinisto writes:
Saudi Arabia's Interior Ministry has confirmed that it is detaining Fouah al-Farhan for violation of 'security laws'. Farhan apparently knew it was coming, and warned about it almost two weeks in advance on his blog. Even in Pro-Western Saudi Arabia, laws are known to be rather draconian... while the poor guy most likely won't get his tongue cut out (so far they said that they merely wanted him to sign and post an apology), this bodes not well for attempts at opening up societies in the Middle East.
366249
submission
Penguinisto writes:
C|Net news reports that CIO Stuart Scott has been fired (not resigned, not retired... fired. (this is backed up by official MSFT reports on the matter. Not sure if it's because of something serious, if he got into an argument with one of the Board Members, or what... but it's rare that you see someone literally "fired" in print and otherwise.
256713
submission
Penguinisto writes:
After the last incident involving Geeks Squad and pornography, one would think they would tend to avoid prowling through users' hard drives. Then again, sometimes it can have, well positive consequences. Yet in supreme irony (in more ways than one), actor Albert Insinnia (of the television show Law and Order: Special Victims Unit) took his PC in to Geek Squad, where a worker there found child porn on his hard drive and turned him in to the cops.
254909
submission
Penguinisto writes:
Apparently Citrix doesn't want to be left out in the cold when it came to Virtualization.So, it decided to snap up Xen Source in whole, with a combination of cash and stock. Question is, what impact exactly will this have on Linux as a whole? (Xen runs on/under Windows too, but Linux is arguably its biggest playground to date). Also, is this a defensive move on Citrix' part, given Microsoft's development of potential VMWare and Xen competitor Viridian?
216611
submission
Penguinisto writes:
Well, here it comes, as we hear AMD cry "Havok!" and let slip the pricetags of war". From the article: "the price cuts mean that all of the company's dual-core Athlon 64 X2 processors will be priced at less than $200, with the top-end Athlon 64 X2 6000+ now selling for $178. The two low-end models in AMD's dual-core line, the Athlon X2 3600+ and 3800+, have been dropped, making the Athlon X2 4000+ the new entry-level dual-core model at $73." Coupled with impending Intel price slashing, do we sit around and wait for the prices to get real good, or upgrade the older beasties among our collections this summer?
113487
submission
Penguinisto writes:
A business has so far felt the very real pain of sotware patent enforcement — but this time, it is a large company who extinguished the little guy. Reyes Infografica had recently sent a Cease and Desist notice to a small Poser hobbyist programmer named Phil Cooke for his "Clothing Creator" program, claiming that it violates one of their patents (Phil's own site/support forum contains the copy of Reyes' C&D, Phil's announcement, and relevant discussions.) Clothing Creator has been out for a couple of years now. Basically, it builds quick custom clothing for humanoid 3d figures within the 3d compositing/rendering program called Poser. Recently, E-Frontier, the current owner of Poser, had partnered with Reyes to sell a competing product in E-Frontier's online store, called "Virtual Fashion". To E-Frontier's credit, they recently announced that they would stop selling the Reyes product until the dispute is settled, though at time of writing the product is still available for sale. So is this the "innovation" that software patents were supposed to foster?
111327
submission
Penguinisto writes:
A few days ago, Phil Cooke, a small-time hobbyist 3D/CG programmer, was sent a Cease and Desist notice from Reyes Infografica over a small 3D/CG clothes-generating program he had sold for years (it generated clothing mesh for a figures in a CG hobbyist program known as Poser). The program has since been pulled from the maker's site, as he cannot afford to retain counsel with which to fight back. Apparently, Phil's program had collided against a software patent that Reyes filed in 2001 (the patent was filed in the US and Spain). The C&D notice, and some of the discussion surrounding it can be found a PhilC's site discussion forums. While we usually see stories about small-time patent trolls raking in huge bucks from large companies, is this an indication of a disturbing trend by larger companies using software patents to intimidate and eliminate their smaller competition? And if so, then how on Earth is this supposed to foster innovation and creativity?
